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FC Dallas’ Ema Twumasi, left, and San Jose Earthquakes’ Paul Marie fight for the ball during the first half of an MLS match in Frisco, Texas, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. (Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
FRISCO, Texas — Jesús Ferreira scored twice in the first half and FC Dallas breezed to a 4-1 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday. | 2022-08-14T04:29:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ferreira's brace leads Dallas to 4-1 victory over San Jose - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/ferreiras-brace-leads-dallas-to-4-1-victory-over-san-jose/2022/08/13/647edc70-1b7f-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/ferreiras-brace-leads-dallas-to-4-1-victory-over-san-jose/2022/08/13/647edc70-1b7f-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
Oil Demand Forecasts Aren’t as Bullish as They Seem
And it wasn’t just a minor tweak from the Paris-based agency. It revised oil demand higher for this year by a whopping 520,000 barrels a day, with most of that rolled forward into 2023 as well. On the face of it, that’s very bullish for oil.
First, let’s compare the actual outlooks from the three sets of analysts and put them in their historical context. The IEA’s revision sets its new demand number for 2022 roughly halfway between those of the other two agencies. It also brings its outlook pretty much back to where it saw things in March. So, although the IEA’s revision was big, it’s not out of line with others.
That’s not entirely unexpected when you consider year on year comparisons. Oil demand at the start of 2021 was still adversely affected by the Covid pandemic, so a rebound at the beginning of this year was entirely reasonable. Then economic activity and travel eventually picked up later in 2021, so we would expect demand growth in the corresponding quarters of 2022 to ease.
It’s also worth looking in more detail at why the IEA boosted its demand forecast. It pins the revision on two factors.
It sees increased demand for oil in power generation, particularly in the Middle East, where demand for electricity soars to keep air conditioners running full blast in the summer. Like 2021, this year has been hot. Daily temperature highs in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia have averaged more than 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) since the start of June and aren’t expected to fall much before October.
While this oil use in the Middle East will support demand for a while, it’s not likely to sustain it into the cooler months. Europe may be different. The IEA notes increases in the use of oil in power generation in Portugal, Spain and the UK, as well as in Japan.
Oil has become attractive as an alternative fuel because gas prices have soared. But Europe is rapidly replenishing its natural gas stockpiles ahead of winter, with injections to storage running about nine weeks ahead of last year. And that’s with flows from Russia already severely curtailed. Analysts at Standard Chartered Plc see President Vladimir Putin’s gas weapon blunted by the inventory build, suggesting that Europe could soon be in a position to get through winter “comfortably” without Russian gas.
So I’m keeping my bullishness on oil prices in check — for now. | 2022-08-14T07:35:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oil Demand Forecasts Aren’t as Bullish as They Seem - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/oil-demand-forecasts-arent-as-bullish-as-they-seem/2022/08/14/28673a76-1b97-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/oil-demand-forecasts-arent-as-bullish-as-they-seem/2022/08/14/28673a76-1b97-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
China’s Demographics Spell Decline Not Domination
Analysis by Niall Ferguson | Bloomberg
Between 1980 and 2007, the general fertility rate (defined as the number of annual live births per 1,000 women of childbearing age …) fluctuated within a narrow range of roughly 65 to 70.3. Since then, it has plummeted, falling to 56.6 in 2021. The decline in the general fertility rate implies a decline in the current period total fertility rate (TFR) … [which] calculates expected lifetime births by assuming that women will follow current age-specific birth rates over their childbearing years. This measure is key to population growth. The U.S. TFR declined from 2.12 in 2007 to around 1.65 in 2020 and 2021, the lowest levels ever recorded. Since 2007 it has been consistently below the replacement level of 2.1.
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Niall Ferguson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. The Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the founder of Greenmantle, an advisory firm, he is author, most recently, of “Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.” | 2022-08-14T09:02:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China’s Demographics Spell Decline Not Domination - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chinas-demographics-spell-decline-not-domination/2022/08/14/eb4a4f1e-1ba7-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chinas-demographics-spell-decline-not-domination/2022/08/14/eb4a4f1e-1ba7-11ed-b998-b2ab68f58468_story.html |
By Kimberly Kindy
Packets of mifepristone, an abortion pill, are pictured at Franz Theard’s clinic in Santa Teresa, N.M., in April. Theard mostly administers abortion pills to women from Texas, who do not have access to it after six weeks of pregnancy. (Paul Ratje for The Washington Post)
“We knew we couldn’t just go back to pre-Roe laws,” said James Bopp Jr., attorney for National Right to Life. “We knew new approaches were needed.”
Both organizations have long opposed medication abortions, but Students for Life’s legislative efforts did not gain traction until 2021, when seven states passed bills modeled after legislation crafted by the group to create legal barriers to the medications. In some cases the laws also banned them from college health clinics. A new wave of these proposals are expected to be introduced — or reintroduced — in statehouses across the country when most legislatures reconvene in January.
National Right to Life, meanwhile, released a “model law,” a week before the overturn of Roe v. Wade that seeks to outlaw a coalition of nonprofit groups that assist women with self-managed abortions. Last month, Republican lawmakers in South Carolina became the first to introduce the legislation.
The efforts illustrate how the antiabortion battlefront now reaches beyond traditional bills seeking criminal penalties for doctors who provide surgical abortions in hospitals or clinics, instead targeting organizations that assist women with mail-order abortion prescriptions and safety protocols for self-managed abortions.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, also said the strategy has expanded because the use of abortion medication is expanding. The Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization that supports abortion rights, found the drugs were used in 54 percent of abortions in 2020 — a doubling from 2012 to 2013. These numbers are expected to rise as more states pass abortion restrictions and more women turn to drugs sent by mail.
“Reversing Roe, shutting down these dangerous brick-and-mortar facilities, while very important is simply a fight. It’s not the entire battle,” Hawkins said, adding that medication abortions are “the new frontier of abortion.”
Abortion advocates said these state-level battles will have an outsize impact on poor women in rural areas, especially those in states where abortions are illegal, because they do not have the means to travel to faraway clinics.
“It continues this expansion of the criminal apparatus to address all things related to bodily autonomy with respect to women and people with the capacity for pregnancy,” said Dana Sussman, an attorney and acting director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer predicted in June that antiabortion groups would take a similar tact with the overturn of Roe v. Wade. “After this decision, some States may block women from traveling out of State to obtain abortions, or even from receiving abortion medications from out of State,” Breyer wrote in his dissent to the ruling. “Some may criminalize efforts, including provision of information or funding, to help women gain access to other States’ abortion services.”
In anticipation of the Supreme Court decision, Students for Life sent numerous emails in 2021 and 2022 to state lawmakers — obtained by The Washington Post — offering to help them craft antiabortion bills and legislative campaigns. They also told lawmakers that student volunteers were “chomping at the bit” to lobby on their behalf for “hard-hitting legislation” they agreed to sponsor.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, has pledged to ensure access to abortion medication. But administration officials are still wrestling with how to deliver on that promise beyond the president’s July 8 executive order that seeks to protect access. Some Democrats, like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have asked the president to assert federal authority over the U.S. mail system to specify that no one will be prosecuted for prescribing or receiving the drugs through the Postal Service.
Antiabortion groups have repeatedly said their measures will not subject people who have used medication abortions to criminal or civil penalties. “The pro-life movement has not and will not prosecute the women,” Hawkins said.
However, a 17-year-old Nebraska teenager was criminally charged in July for allegedly performing a medication abortion at her home, in violation of a state law banning pregnancy terminations after 20 weeks. Prosecutors say she will be tried as an adult. Her mother is also facing charges.
Even when women are not the subject of criminal probes, abortion rights groups say they are still invariably placed at the center of police investigations and civil court battles because they become key witnesses.
“We can look to the time before Roe when it typically wasn’t a crime for the person who had the abortion, but they were frequently seized and interrogated,” said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director of If/When/How, a legal reproductive justice nonprofit. “They were exposed to all of these things that are dehumanizing and humiliating, so it is just an ancillary point that they will not be the subject of a criminal investigation.”
Closing the coalitions
The Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone in 2000 to end an early pregnancy. The medication, now authorized for the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, causes the uterine lining to detach, and is typically used with a second drug, misoprostol, which clears the contents of the uterus.
Even before Roe fell, some states targeted women who used the drugs.
Idaho authorities in 2011 arrested and interrogated Jennie Linn McCormack, 32, after she told a friend about ordering mifepristone online and taking it to successfully end a 20- to 23-week pregnancy at home, charging her under a state law forbidding abortions after 20 weeks that also banned self-managed abortions.
McCormack, who did not respond to requests for comment, became front-page news in the local newspaper, although charges were later dropped and the law — crafted by National Right to Life — was struck down. “She was fired from her dry cleaning job because customers recognized her and they didn’t want someone like her touching their clothes,” said Richard Hearn, McCormack’s attorney.
After President Donald Trump’s election — with abortion rights newly under threat — an aggressive coalition of groups began helping women like McCormack navigate the process of terminating a pregnancy at home and getting the necessary drugs. Those groups have multiplied and united in recent years, said Erin Matson, co-founder of Reproaction, who helped organize a formal coalition this year called Abortion on Our Own Terms.
In response, top antiabortion groups have pushed to shut down those groups. National Right to Life calls the coalition an “organized criminal enterprise” in the summary of its model legislation, which seeks to outlaw groups that share information on how to self-administer abortion pills.
Bopp acknowledges that criminal prosecutions under the law might prove difficult, due in part to a pledge that dozens of prosecutors across the nation have taken to not to pursue cases against those helping women to end pregnancies. Legal experts say the bill also seeks to criminalize activity — educating women about medication abortions — that is protected by the First Amendment. But Bopp’s bill also includes a provision allowing lawsuits against the groups by intimate partners and family members of women who perform medication abortions.
Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, says the laws are meant to create a “chilling effect” on the groups. “Part of the intention of this law is to sow fear. It is meant to make groups like URGE and the groups that we partner with afraid to do right by our communities,” she said.
Bopp agreed that the threat of a civil lawsuits can shut down abortion operations. After Texas enacted a six-week abortion law last year, which allowed people to sue anyone who assists a women in securing an illegal abortion, clinics across the state shuttered.
“It worked without anyone even having to bring a civil action,” Bopp said of the Texas law. “It stopped abortion.”
Targeting the drugs
Students for Life is taking a different tact in efforts to limit or outlaw medication abortion — crafting and backing bills that restrict access to the drugs themselves.
“It’s not as bad as going to prison, but it’s certainly something that no doctors want to have to do — be in a position where they are having to defense their license,” said Hearn, McCormack’s attorney, who is also a physician.
Antiabortion advocates would have an even more difficult time targeting overseas physicians and pharmacists who prescribe and mail the medications into the United States.
Aid Access, which is based in Austria and typically uses pharmacies in India, provides this service, asking only for a $110 donation. Women who can’t afford that pay significantly less, and sometimes nothing at all.
Legal experts said that since states don’t have the authority to ask foreign countries for extradition, the federal government would have to get involved and foreign countries would have to agree.
“As a practical matter, people order medications from outside of the United States all the time — and it’s not technically lawful,” said Diaz-Tello, the legal director of If/When/How. “Imagine trying to interdict the vast number of medications that come into the country everyday.”
The Trump administration unsuccessfully attempted in 2019 to shut down Aid Access’s work in the United States. Instead, as the threat to abortion access within the United States grows, women are increasingly turning to the organization for help.
A University of Texas study published in February found that in the weeks after Texas passed its six-week abortion ban, Aid Access received nearly 38 requests a day from Texas women — up from nearly 11 requests a day. Requests also increased slightly in 49 other states during this same time period.
“Time and time again, when you outlaw something, you see a shift because the demand hasn’t changed. Self-managed abortions were bound to rise,” said Abigail R.A. Aiken, the lead author of the study.
Students for Life is also using provocative language on social media, on its website and in media interviews, calling medication abortions “the new back alley abortion.”
“They are literally willing to expose women to injury, infertility and death,” said Hawkins, the group’s president, who asserts that medication abortions are more dangerous than surgical abortions.
However, studies cited by antiabortion groups and abortion rights groups alike show that when pregnant people take the combined regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol at 10 weeks or earlier in their pregnancy, it is safe and effective between 95 to 97 percent of the time with the remaining pregnancies requiring some intervention in a medical setting to complete the abortion.
The World Health Organization also said in March that medication abortions are safe at 12 or weeks or less of pregnancy in its new abortion care guideline. And the FDA last year removed the requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in person at a clinic, medical office or hospital, saying it can be safely sent through the mail.
Shawn Boburg and Alice Crites contributed to this report. | 2022-08-14T10:16:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anti-abortion groups take aim at medicated, at-home abortions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/14/medicated-abortions-drugs-students-for-life/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/14/medicated-abortions-drugs-students-for-life/ |
Advocates fear divisions will emerge over how to define reparations
Dorothy Davis, right front, and, from left rear, the Rev. Valerie Hayes, the Rev. Cayce Ramey and Jean Mary Taylor are members of the “Good Trouble Diocese of Virginia” at Falls Church Episcopal Church in Falls Church, Va., on Aug. 11, 2022. The Episcopal Diocese of Virginia has committed $10 million to reparations, and the four are among the advocates for the cause. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Growing up, Dorothy Davis was not welcome in the “other” Episcopal Church in her rural Virginia community — the White one. When their bishop many decades ago tried to integrate Black and White Episcopalians, Davis recalls, her fellow Christians balked. So, Davis, now 86, wept this fall when the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia voted to repair its centuries-long break with Black members like her.
“We could feel the presence of God and the holy spirit enveloping us. It was amazing,” said the now-retired science teacher.
“When you mention the word ‘reparations,’ White people think you’re going to hand out money to Black folks. There is very little conversation here about what’s next,” Davis said. “You can look at the expressions on their faces. If we say ‘racial reconciliation’ that’s okay, but the word ‘reparations’? No.”
The vote, held in November, was one of the biggest financial commitments to reparations in the Episcopal Church, which supported slaveholding from the institution’s arrival on Virginia’s shores through the Civil War. The dioceses of Maryland, New York and Texas now have reparations programs, and the Jesuits have pledged $100 million for the biggest national Catholic program. But Virginia was ground zero in the domestic slave trade, the heart of the Confederacy. It was where George Washington rented out slaves to work at the Virginia Theological Seminary, and where Episcopal bishops, priests and parishes owned slaves.
So Davis and Episcopalians across the diocese — the biggest and one of the oldest in the denomination — made history with the vote to create a system “by which repair may begin for those areas of our structures, patterns, and common life” where non-White people “still carry the burden of theological, social, cultural, economic, and legal injustices, exclusions, and biases born out of white supremacy and the legacy of slavery.”
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“There is some real joy here, but I’m trying to be realistic. We did this with a resolution, and all it takes is one resolution to undo it. I’m wary,” said the Rev. Cayce Ramey, a former engineer and U.S. Marine who leads All Saints Sharon Chapel in Alexandria and is part of a small, ad-hoc group of lay and clerical leaders called “Good Trouble,” which is pressing for reparations.
Ramey’s concern is rooted in the backstory of the November vote — what he saw as insufficient support for reparations by Bishop Susan Goff, the fact that the $1 million program proposal failed and that the vote gives a task force five years to set aside an endowment before reparations would even begin.
Across the diocese, which covers about 80,000 Episcopalians across Northern and Central Virginia, “the support for reparations isn’t universal and maybe not even strong,” Ramey said. Anecdotal reports from priests across the diocese show they are facing “lots of questions and animosity,” he said.
He feels impatient, he said: “For 400 years, we’ve been meeting people where they are. Ultimately, $10 million is a drop in the bucket.”
According to the diocese’s most recent budget, it had $89 million of assets at the end of 2020, including $55 million of real estate holdings. Thirty-five percent of the real estate is leased out, 3 percent is vacant or undeveloped, and the remainder is used by actively worshiping congregations.
The measure that the Virginia diocese passed says only that a reparations task force will “identify and propose means by which repair may begin.”
Black and White evangelicals once talked about ‘racial reconciliation.’ Then Trump came along.
Dennis Carter-Chand, of Arlington, who is a member of Good Trouble group as well as the task force on reparations, said he was nervous when he went in to work with the diocese on identifying properties to sell and when he considered that 30 percent of the convention voted against reparations. Now, though, he feels confident things will keep moving ahead, he said.
“I’m looking for the positives because this is a conversation people haven’t been willing to have. In the past, there have been resolutions and statements, but putting dollars to it affirms it’s a real thing and is deeply felt,” he said. “This is a big step, because this is Virginia.”
The diocese also last year created the position of “minister of racial justice and healing.” The Rev. J. Lee Hill Jr. told The Post that the diocese is behind some other religious communities that have done a lot of ground work, education and discussion about the true purpose of reparations and how such initiatives can work.
“Defining that will be a long, evolving task of the diocese. Reparations doesn’t mean just a cash payout; it will be the transformation of hearts and minds,” said Hill, who grew up in Chesterfield County. “Our work is the work of making years and years and years of wrong right. Will we finish this work in our lifetime? No.”
The Virginia Theological Seminary, the denomination’s flagship school, which is based in Alexandria, made news in 2019 when it announced that it would spend $1.7 million to create a fund that would make direct disbursements — annually and in perpetuity — to descendants of slaves who worked at and built the school. The fund is now at $2.2 million. Its president, the Rev. Ian Markham, said he thinks the seminary is the only institution undertaking such direct reparations.
The school had a recent gala with 200 descendants, and “it was one of the most moving moments of my life,” Markham said. The program, he said, dealt with questions, such as the fact that some descendants are White and that others are wealthy.
“All VTS is doing is recognizing these human lives were disadvantaged by the institution, and it’s regardless of whether they are rich or poor,” Markham said.
The Elon University historian Charles Irons, who studies religion and the church in Virginia, said he was struck by the contrast between the great power of the Anglican Church in early Virginia and the deep divisions among American Christians today, “where we’re divided into our liberal and conservative brands.”
The diocese taking the step toward reparations, he said, “is dwarfed” by all the divisions in U.S. Christianity — Protestantism and Anglicanism.
“It has a meaning for that community, and I love it, by the way. I’m so grateful, and I think it’s beautiful, but the primary meaning is for them, and let us all hope that it’s a witness for other communities. But I just don’t think they have that kind of cultural authority anymore,” he said of the Episcopal diocese.
Goff, the bishop, who will retire at the end of this year, said that although there is “great support” for reparations, there is also “concern.” One question, she said, is how to define reparations.
People seem more open to having conversations, she said, describing the diocese as being “at the start of this particular chapter. How will we understand reparations? Where will the money come from?”
The guide is Isaiah 58:12, she said, which calls Christians to be “repairers of the breach.”
“I think we all agree this issue feels urgent. People are dying. Racial justice feels urgent,” she said. “And we are the Diocese of Virginia.” | 2022-08-14T10:29:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Va. Episcopal Diocese to spend $10 million for reparations. But how? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/14/va-episcopal-diocese-spend-10-million-reparations-how/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/08/14/va-episcopal-diocese-spend-10-million-reparations-how/ |
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala is seen in Mumbai on Nov. 14, 2017. (Shailesh Andrade/Reuters)
Billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, nicknamed “India’s Warren Buffett” for his successful stock market bets, died Sunday at the age of 62, one of his companies confirmed.
A chartered accountant who took up stock trading at 25, Jhunjhunwala went on to create the asset management firm Rare Enterprises, which invested in companies in the telecommunications, hospitality and financial services sectors, among others.
He had an estimated net worth of $5.8 billion at the time of his death, according to Forbes, which called Jhunjhunwala an “investor with a Midas touch.” His latest venture, a low-cost airline called Akasa Air, began operating in India last week.
“We are deeply saddened by the untimely demise of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala this morning,” Akasa Air said Sunday in a statement, praising the businessman’s “invincible spirit” and passion for “everything Indian.”
A cause of death was not immediately available. A member of Jhunjhunwala’s family told Reuters the investor “passed away surrounded by his family and close aides.” He is survived by his wife, Rekha Jhunjhunwala, and three children.
Indian politicians and business leaders expressed their condolences over Jhunjhunwala’s death. Many praised his efforts to educate people about stock trading, as well as his bullishness on India and its economy.
“Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was indomitable,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said. “Full of life, witty and insightful, he leaves behind an indelible contribution to the financial world. He was also very passionate about India’s progress.”
“Investor, bold risk taker, masterly understanding of the stock market, clear in communication — a leader in his own right,” Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman wrote on Twitter.
In a 2021 interview with India’s Economic Times, Jhunjhunwala expressed confidence in India’s ability to surpass the world’s second-largest economy, China. “You may call me a fool, you may call me anything, I may not live to see it but I can tell you one thing — India will overtake China in the next 25 years,” he said.
Jhunjhunwala “believed stock India was undervalued. He is right,” wrote Uday Kotak, a billionaire banker from India who said he went to school with Jhunjhunwala and described him as someone “amazingly sharp in understanding financial markets.”
His father was a commissioner for the Indian government’s income tax department and gave Jhunjhunwala advice on investing, according to the Financial Express. Jhunjhunwala invested just $100 in the stock market as a 25-year-old student, according to Forbes — and eventually grew that into a multibillion-dollar portfolio.
He was also an enthusiast of Indian films and co-produced three Bollywood movies between 2012 and 2016.
Indian markets commentator Ajay Bagga told the BBC that Jhunjhunwala “personified the India story”— “a young middle-class boy rising up the ranks to build such a vast fortune.” | 2022-08-14T11:08:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, ‘India’s Warren Buffet,’ dead at 62 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/14/rakesh-jhunjhunwala-dies-india-warren-buffet/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/14/rakesh-jhunjhunwala-dies-india-warren-buffet/ |
U.S. citizens among 8 injured in attack in Jerusalem’s Old City
Israeli border police gather near the scene of a shooting Aug. 14 close to the Western Wall, outside the Old City of Jerusalem. A gunman opened fire on a bus, injuring at least eight people. (Abir Sultan/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
JERUSALEM — Eight people were injured, among them U.S. citizens, in a suspected Palestinian gun attack on a bus near Jerusalem’s Western Wall in the Old City early Sunday, Israeli police and medics said.
The alleged shooter turned himself and his weapon in hours after fleeing the scene and setting off an extensive manhunt, according to Israeli Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai.
Tom Nides, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he was “deeply saddened to confirm that Americans were injured in this attack.”
“I’ve spoken with the families and will keep them in my prayers,” he said in a statement on Twitter.
Both Nides and the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs said in statements early Sunday that they strongly condemned what they described as a “terrorist attack.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem declined to provide further details about the victims, citing privacy concerns. They spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with embassy protocol.
The shooting comes less than a week after Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip reached a tentative truce to end several days of fighting that killed at least 47 Palestinians in the blockaded enclave, and amid an ongoing Israeli crackdown in the occupied West Bank after violence flared there this spring.
On Wednesday, Israeli security forces using shoulder-launched missiles killed three suspected Palestinian militants in the crowded West Bank city of Nablus.
Sunday’s attack in Jerusalem happened about 1:30 a.m. local time in two locations near the entrance to the Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites.
A gunman opened fire on a bus and vehicles by a parking lot, and then ran into the adjacent Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, according to Israeli police.
Israel’s emergency medical service said that it treated people with gunshot wounds on the scene and that seven were hospitalized.
Two of the injured were in critical condition, among them a pregnant woman who was shot in her abdomen and underwent emergency labor, Israeli media reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid condemned the attack Sunday and warned that “all those who seek our harm should know that they will pay a price for any harm to our civilians.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said she was working with the State Department amid reports that state residents were among the injured.
“I am horrified by the terror attack in Jerusalem, and by the news that a family of New Yorkers has been impacted,” she tweeted.
No Palestinian group took responsibility for the attack, and Israeli police did not immediately release further details about the alleged shooter.
A spokesperson for Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, praised the “heroic operation” against the “arrogance of the occupation’s soldiers and extremist settlers.”
U.S.-backed peace plans since the 1990s have called for a Palestinian state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israel claims Jerusalem as its undivided capital, which most of the international community rejects.
The country is gearing up for another round of elections, its fifth in less than four years, in which security, as well as economic issues, are typically key concerns among voters.
Violence in Israel had subsided somewhat since the spring, when at least 19 people in several cities were killed in a spate of Palestinian attacks with guns, knives and a vehicle. Since then, Israeli forces have conducted near-nightly raids on West Bank communities and killed dozens of Palestinians.
Among the dead this spring was Palestinian American Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran journalist for Al Jazeera who was killed in May while covering clashes in the Palestinian city of Jenin. The Washington Post and other major media outlets concluded that Israeli forces likely fired the shot that killed Abu Akleh, who was far from any fighting.
Israel said its own investigation found the source of the bullet inconclusive, but that its soldiers did not deliberately shoot. A U.S. investigation released in June said the gunfire was likely to have come from Israeli forces but concluded it was probably unintentional, angering Abu Akleh’s family.
Steve Hendrix contributed to this report. | 2022-08-14T11:08:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. citizens among 8 injured in attack in Jerusalem’s Old City - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/14/us-citizens-injured-bus-attack-jerusalem/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/14/us-citizens-injured-bus-attack-jerusalem/ |
A 1935 illustration in the New York Sun claimed to show animals on the moon, discovered by Sir John Herschel in his observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, and copied from sketches in the Edinburgh Journal of Science. (Benjamin Henry Day/Library of Congress)
On July 31, a prominent French physicist tweeted an image of what he said was a distant star captured by the new James Webb Space Telescope. Étienne Klein emphasized to his 91,000 followers “the level of detail” shown of Proxima Centauri, located 4.2 light-years from the sun, which appeared as a glowing red circle on a black background.
Klein apologized on Twitter for the prank and said it was a joke gone wrong, saying that no “object related to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere else other than on Earth,” according to CNN.
The Sun ran six articles on the discoveries over the course of a week beginning on Aug. 25, 1835. The stories included amazing descriptions of life on the moon, as viewed through an enormous telescope with “hydro-oxygen” lenses built by Herschel at an observatory on the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
According to the Sun, the articles were reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science in Scotland. In them, Grant wrote about golden temples and a ruby coliseum built by Vespertilio-Homo, a Latin name meaning “bat-man,” which was given to the humanoids populating the moon.
He also reported how “some of their amusements would but ill comport with our terrestrial notions of decorum.” Apparently, these winged humans liked to share intimate moments in public — presumably of a sexual nature.
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Grant went on to describe other animals seen through the telescope. They included a large bipedal beaver that carried its young in its arms, as well as herds of beasts similar to bison, goats “of a bluish lead color” and “a strange amphibious creature, of a spherical form.”
Readers were captivated by the accounts, published under the heading “Great Astronomical Discoveries, lately made by Sir John Herschel.” New Yorkers reportedly spoke of nothing but the lunar revelations for days. Other newspapers were quick to jump on the story, reprinting the articles soon after they ran in the Sun. Publications as far west as Cincinnati and in London and Paris carried the series.
“The credulity was general. All New York rang with the wonderful discoveries of Sir John Herschell [sic]... There were, indeed, a few skeptics; but to venture to express a doubt of the genuineness of the great lunar discoveries, was considered almost as heinous a sin as to question the truth of revelation.”
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At first, people generally believed the reports. “In sober truth, if this account is true, it is most enormously wonderful,” former New York mayor Philip Hone wrote in his diary. Soon, though, as more fantastical accounts were released, some started to have their suspicions.
One of the first publications to voice its doubt was the Journal of Commerce, a biweekly magazine in New York that primarily covered global trade news. Its editor wrote, “There is no doubt but the article was manufactured in this country, and that it belongs to the same school as Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels.”
Slowly the truth began to emerge. On Aug. 31, James Gordon Bennett Sr., owner of the New York Herald, printed an article titled “The Astronomical Hoax Explained.” He presented evidence debunking the Sun’s stories, pointing out that the Edinburgh Journal of Science — the supposed source of the series — had ceased publication in 1833.
And there was no Dr. Andrew Grant, nor did the fabulous telescope exist. Herschel, who was real, did build a telescope at his observatory in South Africa, but it could see only the stars — not life on other planets.
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Bennett also identified the author of the unsigned articles: Richard Adams Locke, a New York Sun reporter. The Herald publisher proffered flimsy evidence of Locke’s involvement, but it appears he was on target. In 1840, Locke admitted he was the writer, although some historians speculate other authors helped craft the tall tale.
One of those who did object was Edgar Allan Poe, the author of many otherworldly stories of his own. He argued that the Sun’s series ripped off one of his stories published a few months earlier. In “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall,” which Poe also claimed was a true story, the hero visits the moon in a hot-air balloon.
“The hoax was circulated to an immense extent, was translated into various languages — was even made the subject of (quizzical) discussion in astronomical societies ... and was, upon the whole, decidedly the greatest hit in the way of sensation — of merely popular sensation — ever made by any similar fiction either in America or in Europe,” Poe wrote later.
An unsuspecting Herschel continued working at his observatory in South Africa. In the days before transatlantic cables, he was unaware of the hoax until late 1835, when an American businessman handed him one of the newspapers. After reading it, he reportedly blurted out, “This is a most extraordinary affair! Pray, what does it mean?”
Though initially amused, Herschel soon tired of the publicity and incessant questions. An unsent letter he wrote in 1836 to a London magazine — discovered in 2001 — reveals his feelings at the time:
“I feel confident that you will oblige me therefore by inserting this my disclaimer in your widely circulated and well conducted paper, not because I have the smallest fear that any person possessing the first elements of optical Science (to say nothing of Common Sense) could for a moment be misled into believing such extravagancies, but because I consider the precedent a bad one that the absurdity of a story should ensure its freedom from contradiction when universally repeated in so many quarters and in such a variety of forms.”
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“Mr. Locke was the author of the ‘Moon Hoax,’ the most successful scientific joke ever published ... The story was told with a minuteness of detail and dexterous use of technical phrases that not only imposed upon the ordinary reader, but deceived and puzzled men of science to an astonishing degree.”
As Klein later wrote on Twitter about his Spanish sausage prank, “Let’s learn to be wary of the arguments from positions of authority as much as the spontaneous eloquence of certain images.” | 2022-08-14T12:09:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | James Webb telescope chorizo prank recalls Great Moon Hoax of 1835 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/14/great-moon-hoax-chorizo/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/14/great-moon-hoax-chorizo/ |
A progressive prosecutor clashed with DeSantis. Now he’s out of a job.
The ouster has alarmed many in Florida, who say DeSantis usurped the will of the voters by removing a local elected official who disagreed with him politically
Suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren outside his home in Tampa, Fla. on August 7. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
TAMPA — State Attorney Andrew Warren was waiting for a grand jury to issue indictments in two rape and murder cases he had been working on for three years when he glanced down at his phone and saw an email from an attorney for Gov. Ron DeSantis.
It said he was suspended from his job.
Stunned, Warren quickly went to his office to consult with his staff. Not long after, there was a knock at the door. An armed major from the county sheriff’s office and a man in a suit from the governor’s office carrying a copy of DeSantis’ executive order suspending him were looking for him.
“He said, essentially, ‘The governor has suspended you and you need to leave the office now,’” Warren, a Democrat, recalled of DeSantis’ aide. “So within maybe seven minutes from getting the email, I was outside, on the street. The major offered me a ride home because they took my car.”
The dramatic ouster has alarmed many in Florida, who say DeSantis — widely considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate — usurped the will of the voters by removing a twice-elected local official who disagreed with him politically. Warren had initiated police reforms unpopular with some local law enforcement officers, and in the past year signed two statements pledging not to use his office to “criminalize” health care, including prosecuting women who get abortions and people seeking gender-affirming medical treatments.
In announcing the suspension, DeSantis excoriated Warren for being a “woke” prosecutor more interested in social justice than in enforcing the law. He warned of a “pathogen” spreading in U.S. cities — progressive prosecutors trying to reduce incarceration rates they see as overly punitive and that disproportionately impact people of color. He said prosecutors like Warren have caused “catastrophic results” in other states.
“We are not going to let that get a foothold here in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said a news conference in Tampa, while across town Warren was being physically ejected from his office. The governor was flanked by more than a dozen officers who hailed the move to oust Warren.
The clash comes as political parties pay more attention to state attorney elections than they have in the past and as prosecutors around the country are now faced with a slate of new laws restricting or outright banning abortion care after the fall of Roe v. Wade. For Warren, who left a job as a federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., to run for office in his home state, the suspension was the latest in a series of dust-ups with the governor. He said he was not planning to ignore the law, only that he planned to exercise prosecutorial discretion.
“My job is about anything I can do to make our city safer and our system more fair,” he said. “That is much broader in the terms of the spectrum of criminal justice.”
‘I’m doing the right thing’
The day he lost his job was supposed to be a day of triumph for Warren, one of the highlights of his six years in office.
Four years earlier, he had launched a Conviction Review Unit to examine innocence claims. One of those claims came from Robert DuBoise. He’d served 37 years behind bars after being convicted in the rape and murder of 19-year-old Barbara Grams in 1983. But prosecutors had built their case on problematic bite-mark evidence and a jailhouse informant. A fresh look at the crime found DNA evidence that instead linked two other men to the crime.
Not only did the new probe conclude that Abron Scott and Amos Earl Robinson were responsible for Grams’ death; further investigation also tied them to the rape and murder of Linda Lansen, 41, who was killed around the same time. Lansen’s case had gone cold for nearly four decades. Warren was going to announce that a grand jury had indicted the men in both murders.
He invited family members of the victims, as well as several local law enforcement officers who had helped solve the cases. He sent out a press release for media to join him at the state attorney’s building in Tampa. Instead, after his suspension, he held a briefing at a downtown office building.
“The governor’s political circus potentially jeopardized two three-year old cold case investigations into serial rapists and murderers from 39 years ago,” he said. “That was my focus. ... I was worried that they were going to disband the grand jury. In the back of my mind was the promise I made to those families, and that was my focus.”
Warren grew up in Gainesville, Fla., the son of a university professor turned real estate developer. After graduating from Columbia University law school, he served as a federal district court clerk in San Francisco. Later he went on to work as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice focusing on financial fraud.
He stunned Tampa in 2016 when he returned to Florida from D.C. to take on a longtime Republican prosecutor for the state attorney’s office in one of the state’s most populous counties. During the campaign, he promised to focus on violent crimes and send low-level offenders into diversion programs instead of jail.
“When I ran in 2016 I wanted to change the criminal justice system, to improve it, to revolutionize it,” he said, sitting in the living room of his Tampa home on a recent morning.
He put that philosophy into action during the summer of 2020, when protests over the murder of George Floyd by police officers erupted across the country, including in Tampa. Warren declined to press charges against 67 people who had been arrested for unlawful assembly — angering local law enforcement officials.
“There were a lot of peaceful protests, and there was a night of violent rioting,” Warren said. “We prosecuted 150 people for felonies. We prosecuted the people who we had evidence were actually committing crimes. We didn’t prosecute the people where there was no evidence besides the fact that they were fully protesting. It was pretty simple.”
Warren has publicly clashed with DeSantis before. He criticized an “anti-riot” law that DeSantis signed in 2021 stiffening penalties for demonstrators in the aftermath of the 2020 protests, saying it “tears a couple of corners off the Constitution.” After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in June, Warren joined dozens of prosecutors from around the country in signing a pledge to “decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions.”
A year earlier, he signed a similar statement regarding gender-affirming care.
Warren called the pledges “value statements” that addressed prosecutorial discretion, and not promises to ignore the law. Florida recently instituted a 15-week abortion ban, and while the state will soon deny Medicaid coverage for transgender-related surgeries and medication, there is no law forbidding such treatments.
“So if a doctor at Tampa General Hospital performs an abortion at 24 weeks and there’s a question of, ‘Is it 23 weeks and six days, or 24 weeks and one day,’ that’s a different case than a back-alley abortion performed at 35 weeks,” Warren said, explaining that he’d pursue charges in the latter. “That’s reckless and negligent.”
He said “there have been occasions where I’m getting yelled at from far left, and I’m getting yelled at by the far right. To me that demonstrates that I’m doing the right thing.”
‘Ruing the day’
Warren handily won his reelection 2020 — but not everyone was happy with his approach to the law.
In his executive order suspending Warren, DeSantis listed examples of what he called Warren’s “fundamentally flawed and lawless understanding of his duties.” One of those was Warren’s decision not prosecute people on bicycles who are stopped by police for resisting arrest without violence. A report by the U.S. Department of Justice after an investigation by the Tampa Bay Times found that 80 percent of the thousands of biking tickets issued by Tampa police were given to Black people, a practice local residents criticized as “biking while Black.”
“We need our prosecutor to prosecute crime — the same as we enforce crime,” Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister told a local television station after Warren’s suspension.
DeSantis said he decided to suspend Warren after he ordered his staff to find any examples in Florida of prosecutors who “take it upon themselves” to decide which laws to enforce. Law enforcement officers and district attorneys routinely utilize prosecutorial discretion to decide which crimes to focus their attention on.
But DeSantis was touching on a growing angst over prosecutors seen as light on crime at a time when homicides have risen in many cities, including Tampa.
“We are going to make sure that our laws are enforced and that no individual prosecutor puts himself above the law,” DeSantis said. “And I can tell you, the states and the localities that have allowed this to happen, they are ruing the day.”
Alissa Marque Heydari, deputy director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College New York City, said there has been an uptick in state legislators and governors attacking prosecutors who are reform-minded. In San Francisco, former District Attorney Chesa Boudin lost a recall election after venture capitalists, doctors, lawyers, and estate developers raised millions to boot him from office.
“But law enforcement is local — it’s up to the community to prioritize how they want the laws enforced,” she said. “If Andrew Warren said he didn’t want to prosecute certain types of crimes and the community was upset about that, it was up to them to vote him out.”
‘Something Putin would do’
For DeSantis critics, Warren’s suspension is a troubling sign of abuse of power from a governor whose administration routinely employs hostile tactics to silence opponents. The suspension isn’t final until the state Senate approves it, but the Republican-majority chamber is all but certain to usher it through.
“This is something that Putin or Castro or Maduro would do,” said U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat who has represented parts of the Tampa Bay area in Congress for 15 years. “People in Hillsborough are outraged.”
Peter Bergerson, a political science professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, concurred, describing it as a decision with “heavy overtones of political, election-year issues.”
“It sounds like more of an ideological decision, rather than one that’s based on actual poor performance or fraud,” he said.
Others have sprung to the governor’s defense, including local law enforcement leaders, Republican colleagues in the state legislature and others who say Warren’s approach was ultimately problematic.
Joseph Cillo, a former defense attorney and an assistant professor of criminal justice at Saint Leo University in Tampa, said he likes Warren and respects his right to free speech. But he said DeSantis was doing his job and also sending a message by removing Warren from office.
“You can have discretion on individual cases. There’s always prosecutorial discretion,” Cillo said. “But when you come out and say, these are one or two statutes that I believe are unconstitutional, that’s an individual opinion. And to say, ‘I’m just not going to prosecute these crimes,’ that’s an omission under Florida law.”
The suspension — and what followed — offer a window into DeSantis’ approach to the law, were he to pursue federal office. He appointed Susan Lopez to fill Warren’s position, a longtime assistant state attorney the governor had recently named a county judge. Warren may have had no warning that he was about to be fired by the governor, but Lopez said the governor called her days earlier to offer her the job.
Lopez is a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative group that advocates for an “originalist interpretation” of the Constitution. U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are also members.
The new top prosecutor reversed many of Warren’s policies in her first days in office, including his policy to cut down on bike-rider prosecutions.
Warren, for his part, has assembled a team of lawyers to figure out his next step. He published a video message three days after his suspension, saying “I refuse to let this man trample on your freedoms to speak your mind, to make your own health care decisions, and to have your vote count.”
As he strategizes on a way to get his job back, Warren said he’s been buoyed by support from voters and friends.
“I’ve heard from people who told me they didn’t vote for me, and they don’t know if they’ll ever vote for me, but they support me on this,” he said. “They recognize how wrong this is.” | 2022-08-14T12:09:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prosecutor Andrew Warren clashed with DeSantis. Now he’s out of a job. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/14/florida-desantis-warren-prosecutor-suspension/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/14/florida-desantis-warren-prosecutor-suspension/ |
An inmate clasps his hands on the door of his cell at in San Francisco, Calif., on Nov. 1, 2018. (Gabrielle Lurie/Associated Press)
Kevin McCarthy is a formerly incarcerated Californian who spent more than a decade in solitary confinement, beginning when he was just 16. He had been caught with drugs and needed addiction treatment and counseling. Instead, he was abused by being placed in solitary confinement, only experiencing human touch “in the form of handcuffs slapped on my wrists and guards’ hands squeezing the back of my neck.” “I often tell people that I would have preferred a physical beating to being held in isolation. Bruises and cuts heal, but the wounds in my mind and soul are so deep that I do not believe I will ever fully recover,” Mr. McCarthy wrote recently in an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle.
California, a longtime misuser of solitary confinement, is currently considering legislation to enact common-sense limits on the practice. The California Mandela Act, if signed into law, would require every jail, prison or detention facility in California, public or private, to have written procedures and documentation about their use of solitary confinement. It would prohibit solitary confinement for prisoners who are pregnant, under 26 years old, over 59 years old or with a mental or physical disability. It would also ban holding anyone outside these “special populations” in solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days or more than 45 days in a 180-day period. That would bring California in line with the Nelson Mandela Rules, the United Nations’ “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.”
Some horror stories the California Mandela Act could prevent from happening again: In 2020, a 74-year-old man with a history of mental illness committed suicide while held in solitary confinement at the Mesa Verde Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center. In 2018, a woman held in Santa Rita County Jail gave birth in solitary confinement, “screaming for hours, alone, with nothing to wrap her baby girl in but the jail jumpsuit on her back.”
California has been forced to reform its use of solitary confinement before. Tens of thousands of male prisoners in the state’s notorious Pelican Bay prison conducted hunger strikes from 2011 to 2013 in protest of the state’s arbitrary use of the practice. In 2015, the state agreed to a series of reforms in the settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by inmates, such as not sending prisoners to solitary confinement solely on the basis of potential gang affiliation. It’s done a poor job holding up its end of the bargain. In February, a federal judge ordered an extension of the agreement’s oversight period, finding that the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation committed “systemic due process violations” in assigning prisoners to solitary confinement. Such failure to follow-through on the settlement only makes legislative restrictions on and oversight over solitary confinement all the more needed.
The California Mandela Act has passed the state House. It survived scrutiny in the state Senate Appropriations Committee this week and is headed for a vote in the state Senate. Making an inhumane practice more humane should be a no-brainer. Fourteen states have already passed bans or restrictions on solitary confinement. California is lagging behind in ending this cruel and unusual punishment. It should take the chance it has now to catch up. | 2022-08-14T12:09:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | California has the chance to limit solitary confinement. It should take it. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/california-mandela-act-solitary-confinement/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/california-mandela-act-solitary-confinement/ |
In this aerial view melting ice forms a lake on free-floating ice jammed into the Ilulissat Icefjord during unseasonably warm weather on July 30, 2019 near Ilulissat, Greenland. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
“This summer is just a horrorscape,” Kim Cobb, the director of the environment and society institute at Brown University, recently told The Post. From global heat waves to multiple floods caused by 1-in-1,000-year levels of rainfall, extreme weather events have caused widespread disruption over the past few weeks. And new studies paint a foreboding picture of the road ahead.
In the first paper, printed in the journal Nature, scientists considered the East Antarctica Ice Sheet, a behemoth approximately the size of the United States that contains most of the world’s glacier area. It was long believed to be less susceptible to rising temperatures than the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, which is exposed to warm water from below, or the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is nearing a “tipping point” for accelerated melting. But some East Antarctica regions are already exhibiting signs of vulnerability, calling into question that assumption.
Drawing on evidence from historical periods of high temperatures, researchers projected that a global temperature increase of below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the top limit specified in the Paris agreement — would likely keep most of the ice sheet intact, but could result in sea level rise of 1.6 feet by the year 2500. Exceeding the Paris threshold could possibly lead to a 16.4-feet increase in sea levels, rendering the planet virtually unrecognizable. “It’s really important that we do not awaken this sleeping giant,” the lead author of the study, Chris Stokes, said in a statement.
Another study in Nature, conducted by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Tasmania, estimated that Antarctica’s ice shelves had lost 12 trillion tons of mass since 1997, twice the previous estimate. In particular, the team used satellite analysis to investigate the “calving” of icebergs — when they break off from glaciers — and concluded that this caused nearly as much ice loss as thinning from warming seas. This raises fresh concerns about the stability of ice shelves, which are crucial to ensuring glaciers do not collapse into the ocean.
Meanwhile, a third paper, published in Communications Earth & Environment, looked at warming in the Arctic. The authors found that, over the past four decades, the Arctic region warmed four times faster than the rest of the world, significantly higher than expected. This has dire implications for sea level rise — and that is not all. Extreme weather such as heat waves and heavy rainfall are linked to temperature differences between the poles and the equator. As the Arctic warms, these events could become more frequent and intense thousands of miles away.
After decades of “sleepwalking to climate catastrophe,” as U.N. Secretary General António Guterres described the global predicament, the United States has finally found the political will to enact climate legislation. But the window for action to meet the goals of the Paris agreement is rapidly closing. This new research offers a reminder that there is more work to be done, domestically and abroad, if we are to preserve a habitable planet for future generations. | 2022-08-14T12:09:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Foreboding new studies show the climate battle is not over - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/climate-change-studies-warming-antarctica/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/climate-change-studies-warming-antarctica/ |
Distinguished persons of the week: They are patriots, unlike the MAGA cult.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray speaks to journalists at the Omaha FBI office on Aug. 10. (Chris Machian/AP)
As MAGA thugs are wont to do, their reaction to the lawful search at former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, which we now know might have been related to nuclear secrets (which Trump has denied), amounted to an stream of insults and threats designed to whip up unhinged, violent characters.
While the exact motives of the person who attacked FBI offices in Cincinnati on Thursday remain unknown, reports indicate he was in D.C. in the days leading up the Jan. 6 insurrection and might have been at the U.S. Capitol that day. The GOP’s cycle of incitement and violence continues.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray was properly outraged. “Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others,” he said in a written statement on Thursday. “Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans. Every day I see the men and women of the FBI doing their jobs professionally and with rigor, objectivity, and a fierce commitment to our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. I am proud to serve alongside them.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland, in an earlier appearance announcing that the Justice Department would seek to unseal the search warrant for Trump’s home, sounded a similar note: “Let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors,” he said. “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked.”
Garland continued, “The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. Every day, they protect the American people from violent crime, terrorism, and other threats to their safety, while safeguarding our civil rights. They do so at great personal sacrifice and risk to themselves.”
It is worth remembering that the warrant came about because the FBI reportedly had reason to believe that Trump had not returned all classified materials that he removed from the White House upon leaving office after the documents were subpoenaed. The agents apparently did everything they could to avoid calling attention to themselves at Mar-a-Lago or disturbing those present, dressing in plainclothes to let them blend in. Garland in his remarks explained that “the warrant and the FBI property receipt were provided on the day of the search to the former president’s counsel, who was on-site during the search.”
This was no “raid,” let alone an action that should in any sane universe ever be compared to Nazis. Trump and his cohorts bear moral responsibility for those who absorb their reckless rhetoric and consider them marching orders, as is the case with their “big lie” of a stolen election and the ensuing violence on Jan. 6, 2021.
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), a former Navy officer, put out an appropriately indignant tweet on Thursday: “Any attack on law enforcement is unacceptable, and recent attacks on the men and women serving in federal law enforcement are despicable. I strongly condemn the attempted breach of the FBI’s office in Cincinnati, and I am praying for the safety of our officers and agents.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the lonely voice of reason amid an ocean of insanity in her party, similarly tweeted, “I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search. These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.”
Other Republican lawmakers have either been silent or joined in the reprehensible conspiracy theory-mongering. Some of them even want to defund the FBI.
For protecting our national security and for carrying out their duties honorably, lawfully and without fanfare, we can say to the men and women of the FBI, well done. | 2022-08-14T12:10:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | FBI agents who carry out their duties are patriots, unlike the MAGA cult. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/distinguished-persons-fbi-agents-are-patriots-unlike-maga-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/distinguished-persons-fbi-agents-are-patriots-unlike-maga-republicans/ |
By Barkha Dutt
A student holds an Indian flag on Aug. 12 during rehearsals ahead of the 75th Independence Day celebrations in Bangalore. (Jagadeesh Nv/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
When the journalist Mohammed Zubair was arrested over a 4-year-old tweet that borrowed a pun from an old movie, on the charge of hurting religious sentiments, Arnab Goswami, a prime-time anchor at Republic TV, one of India’s leading news networks, was furious — but not at the assault on freedom of expression that the arrest represented. He was mad at Zubair.
On another network, Times Now (owned by India’s wealthiest newspaper group), a garish gold band proclaimed an alleged double standard of the “#Zubair Lobby Hypocrisy.” This was the same channel on which Nupur Sharma, a spokeswoman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (since suspended), had made disparaging remarks about the prophet Muhammad, triggering an international diplomatic kerfuffle with the Arab world. Zubair was among the first to highlight the remarks and the channel was gunning for him.
To be sure, in any robust democracy, journalists — or politicians— should not face prison over remarks, no matter how lighthearted or insulting. But many prominent Indian TV journalists have displayed an ugly doublespeak when it comes to whose liberties they are prepared to protect. If anyone is hypocritical, it is them.
Far from being bulwarks against political attacks on free speech, India’s news channels have become factories of hate. As India marks her 75th birthday, the country’s TV networks are presiding over the death of journalism.
Their carefully constructed prime-time narratives line up perfectly with the Hindutva politics of the right wing; in fact, their coarseness often goes several steps further.
Their orchestrated bigotry did not even spare the country during the height of the pandemic. When the Tablighi Jamaat, an orthodox Muslim sect, held a mass congregation in early 2020, one TV channel used the hashtag #CoronaJihad to describe the event. Another picked the visual representation of a Muslim skull cap to convey the dashboard of daily cases.
In July, several broadcast outlets used a similar caption — Flood Jihad — to cover a conspiracy that began on social media claiming flooding in the eastern state of Assam was deliberately caused by Muslims attacking an embankment. The duty of journalism should have been to investigate these claims and hold the police to account over why four hapless Muslim men were accused falsely. Instead, TV stations validated the injustice and amplified its prejudice.
News anchors have become actors huffing and puffing in faux outrage. The guests invited to discuss the pressing issues of the day are also cast carefully in the drama — the more extreme, the better.
The content is constructed on manufactured dissent, with the networks’ broadcasts producing a steady stream of noisy confrontations and shouting. The screen looks like a hydra-headed monster, split into a gazillion postage stamp windows. The speakers are handpicked for extreme irrationality. While these shows have their share of extremist Hindus, often draped in saffron robes, it is the Muslim voices in particular who are caricatures — made for TV clerics with long beards and small minds chosen to lampoon the community and reinforce the worst stereotypes.
By pitting Hindus against Muslims in an artificial gladiatorial debate, TV news avoids real stories such as rising unemployment and the cost of living, floods and declining public health. Kota Neelima, whose research is focused on how bulletins prioritize subjects, found that over a two-year period, religious issues occupied the bulk of the broadcasts, and on some days made up as much as 76 percent of all content.
Private news broadcasts in India began in the ’90s, when two production houses were allowed to present a 30-minute bulletin each on the government-controlled Doordarshan station. I worked with one and remember how every news script had to be first vetted by an official before airing. As a first-generation TV journalist, I was dazzled by the magic of the medium and the immediacy of its energy. Over the past few years, like many colleagues, I have migrated to the digital space in search of new formats, freshness and greater independence.
India’s broadcast journalism has also been dented by a broken revenue model. With exorbitant running costs, budgets to send reporters out into the field have been dramatically reduced. By contrast, talk is cheap. But banality and staleness are presently its least egregious offenses.
It is ironic that when Zubair walked out on bail, the precedent cited was the one used to grant bail to Goswami, the anchor who defended Zubair’s arrest. Goswami was jailed in 2020 by the BJP’s opponents, in connection with a suicide case. His arrest was clearly unfair and wrong, but he has continued to use his platform to call for the prosecution of other journalists. Those who disagree with him are slandered, attacked and threatened on his show.
When The Post added a new slogan beneath its online masthead in 2017 — “Democracy Dies in Darkness” — some called it “ominous” and “heavy-handed.”
But in India, democracy is under constant assault every night at 9 p.m., under the lights of a TV studio. | 2022-08-14T12:10:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Barkha Dutt: India's democracy is assaulted by TV news networks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/india-tv-journalism-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/india-tv-journalism-democracy/ |
A state police inquiry found evidence of a conspiracy that has echoes elsewhere in the country as election deniers seek proof of 2020 fraud
DETROIT, MI - OCTOBER 15: A voter casts their absentee ballot at one of the Satellite Voting Center inside Northwest Activity Center during early U.S. Presidential Election voting in Detroit, Michigan on Thursday, October 15, 2020. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Eight months after the 2020 presidential election, Robin Hawthorne didn’t expect anyone to ask for her township’s voting machines.
The election had gone smoothly, she said, just as others had that she’d overseen for 17 years as the Rutland Charter Township clerk in rural western Michigan. But now a sheriff’s deputy and investigator were in her office, questioning her about her township’s three vote tabulators, suggesting that they somehow had been programmed with a microchip to shift votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden and asking her to hand one over for inspection.
“What the heck is going on?” she recalled thinking.
The surprise visit may have been an “out-of-the-blue thing,” as Hawthorne described it, but it was one element of a much broader effort by figures who deny the outcome of the 2020 vote to access voting machines in a bid to prove fraud that experts say does not exist.
In states across the country — including Colorado, Pennsylvania and Georgia — attempts to inappropriately access voting machines have spurred investigations. They have also sparked concern among election authorities that, while voting systems are broadly secure, breaches by those looking for evidence of fraud could themselves compromise the integrity of the process and undermine confidence in the vote.
In Michigan, the efforts to access the machines jumped into public view this month when the state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel (D), requested a special prosecutor be assigned to look into a group that includes her likely Republican opponent, Matthew DePerno.
The expected GOP nominee, Nessel’s office wrote in a petition filed Aug. 5 based on the findings of a state police investigation, was “one of the prime instigators” of a conspiracy to persuade Michigan clerks to allow unauthorized access to voting machines. Others involved, according to the filing, included a state representative and the sheriff in Barry County, Dar Leaf.
Officials got the tabulators back weeks or months later, in one instance at a meeting in a carpool parking lot.
DePerno has denied any wrongdoing, as has Leaf, the Barry County sheriff. DePerno’s campaign issued a statement calling the petition for a special prosecutor “an incoherent liberal fever dream of lies.”
Once election officials lose control of voting machines, the machines can no longer be used because of the risk of hacking. What’s more, voters can lose faith in the country’s electoral infrastructure when they hear about machines that haven’t been adequately protected, election experts warn.
Until recently, said Tammy Patrick, who works with election officials around the country as a senior adviser at the nonprofit Democracy Fund, “it seemed far-fetched that election networks could be exposed” in the way they were in Michigan.
“Unfortunately, we have a number of instances in the last year or so where this sort of thing has happened around the country,” she said. “It is deeply troubling.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in an interview with The Washington Post that efforts to “twist the arm of election officials to get them to turn over secure information” are illegal.
She said it’s important for law enforcement to act “not just to hold accountable those who have been trying to interfere with the process, but to look at the connectivity to see if there’s a broader connection, not just in our state, but beyond Michigan to Georgia and Ohio and other states where you see this happening.”
Although the exact nature of connections between efforts in different states to breach machines remains unclear, the situation in Michigan is similar to ones elsewhere in which allegedly unofficial, unauthorized investigators sought evidence of fraud by gaining access to voting equipment. Some of those named in the Michigan case have been connected to cases elsewhere.
Georgia county under scrutiny after claim of post-election breach
For months, few knew about the review of voting machines by Leaf, the Barry County sheriff, who belongs to a “constitutional sheriffs” association that contends sheriffs must answer to voters but not state or federal authorities. Leaf’s team told clerks to keep their visits quiet, according to clerks.
Barry County Clerk Pamela Palmer learned of the investigation in June 2021 and confronted Deputy Sheriff Kevin Erb and investigator Michael Lynch to ask why she hadn’t been told about their work.
“They said, ‘Well, we’re kind of doing this under the element of surprise.’ I said, ‘What have you got to hide?’ So that’s kind of what started it all,” Palmer said.
Reuters last month first reported on the scope of Leaf’s investigation and Palmer’s challenge to it.
Barry County’s top prosecutor, Julie Nakfoor Pratt, met with Leaf and his attorney, Stefanie Lambert, as well as others last summer to find out what they were doing. Lambert pressed Pratt to issue search warrants and tried to shape how she handled the case, Pratt said. Pratt said she told Lambert that Leaf hadn’t demonstrated he had probable cause to inspect the voting machines.
“I stood my ground and I just told her, you’ve got to go with what you have and if you don’t have it, you don’t have it,” Pratt said.
In a written statement, Lambert said the group’s inquiries into voting machines were appropriate. Her statement echoed ones issued by DePerno and Logan that criticized the attorney general.
“Legitimate investigations on behalf of elected constitutional officers in the course of determining whether there was election day fraud is not a crime,” Lambert said in her statement.
“They seem to think there was some kind of microchip in our tabulators that was throwing votes to Biden,” Hawthorne said. “But Trump won Barry County. He won by 65 percent of the vote, so I don’t know where they’re thinking that any kind of chips were in any of our machines or thinking that something had happened to them. The whole thing is nutty. It’s nutty, totally nutty.”
The attorney general’s petition for a special prosecutor contends DePerno, Lambert and state Rep. Daire Rendon (R) “orchestrated a coordinated plan to gain access to voting tabulators.” Among others, the petition also mentions Leaf, Cotton and former Cyber Ninjas chief executive Doug Logan. Logan’s firm was involved with a months-long, Republican-driven review of ballots in Arizona that election experts said was sloppily handled.
The clerks willingly gave up their voting equipment to someone described only as Person 1 in a letter from Chief Deputy Attorney General Christina Grossi.
After Roscommon County Clerk Michelle Stevenson handed over a tabulator and flash drives, she began to question the authority of the investigation. A state representative — unnamed in Grossi’s letter — told Stevenson she was doing the right thing and assured her that her name would never come up.
On Friday, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law sent a memo to organizations representing thousands of local election officials nationwide advising them of the growing problem of machine breaches and how to respond to it.
“Public confidence in future elections can be severely damaged by plausible allegations that unauthorized or biased actors have been given physical access to voting equipment,” the memo says.
Hawthorne, the clerk in Rutland Charter Township, said she and other clerks in Michigan are trained never to give up their voting machines. She said was shocked to hear some had handed them over and stunned that Leaf, the sheriff in her county, was spending so much time on what she considers a misguided investigation.
Emma Brown contributed to this report. | 2022-08-14T12:10:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michigan plot to breach voting machines points to a national trend - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/14/michigan-voting-machine-breach/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/14/michigan-voting-machine-breach/ |
By Bill Lohmann, The Richmond Times-Dispatch | AP
Former WWII POW Russell Scott pauses during an interview at the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, March 26, 2014 and looks at the model he built of a B25J, similar to the one he bailed out of over Italy in 1944 after both engines had been damaged by flak. Virginia Commonwealth University student Maggie Colangelo, a senior and double-major in VCU Arts and environmental studies who also works in the university’s Virtual Curation Laboratory, was intrigued when she heard about Scott’s story and set about creating a detailed, three-panel comic, describing his harrowing experience. Scott died in 2019 at age 99. (Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP) | 2022-08-14T13:40:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Preserving a WWII tail-gunner’s harrowing story in a comic - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/preserving-a-wwii-tail-gunners-harrowing-story-in-a-comic/2022/08/14/42af3052-1bd1-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/preserving-a-wwii-tail-gunners-harrowing-story-in-a-comic/2022/08/14/42af3052-1bd1-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
By Rachael Smith, The News & Advance | AP
Children’s author and musician Sara Ernst poses for a photo with her ukulele on the front porch of her home in Forest, Va., on Monday, July 25, 2022. “Music is a powerful tool. If it’s catchy, they’ll learn from it,” she said. “I’ve enjoyed teaching through it and also trying to empower emotions and use my songs to talk about feelings, use my songs to build confidence to encourage a love of nature and inspire imagination.” (Kendall Warner/The News & Advance via AP)
FOREST, Va. — Local children’s book author and songwriter Sara Ernst has worked with children nearly her entire life in some way, shape or form since she was a child herself, beginning with babysitting when she was 9 or 10 years old and volunteering in the church nursery. | 2022-08-14T13:40:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Woman reaches children with educational songs and books - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/woman-reaches-children-with-educational-songs-and-books/2022/08/14/4a05bb00-1bd1-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/woman-reaches-children-with-educational-songs-and-books/2022/08/14/4a05bb00-1bd1-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
Rockies outfielder Wynton Bernard waves to the crowd after making his MLB debut against the Diamondbacks. (David Zalubowski/AP)
Over the past decade, Janet Bernard has logged countless miles to watch her son Wynton play baseball. She doesn’t like flying, so she twice drove her high-top van more than 1,400 miles from their hometown of Poway, Calif., just north of San Diego, to the Houston suburb of Sugar Land. She’s driven to Tennessee and Pennsylvania, and has frequently made the 2,200-plus mile trip to Grand Rapids, Mich.
But after learning Thursday that her son would make his MLB debut for the Colorado Rockies on Friday after 10 seasons of affiliated ball, Janet was open to a short flight if it got her to Denver in time for Bernard’s introduction against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The video of Bernard sharing the news of his call-up with his mother tugged at heartstrings before and after the Rockies’ 5-3 win in his debut. As the 31-year-old acclimates to the big leagues, he and Janet hope his long-awaited dream becomes a more permanent reality.
“I’m still trying to take it all in and process what has happened to Wynton,” Janet said in a phone interview. “Never in my wildest dreams did I expect his story to go viral. That is just the most amazing part of this journey.”
For Bernard, that journey began with sacrifice.
The speedy outfielder remembers the countless hours Janet spent with him at the batting cage when he was younger. He remembers how his late father, Walter, eschewed buying a new car to fund tutoring and baseball tournaments.
Those sacrifices helped forge a family of standout athletes. Bernard’s brother, Walter, 44, played as a defensive back for the Chargers, Indianapolis Colts and Seattle Seahawks. Wayne, 40, was a basketball standout at Davidson and played professionally in Europe.
Bernard, who was named after the jazz pianist Wynton Kelly, moved across the country to extend his baseball career at Niagara University. He briefly transferred to Riverside City College after his father died of kidney disease in 2010, but later returned to Niagara and was selected by the Padres in the 35th round of the 2012 MLB draft.
He dreamed of becoming an all-star and an MVP, but over the next decade, Bernard toiled in the minors, spending time in the farm systems of San Diego, Detroit, San Francisco and Chicago. Two of his six stints in foreign leagues took him to the Mexican Winter League and the Australian Baseball League. He played independent ball in the Constellation Energy League, a one-off league in Texas created during the early days of the pandemic in 2020. Most of the way, Janet continued to drive to his games as he pursued the majors.
“Coming from Niagara as a 35th-round pick, it was obviously a grind, to say the least,” Bernard said in a phone interview. “It was an extremely tough road, but I battled it out.”
Janet hoped her son’s dream would come to fruition, but doubt occasionally crept in over the past decade. Bernard constantly talked about baseball, so she said she eventually stopped discussing it with him to offer a reprieve. When he had a great game, they didn’t exchange words, but she would text him a heart or a clapping emoji, and he would send a heart back.
“I kept learning and I’ve tried everything,” Bernard said. “I’ve tried different swings, I’ve tried different stolen base techniques, I’ve tried different things in the outfield. I think all of my failures have allowed me to progress as a major league player. There were times where I think I could have gotten called up, but maybe at that moment, I wasn’t the best. Right now, I feel like I’m in my prime, and so it’s just perfect timing.”
The call-up came Thursday evening in Albuquerque, the home of the Rockies’ Class AAA affiliate. Bernard was going through his pregame routine — visualizing his at-bats against the opposing pitcher and readying for a quick nap — when Manager Warren Schaeffer made an announcement to the team.
“After 11 hard minor league seasons,” he said, “Wynton Bernard is going to The Show, boys!”
The clubhouse erupted. Bernard cried. He dapped up some teammates and scooped others off the ground. The moment was unexpected. It felt surreal.
Later that day, Janet was watering plants and cutting an overgrown shrub in her garden in Poway when her phone rang. She was expecting a call from someone else, but was curious to hear what Bernard wanted to talk about. When they connected on FaceTime, he told her he was headed to the major leagues.
“It never dawned on me that he would be calling to tell me that he just got called up,” Janet said. “My reaction was like, ‘For real?! I can’t believe this, but you deserve it. You’ve worked so hard.' And you know, after we hung up I just fell to my knees and I just started thanking the Lord.”
Janet, who hadn’t boarded a plane in four years, flew into Denver to arrive in time for the game, which she watched at Coors Field alongside Walter, Wayne and Bernard’s college coach, Rob McCoy.
In 10 seasons across the minor leagues (excluding his one season of independent ball), Bernard had hit .286 with 825 hits, 50 home runs and 220 stolen bases. In his Friday debut, he registered a base hit, a stolen base and a run scored.
A base hit, a stolen bag AND a run scored in your MLB debut! Check out the dugouts reception to Wynton Bernard 🥹😭 #Rockies lead the Dbacks 5-3 in the 7th! pic.twitter.com/YFG27XATI5
“I was in the outfield in the ninth inning just like, ‘Is this a dream, or is this real? And it’s real,’ ” he said in his postgame interview. “It’s truly a dream come true.”
At 31 years and 322 days old, Bernard is the oldest player to get a hit and steal a base in his MLB debut since 1907, according to Stats Perform. Despite that distinction, he said he feels young enough to accomplish the remainder of his big league dreams.
“The sky’s the limit,” Bernard said. “I want to be a part of a winning team. I want to win a World Series. I want to be an all-star. I want to be a major league player every single day, and I’m gonna work as hard as I can to do that.” | 2022-08-14T13:41:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wynton Bernard makes debut for Colorado Rockies after long journey to majors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/wynton-bernard-rockies-debut/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/wynton-bernard-rockies-debut/ |
Police said the man, who wasn’t identified, did not appear to be targeting members of Congress, who are on recess.
The U.S. Capitol building on Friday, Aug. 12. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg)
A man drove his vehicle into a barricade near the U.S. Capitol early Sunday and fired shots into the air before taking his own life, Capitol Police said.
Police said the vehicle caught fire as the man was getting out of it. It wasn’t clear whether the man intentionally set the car afire or whether the vehicle began to burn because of the crash. He then fired several shots along East Capitol Street, drawing the attention of police, who began moving toward him when he shot himself, authorities said.
Capitol Police said investigators have begun looking into the man’s background; D.C. police have taken over the investigation into his death. His name was not released.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the shots were fired early Saturday. They were fired early Sunday. This version has been corrected. | 2022-08-14T15:03:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man rams barricade near Capitol, fires shots, then kills himself, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/capitol-barricade-rammed-shots-fired/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/capitol-barricade-rammed-shots-fired/ |
Novelist and essayist Salman Rushdie poses during a photo session in Paris. (Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images)
World leaders including President Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack on Rushdie, which many see as an attack on freedom of expression.
Sales of the controversial book have spiked dramatically on Amazon in recent days and, as of Sunday, the novel is number 11 in the best sellers list.
Although the Iranian bounty for his death was more than $3 million, Rushdie — a British-American citizen who moved to New York in the early 2000s — had appeared at public literary events in the past, sometimes without security guards visible. Attendees of the event in Chautauqua, N.Y., said there were no security checks on Friday. An official from the venue said the suspect had a pass to enter the grounds.
Kelsey Ables, Joanna Slater, Elahe Izadi, Ron Charles and Carolyn Y. Johnson contributed to this report. | 2022-08-14T15:03:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Salman Rushdie taken off ventilator following attack in New York state - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/14/salman-rushdie-attack-new-york/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/14/salman-rushdie-attack-new-york/ |
Brian Robinson Jr. scores a second quarter touchdown during Saturday's preseason opener. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Despite having a new quarterback, many parts of offensive coordinator Scott Turner’s scheme looked familiar. In three series with the first team, he used high rates of play action and pre-snap motion to create some easy throws. Last season, Washington was among the league leaders in both categories.
Rivera complimented Turner and quarterback CarsonWentz for finding a good rhythm.
If Samuel can remain healthy — Rivera said the team continues to follow the plan to get him back in shape — then he could become the elusive, yards-after-catch weapon the offense lacked last year. Turner hinted at it by calling a screen to him on the second play of the game.
“Brian showed us why we drafted him, and that’s the downhill, physical presence on the inside,” Rivera said. “He runs with a good lean. He moves the pile, one of those things to create energy and sets a tone for the offensive line. … I was pretty excited of what we got.”
“I still don't feel comfortable,” he said after the game. “I still don't feel like I’ve played enough to gain the comfortability that I need to play at this position. But the series that I was in gave me a good feel for what’s to come. The more I continue to get game reps, the more comfortable I’ll get.” | 2022-08-14T16:17:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders' preseason opener: Glimpses of changes on defense, rookie RB - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/commanders-panthers-preseason-takeaways/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/commanders-panthers-preseason-takeaways/ |
It really is a small world after all
Shoppers walk through the Kobmagergade pedestrianized shopping street in this view from the Rundetaarn (Round Tower) in Copenhagen. (Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg News)
They say that travel broadens the mind. In a weird way, it can also shrink the world. I asked readers to share the small-world coincidences they encountered while on vacation.
In 2016, Luisa Girlando of Annapolis went on a three-week trip to Morocco. The travel guide for her group was a 32-year-old man from the Atlas Mountains who lived in Marrakesh.
“Two years later, in 2018, I was walking down the street in Copenhagen and I stopped dead in my tracks,” Luisa wrote. “There was my Moroccan tour guide! We stopped and chatted for a few minutes about the serendipity of seeing each other again thousands of miles away.”
In 1998, Catherine Barron and her husband, Earlye — both teachers — took their 16-year-old son, Michael, on a trip to Europe. By the time they got to Prague, Michael had had enough European restaurant food. He wanted pizza.
“The concierge at our hotel said the best pizza in Prague was in a little out-of-the-way place down a small walking street and into an even smaller street that came to a dead end,” wrote Catherine, who lives in Fredericksburg, Va. It was a challenge to find, but find it they did.
“However, before we even sat down, we were called by a voice we recognized — the voice of a fellow teacher,” Catherine wrote. “It turned out that he, his wife and 16-year-old daughter were also traveling, and the parents had heard the same request: pizza.”
In 1983, Alexandria’s Mary Goldwag and her husband, Ed, took a trip to China. While Mary was in the ladies room at Beijing’s Summer Palace, Ed chatted with another waiting husband.
“When both of us ladies emerged, and we all exchanged names, I discovered that the other lady was someone I knew,” Mary wrote.
It was her ninth-grade English teacher from Taft Junior High in Northeast D.C. “Since then, my teacher had graduated law school and become a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,” Mary wrote. “She later became chief judge.”
In 1994, Norma and Burt Kirschner were traveling in Israel with their friends Gloria and Fred when something in a bookstore window caught Gloria’s eye.
“I want to read that book,” Gloria said, running into the store.
Wrote Norma: “We followed her in and Fred said ‘We have two more weeks here. Why carry that around? When we get back to Silver Spring you can buy it.’ ”
A male customer in the store whipped around and said “Silver Spring, Maryland? I just bought a house on Lamberton Drive.”
Norma said to Gloria: “Isn’t that where Jan and Len lived?”
It turned out the man had just bought their friends Jan and Len’s house.
In 1972, Jim Yenckel boarded a train in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bound for Singapore.
“Tugging my backpack toward my seat I spotted a seated woman whose face seemed familiar,” wrote Jim, of the District.
Jim kept walking, then turned around for a second look. By then, the woman was on her feet.
“Jeem?” she queried. And then Jim knew.
“She was Valli, the secretary at the English language newspaper in Santiago, Chile, where I had worked eight years earlier,” he wrote. “I was always Jeem, not Jim, to her. Like me, she and her friend were exploring Southeast Asia.”
In the summer of 1973, Annapolis’s Bernie Wulff and his wife, Louise, took their daughters, Kathleen (then age 7) and Cynthia (then 5), on a six-week European vacation. While standing on a crowded Paris Metro platform near Notre Dame cathedral, Louise mentioned that their daughters were the only young children she could spot, before adding, “Except for that family over there.”
“That family over there” turned out to be friends from Baltimore with their two young children.
On a trip to Europe years ago, Terry Mitchell ran into multiple people he knew.
“I worked in the Pentagon Press Briefing Room and had completed a briefing with a Marine general,” wrote Terry, of Alexandria. “The next day I flew out and landed at Schiphol Airport [in Amsterdam] and as I walked down the jet way the general was standing there. He looked a bit startled as I said hello.”
Next stop: Italy. Terry was standing outside a shop on the Isle of Capri in the pouring rain when a couple ran up to him.
“We used to ride the bus to the Metro together,” Terry wrote.
On the way home from the same trip, Terry was delayed overnight at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. As the homebound flight was called for boarding, Terry and another woman stood up. She was a Pentagon correspondent who knew Terry from his job.
“We both said ‘What are you doing here?’ to each other,” Terry wrote “I should have bought a lottery ticket after that trip.”
Tomorrow: More travel coincidences. | 2022-08-14T16:34:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Readers share stories of travel coincidences half a world from home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/travel-coincidences/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/travel-coincidences/ |
Maybe Marylanders don’t want exorbitant tolls
Opponents of a Maryland Department of Transportation plan to add toll lanes to part of the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270 rally on June 8, 2021, in Rockville. (Katherine Shaver/The Washington Post)
I am puzzled by the oversimplification of the Maryland highway issues discussed in the Aug. 11 editorial “Twisting in the wind.” If, as described, Maryland’s plans for improving the nation’s capital area’s traffic are “in limbo,” one reason might be that most Marylanders are disgusted by the high tolls they experience on the “express” lanes of Interstate 95 south of D.C., as well as those on the Dulles Toll Road and Interstate 66. If that is what we get in the bargain of offloading highway building responsibilities to nongovernmental entities, a.k.a. public-private partnerships, while still facing congestion, many Marylanders would rather pass on that bargain.
Maryland has done quite well financing its road infrastructure via its toll authority, the Maryland Transportation Administration (MDTA). Witness the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway (I-95) northeast of Baltimore, the Baltimore Harbor Tunnels, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and, most germane to the D.C. suburbs, the Intercounty Connector (Maryland Route 200). These roads were built with tax-exempt bond issuances that were underwritten by toll revenue, to some extent aggregated throughout the MDTA system. The Purple Line, purportedly financed via a public-private partnership, became an overly complex and expensive solution for Maryland.
Perhaps the bitter pill of tolling on public roads would be less bitter if a responsive government entity such as MDTA was the concept-to-completion entity directly responsible for the proposed projects on Interstates 495 and 270.
Jim Leanos, Parkville, Md.
The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) issued its final environmental study of the toll lanes project on June 17. The massive report totals 26,000 pages. It includes a substantial amount of information that has not previously been disclosed, such as an analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and an analysis showing how the project impacts low-income communities and communities of color compared with others.
Because MDOT delayed these disclosures until the final study, the public was prevented from providing feedback on the new information and helping to shape final decisions about the toll lanes. The Federal Highway Administration is doing its due diligence to review the massive study and ensure that MDOT complies with federal law.
Given the substantial risks to our environment, communities and wallets, we should want nothing less.
Barbara Coufal, Bethesda
The writer is co-chair of Citizens Against Beltway Expansion.
The editorial extolling Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) transportation plans for Maryland in the vicinity of D.C. mentioned the value of cooperation with Virginia.
Currently the focus is on the American Legion Bridge crossing the Potomac River. It is not clear just how many more lanes can be added to that structure.
Not mentioned was the value of another crossing upstream on the Potomac. An excellent opportunity for cooperation is that Virginia Route 28 could be extended north to the river, and in Maryland the western end of the Intercounty Connector could be extended west to reach the Potomac at the point where Route 28 arrives.
On a map, that possible option is obvious. It would meet the transportation needs of 1 million people and would greatly improve access to Dulles Airport. However, as the editorial pointed out, NIMBYism and legal obstructions are the reasons for very long delays in any needed infrastructure program.
The western end of Montgomery County contains enough wealthy lawyers to delay that bridge forever unless the citizen demand were to become very intense.
Tom Sheahen, Oakland | 2022-08-14T18:11:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Maybe Marylanders don’t want exorbitant tolls - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/maybe-marylanders-dont-want-exorbitant-tolls/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/maybe-marylanders-dont-want-exorbitant-tolls/ |
Protecting access to medicine
As someone who has been living with multiple sclerosis (MS) and taking disease modifying therapies (DMTs) for most of my childbearing years, I appreciated the Aug. 11 front-page article “For the chronically ill, a domino effect from abortion bans.”
I was diagnosed with MS at 27 when I went blind in my left eye. As the doctor gave me and my then-fiance (and now husband of 22 years) the news, she asked if we planned to start a family. We nodded but quickly explained that we were in no hurry. She suggested I take Avonex, a proven DMT, and explained that it could cause miscarriages, so we would have to be careful about birth control. I decided the medication’s benefits were worth the side effects. I stayed on Avonex for 12 years with two breaks when my husband and I were ready to have children. Because of Avonex’s side effects, I had to stop taking it two months before trying to get pregnant, and I had to stay off it throughout the pregnancies and while breastfeeding.
After Avonex, I have been on new DMTs, which can also cause miscarriages. I am very thankful that these drugs exist because now, 23 years since I was diagnosed, my eyesight is fine (not 100 percent but okay), and most people have no idea I have MS. I fear that one of the unintended (or “uneducated”) consequences of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision is that women like me will have access to fewer DMTs to help manage their disease.
Catherine Schenker, Bethesda | 2022-08-14T18:11:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Protecting access to medicine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/protecting-access-medicine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/protecting-access-medicine/ |
U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts with Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Tah-ray Yui after arriving at Taoyuan International Airport on Aug. 14. (Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs/AFP/Getty Images) This handout picture taken and released by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Aug.14, 2022 shows Sen. Edward J. Markey posing with Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Tah-ray Yui after arriving at Taoyuan International Airport.
Five members of Congress, led by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), are expected to meet with meet President Tsai Ing-wen and other senior leaders to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, regional security issues, trade and climate change, according to the American Institute in Taiwan.
The congressional delegation visiting the island this week includes Democratic House members John Garamendi and Alan Lowenthal from California and Don Beyer from Virginia. It also includes Republican Rep. Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a delegate from American Samoa, according to the spokesperson for Markey. | 2022-08-14T19:02:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S. lawmakers visit Taiwan after Pelosi trip angers China - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/14/taiwan-visit-markey-china-tensions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/14/taiwan-visit-markey-china-tensions/ |
Global Opinions contributing writer
A worker prepares Indian national flags for Independence Day celebrations on the outskirts of Kolkata on Aug. 4. (Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP via Getty Images)
To celebrate 75 years of independence, the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked people to proudly display the tricolor of the Indian flag — well, perhaps “asked” is not quite accurate.
An initiative spearheaded by Modi’s most radical nationalist minister, Amit Shah, is urging people to display flags at homes and businesses and post pictures on social media. But of course this could only lead to more polarization in Modi’s India, where blind nationalism is displacing democracy at a rapid pace: In a viral video, daily wage workers complain about being forced to buy flags to “prove” their patriotism, when they barely have enough to buy a meal.
Modi’s “Har ghar tiranga” (“tricolor in every house”) campaign has become yet another flash point in our society — a tool of distraction for what really matters. As India grapples with an economic crisis — with the rupee plunging to historic lows — and the pain of rising unemployment is felt on the streets, the Modi government has decided to announce an ambitious plan: display at least 200 million flags by Aug. 15, Indian independence day.
In the middle of serious challenges, one would expect India’s government to use the independence celebration to call for the strengthening of our founding values — democracy, inclusiveness, freedom of expression. Instead, we get ugly displays of patriotic fervor and institutional discrimination. In the state of Uttarakhand, ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, the state leader already asked his supporters to take pictures of households that do not display the national flag on Aug. 15.
WhatsApp groups among relatives, colleagues and friends are descending into virtual “us” vs. “them” slugfests over the flag. In India, patriotism has become a toxic performance.
A Muslim friend who works in finance and lives in an exclusive neighborhood in Mumbai found himself removed from his office WhatsApp group because he refused to change his profile picture to the national flag. “I did not change my display picture. I felt pressured. I was being singled out with every third person asking me to change it. I did not want to be coerced into proving my patriotism,” he told me.
In a room full of people, he was told in no uncertain terms that he was not loyal to India.
There’s little to celebrate this independence day. The past eight years have made India a global cause of alarm, as the Modi government has subverted democracy in favor of his own brand of autocratic Hindu nationalism. India has fallen to the 150th position in the World Press Freedom Index as journalists are arrested every odd day over tweets or for reporting critical stories.
Hate crimes against Muslims have been normalized, to the extent that news channels do not even consider them worthy of coverage anymore. Freedom House downgraded India from “free” to “partially free” in its annual report over attacks and discrimination of religious minorities and the weaponizing of government agencies against critics. For the fourth consecutive year, India suffered the dubious distinction of leading the list of countries with the most internet shutdowns.
For the first time in the history of India, the country faced an unprecedented diplomatic backlash by 20 countries over a government spokesperson’s insulting remarks against Islam.
The country’s powerful film industry has set out to dehumanize Muslims and promote Islamophobia. And the country continues to fail many of its most vulnerable citizens. In the Global Hunger Index, India ranks 101 out of 116 countries.
Clearly there’s no room for that in Modi’s vision.
This Aug. 15, the Indian government asks only one thing of us: Let’s raise up our flags!
Let’s raise up the tricolor everywhere — to cover up the injustice, the poverty and desperation, the vindictive and pervasive cruelty of a government that has only succeeded in making us less independent and more narrow-minded. | 2022-08-14T19:42:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Raise your Indian flag high: There’s much injustice to cover up - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/india-independence-75-years-flags-injustice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/india-independence-75-years-flags-injustice/ |
A year after Kabul fell to the Taliban, Afghan girls stay unsinkable
“Can you see me?” the girl in the water asked me. “Can you see?”
We were at the Rwanda campus of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan — the boarding school for Afghan girls I founded — this Afghan girl and I, not long ago. She and her classmates were taking swimming lessons in our pool. She was in the deep end. I was standing at poolside. And she’d just let go of the wall.
“I can,” I said. I watched her legs kicking as she treaded water. “You’re staying up. You’re doing great.”
“Today’s the first day I can do this,” she said, the droplets flying, and her smile was so beautiful. “My goal was to stay above water, and you’re seeing me meet my goal.”
For nearly a year, The Post has granted me the extraordinary privilege of sharing stories of Afghan women: stories of our lives, stories of what it means to be brave in moments large and small.
I’ve shared these stories not to romanticize reality or indulge in easy metaphor. I share them because you need to know that Afghan women will not give up. Ever. Not on themselves and not on each other and not on their nation. I share them because the international community needs to know that engaging with the bravery of Afghan women offers the best chance of lifting my homeland out of the downward spiral the Taliban has set us on.
On Aug. 15, 2021, I locked the gate at our campus in Kabul and walked into the streets as that spiral lurched back into motion. Its momentum has grown merciless. My beautiful country is in economic free fall. Families are starving. Girls like my students are barred from school. Women like me are forbidden from working.
In my very first column, I asked you not to look away from Afghanistan. I wrote: “Educated girls grow to become educated women, and educated women will not allow their children to become terrorists. The secret to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan is no secret at all: It is educated girls.”
And so today, one year down the spiral, as the world follows news of the death of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri at his hideaway in Kabul, girls walk into secret schools on the outskirts of our city. They learn English, and they learn art. In living rooms, women gather in secret to strategize ways to fight for the human rights they’ve been denied. As it was in my childhood, so it is again.
Far away from her family in Afghanistan, a girl treaded water in a pool. There were only women at swimming practice that day, as always. Our students were clad in burkinis, as always. Yet there are those in Afghanistan who would still see such healthy recreation as questionable, and I asked this girl: “Do you tell your family about days like this? Do you share these moments with them?”
She used a respectful term of address in responding, but there was no mistaking the incredulity in her voice. “Shabana Jan,” she said, “I share everything with them. They’re so happy that I’m happy and that I’m learning.”
She is studying in Rwanda, but so many girls like her are in refugee camps and back in Afghanistan. I am working in Rwanda, but so many women like me are in refugee camps and back home. In our worldwide exile and in our brutalized homeland, we are one year down the spiral with so much lost. So much taken. And yet there is so much within us that will not, cannot be extinguished.
At the pool that day, girls were splashing, laughing, bobbing below the surface and coming back up, their faces wet and smiling.
“Can you see me?” an Afghan girl asked. | 2022-08-14T19:42:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | A year after Kabul fell to the Taliban, Afghan girls stay unsinkable - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/year-kabul-taliban-afghan-girls-swimming/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/year-kabul-taliban-afghan-girls-swimming/ |
Police said the dog was found in neighboring Prince George’s County. He was identified by his microchip.
By Lizzie Johnson
Bruno, a 1-year-old male French bulldog, was taken at gunpoint on April 13 in Northwest Washington. (D.C. police)
Four months after a French bulldog named Bruno was stolen at gunpoint in Washington, police found the 1-year-old pup dead in neighboring Prince George’s County, according to authorities and his owner.
The bulldog was identified by his microchip, a D.C. police spokesperson said.
Police in Prince George’s County declined to comment on Bruno’s death. D.C. police will continue to investigate the incident, along with the original armed robbery, which occurred on April 13.
“They found my frenchie this morning,” Jamaica Harvey, Bruno’s owner, posted on Facebook Friday. “Unfortunately he was not alive, ppl so sick. Took a $6,000 dog & couldn’t afford to take care of him!”
Two dogs taken at gunpoint in separate robberies in D.C.
During a summer of spiking violent crime in the nation’s capital — from robberies to carjackings to homicides — the theft of two dogs immediately dominated headlines, with thousands of shares online.
Bruno was stolen at gunpoint while on a walk in Brightwood Park — about 15 minutes before an 11-week-old Australian Shepherd named Pablo was also snatched outside a CVS in Shaw. Within 30 hours, police found Pablo in an apartment in Northeast Washington — along with drugs and firearms and 100 rounds of ammunition — and returned him to his owners. Four adults and three juveniles, who were also in the home, were charged with receiving stolen property.
If people in the house that police raided had Pablo, a distraught Harvey told The Post in April, then “why don’t they have the other” dog?
She created a GoFundMe to raise money for a reward or to hire a private investigator. On the page, the bulldog — a gray brindle with a white chest and green eyes — is pictured with a small child and a wrapped Christmas present. Harvey raised $7,425 of her $6,000 goal — but she had no leads on Bruno’s whereabouts.
“I don’t think I will ever be the same after this situation,” Harvey tweeted in April. “To be just walking your dog and have … a family member [taken] from you. Like do I still walk the same route? Do I change my schedule? So traumatizing.”
Abby Sevcik, Pablo’s owner, tweeted back at her: “the whole city is rooting for you and bruno!” She added a red heart emoji.
As the months passed, Harvey began to lose hope. She passed out fliers in the neighborhood where Bruno had gone missing, hoping he’d catch her scent and bark. She thought about putting away his bed and bucket of toys, which made her cry every time she walked past them. And online, she shared photos and videos of the pup she’d had since he was 8 weeks old.
There was Bruno, chasing a yellow soccer ball across the living room floor. Bruno in a red collar, grunting and climbing into Harvey’s lap as she tried to leave for school. Bruno in a blue-and-green plaid coat at the park, his pink tongue hanging out. Bruno in the car, lapping an orange lollipop.
As the summer passed, Harvey hoped that whoever had her dog was treating him right and giving him the love and attention he deserved. She hoped that Bruno wasn’t locked in a cage somewhere. But deep down, she said in a tweet, she already knew: “my heart is telling me I will never see my boy again.” | 2022-08-14T19:46:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bruno, a French bulldog taken at gunpoint in D.C., has been found dead - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/bruno-french-bulldog-found-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/bruno-french-bulldog-found-dead/ |
Harvard flunks in this college ranking system
Harvard University. (Charles Krupa/AP)
Last week Education Secretary Miguel Cardona slammed college ranking systems that placed importance on high selectivity in admissions, saying at a summit on excellence and equity in higher education:
[M]any institutions spend enormous time and money chasing rankings they feel carry prestige, but in truth, 'do little more than ‘Xerox privilege,’ as one HBCU president says.
He didn’t mention the annual U.S. News & World Report college rankings, but he didn’t have to; those famous rankings repeatedly reward Ivy League-plus schools with top rankings through a methodology that rewards large endowments and resources most schools don’t have.
In 2018, U.S. News modified the way it calculates its rankings, dropping data for admission rates — which focused attention on the most highly selective schools — and putting some focus on low-income students. But the top results didn’t much change; Princeton University has been at No. 1 on the national universities rankings for nearly a dozen years.
U.S. News changed the way it ranks colleges. It’s still ridiculous.
Other organizations have found different ways to rank colleges, and this post is about how Third Way, a Washington-based think tank, does it: by defining the value of a college based on the proportion of lower-income students it enrolls and the economic benefit it provides them.
This piece was written by Michael Itzkowitz, a senior fellow at Third Way. He also served as director of the Education Department’s College Scorecard during the Obama administration.
By Michael Itzkowitz
These are statements you don’t often hear: Harvard is a fourth-tier institution. In fact, it ranks 847th out of 1,320 bachelor’s degree-granting institutions across the United States.
But if you measure colleges in terms of the economic mobility they actually provide — rather than exclusivity and test scores — they are spot-on.
I’ve been studying the value of colleges for years, and some of my research — along with the popularity of college rankings — has led me to ask some basic questions about how we evaluate colleges.
Do college rankings actually reflect the purpose of our higher education system? Or are they simply a tool to generate the same list of well-resourced and selective schools year after year?
I assume you can guess the conclusion that I came to. But if the purpose of higher education is to lift the next generation up and leave them better off — rather than just reproduce the class divides that already exist — how do we effectively measure that?
In 2020, Third Way and I introduced a concept known as the Price-to-Earnings Premium, which looks at the cost that students actually pay out-of-pocket relative to the earnings “boost” that they obtain by attending a specific institution. This allows prospective students to estimate the time it will take to recoup the cost of earning a degree. Then, I looked at this premium specifically for low-income students.
As I ran the numbers, I sat in excitement waiting for the results to come up. But the data surprised me. The schools that popped up at the top? Duke, Stanford, William & Mary, Harvard and Yale universities. The institutions where low-income students received the best return on investment essentially mimicked the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings.
But one thing about all of these schools at the top of the list stood out: Every one of them enroll fewer than one in five students from low- and moderate-income backgrounds. If you’re one of the few and fortunate to get admitted, you will probably get a great return on investment. However, most people’s chances of being admitted are extremely limited. And if you do get accepted, it’s likely that you will end up successful no matter where you enroll.
This wasn’t what I was looking for, but it did lead me to create a new way to rate institutions, known as the Economic Mobility Index. Rather than prioritizing selectivity and test scores — as traditional college rankings do — the EMI defines the value a college provides based on the proportion of lower-income students it enrolls, in addition to the economic benefit they receive.
Incorporating both of these outcomes provides a better indication of the colleges that are actually delivering on the promise of the higher education system as a whole — schools that are opening the door to a degree and lifting students up throughout the socioeconomic ladder.
The result? Schools that top the U.S. News list — Princeton, Harvard and Yale universities, for example — drop to #426, #847 and #495, respectively, in terms of the economic mobility they provide.
Instead, schools like those in the California State University System, Texas A&M University and the City University of New York rise to the top. In fact, the top 10 schools are all Hispanic-serving institutions. And historically Black college and universities — which are chronically underfunded and oftentimes nowhere to be found in popular news rankings — secure seven spots in the top 100 schools.
These schools have been delivering on the promise of higher education for years. But most news outlets and college rankings publications provide them with no recognition whatsoever.
It’s time for that to change. Instead of rewarding schools based on the size of their endowments, historical prestige and the test scores of students who enroll, news outlets need to prioritize institutions that provide opportunity and leave most students better off than where they started.
Schools like Harvard may not like this. But if the goal of higher education is to actually lift students up throughout the socioeconomic ladder, Harvard is simply a fourth-tier institution.
You can see more of the rankings here. | 2022-08-14T19:46:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harvard flunks in these college rankings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/14/harvard-flunks-this-college-ranking/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/14/harvard-flunks-this-college-ranking/ |
Romanian swimmer, 17, breaks 100-meter men’s freestyle record
David Popovici of Romania celebrates after winning the men's 100-meter freestyle final at the European Aquatics Championships. (Giuseppe Lami/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
One of swimming’s oldest records toppled on Saturday courtesy of one of its youngest stars, as 17-year-old Romanian swimmer David Popovici bested César Cielo’s 13-year-old 100-meter men’s freestyle mark at the European Aquatics Championship in Rome. Popovici time of 46.86 eclipsed the former event record by 0.05 seconds and Saturday’s second-fastest competitor, Kristóf Milák, by 0.61 seconds.
“It felt great and it’s very special to break this record which was set here in 2009 by César Cielo,” Popovici (via the Associated Press).
Though announcers declared Popovici the odds-on favorite entering Saturday’s final, his win hardly appeared inevitable at the halfway mark of the race, as he trailed France’s Maxime Grousset with 50 meters remaining. Popovici ultimately pulled ahead with a second-half surge, measured at a 24.12 split.
Cielo, the previous record-holder, complimented Popovici’s performance on Twitter, declaring that Popovici is “just getting started.”
Few swimmers have come close to Popovici’s impressive 2022. In June, he set the World Junior record for the 200-meter freestyle, notching a 1:43.21 time at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest, while his 100-meter record is a half-second faster than any other swimmer this year.
Popovici will have a chance to improve on his World Junior record in the 200-meter freestyle final Monday afternoon after finishing with the event’s fastest time in Sunday’s semifinal.
Through Sunday’s races, Popovici’s victory stands as Romania’s lone medal, while Italy holds a commanding lead over the rest of its European counterparts with 25 total medals. The European Aquatic Championship concludes on Wednesday. | 2022-08-14T19:47:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | David Popovici of Romania, just 17, breaks 100-meter freestyle record - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/david-popovici-swim-record/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/david-popovici-swim-record/ |
FILE - Cincinnati’s Leonard Taylor (11) is chased by Notre Dame’s JD Bertrand (27) during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021, in South Bend, Ind. Cincinnati won 24-13. Cincinnati set itself up to become the first Group of Five team to make the College Football Playoff by winning at Notre Dame. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File) | 2022-08-14T19:47:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | G5 teams could have fewer chances vs. P5 after realignment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/g5-teams-could-have-fewer-chances-vs-p5-after-realignment/2022/08/14/98474d3e-1bfd-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/g5-teams-could-have-fewer-chances-vs-p5-after-realignment/2022/08/14/98474d3e-1bfd-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
Rubio’s fake populism is no match for real history
By Sean Wilentz
President George W. Bush, an avid reader of presidential biographies, presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to historian David McCullough at the White House on Dec. 15, 2006. McCullough died Aug. 7. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Sean Wilentz teaches at Princeton University and is the author of, among other books, “The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln.”
“I’m not a scientist, man,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) once told an interviewer. He was evading a question about creationism and how old planet Earth is. “I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that,” he said.
Now Rubio has disclosed that he’s no historian, either.
The senator, up for reelection, has adopted a familiar tactic by expressing his contempt for American historians who recently met with President Biden to put current events into historical perspective. According to Rubio, those in attendance, including myself, are “elitists” and “snobs.” According to his account of our conversation, for which he obviously was not present, we urged the president to stop allowing “working everyday people and their common sense” to “play a role in our decision-making.”
In fact, much of the historical discussion with the president involved exactly the opposite, including how to address issues that affect the hard-working American majority and how to overcome polarization.
Historians have long chronicled the deliberate manipulation and falsification of events for political purposes. Rubio’s version of what happened in the meeting stands in the sorry tradition of the great propagandists. He maligns independent thinkers and fabricates what they say to depict them as enemies of the people.
The danger is twofold. Rubio has contributed to a culture of fakery for easy political profit that plays upon suspicion and fuels the current atmosphere of incitement.
Secondly, Rubio strikes at the very idea of American history itself. What makes studying the history of the American people “elitist”? And why wouldn’t we want all our presidents to seek a stronger grasp of the past as they wrestle with our future?
Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, of course, were historians. Ronald Reagan brought historians into the White House, as have most other presidents going back at least to John F. Kennedy, who also wrote history. George H.W. Bush made himself, his family, his diary and his papers available to one of the historians who was at the Biden session. George W. Bush has long been an avid reader of presidential biographies.
Rubio’s contempt for historians and his predictable attempt to stir up hostility against them are part of a long American fake populist tradition of vilifying intellect, a tradition that infects out politics with reliable frequency. It extends from the Anti-Masons and the Know-Nothings of the 19th century through Father Charles Coughlin and McCarthyism in the 20th century to Donald Trump today.
For the present-day GOP, it has become standard operating procedure.
Real American populism began with working everyday people, mostly farmers, in the fight of their lives against railroad tycoons, banker plutocrats and land-speculating moguls. It aimed to use the federal government to contain and regulate their exorbitant private power.
Fake populism, a craft that Rubio is clearly trying to master, distracts attention from the abuses of corrupt politicians and plutocrats by manufacturing imaginary threats both at home and abroad while projecting cooler heads as elitists.
Down through our history, the fake populists have always maligned teachers, professors and intellectuals of every kind as well as journalists and various other groups, ethnic, racial and professional.
In the 1950s, Joe McCarthy smeared everyone outside the right wing as elitist subversives, including Gen. George C. Marshall. Segregationist governor George C. Wallace of Alabama raised a following in part by attacking “pointy heads” and “longhairs.”
It is the fake populists who display disrespect for everyday Americans. It is the fake populists who regard the people as incapable of serious thought, reflection and, indeed, common sense. It is the fake populists, including Ivy League grads Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, who rail against the Ivy League and then vote to seat right-wing Yalies, Harvardians and Princetonians on the Supreme Court.
Common sense tells you that’s a hypocritical con game, but the fake populists run that play over and over because they assume the people are too dumb to catch on.
It doesn’t take much to see the imminent perils facing American democracy. They come from those who planned, abetted, whipped up and participated in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That peril is deepened by those who encourage violence against the FBI for a perfectly legal search for secret national security documents at Mar-a-Lago.
History shows that fake populism and anti-intellectualism — with, as a byproduct, targeting independent thought — are necessary ingredients of an authoritarian takeover. We can expect to hear much more of it from Rubio and the rest of the Republican Party, now that they have crossed the line from cowardly complicity to active support. | 2022-08-14T20:03:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Rubio’s fake populism is no match for real history - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/historians-biden-white-house-rubio/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/14/historians-biden-white-house-rubio/ |
Many in the GOP have launched broadsides against law enforcement, prompting even some of their colleagues to urge them to tone down the rhetoric
“I thought in the old days the Republican Party used to stand with law enforcement,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “And I hope some of them do today because this kind of rhetoric is very dangerous to our country.”
On CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, dismissed some Republicans’ comments that Trump may have kept documents at Mar-a-Lago that he had declassified during his presidency. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Schiff on Saturday requested a briefing from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines about whether the documents posed a threat to national security.
Rep. Michael R. Turner (Ohio), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said Attorney General Merrick Garland “has a lot of questions to answer.” At the same time that he called on the Justice Department to release more information about the recovered documents, Turner speculated that the information in the records may be outdated and may not have been technically classified.
Another Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), urged the Justice Department to release the affidavit supporting the search warrant, a document that lays out the reasons federal prosecutors thought it was necessary to search Mar-a-Lago. He joined other members of his party in suggesting that Trump’s actions could have been legal, saying that the former president may have had the power to declassify the documents retrieved by the FBI. | 2022-08-14T20:25:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Condemnations of FBI in wake of Trump seizure worry lawmakers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/14/trump-fbi-attacks-hogan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/14/trump-fbi-attacks-hogan/ |
The report contains new details about the number of Americans left behind and the paucity of State Department staff to process Afghans trying to flee.
President Biden watches as Marines carry the remains of Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, who was killed a year ago alongside 12 other U.S. troops and an estimated 200 Afghans in an attack at the Kabul airport. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Sunday disclosed the findings of their inquiry into the Biden administration’s calamitous evacuation from Afghanistan a year ago, an apparent blueprint for a deeper investigation of the president and his top advisers should the GOP win the House majority in November’s midterm elections.
A final draft of their report, provided to The Washington Post, contains new details about the number of Americans left behind when the last military transport departed Kabul’s international airport and the paucity of State Department officers on hand to process the tens of thousands of Afghans trying to flee the Taliban’s takeover. But overall, there are few major revelations.
Biden blames others for swift collapse in Afghanistan, defends his decision to withdraw troops
The evacuation, unprecedented in scale, was carried out over the last two weeks of August 2021, after the Taliban swept into Kabul, the capital, forcing the U.S.-backed government’s instantaneous collapse. More than 120,000 people were airlifted out of the country, but the mission was overshadowed by a suicide attack that killed an estimated 200 Afghans and 13 American troops, and then a botched U.S. drone strike that left 10 civilians dead.
Biden and his national security team have faced withering criticism for ordering a complete withdrawal despite Pentagon recommendations that the military maintain a modest footprint in Afghanistan to enable local forces. Critics also have faulted his administration for the disorder, both before and during the evacuation, that for many thwarted their attempts to escape.
“There was a complete lack and a failure to plan,” Rep. Michael McCaul (Tex.), the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Republican, said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” “There was no plan, and there was no plan executed.”
In a statement, the White House refuted the investigation’s findings, labeling the document a “partisan report” that is “riddled with inaccurate characterizations, cherry-picked information and false claims.”
“When President Biden took office, he was faced with a choice: ramp up the war and put even more American troops at risk, or finally end the United States’ longest war after two decades of American presidents sending U.S. troops to fight and die in Afghanistan,” Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the National Security Council, wrote in response to the report.
Over the past year, President Biden has repeatedly defended his decision to order the withdrawal of U.S. forces, calling the war unwinnable while also faulting the Trump administration for negotiating what he has criticized as an unfavorable agreement that set the conditions for a U.S. exit.
Families of U.S. troops killed in Kabul airport bombing question whether Pentagon distorted investigation findings
The administration has been wary of GOP attempts to lay the groundwork for what many observers of Congress believe will be a season of impeachment investigations should Republicans take over the House — a prospect well within reach, as Democrats have only a slim majority.
Multiple Republican lawmakers have filed proposed charges against Biden on subjects ranging from the Afghanistan withdrawal to alleged “corruption” involving his son, Hunter Biden. Such moves are widely seen as an effort to subject Biden to the same investigative scrutiny that Democrats applied to his predecessor, President Donald Trump, who was twice impeached by the House but never convicted in the Senate.
The report, which is scathing in places, was prepared by McCaul’s staff. He has not joined those in the GOP calling for Biden to face Congress’s ultimate oversight tool, but his team has not ruled out such an outcome.
“The decision to withdraw U.S. military forces was made by President Biden, despite advice from his military commanders that such a move could lead to Taliban battlefield gains,” the report states, adding at various points that this decision put the lives of Americans and Afghans in grave danger.
“President Biden continues to mischaracterize the advice he received,” it says. “President Biden continued to lie about this, even months after the withdrawal was complete.”
“No one personified the indifference and lack of urgency regarding the dire situation facing SIV applicants more than President Biden,” the report reads, using an acronym for Special Immigrant Visa, a limited visa category for certain Afghans who assisted the United States throughout the 20-year war. Biden, it says, abandoned “his pledge” to extract American citizens.
Documents reveal U.S. military's frustration with White House diplomats
The administration began conducting “tabletop exercises” on potential impacts of such a move in the spring of 2021, just after Biden was inaugurated. But White House officials said the intelligence community underestimated how quickly Taliban fighters would overpower Afghan forces and sweep into Kabul.
“We did extensive contingency planning throughout the spring and summer of 2021 and pre-positioned troops in the region, which enabled us to facilitate the evacuation of more than 120,000 people — including more than 70,000 Afghans who we have been welcomed to communities across our country,” Watson said.
Administration officials have sought to justify mistakes made during the evacuation by citing the chaos in and around Hamid Karzai International Airport. The report illustrates how dire the scene was — and how unprepared, its authors maintain, Biden’s team proved to be.
For instance, the investigation found that only 36 U.S. consular officers were on-site at the airport during the evacuation’s peak. The dearth of personnel, the authors determined, led to enormous administrative backlogs for the tens of thousands of people who possessed the proper documentation to come to the United States but ultimately were left behind.
Perhaps most problematic for Biden, the investigation determined that “over 800” American citizens were left behind, a figure several times higher than the 100 to 200 that administration officials claimed were stranded when the withdrawal concluded on Aug. 31, 2021.
Thousands of Afghan families remain severed after messy U.S. exit
The report’s authors also offer new details about the Afghan security forces who were left behind. Around 3,000 crossed into Iran, it says, taking their equipment and vehicles with them. If any have been recruited as intelligence assets by the Iranians, the committee aide said, it could pose a serious risk for U.S. national security, given how closely some units worked with U.S. troops.
“We believe this happened because they were not evacuated by the U.S. or our allies, and therefore had no other option,” the committee aide said.
The report’s authors say in the report that their findings are incomplete and require fuller investigation, laying out the approach the GOP would take if it secures the House majority and the subpoena power that comes with it. | 2022-08-14T21:17:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | GOP's Afghanistan report an investigative roadmap if they win the House - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/14/republican-investigation-biden-afghanistan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/14/republican-investigation-biden-afghanistan/ |
Japan observes the end of World War II on Monday, an anniversary that even 77 years later remains a source of contention both domestically and overseas. Statements by the country’s leaders are routinely examined for whether their level of contrition matches expectations.
In the not-too-distant past, it was often a day for prime ministers to visit Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, the Shinto memorial that commemorates the country’s 2.5 million war dead, controversially including WWII war criminals. But since Junichiro Koizumi last went there as leader in 2006, no sitting premier has visited on the war’s anniversary; and of the many leaders Japan has had in the interim, only the late Shinzo Abe went to the shrine while still in office, in December 2013.
Less than a decade on, the world at the time of Abe’s visit seems almost unrecognizable. Back then, headlines fretted about Japan’s increased military spending just as much as they did China’s; the US blamed Japan for increasing tensions with Xi Jinping’s regime, with then-Vice President Joe Biden believed to have been behind a statement expressing how “disappointed” the White House was with Abe. President Barack Obama still spoke of supporting China’s “peaceful rise.”
Some players remain, notably Xi and Biden; everything else has changed. The US is now the one urging Japan to rapidly increase its defense spending as it seeks to protect the international order from China’s “aggression.” And it’s Washington that’s on the receiving end of a backlash from Beijing for a visit that is largely symbolic. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan this month has raised cross-strait tensions to the highest level in decades, and has many wondering if a long-feared military conflict is becoming inevitable.
Comparisons between Pelosi’s visit and those of Japanese leaders to Yasukuni are imperfect to say the least: Unlike the shrine, the island doesn’t usually stir controversy — outside of China, that is. But there are parallels in how Beijing reacts, and uses the disputes for its own means. Just as China tolerated visits to Taiwan by US senators earlier this year but erupted when Pelosi went, so too has the regime accepted Yasukuni visits by Japanese cabinet ministers, but reacted indignantly when it’s the prime minister involved.
The arbitrariness is the point: China gets to dictate the rules. Beijing’s posturing over Yasukuni and other historical grievances with Japan often have less to do with the situation abroad than at home. Facing an economic downturn, dissatisfaction over Covid lockdowns and a looming mortgage crisis, Xi likely relishes the distraction afforded by Pelosi, just as his predecessors have used Japanese textbooks or wartime apologies as convenient tools to stoke nationalistic fervor.
Chinese pressure is also effective: For the most part, Yasukuni has lost its potency as a flashpoint in Japan as, for better or worse, leaders have chosen the path of least resistance and avoided going. While reaction from the US and South Korea also played a role, it was the economic impact with its largest trading partner that likely weighed heaviest on Japan, with even Abe avoiding Yasukuni during the rest of his time in office. It’s clear he would have visited more often if he felt he could. On the very day Abe left top office in 2020, he visited the shrine as an individual, and subsequently attended on the war-end anniversary last year.
Former Chinese President Hu Jintao once described Yasukuni visits as the “biggest reason for difficulties” in relations between the two countries, but ties are hardly rosy without them. Earlier this month, Beijing canceled a scheduled bilateral meeting with Japan, before lobbing missiles into its exclusive economic zone.
If Abe felt he couldn’t go to Yasukuni, it’s hard to see prime ministers doing so in the near future. The incumbent Fumio Kishida is not a vocal proponent; during last year’s campaigning for Japan’s top job he dodged direct answers over whether he would visit as prime minister. Barring the unexpected elevation to the top office of a firebrand such as the economic security minister, Sanae Takaichi, the shrine might not re-emerge as a tinderbox.
Instead, public debate over how history should be commemorated has shifted to a more unexpected source: the appropriateness of how to commemorate Abe himself. Shortly after his assassination last month, Kishida approved a state funeral, but public opinion is increasingly split on such a move. A recent NHK poll had 50% opposing it. A a group of lawyers and academics filed a lawsuit seeking to block the memorial ceremony for which the state will foot the 200 million yen ($1.5 million) bill.
The debate has broken on familiar partisan grounds, with right-leaning publications supporting the funeral and the left being less enthusiastic. It’s an issue that would hardly draw controversy elsewhere. For all its notable partisan division, the US comes together for state funerals for its leaders, most recently George H. W. Bush. Abe was Japan’s longest-serving leader, but the late premier will be only the second postwar prime minister to be honored in such a fashion, following Shigeru Yoshida in 1967.
Some have argued that more time needs to pass to process Abe’s accomplishments before deciding on such a commemoration. But then, this is a country that still can’t reach agreement on how to honor its war dead nearly eight decades later. Internally and externally, some historical debates are never going to be settled.
• Pelosi Backlash Shows Asia Who China Really Is: Gearoid Reidy
• Abe’s Biggest Legacy Is Military, Not Economic: James Stavridis | 2022-08-14T22:49:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lay Japan’s War Debates to Rest Along With Abe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/lay-japans-war-debates-to-rest-along-with-abe/2022/08/14/4171c7bc-1c1d-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/lay-japans-war-debates-to-rest-along-with-abe/2022/08/14/4171c7bc-1c1d-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
Israeli missile attack reportedly kills 3 troops
Israel launched a missile attack on western and central Syria on Sunday night, killing three soldiers and wounding three, the Syrian military said in a statement.
The Syrian army said Israel’s military targeted several positions in the coastal province of Tartus and the suburbs of the capital, Damascus. The military said that the missiles were fired by warplanes flying over neighboring Lebanon and caused material damage as well.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the Israeli strike targeted a Syrian army air defense base in the area of Abu Afsa. It added that Iran-backed fighters are usually at the base.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria over the past years but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.
Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, that sent thousands of fighters to fight alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Deputy president leads in vote as tempers fray
Deputy President William Ruto has edged ahead in Kenya’s tight presidential race, according to official results reported by local media on Sunday, as more riot police were deployed inside the national election tallying center after scuffles and accusations by party representatives.
The fracas underscored fraying tempers and high tensions as Kenya awaits official results from Tuesday’s election.
In the presidential race, official verified results reported by the Nation media group showed Ruto taking 51 percent of the vote, ahead of left-leaning opposition leader Raila Odinga, who had 48 percent.
Confusion over vote tallying in the media and the slow pace of progress by the electoral commission have fed anxiety in Kenya, which is East Africa’s richest and most stable nation but which has a history of violence over disputed elections.
Officially verified results on Saturday, with a little more than a quarter of votes counted, put Odinga in the lead with 54 percent of the vote while Ruto had 45 percent. The winner must get 50 percent of votes plus one. The commission has seven days from the election to declare the winners.
Fireworks blast in Armenian capital kills 1, injures 51: An explosion at a fireworks storage area tore through a market in Armenia's capital, killing at least one person, injuring 51 and setting off a large fire. The market, a little over a mile south of the city center, is popular for its low prices and variety of goods. There was no word on what caused the fireworks to ignite.
Norway puts down walrus that drew crowds: Authorities in Norway said they have put down a walrus that had drawn crowds in the Oslo Fjord after concluding that it posed a risk to humans. The 1,320-pound walrus, known affectionately as Freya, became a popular attraction in recent weeks, despite warnings from officials that people should refrain from getting close to the massive marine mammal. Freya liked to clamber on to small boats, causing damage to them.
13 dead in traffic accident in heavy rain in Pakistan: A truck overturned and fell onto a passenger van in eastern Pakistan during heavy rain, killing 13 people and injuring five, officials said. A senior administrative officer in Punjab province said the incident occurred in heavy rain. He said a truck loaded with sacks of sugar overturned and fell on the van. The van was smashed under the load, he said, and rescue workers could get only five passengers out alive. They were critically injured. The truck's driver was not among the fatalities. | 2022-08-14T22:49:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Digest: Aug. 14, 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-aug-14-2022/2022/08/14/68820a92-1bd2-11ed-b25f-fb4ac1c3f4c0_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/world-digest-aug-14-2022/2022/08/14/68820a92-1bd2-11ed-b25f-fb4ac1c3f4c0_story.html |
Texas Rangers’ Bubba Thompson, left, and Seattle Mariners catcher Curt Casali (5) watch Thompson’s single that drove in two runs during the fourth inning of a baseball game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022. Rangers’ Meibrys Viloria and Nathaniel Lowe (30) scored on the play. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
ARLINGTON, Texas — Corey Seager doubled twice and scored twice, including the tiebreaking run in the seventh inning, as the Texas Rangers beat the Seattle Mariners 5-3 on Sunday. | 2022-08-14T22:50:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Seager, Sborz lead Rangers past Mariners 5-3 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/seager-sborz-lead-rangers-past-mariners-5-3/2022/08/14/b3b48b7c-1c1b-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/mlb/seager-sborz-lead-rangers-past-mariners-5-3/2022/08/14/b3b48b7c-1c1b-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
Officials say Rahman Mills did not comply with an order to drop a gun. He faces five charges.
Lelonie Curry feels like a magnet for tragedy.
In February, one of her sons suffered a heart attack while he was standing outside their home. He froze to death of hypothermia. He had just recovered from being stabbed in a robbery three months earlier, and he died on the same date as Curry’s mother had in 1998.
Curry lost her husband of 26 years to lung cancer in 2013 and a daughter, Tamar E. Curry, in 2005. She was shot to death trying to break up a dispute, Curry said.
So Curry said she was unnerved when she recalled being so close to her son’s shooting scene while not knowing it at the time.
On Friday, while driving east on Mississippi Avenue SE, she ran into a police roadblock for a shooting investigation that forced her to take a detour. It wasn’t until Sunday that Curry said she learned that the roadblock cordoned off the scene where one of her sons, Rahman Mills, 29, had been shot by a D.C. police officer just moments earlier.
“I’m trying my best to keep myself straight,” she said in an interview Sunday.
D.C. police said officers on Friday had responded to the 1900 block of Mississippi Avenue SE for a report of domestic violence. They had been given a description of the alleged abuser and had been told he had a gun, police said. Upon arrival, officers approached Mills, but police said he ran to the back of the block, where an officer reported spotting him with a gun.
The officer told Mills to drop the gun “numerous” times, police said in a statement. When he didn’t comply, the officer shot Mills once before asking him again repeatedly to drop the gun, police said.
The officer fired again, striking Mills a second time. He was taken to a hospital, where police said he was treated for serious injuries. Police had no updates on his condition Sunday. He faces charges of aggravated assault, assault with a dangerous weapon, possession of an unregistered firearm, assault on a police officer and resisting arrest, police said.
Officer shoots man in Southeast D.C. after domestic violence call
The D.C. police department’s Force Investigation Team is investigating the shooting, and the officer who shot Mills has been placed on administrative leave, as is the department’s policy. Detectives are reviewing body-camera footage, police said.
Curry said she found out about the shooting Sunday, when a relative told her Mills had been shot. She said she doesn’t know what hospital he is at or his condition. Police have not called her, she said.
But she said she doesn’t doubt what occurred. She just questions whether her son actually held the gun rather than it being somewhere on him, and if he was physically capable of putting it on the ground while in pain from the first shot.
Court records show that Mills has been arrested multiple times on felony charges, the most recent of which was a 2019 charge of fleeing a law enforcement officer. He pleaded guilty and was scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 19.
Curry said she doesn’t know much about her son’s romantic life, saying he had many girlfriends. But she said he was raised in a family where her husband set a good example.
“He never put his hands on me,” she said. “They were raised with a mother and a father.”
Curry said she was aware Mills carried a gun, but she said he does so out of fear — something all of the family shares since Curry’s oldest son was put in protective custody several years ago as a witness in a criminal case.
“All of us have been in fear,” Curry said. “We have always been in fear ever since they took my oldest son into protective custody. I’ve had to move around and deal with certain things ever since they did that.”
She said Mills was in the District’s Project Empowerment, a program that seeks to train people who are difficult to employ because of felony records, skills deficiencies, homelessness, histories of substance abuse and other factors.
Mills, she said, had learning disabilities and mental health issues. He had been in special education classes his entire life and did not graduate from high school, Curry said.
Curry works as a youth correctional officer at the District’s Youth Services Center, and she said her children were taught to avoid trouble. She tries to keep tabs on them, she said, but they are careful with what they tell her, knowing she might disprove.
“My children, they keep secrets probably because they know I panic and I get upset because I don’t condone that,” she said.
The stress of the death of her son, Rashid Mills, six months ago has grieved her so deeply that she has been out of work on disability. Curry said she has trouble coping with the fact that he had died, collapsed mere feet away in the backyard because no one knew he was outside.
Now she said she wonders where Rahman Mills is. She says she wishes police had contacted her and let her know where he is being treated.
“At least let me know that he’s all right — that he’s okay,” Curry said. “That’s it.”
Razzan Nakhlawi contributed to this report. | 2022-08-15T00:07:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man shot by D.C. police on Friday remains hospitalized - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/rahman-mills-dc-police-shooting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/rahman-mills-dc-police-shooting/ |
Her semi-autobiographical novel, “The Passenger,” which centered on the reunion of an Auschwitz survivor and her former Nazi guard, inspired a noted opera
Zofia Posmysz at her home in Warsaw in 2020. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)
Zofia Posmysz, a Polish radio journalist on assignment in Paris, was crossing the Place de la Concorde in 1959 when she heard from among a group of tourists a voice that shattered the beauty of the scene. The speaker, a woman, was German. Briefly — excruciatingly — Ms. Posmysz thought she recognized in her voice that of the Aufseherin, or guard, who had overseen her at Auschwitz.
Ms. Posmysz, a Catholic, was 18 when she was arrested with other students in 1942 and spent more than two years at the Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. Days before the liberation of Auschwitz in January 1945, she was sent on a death march and transferred first to Ravensbrück and then another camp in Germany, where she was imprisoned until World War II ended in Europe.
The voice Ms. Posmysz overheard that day in the Place de la Concorde did not belong to her former overseer. Still, the encounter unsettled whatever peace Ms. Posmysz had found in the decade and a half since her liberation.
“I started to think: What should I do?” she told the Chicago Tribune years later, recalling the moments when she thought she had come face-to-face with her former guard. “Should I report her to the police immediately, as a former SS Nazi? Or should I go to her and ask, ‘Wie geht’s, Frau Aufseher,’ which translates as, ‘How goes it, Frau Overseer?’ ”
Ms. Posmysz, who died Aug. 8 at 98, went on to a noted career as a writer, exploring the Holocaust in fiction and drama. She turned her experience in Paris into a radio play and then a 1962 novel, “The Passenger,” in which the central character, a former concentration camp guard, sets sail on a cruise ship and meets a fellow traveler with an unmistakable resemblance to an inmate — much like Ms. Posmysz — whom the guard had thought was dead.
The story was adapted for film by Polish director Andrzej Munk, who died in 1961 during production, and later that decade for the opera stage by the Polish-born composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Russian librettist Alexander Medvedev.
Dmitri Shostakovich, the Soviet-era Russian composer, was said to have declared the opera a “perfect masterpiece.” But Communist censors in the Soviet Union, apparently deeming the work insufficiently laudatory of Soviet sacrifices during World War II, allowed the opera to languish for decades until it nearly disappeared.
Not until 2010 did the work have its premiere as a fully staged production, at the Bregenz Festival in Austria under the direction of David Pountney. Performances in Warsaw, London, Houston, New York, Chicago, Tel Aviv and elsewhere followed. Writing in the New Yorker in 2011, music critic Alex Ross described the opera as “a work of concentrated power that outweighs most other attempts to dramatize the Holocaust.”
Survivors and scholars have long debated the morality of attempting to represent the Holocaust in fiction, music and art. One of the most famous entries in the canon of Holocaust literature is William Styron’s 1979 novel, “Sophie’s Choice,” about the tortured past of a Polish Catholic survivor of Auschwitz. The novel, which received a National Book Award, was made into a 1982 film starring Meryl Streep and a 2002 opera by British composer Nicholas Maw.
“I also used to think no words could express such an experience,” the London Guardian quoted Ms. Posmysz as saying. “But that’s changed, because even if a hundredth of the truth is told, a fragment will live on in future generations. That is what we owe those who died there.”
Zofia Posmysz (her name was pronounced ZOH-fyah POH-smish) was born in Krakow on Aug. 23, 1923. She had just turned 16 and was attending a high school that specialized in business and economics when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, prompting the outbreak of World War II.
After the Nazi occupation, Ms. Posmysz’s school was closed. To avoid deportation for forced labor, she worked as a waitress at a government cafeteria. Eager to continue her education, she attended underground classes arranged by the Polish resistance. When she and the other students were arrested, one was carrying leaflets printed by the Polish resistance, an offense that also landed Ms. Posmysz on trial.
She was sent to Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi death camps in Europe, where more than 1.1 million people, including nearly 1 million Jews, were murdered. As a Catholic, she said, she was “beyond any doubt” spared the extent of torture visited upon Jews in the camp. But after another female inmate escaped, Ms. Posmysz told the New York Times, her entire work unit was moved to an Auschwitz sub-camp called Budy, where she was subjected to hard labor that almost killed her.
She was later assigned to work in a kitchen and stockroom in the Birkenau section of Auschwitz. There, she was overseen for more than a year by the guard whose voice later seemed to echo across the Place de la Concorde.
“She was always making sure that I was wearing clean clothes and clean laundry,” Ms. Posmysz told NPR in 2011. “Lice and fleas were very common, and so I think she did it for her own comfort, as well.”
There were other sounds from the camps that echoed in Ms. Posmysz’s memory — the cries of inmates who threw themselves on electrified fences, the haunting melody of a Jewish man she saw one night, his arms raised to the sky, singing a prayer for the dead. He was surrounded by bodies — alive or not, she could not tell. The next morning, she told the Times, “all we saw was the smoke coming from the crematory chimney.”
After her liberation in May 1945 from Neustadt-Glewe, a sub-camp of Ravensbrück, Ms. Posmysz walked 500 miles to her home in Krakow. Not long after, she returned to Auschwitz with her mother to explain what she had endured during the war. She showed her mother the bunks where she had slept when she was sick.
“That was it,” Ms. Posmysz told the Times. “She didn’t want to see any more and didn’t ask any more questions. Back home, she cried and said: ‘You should never go back there. You should forget about it.’ ”
After the war, Ms. Posmysz studied Polish literature at the University of Warsaw and became a journalist. Her first newspaper article, according to the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, a state-run Polish cultural organization, was about the trial in Germany of SS officers who had worked at Auschwitz. In place of her name, she signed the article with the number tattooed on her arm at the camp: 7566.
Ms. Posmysz later worked for the Polish state radio, where she became director of the news editorial section in 1958. She also branched into more literary writing projects, including the radio play based on her experience in Paris, “The Passenger in Cabin 45,” which aired in 1959.
Ms. Posmysz wrote several other radio plays and books, many of them examining the emotional trauma of the Holocaust. “In Auschwitz I met people who, I have no doubt, were saints,” she said. “I believe that it is the only subject that is still worth my writing about.”
She placed the action of “The Passenger” on an ocean liner rather than in a Parisian square, she said, so that the guard could not run from her past.
“All these people, they still have power over us. We can’t get out of this. We can’t set ourselves free,” she told NPR. “Our oppressors are present in our lives exactly the same as our heroes. We just can’t throw them out from our lives.”
The novel was translated into more than a dozen languages. Shostakovich was said to have read the Russian version and passed it on to Weinberg, a Jew who fled Nazi-occupied Poland for the Soviet Union and lost his family in the Holocaust. Weinberg began work on his opera in 1967, completed it the next year and died in 1996 having never seen it staged. Medvedev, the librettist, died days after the 2010 premiere.
Ms. Posmysz was in her late 80s by then and traveled with the opera production as it moved around the world, often receiving standing ovations.
Ms. Posmysz was married, but a complete list of survivors was not immediately available. Because of exposure to toxic substances in the camps, she told the Tribune, she was unable to have children.
A representative of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland confirmed Ms. Posmysz’s death, at a hospice center in the nearby city of Oswiecim, but did not cite a cause.
“For me, the most important thing was that the memory of Auschwitz should not disappear, that it should be alive when we, the witnesses, are no longer there,” Ms. Posmysz told the Polish edition of Newsweek in 2019. “I was convinced that music, more than a written word, a film or another genre of art, can do that.” | 2022-08-15T00:12:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Zofia Posmysz, whose Holocaust story reached opera stage, dies at 98 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/14/zofia-posmysz-holocaust-auschwitz-opera-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/14/zofia-posmysz-holocaust-auschwitz-opera-dead/ |
San Diego Padres second baseman C.J. Abrams prepares to throw to first for an out against the Minnesota Twins in a baseball game Saturday, July 30, 2022, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Derrick Tuskan)
The Nationals are calling up 21-year old shortstop C.J. Abrams to the majors to replace the injured Luis García, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. Abrams is the Nationals’ top prospect, according to Baseball America.
The decision comes after García was removed from Friday’s game with a groin strain after running out a ground ball.
Abrams was one of six players the Nationals received in return for Juan Soto and Josh Bell at this year’s trade deadline, and he’s a player Washington views as their shortstop of the future. Pitcher MacKenzie Gore and first baseman Luke Voit, also acquired in the deal, have been on the major league roster since Monday, though Gore hasn’t pitched yet as he deals with left elbow inflammation.
García said after Sunday’s game that he felt better than he did Friday but still felt pain when he tries to run. García also missed Wednesday’s game with right knee soreness. Martinez said Sunday evening the team would consider making a move if García’s groin didn’t improve; that move appears to be Abrams.
“We see [Abrams] as a five-tool type of talent,” Nationals General Manager Rizzo said Aug. 2. “He could steal you a base, he stays at shortstop, he’s got a good arm and a guy that can hit at the top of the order.”
Abrams hit .232 in 46 games with the Padres this season and also spent time with San Diego’s Class AAA affiliate. He made 28 starts at shortstop in place of Fernando Tatis Jr., six at second base and one in right field during his time in the majors.
Abrams was optioned to Class AAA Rochester following the trade because Manager Dave Martinez wanted him to get acclimated to the organization. The Nationals made a similar move last season with catcher Keibert Ruiz after he was traded from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Max Scherzer and Trea Turner deal.
Martinez wouldn’t put a timeline on when Abrams would make his Nationals debut in the days following the trade. Abrams hit 9 for 31 (.290) with two doubles and two RBI in eight games with Rochester.
When García was called up June 1, Martinez made it clear the plan was for him to be the Nationals’ shortstop for the rest of the season. The 22-year-old started 58 games this season, all at shortstop, and has performed well at the plate with a .289 batting average.
But his defensive struggles have been well-documented: He has committed 13 errors this season and is tied for last in the league with minus-15 defensive runs saved, a defensive metric from FanGraphs. Abrams will fill his spot at shortstop and likely will continue to play there even when García does returns from his injury; García likely will shift over to second base, and the two could form the Nationals’ middle infield of the future.
“A good team is strong up the middle,” Rizzo said Aug. 2 “And, soon, you’re going to see a 23-year old Ruiz and a 21-year old Abrams and a Luis García and a [Josiah] Gray and a [MacKenzie] Gore and a Cade Cavalli. That’s going to be your core and that’s going to that’s the beginning of the core with a bunch of people coming.”
The Nationals will now have three pieces of their return haul from the Soto deal in the majors less than two weeks after the trade.
It will give Washington a glimpse at what its future could look like while it finishes what has been an awful season. The Nationals, with Sunday’s 6-0 loss, are 3-10 in August, and at 38-78, they have the worst record in the majors. | 2022-08-15T00:12:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals prospect C.J. Abrams to be called up to replace Luis Garcia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/cj-abrams-nationals-callup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/cj-abrams-nationals-callup/ |
Mystics guard Natasha Cloud scored 10 points in 14 minutes Sunday against the Fever before leaving the game with a knee injury. (Jess Rapfogel/For The Washington Post)
Natasha Cloud writhed on the floor under the basket while teammates gathered around her Sunday and Entertainment and Sports Arena fell silent. The Mystics’ leader and longest-tenured player would eventually get up and shoot a pair of free throws before checking out for the rest of the game. She limped to the locker room and never returned to the bench.
The starting point guard was officially ruled out with a knee injury, but the team was adamant that holding her out was precautionary.
The Washington Mystics had nothing to play for in their regular season finale — a 95-83 victory over the Indiana Fever — as they already had the No. 5 playoff seed locked up and will face the No. 4 Storm in a best-of-three series beginning Thursday in Seattle. Coach Mike Thibault, however, committed to playing his starters significant minutes Sunday.
Washington closed the season with its second straight win, both against the league-worst Fever.
“Psychologically, I think it’s good to feel good about yourself going into the playoffs,” Thibault said. “Especially with people who have been out of the lineup and Elena [Delle Donne] trying to keep her rhythm a little bit right now.
“I talked to our team about playoff habits.”
The Mystics (22-14) are optimistic about Cloud. Thibault did say she was pretty sore and the team will see how she responds in the next couple of days, but the Mystics were not planning to do on-court work Monday, either way.
The winningest coach in WNBA history wanted to see some “intention” on the floor, and that was part of why he rode his starters. He got what he wanted on the offensive end as the Mystics shot 48.3 percent and had four starters score in double figures. Delle Donne finished with 22 points, Ariel Atkins added 15, Shakira Austin had 11 points and six rebounds and Cloud scored 10 in 14 minutes. The ball moved crisply, the assist numbers were high (21) and turnovers were low (11).
Washington outscored Indiana 26-13 in the second quarter to take control of the game and never trailed the rest of the way.
The Mystics’ defense had some issues, as the Fever (5-31) shot 56.9 percent, including 61.5 percent from three-point range. The Mystics, however, forced 19 turnovers on a season-high 14 steals; Shatori Walker-Kimbrough had five steals and Rui Machida had four as she replaced Cloud in the lineup. Machida also had six assists.
“We knew we wanted to play with more pace in these past few games and we wanted our defense to be cleaner,” Delle Donne said. “Obviously, there were a couple of mishaps here and there, but to finish it off, to stay focused, knowing what’s next is always big to see. So it’s a good win.”
Forward Alysha Clark added, “To be able to get a rhythm and get some confidence for our key players coming off the bench, that’s huge because down the stretch we’re going to need them.”
Here’s what else to know about the Mystics:
The Mystics plan to do film work Monday and will use a morning session Tuesday as their primary practice before they fly to Seattle later in the day. The group will practice Wednesday with the game set for 10 p.m. on Thursday.
An update on Hines-Allen
Myisha Hines-Allen missed the final two games of the regular season while in health and safety protocols, but she tested negative for the coronavirus Saturday. Thibault said she had only mild symptoms and needs one more negative test to be allowed back with the team. She is expected to be good to go for the start of the playoffs, but her conditioning could be compromised. The Mystics have had players miss a game after coming out of the protocols as they got their conditioning back.
A milestone for Atkins
Atkins surpassed 2,000 career points and is now the fourth-quickest player to do so in franchise history. The fifth-year guard continues to improve each year and made the all-star team for the second straight season. She became an Olympian in 2021 and won gold with Team USA.
“I didn’t really know where my place would be in this league. It’s a very hard league to not only be a part of, but to stay in,” Atkins said. “And so to be a part of an organization like D.C. from the jump is a blessing.
“I’ve had great vets truly help me out; they were very welcoming of me from the beginning. I’ve said it time and time again, I’ve been allowed to grow here. So anytime I reach any milestone, big or small, I’m just thankful to have been able to enter the league in such a great space.” | 2022-08-15T00:12:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mystics close regular season with win, but Natasha Cloud hurts knee - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/mystics-fever-natasha-cloud/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/14/mystics-fever-natasha-cloud/ |
The PGA Tour playoffs need fixing. Let’s start with the points system.
Collin Morikawa lines up a putt during the final round of the St. Jude Championship, the first tournament in the PGA Tour playoffs. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)
If you are a golf fan, you have been bombarded for weeks with television ads for the PGA Tour playoffs — or, as the tour would prefer you call them, the "FedEx Cup playoffs.”
There’s one ad that refers to the playoffs as the PGA Tour’s “ultimate” moment. There’s another that says, “History will be made.”
Oh, please.
Since “ultimate” technically means final, it is not inaccurate to use that word to describe the three tournaments that conclude Aug. 28 in Atlanta. The clear implication, though, is that ultimate in this context means greatest.
As for history? Like I said: Oh, please.
History is made in golf at the four major championships, not in the incredibly lucrative but ultimately (pun intended) nonhistoric playoffs — or, for that matter, at the extremely lucrative and overhyped Players Championship.
For the record, I like the playoffs — at least as individual tournaments. In 2006, after Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson had made it clear they had no interest in playing in the Tour Championship in November, Commissioner Tim Finchem came up with a brilliant idea: He convinced FedEx to pay for a four-tournament playoff and moved the Tour Championship to September.
Money talks — even for very rich athletes. Instead of going home after the four majors and waiting for preholiday exhibitions with guaranteed upfront money, players showed up for the playoffs. The first winner in 2007 was Woods. He refused to kiss the “FedEx Cup” trophy, but he had shown up to play, and that was really all that mattered.
There was, however, a problem with the system then, and even though the tour has tweaked and tweaked, it has never gotten it right. In fact, for all the money and all the hype, the playoffs are basically a scam. Not on the players, who cash huge checks the first two weeks and monstrous checks the third week, but on the public.
It starts with the points system, which is designed to make both the playoffs and the regular season week-to-week tournaments appear more important than they are and the majors less important.
The tour is not in charge of the majors. Augusta National Golf Club, the U.S. Golf Association, the Royal and Ancient and the PGA of America control them and have separate TV deals. That’s why a win at a weekly PGA Tour event is worth 500 FedEx Cup points and a win at a major is worth just 600.
Ask a player the value of winning a major compared with a weekly event. They will tell you it is at least five times as important. Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee told me several years ago that winning a regular tour event was probably worth about $3 million over the course of a career and a major was probably worth closer to $30 million.
Let’s be conservative and say a major is five times as important. That means winning a major should be worth 2,500 points — not 600. The tour also gives 550 to the winner of a number of events, including The Players and the three tournaments hosted by superstars: Tiger Woods’s event at Riviera; Jack Nicklaus’s event, the Memorial; and the late Arnold Palmer’s tournament at Bay Hill.
This weekend’s tournament at Memphis gives the winner 2,000 points, as does this coming week’s event in Delaware. In other words, according to the tour, a win in the first two playoff events is worth more than three times as much as a win in a major.
There is lots of money in play here: $15 million in each of the first two weeks and $44.75 million spread among the top 10 finishers at the Tour Championship, with the winner taking home $18 million.
You might point out that doesn’t sound so insane compared with the guarantees that the LIV Golf Series, the Saudi Arabia-funded start-up, is paying, but it is still a lot of money.
The tour has responded to LIV in two ways: suspending players who have taken the Saudi petrodollars and run, and upping its payouts to stunning levels. This year there will be a Player Impact Program fund of $50 million that will be split among 10 players for — wait for it — being popular on social media.
Additionally, prize money is going up across the board. The Players Championship’s purse will be $25 million next year thanks to new tour television contracts.
But as with LIV, all that money can’t make tournaments bigger than they are or as big as promoters want them to be. LIV is a bunch of 54-hole exhibitions played for Monopoly money. The PGA Tour’s playoff events are more legitimate — 72-hole events that golfers have to earn their way into.
What’s more, the individual tournaments can be as riveting as any non-major. Last year’s playoff at Caves Valley between Patrick Cantlay and Bryson DeChambeau — won on the sixth hole by Cantlay — was wonderful theater. Ditto for Sunday’s tournament, won on the third playoff hole by Will Zalatoris.
In many ways, the playoffs have done what Finchem hoped they would: kept the top guys playing and fans interested in watching after the majors are over. That didn’t used to be the case. Players were interested in the silly season only when they got money up front.
The playoffs changed that. And yet that wasn’t enough for the tour, which insists that its TV partners act as if a major championship always is being decided, especially in the Players, when in truth only lots and lots of money is at stake.
FedEx has spent a lot of money since 2007 on the playoffs and on the tour. Corporate sponsorship is at the heart of everything the tour does. Washington — the nation’s capital — doesn’t have a yearly tour event. Why? Because there’s no corporate sponsor willing to fund a tournament here.
The tour has changed playoff systems more often than most people change their socks. When Vijay Singh clinched victory in the FedEx Cup the week before the Tour Championship in Year 2, the tour changed the system. When Bill Haas walked onto the victory platform after he won the Tour Championship in 2011 and asked Finchem, “Who won the FedEx Cup?” and Finchem sheepishly answered, “You did,” it was time for another change.
Three years ago, the Tour adopted what is essentially a member-guest format. The points leader starts the Tour Championship at 10 under par, and everyone else starts behind him, down to 30th place.
Last year, Cantlay started at 10 under and shot a 269 for the week in Atlanta. Three players played better than he did, but Cantlay’s head start made him the winner. This is a little like a team winning the Super Bowl despite being outscored because it started with a 14-0 lead.
How do you fix all this? First, give the majors the emphasis they deserve. An easy fix, but the tour is loath to do it.
Another easy fix: If you want to call them playoffs, make them real playoffs. After the regular season ends, start everyone at zero. Next year, only 70 players will make the playoffs with 50 advancing to the second tournament and 30 to the Tour Championship. The tour — and the TV networks — live in fear that a star won’t make it to Atlanta. Rory McIlroy missed the cut this past week in Memphis. NBC doesn’t want him absent the next two weeks.
The only player who really drives ratings is Tiger Woods, and his days of making the playoffs are over. So make it a real competition with everyone subject to elimination.
History still won’t be made, but at least we will get a real champion when all is said and done. It has been 16 years. Time to fix this once and for all. | 2022-08-15T00:12:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PGA Tour's FedEx Cup playoffs value hype over legitimate golf - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/15/pga-tour-playoffs-fedex-cup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/15/pga-tour-playoffs-fedex-cup/ |
Analysis by Nisid Hajari | Bloomberg
In August 1947, as their nations were born amid flames, mass rape and some of the 20th century’s bloodiest ethnic massacres, leaders of a fledgling India warned that Pakistanis had erred in insisting on their own country. Many contemporary observers might call them prescient. While Pakistan is now a nuclear power with a GDP per capita not too far behind India’s, it is rife with extremism, burdened by debt, led by weak and corrupt civilian politicians and dominated by an army that dictates affairs of state despite having lost every war it has fought.
Before gloating, however, Indians should recall why exactly Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah was so determined to carve a Muslim-majority homeland out of the former British India: He predicted the rights of Muslims would be at risk in a country dominated by Hindus.
Seventy-five years later, India is in danger of proving him right. Under a right-wing, Hindu nationalist government since 2014, led by charismatic Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country has grown distinctly hostile toward its Muslim population — the world’s third largest. Indian Muslims have been targeted by politicians, the media and vigilante mobs. Their rights have been eroded and their place in society diminished. The country that fought so bitterly against partition now appears intent on confirming its central logic.
At the time, of course, fear of discrimination wasn’t the only factor motivating Pakistan’s proponents. Muslim landowners saw an opportunity to usurp rich farmlands. Preachers envisioned a society run according to Islamic principles. Peasants were told they’d finally be free of the yoke of Hindu moneylenders. Even the lawyerly Jinnah was not above occasional demagoguery, darkly intoning that Hindus and Muslims were too different ever to live together in peace.
Still, Jinnah’s main fear was how little power Muslims would wield in a united India. That’s what drove the initial break with his former allies in the Indian National Congress party — including Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister— a decade before independence. And it’s why Jinnah retracted his support for a last-minute compromise brokered by the British in 1946, after Nehru intimated that the Congress would not honor the agreement once the British were gone.
Indeed, an Indian state once convinced of its duty to protect minorities now seems unremittingly hostile. Prejudice has seeped into the courts and the police, as well as all levels of government. Laws have accepted at face value ludicrous conspiracy theories such as “love jihad” — the idea that Muslim men are romancing Hindu women in order to convert them. Modi’s decision to strip Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, of its constitutionally guaranteed autonomy has made clear that even enshrined protections are vulnerable.
Meanwhile, at the federal level, Muslims’ share of political power is dwindling. Though they make up more than 14% of the population, they account for less than 4% of members of the lower house of parliament. Among the BJP’s 395 members of parliament there isn’t a single Muslim.
True, India remains a democracy not an authoritarian state, with powerful regional politicians and some brave and independent activists and journalists. In states where Muslims make up a larger share of the voting population, they have been better able to defend their rights. Nor is India the only country where politicians and media figures are fanning ethno-nationalism for partisan gain.
Yet the trend lines are ominous. India’s political opposition is weak and divided. The mainstream media has caricatured Muslims to a degree that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. The northern Hindi belt is bursting with millions of undereducated, underemployed and angry young men. Politicians there and elsewhere know it is far easier to direct those frustrations at defenseless scapegoats than it is to fix schools and create jobs.
Modi likes to call India the “mother of democracy.” But the central test of a democracy is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens — whether their rights are protected and their views heard. Nehru and India’s other founding fathers saw it as their most basic duty to prove Jinnah wrong, forging a pluralistic India that would thrive because of its diversity not despite it. Three quarters of a century later, Indians should ask themselves whether they, not their former brethren across the border, are the ones now making a mistake.
• India’s Leaders Shouldn’t Keep Playing With Fire: Mihir Sharma
• In Kashmir, India Is Making a Momentous Mistake: Editorial
Nisid Hajari is a member of the Bloomberg editorial board covering foreign affairs. A former managing editor at Newsweek and an editor and foreign correspondent for Time, he is author of “Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition.” | 2022-08-15T00:20:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Modi’s India Is Becoming a Reflection of Jinnah’s Fears - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/modis-india-is-becoming-a-reflection-of-jinnahs-fears/2022/08/14/b0751396-1c25-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/modis-india-is-becoming-a-reflection-of-jinnahs-fears/2022/08/14/b0751396-1c25-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
A cyclist balances a bread board on his head as he rides in Cairo, Egypt on March 31, 2018. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi was set to sweep to victory with more than 90 percent of the vote in this week’s election, crushing his one token challenger after credible competitors were eliminated before the contest. (Bloomberg)
A recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization breaks it down. While subsidies direct to consumers — especially if targeted at those most in need — are one of the most effective ways of tackling hunger, they’re a small part of total global support at just $72 billion out of $630 billion dedicated to the food and farming sector worldwide. What’s more, they’re skewed toward people in high-income countries who are least at risk of going short. In the richest nations, 4.6% of the value of agricultural output comprises consumer subsidies. In the poorest ones, the figure is 0.6%.
Far more important is what’s given to farmers. Some $92 billion goes to subsidizing inputs such as seed and fertilizer. A further $152 billion is spent on more broad-based support calculated on the acreage of farms, general output levels or environmental factors. Again, this money is largely going to rich countries, which provide producers with incentives equivalent to 24% of output, falling to 16% in upper-middle income countries such as China and Brazil. In less affluent nations, export bans, tariffs and other market interventions intended to reduce costs to local consumers often have the opposite effect, acting as a tax on output and discouraging farmers from growing sufficient produce. Those measures increase the cost of production by 4% in lower-middle income countries such as India, rising to 9% in low income countries like those in sub-Saharan Africa. | 2022-08-15T00:20:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | To Tackle Hunger, We Need to Fix Food Subsidies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/to-tackle-hunger-we-need-to-fixfood-subsidies/2022/08/14/d2f0162e-1c29-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/to-tackle-hunger-we-need-to-fixfood-subsidies/2022/08/14/d2f0162e-1c29-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
The disease pattern observed currently differs from that which occurred in prior outbreaks. Historically, after an incubation period of usually one to two weeks, the disease starts with fever, muscle aches, fatigue, headache and other flu-like symptoms. Unlike smallpox, monkeypox also causes swelling of the lymph nodes. Within a few days of fever onset, patients develop a rash, often beginning on the face then spreading to other parts of the body. The lesions grow into fluid-containing pustules that form a scab. If a lesion forms on the eye, it can cause blindness. The illness typically lasts two to four weeks, according to the WHO. The patient is infectious from the time symptoms start until the scabs fall off and the sores heal. Mortality is higher among children and young adults, while people whose immune systems are compromised are especially at risk of severe disease. Pregnancy also carries a high risk of severe congenital infection, pregnancy loss, and maternal morbidity and mortality. Inflammation of the brain and seizures are rare neurological complications.
• Infectious virus also was found in air samples collected during a bed linen change in rooms used to isolate patients, UK researchers reported in a study released in July, ahead of peer-review. That suggests monkeypox may be present in aerosols -- suspended skin particles or dust -- and not only in larger respiratory droplets, such as from a cough, which fall to the ground close to an infected individual. Still, there are no confirmed instances of airborne transmission, according to the UK Health Security Agency.
Public health experts say limiting spread will require a comprehensive, international vaccination strategy targeting high-risk groups -- and adequate vaccine supplies. Vaccination against smallpox can be used for both pre- and post-exposure and is as much as 85% effective in preventing monkeypox, according to the UK health agency, which is offering shots of Imvanex from Bavarian Nordic A/S to close contacts of infected people. It’s a newer smallpox vaccine, based on non-replicating versions of the vaccinia virus, and is the only one also approved for monkeypox in the US, where its sold as Jynneos. (It’s called Imamune in Canada). Immunization typically entails two injections administered four weeks apart. But supply has been limited, leading to shortages. Otherwise, the main way to prevent infection is by isolating patients with the infection, monitoring their contacts, and ensuring health staff wear appropriate personal protective equipment.
The White House appointed Robert Fenton in August to coordinate the US government’s response and increase equitable access to tests, vaccines and treatments. Days later a public health emergency was declared in the US, freeing up more resources. But former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in mid-July that the window for controlling the US outbreak had “probably closed,” with only a small fraction of the cases in the country reported. A case in a pregnant woman was reported in the US, where pediatric infections have also occurred. In the Netherlands, doctors reported a case in a boy under 10 with an immune impairment. Unable to identify how he was infected, they speculate that the virus may be present in the general population and that respiratory transmission may have played a role. In the UK, one of the first countries in Europe to report a surge in cases, transmission slowed in July, suggesting by early August that the epidemic has plateaued there. Although a small number of women have been infected, there’s no sign of sustained spread outside of interconnected sexual networks, the UK Health Security Agency said. The WHO’s Tedros warned that in some countries, the communities affected face life-threatening discrimination and so may not seek help, “making the outbreak much harder to track, and to stop.”
(Updates to add slowdown in transmission in UK in section 11.) | 2022-08-15T00:20:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Understanding Monkeypox and How Outbreaks Spread - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-monkeypox-and-how-outbreaks-spread/2022/08/14/ff36a4ee-1c26-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/understanding-monkeypox-and-how-outbreaks-spread/2022/08/14/ff36a4ee-1c26-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
The fatwa against the author brought the term, and ignorance around its meaning, to the West. But its history is much deeper, spanning more than a millennium.
Salman Rushdie holds copy of “The Satanic Verses,” the novel that drew a fatwa, in Arlington, Va., at a 1992 conference on free expression. (Ron Edmonds/AP)
After the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie during a Friday event in western New York, key questions about the suspect — who was charged with attempted murder on Saturday — remain unanswered. While the alleged assailant’s motives have not been confirmed, the attack on Rushdie’s life follows decades of threats of violence against the author and his associates, motivated by a fatwa that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued in 1989, when he was Iran’s supreme leader. On Sunday, Rushdie was recovering from injuries and had been taken off a ventilator, according to his agent.
The fatwa, which ordered Muslims around the world to kill Rushdie, was issued in response to Rushdie’s 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses,” which some readers found blasphemous for its depiction of Islam. Since then, there have been attempts to blow up stores selling his book and violent demonstrations around the world to protest the novel.
The fatwa against Rushdie is one of the most well-known in the world, Islamic legal scholars say, and it brought the term to the West. But they say it has also created ignorance around the term’s true meaning, and a false equivalence of the word “fatwa” with “death sentence.”
Origins and Rushdie
In Islamic law, a fatwa is a “legal opinion on a matter that is raised by a constituent” to a mufti, a Muslim legal authority, according to Lama Abu-Odeh, a Georgetown University Law Center professor.
“It’s neither a judge nor a lawyer, but a person who issues legal opinions,” she said. A fatwa’s ultimate aim is to provide an answer to a legal question in Islam, and states or individuals may follow the opinion’s findings — but they are not obligatory for all Muslims.
Abu-Odeh gave the example of a Muslim who might seek a fatwa from a mufti when deciding whether to consume apple cider that has been fermented.
“You might request a fatwa,” she said, “if it’s unclear to you whether that’s alcoholic or not.”
She stressed that it is an individual’s decision whether to obey the fatwa.
Since the early Islamic period in the 7th century, fatwas have been issued on a host of religious legal matters, including ethical questions surrounding marriage or prayer habits. The Islamic body of fatwas has been developed in the centuries since, and in the digital age they have evolved with social media.
Khomeini, given the religious authority in accordance with Shi’a Islam, issued the fatwa against Rushdie, said Abu-Odeh. After it was announced, extremist groups set a multimillion-dollar bounty on Rushdie’s life. Iran supported the directive to assassinate the author until 1998, when its president, Mohammad Khatami, said the country would neither “support nor hinder” assassination attempts.
Iran and the fatwa
Abu-Odeh explained that a modern government often grants the status of a mufti to someone who can then issue fatwas. But there are also emergent Islamic movements that have muftis, she said, “because usually Islamic movements arise out of dissent to the official state.”
Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) have issued their own fatwas, such as orders concerning fasting and power blackouts during Ramadan, reported Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat and the nonprofit news outlet New Humanitarian. But, NPR reported, Muslim clerics have also issued fatwas against ISIS, saying the extremist group’s interpretations of Islam are incorrect.
Did Iran’s supreme leader issue a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons?
Fatwas in the West
In the West, a fatwa is often equated with “death sentence” in the wake of Khomeini’s order to assassinate Rushdie, Abu-Odeh said.
Intisar Rabb, the director of Harvard Law School’s Program in Islamic Law, said Khomeini’s fatwa against Rushdie has brought ignorance about the practice to the West.
“There is no historical instance or basis for calling on members of the general public to exercise vigilante justice to put someone to death for statements and, for that matter, for someone to follow such directives.”
Other acts of violence toward those who have portrayed Islam in ways that some of its followers find offensive have made the violent association persist, said Abu-Odeh.
Fatwas in the digital age
The rise of the internet has also changed how fatwas are issued, as websites have sprung up that issue fatwas to Muslims on religious questions they have. Many are English-only websites that cater to the vast Muslim diaspora that does not speak Arabic, and some are operated by Muslim leaders such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Islamic religious scholar who founded IslamOnline.net, which offers information about religious rulings.
Other media also issue fatwas. In Egypt, Abu-Odeh and Rabb said, there are television programs and radio shows in which Muslim viewers call in and request fatwas from muftis about a host of problems they are experiencing related to Islam, which have nothing to do with violence or death. But the ability for “televised fatwas” to be issued has been regulated, according to the Middle East Monitor.
Rabb also gave the example of social media as a platform for fatwas to be issued. “We have other means of communication that evolved right alongside [television and radio],” she said. “And so you get YouTube channels and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram fatwas.” Rabb also pointed to SHARIAsource, Harvard Law School’s digital portal for Islamic law, through which a professor tracked coronavirus-related fatwas, many of which were issued through social media.
The legitimacy of issuing fatwas online has been contested by scholars of Islamic law.
“In the digital age, it’s a mess,” said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Islamic law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law. “In the classical system, you only followed the fatwa of a person who you know is duly credentialed, so you were not supposed to follow a fatwa of an unknown. But in the modern age, this has gone completely out of the window. People follow the fatwas of people who have no idea, no training or degrees.”
Abou El Fadl also expressed concern that many modern fatwas announced through social media have no evidence and “are extremely short.” He mentioned the phenomenon of “fatwa shopping,” through which some Muslims surf the internet to look for an opinion that suits them.
Rabb stressed the importance of fatwas being issued through a qualified religious authority. It is “unconscionable and ill-advised for people to follow” fatwas not issued by such authorities, according to Rabb.
To some extent, fatwas have been democratized in the digital age: Countries including Iran have employed platforms such as Telegram in issuing fatwas — a way for government-backed muftis to perform what they used to do in person during early Islam, Rabb said. “In some ways, maybe muftis were the original influencers.”
But after the recent attack on Rushdie, Rabb recalled seeing the word “fatwa” conflated with “death sentence” popping up in Western media despite the everyday use of fatwas in Islamic life.
“This so-called fatwa is actually contrary to the Islamic understanding of them, historically at least,” she said. “It’s an unfortunate fact that this is the thing that actually popularized the term ‘fatwa.’ ” | 2022-08-15T00:20:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | History of fatwas, from early Islam to Salman Rushdie to the digital age - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/14/salman-rushdie-fatwa-history/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/14/salman-rushdie-fatwa-history/ |
Man is slain in Prince George’s on Sunday
It’s the third killing in the county on successive days
A man was shot and killed Sunday evening in Prince George’s County, police said. The slaying was the third in the county in three days.
The latest shooting occurred about 8 p.m. in the 10200 block of Twayblade Court in the Rosaryville area, west of Upper Marlboro. The man died at the scene, police said. No other information was immediately available.
Twayblade Court is a cul-de-sac residential street just north of the Melwood Hills community park.
On Saturday, a man was fatally shot in the 12900 block of William Beanes Road in Upper Marlboro, and on Friday a juvenile was reported slain in the 6300 block of Seat Pleasant Drive in Capitol Heights. | 2022-08-15T02:05:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man is fatally shot in Prince George's, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/man-fatally-shot-prince-georges/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/14/man-fatally-shot-prince-georges/ |
The 53-year-old actress, who was declared brain dead after an Aug. 5 car crash, was taken off life support Sunday. Tributes and thoughts about her life and work have been pouring in.
Travis M. Andrews
Anne Heche attends a premiere of HBO's drama series “Big Little Lies” in Los Angeles in 2017. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
Anne Heche died Sunday evening after being taken off life support, but an outpouring of appreciation for the 53-year-old actress had already been building for days, beginning with the Aug. 5 car crash in Los Angeles that left her hospitalized. It continued all weekend after Thursday’s news that Heche had been declared brain dead and her family issued a statement mourning their loss.
Obituary: Anne Heche, wide-ranging actress, dies at 53 after car crash
Heche’s career spanned 35 years and included roles in television, film and theater. She first rose to fame after playing a pair of twins, one good and one evil, on the soap opera “Another World,” as a teenager in the 1980s — a performance for which she won a Daytime Emmy. Later, she went on to star in such movies as “Donnie Brasco,” “Six Days, Seven Nights” and “Volcano.”
Heche was also known for her 3½-year relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when to be open about gay relationships was less common in Hollywood. “Kids today don’t know what it was like, but I vividly recall when Anne Heche and Ellen Degeneres came out about their relationship back in 1997. I was in awe, and remember thinking, ‘This could really change things for people.’ Thank you for so bravely taking that step, Anne,” tweeted filmmaker Ted Geoghegan.
DeGeneres, who said she was no in longer in contact with Heche at the time of the crash, wrote on Twitter, “This is a sad day. I’m sending Anne’s children, family and friends all of my love.”
On Twitter, many hailed Heche as one of the first publicly bisexual stars in Hollywood. Still Bisexual posted: “To bisexuals coming of age in the 90s, she was one of the only visible role models we had. She meant the world to us.” And Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the movie theater chain, called her a “trailblazing, unabashedly queer performer” with an “eclectic” body of work.”
Many lamented the way both the media and Hollywood at large treated her during her life, particularly during and in the aftermath of her relationship with DeGeneres. Her personal life, particularly her bisexuality, became tabloid fodder and arguably began to overshadow her acting career. “Her horrific treatment in the public eye led to her being pigeon-holed as the butt of a very cruel and stupid joke that bisexual people just can’t make up their minds,” Ariel Fisher wrote in Slashfilm. “Even now in death, publications ridicule her dating history as if it’s some mystery to be solved.”
Comedian Lane Moore tweeted, “She was incredible and deserved so much more. She received so much biphobia after she broke up w/Ellen & everyone called her a fake lesbian, then wrote a book about her childhood abuse & everyone called her crazy. I’m sad she never got the apologies she deserved.”
RIP Anne Heche. She was incredible and deserved so much more. She received so much biphobia after she broke up w/Ellen & everyone called her a fake lesbian, then wrote a book about her childhood abuse & everyone called her crazy. I'm sad she never got the apologies she deserved💔 pic.twitter.com/U937QExyZg
— Lane Moore👉NYC 8/19 (@hellolanemoore) August 12, 2022
On Instagram, Heche’s ex-husband, Coleman Laffoon, posted a photo of Heche holding their son Homer as a baby. “It’s important to remember the real love in the best times. Thank you Anne. Peace on your journey,” Laffoon wrote. James Tupper, with whom Heche had a 10-year-relationship, and had a son, Atlas, also posted a photo of Heche on Friday with the caption “love you forever.”
Screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick, known for creating the Final Destination franchise, responded to online criticism of Heche after reports surfaced that police were investigating whether Heche had been driving under the influence at the time of the accident. Reddick wrote on Twitter: “This is so tragic. I’m seeing many nasty comments. To those people, just understand that people you know struggling with addiction are listening. You’re telling them they can never talk to you about their struggles or turn to you for help.” An early test found narcotics in Heche’s blood, and Los Angeles police told TMZ that cocaine was in her system at the time of the crash. The LAPD ceased its investigation on Friday, after Heche was declared brain dead.
Alec Baldwin, who worked with Heche on the 1996 film “The Juror” and the upcoming “Supercell,” posted a video tribute on Friday. “Anne was one of those people who … really could do almost anything. She was funny, she was dramatic. She was many things on film and onstage,” he said. Acknowledging that drugs might have played a role in her death, he added, “All I know is this woman — who was my friend and I really, really admire and really cherished my relationship with her — she is gone, avoidably so.” | 2022-08-15T03:14:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anne Heche’s family and friends share their love, sorrow at her death - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/14/anne-heche-reactions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/08/14/anne-heche-reactions/ |
Actress Anne Heche poses for a portrait in Park City, Utah, in 2012. (Carlo Allegri/AP)
Anne Heche, an actress whose roles ranged from a stress-ball White House aide in “Wag the Dog” to a Bates Motel stabbing victim in a remake of “Psycho,” but who claimed she was “blacklisted” from major studio projects in the late 1990s after she and Ellen DeGeneres broke new ground as a celebrity same-sex couple, was taken off life support on Aug. 14. She was 53.
Her death, at a hospital in Los Angeles, was confirmed by her publicist Holly Baird. Ms. Heche had been hospitalized after driving her vehicle into a house in the city’s Mar Vista neighborhood on Aug. 5. The car was engulfed in flames, and she was pulled from the vehicle with severe burns. According to a statement one of her representatives released Thursday, she suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and was declared brain-dead, and was kept on life support so that her organs could be donated.
Ms. Heche (pronounced “haysh”) first gained acclaim in the 1990s in supporting roles such as the beleaguered wife of an undercover cop (played by Johnny Depp) in the 1997 crime drama “Donnie Brasco” and as a tightly wound presidential staffer in the political satire “Wag the Dog,” with Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro, later that same year. She often used her wispy and sprite-like look to contrast the sharp edges of her dramatic characters and as a comedic asset while taking quirky roles in rom-coms and other films.
Her breakthrough came with leading parts in several films released in 1998, including “Six Days Seven Nights,” in which she played a New York journalist stranded on a deserted Pacific island with a small-plane pilot (Harrison Ford) and “Psycho,” in the role of embezzler Marion Crane, whose stabbing death in a shower, with blood circling the drain, gained a place in Hollywood fame for Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 original.
Ms. Heche claimed the film industry turned its back on her after her relationship with DeGeneres, a comedian who starred in the ABC sitcom “Ellen,” became public just as “Six Days” began shooting — although she praised Ford for standing by her and ensuring that she remained in the cast.
She insisted that opportunities for leading roles began to dry up because of the romance at a time when few celebrities who were gay felt comfortable openly discussing their sexuality. Ms. Heche, in a 2021 interview with the New York Post, said she felt like “patient zero in cancel culture.” DeGeneres’s “Ellen” was dropped after the show’s character — and the real DeGeneres — came out as gay. Advertisers fled, ratings slumped and DeGeneres went on to host “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” a long-running talk and variety program.
'Ellen made gay okay': TV host celebrates 20th anniversary of sitcom's coming-out episode
Ms. Heche and DeGeneres attended the 1997 premiere of “Volcano,” in which Ms. Heche played a scientist trying to save Los Angeles from lava after a volcanic eruption. Ms. Heche claimed executives from U.S. distributor Fox advised them not to attend as a couple. They soon became sought-after stars for fundraisers and rallies for same-sex equality.
Ms. Heche and DeGeneres announced plans in 1999 for a civil union in Vermont if the state legalized the partnership, but they ended their relationship the next year. Ms. Heche went on to marry cameraman Coleman “Coley” Laffoon in 2001. They divorced in 2009.
“I was part of a revolution that created a social change,” Ms. Heche told Mr. Warburton magazine in 2020, “and I could not have done that without falling in love with [DeGeneres].”
Ms. Hecht at times made headlines for erratic behavior she attributed to psychological problems caused by her father, an organist and choir leader whom she accused of sexually abusing her. Ms. Heche’s mother, Nancy, and sister Abigail denied any such abuse took place. (Ms. Heche’s father died in 1983 from what she described as AIDS-related causes.)
In August 2000, Ms. Heche wandered into the desert outside Fresno, Calif., reportedly wearing only a bra, shorts and sneakers, and ended up knocking on the door of a house. Police were eventually called and Ms. Heche, according to television station KSEE, offered a rambling statement that included references to traveling to heaven on a spaceship.
In her 2001 memoir, “Call Me Crazy,” she described creating alter egos, including one as a half sister of Jesus Christ named “Celestia,” as a way to deal with her inner demons. On CNN’s “Larry King Live” in 2001, she said she felt “insane” for 31 years before finding “peace and balance.” Not even her therapist knew of her struggles, she said.
“I was raised to always tell everybody that everything was fine,” she said, “and even though I was in therapy for years, I never told anybody that I had another personality. I never told anybody that I heard voices and spoke to God. I never told anybody any of it.”
Lean times
Anne Celeste Heche was born in Aurora, Ohio, on May 25, 1969, and was the youngest of five children in a family that, by Ms. Heche’s accounts, moved frequently and often scraped by with barely enough money for rent and necessities.
She told the Daily Telegraph that when she was 12, the family was forced to live for a time in a single room in the home of a member of their church congregation in Ocean City, N.J. During that time, she found a job at a hamburger stand on the boardwalk.
“That’s where I first became an actress,” she recounted to Suburban Life magazine. “I literally started singing for my supper, right on the boardwalk. I would flip burgers and sing show tunes to get people to come to our stand.”
After she moved to Chicago as a teenager, an agent spotted Ms. Heche in a play at the Francis W. Parker School and asked to bring her to New York for daytime soap opera auditions. Her mother insisted she finish high school, Ms. Heche recalled.
A day after graduation, she landed a dual role on NBC’s “Another World” playing identical twins Vicky Hudson (sinister) and Marley Love (upstanding) from 1987 to 1991.
Ms. Heche was rarely without a role or project since the 1990s, appearing in dozens of films and TV shows and several Broadway productions including opposite Alec Baldwin in “Twentieth Century.” She was nominated for a 2004 Tony Award for best actress in a play for her role as a narcissistic and glamorous leading lady.
She appeared in many independent films. In 2004, Ms. Heche played a supporting role in “Birth” alongside Nicole Kidman, about a woman who believes her dead husband is reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy. In the 2016 dark comedy “Catfight,” Ms. Heche and Sandra Oh portray quarrelsome rivals locked in a lifetime of dirty tricks and grudge settling.
In addition to Ms. Heche’s mother and sister, survivors include a son, Homer, from her marriage to Laffoon, and another son, Atlas, from a relationship with actor James Tupper.
In a life marked by difficulty, Ms. Heche expressed enduring regret that she had never had the opportunity to attend college. But she found satisfaction and fulfillment in her work.
“My training ground in school was in the best acting school,” she said in an interview with NPR’s “Fresh Air” in 2000. “There’s nothing better than working five days a week and being in front of the camera every day.” | 2022-08-15T03:14:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anne Heche, wide-ranging actress, dies at 53 after car crash - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/14/actress-anne-heche-dead-crash/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/08/14/actress-anne-heche-dead-crash/ |
FILE - Actress Anne Heche poses for a portrait to promote the film, “The Last Word” during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 23, 2017. Heche, who first came to prominence on the NBC soap opera “Another World” in the late 1980s before becoming one of the hottest stars in Hollywood in the late 1990s, died Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, nine days after she was injured in a fiery car crash. She was 53. (Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-08-15T03:23:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anne Heche, star with troubled life, dies of crash injuries - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/anne-heche-star-with-troubled-life-dies-of-crash-injuries/2022/08/14/5be0b70c-1c45-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/anne-heche-star-with-troubled-life-dies-of-crash-injuries/2022/08/14/5be0b70c-1c45-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
A year ago, the Taliban captured Kabul, capping the dramatic fall of Afghanistan’s fragile U.S.-backed government. America’s longest war ended in ignominy and tragedy. The Islamist militants that had been chased from power in 2001 were back in command and the legacy of two decades of U.S.-led state-building and counterinsurgency that had drained more than $1 trillion from U.S. taxpayers and cost the lives of more than 3,500 U.S. and allied soldiers — and tens of thousands more Afghan troops and civilians — hung excruciatingly in the balance.
Hours after the world watched the chaotic scenes at Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans desperately tried to flee the victorious Taliban advance, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a U.S. government ombudsman, issued a report on 20 years of U.S. efforts in the country. It was grim reading: “If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that can sustain itself and pose little threat to U.S. national security interests, the overall picture is bleak,” the report noted.
Billions of dollars in American and foreign aid may have been siphoned into boondoggles for corrupt Afghan officials and opportunistic U.S. military contractors. While the threat of extremist al-Qaeda militants operating on Afghan land was largely rooted out, ordinary Afghan civilians saw their country’s security situation grow more precarious amid constant terrorist bombings and attacks. A branch of the Islamic State found fertile soil in Afghanistan’s rugged terrain. And years of American efforts to shore up a fledgling Afghan government and train its new army did little to prevent its sudden and total collapse.
As a result, a generation’s worth of fitful progress in advancing women’s education was derailed, with the Taliban reneging on earlier assurances that they would allow all schoolgirls to return to classes. Surging poverty has led to impoverished families selling their daughters as child brides. Tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted U.S. and international forces remain stuck in the country, vulnerable to a regime that sees them as having collaborated with foreign occupiers.
In Washington, there’s plenty of lamentation over what went wrong. Some former military officials believe the United States was out of its depth culturally and could never graft its political system onto Afghanistan’s tribal landscape. Others pin more direct blame on former president Donald Trump, who signed a peace deal with the Taliban that critics argue doomed the U.S.-backed government in Kabul, and President Biden, who executed the full withdrawal even as Afghan provinces fell like dominoes to the Taliban.
“Our foundational mistake was our lack of commitment,” wrote David Petraeus, former commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, for the Atlantic. “In essence, we never adopted a sufficient, consistent, overarching approach that we stuck with from administration to administration, or even within individual administrations.”
That’s a difficult view to accept given the extent and length of the U.S.’s commitment to Afghanistan. As my colleagues reported in 2019, many U.S. officials tasked with carrying out counterinsurgency and reconstruction in Afghanistan privately knew the mission was failing, but in public spun a different message.
“For a long time, Washington’s elites saw Afghanistan as the ‘good war,’ morally justified and sanctioned by the United Nations,” wrote Fareed Zakaria for The Washington Post’s opinion page. “People were invested in believing that it was working, and many blinded themselves to evidence that it wasn’t.”
Now that the Washington establishment has been robbed of its delusions, Afghanistan has faded from view. Biden has repeatedly insisted the legacy campaigns of the post-9/11 era in Afghanistan and Iraq were obscuring the more important challenges facing U.S. strategists, who are now fully occupied by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the looming challenge posed by China.
“I have been struck that much of Washington has appeared keen to essentially put Afghanistan in the rearview mirror and try to move on,” Michael Kugelman, an expert on South Asia at the Wilson Center, told Reuters.
See hunger levels in #Afghanistan by province in the figure below (as of June 2022)https://t.co/QUKtkSnukU pic.twitter.com/O5JycDZ64d
— SIGAR (@SIGARHQ) August 12, 2022
Many Afghans, meanwhile, are only looking ahead with despair. The evaporation of international aid to the country, compounded by U.S. sanctions that froze some $7 billion of Afghan foreign reserves, sent Afghanistan’s economy into a tailspin. The country’s banking system is paralyzed and food prices have soared. The majority of the Afghan population is in need of humanitarian assistance. More than half the population is going hungry and more than a million children are severely malnourished. The United Nations estimated that as much as 97 percent of the country may fall below the poverty line by the second half of the year.
“Regardless of the Taliban’s status or credibility with outside governments, international economic restrictions are still driving the country’s catastrophe and hurting the Afghan people,” John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in an Aug. 4 statement.
In rural areas of the county devastated by years of war, the Taliban takeover seemed to offer a future of peace. But, as my colleague Susannah George recently reported from Helmand province, long a hotbed of insurgency, the country’s economic woes have darkened the mood. She encountered a mechanic in the town of Marja who had to rebuild his shop three times and now has seen a considerable drop in business.
“Every time I started from scratch,” he told her, “and each time I had less money, so the shop has gotten smaller and smaller.”
Unsurprisingly, that gloom is also felt in Kabul. My colleague Pamela Constable spoke to Sayed Hussain, the owner of a bridal gown business that has lost most of its customer base.
“I am worried and upset all the time. Everyone in this country is upset,” Hussain said. “We have no idea what will happen next, or what our future will look like. When I see the hundreds of messages on Facebook, so many people trying to leave the country, it makes me think I should take my family and go.” | 2022-08-15T04:11:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One year later: In Afghanistan, a legacy of U.S. failure endures - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/afghanistan-us-legacy-failures-one-year-later/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/afghanistan-us-legacy-failures-one-year-later/ |
The past two years have been very difficult for me. I’ve suffered financially, physically and emotionally. Through it all I’m always there for others — encouraging them and offering a helping hand or a shoulder to lean on.
Exhausted: It is completely natural for you to want to retreat. And if privacy is what you need — then that is what you should have.
My hope for you would be to recognize that exposing your own broken places — even if only to yourself — can lead to a liberating reveal: It’s okay to put your smile in your pocket for a while, as you access your own messy humanity.
Concerned: Give your friend love with limits.
You have known one another for a quarter-century. Your lives are both likely entering a transition period, as your children move into adulthood.
Married: I like it! | 2022-08-15T04:20:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: I can’t be there for others because I have my own problems - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/15/ask-amy-alone-issues-friends/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/15/ask-amy-alone-issues-friends/ |
Dear Carolyn: I am tired of walking on eggshells. I’m the older of two sisters and growing up my parents were very strict with both of us. It was over-the-top strictness, but I also realize it was a cultural thing and they were kind of victims of cultural expectations, too.
I responded by trying to live up to their unrealistic expectations: I got the grades they expected, went into the career they expected, was always outwardly respectful of them, etc. I do carry a lot of resentment because I never got the nurturing I needed, and I think the only reason I maintain a good relationship with them is that I keep in mind what they’ve been through, immigrating to this country, and their good but misguided intentions.
My sister on the other hand, reacted by becoming everything they hate: unconventional job, fun hair colors, piercings and tattoos. As a consequence she had a terrible experience with my parents and as an adult completely cut them off. I wish she hadn’t but I’m completely sympathetic to why she did.
She stays in contact with me only if I don’t divulge any important information about her to my parents. They are always asking and it is hard to stay within my sister’s limits — nothing about her relationship especially. She married recently and is trying to get pregnant, and keeping all of this from my parents is such a burden.
My sister definitely wants our relationship to continue, and so do I, but I think her expecting me to hold such a hard line is unreasonable. Do you agree?
— Tired of Walking the Line
Tired of Walking the Line: No. You need one phrase only here: “I won’t discuss Sister with you.” Or, softer: “She is well. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.”
I sympathize with your fatigue, but it’s still a byproduct of your choices. Yes, you didn’t get to choose your parents or your sister, but the position you’ve staked out is entirely yours. You have decided to try to please all of them within the lines they’ve drawn for you.
That means you can also make different choices. I’m listing them all to make a point, not as endorsements of any: You can cut ties to your parents, cut ties to your sister, tell your sister you’re not keeping her confidences anymore (knowing it likely means the end of your relationship), tell your parents you won’t answer any more questions about your sister. All of them end the eggshell-walk abruptly and for good.
The one that seems best aligned with your goals is to honor your sister’s request and gently but firmly shut down your parents’ prying. “She is well. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.” “She is well. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.” “She is well. That’s all I’m at liberty to say.” Entertain no further prodding.
So hard for a pleaser to do, but it’s an effective and utterly fair way to stay out of someone else’s estrangement. And if your parents make you pay, then they’re proving your sister’s point.
I’m estranged from my mentally ill and dangerous mother, and I had to cut off my only sister because she Would. Not. Stop. telling my mother information about me. Please take very seriously that your sister doesn’t exist in those conversations anymore — or you’re going to lose her.
As a person who spent way too long trying to manage her parents’ emotional needs and demands, I am adamant that my problems and insecurities and dreams should not be my kids’ responsibility. My parents had their reasons, but they had a responsibility not to impose those problems on me. And they didn’t live up to it. It’s okay to not carry this water for them anymore. | 2022-08-15T04:20:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Is sister wrong to block all news to estranged parents? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/15/carolyn-hax-sister-estranged-parents-block/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/08/15/carolyn-hax-sister-estranged-parents-block/ |
Nashville SC midfielder Sean Davis (54) gets past Minnesota United midfielder Kervin Arriaga (33) during the first half of an MLS soccer match at Geodis Park, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. (George Walker IV/The Tennessean via AP)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Alan Benitez scored the deciding goal in a 2-1 win for Minnesota United over Nashville on Sunday. | 2022-08-15T04:52:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Benitez scores, Minnesota United wins 2-1 over Nashville - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/benitez-scores-minnesota-united-wins-2-1-over-nashville/2022/08/14/49fcc17c-1c4d-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/benitez-scores-minnesota-united-wins-2-1-over-nashville/2022/08/14/49fcc17c-1c4d-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
WHANGANUI, New Zealand — Five years ago, the Whanganui River was recognized as a living person in a groundbreaking New Zealand law. For many who live along its banks, the official recognition validated the deep spiritual connection they feel with the river. They continue to feel the draw of its waters each day, whether it’s to fish, canoe or refresh their lives. | 2022-08-15T04:52:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Whanganui River 'always makes things better for me' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/whanganui-river-always-makes-things-better-for-me/2022/08/15/d3231966-1c51-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/whanganui-river-always-makes-things-better-for-me/2022/08/15/d3231966-1c51-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
Winston Churchill has a phrase for any occasion. After German troops were defeated in a pivotal battle at El Alamein in 1942, he commented that it was “not the end, not even the beginning of the end but, possibly, the end of the beginning.” That’s probably a fair assessment of the state of the west’s war against inflation after a week that looked a turning point. War and killing dragged on for 30 months after El Alamein before Hitler was defeated, but with the Allies the increasingly likely victors throughout; and while the stakes aren’t that high this time, it’s fair to expect something similar for today’s global economy.
“After a strong jobs report last Friday reignited fears of an overheating economy, markets were edgy heading into a busy week for inflation data. It doesn’t happen that often, but bulls hit the inflation superfecta. It started with Monday’s release of the July Survey of Consumer Expectations which showed a continued decline in inflation expectations. On Wednesday, the big bad CPI report for July was released and that came in lower than expected for a change. The weaker-than-expected CPI was followed by a weaker PPI Thursday and then a weaker-than-expected report on Import Prices Friday. After months where it seemed as though every inflation report was coming in hot, this week’s data on prices was cold, cold, cold, and cold. The heat wave has been broken!”
This is a fair enough summary. In particular, the headline US CPI index for July was unchanged from June, meaning that month-on-month inflation had actually dropped to zero. This a truthful and significant fact that can be seen clearly through the political fog of recriminations over whether it’s true (it is) and whether it’s a sensible way to say that the problem is over (it absolutely isn’t).
How can we best quantify where inflation has reached and the issues ahead? I think it’s worth returning to the Inflation Indicators that we published weekly for most of last year. The aim was to try to tell whether the low-inflation paradigm that had persisted since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-09 had at last been broken. The idea was to decide on a list of indicators of different aspects of inflation, and give them a Z-score, which measured how many standard deviations they were above or below their mean for the previous 10 years. For each indicator, the more standard deviations above normal, the darker blue they would appear in our heat map.
Now that inflation looks as though it may have reached a turning point, it’s interesting to look at what the indicators tell us now, so Elaine kindly ran the graphic once more. It does help to shed light. This is what the heat map looked like when we last published it in December:
The amount of blue has increased slightly, but that’s largely because the economic forecasters polled by Bloomberg are more nervous about inflation. These numbers don’t change often and aren’t as helpful as I had hoped. Beyond that, economic measures of inflation show up almost exactly as they did eight months ago — way above the norm for the post-crisis era. The key lines of differences are:
• Raw material prices. They show significantly less pressure than they did.
• Consumer and business sentiment: After proving great leading indicators last year, the surveys we cover suggest that the peak in concern about inflation is already behind us — despite the ongoing intense news coverage.
• Wages. Without being extreme, they now show significantly more pressure — all the measures we track are above their long-term average.
There’s also an important compositional effect within the five inflation components I chose to track. There are hundreds of components in the full index, but I thought these might prove particularly sensitive. Shelter inflation is now four standard deviations above its norm for the last decade. As it accounts for a third of the index and tends to come through with a lag, this bodes ill for headline inflation descending quickly to 2%. Meanwhile, the cost of recreational services is also now rising at two standard deviations above the mean as the economy reopens. Prices that rocketed due to transitory effects, such as car rentals, are now right back to normal, while college tuition and drug costs, both politically sensitive, have stayed under control.
Where does this leave us? The turn of the sentiment indicators, and the decline of raw materials prices, are both positive signals. Wages, hotter than they were at any point in 2021, are the great remaining concern. Barring a fresh geopolitical shock to send commodity prices higher again (which could easily happen, but let’s not discuss it now), the remaining concerns are house prices and rents (which are now inflating far faster than they once did, and which take a while to turn around) and wage inflation.
So this exercise justifies an outbreak of market happiness. But the extent of the rally looks overdone, because of the critical issue of how long it will take to bring inflation down. It’s nice that the peak is (probably) in; but the Fed wants us to believe that it won’t desist from high interest rates until its target of 2% core inflation is in sight. That won’t be easy.
For a really good breakdown of why the “peak” isn’t as big a deal as some might hope, I’d recommend this video by Campbell Harvey of Research Affiliates LLC, which appears to have gone viral among the financial Twitterati over the weekend. He lays out the issues very clearly and makes one critical point: If month-on-month inflation continues at July’s -0.01% from now until December, then headline inflation at the end of the year will still be over 6%. That would have been regarded as a nightmare scenario when this year began, and with wage negotiations concentrated in the beginning months of the year the risks of a “wage-price spiral” would intensify.
Returning to optimism, last week’s data does suggest that a “soft landing,” in which inflation comes down without a major recession, does at least now seem possible. The very strong employment numbers make it look as though recession talk has been premature.
“The press release noted that improvement in consumer expectations is “particularly among low and middle income consumers for whom inflation is particularly salient.” Notably, the index for consumers’ expectation for near-term gas prices decreased substantially, to 10.3, from 21.0 in July and 41.2 in June, suggesting that falling gasoline prices may play an important role in the improvement of consumer sentiment. Buying conditions for durables, including motor vehicles, deteriorated in August after the improvement in July, as “high-income consumers registered large declines in both their current personal finances as well as buying conditions for durables.”
After a post-crisis recovery in which the lower-paid were left behind, an economic slowdown that saw them catch up to some extent might well feel that much more like a “soft landing.”
If there’s a worrying indication for the economy, it comes from inventories. They are now very high. That implies that prices might have to come down (because supply is too great for demand). It also implies that production will come down, which means slower economic growth. This chart from Bank of America Corp. looks at the amount that CEOs in the US and Europe complained about excess inventories and weakening demand:
One dog that has not barked during the bear markets for stocks and bonds this year: the credit market. That matters, as it’s credit that tends to act as the regulator for everyone else. If credit investors want to tighten conditions, then there is a problem. But investment-grade corporate debt has done nothing more than adjust to the higher yields on Treasuries — spreads are no wider than they were at the beginning of the year, and remain much lower than they were for most of the last decade:
High-yield credit has also seen a rebound, after a nasty selloff. This is one asset class that might naturally be expected to suffer from a rise in rates, but it isn’t happening yet:
• First, last week’s jobs report has made a serious dent in the recession theory. Simply put, this economy does not hire half a million new workers into a recession.
• Second, the CPI report on Weds offered the first tangible piece of evidence that inflation peak may be happening. We have been consistently emphasizing weakness in commodities as a leading indicator of this, but the CPI print offers a hard data point to support this.
• Third, credit conditions have been improving fast on the back of a major market rebound from July.
If the perilous descent from Peak Inflation continues successfully, the credit market will continue to validate the recovery in other risk assets. But it wouldn’t take much difficulty for the credit market to shake some of today’s positive assumptions. These data are encouraging, but it’s too soon to call the all-clear. —Assistance by Isabelle Lee
Recent days have been marked by the appalling news of the attack on Salman Rushdie. The incident is like a step back in time. Way back in 1989, during my brief stint as a trainee reporter on the English south coast, I once got to write a story about how The Satanic Verses was the most popular book of the year at the town’s public libraries, while the local Islamic community urged the council not to let anyone see it. It’s hard to overstate how much Rushdie, his novel and Ayatollah Khomeini’s death sentence dominated politics and society at that time.
More than three decades later, with Rushdie long returned to public life, a young man who was not even born then has tried to carry out the Ayatollah’s wishes. It’s a bad dream.
Rushdie is a divisive figure in Britain, where many saw the irony in his seeking protection from a police service loyal to Margaret Thatcher (or “Mrs. Torture” as she was referred to in Rushdie’s novel). And I tend to agree with those who complain that “The Satanic Verses” is unreadable. I’ve tried to read it several times, and never got very far.
However, there is genius in the man. If you doubt this, try Midnight’s Children, which I read in 1989 thanks to Rushdie’s notoriety. Telling the story of India, and the tragedy of Partition, it’s an extraordinary experience to immerse in it. And it’s timely as Indian independence, and Partition, happened exactly 75 years ago. The children of the title would now be 75. If you haven’t read it, and you have time, give it a try — once you’re into Rushdie’s rich idiom, it’s magical.
For something more musical if you have less time to spare, this is Rushdie’s appearance on Desert Island Discs from 1988, on the eve of the fatwa that would change his life; it’s a delicious irony that one of his chosen songs is Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. Or you can watch his strange appearance in a U2 video. You could also listen to J.K. Rowling from 2000, when she was already famous but not one of the most famous people on the planet. Given the response to her comments in recent years on transgender issues, and the death threats she has received after voicing her support for Rushdie, there again might be some irony in her choice of “Bigmouth Strikes Again” by The Smiths. Now she probably knows how Joan of Arc felt.
• Julian Lee: Oil Demand Forecasts Aren’t as Bullish as They Seem
• Jonathan Levin: Short or Long, Inflation Expectations Are Too High
• Nisid Hajari: Modi’s India Is Becoming a Reflection of Jinnah’s Fears | 2022-08-15T06:22:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘The End of the Beginning’ of This War on Inflation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-end-of-the-beginning-of-thiswar-on-inflation/2022/08/15/d1a58852-1c5c-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-end-of-the-beginning-of-thiswar-on-inflation/2022/08/15/d1a58852-1c5c-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
The Doctor Won’t See You Now: The UK’s Cost-of-Surviving Crisis
The NHS needs help. (Photographer: WPA Pool/Getty Images Europe)
There is no shortage of grim headlines in the UK right now. Britain is facing catastrophically high living costs, a steady drumbeat of strike action and potential blackouts this winter. So, here’s another cheery thought: The breaking point for this government may be a cost-of-surviving crisis.
A certain amount of pain from rising energy prices can be absorbed with the appropriate level of government intervention and messaging (granted, neither are yet in evidence). Britons can invoke the “spirit of the blitz” to turn down the heat in cold months, don an extra layer and run fewer cycles of the washing machine. But hell hath no fury like a population that can’t access health care.
The prized and troubled National Health Service now has a backlog of 6.6 million patients waiting to see GPs, get scans or have operations. Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, the two candidates vying to replace Boris Johnson, have both pledged vaguely to address the issue, but they’ve spent most of the campaign arguing about tax cuts.
The backlogs aren’t new. Even before the pandemic, the queue stood at 4.43 million waiting for care. Despite some recent progress, there is still a huge way to go. The number of patients waiting more than a year for treatment has grown by 13 times, according to the British Medical Association. In 2012, less than one-fifth of people said they struggled to make an appointment at their GP’s office; now it’s 47%. More than a quarter avoid making an appointment at all.
The lack of cancer care is particularly devastating. One in two people will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime. In my immediate family, I’ve seen three cases in the past decade or so. In my friendship group, there have been several. Caught early and treated well, survival rates for many cancers are highly encouraging. But while the UK’s cancer care has improved in recent years, it has long lagged other major countries in one- and five-year survival rates for many major cancers.
In Britain as elsewhere, Covid wreaked havoc on cancer diagnosis and treatment. Doctors now say the waits for both are at disastrous levels, and many people will die as a result.
The country’s health care problems have been made worse by workforce shortages. Across the NHS, there are currently 110,000 job vacancies. England alone urgently needs 12,000 more hospital doctors and around 50,000 nurses.
Burnout is a huge problem, with more junior doctors leaving before completing their training and more doctors retiring early, moving into private practice or planning to leave . Nearly one in five nurses who have left the job cited job pressures or stress as the reason. Brexit has also reduced the numbers of European Union-trained nurses and doctors in the UK, leaving hospitals to recruit from further afield.
All of this doesn’t even touch on social care — the fragmented and underfunded system of support for everything from autism to dementia to other long-term needs. The 1.5% increase in the National Insurance tax (a social security tax) paid by employers and employees was billed as funding for social care, but its immediate purpose has been in trying to make a dent in the NHS waitlist. Truss wants to reverse it anyhow. Funding a proper social-care plan will likely require about 0.5% of GDP, but no Tory candidate has committed to that.
Like the cost-of-living crisis, the health care crisis requires both immediate and longer term solutions. The immediate challenge is getting people who need care into the system before delays add to pain and cost more lives. The only answer there is the obvious one — more funding and more workforce recruitment from outside the UK.
It will also require more contracting with private-sector health care providers, as was done so successfully in many places during the pandemic to alleviate pressure on NHS hospitals. The dirty little secret of Britain’s state system is that it would collapse without the private sector, which has provided excellent services in orthopaedics, audiology, ophthalmology and other areas.
Both Truss and Sunak talk about boosting economic growth, but that won’t happen without fixing these NHS issues. Long waits for treatment compromise productivity as well as quality of life.
Yet throwing ever greater sums at the NHS is both unsustainable and incompatible with the conservative vision of a lower-tax state. There is a need for longer-term solutions.
There are alternative models of universal health provision in other countries — such as those in the Netherlands and elsewhere that use public and private insurance to deliver high-quality care. The fact that so many Brits who can are dipping into their disposable income to pay for private care suggests a willingness to make tradeoffs. Asking people to pay a nominal charge to see their GP (with exemptions for the poor) would likely reduce missed appointments and superfluous visits without materially impacting household finances — and it would help fund more complex needs such as cancer care.
Any real solution will entail compromises, both financial and political. As one friend put it to me, Britain’s NHS is like the old Soviet economy; anything you do to fix it will almost certainly shock it into non-performance. Even so, non-action is akin to killing the patient, as well as any hope the Tories have for winning the next election. | 2022-08-15T06:22:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Doctor Won’t See You Now: The UK’s Cost-of-Surviving Crisis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-doctor-wont-see-you-now-the-uks-cost-of-surviving-crisis/2022/08/15/edb3b96a-1c57-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-doctor-wont-see-you-now-the-uks-cost-of-surviving-crisis/2022/08/15/edb3b96a-1c57-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
By Vic Chiang
Harry Wang at his graduation ceremony at Tianjin Foreign Studies University in June. (Courtesy of Harry Wang)
By the fall of Harry Wang’s senior year at Tianjin Foreign Studies University, the French major was set for a bright future in China’s private economy. He had job offers from global companies, including drug giant AstraZeneca and TikTok owner ByteDance. But one afternoon last September, he rejected them to pursue a career as a Chinese civil servant.
The 22-year-old said his decision helped him feel “determined and confident” for the ultracompetitive written test to become a bureaucrat. His sense of purpose also came from having already dressed the part: Wang is into “cadre-style” fashion, an online trend in China in which young men don the outfits of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) apparatchiks they aspire to become.
Long considered uninspired, the simple attire of the Chinese politician in recent months has gained new appeal for those who want the security of official jobs. “As private companies announce mass layoffs due to the pandemic, cadre style’s popularity reflects the desire for a life within the system with a stable job and income,” Wang said.
China’s economic growth slows to 0.4%
Rising unemployment and an uncertain economic outlook have made seemingly stable careers within the party and its sprawling bureaucracy increasingly attractive for the nearly 11 million Chinese university graduates who entered the job market this summer.
The economic troubles are threatening to undermine an important moment for Chinese leader Xi Jinping as he prepares to take on a precedent-breaking third term at the 20th Party Congress this fall. Top leaders signaled last month that their previous goal of 5.5 percent economic growth this year would be unattainable, because of China’s strict adherence to a “zero covid” policy and a sharp slowdown in the housing market.
Adding to the pain, unemployment for 16-to-24-year-olds hit a record 19.9 percent in July, amid almost uniformly weak economic data released this week. The causes include coronavirus restrictions and a regulatory crackdown that has hit the tech industry and private education. As a result, more Chinese university students than ever are turning to the party-state in search of reliable careers.
In November, a record 2.1 million people registered for China’s annual civil service exam in pursuit of the “iron rice bowl” of state-guaranteed employment. With only 31,200 openings, 68 people on average were competing for each position. In Tibet, a single postal service job drew nearly 20,000 applicants, according to the state-run Global Times newspaper.
“For young graduates, stability has become the priority,” said Wang Yixin, director of public relations at the online recruitment platform Zhilian Zhaopin. He said the rising unemployment was caused by coronavirus outbreaks that affected domestic production, and the cancellation of job fairs just as overseas students returned to China during the pandemic. “Many have started to believe that by working as a civil servant, their lives can become more stable.”
Xi Jinping’s crackdown on everything is remaking Chinese society
On the Instagram-like platform Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book, cadre-style hashtags on photos of mostly young men dressing like government officials have millions of views. Many of the posters call themselves a “boyfriend from within the system,” implying that men who work in coveted government jobs make for good marriage material.
A widely shared article on the social media app WeChat described the fascination as reflecting the power that public officials wield and the respect they garner — especially among parents pressuring their daughters to get married.
“Unlike branded clothing to showcase oneself, the core of cadre style is … discretely showing that a 20-year-old has the capabilities of a 30-year-old and the resources of a 40-year-old,” the article said to explain why parents hope their daughters will find a partner within the system.
Not everyone is impressed by the trend. Online influencers have said it is simply dressing badly. Chinese media wrote about a 25-year-old who was commonly mistaken for a middle-aged official because he dressed like one. On the microblog Weibo, one person said, “Why say something ugly is beautiful, use looking old to gain seniority, and turn lack of personality into an ability?”
At a time when Xi has reasserted the party’s leadership over all aspects of society and cracked down on perceived excesses in the private economy, there is also increased pressure on young people to publicly signal what the party calls “core socialist values” of patriotism, dedication and integrity.
To the casual observer, the cadre style is unremarkable, because being unshowy is part of the point. One common choice is the plain dark suit with a cheap white shirt and sensible leather shoes. Another is the unbranded polo shirt. The signature windbreaker jackets worn by top party leaders are particularly popular.
For Wang, the recent graduate, the CCP badge is essential. Raised in Hanzhong, a city of 3 million in Shaanxi province, by two civil servant parents, Wang applied to join the party in his first year at college. Uploading photos of himself dressed in dark suits with the bright red emblem of the party pinned to his lapel “gives people the feeling that you are mature and serious,” he said.
Signing up for party membership has long been a common choice for ambitious young Chinese, regardless of their political beliefs, in part because it can help with job applications. But Wang says he is a true believer, drawn to officialdom by a school trip to Zhengding County in Hebei province, where he was inspired by the example of Xi Jinping, who at 30 years old became the local party boss in the 1980s.
“Of course, there are a lot of uncertainties, but I wish that through my efforts I could become the main cadre of a department or a bureau,” Wang said. “Or even a director.”
But not everyone is able to work for the government. And the troubled job market has led many to compromise on their dream jobs. A survey in May by Zhilian Zhaopin found that 55 percent of recent graduates said the economic situation caused them to lower their expectations for future jobs, with their average predicted salary being about $930 per month, down by 6 percent from a year before.
After graduating from a second-tier university in Wuhan last year, Linn Wang spent months trying to find a job, eventually deciding to move to one of China’s most populous cities, Guangzhou, after several failed attempts in her hometown.
Wang — who is not related to Harry Wang or Wang Yixin — did not consider taking the civil service exam. “It’s too competitive. I wouldn’t stand a chance,” she said, adding that only one person she knew had made the cut.
“The different situation for graduates in my year is that everyone is now applying for the jobs that were previously unappealing to top university students,” said the 22-year-old business graduate. “There are a lot of competitors. Those who got fired by big companies are also competing with you.”
With savings from her previous internships as a cushion, Wang said she has not reached the point where she would need to apply for an unemployment allowance, but has decided against aiming for an ideal job. “I used to want to find jobs with two days off a week, but now I can put up with just a single day off,” she said. “You have to face reality.” | 2022-08-15T08:06:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Cadre style’ fashion is new trend in China’s strained economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/china-fashion-trend-cadre-style-economy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/china-fashion-trend-cadre-style-economy/ |
A handout picture taken and released by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday shows U.S. Representatives Alan Lowenthal, John Garamendi, Don Beyer and Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen posing with Taiwanese diplomat Douglas Yu-tien Hsu after arriving in Taipei. (Handout/AFP/Getty Images)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — China announced new military drills around Taiwan on Monday, as a delegation of U.S. lawmakers met with Taiwanese officials at a time of heightened tensions in the region, with Beijing accusing the United States of “playing cheap political tricks” by strengthening its unofficial relationship with the self-governing democracy.
The delegation of five members of Congress, led by Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), were expected to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen during an overnight stop in Taipei as part of a larger tour of Asia, according to a statement from the American Institute in Taiwan. Taiwan had not released details of the meeting by Monday midafternoon local time.
China appeared slow to react to the unannounced arrival of the latest congressional delegation, which came two weeks after another group of lawmakers led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sparked the largest display of Chinese military saber rattling since the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. On Chinese microblog Weibo, a state media account called Watching the Taiwan Strait on Sunday evening described the visit as “again sending a wrong signal” but the post was later deleted.
On Monday afternoon, however, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command announced drills involving multiple branches of the military near Taiwan, which it said were a warning to the United States and Taiwan of “playing cheap political tricks.” China’s defense ministry said in a statement that the latest visit by U.S. lawmakers showed that the United States was the “true agitator and breaker of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” adding that the PLA was continuing to perfect its ability to repel any foreign interference in the region.
The initially muted response is starkly different from a flurry of angry statements from Beijing released as soon as Pelosi’s plane touched down in Taipei on Aug. 2. Because of security concerns, U.S. lawmaker visits to Taiwan are usually unannounced — unlike the House Speaker’s trip which was reported by the Financial Times in July.
China’s military show of force in response to Pelosi’s visit began in earnest a day after she left. Then, over four days, China fired missiles into the sea on all sides of Taiwan’s main island while fighter jets repeatedly crossed the unofficial border that runs down the middle of the strait. Taiwan’s military said the drills were tantamount to a blockade and involved simulation of an attack, although disruptions to commercial flights and shipping were limited and daily life continued largely as normal for Taiwan’s 23 million residents.
The arrival of another delegation just as tensions in the Taiwan Strait were easing underscores a growing rift between Beijing and Washington over the latter’s efforts to strengthen its unofficial relationship with Taipei. While the United States is seeking to normalize visits by its lawmakers, China is trying to “securitize” exchanges with regular military responses, said Wen-Ti Sung, a scholar at the Australian National University’s Taiwan Studies Program.
“U.S. congressional visits to Taiwan do not amount to change in U.S. policy, though Beijing may criticize them as such,” Sung said, adding that reconsidering or delaying such visits to Taiwan for fear of provoking a drastic Chinese military response “would allow Beijing to link a normal exercise in parliamentary diplomacy with military stability, and securitize a hitherto relatively nonsensitive area of diplomacy.”
Beijing in recent months has issued increasingly pointed warnings directed at both Taipei and Washington not to test its resolve over Taiwan. In a white paper issued last week, China’s State Council instructed the United States to “not to stand in the way of the reunification of China” and laid out Beijing’s belief that the United States is undermining China’s claims though actions including “contriving ‘official’ exchanges with Taiwan, increasing arms sales, and colluding in military provocation.”
The document also did away with a previous commitment not to station PLA troops or send administrative personnel to Taiwan in the event of unification — a shift widely interpreted in Taiwan as indicating a hardened position from Beijing.
The White House has repeatedly stated that the United States’ “one China” policy — which acknowledges Beijing’s claims over Taiwan but takes no position on how the two sides should resolve their differences other than urging a peaceful resolution — remains unchanged. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, Washington retains close unofficial ties with Taipei, including supporting Taiwanese efforts to build up its own defense.
Dou reported from Beijing. | 2022-08-15T08:06:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China begins new military drills as U.S. delegation visits Taiwan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/taiwan-china-military-drills-delegation-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/taiwan-china-military-drills-delegation-congress/ |
Men sell flags of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) on Aug. 14 in Kabul. (Nava Jamshidi/Getty Images)
KABUL — Chants of “Victory! Freedom!” rang out from central Kabul as dozens of Taliban fighters and commanders gathered to mark a year since the group swept into the Afghan capital, ending a long, brutal war and upending the lives of millions.
Cars packed with families slowed to take pictures and video of the scene on Monday. Some drivers honked their horns as they shouted their support, others blasted Quranic recitations. Young men and boys draped in freshly printed Taliban flags joined the crowd, posing for selfies.
“For us this is a day of liberation,” said Muhammad Zubair Shahab, a 22-year-old Taliban fighter who was among the first units to enter Kabul. “By the grace of God in a single year we have brought security to Kabul and eliminated corruption,” he said.
The Taliban takeover of Kabul did bring an end to over two decades of war, but it has also shattered lives, gutted an already struggling health-care system and thrown the country into uncertainty amid harsh crackdowns on women’s rights and a spiraling economic crisis.
As the crowd in central Kabul grew, young children dressed in stained, threadbare clothing appeared at the sidelines, begging onlookers and members of the Taliban for pocket change. “Please, I haven’t eaten, I just want to buy once piece of bread,” they said repeatedly, moving through the crowd. Some gave them money, others shooed them away.
The Taliban fighters celebrating atop a roundabout admitted they have seen the Afghan capital slip deeper into poverty during their year in power.
“When you are liberated you must endure hardship,” Shahab said. He claimed the group has a plan to improve Afghanistan’s economy and the country will eventually rebound.
“The invaders were never going to improve the economy,” he said, referring to the high levels of poverty that existed in Afghanistan for years during the presence of foreign forces before the Taliban takeover.
“They were just here for their own interests, we are here for the Afghan people,” he said.
Elsewhere in Kabul, Taliban checkpoints blocked roads, effectively preventing any counter demonstrations and leaving some feeling trapped inside their own homes on the recently declared national holiday.
Groups of women hoping to publicly protest bans on education for girls frantically exchanged messages trying to find a safe place to gather. A small protest was held indoors after they were unable to assemble outside.
But many women had already decided to remain at home. Some were still recovering from injuries after being beaten in the street by Taliban fighters dispersing a similar protest just days ago. Others feared arrest.
“I am just sitting in my home crying,” a female activist wrote in a message. She requested her name not be published for fear of Taliban reprisals. “They say this is a freedom day, but for us this day marks disaster. The situation is only becoming more and more dangerous.” | 2022-08-15T09:15:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taliban celebrate one year since Kabul takeover - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/celebration-uncertainty-fear-grip-kabul-one-year/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/celebration-uncertainty-fear-grip-kabul-one-year/ |
Author Salman Rushdie in 2017. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Iran denied any involvement Monday in last week’s attack that left author Salman Rushdie with severe injuries after he was stabbed in the neck and abdomen onstage at an event in western New York.
In its first public reaction to the stabbing, Iran said Rushdie and his supporters were to blame for the attack, more than three decades after Tehran issued a directive for Muslims to kill Rushdie because of his book “The Satanic Verses,” published in 1988.
“We do not blame, or recognize worthy of condemnation, anyone except himself and his supporters,” Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said of the stabbing, which has been condemned by world leaders and rocked the literary world.
Kanaani said in a briefing to reporters that through his writing, the 75-year-old Rushdie had insulted “the holiness of Islam” and crossed “the red lines of more than one and a half billion Muslims.”
“Many countries and specifically the U.S. talk about the freedom of speech in this regard. Freedom of speech cannot be used as an excuse to justify insulting holy religions,” Kanaani said.
After publication of “The Satanic Verses,” Rushdie contended with death threats and spent almost a decade in hiding, but in recent years, he has attended events in public without security guards.
The book, which makes a number of references — some veiled, some not — to Muhammad, Islam and the Quran, was considered blasphemous by some Muslims, including Iran’s late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In 1989, Khomeini denounced “The Satanic Verses” and issued a fatwa, or religious directive, against the Indian-born British American novelist — calling for his death.
The Iranian government distanced itself from the fatwa in 1998, and the British government restored diplomatic relations with the country.
On Sunday, Rushdie’s agent, Andrew Wylie, said the novelist had been removed from a ventilator and that, though the process would be lengthy, “the road to recovery has begun.”
Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old New Jersey man, was taken into custody by police at the scene Friday. He was arraigned on Saturday and charged with attempted murder and assault.
“We do not have any information about the perpetrator and have been informed about the incident through American media,” Kanaani said Monday.
Ron Charles in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report. | 2022-08-15T09:16:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Salman Rushdie to blame for his own stabbing, Iran Foreign Ministry says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/salman-rushdie-attack-iran/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/salman-rushdie-attack-iran/ |
Mixed messages about the economy are making it difficult for business owners to figure out how to proceed. “It’s one big question mark.”
Jonathan Echeverry, owner of Paper Plane Coffee Co., stands in the space that will be used to expand his coffee shop next door in Montclair, N.J., on July 28. (Evelyn Freja/For The Washington Post)
Construction crews in Montclair, N.J., are working overtime on a $150,000 expansion of Paper Plane Coffee Co., that will double the shop’s size to accommodate booming demand and create a new tasting room and events space.
But if the economy sours, owner Jonathan Echeverry already has a plan B. He’ll pause hiring and trade down to cheaper varieties of coffee beans and local milk that’s a little less creamy.
“It’s one big question mark: We’re growing so fast that we need bigger machines and a bigger manufacturing facility, but what are things going to look like a year from now?” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about a recession.”
Two and a half years into the pandemic, small-business owners say they’re just beginning to recover from the sudden blow that hobbled many of them during the early 2020 pandemic restrictions. Since then, owners have dealt with surging costs, labor shortages and large swings in consumer demand often influenced by area cases of the coronavirus.
Now they’re being barraged by diverging economic messages that have many wondering what to do next. The U.S. economy shrank for a second quarter in a row, reviving fears that the country might be entering a recession. But an exceptionally strong jobs report last week wiped out many of those concerns while also making it harder and costlier for small-business owners, particularly in the hospitality industry, to find and keep workers.
“It’s been one hit after another for small businesses, and now we’re in this unusual situation where we just don’t know what’s going on with the economy,” said Paige Ouimet, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. “There is so much that’s up in the air, and uncertainty affects small businesses much more so than it does larger ones.”
Small businesses — generally defined as those with fewer than 500 workers — are a critical part of the economy that employs about half of the country’s private-sector workers. But they tend to have smaller financial cushions and fewer places to turn, especially compared to giants like Walmart, when times get tough.
In the supply chain battle of 2021, small businesses are losing out to Walmart and Amazon
Running a business has always required a carefully calibrated balance of supply and demand forces, although Echeverry says managing his coffee company feels increasingly uncertain. The cost of coffee beans has doubled in the last year, and grab-and-go food items are increasingly out of stock. At the same time, regulars are beginning to pause weekly deliveries of premium coffee, saying it’s a luxury that doesn’t fit into their budgets anymore. People who used to come in four or five times a week for a latte are now coming in half as often.
“There are a number of unusual crosscurrents in the economy right now,” said James Wilcox, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. “For small businesses, that means they’re going to have fewer customers than they used to — which, after all, is the Federal Reserve’s intent,” in trying to curb surging inflation.
In interviews, more than a dozen small-business owners outlined the steps they’re taking to guard against a possible economic downturn. Some say they’re putting off routine renovations or bringing on contract workers instead of hiring full-time employees. Others are stocking more lower-priced goods or canceling arrangements with retailers like Target and QVC to sell directly to consumers in a way that will give them more control over production and profits. All of these pullbacks, when multiplied over thousands of small businesses, can work to further cool down the economy.
Many business owners say it’s been difficult to predict when things might slow down, or by how much. Others are also still trying to make up for shortages of both workers and supplies and say they’re hesitant to cut back just yet, even if that means eating into profits.
Higher Ground Transportation Services, a company in Bowie, Md., that provides shuttle buses and vans for groups and events, has a packed schedule this summer. But owner Jan Peters says she’s thinking twice before making long-term investments.
Peters is still struggling to build her business back to where it was before the pandemic, when she had to lay off all five workers and sell five of her 13 vehicles. She has since hired back four employees. But she’s also gradually changing her approach: Instead of more full-time workers, she’s bringing on part-time contractors — typically school-bus drivers who are free summers and weekends. And she’s started looking for used vans rather than new ones to round out her fleet.
Small business used to define America’s economy. The pandemic could change that forever.
“Even though this summer has been great for us, businesses like mine are still trying to claw back to where we were before the pandemic,” she said. “Summer camps are saving us this year. We’re doing weddings again, proms, family reunions. People want to travel locally, up and down the East Coast. But how long is that going to last? I honestly don’t know.”
Meanwhile, higher prices and supply chain hiccups continue to weigh down her business. Diesel costs are nearly double what they were a year ago, and Peters has had to raise wages by 20 percent to keep drivers from leaving for larger, higher-paying outfits.
She’s also paying more for new vehicles, if she can find them at all. Production delays have made it just about impossible to track down full-size vans — so much so that she when saw one with fresh tags recently, she followed it off the highway to see whether she could suss out the dealership from which it had come. (She couldn’t. “Other people are wowed by fancy cars or jewelry, but I’ve just got my eye on new vehicles,” she said.)
“Businesses are slowing down, but what matters here is: By what magnitude?” said Betsey Stevenson, an economics professor at the University of Michigan. “We want businesses to take out fewer loans, but how many fewer loans? That’s what the Fed is trying to get right by raising rates just the right amount.”
What causes a recession? How economic downturns begin.
It’s a tricky calculation that is feeding into business owners’ worries about the future. The percentage of small business owners citing an increasingly uncertain economic outlook rose sharply in July, while overall optimism remains near historic lows, according to data released this week by the National Federation of Independent Business.
At the Flicks, an independent movie theater and restaurant in Boise, Idaho, business is gradually starting to rebound after nosediving during the pandemic. (The business lost $900,000 in the first year alone.) Now, new economic uncertainties have co-owner Carole Skinner putting the brakes on renovation plans, which include a $100,000 investment in new seats, until she’s turning a profit again. She also wants to give longtime employees a raise but says she’s waiting until she feels as though the economy is on more solid ground.
During the pandemic, the theater installed a new air-filtration system and tried a number of marketing tactics: selling movie-theater popcorn to-go, for example, and offering curbside DVD and VHS rentals. But even as pandemic concerns have subsided, it has been difficult to win back customers who have gotten used to streaming movies without leaving their homes.
“The last two years have been very bumpy,” Skinner said. “We tried everything we could to make a little bit of money, but it really wasn’t enough. We’re hopeful, but we’re still in the red.”
The one bright spot, she and many others in the service industry say, is that consumers have shifted their spending away from goods to experiences like dining out, entertainment and tourism. The looming question, though, is how long Americans will continue to spend.
“People who spent $50 on a gift for their niece last year might just have a $30 budget this year, so we have to be ready for that,” she said. “We make a lot of gambles with retail — you’re buying inventory so far in advance and hiring people before you need them — that it gets even harder when you’re unsure what’s going to happen.” | 2022-08-15T10:51:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Small businesses say economic uncertainty is rising - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/14/small-business-economic-uncertainty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/14/small-business-economic-uncertainty/ |
This photo from the San Francisco home of Sloan Lindemann Barnett and Roger Barnett was modified, as shown by these superimposed screenshots. In one version of the photo, taken from an architect's website, the Khmer sculptures are visible. In the other, taken from a magazine, they’ve been removed. (Douglas Friedman/Screenshot obtained by The Washington Post) (Douglas Friedman/Screenshot obtained by The Washington Pos)
The homes of a billionaire family, featured in Architectural Digest, provide clues to Cambodian investigators seeking the recovery of lost artifacts
Spencer Woodman
Malia Politzer
Nicole Sadek
The January 2021 issue of Architectural Digest featured a remodeled $42 million San Francisco residence described as a Spanish Renaissance Revival palacio.
Owned by a billionaire’s daughter and her husband, the home is “theatrical” and has “been described, with good reason, as the most beautiful house in America,” the luxury magazine said.
Accompanying photos detailed its opulence — mirrored pilasters, walls paneled with white onyx, remarkable views of the San Francisco Bay, Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge.
One particularly impressive image showed a two-story central courtyard with several empty pedestals off to one side. The pedestals weren’t actually empty, though: The photo had been altered. Another version, discovered by reporters on the website of the home’s architect, shows ancient Khmer sculptures resting on the same pedestals.
The Cambodian government says those stone relics, depicting the heads of gods and demons, match a set that was looted years ago from one of the nation’s sacred sites. It is not known who modified the photo or for what reason, but experts interviewed for this story confirmed that the sculptures had been edited out of the magazine image.
The owners of the San Francisco mansion are lawyer and author Sloan Lindemann Barnett and her husband, Roger Barnett, an executive at a nutritional supplements company. The couple, who purchased the property through a limited liability company, did not respond to email and phone messages from reporters.
The Cambodian investigation into the family’s collection goes beyond one set of statues. The stone artifacts in the San Francisco home appear to have come from a larger collection of Khmer relics held by Lindemann Barnett’s billionaire parents, Frayda and the late George Lindemann. The parents’ collection appeared in an earlier Architectural Digest spread, in 2008, described as “one of the greatest collections of Southeast Asian art in private hands.” Those photos show their Palm Beach, Fla., home crowded with Khmer antiquities, many of which the Cambodian government suspects were looted. Two of them appear to match artifacts that rank among the country’s 10 most important stolen relics, the government says.
“Some of these statues are of enormous historical and cultural importance to Cambodia and should be repatriated as soon as possible,” said Phoeurng Sackona, the country’s minister of culture, who is leading efforts to reclaim thousands of lost artifacts.
“It’s not just art,” said Sopheap Meas, an archaeologist working with the Cambodian team. “We believe that each of these holds the souls of our ancestors.”
Agents from the antiquities unit at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have contacted the Lindemann family in recent years about its Khmer collection and there is no indication that the family plans to return the statues, according to two people close to the efforts who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the work is ongoing. The Lindemann family has not been accused of wrongdoing related to the artifacts. Frayda Lindemann did not respond to messages from reporters.
The discovery of the altered photo is part of a wider investigation by The Washington Post, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Finance Uncovered, a journalism nonprofit, into the fate of thousands of relics linked to looters and art traffickers. As The Post and ICIJ previously reported, many of those treasures can be found in the collections of esteemed Western art museums.
The new reporting sheds light on the role of private collectors who acquire ancient items of uncertain origin and the opaque world of antiquities trading. Once out of their home country, stolen artifacts can be difficult to repatriate. With limited means to compel their return, authorities in victimized nations are largely reliant on help from law enforcement in the United States and other nations where the items end up. But such investigations are costly, are often seen as a low priority for overworked agencies and rarely lead to convictions, in part because owners may say they purchased the looted works unknowingly.
“This is a systemic problem” in the art market, said Domenic DiGiovanni, a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer specializing in antiquities. There is little incentive for dealers and private collectors to stop buying looted art, he said, and “having to return something, that’s just the cost of business.”
Asked about the edited image, Erin Kaplan, spokesperson for Architectural Digest, a Condé Nast publication, said by email that the magazine published a photo that did not show the relics because of “unresolved publication rights around select artworks.” Kaplan declined to say who altered the photo or clarify her comment about unresolved publication rights.
Ancient temples, wealthy collectors
The ancient temple complexes of Cambodia are recognized as extraordinary feats of engineering and art. Three are listed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, and seven more have been tentatively added to the list.
For Cambodia, antiquities have economic as well as cultural value. In the year before the pandemic, tourism accounted for 18.7 percent of the nation’s GDP growth, according to World Bank statistics, much of it spurred by visits to the historic temples.
Yet nearly all of the major temple sites have been subject to pillaging, with a particularly destructive wave beginning in the 1970s, during the country’s civil war and genocide, when they were ransacked by organized networks associated with military groups.
While no one knows how many artifacts were stolen during this tumult, archaeologists believe thousands passed through dealers and wound up in museums and the private collections of some of the world’s wealthiest people.
To bring the Khmer treasures home, the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts has assembled a team of about 40 researchers, archaeologists, lawyers and art scholars. The effort is led by Phoeurng and Bradley J. Gordon, an American attorney for the ministry.
So far, the Cambodian team says, it has tracked more than 2,000 allegedly looted Khmer relics to museums and private collectors around the world.
The next step is persuading the holders of the antiquities to return pieces they’ve acquired. Authorities say that can prove difficult, especially when a collector has purchased them for hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.
Collectors should be required to prove that they have legal possession of their artifacts, the Cambodian authorities say, because the government has never issued export permits for Khmer sculpture — though in a few rare cases, Cambodian kings have given them as gifts.
To support their claims, Cambodian investigators have gathered information from former looters, archaeological excavations and, critically, from the computer files left behind by Douglas Latchford, a British antiquities collector. Prosecutors say Latchford was a key middleman between temple looters and wealthy collectors in Western nations. Investigators have shared some of his files with the reporting team.
For decades, Latchford presented himself as a scholar, benefactor and devotee of Khmer artwork, but he was indicted in 2019 for what U.S. prosecutors say was his leading role in the ransacking of Cambodian sites.
Last year, The Post and ICIJ traced dozens of Latchford-linked items to museums, galleries and private collectors. The Pandora Papers investigation also revealed offshore trusts that Latchford used to hold money and art.
Latchford died in 2020, effectively closing the case against him, but continuing investigations into antiquities he allegedly trafficked have opened a view into the secretive world of private collectors.
Billionaire Jim Clark, the co-founder of Netscape, an early web browser, offered rare insight into Latchford’s dealings in an interview with ICIJ and The Post this year.
Clark said he was vacationing in Southeast Asia about two decades ago when he was smitten by Khmer artworks. He paid Latchford about $35 million for dozens of pieces, he said. Cambodia’s culture ministry would later say that Clark’s collection was so important that it could fill an entire wing in the country’s national museum.
“I was freshly wealthy,” Clark said in the interview. “I was a bit naive. In those days, I just thought: ‘Wow, this is cool stuff — I’ll buy it for my apartment.’ ”
Latchford’s dignified manner made it easy to trust him, Clark said.
“I always assumed that he was a well-regarded expert because he had published these books, and he had documents from the Cambodian government honoring him,” he said.
Clark displayed the pieces in a Miami Beach penthouse he owned for a few years before moving them to a Palm Beach storage unit, where they remained for more than a decade.
“I kept wanting to bring parts of it out,” Clark said of the collection. But “the decorator we’d use for any place we had, he wasn’t excited about it.”
Last year, U.S. authorities working with the Cambodian recovery team approached Clark about relics in his collection believed to have been stolen. He voluntarily surrendered dozens of pieces that he’d acquired through Latchford.
Getting Khmer pieces back is seldom so easy, however, even when the Cambodian investigators can trace the history of the missing artworks.
Tracking Khmer treasures: A tip and ‘Jungle Cat’
The Cambodian investigation into the Lindemanns began with a tip.
Four years ago, one of Latchford’s business associates sent an email to Gordon, the American attorney working with Cambodian investigators. The email contained photos from a 2008 issue of Architectural Digest of a “dazzling” $68.5 million Palm Beach mansion. The magazine did not name the owners, but it was the home of Sloan Lindemann Barnett’s parents, George and Frayda Lindemann, then prominent figures in the art world, according to property records and news accounts.
Photos of the interior revealed an extensive collection of Khmer antiquities valued at $40 million or more, according to experts. From the photos, Cambodian investigators identified more than 20 statues that they suspect were looted.
The owners had designed a home that reflected the architecture of Southeast Asia, the magazine said. According to the article, the owners believed there was “karmic justice to installing their ancient stone warriors and divinities in an environment that recalled their birthplace.”
The Cambodian investigators soon came upon a longtime antiquities broker who they say became a key witness in their investigation of the Lindemann collection.
A slight, restless Cambodian man with — in his own words — “the smile of a tiger,” the antiquities broker acknowledged in an interview that he had been, essentially, an accomplice: Years ago, he helped transport a number of the allegedly looted pieces that appeared in the Lindemann living room to one of Latchford’s main suppliers. He also brokered deals involving looted antiquities and has helped in a U.S. antiquities investigation, Gordon said. The antiquities broker spoke to reporters for this story on the condition of anonymity because he fears for his safety. Cambodian investigators use “Jungle Cat” as a code name for him.
Several of the artifacts in the Palm Beach villa had been looted, the antiquities broker said.
“I loved this one the moment I saw it,” he said, gesturing to an image in the 2008 Architectural Digest photo spread.
He was pointing to a photo of a statue of a Hindu deity, Vishnu, in a reclining position. The figure lay across a stone platform, atop a snake, with its feet extended into the lap of a smaller, headless female figure representing his wife, the goddess Lakshmi. The Cambodian government says the statue was stolen from a temple that might be the royal tomb of the family of King Jayavarman IV, who ruled an empire that included present-day Cambodia and Laos more than a thousand years ago.
The tomb was located in Koh Ker, a former Khmer capital renowned among art scholars and thieves for its artworks. Master artisans carved larger-than-life sandstone sculptures of Hindu gods and goddesses to adorn the city’s sprawling temple complexes. According to local custom, each of these statues has a soul, and for centuries, worshipers went to the temples to make offerings and pray.
“It’s easily one of the most important statues in the temple, and probably all of Koh Ker,” Gordon, said about the Vishnu figure. “By having this in their collection, the Lindemanns essentially [had] the Cambodian equivalent of a sarcophagus stolen from King Tut’s tomb sitting in their living room.”
The statue was torn from its temple in the late 1990s by a criminal group run by a former Khmer Rouge soldier and then placed in an ox cart, wheeled 50 kilometers to a nearby town and transferred to a military truck, the antiquities broker said. At the Thai border, one of Latchford’s main suppliers bought the statue, he added.
Among the other pieces that the antiquities broker recognized from the 2008 feature on the Lindemanns’ Palm Beach home were the same stone sculptures of demon and god heads photographed years later in their daughter’s San Francisco mansion.
Another of the statues in the 2008 feature is so significant that the Cambodian national museum in Phnom Penh displays its empty pedestal.
The sandstone work represents Dhrishtadyumna, a celebrated warrior. It was part of a nine-statue set depicting a pivotal fight scene from a Hindu epic, scholars say. Most had passed through Latchford to prominent museums and auction houses, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., and Sotheby’s, and have been returned.
“It’s hard to overstate the importance of this statue to Cambodia,” Gordon said. “It belongs in the national museum.”
Reappearing demons and gods
George and Frayda Lindemann had long been major forces in the art world, stewards of a collection of German Expressionist paintings and masterworks of avant-garde furniture.
It’s not clear when they became interested in Khmer art, but they traveled in 1997 to Southeast Asia, where they socialized with prominent figures in the region’s antiquities trade, according to Latchford’s files.
A photograph from that trip — also found in Latchford’s files, accompanying a friendly email addressed to Frayda — shows the couple posing in front of palm trees and blue sky in a group that included Latchford and Martin Lerner, the Southeast Asia curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Shortly after that trip, the Lindemanns donated two Khmer statues to the Met. According to the Cambodian investigators, a former looter said he had stolen the two pieces and sold them to one of Latchford’s main suppliers. Both statues remain in the museum’s collection.
The Met has said that it is “in active dialogue with Cambodian representatives” and has shared information about the statues’ origins.
“Our Museum has a long history of evaluating cultural property claims, and where appropriate returning objects based upon rigorous evidentiary review,” Kenneth Weine, a Met spokesperson, said in a emailed statement.
Lerner, who retired from the museum almost two decades ago, said that the trip to Southeast Asia was not sponsored by the museum but that he had encouraged the Lindemanns to donate the works. He described one of the statues as a minor work of “modest monetary value” and the other as being of interest mainly to scholars.
While Lerner said he doesn’t recall the history of the pieces, “they could have passed through Latchford’s hands. That in itself does not necessarily mean they were ‘looted,’” he said by email. “In their own ways, the two sculptures expand the scope of the Met’s Southeast Asian collections.”
George Lindemann died in 2018. The family’s Palm Beach home was demolished in recent years after hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin purchased the property.
It is unknown what has happened to most of the Khmer antiquities that were photographed inside, but at least some of the items appear to have been passed on to the family’s next generation.
In 2011, Sloan Lindemann Barnett and her husband purchased their 17,000-square-foot mansion in San Francisco. To revamp the property, they hired Peter Marino, a noted architect who had also designed George and Frayda Lindemann’s Palm Beach house.
A photo of the remodeled San Francisco home, posted to a page on the architect’s website as an example of his work, shows a set of Khmer god and demon heads in the mansion’s airy courtyard.
According to the antiquities broker dubbed Jungle Cat, the heads appear to come from a set that he sold to one of Latchford’s main suppliers based in Thailand. The relics had been hacked from the bodies of demons and gods standing on either side of a road leading to Angkor Thom, the capital city of a once-mighty empire that fell more than five centuries ago, he said.
Files from Latchford’s computer, obtained by Cambodian investigators, included an email to a colleague with a photograph of what appears to be those same heads, labeled “Lindemann Angkor Thom heads.” The email noted that “these were all stolen.” There is no indication that the Lindemanns were aware of the email.
Angela S. Chiu, an independent art scholar, examined the version of the photo of Lindemann Barnett’s courtyard that shows the relics. Chiu said two of the heads appear to match those that Latchford said were stolen, and the other two, obscured by palm fronds, are “possible matches.”
When that photo ran in the January 2021 issue of Architectural Digest, its caption mentioned “Southeast Asian sculptures,” even though none were apparent.
Hany Farid, a visual forensics expert at the University of California at Berkeley, examined the two versions of the photograph.
“These two images are clearly derived from the same source image,” Farid said.
Farid noted, among other things, that bits of leaves were missing in the published photo.
“There are small but consistent signs of air-brushing around the plant leaves in which small parts of the plant were air-brushed out along with the statues,” Farid wrote in an email. “It seems highly unlikely that two photos would be taken in succession without anything else in the entire room moving.”
The image is credited to photographer Douglas Friedman, whose website describes him as “a darling of the young international social set.” He did not respond to requests for comment sent to his agent.
Marino’s architecture firm said in a statement that it did not provide the photo to Architectural Digest. In mid-July, after reporters sent Marino a request for comment, the courtyard photo and others showing relics disappeared from his website.
Persuading museums and private collectors to return items for which they paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars is an uphill battle.
The first option for countries seeking to recover antiquities is simply to ask for and negotiate their return, according to lawyers familiar with such cases. That approach, however, typically works better with museums than with private collectors.
“Institutions have to consider the press and public scrutiny” that could come with refusing to cooperate, said Leila Amineddoleh, a lawyer who specializes in art and cultural heritage cases. “It’s different with private collectors.”
Another option for a foreign government seeking the return of antiquities held in the United States might be to sue in federal court, lawyers said, but foreign governments often shy away from such tactics because of the complications and legal costs, especially when they are facing wealthy collectors.
“The governments are at a disadvantage because they can’t outspend the collectors,” said Amineddoleh, who has represented Greece and Italy in their efforts to repatriate looted items. “Their budgets often don’t cover expensive litigation in the United States.”
Cambodia, like many other countries seeking the return of artworks, has chosen a third option: asking U.S. authorities to intervene. The United States is one of the few countries with an office dedicated to combating the illicit trafficking of antiquities.
Jim McAndrew, a former DHS senior special agent and expert in art and antiquities thefts, said that when U.S. authorities pursue such cases, they first ask for evidence that the items were looted. That would mean reviewing documentation and archaeological data and interviewing key witnesses, such as the antiquities broker helping investigators. The next step would be to seek information from current and former owners of the antiquity.
Even with solid evidence, though, winning a case in federal court can take years, partly because records establishing the origins of an antiquity are often incomplete or vague.
McAndrew, now a consultant whose clients include dealers and others who handle antiquities, emphasized that well-meaning collectors can make mistakes.
He noted that even renowned institutions — like the Fogg Museum at Harvard and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles — have returned some relics.
“I tell my clients, even if you see something really beautiful, if it doesn’t have enough information, just walk away,” McAndrew said.
And if you have something that turns out to have been taken illegally?
“Give it back.” | 2022-08-15T10:51:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | An altered photo in Architectural Digest hid Asian relics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/15/lindemann-cambodian-investigation-architectural-digest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/15/lindemann-cambodian-investigation-architectural-digest/ |
One person is dead after crash in Maryland
One person is dead after a crash in the Clinton area, police said. (iStock) (Prince George's County Police)
Police said one person is dead after a crash in the Clinton area.
The incident involved one vehicle and happened around 5:40 p.m. Sunday in the area of Piscataway Road and Dixon Drive. Few details were immediately available.
When officers arrived, they found the driver of a vehicle, who was pronounced dead on the scene. A passenger was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. | 2022-08-15T10:51:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One person is dead after a crash in the Temple Hills area - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/15/one-person-dead-crash-in-temple-hills/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/15/one-person-dead-crash-in-temple-hills/ |
Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits the Airbus U.K. East Factory in Broughton, North Wales, on Aug. 12, 2022. (Oli Scarff/AP)
LONDON — As Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to depart Downing Street, tossed from office by his own party, his legacy — the opening lines of his eventual obituary — will call him the man who “got Brexit done.”
As on all things Brexit, the answer is divisive — and a snapshot. But it is fair to say: The people generally agree that Brexit has not yet delivered on its lofty promises, that Britain would reach those “sunlit uplands,” a line of deep nostalgia, lifted by Brexit proponents from a Churchill speech in the darkest hours of 1940.
‘Get Brexit done’: Boris Johnson's effective but misleading slogan in the British election
With “get Brexit done” as his slogan, Johnson led his party to a landslide election victory. He succeeded where his predecessor, Theresa May, had failed in getting a deal passed in Parliament and finalized with the Europeans. And he oversaw Britain’s departure from the union with one of the hardest possible versions of Brexit, ending free movement and frictionless trade between the continent and Britain.
Critics mocked a government report that highlighted the reintroduction of blue passports, along with crown stamps and imperial measurements on pint glasses — things Britain could have done as part of the E.U. Meanwhile, the daily news is about how British businesses see less trade and more paperwork, and how British travelers boarding ferries to France face miles-long queues.
Brexit’s defenders will note that the worst-case scenarios haven’t played out. The value of the British pound didn’t crash. There have been no dire food shortages. Although the loss of European workers has contributed to scarcities in the labor market, the National Health Service managed to care for its patients, even through a punishing pandemic.
For the true believers, there’s a sense that the full benefits of Brexit haven’t arrived because, in their minds, Brexit hasn’t fully happened. The promise of a better Brexit remains just over the horizon.
The skeptics, with many economists among them, say the harm of Brexit is only starting to be felt.
Economy: No boom, no bust
In his final Prime Minister’s Questions session in Parliament, Johnson repeated a favorite refrain: Britain had “the fastest-growing economy” among the Group of Seven wealthy nations last year.
Don’t be shocked: Johnson’s claim is misleading.
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Britain did have a top-of-the-charts 2021, but a report to Parliament this month said that is partly because its economy experienced the worst decline among the G-7 during the pandemic — and so the rebound looks bigger, bouncier, more bodacious in comparison.
The Bank of England projects that Britain will enter a recession before the end of this year. It is tricky to isolate the impact of Brexit from global factors: the pandemic, supply-chain shocks, and the spike in energy and commodity prices driven by Russia’s war in Ukraine. But it is clear that although Brexit has not sunk the British economy, it has not produced a boom, either.
Since Britons voted in 2016 to leave the E.U., the country’s per capita income has grown by 3.8 percent in real terms, compared with 8.5 percent growth in the E.U., according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
John Springford and colleagues at the Center for European Reform say their economic models have found that Britain’s GDP is 5 percent lower because of Brexit.
Other economists estimate the figure at 1 percent — or 2 or 3 percent.
Ukraine war’s collateral damage: Britain’s beloved fish and chip shops
“It’s complicated,” said Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics at King’s College London. “But there is a degree of consensus among all of us that Brexit has had a negative impact on the U.K. economy, as elementary economics and common sense would suggest.”
Portes pointed to a central fact: “We’ve made it harder for us to trade with our closest trading partner, Europe.”
But the impact on the economy may take years to fully reveal itself. “I compare Brexit to a slow tire puncture versus a car crash,” Portes said. “It takes time.”
“The Big Brexit” report by economists at the London School of Economics and the Resolution Foundation concluded that leaving the E.U. reduced the openness and competitiveness of Britain’s economy, which is likely also to reduce productivity and wages in the decade ahead.
Trade: No sightings of Superman
In a major speech in February 2020, Johnson laid out a mixed-metaphor vision for post-Brexit Britain “on the launching pad,” emerging from “its chrysalis … after decades of hibernation.” The country, he said, was “ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion” of free trade.
On the basis of the evidence so far, Britain is no Superman.
It has signed trade agreements with more than 70 countries for a total value of $929 billion, the government says.
Almost all the deals simply replicate the trade arrangements Britain had as a member of the E.U.
Johnson and his fellow Brexiteers promised a lucrative trade agreement with the United States. That has not been high on the U.S. agenda under Presidents Trump and Biden.
Britain has signed two new independent trade deals since leaving the E.U., with Australia and New Zealand, and a third digital trade agreement with Singapore.
Speaking about the pact with Australia, lawmaker Angus Brendan MacNeil, the chair of Parliament’s International Trade Committee, said, “The government must level with the public; this trade deal will not have the transformative effects ministers would like to claim.”
MacNeil noted that the government’s own impact assessment shows an increase in GDP of just 0.08 percent as a result of the deal, and the balance of gains and losses varies between economic sectors in Britain. British farmers, for instance, are deeply worried about being overwhelmed by cheap imported meat raised to lower standards.
Migration: Fewer Romanians, more Nigerians
With Brexit, Britain fulfilled a promise to “take back control” of its borders. No longer can someone just show up from Paris or Prague and start a new life in London.
But Britons who voted for Brexit because they wanted less immigration would be disappointed.
U.K. cancels flight to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda after court challenges
“Overall, the numbers are likely higher now,” said Madeleine Sumption, the director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.
Many who arrived before Brexit remain. There have been 6 million applications from Europeans for “settled status,” which grants them long-term residency and a path to British citizenship, if they choose.
Although the number of new arrivals from Europe has plummeted, those have been replaced by migrants from elsewhere; at the top are new arrivals from India, Nigeria and the Philippines.
Johnson boasted that Britain’s new points-based immigration system would lure “the best and brightest.” But the system is more open than early critics imagined — with lower skill thresholds and no overall cap on numbers — making it easier for non-E.U. migrants to come.
Britain has also offered special status to people fleeing Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine.
Despite all these arrivals, the United Kingdom is facing a massive job shortage blamed in part on Brexit. The country has struggled to bring in fruit pickers, hotel maids and truck drivers. The National Health Service in England is short tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and midwives, in what a parliamentary committee called the “greatest workforce crisis in their history.”
Meanwhile, illegal immigration has soared, with desperate people boarding unseaworthy rafts to cross the English Channel, with more than 10,000 detained this year. A controversial program to fly those asylum seekers to Rwanda is tied up in the courts.
Covid: Early vaccination leader; high death toll
Among his Brexit wins, Johnson often returns to the notion that Britain delivered “the fastest vaccine rollout anywhere in Europe” by “streamlining procurement processes and avoiding cumbersome E.U. bureaucracy.”
It is true that Britain was able to preorder vaccine candidates without having to worry about what less-wealthy countries in Europe were willing to pay per dose or needing to figure out how to allocate doses equitably among countries.
But Europe quickly caught up to Britain’s fast start. Today, Britain is in the middle of the pack for percentage of population vaccinated.
Also part of the pandemic record: Johnson’s government was criticized by its own public health experts for going into lockdowns too late and lifting restrictions too early — with serious consequences. The editors of the British Medical Journal called the efforts “too little, too late, too flawed.”
Britain had some of the highest rates of excess deaths in the world in 2020, although in that regard, it has since moved into the middle of the pack among developed countries. Between March 2020 and June 2022, more than 200,335 people in Britain died in cases involving covid-19, according to the Office for National Statistics.
N. Ireland: Good for business, bad for politics
What to do about Northern Ireland was a central sticking point in the Brexit negotiations.
An open border on the island of Ireland had helped to resolve decades of violence between unionists and republicans. No one wanted to reignite the violence of “the Troubles” by instituting checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. But with Northern Ireland Brexiting along with the rest of the United Kingdom, that invisible border would mark the outer edge of the E.U.
To get a deal done, Johnson signed — and hailed — a protocol that keeps Northern Ireland inside the E.U.’s single market for goods and allows for checks and controls on trade entering Northern Ireland from mainland Britain.
Johnson’s government now says this arrangement is tearing the kingdom apart, creating disunion and strife. Members of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party have refused to sit in the executive in Belfast in protest.
For many businesses, manufacturers and traders in Northern Ireland, the half-in, half-out arrangement has actually been a win. “The dual access is most welcome,” said Neil Hutcheson of the Federation of Small Business.
Irwin Armstrong, the chief executive of Ciga Healthcare in Northern Ireland and a member of Johnson’s Conservative Party, told The Washington Post, “I think the protocol, as it is, helps almost everyone — but the politicians.”
Johnson’s government is pushing a law through Parliament to unilaterally overturn the protocol — a move decried by critics as a breach of international law.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the favorite to replace Johnson as prime minister, has been leading the charge. | 2022-08-15T10:56:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boris Johnson got Brexit done. How is it working? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/boris-johnson-brexit-legacy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/boris-johnson-brexit-legacy/ |
Soldiers file in for a briefing on a part of the base that houses U.S. Special Forces at the Tanf garrison compound in Syria on June 21. (Karoun Demirjian/TWP)
BEIRUT — U.S. forces reported an attack by drone aircraft on one of its outposts in a remote corner of Syria but said there had been no casualties or damage.
The statement said one of the unmanned aircraft was shot down while a second impacted in the compound without causing any damage to the base, which houses U.S. troops and their Syrian allies.
“Such attacks put the lives of innocent Syrian civilians at risk,” said Maj. Gen. John Brennan, commander of the U.S. forces in Syria fighting the Islamic State in a statement. “Coalition personnel retain the right to self-defense, and we will take appropriate measures to protect our forces.”
Iran’s role in attack on U.S. troops in Syria signals new escalation
Past attacks on the Tanf outpost have been attributed to Iran, including last October, while in June Russian aircraft struck a section of the base inhabited by the Syrian opposition fighters — after giving U.S. forces half an hour’s notice.
The isolated desert outpost is in southeast Syria, near the Jordanian and Iraqi borders, and is part of the U.S. battle against remnants of the Islamic State in the country. The base also hosts an estimated 300 troops of its partners, the Maghaweir al-Thowra (Commandos of the Revolution, also known as the MaT).
The MaT train and carry out operations with the U.S. coalition troops, and conduct daily operations, according to the Department of Defense.
The strategically-located garrison sits near Syria’s Tanf border crossing with Iraq, at the crossroad of a main highway between Baghdad and Damascus — one of the main supply routes by land for Iran to smuggle arms into Syria and to its Hezbollah allies.
Over the years, Tanf has largely been ignored by the Syrian army, loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, as well as its allied Iranian and Russian troops, despite a brief flare-up last year and the June strike. More frequent are the rocket attacks against U.S. bases in the northeast, where U.S.-allied Kurdish troops control the area.
In a tweet, the MaT said multiple drone aircraft attacked the base with the aim to kill soldiers, but the attack was thwarted. “Together, we stand ready to defend the 55 kilometer zone and fight for a free #Syria,” the group said.
The statement was accompanied with two photos, one showing a small pile of rubble in the midst of a dry patch of land, and a photo of two non-descript structures with an unidentified piece of machinery on the ground. | 2022-08-15T10:56:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Drone strike against U.S. Tanf base in Syria thwarted - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/syria-tanf-drone-strike-us-base/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/syria-tanf-drone-strike-us-base/ |
‘Some people don’t think girls can do things like that, and they’re wrong,’ said Ainsley Muller, 11
Campers built a greenhouse at a construction camp put on by the Austin chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction in July. (Taryn Ritchie)
Ainsley Muller, 11, went to art camp and theater camp in summers past. This summer, she was presented an opportunity she couldn’t refuse: learning how to use a power drill, weld metal and unclog a sink.
“When my mom told me about construction camp, I knew I had to go,” she said. “Some people don’t think girls can do things like that, and they’re wrong. I had a blast.”
“I thought she’d be a good fit for it because she’s creative and hands on, and she loves science,” said Ainsley’s mom, Amy Muller, 50.
“I also wanted to show her that as women, we don’t have to depend on the men in our lives to handle the physically hard tasks that present themselves,” Muller added. “I wanted her to know that she was capable of doing these things herself.”
That’s the same message Taryn Ritchie had in mind in 2019 when she helped put on Austin’s first girls construction camp sponsored by the National Association of Women in Construction.
Ritchie is a chief estimator for Balfour Beatty, a general contractor in the Austin area. She said she’d noticed over the years that few women were working at the job sites she visited.
In 2019, women working in construction made up only 10 percent of the workforce, according to statistics by the U.S. Bureau of Labor.
“The number of women on the job is higher than it used to be, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” said Ritchie, 42.
“I wanted to shift the narrative and show girls that jobs as carpenters, plumbers and electricians are viable options,” she said.
“This industry, like many, is facing incredible workforce shortages,” said Jennifer Sproul, a co-founder of the Baltimore camp, who now runs the nonprofit Maryland Center for Construction Education and Innovation.
“The only way we can overcome [shortages] is by welcoming women with open arms,” she said. “I want to make sure that no young woman ever feels like this isn’t a place where she belongs.”
“I thought, ‘We need to do a camp like this in Austin,’ ” she said. “I wanted to let girls know that office jobs in construction were not their only options. Why not teach them about all of the possibilities, from building houses to plumbing them?”
Now the camp is sponsored by the electrical contracting company Rosendin, and space for the annual event is donated by Austin Carpenters Local 1266, Ritchie said. Local construction workers — mostly women — volunteer to teach the classes.
One of this year’s instructors, Jennifer Barborka, enthusiastically got onboard to teach campers a little of what she’s learned as a fourth-year plumbing and welding apprentice.
“I was proud that every single girl completed the project, but I was even more thrilled to see how many of them were interested in my trade,” she said.
“Not everyone can afford college, and not everyone is geared toward that kind of learning,” said Barborka, who worked in a farmers market until she decided to become a plumber.
“I told the girls that if they were to join a union, they could get paid while they get on-the-job training, and not end up with a ton of debt,” she said, adding that last year as a third-year apprentice she made more than $60,000.
“Going to Camp NAWIC opened my eyes,” Taryn said. “A lot of the things I do in my daily life — like being on the drum line in band — are very male-dominated. Sometimes, you feel like you’re not heard or seen.
“Seeing firsthand that women are plumbers and electricians made me think that I could do the same,” she said. “When I graduate from high school, I’m definitely going to look into it.”
“From start to finish, we built the frames and constructed the roof, and then we painted it,” she said.
“I like knowing that I can now do these things myself without asking for help,” said Ava, 16. “Real-life skills are cool for anyone to know.”
That’s a true feeling of accomplishment, said her mother.
“My hope is that every one of these girls will want to come back next year and add some new tools to their belts,” Ritchie said.
“If the end result is that they don’t want to pay somebody $250 to unclog their sinks, that’s great,” she said. “They can do it themselves.” | 2022-08-15T10:56:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Free construction summer camp teaches girls building and plumbing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/15/construction-camp-girls-women-austin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/15/construction-camp-girls-women-austin/ |
What Justice Kavanaugh gets wrong about the Supreme Court and politics
While it’s usually good for the Supreme Court to stay out of the political thicket, history shows that sometimes entering the fray is necessary
Perspective by William E. Nelson
William E. Nelson is Edward Weinfeld professor of law emeritus at New York University School of Law, the author of 17 books — including a revised edition of a book on Marbury v, Madison discussing the colonial origins of judicial review — and numerous articles.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill in December 2018. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Pool/AP)
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, where the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to have an abortion, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh delivered a concurring opinion putting a new spin on an old precept. He wrote that when, as in the instance of abortion, the text of the Constitution is silent and therefore neutral, the court must also be neutral and leave the issue to the democratic political process.
But history suggests otherwise. In fact, it shows that the court has never followed such a rule and, in fact, doing so could have led to far worse outcomes in some cases.
During the 18th century, up to the time of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, judges like other officeholders were merely government officials who made both legal and political decisions. In the mid-1760s, judges in several colonies held the British Parliament’s Stamp Act null and void and unenforceable. Judges in one Virginia county, for instance, ruled that the Stamp Act “did not bind, affect, or concern the inhabitants of this colony, inasmuch as they conceive the same to be unconstitutional.” In the midst of dramatic political conflict over Parliament’s policy to tax the colonies, these decisions had no doctrinal basis on which lawyers could agree and thus became part of the political conflict.
Independence did not raise judges above the political thicket. Instead, they quickly weighed in on the validity of legislation determining the rights of Loyalists who had supported Britain during the American Revolution. Again, their decision got swept up in the political debate over what should happen to Loyalists because there was no broadly accepted precedent about how to treat supporters of an established regime in a revolutionary conflict and the public was sharply divided.
As late as 1786 in Trevett v. Weeden, the Rhode Island Supreme Court made a decision to hold unconstitutional legislation making depreciated paper money legal tender for the payment of debts. The judges waded into an intense conflict that had been waged through the political process and the press, invalidating what the winners had believed was a final legislative decision.
At the Constitutional Convention, an issue arose about how to ensure consistency of state and federal law. James Madison proposed that states submit their legislation to Congress, which would have power to veto it. But his fellow delegates rejected his proposal in favor of review of the legislation by the Supreme Court. During debate on the issue no one suggested that Congress would determine the validity of state law any differently than the court would. Indeed, in discussing Madison’s proposal, Alexander Hamilton referred to the congressmen who would determine whether to invalidate state law as “judges”; he saw no distinction between Congress as a political institution and the judiciary as divorced from politics.
In short, at the founding the idea that law was separate and distinct from politics had not yet emerged. But everything changed in Marbury v. Madison in 1803.
Before President John Adams left office in 1801, he appointed a slew of Federalist judges. The incoming president, Thomas Jefferson, and many fellow Democratic-Republicans were concerned that these judges would behave politically — as judges had traditionally done. Jefferson himself was studying law at the time of the Stamp Act controversy and probably knew of at least some of the cases holding the act unconstitutional. He understood the political motivations behind the rulings and how decisions could get swept up in politics.
In the chaos at the end of Adams’s term, acting secretary of state John Marshall did not deliver the commission of one of the judges, William Marbury. When Marbury sued to obtain delivery of his commission after Jefferson entered office, the Supreme Court found itself in the midst of political controversy. It had to decide whether Adams’s appointees, some of whose offices Congress had abolished by 1802 legislation, were entitled to their seats. The court’s ruling in Marbury suggested they were.
But Chief Justice John Marshall understood that Jefferson and Congress, with widespread public support, would disobey any court order authorizing the judges to sit. Finding in favor of the judges, therefore, risked permanently weakening the new court, because the political branches would simply ignore its rulings and thereby display how little real power the court possessed. Marshall accordingly declared that he would decide only matters of law and not address political disputes such as whether to seat Adams’s judges. By resting its decision in Marbury and a companion case on narrow procedural grounds, the court avoided the traditional political behavior of 18th-century judges.
Marshall’s determination to steer the court away from political confrontation stood in contrast to his successor as chief justice, Roger B. Taney. Infamously, in the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, Taney adopted Southern political arguments about slavery. The decision fomented immense opposition that contributed to the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president, which, in turn, helped drive the United States toward civil war.
Taney’s Dred Scott opinion didn’t leave a divisive issue to the voters. Instead, it picked a side. As a result, the chief justice stoked the political conflict over slavery, instead of providing a solution to the issue. When the political process also did not resolve it, nothing remained but an appeal to violence.
Normally the Supreme Court can stay out of trouble, as Kavanaugh urges it should, by not challenging, as Dred Scott did, the views of a majority of Americans. History suggests, however, that sometimes the court needs to take a political stand because the alternative is worse. Two cases are especially noteworthy.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was one. It was becoming clear to most Americans by the 1950s that statutorily mandated racial segregation had to be ended, preferably sooner rather than later. Because of the committee structure of Congress and the filibuster in the Senate, which gave Southern legislators outsize power, it also was clear that the political process would not end it. Only the Supreme Court could do it. The justices knew that ending segregation would produce profound political opposition, but they nonetheless made the judgment to do so — a judgment that nearly everyone today agrees was right. While their decision provoked fierce backlash and disobedience in the South, including calls to neuter the court in some fashion, it also paved the way after nearly a century for progress toward realizing the intentions of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Bush v. Gore was another case, albeit a very different one, in which the court intervened in a political conflict, this time over the results of an election. It could have left the case in the jurisdiction of the Florida Supreme Court, which probably would have issued rulings in favor of Vice President Al Gore. Doing so might have avoided charges that Republican appointed justices were handing the presidency to the Republican candidate, George W. Bush. Yet, history has proved the decision to end the recount in Florida wise for three reasons.
First, the evidence indicated that Bush won Florida, albeit by a narrow margin. Secondly, had the court stayed out of the case, the lack of clarity over the election results might have continued until the House of Representatives decided the issue in mid-January, which would have produced political chaos. Finally, the House probably would have selected Bush anyway. Although all these facts were not clear at the time, the court in retrospect prevented political chaos and supported the democratic political process.
These cases expose how Kavanaugh’s attempt to craft a hard and fast rule about not intervening in political conflict is problematic and ahistorical. Especially when, as may be true in Dobbs, a decision perceived as political arouses the ire of a majority of Americans, it makes sense to steer clear of politics. Otherwise, the court risks weakening its legitimacy and power, and pushing the nation toward chaos.
But the court cannot always do so. The difficulty of amending the Constitution puts pressure on the court to maintain, as Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in dissent in Poe v. Ullman, a political balance “based on what history teaches are the traditions from which it [the country] developed as well as the traditions from which it broke.” The stature of the court and the peace of the nation depend on the justices making judgments that are not inconsistent with the directions in which civil society is trending — even if that means risking many Americans perceiving them as political. It remains to be seen whether the majority opinion that Kavanaugh joined in Dobbs did just this, but it is clear his rationale misreads the lessons of history. | 2022-08-15T11:01:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Kavanaugh gets wrong about the Supreme Court and politics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/15/kavanaugh-supreme-court-politics/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/15/kavanaugh-supreme-court-politics/ |
The truth about the history education wars in 2022
We don’t have a shared story of America’s past anymore — and that’s a problem
Perspective by Jonathan Zimmerman
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author (with cartoonist Signe Wilkinson) of “Free Speech and Why You Should Give a Damn,” which was published in 2021 by City of Light Press.
A child stands outside the Loudoun County School Board building in Broadlands, Va., on Sept. 28, 2021. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
In 1996, Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed urged his conservative legions to take over America’s public schools. “I would rather have a thousand school board members than a single president,” declared Reed, whose organization sought to bring America “back to God” via school prayer, Bible reading and bans on evolution instruction.
Last year, former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon likewise called on right-wing Americans to capture the schools. “The path to save the nation is very simple — it’s going to go through school boards,” Bannon proclaimed. But Bannon made no mention of God or religion; instead, he warned about critical race theory and the 1619 Project.
That’s the most significant change in our school wars over the past two decades: They’ve become secular. Conservatives have attacked public education for as long as it has existed. But they used to lambaste schools for eroding God and country, as the saying went. Now, they’re leaving God out of the equation, focusing their ire on the ways that schools teach about American history and identity. They have spearheaded campaigns to prohibit teaching critical race theory, lessons about gender norms and anything else that seems to threaten traditional conceptions of the nation.
That would be a healthy thing for our democracy, if schools used this moment to deliberate over our different views of America. But the present-day GOP campaign is aimed at squelching that debate, not provoking it. Witness the avalanche of state measures barring instruction about “divisive topics,” especially race and gender. These laws seek to impose a singular narrative of the United States, because — unfortunately — we don’t have a shared one anymore.
And that’s new, too. Previous conflicts over history in schools typically concerned who was part of the story, not its larger arc and purpose. Our textbooks described America as a land of freedom and progress, but they denigrated — or, simply, excluded — women and racial minorities. So these groups fought tooth and nail to win a role in the grand national narrative.
But most of them also resisted any questioning of this story, lest that diminish their own contributions to it.
In the 1920s, for example, immigrant groups joined hands with Protestant patriotic societies to block critical interpretations of the American Revolution. At universities, a new generation of historians argued that the Revolution wasn’t simply a morality play between evil Redcoats and freedom-loving colonists. Some British statesmen supported American independence, large numbers of Americans rejected it and the same nation founded on liberty and equality continued to enslave millions of Black people.
But if students encountered that complexity, Polish immigrants worried, they might think less of Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the Polish nobleman who aided the American cause. Ethnic Germans feared that their own Revolutionary War heroes, Baron DeKalb and Molly Pitcher (born, Germans said, Maria Ludwig) wouldn’t seem quite as heroic. African Americans rallied to defend Crispus Attucks, the first person to die in the Revolution. And Jewish Americans wished to protect the good name of Haym Salomon, the Philadelphia merchant who helped finance it.
The history curriculum sparked controversy during the civil rights era — when Black protesters fought to remove racist defenses of slavery from textbooks — and into the 1990s, when a proposed set of national history standards raised the hackles of conservative luminaries like William Bennett and Lynne Cheney. But the standards, which gave renewed attention to women and racial minorities, fell squarely within the traditional tale of freedom and progress. “Can there be any grand narrative more powerful, coherent, democratic, and inspiring than the struggles of groups that have suffered discrimination?” asked leaders of the standards effort. Indeed, a teacher who helped draft the standards added, Thomas Jefferson himself would have been proud of the project.
When tension over history flared, in short, we folded new actors into the old story. But America’s battles over religion couldn’t be settled in the same additive, come-one-come-all fashion. Either human beings evolved from apes, or they didn’t; either Jesus was the Messiah, or he wasn’t. Most schools conducted prayer and scriptural reading from the Protestant Bible, triggering angry objections from Catholics and non-Christians. Others hosted “released-time” classes, which theoretically let families choose their own denominational instruction.
Much of that activity came to an end in the early 1960s, when the Supreme Court barred school-sponsored prayer and Bible reading. Conservative Christians strove to retain them, designing sports team prayers and other activities to “bootleg” religion (a football metaphor, of course) into the schools.
But they were fighting a losing battle. Since 2000, church affiliation and attendance have plummeted sharply. Meanwhile, orthodox believers increasingly abandoned public schools for Christian academies or simply taught their children at home. Scattered communities still struggle over religion, as in the Washington state school district that said a football coach couldn’t pray on the field after games. (Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled that he could.) Overall, though, the religion wars in our schools have cooled considerably.
Yet our battles over history now blaze as never before. Over the past two decades, historians and activists have raised new questions about the larger purpose and meaning of America. Instead of simply bringing new actors into the same triumphal story, they have asked whether the story is a triumph — and for whom. This isn’t just a matter of what Jefferson would have liked. It’s instead a question of whether we should like Jefferson, a man who enslaved human beings and fathered children by one of them.
Such challenges sparked predictable outcry from Republicans, especially after the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Claiming — falsely — that Obama was born in another country, the tea party movement and other conservatives rallied to defend “American exceptionalism” in schools. In practice, that often meant purging textbooks of material about slavery, Native American displacement and anything else that seemed to put the nation in a negative light.
All of these tensions exploded during the presidency of Donald Trump. The 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville and the 2020 police murder of George Floyd — plus Trump’s own racist rhetoric — spawned yet more debate about the nation’s past. The 1619 Project was not simply a demand to include minority voices in the American story of freedom and progress. Instead, as its name suggested, it rooted that narrative in slavery and oppression. Trump replied with his own flag-waving 1776 Commission, which President Biden disbanded as soon as he took office.
But the struggle for history continues, not just in local debates at school board meetings — as Bannon urged — but in statehouses. New laws restricting instruction about race and gender in schools have all been sponsored by Republicans, who sense — correctly — that the American story they grew up with is under scrutiny as never before.
And so is another story, one about religion and nation that liberals used to tell: As the country secularized, Americans would become more tolerant and united. But the opposite happened. We divided into mutually hostile political camps, which became quasi-religions in their own right.
The real question is whether either team would consent to have its faith critiqued in schools. How many Americans would be okay with presenting documents from the 1619 Project and the 1776 Commission to our students, and letting them decide which story they favor? American history is far muddier than either side will admit. It combines the noble ideals that the right wants to emphasize and the oppressive reality that the left insists upon including. Good history teaching involves both perspectives, and — most of all — it requires students to make sense of them. That’s not to say we must give “equal time” to Holocaust denial or other plainly false claims. But we do need to acknowledge that equally reasonable people use the same facts to come to different views of our shared past.
We cannot celebrate America for prizing individual freedom of thought and then tell every individual what to think. Healing our fractured nation will require allowing our future citizens to narrate it on their own.
This essay is the first in the Freedom to Learn series sponsored by PEN America, providing historical context for controversies surrounding free expression in education today. | 2022-08-15T11:01:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The truth about the history education wars in 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/15/truth-about-history-education-wars-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/08/15/truth-about-history-education-wars-2022/ |
In America’s fastest-growing metro, a rising fear water will run out
St. George, Utah, the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan area, at sunset. The area has 180,000 residents, which is predicted to more than double by 2050. (Bridget Bennett for The Washington Post)
LEEDS, Utah — A century after her grandfather arrived to eke a living out of the hot, red dirt here, Susan Savage still structures her life around the groundwater. Twice daily, she checks the well her family’s pasturelands, orchards and animals depend on, watching its level drop in recent years amid punishing drought.
These days, she and some others in this rural town of fewer than 1,000 people are casting a wary eye 15 miles south, where St. George, the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan area, is churning out houses — and scrambling to find new water sources to support that boom, including deep underground near here.
St. George and surrounding Washington County, two hours northeast of Las Vegas in Utah’s hottest and driest corner, was once known mostly as the gateway to Zion National Park. Now its stunning landscape is drawing droves of retirees and remote workers from northern Utah and beyond. The county’s population of about 180,000 is expected to more than double by 2050 — even though its single water source, the Virgin River basin, is dwindling as the West remains locked in the worst drought in 1,200 years.
A plan to pipe water from the drying Colorado River remains far off amid objections from other states. The county, which state officials say has a decade before demand outstrips supply, has adopted new water restrictions. It is also building reservoirs and considering reusing wastewater. But as the future grows more tenuous, the county’s primary water provider is now seeking state permission to drill wells far beneath rural reaches, sparking protest from small towns and landowners who fear the region’s breakneck growth will imperil their shallower groundwater.
The Colorado River is in Crisis, and it's getting worse every day
“This seems to be some level of insanity to me that you continue to allow unabated growth at the same time you’re dealing with this unprecedented drought,” said Don Fawson, president of the Leeds Domestic Water Users Association, which provides drinking water to about 430 households in town. “Rather than trying to find all these sources of water, we ought to be controlling the growth.”
Water disputes have run through the American West since European settlement, but never have the stakes been so high. Cities are swelling as climate change deepens a two-decade drought. The Colorado River, which hydrates 40 million people, is so compromised that federal officials have demanded the states that depend on it, including Utah, devise a plan this month to cut an amount equal to one-third of its annual flow. That has left managers across the region jostling to safeguard their share.
Scarcity has prompted towns in Utah and Colorado to halt building altogether. Zach Renstrom, general manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District, the major regional water wholesaler that wants to drill 18 deep wells, said that is not on the table in St. George. Not yet, at least.
“A lot of people are very nervous about how long this will be going on and what’s going to happen in 10, 15 years, and I can’t give them a straight answer,” Renstrom said. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure we have a community that has safe, reliable drinking water.”
Concerns about the deep wells are “legitimate,” Renstrom said. But he said state law requires his agency to demonstrate they would not affect shallower aquifers, probably through initial testing.
To some in Leeds and other rural parts of Washington County north of St. George, however, the idea carries both a threat to existing water supply and an unwelcome sign of the march of development.
“We value our small water system and don’t want to see it gobbled up into the larger county water system,” Fawson said.
Water ‘keeps me up at night’
The area’s growth has been dizzying, St. George Mayor Michele Randall said. She expected the city, established in the 1860s by Mormon pioneers deployed by Brigham Young on a failed mission to grow cotton, to calm when covid hit. Instead, it swelled with pandemic-era pilgrims who decided to stay.
The city is now proposing to hike property taxes to fund dozens of additional police officers and firefighters. But Randall said it is water that “keeps me up at night.” Utah has long pushed for a 140-mile pipeline from Lake Powell, the massive Colorado River reservoir, to pump water to the St. George region. But given the lake’s plummeting water, Randall said she has no hope for a pipeline in her lifetime. Water saving and storage must be the plan, she said.
Ordinances adopted this month by the St. George City Council include limits on grass at new homes and a ban on ornamental grass at new nonresidential buildings; the district says those measures will save 11 billion gallons of water over a decade, or about a year’s worth of the district’s current annual supply. A fee for high water users and a turf buyback program — for residents who rip out grass — are coming, officials said.
The changes are “baby steps,” Randall said, but still have gotten pushback from longtime residents worried that their expansive lawns, in a desert that gets nine inches of rain a year, will be eventual targets.
“Their first reaction, I think, is to say: ‘Just stop the growth,’” Randall said. “The problem with that is over 30 percent of our economy is still attached to the building industry in one way or the other. We would kill our economy overnight.”
But, she added: “If the drought continues, we may absolutely be forced to just stop any growth. And then from there, you will have to really crack down on the people who live here currently.”
Environmental groups say the steps are hardly enough. The county, they note, uses far more water per capita and charges far less for water than other Southwest cities that have cut use while growing. Utah generally has lagged other states on conservation, experts say, though the dramatic retreat of the Great Salt Lake and the Colorado River crisis made water a focus of state lawmakers this year.
“They ran a lot of bills and showed that water is on their radar in a way it hadn’t been before,” said Joanna Endter-Wada, a natural resources professor at Utah State University. “And the legislation was good but not enough.”
Water wasn’t on Ed Andrechak’s mind when he and his wife moved two years ago from Philadelphia to Ivins, outside St. George. An article on America’s best places to retire put it on their radar, and the hiking and home prices sealed the deal. But the pace of building in the region astonished Andrechak, who spent his career as an environmental consultant advising oil companies’ on-site cleanup.
Now he volunteers as water program manager for Conserve Southwest Utah, an advocacy group that filed a written protest over the water district’s deep wells application.
“I believe in growth, and you don’t want to be that town in Ohio where the GM plant just closed,” Andrechak said. “We are in the opposite end of the spectrum. There’s a lot of us trying to say, can we just slow this down?”
Kara and Brian Adams, who moved to St. George four years ago from Southern California, aren’t sure they will stay to find out. They replaced their front lawn with rock recently, cutting their water bill by one-third; they couldn’t afford to do the backyard, too. But they worry the sense of urgency in the community doesn’t match climate projections that feel increasingly apocalyptic.
“The one thing that terrifies me is the water issues and my property values going down once no one wants to live in an area with no water and that is 110 degrees in the summer,” said Kara Adams, 32, a social worker who stays home with the couple’s toddler daughter.
Renstrom said he is certain water will continue to flow to all existing houses and those under construction, even with climate change. And for now, property values continue to rise.
On the south end of St. George, the area’s biggest development, Desert Color, embraces water conservation as a brand. A hotel, retail buildings and 11,000 residences — from condos to multimillion-dollar spreads — are underway, 600 of which are already occupied. Lots are mostly small, and lawns are limited in favor of stones and desert plants. That hasn’t deterred buyers, said Rob Behunin, the community’s government affairs consultant.
Its centerpiece is a massive cerulean lagoon, where on a recent 100-degree morning people paddleboarded as construction workers pounded nails in half-built homes nearby. Its brackish water is pumped from a well and recirculated, and it requires less water than a golf course or houses on the same spot would, Behunin said. The water, he said only half-jokingly, could also possibly be treated for drinking if things get truly dire.
“It’s a moral and ethical obligation,” to conserve, he said, “because there isn’t really any more water.”
‘Where’s the water’
The sprawl still feels distant up Interstate 15 in Leeds, where there is no school and the only grocery store recently closed. But it is looming, Mayor Bill Hoster said.
Hoster said he is not terribly concerned about the county’s deep well-drilling proposal — he works closely with the water district and trusts that the idea is exploratory. Instead, he is focused on intelligently planning growth that seems unstoppable as developers buy land nearby.
“We either grow or we’re going to die,” Hoster said. “But we want to manage that.”
Up the road, Savage lives in the stone house her grandfather built. Quails and jack rabbits skitter across her property, and horses graze on pasture greened by the well’s water. In good years, snowpack from a nearby mountain feeds a spring on the land, but those haven’t come in a long time. The well is now the farmland’s sole water source, and Savage worries about the county’s quest for new water underground.
“That deep water that they are thinking is down there, where is it coming from?” said Savage, who, along with other property owners who share her well, submitted a written protest to the state. “Is it part of what’s feeding our aquifers right now?”
Savage is also aware that agriculture — which uses more water than cities — is coming under increasing scrutiny as water grows more scarce. She and her partners have worked to reduce their usage, including by computerizing the well to manage flows and catch any leaks. But she also sees value in agricultural land in the desert.
“I don’t look at anybody as a villain. I think everybody is trying to figure out what’s going on, how much we can do and how much we can sustain,” Savage said.
But many local leaders, “have felt like you can’t say no to development. And some of us would say, ‘where’s the water?’” Savage said. “Don’t you need to be able to promise people that they won’t turn on their tap and get dust, if not now, then at some point?” | 2022-08-15T11:01:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | St. George, Utah, America's fastest growing metro, fears water will run out - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/15/st-george-utah-water-crisis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/15/st-george-utah-water-crisis/ |
A sign in support of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is seen ahead of her primary election. Cheney, the vice chair of the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection, is an underdog entering the Republican primary for the state's at-large U.S. House seat on Tuesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
JACKSON, Wyo. — The 2-minute video, meant ostensibly as the closing appeal to voters here, likely served much more as the launching point of a campaign that will last for years to come.
“No matter how long we must fight, this is a battle we will win,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) says to the camera, promising to lead “millions of Americans” of all ideological stripes “united in the cause of freedom.”
She entered Congress six years ago as a relative celebrity, the daughter of the former vice president who spent several years using Fox News appearances to deliver acid-tongued critiques of the Obama-Biden administration. And she will exit the Capitol, likely in four-and-a-half months, as the face of an anti-Trump movement that has cost her old alliances but left her with new supporters, clamoring for a next act more nationally focused.
“I sure hope she runs for president,” James Brooks, elected to Jackson’s town council as a self-proclaimed “fierce independent,” said while sitting in a coffee shop looking up at Snow King mountain.
Cheney has fielded questions about her ambitions since first taking office, but the intensity ramped up after this summer’s blockbuster hearings, in which she has she served as vice chair of the committee investigating the ex-president’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
But Cheney is clear-eyed when it comes to her chances of actually winning the presidential nomination in a party that is still so loyal to Trump, according to friends and advisers. She sees her future role similar to how she views the work of the Jan. 6 committee: Blocking any path for Trump back to the Oval Office.
Traditional conservatives opposed to former president Donald Trump have already discussed the possibility of Cheney running for the White House. “That chatter was very strong even before that Dick Cheney commercial,” Dmitri Mehlhorn said, referring to a campaign ad that ran nationwide on Fox News and featured the former vice president denouncing Trump.
Mehlhorn advises several donors across the political spectrum who are opposed to Trump, including the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman. Most are ready to provide critical financing for a Cheney bid.
Mehlhorn said his team of anti-Trump donors would take a Cheney campaign, designed solely to attack Trump, “seriously” enough that they could put at least $20 million behind it.
That way, he said, “Republican voters are reminded of how bad Trump is in a way that might allow someone else to emerge from the primary.”
The price of opposition
Cheney has been very outspoken in her denunciations of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other Republicans who have remained loyal to Trump despite his help precipitating the Capitol attack.
But she has also been upset with a separate group of Republicans who despise Trump but instead hope the ex-president will just fade away, particularly Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Democrats make the jump
On Jan. 1, Republicans had more than 196,000 registered voters, while Democrats had about 46,000. By Aug. 1, Republicans gained 11,000 new voters while Democrats lost 6,000 and those voters unaffiliated with either party dropped by 2,000.
The Teton County Clerk, Maureen Murphy, reported a stunning tilt in early voting toward Republicans: 3,259 votes have been cast in the GOP primaries by the end of Friday, and just 166 came in the Democratic contests.
That scares Noland, who warns that the push to get non-Republicans into the primary has only driven traditional GOP voters away from Cheney. “It really fired up all the Republicans,” she said.
Hannah Knowles contributed from Washington | 2022-08-15T11:01:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Liz Cheney’s political life is likely ending — and just beginning - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/liz-cheneys-political-life-is-likely-ending-just-beginning/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/liz-cheneys-political-life-is-likely-ending-just-beginning/ |
Good morning, Early Birds. Leigh Ann interviews Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) today about his new book “America, A Redemption Story” for Washington Post Live at 1 p.m. EST. Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us.
In today's edition … Rep. Liz Cheney's next act… FBI threats spike in the wake of Mar-a-Lago search… ICYMI: The latest on the Trump document search … but first …
Republicans and Biden administration clash over Afghanistan one year later
House Republicans and the White House are clashing over who’s to blame for the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan on the first anniversary today of the collapse of the Afghan government.
The Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee made public on Sunday the findings of their inquiry into the evacuation — “an apparent blueprint for a deeper investigation of the president and his top advisers should the GOP win the House majority in November’s midterm elections,” as our colleagues Karoun Demirjian and Tim Craig report.
What Republicans’ report says
When the last U.S. troops pulled out of Afghanistan on Aug. 31, 2021, President Biden said that “we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave.”
House Republicans’ report claims that the real number was several times higher:
“The U.S. left ‘behind more than 800 American citizens, thousands of green-card holders, and tens of thousands of Afghans who directly aided the 20-year U.S. military campaign, as well as tens of thousands of other Afghans who were vulnerable to deadly reprisals,’” according to the report.
“The U.S. government has continued to facilitate evacuations and, as of late last month, 84 American citizens remained who were still trying to leave,” a committee aide told Karoun and Tim.
The report also spotlights details from other investigations into the withdrawal, including what happened to the Afghan security forces the United States spent $83 billion over two decades to train and equip:
“Following the Taliban takeover, ‘around 3,000 Afghan security forces consisting of high-ranking officers to foot soldiers, along with their military equipment and vehicles, crossed the border into Iran,’ the report says, citing a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report published in May.
“If any have been recruited as intelligence assets by the Iranians, the committee aide said, it could pose a serious risk for U.S. national security, given how closely some units worked with U.S. troops.”
Still, the report — written without the subpoena power that Republicans would wield if the party reclaims the House in the midterms — doesn’t include big revelations, Karoun and Tim write.
“A Republican aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the committee, said that was because the State Department refused to turn over documents or consent to interviews, leaving investigators to rely on public records and materials provided by whistleblowers,” Karoun and Tim write.
“A spokesman for the agency said in response that officials had briefed Congress more than 150 times since the withdrawal, and continue to update lawmakers on efforts to relocate and resettle Afghans.”
The administration’s rebuttal
A White House official didn't confirm or deny Republicans' claim about how many American citizens were in Afghanistan when the U.S. pulled out but said that some of the Americans whom the administration helped to get out after Aug. 31 “had traveled back to the country since the U.S. withdrawal and then asked for assistance leaving Afghanistan.”
“Others had previously declined relocation assistance or were not previously registered with the Embassy,” the official wrote in an email to the Early. The U.S. government “does not track Americans when they travel around the world and Americans are not required to register at an Embassy when they enter a country, which makes it difficult to know how many Americans are in a country at any given time.”
The White House took aim in the memo at some of the report’s broader claims, including its argument — citing American military leaders and NATO allies — that “the best option was to keep an advisory and counterterrorism mission in place that consisted of 2,500 U.S. military personnel along with 6,000 mostly NATO forces.”
As Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “said in congressional testimony last fall, the tough decision the President faced when taking office ultimately wasn’t to stay or go: it was go or risk having to send even more U.S. troops to fight in a newly intensified 20-year civil war. They testified we would have had to deploy more forces to protect ourselves and accomplish any missions they would have been assigned.”
The memo — which was first reported by Axios — also argues that former president Donald Trump’s 2020 agreement to withdraw U.S. troops “empowered the Taliban and weakened our partners in the Afghan government.”
The three-page memo includes the word “Trump” nine times — nearly as many as Republicans’ report does in more than 100 pages.
One Year Later:
A year of peace in one of Afghanistan’s deadliest provinces. By The Post’s Susannah George.
After the fall: What Afghanistan looks like since the Taliban takeover. By The Post Magazine’s Lorenzo Tugnoli.
In Afghanistan, a legacy of U.S. failure endures. By The Post’s Ishaan Tharoor.
‘We can’t claim mission accomplished’: A long road for Afghan refugees. By the New York Times’s Miriam Jordan.
NYT Op-Ed: Afghan women reflect on the anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal. By Nahid Shahalimi.
Liz Cheney's next political move
Cheney’s next act: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) “is looking far beyond Tuesday’s Republican primary for [Wyoming’s] at-large seat in the U.S. House, a race that she is likely to lose, barring an unprecedented surge of non-Republican voters into the GOP contest,” our colleague Paul Kane writes.
“Cheney will spend the months after the committee concludes its work later this year figuring out her next steps. That might be launching a political organization that focuses on Trump, or some think-tank work matched with media appearances.”
“Cheney and a small but influential bloc of anti-Trump Republicans have decided that there must be a 2024 candidate who will run as an unabashed opponent of both the ex-president and other contenders who spew his mistruths about the 2020 election … Cheney and her crowd want a candidate who would serve merely as a political kamikaze, blowing up his or her candidacy but also taking down Trump.”
Dmitri Mehlhorn, who advises several anti-Trump donors across the political spectrum, told Kane that “his team of anti-Trump donors would take a Cheney campaign, designed solely to attack Trump, ‘seriously’ enough that they could put at least $20 million behind it.”
In case you missed it: The latest on the Trump document search
There have been quite a few developments and a lot more reporting since Friday on the Attorney General Merrick Garland-approved FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the committee's vice chairman, became the first set of bipartisan lawmakers to request information from the administration about the search. The duo asked the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide any classified documents obtained in the search as well as an assessment of any risk to national security posed by the presence of such documents at Trump's Palm Beach resort, according to a senior aide on the committee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the panel's work.
Our colleagues Josh Dawsey, Rosalind S. Helderman, Jacqueline Alemany and Devlin Barrett provided a bird's-eye view of the FBI search, writing that the “unsealed court records showed agents had seized 11 sets of classified documents, among other things. Republicans’ howls of protest became somewhat more muted, and people around Trump said his buoyant mood at times turned dark.”
“People familiar with those initial conversations said Trump was hesitant to return the documents, dragging his feet for months as officials grew peeved and eventually threatened to alert Congress or the Justice Department to his reticence,” Josh, Roz, Jackie and Devlin write.
As the Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Ballhaus, Vivian Salama and Alex Leary reported, “The National Archives staff typically collects boxes of records throughout the length of an administration, sending its vans to the White House for materials that are marked and catalogued as they come in. That didn’t happen during the Trump years, said Gary Stern, a career Archives official, at a January 2021 panel organized by the American Historical Association.”
The Journal also reports that “The FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property dealt with the Justice Department’s most urgent priority in the monthslong showdown, according to officials, which was retrieving classified information.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times's Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush reported that an attorney for Trump signed a statement in June that all of the classified materials sought by the National Archives had been returned.
Today several armed Trump supporters gathered outside the FBI building in Phoenix, AZ.
"We're here in support of Trump, for what happened to him, the unlawful search with the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago home," one described.
"We will not stand by and we will not stand down." pic.twitter.com/7Cr1pBEuky
The specter of violence: Death threats and calls for violence against the FBI have surged following the Mar-a-Lago search. Former CIA and FBI official Philip Mudd told CNN’s Jim Acosta Sunday that the fallout from the search reminds him of the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. “People with AR-15s and camo are gonna say: ‘I’m gonna do something about it.’ That’s dangerous. I think we’re gonna see another catastrophic event,” Mudd said.
A joint warning: “The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint intelligence bulletin warning of ‘violent threats’ against federal law enforcement, courts, government personnel and facilities in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago seizure,” our colleague Anna Phillips reports. The threats – which have been posted on social media sites, web forums, video-sharing platforms and other message boards – include general calls for “civil war” and “armed rebellion.”
FBI threats spike in the wake of Mar-a-Lago search
“The FBI also warned that it has seen personal identifying information of possible targets of violence, such as home addresses, as well as identification of family members as additional targets,” per NBC News’s Jonathan Dienst, Kelly O’Donnell and Mirna Alsharif.
“The biography and contact information of the federal magistrate judge who signed the search warrant was wiped from a Florida court’s website after he too became the target of violent threats,” AZFamily reports.
And on Friday, conservative media outlet Breitbart published a leaked version of the warrant that contained the names of the FBI agents who participated in the search.
“The FBI has repeatedly said that extremist violence from right-wing actors is one of the biggest threats confronting the bureau,” the New York Times’s Alan Feuer writes.
GOP members pushed back against their colleagues’ criticism of the FBI Sunday and warned them to tone down their rhetoric, Phillips writes. “It’s dangerous because we saw the one incident already,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said, referring to the gunman who was killed last week after he tried to attack an FBI field office in Cincinnati.
Not just Cincinnati: An armed group of Trump supporters gathered outside the FBI’s Phoenix office on Saturday to protest what they call an “illegal” search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, per AZFamily. Some carried signs that said “Honor your oath” and “Abolish FBI.” Trump supporters also held rallies in Florida, Missouri and New Jersey over the weekend.
More lawmakers head to Taiwan
Just weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a group of lawmakers landed in Taiwan with much fanfare and controversy, another group of lawmakers traveled to the country this weekend as China continues to engage in more aggressive behavior, including on Sunday.
Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) met up in Taiwan with Reps. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.), co-leaders of the congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, as well as Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) and Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, a Republican who is America Samoa's non-voting delegate to Congress.
The group met with Alexander Tah-ray Yui, Taiwan's vice minister of foreign affairs, to “encourage stability and peace across the Taiwan Strait,” according to Markey's office. “The group will meet with elected leaders and members of the private sector to discuss shared interests including reducing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and expanding economic cooperation, including investments in semiconductors.”
We are watching if a motive is released of the man who rammed his car into a barricade at the U.S. Capitol early Sunday morning. No one was injured but the scene, according to Capitol Police, was ugly. After the crash, the man exited his car and it was immediately engulfed in flames. He fired gun shots into the air before taking his own life.
Police said the man, identified as 29-year-old Richard A. York III, of Delaware, did not appear to be targeting members of Congress, who are on recess," our colleagues Fredrick Kunkle and Lizzie Johnson report.
In April of 2021, a man killed one police officer when he ran his car into a Capitol barricade.
Election deniers march toward power in key 2024 battlegrounds. By The Post’s Amy Gardner.
A progressive prosecutor clashed with DeSantis. Now he’s out of a job. By The Post’s Lori Rozsa.
Most abortions are done at home. Antiabortion groups are taking aim. By The Post’s Kimberly Kindy.
Michigan plot to breach voting machines points to a national pattern. By The Post’s Patrick Marley and Tom Hamburger.
How frustration over TikTok has mounted in Washington. By the New York Times’s David McCabe.
💡Did you know? While in prison, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), an avowed Elvis Presley fan, formed a band called the Jailhouse Rockers. The band is named after Presley’s hit song.
Yes, Rod Blagojevich now spends his weekends singing Jailhouse Rock at parties in Chicago.
Video from a friend who was there: pic.twitter.com/4AhQ4v9gr0
— Jack Nicas (@jacknicas) August 15, 2022 | 2022-08-15T11:01:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans, White House clash over Afghanistan one year later - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/republicans-white-house-clash-over-afghanistan-one-year-later/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/republicans-white-house-clash-over-afghanistan-one-year-later/ |
Monday briefing: Where election deniers are winning votes; Salman Rushdie’s recovery; Anne Heche; extreme heat waves; and more
Election deniers are gaining ground in key battleground states.
In the six states that decided the 2020 vote, nearly two-thirds of the Republican candidates running for positions with power over elections don’t accept Donald Trump lost the election.
What this means: If these candidates win in November, they could be in a position to try to undermine the vote in the next presidential election.
What else to know: 11 sets of classified documents were seized from Trump’s Florida home, according to court filings released Friday.
The Taliban took over Afghanistan one year ago today.
What happened? The Western-backed government collapsed in hours — faster than anyone expected — as the Taliban took control of Kabul, the capital. The U.S. military officially pulled out two weeks later.
What’s changed since then: Women have had their rights stripped away and face increasing violence; poverty and hunger are rising; schools now focus on religion; and Islamic law is increasingly enforced.
Author Salman Rushdie is recovering after being attacked onstage.
What happened? The 75-year-old, one of the world’s most famous writers, was stabbed multiple times Friday in New York. He has faced death threats for decades over his portrayal of Islam in his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses.”
The latest: He has been taken off a ventilator, Rushdie’s agent said yesterday. A 24-year-old man has been charged with attempted murder.
India is celebrating 75 years of independence today.
A quick history: On Aug. 15, 1947, the country broke free of British rule after years of struggle. India’s Muslims formed their own state, Pakistan, a day earlier, which led to huge turmoil.
What to know: This year’s celebrations are downplaying Mahatma Gandhi, the pacifist and “father of the nation,” instead glorifying leaders who pushed the use of force — a reflection of the nation’s mood.
Actress Anne Heche died after a car crash.
What we know: She was taken off life support yesterday. She had been hospitalized since crashing her car in Los Angeles on Aug. 5. She was 53.
How we’ll remember her: For roles in “Wag the Dog” and a “Psycho” remake, and for breaking ground with Ellen DeGeneres in a public same-sex relationship in the late 1990s.
Dangerous heat waves will increase across the U.S. over the next 30 years.
The numbers: Around 63% of Americans will experience three or more consecutive days of 100-plus-degree heat, on average, each year, according to new data.
Where will be most at risk? Search your Zip code here to check the potential impact.
Spiders might be capable of dreaming.
How we know this: A species of jumping spider may enter rapid eye movement (REM) sleep — a phase of rest when humans have our most vivid dreams, a new study found.
What do they dream about? If they do, one researcher suggested spiders may “dream in vibrations,” instead of visually, like humans.
And now … one thing Tess is making: These no-bake coconut date balls (from this list). And one thing Jamie enjoyed: This tale about the Great Moon Hoax. | 2022-08-15T11:02:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Monday, August 15 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/15/what-to-know-for-august-15/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/08/15/what-to-know-for-august-15/ |
Ravi, a 7 year old red panda, is caged after being found in a tree near the zoo he escaped from days earlier, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022, in Adelaide, Australia. The panda escaped from his enclosure at the Adelaide Zoo and was recaptured Sunday after he was spotted hanging out in a fig tree in the nearby park. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation via AP) (Uncredited/Australian Broadcasting Corporation) | 2022-08-15T11:02:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Red panda found in fig tree after escaping Australian zoo - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/red-panda-found-in-fig-tree-after-escaping-australian-zoo/2022/08/15/ce1b7808-1c7b-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/red-panda-found-in-fig-tree-after-escaping-australian-zoo/2022/08/15/ce1b7808-1c7b-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
We now know that the reason the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Donald Trump’s Palm Beach residence last week is because the 45th president is under investigation for pocketing classified documents related to nuclear weapons and possibly violating the Espionage Act. For good measure, he may have also lied to federal officials about the documents and obstructed justice.Much of the drumbeating that followed news of the FBI search focused on investigators’ motives for executing a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. That’s largely because Trump seized the public relations high ground in the wake of the search, filling a communications vacuum the Justice Department helped create by not providing more immediate clarity about its investigation.Trump is not sophisticated or particularly bright, but messaging is one of his superpowers. No sooner had he characterized the FBI search as a politically motivated hit worthy of “broken, Third-World Countries” than his GOP apologists and Fox News enablers went to work repeating the same lies and talking points. Possible FBI malfeasance became a centerpiece of the debate about the search. Even well-intentioned observers stroked their chins quizzically. “Hmm” they allowed, “maybe the FBI has gone off the rails.”But a few turns of the news cycle and one press briefing from Attorney General Merrick Garland have properly refocused attention on the suspected perpetrator — Trump — and dimmed some of the histrionics aimed at the FBI. Keep worrying about FBI overreach if you’d like, but more pressing answers are needed for why Trump absconded with the documents in the first place.I think there are three likely reasons Trump wanted to keep all that top-secret paperwork and classified paraphernalia to himself — even if we still don’t know exactly what he had stashed in his safe, closets and socks at Mar-a-Lago.Reason One seems relatively harmless. Trump is a seven-year-old grown old, and he liked some of the cool doodads you get your hands on as president. He reportedly wanted to keep an Air Force One model displaying a bespoke paint job he had commissioned for the presidential jet and resented restrictions against hanging on to such stuff. Among the disputed documents at Mar-a-Lago was a meteorological map of Hurricane Dorian that he had infamously marked up with a black Sharpie. Who knows why that map was so important to him? Who cares?The second and third reasons aren’t harmless at all. They’re deeply damaging and troubling.So, Reason Two: Money. Unfettered greed has motivated Trump his entire life. He didn’t get into the casino business to beautify Atlantic City. He didn’t propose a mega-development on Manhattan’s West Side because it would have made New York more livable. He didn’t start Trump University to educate students, and he didn’t host “The Apprentice” to tutor entrepreneurs. He didn’t originally run for president to revitalize democracy. Money, money, money.Other graduates of the Trump administration have cashed in in ways that should raise national security concerns. Former White House adviser Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) and former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have received billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia to seed their nascent money-management firms. Those deals still look like influence peddling, but to Trump they undoubtedly looked like huge and enviable paydays. It had to occur to him that if hangers-on such as Kushner and Mnuchin could rake in billions because of their proximity to him, he could sell himself — or, possibly, state secrets — for even higher prices.Recall that Trump’s businesses have been in difficult straits. When Trump left the White House, his operations were saddled with about $1 billion in debt, $900 million of which comes due relatively soon. He personally guaranteed repayment of about $421 million of that debt. And his businesses — concentrated in urban real estate and leisure — were pummeled by the economic downturn that accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump and his firm, the Trump Organization, also face civil and criminal fraud investigations in New York that could put him out of business.That’s a lot of financial pressure, especially for someone already prone to be a money-grubber. It should also raise alarms for any rational observer concerned that Trump might have been inspired to use the powers and access to records that his presidency provided to rake in lucre by peddling classified information after he left the White House. Perhaps that won’t prove to be the case — and I hope it doesn’t — but extreme vigilance around that particular problem would be well advised.Reason Three: Reputational damage. Trump reportedly held on to letters he exchanged with North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un. Perhaps vanity inspired that move because Trump has referred to such correspondence as “love letters.” But what other communications are contained in the documents Trump kept? Anything with Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping? How about documents pertaining to Trump’s phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy from that time when Trump was trying to strong-arm Zelenskiy into digging up dirt on his political opponent, Joe Biden. Those communications led to the first of Trump’s two impeachment proceedings.Again, maybe there’s nothing of this sort, either, in the documents Trump kept. But it’s not unreasonable to worry that his communications with foreign leaders — and anything disreputable or possibly illegal that took place in connection with those — could have been something he felt compelled to hide.The frenetic pace at which Trump has seeded the ground with lies in the wake of the Mar-a-Lago search certainly suggests that he has something to hide and that he’s worried about the investigation. After all, he has claimed, without even a hint of fact, that the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago. Trump also claimed that he wasn’t the first president to lift classified information and said former President Barack Obama kept 33 million pages of documents, “much of them classified.” The National Archives controls all of Obama’s papers and swiftly debunked that howler.Trump and his allies have also asserted that Trump had the power to declassify all of the documents in his possession as president and that he declassified the contested documents held at Mar-a-Lago. No harm, no foul. But as Barbara McQuade, a professor at University of Michigan Law School and a former federal prosecutor, has pointed out, that distinction doesn’t matter.“Classification is irrelevant,” McQuade noted on Twitter. “Government documents that pertain to the national defense may not be withheld from the government upon request for return. The obstruction charge in the warrant suggests Trump tried to conceal what he had.”Trump has also flexed his muscles more directly. The New York Times reported that he had an intermediary warn Garland before his press conference last week that people were enraged by the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. Armed Trump supporters have since marched outside the FBI’s offices in Phoenix. One gunman who stormed an FBI office in Cincinnati last Thursday was shot and killed. The federal judge who approved the FBI’s search warrant for Mar-a-Lago has been subjected to antisemitic attacks and threats online. Some of those attacks were also directed at his synagogue.Sorting out this investigation before the violence escalates further should be a priority for law enforcement, but it has to be sorted out. Soft-peddling an examination of whether a former president stole state secrets and what he wanted to do with them — especially if it involved espionage — because of violence or threats of violence only plays into Trump’s hands.
• Democracies Can Endure Prosecutions of Ex-Leaders: Bobby Ghosh
• Would Prosecuting Trump Serve the Public Interest?: Clive Crook | 2022-08-15T12:32:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Did Trump Take Classified Documents in the First Place? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-did-trump-take-classified-documents-in-the-first-place/2022/08/15/38d29916-1c8a-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-did-trump-take-classified-documents-in-the-first-place/2022/08/15/38d29916-1c8a-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
The architect of the FBI was Napoleon’s great-nephew, Charles Bonaparte
Charles Joseph Bonaparte, pictured ca. 1906. (Frances Benjamin Johnston/Library of Congress)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has a French connection: The agency’s forerunner was created in 1908 by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte’s great-nephew, Charles J. Bonaparte, when he was President Theodore Roosevelt’s attorney general.
Bonaparte had a reputation for high integrity, an image generally shared over the years by FBI agents. Since last week’s disclosure of the FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s home at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Springs, Fla., many Trump backers and Trump himself have been quick to turn on the FBI agents involved, with Trump suggesting, with no basis, they may have “planted” evidence against him. Over the weekend, Trump, who appointed current FBI director Christopher A. Wray in 2017, continued his trashing of the agency.
Recent reporting has revealed the FBI was searching for highly classified documents, some involving nuclear weapons. In his only public statement on the matter, Attorney General Merrick Garland last week defended FBI agents and federal prosecutors. “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked,” Garland said. “The men and women of the FBI and the Justice Department are dedicated, patriotic public servants.”
Before becoming attorney general, Bonaparte had been navy secretary in early 1906 when he expressed concern about whether he was doing a good enough job. Roosevelt wrote his fellow progressive Republican a teasing retort: “You are a trump!” — and disclosed plans to nominate Bonaparte to be attorney general that year.
Bonaparte created the forerunner to the FBI because the Justice Department didn’t have its own investigators when enforcing federal laws. As a wealthy lawyer in Baltimore, he had fought corruption as head of the National Civil Service Reform League. When Roosevelt appointed Bonaparte navy secretary, cartoonists were quick to note the 1805 drubbing of Napoleon’s French naval fleet by the British in the Battle of Trafalgar off the coast of Spain. One cartoon showed the “Spirit of Napoleon” reading a telegram from Roosevelt, which stated, “I have made your grandnephew Secretary of the Navy”; Napoleon replied, “I hope he does better with ships than I did.”
As attorney general, Bonaparte led Roosevelt’s trustbusting drive, breaking up such giants as Standard Oil Company. He personally argued dozens of cases before the Supreme Court. The press gave him the nickname “Charlie the Crook Chaser.” But when it came to enforcing federal laws, he complained to Congress that the department had “no permanent detective force under its control.” Instead, he had to borrow Secret Service agents from the Treasury Department.
In May 1908, Congress banned the outside use of the Secret Service investigators — a move that just so happened to occur after two lawmakers were jailed as the result of such probes. Bonaparte saw his opening. He created a “Special Agent Force” of 31 investigators, including eight former Secret Service agents. He issued an order that “All matters relating to investigations under the Department” will be referred to the chief examiner, Stanley Finch, to decide “whether any member of the force of special agents under his direction is available for the work to be performed.” The order was dated July 26, 1908, now considered the birth date of the FBI.
The standards for special agents resembled today’s requirements. According to Finch, the Washington Star later reported, the agents “were to be well educated — preferably graduates of some college and members of the bar; they were not to be unusual in appearance, so that they could pass unnoticed in a crowd.” In a 1908 report to Congress, Bonaparte declared the force was “absolutely indispensable” to the proper discharge of the Justice Department’s duties.
When Bonaparte left office in March 1909 as William Howard Taft moved into the White House, he recommended that the special agents be made a permanent part of the Justice Department. Taft agreed. His attorney general, George Wickersham, soon named the special force the Bureau of Investigation, or the BOI.
Agents initially focused on white-collar crime, such as land and bankruptcy fraud, antitrust violations and “matters relating to the importation of prostitutes.” In 1910, agents’ duties expanded to include enforcement of the White Slave Act, also known as the Mann Act, which outlawed transporting women over state lines for “immoral purposes.” Over the next few years, the BOI force grew to more than 300 agents.
In 1919, the agency hired its first African American agent, James Wormley Jones. He was assigned to infiltrate subversive groups. In 1922, Alaska Davidson became the first female special agent. But two years later, the agency’s new chief, 29-year-old J. Edgar Hoover, forced her resignation after her boss said he had “no particular work for a woman.”
During the 1930s, the agency was called the Division of Investigation (DOI) and gained a reputation for battling organized crime. Legend has it that gangster George Kelly Barnes, known as Machine Gun Kelly, coined the name G-men, or government men, for agents when he shouted “Don’t shoot G-men!” while being arrested.
In 1935, Congress agreed to Hoover’s request to give the unit a new name, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On March 22, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill creating the new name and its motto “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”
Hoover served as FBI director until his death in 1972 at age 77. His long tenure was tarnished by racial bigotry and abuses of civil liberties. President Richard M. Nixon, among others, suggested Hoover held onto his post because he had dirt on members of Congress and other powerful people. “'He`s got files on everybody, damn it,'' Nixon said.
Today, the FBI has more than 30,000 agents and other professionals. The agency’s law-enforcement mission ranges from white-collar crime to cybercrime and terrorism — and now to carrying out search warrants at the home of a former president. That’s a long way from the 31-man force Charles Bonaparte started 114 years ago.
The former attorney general died at his Bella Vista estate in Maryland in 1921 at age 70. In his obituary, the Baltimore American noted that Bonaparte had a pet peeve about his famous ancestor’s reputed short stature, which spawned the Napoleon complex, the theory that some short people try to compensate by being overly aggressive.
“Persons who sought to flatter Mr. Bonaparte by telling him he looked like Napoleon irritated him,” the newspaper wrote, “for he knew he was taller.”
Ronald G. Shafer is the author of “Breaking News All Over Again, The History Behind Today’s Headlines,” a collection of his Washington Post Retropolis columns. | 2022-08-15T12:32:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Architect of the FBI was Napoleon’s great-nephew, Charles Bonaparte - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/15/charles-bonaparte-fbi-napoleon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/08/15/charles-bonaparte-fbi-napoleon/ |
Should I install a garbage disposal with a septic system?
You can, but you may have to pump it more often
Q: Some garbage disposals are advertised as suitable for homes with septic systems. Is it smart to install one?
A: You can if you want to, but plan to have your septic tank pumped — or at least inspected — more often unless you use it sparingly.
To understand why, it helps to know the basics of how homes that aren’t connected to a central sewage treatment system purify wastewater from toilets, washing machines, showers, tubs and sinks. This water all runs into a septic tank, which typically holds 1,000 gallons or more. There, solids gradually settle out and form a layer of sludge on the bottom, and grease floats to the top, forming a scum layer. In-between, thanks to the work of bacteria and other organisms, is relatively clear water, which a pipe carries away to a drain field, sand mounds or other system that gradually releases the water in a way that doesn’t pollute the environment.
But if the sludge layer or the scum layer gets too thick, water flowing into the drain system isn’t clean enough and can plug it, leading to expensive repairs or even the need to replace the entire system. So to keep septic systems operating efficiently, homeowners are told to have their septic tanks pumped every 1 to 5 years, depending on the amount and type of waste that goes down the drains.
Stuffing food waste into a garbage disposal obviously adds tremendously to the amount, and grinding orange peels, chicken bones and all sorts of other food waste gives the bacteria a different challenge than when the solids flowing in are mostly human waste. That’s why people with septic systems have long been advised to avoid using garbage disposals or at least get their septic tanks pumped much more frequently.
But InSinkErator, which dominates the food waste disposal industry in the United States with 70 percent of sales, says that all of its models are fine to use in homes with septic systems. (Whirlpool announced Aug. 8 that it will buy the company for $3 billion.)
InSinkErator advertises its Evolution Septic Assist Quiet Series model ($299 at Home Depot) as especially friendly to septic systems because, with each use, it “automatically injects more than 300 million enzyme-producing microorganisms” to help start breaking down food scraps before they reach the septic tank. (The dose is 1/3 teaspoon, which works out to a cost of about $1.50 a week if the disposal is used three times a day, given that a replacement pint of the enzyme product Bio-Charge costs $19.98 at Home Depot.) But the company offers a pretty lame pitch for the necessity of this additive, describing it as a way to “do the best you can for your system” yet noting that “any garbage disposal can help households with septic tanks responsibly manage food scraps.”
The Environmental Protection Agency, while not addressing brand-specific products, says flatly that additives, including ones with bacteria and enzymes, “are not necessary for a septic system to function properly when treating domestic wastewater.” On a web page devoted to answering frequent questions about septic systems, it also is unequivocal about using a garbage disposal when a house has a septic system. “If you must use a garbage disposal unit, your tank will need to be pumped more frequently.”
To back up its claim that septic systems attached to a garbage disposal don’t need to be pumped more frequently, InSinkErator’s website cites a study from 2019 that was based on a simulation that compared 20-liter test tanks (each about 5.2 gallons) for 110 days, or a little over 3½ months. One tank got only human waste; the other also got enough food waste to increase the total suspended solids by about 30 percent. It found that the food waste was more biodegradable, “which indicates that the impact on pumping frequency from adding FW [food waste] will be insignificant.” But how valid is that conclusion for real-life septic tanks, which typically hold at least 1,000 gallons and operate for years?
When a woman answering a customer-service number for InSinkErator was asked if the company can cite any research about the effects of using disposals in homes with septic systems, she pointed to a 1998 paper on the company’s website in which a company engineer summarizes and interprets research done at the University of Wisconsin.
The study compared five ways of managing food waste, from hauling it away in garbage trucks to dumping it down drains equipped with disposals. Sending food waste through disposals to a central sewage system cost municipal governments less than if garbage trucks hauled the scraps to a composting facility. But the least costly scenario for the municipality was sending the waste through a disposal at a home with a septic system — because in that case, the homeowner would bear the cost.
To include disposals in homes with septic systems as an option, the team doing the research increased the septic tank and drain field by 25 percent to accommodate the extra food waste — a hint of the effect they expected disposals to have on septic system performance and of the added cost to homeowners. But the InSinkErator engineer noted that “systems with a disposer, an adequate soil type and a ‘standard’ sized system have functioned trouble free for more than ten years in cold climates.” And he said that using bio-additives in a septic system would reduce the required size and therefore the cost of the septic system, as would using an InSinkErator disposal with the Bio-Charge additive.
So what is the bottom line? Garbage disposers do grind up food waste enough so that it shouldn’t clog the pipe to the septic tank. Nonfood waste, such as hair and candy wrappers, is more likely to do that. But there’s no guarantee that the mix of food scraps going down your drain will match the ones used in the simulation that found it probably wouldn’t require more pumping.
Because repairing or replacing a septic system can get really costly, if you do want to install a garbage disposal, use it just to clean out the remnants after you’ve scooped out most of the food waste. Or commit to having your system pumped more frequently, or at least inspected more frequently until you can gauge how often pumping is required. The test: Is the bottom of the scum layer within six inches of the bottom of the outlet, or is the top of the sludge layer within 12 inches of the outlet?
You definitely do not want to put off pumping longer than you should. An inspection costs around $300, and pumping averages $417, according to homeadvisor.com. But installing a new system could run from $10,000 to $25,000 or even more — and that’s before you factor in the cost and hassle of having to replace landscaping that the installation will probably ruin. | 2022-08-15T12:32:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Should I install a garbage disposal with a septic system? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/08/15/septic-safe-garbage-disposal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/08/15/septic-safe-garbage-disposal/ |
A bear cub got high on hallucinogenic ‘mad honey’ — and there’s video
Officials in Turkey have named the bear ‘Balkiz,’ which means ‘honey girl’ or ‘honey daughter’
Balkiz, a brown bear cub from Turkey, got high after eating too much “mad honey.” (Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry)
Like a real-life Winnie the Pooh, a brown bear in Turkey gobbled up some honey last week. But unlike the beloved children’s book character, the cub got as high as a kite on the sweet, golden treat.
The reason? It was hallucinogenic “mad honey,” known in Turkish as “deli bal.”
Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said the young bear was rescued Thursday after it was found passed out in the country’s northwestern Duzce province, about 130 miles east of Istanbul. Apart from the bad trip, the female cub was in good condition following a stint at a veterinary care center.
Somehow, the bear got her paws on an excessive amount of deli bal, which has been cultivated by beekeepers in the Black Sea region and the Himalayas for centuries. The substance — also known as bitter honey for its pungent taste — is the result of bees feeding on the pollen of rhododendron flowers. The brightly colored plants carry a natural neurotoxin called grayanotoxin that, when consumed, can induce euphoria, hallucination and intoxication — as the bear quickly came to know.
A video shared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry showed the bear in its fully blitzed state. In the back of a pickup truck, she sat belly-up with her limbs sprawled out in what can be described as a vertical sploot. Her mouth was slightly open. Her eyes wide. For a couple of seconds, she wiggled around dazed and confused.
The clip quickly turned the cub into a local celebrity. After tapping citizens for name ideas, the government agency on Friday introduced her as “Balkiz” — which means “honey girl” or “honey daughter” in Turkish — along with a photo featuring the now-sober bear posing atop a branch with a half-eaten watermelon on the ground.
Though Balkiz is the latest to suffer the symptoms of a mad honey binge, she’s hardly the first to do so. Thousands of poisoning cases have been reported across the world throughout history.
According to research by the late Texas A&M anthropology professor Vaughn Bryant, one of the earliest records of mad honey came from Xenophon of Athens, who was a student of the philosopher Socrates. The Greek historian wrote that a Greek army stumbled upon the substance in 401 B.C. as the troops made their way back from the Black Sea after a victory over the Persians.
“They decided to feast on local honey stolen from some nearby beehives. Hours later the troops began vomiting, had diarrhea, became disoriented and could no longer stand; by the next day the effects were gone and they continued on to Greece,” Bryant recounted in a 2014 news release.
Other troops weren’t nearly as lucky. Some 334 years later, Roman soldiers being led by Pompey the Great fell on a honeytrap planted by the Persian army, which “gathered pots full of local honey and left them for the Roman troops to find,” Bryant said. “They ate the honey, became disoriented and couldn’t fight. The Persian army returned and killed over 1,000 Roman troops with few losses of their own.”
Centuries later, Union troops encountered the hallucinogenic honey near the Appalachian Mountains during the Civil War era. Much like the Greeks and the Romans before them, the Americans got buzzed and sick, Bryant said.
However, mad honey is incredibly hard to come by, the Guardian reported. The rhododendrons that produce the necessary neurotoxins are found in few places and are most prolific in mountainous regions of the Black Sea and the foothills of the Himalayas. Harvesters have to go to great lengths to acquire the red-tinted goop — shimming up tall trees and cliffs and often fending off one of the largest species of honeybees in the world. The returns on those risks are big, though. A pound of mad honey can go for nearly $170, Bryant said. In Turkey, a pound of potent, high-quality deli bal can sell for up to 2,000 lira, or about $111, making it one of the most expensive honeys in the world, the Guardian noted.
TikTok’s viral beekeeper is getting a lot of ... buzz
The price is also a reflection of the medicinal value some people attribute to the bitter-tasting honey. It’s often touted as a natural remedy for conditions including diabetes, hypertension, gastrointestinal disorders, arthritis and sore throats. Some even use it as an aphrodisiac or a treatment for erectile dysfunction, according to a 2018 report published in the scientific journal RSC Advances.
But too much of the honey can land people — and bears — in the hospital. Only the bees that produce mad honey are immune to the high. For all other animals, the substance can produce disorienting effects, though they typically last less than 24 hours.
On Friday, Balkiz was released back into the forests near the Balkans — a region whose name translates to the “land of honey and blood.”
“Godspeed to the beautiful girl who has won the hearts of us all,” Turkey’s minister of agriculture and forestry, Vahit Kirisci, wrote on Twitter. An accompanying video showed the brown cub frolicking down a grassy hill.
“May she eat everything in moderation, even honey,” Kirisci added. | 2022-08-15T12:32:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Meet Balkiz, a bear cub in Turkey who got high on hallucinogenic honey - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/15/bear-high-hallucinogenic-honey-turkey/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/15/bear-high-hallucinogenic-honey-turkey/ |
Found guilty of child rape, he chugged a ‘cloudy’ liquid and died
Edward Leclair vomited and collapsed minutes after drinking a mysterious liquid at the end of his trial
Edward Leclair heard “guilty” and started chugging from his water bottle.
Over several days last week in Denton, Tex., Leclair, 57, was tried on five counts of child sexual assault. At the end of that trial — as the judge read out guilty verdict after guilty verdict — Leclair kept gulping, downing most of the liquid in the bottle, his lawyer, Mike Howard, told NBC News.
Jurors convicted Leclair on all five counts, court records show. His guilt decided, bailiffs led him to a holding cell outside the courtroom so lawyers in the case could schedule a hearing to determine his punishment. He faced up to 100 years in prison, and Howard acknowledged to NBC News that “a very stiff punishment” was possible, given the charges.
It never got that far. Minutes after Leclair had been removed, a bailiff announced in the courtroom that he was vomiting in the holding cell, Howard told NBC News. The Denton County Sheriff’s Office said he also collapsed. Paramedics took him to a nearby hospital, where he died that same day.
The Texas Rangers are now investigating what the sheriff’s office described as an “in-custody death.” Forensic pathologists with the Tarrant County Medical Examiner are performing an autopsy to determine his cause of death.
Howard did not immediately respond to an interview request from The Washington Post late Sunday.
Leclair had been charged with raping a 14-year-old girl in 2016, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported. In July of that year, Leclair responded to a personal ad the girl had posted on Craigslist, according to a search warrant obtained by the newspaper. The two met and drove to a hotel, where Leclair raped her, according to police. Leclair paid her $200, and the girl later sent him a nude photograph via email, the Record-Chronicle reported.
The girl later told Leclair that she was 14, but he continued to meet with her and sexually abuse her, according to the records obtained by the newspaper.
Frisco police said they filed charges against Leclair after the then-16-year-old girl’s mother called them in June 2018, according to the Record-Chronicle. Leclair was arrested the following month and, after posting a $30,000 bond, released until his trial, which began Aug. 8, court records show.
On Thursday, as the guilty verdicts started pouring in, Leclair took a “prolonged drink,” Howard told the Record-Chronicle. He’d been sipping from the water bottle throughout the trial, Howard said.
Jamie Beck, a prosecutor with the Denton County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, described the liquid in Leclair’s water bottle as “cloudy.”
“He had a bottle of water with him at the counsel table, and he chugged it,” Beck told WFAA. “It wasn't like he was just taking sips of water. He was literally throwing it back.”
After bailiffs took Leclair to the holding cell, Howard spoke with his client, the lawyer told NBC News. He described Leclair in that moment as “dejected and in shell shock — all the things you would expect” after being convicted of child sexual assault. Howard then returned to the courtroom to hammer out a sentencing date.
An investigator in the courtroom had noticed Leclair swigging as the verdicts were read, which he found odd, Beck told the Record-Chronicle. The investigator informed the bailiff and suggested he check on him. Following that advice, the bailiff found Leclair collapsed in the holding cell.
Beck also got a look at him, she told the newspaper.
“He was very much either dying or dead,” Beck said.
Jurors, having been dismissed before Leclair’s medical emergency on Thursday, returned Friday to news of his death, according to court records.
“It was highly emotional for everyone involved,” Howard told the Record-Chronicle. “We were shocked by this. It does carry a lot of emotion and even more so for the jurors.”
The judge and the lawyers in the case assured the jurors that what happened was not their fault.
“They didn’t choose to do this,” Howard said. “They were chosen.” | 2022-08-15T12:32:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A man chugged ‘cloudy’ liquid during child rape conviction, then died - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/15/convicted-guilty-water-bottle-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/15/convicted-guilty-water-bottle-dead/ |
Want to lure people back to the office? Give them on-site child care.
Cubicle workspaces are seen on the upper floor of an open office space in San Francisco in September 2019. (Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle/AP)
Even before the covid-19 pandemic, the supply of child care in the United States was dismal. And for many families, if care was available, it wasn’t affordable. Yet most employers treated a lack of child care as an individual problem, rather than as a systemic one that risked undermining the labor market.
Then came the extended closures of schools and day cares — which made clear the extent to which the whole economy relies on care work.
Goldman Sachs, for example, operates backup child-care facilities and a permanent day-care center. And at Patagonia, which opened an on-site day-care center at its Ventura, Calif., headquarters in 1983 and at its Reno facility in 2017, the company’s pandemic response and return-to-office plans were guided by the existence of its child-care program.
Sheryl Shushan, the company’s director of family services, told me that when nonessential workers were allowed back in the California office, Patagonia prioritized parents, starting with breastfeeding mothers, to get them access to care. This parents-first approach allowed the company to keep the number of people in the office low enough to give returning workers their own offices to decrease the risk of infection.
This strategy has worked: The company’s program now serves 92 percent as many children as it did pre-pandemic, getting both those kids and their parents back to its Ventura campus.
Patagonia has not been exempted from the so-called Great Resignation. But Shushan says she’s heard anecdotally that Patagonia’s child-care program provides a major incentive for parents to stay with the company. Replacing a departing employee can cost as much as twice that person’s annual salary. Patagonia has long argued that fully 21 percent of the cost of running their child care facility is recouped through employee “retention and engagement,” especially among women returning to work after having children.
Shushan argues there are downstream benefits, too. Private investment in the child-care field can help bolster the profession at a time when day-care workers are fleeing the workforce. That’s good for everyone, even employees who don’t benefit directly from on-site day care. A more stable supply of child care means a more stable supply of employees in every other line of work.
At least some companies recognized what was happening during the pandemic and acted accordingly. A spokeswoman for the corporate child-care giant Bright Horizons told me that the company opened 23 on-site child care centers during the pandemic. But in between the truths the pandemic revealed about the state of the workforce and the desperate efforts by corporate leaders to get their white-collar employees back in physical offices, it’s amazing that on-site care hasn’t expanded even more rapidly.
There are challenges to opening day cares at unrelated businesses, including questions of legal liability and hot competition for child-care workers. Not all companies have the scale to make on-site day care financially viable, and not all workplaces have the free space for such offerings. But the existence of major contractors such as Bright Horizons — and the abundance of office spaces begging to be repurposed — certainly remove some of the obstacles.
The return to in-person work has revealed a gap between the culture company leaders believe they’ve created and the one many rank-and-file employees experience.
Telling workers it’s essential to be in the office isn’t enough to make it feel that way — especially when employees are juggling child drop-offs and pickups or trying to find time to pump breast milk for someone else to feed their babies. Providing on-site care upends that equation: Suddenly, being at the office sounds much more appealing than working around a nanny or fitting trips to day care into the workday.
On-site day care is also an acknowledgment that companies need their employees — and are willing to support them. Smart employers will recognize that helping workers with child care isn’t just a perk; it’s a mutually beneficial investment.
Alyssa Rosenberg on parenting
Breastfeeding isn’t ‘free.’ Here’s what it cost me.
Babies aren’t talking points. Stop posturing and get them formula. | 2022-08-15T12:33:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Want to lure people back to the office? Give them on-site child care. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/15/on-site-child-care-back-to-office/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/15/on-site-child-care-back-to-office/ |
By John R. Bolton
Novelist Salman Rushdie is lifted onto a medical evacuation helicopter in Chautauqua, N.Y., after being attacked while speaking on stage Aug. 12. (Horatio Gates/AFP via Getty Images)
John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President Donald Trump and is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.”
It has been somewhat surreal over the past few days, I admit, to be speaking publicly about Iran’s plot to assassinate me and many other American citizens on American soil. Fortunately, as an alumnus of the Reagan administration’s Justice Department, I have seen once again the diligent, enormously competent and courageous work of FBI agents and Justice Department attorneys who uncovered and pursued Iran’s murderous plots.
And, thanks to President Biden, I again receive Secret Service protection, as I did when I served as national security adviser.
However, what gives surrealism an entirely new meaning is that the Biden White House, faced with Iran’s broad campaign of anti-U.S. terrorism, amounting to an act of war, is still obsessively grinding along to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps efforts targeting me reached the point where the Justice Department filed criminal charges against Shahram Poursafi, unsealed last week. Interestingly, the charging documents’ narrative of Poursafi’s criminal conduct ends in late April, just as Secretary of State Antony Blinken first publicly admitted Iran’s threats to current and former American officials in congressional testimony. A significant number of former public servants are also in Iran’s sights, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former defense secretary Mark T. Esper and others not now appropriate to name, but whose peril has been widely reported.
Nearly four months passed between Blinken’s public corroboration of Iran’s threat and the filing of criminal charges. The only reasonable explanation is that the president feared revealing the accusations would imperil his all-consuming goal of reviving the Iran nuclear deal.
Iran’s malign efforts, however, do not stop with public officials. Consider naturalized American citizen Masih Alinejad, an advocate for women’s rights in Iran. Just weeks ago, an Iranian agent armed with an AK-47 arrived at her Brooklyn home, intending, in the FBI’s view, to kill her. On Friday, Salman Rushdie, long an Iranian target, was grievously wounded by an assailant immediately lauded by Hasan Nasrallah, leader of Iran’s terrorist surrogate Hezbollah, as “a Lebanese champion” who had “implemented” the “honorable fatwa” promulgated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Agence France-Presse reported that pro-regime Iranian media hailed the attack, and quoted Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiators, tweeting, “I won’t be shedding tears for a writer who spouts endless hatred and contempt for Muslims and Islam,” while implying the attack was a U.S. false-flag operation.
The assassination attempts on Alinejad and Rushdie might or might not be coincidental. Along with the extensive list of present and former government officials at risk, however, this is no small matter, except apparently to the Biden administration. We face a concerted threat to America itself, not unconnected threats to random individuals. Iran does not fear U.S. deterrence.
Accordingly, continued pursuit of the nuclear deal signals U.S. weakness worldwide. Russia has invaded Ukraine; suppose the Kremlin was now trying to murder Americans, as in 2018 when it attacked defectors in Britain with chemical weapons? Would Biden still hope for climate change negotiations with Vladimir Putin, as John F. Kerry suggested before the invasion? Or, given China’s threat to Taiwan, would we still conduct trade negotiations if clandestine Beijing agents were similarly engaged? Too many Americans are already threatened with death on American soil by a foreign government. It’s time for Biden to reject business as usual.
In recent weeks, the White House has nonetheless heedlessly, zealously continued its policy of capitulation, reportedly making further concessions to Tehran. These include whitewashing long-standing Iranian obstruction of International Atomic Energy Agency efforts to pursue necessary investigations, and weakening the scope and effectiveness of U.S. sanctions against the very Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that is attempting multiple assassinations.
How to explain this manic quest for the Holy Grail of reviving the 2015 deal? Analytically, Biden is compartmentalizing Iran’s nuclear program in one silo and its terrorist activities in another, treating them as separable and unrelated. He is engaging in the classic diplomatic fallacy of “mirror-imaging,” believing his adversaries see the world the same way he does, sealed off into separate compartments.
The reality in Tehran is precisely the opposite. The ayatollahs’ malevolence is comprehensive, with nuclear weapons, assassination and terrorism all elements in their full spectrum of capabilities. By failing to grasp the wider scope of Iran’s menace, and plainly failing to deter it, Biden’s dangerous effort to resurrect the nuclear deal is threatening America’s larger interests. Substantive arguments against the 2015 agreement and the concessions Biden has made over nearly 19 months in office should already suffice to bury the deal, but the broader threat Iran now raises should be the final nail in its coffin.
Biden’s bizarre policy of “nuclear deal über alles” reflects an instinct for the capillary when it comes to Washington-Tehran relations. Iran’s nuclear program is only a symptom of the real problem: the regime itself. That is what the United States must focus on ending. | 2022-08-15T12:33:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Assassination attempts by Iran are on the rise. Tehran is in Biden's blind spot - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/15/rushdie-iran-assassination-plots/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/15/rushdie-iran-assassination-plots/ |
Five ways parents can help children have a better school year
By Phyllis Fagell
Yet again, principal Cindy Conley was surprised by something her post-lockdown students were doing. At an end-of-year celebration in June for eighth graders at Irving Middle School in Springfield, Va., a group of boys began playing “duck, duck, goose.” Soon, more than 50 boys were playing the game, one that is usually enjoyed for much younger kids.” That never happened pre-pandemic,” Conley said. “But some of these kids left in sixth grade and came back as instant eighth graders, and I don’t think I anticipated how much the elementary part was still in them.”
The 2021-22 school year upended conventional notions about what students can or “should” be able to do by a certain age or grade. Teachers, principals and parents were all caught off-guard by some of the trickle-down impacts they saw on children returning to in-person school.
But this is a new year and parents and educators are going into it with more realistic expectations and a better understanding of what kids need to be successful. As children start a new school year in a time still characterized by uncertainty and deep division, here are five ways caregivers can help them learn, connect with others and maintain a strong sense of self:
Let go of the notion of “normal”
Some children thought things would be “normal” last year and were blindsided when they struggled in unexpected ways, whether they didn’t complete assignments or felt more sensitive to criticism.
To help kids stay positive when things go awry, “interrupt the concept of normal,” said Christopher Emdin, a professor of education at the University of Southern California and the author of “Ratchetdemic.” “Plant the idea that the pandemic is a restart, an opportunity to dream about how you want things to be. ‘When you went through school before, did you like it all? No. Based on what things were before, how do you want it to be now?'”
Even subtle changes to a child’s physical environment “can radically change the learning experience,” Emdin said. When he was scholar-in-residence at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 2021, he partnered with students to build prototype post-pandemic classrooms. “I wanted them to feel like it can’t look like what it looked like before.” They swapped out fluorescent lights for calm blue bulbs, brought in planters of grass and piped in music.
Parents can make similar tweaks to a child’s workspace at home. “The schoolwork learning corner has to be special — the most comfortable, beautiful space in the home, so that you start training the mind to see the educational work as fun,” Emdin said. “When you bring in flowers and grasses, change the lighting, the sounds, the seating, it invokes relaxation and helps kids associate reading or homework as, ‘This is when I’m chilling.’”
Take their emotional pulse
Before the year is underway, ask your child questions like: “What are your biggest worries about going back to school?” and “What are you most looking forward to doing this year?” Explicitly acknowledge that the last few years have been tough, said Jason Ablin, a school consultant in Los Angeles and the author of “The Gender Equation in Schools.” “Say: ‘We want you to feel great about going to school every day, and if you feel like things are going off the rails, we’re here for you.' ”
Get creative if they don’t open up. “A friend of ours had four teen sons, and one of the things she would do is put food out at 10 p.m.,” Ablin said. “As if they were in a trance, the kids would smell the food and come down together and start eating, and she was able to use that time to start a dialogue.” Sometimes it was about nothing, he added, “but other times they were powerful conversations.”
It’s helpful to know a child’s baseline stress level, said Michelle Hoffman, a licensed counselor at Granite Academy, a therapeutic school in Braintree, Mass. If they tell you they’re worried about a test or a fight with a friend, ask them to rate the stress on a scale of one to five. The number itself is less important than what it tells you about their perception of the situation and their capacity to cope with it.
“Once you have a basis for comparison, you can have a conversation about what might lower their stress,” Hoffman said. Validate their concerns even if they seem overblown, she added. “You might feel the pandemic is over and your kid should be able to handle more pressure, but stress is additive. Kids are resilient, but they’ve used up their reserves.”
When you know what’s troubling them, you can help them reframe the situation and think about next steps. Emily Kircher-Morris, a counselor in Missouri and the author of “Raising Twice-Exceptional Children,” recommends walking a kid through the best case, worst case and most-likely scenarios, and then devise a plan. If they’re worried about missing an assignment, for instance, Kircher-Morris might ask: “Who can you go to for help? How can you communicate with them?” If the issue relates to social anxiety, she might suggest writing a letter to their teacher early in the school year to say: “I feel uncomfortable making a presentation to the class, so is it okay if I videotape myself instead?”
Have them write down and regularly reflect on personal goals
Children can feel powerless because they have little control over things like when they eat lunch at school or whether they take math in sixth grade, but parents can give them back a sense of agency by having them set and work toward personal goals. Encourage them to commit their goals to paper, because research shows that people are 42 percent more likely to reach their goals if they write them down and monitor their progress regularly.
Every year, Larry Haynes, the principal of Oak Mountain Middle School in Birmingham, Ala., recruits 35 professionals from the community to mentor eighth graders. At the end of each grading period, the mentors meet with their mentees to discuss their report cards, their progress and their goals. Afterward, the students write their goals on a reflection sheet.
“I tell them to display their goals in a prominent place where they will see it, because that keeps it fresh in their mind and serves as a motivator,” Haynes said, adding that he always tells the students about Thomas Holloway, a former student who stated in middle school that his goal was to play football at West Point. “Thomas graduated from West Point in 2014,” Haynes tells them.
Setting goals also can ease kids’ anxiety related to events in the news. To help them, shift the focus away from the state of the world and back to their own lives.
“If you zoom out to space and everything on earth looks tiny, then it can seem like there’s no meaning to any of it, and that can feel really overwhelming,” Kircher-Morris explained. “But if you zoom back in, you get to decide what your meaning and purpose is.” That could be a goal like wanting to do better in a class or make a new friend.
Offer more “structured fun” and directed social time
After the turmoil of the last few years, many children are focused on friendships, but their skills are rusty.
Research shows that connecting with others can improve mental health and kids need the practice, but they may need an assist. If they’re too anxious to host a friend at home, suggest a structured activity like bowling or basketball at the park. Encourage them to sign up for at least one after-school club that reflects their interests, too. “If a child who likes anime joins the anime club, they’re more likely to meet [like-minded] classmates and find their footing,” Conley said.
The idea is to find low-pressure opportunities where kids can practice making eye contact and resolving conflict, Haynes said. He offers alternate activities for kids at school dances, for example. He might have board games in the cafeteria or a kickball tournament outside.
Affirm they’re growing up in difficult times and they’ll be fine
“We talk about kids almost in monthly terms — academically they should be here, their social emotional development should be here,” Ablin said. “But when things are as disrupted as they have been, we need to see kids where they actually are, be calm, loving and thoughtful about that, and really believe that eventually the child will be just fine.”
That means letting go of the idea that kids have “fallen behind.” As Ablin noted, “It diminishes children and kills the joy in learning. When we say, ‘You’re not where you’re supposed to be,’ we’re also saying, ‘You’re not who you’re supposed to be.’ ”
Instead, emphasize that growing up in an unprecedented time is why they will be change-makers. “I tell kids: ‘Fifty years from now, who will be the legacy builders, the young people who pushed back when the world went crazy? It will be you,” Emdin said.
Focus on the strengths a kid brings to the table right now, not the skills they haven’t acquired. “The most brilliant people of our times were skeptics — curious, evidence-based thinkers who could think in metaphorical terms, and if you’ve gone through covid, you’ve done all of that,” Emdin said. “If you survived the last two years, and you’re present in classrooms and ready to learn, you have resilience and fortitude and are equipped to be successful academically. Parents and schools have to keep telling kids that.”
Phyllis L. Fagell, a licensed clinical professional counselor, is the author of “Middle School Matters,” the school counselor at Sheridan School and a therapist at the Chrysalis Group. She tweets @pfagell and blogs at phyllisfagell.com. | 2022-08-15T12:33:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Five ways parents can help children have a better school year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/08/15/better-school-year-advice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/08/15/better-school-year-advice/ |
Ukraine Live Briefing: Brittney Griner files appeal; N. Korea says Putin to...
They’re optimistic about the future, despite months of trauma
Analysis by Mikhail Alexseev
Serhii Dembitskyi
Volunteers clear rubble on the second floor of Zhanna and Serhiy Dynaeva's house, which was destroyed by Russian bombardment in the village of Novoselivka, near Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 13, 2022. (Evgeniy Maloletka)
The Pentagon announced $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine last week, the largest single drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine. And the U.S. treasury has authorized $4.5 billion in budgetary assistance to the Ukrainian government. These aid packages reaffirm the Biden administration’s commitment to meeting Ukraine’s “critical security and defense needs.”
That’s likely to be welcome news in Ukraine, where a survey reveals citizens remain determined to repel Russia’s invasion, no matter how long they think the war may last. And Ukrainians are even more resolved than they were before the war to build a strong democratic state integrated with Western institutions, according to the survey results from Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology (UNASIS).
With funding from the Program on New Approaches to Research on Security in Eurasia (PONARS), and fieldwork conducted by a well-known independent research organization, Rating Group Ukraine, the study interviewed 475 respondents in July from a group of 1,800 respondents UNASIS polled in late November 2021. This pool of repeat respondents is designed to be broadly representative of the population in territories now under Ukraine’s government control, based on key traits such as age, gender, language use and region.
Amid the profound shocks of war, the poll shows that Ukrainians’ support for their president has surged, along with their appreciation of democratic values, trust in democratic institutions, and willingness to join NATO — and, particularly, the European Union. These results suggest Ukrainians have responded to Russian aggression with great optimism about Ukraine’s future as a nation — and confidence in Ukraine’s victory.
Few have not been affected by the war
Close to 70 percent of July respondents reported at least one form of war loss to their family — people lost friends or homes, got wounded, had to flee, or saw friends or family displaced. These figures mark a more than threefold increase from December 2021, when responses about exposure to war were related to the conflict in eastern Ukraine that has been ongoing since 2014.
Roughly 1 in 5 respondents in July reported being displaced to a different region, or oblast. Nearly 84 percent said they knew at least one person fighting in the war. And there were clear signs of the psychological stress Ukrainians are under. The numbers of respondents reporting symptoms of trauma — recurrent tension or anxiety, nervousness when alone, and war-related nightmares — have risen sharply, along with surging fears of government collapse and going hungry.
Ukrainians have rallied for democracy
Despite the daily traumas of war, Ukrainians have rallied for President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom they elected in April 2019. Respondents who, on average, rated Zelensky’s job performance as just 3.8 on a 1-to-10 scale in December 2021 now give him high marks — he scored an average 8.9 approval rating in July. In fact, 88 percent of survey respondents in July say they trust the president “mostly” or “completely,” a sharp shift from the 20 percent who felt that way last December.
Ukrainians also indicate rising support for democratic values — twice as many July respondents say democracy is very important to them personally, compared to December 2021. And 75 percent of respondents now say democracy is the best form of government for any country, up from 60 percent in December’s survey.
This support extends not only to the army and police, but also to the media and parliament. Respondents also boosted their approval for Ukraine’s membership in key global democratic alliances — support for joining the European Union jumped from 53 percent in December to about 84 percent in the latest survey, while approval for joining NATO jumped from 48 to 70 percent among the same individuals over the last six months.
Ukraine is an E.U. candidate. Full membership is an obstacle course.
How confident are Ukrainians?
According to the July 2022 poll, about 80 percent of Ukrainians are fully confident in Ukraine’s military victory over Russia, and another 18 percent are mostly confident — the yardstick is pushing Russian forces back to the pre-February or even pre-2014 positions. And yet respondents understand it will be a long war: 40 percent say they expect the conflict to last from six to 12 months, while another 23 percent think it will take more than a year. Notably, Ukrainians expressed considerable faith in the outcome, despite 74 percent of respondents seeing military assistance and 50 percent seeing economic assistance to Ukraine as insufficient.
What explains this resilience? Two factors stand out. First, Russia’s military aggression is nothing new for Ukrainians. Since 2014, millions of Ukrainians had to adapt to hardship and insecurity — Ukrainian military and volunteer forces have fought and died in World War I-style trench warfare to stave off attacks by the Russian military and its proxies in Ukraine’s eastern regions, over a 250-mile front line. By December 2021, over 20 percent of respondents had experienced war losses, 60 percent knew at least one individual personally who fought in the war and 25 percent worried Ukraine might not survive as an independent nation.
Second, the Russian threat has united Ukrainians like never before. In December 2021, 63 percent of respondents saw their primary identity as citizens of Ukraine, compared to just 50 percent in a 2013 survey, shortly before Russia’s invasion of Crimea and Donbas. Close to 70 percent had trust in Ukraine’s armed forces, compared to about 40 percent in 2013. But by July, those figures had risen to 82 and 97 percent, respectively.
Our poll findings suggest Ukrainians have a hard-earned capacity for unity and resilience through adversity — harking back to victories in the 2004 and 2014 revolutions. This strength helps sustain Ukraine’s democratic and pro-Western rallying.
Check out all TMC’s coverage of the Russia and Ukraine crisis in our new topic guide
Asked what they believe unites Ukrainians, most of our respondents (76 percent) named “belief in a better future” — that’s more than twice the response level in December 2021, and far more than those who named ethnic identity (42 percent), language (20 percent) or political views (11 percent). This surge in collective optimism suggests Western assistance can boost the hope that Ukrainians feel about their future, as well as their determination to fight against Russia’s aggression.
Mikhail Alexseev is a professor of political science at the San Diego State University. He is a former Ukrainian journalist and Kremlin correspondent.
Serhii Dembitskyi, the deputy director of the Institute of Sociology of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, has conducted extensive research on the social and psychological effects of war. | 2022-08-15T12:33:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What explains the resilience of Ukrainians? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/ukraine-survey-war-democracy-resilience/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/ukraine-survey-war-democracy-resilience/ |
Cameron Smith went from two strokes back to four shots off the lead just before starting his final round as the FedEx Cup playoffs began. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
The final round of the PGA Tour’s St. Jude Championship went to a playoff Sunday, but much of the chatter in the golf world as that unfolded was concerning a player who had already finished six shots back, outside the top 10.
Cameron Smith might have been able to put much more heat on the leaders, including eventual winner Will Zalatoris, but shortly before he teed off Sunday, the Australian was handed a two-stroke penalty over an infraction he committed Saturday. That suddenly took Smith from just two shots off the 54-hole lead to four back.
The British Open champion and one of the tour’s best young players, Smith had already sparked plenty of talk last week when the Telegraph reported that he agreed to a $100 million deal to become the latest big name to defect to the rival LIV Golf series. The Saudi-funded upstart does not have another event scheduled until just after the conclusion of the PGA Tour’s three-tournament FedEx Cup playoffs, of which the St. Jude Championship was the start. At least in theory, if Smith earned the $18 million check that goes to the playoff winner, he could consider it a massive parting gift before officially joining LIV.
If nothing else, had the 28-year-old Smith won the St. Jude Championship, he would have risen to No. 1 in the world rankings. As it happened, his 13th-place tie still left him well positioned to emerge in two weeks with the PGA Tour’s biggest single payout.
Feinstein: The PGA Tour playoffs need fixing. Let’s start with the points system.
The LIV speculation surrounding Smith served as a hard-to-ignore backdrop to the news that he was docked two strokes on Sunday. Some observers questioned the timing, given it took tour officials nearly a full day to review the incident and make a ruling that, as was noted in wagering circles, dramatically changed his chances of winning.
The sequence began Saturday at the par-3 fourth hole of Memphis’s TPC Southwind when Smith hit his tee shot into water. He took a drop, but a day later, officials determined that the ball he subsequently chipped onto the green had come to rest illegally on the red line that demarcated the penalty area near the water.
PGA Tour chief referee Gary Young explained Sunday that his staff had noticed at the time that Smith was playing a ball “awfully close” to the line but initially gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would not have struck the ball had it, in fact, been in an illegal position.
Upon a “second look” Sunday, Young said, he decided “it was worth asking” Smith about it.
“I thought it was simply going to be a situation where I asked [Smith] the question and he was going to tell me that he was comfortable that his ball was outside the penalty area,” Young said. “When I asked him the question, unfortunately, he said to me, ‘No, the ball was definitely touching the line.’ So at that point, there’s no turning back.”
“He wasn’t aware,” Young said of Smith on NBC Sports, “that no portion of the ball could be touching the penalty area line. … Cam is a complete gentleman, and he took it that way. He was completely calm through the whole process, and once he found it was a two-stroke penalty, he just said to me, ‘The rules are the rules.’ ”
Smith, who was reportedly heckled as a “sellout” during the St. Jude, did not make himself available to the media after shooting a 70 in Sunday’s round. He started the tournament with rounds of 67 and 65, and signed for another 67 on Saturday before the penalty changed it to 69.
When the PGA Tour posted a tweet showing Young’s explanation on NBC Sports, LIV golfer Lee Westwood replied with a suggestion that the tour wasn’t being subtle in an attempt to impair Smith’s chances of winning.
“Surely not,” tweeted Westwood, a 49-year-old Englishman who was among those suspended by the PGA Tour in June for competing in LIV’s inaugural event. “Too obvious!”
Not in the St. Jude field were three players — Talor Gooch, Matt Jones and Hudson Swafford — who had accumulated enough FedEx Cup points to qualify for the playoffs before jumping ship to LIV earlier this summer. On Tuesday, a federal judge denied their request for a temporary restraining order that would have superseded the PGA Tour’s suspension and allowed them to compete in the three-tournament postseason. Still ongoing, though, is an antitrust lawsuit filed against the tour by that trio and eight more banned LIV golfers.
Before the Memphis tournament got underway this week, several noteworthy PGA Tour players criticized their former colleagues for taking legal action after accepting the Saudi-backed huge sums to play elsewhere. Among them was Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked player who at the time was also No. 1 in the FedEx Cup points race.
“It’s one of those deals where those guys kind of made their decision to go join another tour,” Scheffler, 26, told reporters Tuesday, “and they broke the rules and regulations of our tour, and now they’re trying to sue us, which is definitely a bit frustrating.”
Scheffler and Smith were paired in Thursday’s first round, and the former raised eyebrows when footage circulated of him walking directly in front of Smith as the latter tried to line up a putt. Smith then looked up at the passing Scheffler and held that glance for a moment, while online observers wondered if the minor breach of golf etiquette had anything to do with rumors of Smith and LIV. Scheffler was later reported to have denied any ill intent, claiming he was too focused on his play to realize where his path on the green was taking him, and Smith reportedly was at ease enough to be joking with him about it.
Scheffler, whose stellar year on the tour has included a Masters triumph and three other wins, missed the cut at the St. Jude but had built such a big lead in the FedEx Cup points race that he still only fell to second place after Sunday. Zalatoris, who defeated Sepp Straka over three tense playoff holes for his first PGA Tour win, is in first, and Smith is in third.
Smith has been linked to LIV since at least last month’s British Open, when he was asked about it during his post-victory news conference. After initially expressing some unhappiness that the question would come up immediately after his biggest moment, Smith said, “I don’t know, mate. My team around me worries about all that stuff. I’m here to win golf tournaments.”
When the subject of a possible move to LIV came up again this week in a pretournament media session, Smith once more demurred.
“My goal here is to win the FedEx Cup playoffs,” Smith told reporters in Memphis. “That’s all I’m here for.” | 2022-08-15T12:33:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cameron Smith gets costly stroke penalty at St. Jude amid LIV rumors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/15/cameron-smith-liv-golf-fedex-cup-playoffs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/15/cameron-smith-liv-golf-fedex-cup-playoffs/ |
Anne Heche, an actress whose roles ranged from a stress-ball White House aide in “Wag the Dog” to a Bates Motel stabbing victim in a remake of “Psycho,” but who claimed she was “blacklisted” from major studio projects in the late 1990s after she and Ellen DeGeneres broke ground as a celebrity same-sex couple, was taken off life support on Aug. 14. She was 53.
Carlo Allegri/AP
Her death, at a hospital in Los Angeles, was confirmed by her publicist Holly Baird. Ms. Heche had been hospitalized after driving her vehicle into a house in the city’s Mar Vista neighborhood on Aug. 5. The car was engulfed in flames, and she was pulled from the vehicle with severe burns. According to a statement one of her representatives released Friday, she suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and was declared brain dead, and was kept on life support so that her organs could be donated.
April 4, 1997 | Washington, D.C.
Anne Heche at right, next to girlfriend Ellen DeGeneres, with Geordge Clooney and girlfriend Celine Balitran, before the White House correspondents' Associations dinner.
Susan Biddle/The Washington Post
June 19, 1997 | Hollywood
Actress-comedian Ellen DeGeneres, right, and actress Anne Heche arrive at the world premiere of the film "Face/Off."
Sept. 14, 1997 | Pasadena, Calif.
Ellen DeGeneres, center, stands between her mother, left and Anne Heche as they pose for photographers after arriving at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium for the 49th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
Jan. 18, 1998 | Beverly Hills
Actor Kurt Russell, center, hugs actresses and lovers Ellen DeGeneres, left, and Anne Heche as they arrive for the 55th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton.
Hal Garb/AFP/Getty Images
Feb. 13, 1998 | Burbank, Calif.
Actress Anne Heche, right, rises to give her partner, comedian Ellen DeGeneres a kiss during a break on the set of the "Ellen" show.
Susan Sterner/AP
June 8, 1998 | Los Angeles, Calif.
Anne Heche, left, and Harrison Ford embrace at the premiere of their film, "Six Days, Seven Nights."
Dec. 11, 2003 | Los Angeles, Calif.
Ann Heche poses for a photo at the Four Seasons Hotel to promote her Lifetime movie "Gracie's Choice."
Rc Francis/AP
Sept. 19, 2004 | Los Angeles, Calif.
Anne Heche speaks with Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog as she arrives for the 56th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium. Heche is nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her work on "Gracie's Choice."
Sept. 11, 2005 | Los Angeles, Calf.
Actress Anne Heche arrives at the Creative Emmy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium.
July 19, 2006 | Pasadena, Calif.
From left: Actor John Amos, executive producer Jenny Bicks, and actors Anne Heche, James Tupper and Suleka Mathew talk about their new ABC show "Men In Trees" at the 2006 Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour.
June 10, 2007 | New York
John Turturro, left, and Anne Heche announce an award at the 61st Annual Tony Awards.
Jan. 17, 2009 | Park City, Ut.
Actress Anne Heche signs autographs on Main Street during the Sundance Film Festival.
Shea Walsh/AP
June 24, 2009 | Los Angeles, Calif.
From left: "Hung" cast member Sianoa Smit-McPhee, Anne Heche, Thomas Jane, Charlie Saxton and Eddie Jemison pose together at the premiere of the HBO comedy series.
Oct. 27, 2009 | Los Angeles, Calif.
Homer Heche Laffoon and Anne Heche at Columbia Pictures' premiere of Michael Jackson's "This Is It" at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live.
Feb. 10, 2011 | New York
Actors Ed Helms and Anne Heche attend a special screening of "Cedar Rapids" hosted by the Cinema Society at the SVA Theater.
Actress Anne Heche, left, walks along Main Street with an unidentified woman during the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
Danny Moloshok/AP
Actress Anne Heche poses for a portrait.
Sept. 21, 2012, | Toronto
James Tupper and wife Anne Heche arrive on the red carpet at the Fifth Annual Rally For Kids With Cancer at Muzik Nightclub.
Nov. 23, 2012 | Los Angeles, Calif.
Anne Heche and Muno perform onstage at Yo Gabba Gabba! Live!: Get The Sillies Out! 50+ city tour kick-off performance on Thanksgiving weekend at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live.
Jan. 15, 2015 | Pasadena, Calif.
Jason Isaacs, left, and Anne Heche, cast members in the USA series "Dig," pose together at the NBCUniversal Cable 2015 Winter TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel.
Jan. 23, 2017, | Park City, Ut.
Shirley MacLaine, left, and Anne Heche, right, chat with director producer Mark Pellington while waiting for a photo session at the Music Lodge during the Sundance Film Festival.
Jud Burkett/Invision/AP
Sept. 4, 2020 | Pasadena, Calif.
Actress Anne Heche poses atop a car as she arrives at the Drive-In to Erase MS gala.
Photo editing and production by Troy Witcher; Text by Brian Murphy | 2022-08-15T12:49:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Actress Anne Heche dies at 53: Remembering her work in photos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/photos-actress-anne-heche-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/interactive/2022/photos-actress-anne-heche-dead/ |
India celebrates 75 years since independence amid hope and tension
People march with the Indian flag in Bangalore on Aug. 15. (Jagadeesh Nv/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
India is celebrating 75 years since its independence from British colonial rule. Cities across the country held parades and events Monday featuring soldiers, elephants and dancers. Buildings lit up in the orange, white and green of India’s national flag, and a government campaign urged families to fly the flag at home.
And that was just what was happening on Earth. American astronaut Raja Chari, whose father immigrated to the United States from Hyderabad in southern India, posted photos of Indian and American flags from the International Space Station, from which he returned a few months ago.
Speaking from the historic Red Fort in New Delhi, the capital, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he would work to turn India into a developed nation by the time it celebrates 100 years of independence. Modi criticized corruption and the mistreatment of women in India but said the country is entering a new phase of global importance and has “a lot to offer to the world.”
The celebrations both masked and highlighted the deep political and religious tensions that plague modern-day India, whose status as the world’s largest democracy is increasingly under threat amid a rise in far-right, Hindu nationalism there.
Some opposition parties accused Modi of using Independence Day celebrations as a personal political platform. Material released by the government to mark the occasion did not feature Mahatma Gandhi or India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The legacy of the leaders, who advocated for religious pluralism and secularism, respectively, is increasingly being debated, downplayed and derided in favor of historical figures who used force to secure victories and viewed India’s Muslim population with more distrust.
Modi, in his Independence Day speech, said he was committed to fulfilling Gandhi’s “vision of inclusion.”
India’s allies issued statements praising its development since 1947, when it gained independence from Britain and was split to form Pakistan in a bloody process known as partition.
“The United States joins the people of India to honor its democratic journey, guided by Mahatma Gandhi’s enduring message of truth and nonviolence,” President Biden said in a statement. The U.S. president called for Washington and New Delhi to “continue to stand together to defend the rules-based order; foster greater peace, prosperity and security for our people; advance a free and open Indo-Pacific; and together address the challenges we face around the world.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who visited India in April, congratulated “the people of India on 75 years of independence” from his own country. “During my recent visit to Gujarat and New Delhi I saw for myself the thriving Living Bridge between our countries,” Johnson said. “I look forward to seeing these bonds go from strength to strength in the next 75 years.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, addressing Modi and the people of India, said, “As you proudly celebrate India’s stunning achievements in the past 75 years, you can count on France to always stand by your side.” | 2022-08-15T13:24:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | India marks its 75th Independence Day, in photos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/india-independence-day-75/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/india-independence-day-75/ |
Joe-Jo Jennings greets diners at the Grill restaurant in Washington, where he serves as guest relations manager. Jennings’s employer, Knead Hospitality and Design, gives various benefits to salaried employees at its 14 restaurants, including gym membership discounts, dining credits and tickets to entertainment events. (Deb Lindsey)
In November 2021, Joe-Jo Jennings was named employee of the quarter by the hospitality group behind the Grill restaurant, where he works as guest relations manager. His bosses sent him and a guest on a business-class Amtrak ride to New York, put them up at a swanky hotel, and paid for them to see Broadway’s “Aladdin” musical and eat at Per Se, the acclaimed three-star Michelin restaurant. “This is as good as it gets,” he remembered thinking.
Since April, Knead Hospitality and Design, which runs 14 restaurants across the District — including the Grill — has rolled out a pioneering perks package among its restaurants’ salaried workers. Jennings is the program’s biggest user, having saved a total, Knead confirmed, of $1,651 on dinners, dry cleaning, facials, a gym membership, manicures, massages, parking, pedicures, a Nationals game and a Chris Rock show with his father, and a “Wheel of Fortune” taping with his mother — all reimbursed to varying degrees by Knead.
“It can be therapeutic. This is an extension of mental health. That’s what it provides me,” Jennings said.
Similarly, David Suarez, a Knead chef, has endured decades of tough kitchen life. Now he has gotten $1,071 of his dinners, haircuts, manicures and parking comped, as well as a comped seat at a Nationals game against his beloved Mets.
“For so many years, I didn’t have time or take time or make time to do some of these things, and this is definitely incentivizing doing them,” he said. “That’s nice. It’s better than nice: It’s kind. It’s very thoughtful.”
When people ask how he scored these perks, Suarez answers plainly: “I just tell them that I work for good people.”
That would be Jason Berry and Michael Reginbogin, Knead’s married founders, who are also testing a four-day workweek at one of their restaurants. Their perks program, they said, was inspired by nostalgia for the Cheesecake Factory’s habit of awarding BMWs to managers. Creating perks usually associated with white-collar industries like business, finance, law, lobbying and tech was part of Knead’s plan to be “overly competitive,” Reginbogin said. “We’re a multimillion-dollar restaurant company. Why should our employees be treated subpar only because we serve food instead of paperwork behind a desk?”
The package may yet be a game changer. Or not. Despite its legendary perks program, Starbucks is wrestling with widespread unionization efforts (union restaurant jobs make roughly $100 more per week than nonunion positions, according to federal labor data). Nevertheless, Knead is part of a radical, once-in-a-lifetime shift in the restaurant industry’s business model as it struggles with nothing short of an existential reckoning.
Berry framed it through the ledgers’ lens of retention and cost-cutting, flagging that the hiring of an assistant general manager in 2019 cost Knead $15,000 in recruiting fees and $10,000 in training even before the employee had really started working. Even a server, he said, costs $1,000 to hire and train. “You can spend this money proactively or reactively,” he explained. “So why not do it proactively with intention the way you want to do it, instead of spending $100,000 a year advertising on Indeed and $200,000 in recruiting fees? I’d much rather give that money to our teammates.”
The nation’s 11.6 million food service workers, including managers, earn an average of $18.48 an hour and work an average of 25.7 hours a week, according to May 2022 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A January BLS report flagged that the restaurant industry’s year-over-year quit rate jumped from 4.8 percent to 6.9 percent — a larger increase than in any other job sector — yet the hiring rate remained steady at 8.1 percent. As a result, restaurant job openings increased from 5.8 to 8.4 percent. At the same time, a May survey by Alignable, a small-business referral network, found that 41 percent of U.S. restaurants couldn’t pay rent that month. A recent report from the American Farm Bureau Federation found that year-over-year food costs had increased by 17 percent. And an April CNBC poll found that 53 percent of Americans had already cut back on dining to save money.
In many ways, the restaurant worker-manager-owner dynamic is now a Bermuda Triangle of lost stability, lost purpose and lost mojo.
“This has certainly been the biggest body blow that I’ve ever seen in my career,” said Danny Meyer, the prominent New York restaurateur and Shake Shack founder. “Things are absolutely going to shift,” he added. “One of the best things that is already happening right now is that this more effectively than any government [action] has begun to impact the compensation structure of our industry, which has been — what’s the best way to put this? — the compensation structure of our industry has not served the people the industry needs to survive.”
As a silver lining, he noted that the crisis has accelerated his hospitality group’s diversity goals by “at least three or four years.” He continued: “I like a new playing field. Everything’s up for grabs, and that’s been a good thing. That’s how innovation happens.”
And yet for all its hand-wringing about survival, many of the restaurant industry’s wounds that have been laid bare are self-inflicted.
Owners are griping that “nobody wants to work” while still offering jobs that don’t pay living wages, let alone offer health insurance, sick days, vacation days, day care, parental leave or pensions. A North Carolina Chick-fil-A recently asked “volunteers” to work for chicken, not money.
“Should we be so surprised [that people are quitting] when mostly what we’re trying to do is manipulate them?” former Chipotle co-CEO Monty Moran asked at an industry conference in October. Anyone aching for a return to the halcyon days of 2019 might do well to remember Caffé Vita, the Seattle restaurant that fired employees that year for the “theft” of giving leftover pastries to homeless people.
Of course, restaurants have changed substantially. Even in the unlikely event that they were not directly affected by covid cases, they were seismically shaken by the pandemic, from lockdown to supply chain chaos and inflation. But many prominent industry turnabouts have been superficial and rather basic: venues’ sudden embrace of takeout, ghost kitchens, catering, QR codes, credit cards, delivery apps and surcharges.
“Functionality and technology get addressed all the time, but not the systemic core,” said Ravi Kapur, chef and co-owner of Good Good Culture Club and Liholiho Yacht Club in San Francisco.
Kapur has transformed his hiring process to include questions such as: What brings you joy? When walking around San Francisco, what do you love about it? And if you were given money and couldn’t spend it on yourself, what would you do with it?
“The buy-in is different,” Kapur said. “We’re looking for a different person. We’re not looking for career restaurant workers, necessarily.”
Wages for Kapur’s kitchen jobs range from $28 to $30 an hour, and front-of-house jobs start at $35 an hour because their shifts are shorter. An across-the-board 20 percent “equitable compensation fee” added to bills is distributed only to hourly staff. The restaurants have exceeded the $80,000 a week in sales needed to support the higher wages.
The reality conceded by restaurateurs of all stripes is that, as much as has changed in the pandemic years — including on the economic and sociological fronts — a 2022 restaurant cannot be staffed by 2019 workers, especially not 2019 managers.
“Gone are the days where you start with the spreadsheet and back into the business,” said Roni Mazumdar, chief executive of Unapologetic Foods, the New York group he co-founded with chef Chintan Pandya to launch Adda, Dhamaka, Rowdy Rooster and Semma. He dismissed, for example, business plans that amount to little more than Chipotle for sushi, Chipotle for poke or Chipotle for shawarma. “Now you have to start with the story,” he said. “You start with the conversation. You see how that plays out and how you work the business around it.” He continued: “We’re not here to sell food alone; if we do that, we’re nothing but a transaction. I show up, I pay, I eat, I leave. That’s not a restaurant; that’s a vending machine.”
At Dirt Candy, a vegetarian restaurant in New York, owner Amanda Cohen sighed. “As a restaurateur, it’s as hard now as it was going into the pandemic.”
Over the pandemic, Cohen, a pioneer in doing away with tips and embracing living wages, reduced her 12-course tasting menu to five to eight simpler courses, cutting food costs from 25 percent of her total budget to 12 percent. She eliminated a de facto kitchen position dedicated to accommodating dietary restrictions and no longer allows alternatives or substitutions.
“That’s not the restaurant I dreamt of running,” she said. Pre-pandemic, she skated on margins of 1 or 2 percent monthly profit, she said; now she averages 7 percent and even hit 10 percent one month. “Customers ask if we’ll bring back the 12-course menu, and no, we won’t. That wasn’t sustainable. This is. Now I have a restaurant that will be here for the foreseeable future. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”
Her higher wages create higher taxes and higher insurance payments. “There’s no credit for paying people more. Only punishment,” she said. “We have a $90 menu that could be $75, but then I couldn’t pay living wages.” She recalled with disgust and shame that, pre-pandemic, “I’d ask: ‘Are you really sick? If you’re not dying, can you come in for half a day?’ Thankfully today that is absolutely not even possible as a conversation.”
Although she grumbled about the absence of — and lack of political will for — a living-wage tax credit, overall Cohen said she is happier now: “My 2019 self would resent the better sleep I get in 2022.”
On the topic of self-care, Jennings, the star manager at Knead, is thinking of upgrading his gym and adding Bikram yoga classes to the mix. “So much of the pandemic and pre-pandemic was why, why, why — why do I have to come in? Why is it run like this? Why this? Why that? Why, why, why?” he said. “Now I work for a company that has laid out a new path forward: Why not? So, yeah, maybe some yoga. Why not?”
Knead spent a total of $54,482 across 77 eligible employees in the perks’ debut quarter (including monthly reimbursements) for an average of $707 per employee; its reimbursements max out between $7,000 and $11,900 a year, depending on position and tenure, said a publicist.
The good news for Jennings and Suarez: They still have an untapped $300 quarterly credit on clothing purchases. | 2022-08-15T13:54:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Amid a dire restaurant worker shortage, owners hope staff perks will help - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/08/15/restaurant-perks-worker-shortage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/08/15/restaurant-perks-worker-shortage/ |
A year after the fall of Kabul, Afghan women fight to be heard. Listen.
Perspective by Nahid Shahalimi
Aug. 15, 2021, was a beautiful and peaceful Sunday morning in Munich, where I live. But in stark contrast to my peaceful surroundings, my phone was dinging every few seconds; I was checking for updates compulsively while I prepared breakfast.
There had been a rapid deterioration of security in Afghanistan over the previous few weeks, after the Biden administration announced their plans to withdraw from the country. I had just learned control of Kabul had been seized by the Taliban.
Like all Afghans involved in Afghanistan, we were always one step ahead of the news, and we knew this moment was coming: We had obtained firsthand information from the ground before anyone had time to publish, print or report it. Still, it was hard to wrap my head around the gravity of it. As I texted with close friends and colleagues in Afghanistan, my mind was running wild.
“That’s it,” one friend wrote. “It’s over.”
My heart pounded in my ears, and tears started to roll down my face. Despite my experiences of war trauma, fears of being kidnapped, and the pain of losing loved ones, the fall of Kabul touched my core and spirit in a different way.
It wasn’t just my social circle that was attuned to the issue. I turned on the news, and people around the world were wondering what they could do to help — especially when it came to Afghan women, whose predicament was bleak.
While we Afghans appreciated the world’s attention, a great challenge came with so much media coverage: When Western voices swooped in, Afghans — and especially Afghan women — got overshadowed.
Violence against women rampant under Taliban, new report finds
In the weeks that followed, I began to feel uneasy as I watched foreign journalists descend on the country. Among them was a wave of newly minted Afghanistan “experts,” foreign reporters who were praised as authorities but in reality lacked context and understanding. Though they wore badges saying they were journalists, filmmakers or photographers, in reality they were tourists, with little background or context, who often approached their stories through a heroic-savior lens.
People were paying attention to what was happening in Afghanistan, and they wanted to know how women and girls were faring. But the stories coming out of the country were not informed by Afghan women, whose most basic human rights were in jeopardy.
Many journalists seized opportunities to interview Taliban leaders, playing into their publicity strategy to present themselves as a new and more progressive group. How could they be so naive? The Taliban was a group that had imprisoned women in their own homes. It was a group that had previously banned all women from employment, murdered teachers and burned school buildings, and even outlawed music. How different could they be? I wondered where the voices of Afghan women were through it all.
Meanwhile, in 24 hours, women’s lives had been upended in unimaginable ways. In the months that followed, the Taliban continued to roll back women’s rights. To date, they have issued decrees banning women from going to school, working, leaving the home or traveling without a male relative.
While I collaborated with my network to put together evacuee lists and corral the resources at our disposal to get as many endangered people out of Kabul as possible, I wanted to go further: I wanted to publish the stories of Afghan women.
So I started compiling accounts of 13 Afghan women who had powerful stories and valuable expertise to share. The book that came out of those stories, “We Are Still Here,” is meant to remind people of Afghan women’s refusal to be silenced, even under the worst circumstances.
Portraits of fear and loss: Taliban rule through the eyes of four women in Afghanistan
A number of the women we approached were in no condition to write about the traumatic events they had just experienced, and others were focused exclusively on evacuating their colleagues, families and friends.
Others, like Razia Barakzai, whose story is featured in the book and who led protests in Kabul starting on Aug. 16, made their contributions from covert locations after they were forced to go into hiding. Fawzia Koofi, one of Afghanistan’s most esteemed politicians, found a way to contribute despite the debilitating shoulder injury she had incurred from a Taliban-inflicted bullet wound the year before. With additional contributions from filmmakers, pop stars, policy experts and more, my hope is that the book will refocus the conversation on Afghan women and bring their perspectives back to the surface.
On this first anniversary of the fall of Kabul, I ask that you re-engage with Afghanistan and support Afghan women in the fight to have their voices heard. Read the book. If you are in a position of power, reach out to these women. Ask them to be part of your panels and steering committees, to speak on your radio programs and TV shows. There are so many highly qualified Afghan women experts out there who can weigh in on all aspects of Afghan life.
If there is something I learned when I was putting together the book, it’s that speaking to one Afghan woman, listening to her, will often connect you to many more. We are unified in our desire to share our stories and be heard. In the coming weeks, there will be many pieces written by people who are far from immersed in what is happening in Afghanistan today.
If you want to get the story from the source, read the stories of Afghan women, in their own words.
Nahid Shahalimi is the author of “We Are Still Here: Afghan Women on Courage, Freedom, and the Fight To Be Heard,” out Aug. 16 from Plume. | 2022-08-15T13:54:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A year after fall of Kabul, Afghan women fight to be heard. Listen. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/15/afghan-women-listen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/08/15/afghan-women-listen/ |
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) (Ting Shen/AP)
A federal judge on Monday denied Sen. Lindsey O. Graham’s (R-S.C.) request to quash his subpoena in Georgia prosecutors’ investigation into potential criminal interference in the 2020 presidential election by President Donald Trump and his allies, signaling he must testify in the probe.
Graham had argued that he should be exempt from testifying due to speech or debate clause protections, sovereign immunity and his position as a high-ranking government official. U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May rejected all three arguments.
"The Court finds that the District Attorney has shown extraordinary circumstances and a special need for Senator Graham’s testimony on issues relating to alleged attempts to influence or disrupt the lawful administration of Georgia’s 2022 elections,” the judge wrote.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) requested a special grand jury earlier this year. It began meeting in June and has identified more than 100 people of interest. The panel has already heard testimony from Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and his staff, Georgia Attorney General Christopher M. Carr (R), state lawmakers and local election workers.
GOP fake electors ‘targets’ in Georgia election fraud inquiry
Willis named Graham in her investigation of various Trump-allied individuals into what she deemed “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” | 2022-08-15T13:54:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge rejects Graham's request to squash subpoena in Ga. probe of efforts to overturn 2020 election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/15/trump-2020-election-georgia-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/15/trump-2020-election-georgia-investigation/ |
How apartments are embracing eco-friendly trends
Advice by Robert Pinnegar
Embracing eco-friendly practices not only encourages current residents to be more environmentally conscious — it also highlights to prospective residents the apartment community’s emphasis on sustainability. (Yalonda M. James/San Francisco Chronicle/AP)
In today’s world, sustainable designs and eco-friendly amenities have become important elements of apartment living. Issues such as climate change and climbing energy costs are high priorities for many people, including renters.
To help meet the need and desire for eco-friendly living spaces, here are some environmentally conscious trends that are quickly gaining traction in apartment communities:
Utilizing existing infrastructure
As communities navigate a hybrid work environment and new life balance, decreased demand for large office spaces and attractions like malls and hotels creates potential opportunities to repurpose these existing spaces into housing. Buildings must undergo evaluations to ensure that they can be turned into homes — but once they are approved, property owners and developers can repurpose buildings rather than start from scratch.
More Pinnegar: What’s behind rising rents and what can be done?
Using existing infrastructure also allows for less waste and lower carbon usage than what comes with sourcing new materials and construction, in addition to monetary and time savings. Repurposed homes also preserve the architectural features and history of their communities.
Designing with sustainability in mind
Many newly constructed apartment buildings are designed with a focus on sustainability. Rather than using new materials and inflicting environmental damage, buildings are incorporating materials like brick and recycled or reused wood to complete construction projects.
Another sustainable approach is to increase the size and number of windows in a home to help maximize the use of natural light. Not only does sunlight cut down on the need for artificial light, it also offers physical and mental health benefits for residents. More buildings are also utilizing paint and carpets with low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to reduce the number of organic pollutants in the air and keep residents healthier.
Sustainable design can prove to be cost-effective as well. Apartments that have roofs with high solar reflectivity indexes reflect solar heat and help lower the inside temperature, which reduces the need for air conditioning and helps keep energy prices low.
Not only is smart technology popular with younger renters, it also offers greater environmental benefits. Popular eco-friendly items include LED lightbulbs, motion detectors and adjustable lights, plus energy-efficient washers, dryers and dishwashers — all of which can help save on energy usage and costs. Similarly, low-flow sinks, toilets and shower-heads help minimize water use, bringing down waste and water bills.
Apartments are also incorporating technology like Nest thermostats and Amazon’s Alexa, which allow residents to control heating, air conditioning and lighting from their phones. Such innovations allow residents to enjoy the convenience of automation while saving on energy costs and living sustainably.
Eco-friendly amenities
The benefits of eco-friendly apartment living extend to the various amenities offered by apartment communities. In addition to the typical amenities like pools and gyms, many communities are utilizing more sustainable services such as trash and recycling pickup right at residents’ doorsteps. These services require little effort on the part of the resident and encourage them to be sustainably-minded.
More Pinnegar: Common lease terms renters should know before signing on dotted line
Another set of amenities that are becoming increasingly standard are electric-car-charging stations. Now that demand for electric vehicles is rising, more apartments are adopting these options to not only support the environment but also meet the growing needs of residents.
It’s also worth highlighting a classic staple of sustainable apartment living: community gardens. Community gardens enhance the living experience for residents, with clean air, fresh produce and waste reduction all key among the benefits of growing plants. Having access to a community garden allows residents to connect with the Earth, learn how to garden and meet and socialize with their neighbors.
Embracing eco-friendly practices not only encourages current residents to be more environmentally conscious — it also highlights to prospective residents the apartment community’s emphasis on sustainability. Through habit shifts and innovative adoptions to our everyday lives, we can make a lasting impact in our communities and beyond to help create a more efficient and sustainable future for everyone.
Robert Pinnegar is president and CEO of the National Apartment Association in Arlington, Va. | 2022-08-15T14:03:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How apartments are embracing eco-friendly trends - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/15/how-apartments-are-embracing-eco-friendly-trends/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/15/how-apartments-are-embracing-eco-friendly-trends/ |
One year ago, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in part because the US had hoped for the best after withdrawing its forces from the country, without adequately preparing for the worst. In dealing with the Taliban today, President Joe Biden’s administration can afford no such illusions.
The past 12 months should’ve dispelled any optimism about the new regime. In its second turn in power, the Taliban again seems willing to host foreign terrorists, including former al-Qaeda chieftain Ayman al-Zawahiri, killed by a US drone strike in the heart of Kabul. Those Taliban leaders who favor less barbaric social policies — such as allowing girls to attend school — aren’t willing to challenge their more conservative counterparts over them.
With those realities in mind, the US needs to take a pragmatic approach to further engagement. Its top priority should be preventing Afghanistan from again becoming a base for terrorist attacks. The Biden administration should advise the Taliban that the US can and will take out more targets there if necessary — and that continued hosting of extremist groups will preclude international recognition of the regime. The White House should also leverage exposure of ongoing ties between al-Qaeda and the Taliban to seek greater counterterrorism help from countries such as Pakistan.
It’s also in US interests to avert a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, which rightly or wrongly would be blamed on the West. Billions in international aid prevented a feared famine last winter. But the Afghan economy shrank by as much as 30% in the past year. Up to 70% of Afghans can’t afford food and other necessities. Although the US should be mindful of strengthening the Taliban with additional aid, it can’t ignore a looming crisis. It should focus for now on rallying donors to meet the United Nations’ humanitarian funding appeal, which is far short of its target.
Finally, the US should recommit to bringing Afghans who qualify for so-called Special Immigrant Visas to the US as quickly as possible. While recent efforts to streamline the complicated process are welcome, the backlog of applicants is still far too high, and key consulates abroad need personnel and resources to process visas for other vulnerable Afghans fleeing the country. Congress should also pass legislation that would allow Afghans already in the US to apply for green cards before their temporary immigration status expires.
Such an agenda is admittedly limited. But after spending 20 years and $2 trillion in Afghanistan only to return the country to the Taliban last year, the US must be realistic about what it can accomplish. Simply forestalling the worst would be no small achievement.
• How the Afghan War Was Lost, in Five Easy Steps: Kori Schake
• Zawahiri Killing Was a Success of a Bygone Era: Hal Brands | 2022-08-15T14:03:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The US Can’t Afford Any More Illusions in Afghanistan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-us-cant-afford-any-more-illusions-in-afghanistan/2022/08/15/fbb032d0-1c9a-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-us-cant-afford-any-more-illusions-in-afghanistan/2022/08/15/fbb032d0-1c9a-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
Faced with pushback from doctors, patients seeking tubal sterilizations are on the rise — and are spreading the word online
Frances Vermillion has a tubal ligation scheduled for November. They were photographed at the sculpture garden in downtown Des Moines on Aug. 10. (Kathryn Gamble/Photo by Kathryn Gamble for the Washington Post)
Frances Vermillion showed up to their consultation for a tubal ligation prepared for the worst. Expecting resistance from their gynecologist, the 24-year-old from Ames, Iowa, carefully assembled a binder containing information about sterilization, including their reasons for wanting to get their tubes tied.
When they arrived at the initial consultation in late July, Vermillion said their doctor “didn’t even look at the binder” and instead pressed them on why they wanted the procedure, suggesting they were too young and might change their mind later.
Vermillion has long known they don’t want children. They have considered getting the procedure for “at least five years,” but three years ago settled for an intrauterine device (IUD) as a temporary contraceptive measure.
But when the Supreme Court announced its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade in June, the stakes felt higher. That’s when Vermillion finally scheduled the appointment.
Vermillion is one patient among a wave of Americans rushing to get their tubes tied after the Dobbs decision. Anxious about abortion access, these patients are mobilizing online to spread the word about getting sterilized — while trying to surmount challenges that have long made it difficult to access the procedure, which is meant to be permanent but still allows for planned pregnancies through in vitro fertilization (IVF) or surrogacy.
In the weeks after the Supreme Court’s decision, Google searches for Plan B and contraception increased; men rushed to get vasectomies. And though official data is not yet available, anecdotally, OB/GYNs across the country said they have seen tubal ligation requests spike, too.
Dawn Bingham, an OB/GYN in Columbia, S.C., said she has seen a surge in child-free patients “calling around finding out who will do this for them, particularly as fast as possible.” Pam Parker, an OB/GYN in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, also said she has seen an increase in requests for tubal ligations.
“One of my patients who’s pretty young, never had any kids, just wrote me this super heartfelt email the other day about how she is terrified, and that she thinks she should just get her tubes tied,” Parker said.
Abortion rights advocates fear access to birth control could be curtailed
Jamie Tomasello, 42, had a tubal ligation on July 25, almost exactly one month after the Supreme Court decision was announced. Tomasello, who is bigender and lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., saw the procedure as both gender-affirming and important for her reproductive autonomy in a post-Roe world.
“I realized if we had a worst-case scenario, I could be coerced into making a decision under the threat of potential pregnancy via rape,” Tomasello said, adding she received a bilateral salpingectomy to remove her fallopian tubes.
As a person in her 40s with one child, Tomasello told The Post she did not receive much pushback from her physician, who went over other options for Tomasello, including asking her partner to have a vasectomy, a less invasive procedure that involves cutting the vas deferens. When Tomasello reaffirmed her commitment to receiving a tubal ligation, the doctor was willing to perform the procedure, she said, although he had to perform it in a nearby surgery center because the local Catholic hospital would not allow the procedure to be performed electively.
But Vermillion and other patients in their 20s who do not have children said it was much harder to get approved for a tubal ligation. Some, like Vermillion, said they engaged in back-and-forth discussions with their doctors, and others have been denied the procedure entirely.
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) has put together recommendations for the sterilization of women, including emphasizing the permanence of the procedure, discussing with patients other reversible contraceptive options, and, “in appropriate cases,” discussing the sterilization of male partners “as an option with fewer risks and greater efficacy than female sterilization.”
ACOG also believes it is “ethically permissible” to perform sterilizations on young patients who have not had children, encouraging OB/GYNs to avoid paternalism. The organization also reaffirms that forced sterilizations are unethical and should never be performed, a nod to America’s brutal history of forcibly sterilizing people deemed “unfit” to have children.
Sarah Salkowski, a 24-year-old who received a tubal sterilization in March, said she faced a host of challenges while meeting with her OB/GYN, whom she said questioned her commitment to getting sterilized and asked her what would happen if she found the “perfect man” who wanted to have children with her.
“[My doctor] expressed that he did not feel extremely comfortable doing the procedure on somebody my age,” said Salkowski, who lives in Royal Oak, Mich. She added that he ultimately agreed to perform a bilateral salpingectomy after she attended two consultations with him and one with his colleague.
Although Salkowski was sterilized before the Dobbs decision was announced in June, she said that threats to abortion access were what influenced her decision: Salkowski considered the Texas abortion ban signed into law last year a harbinger that the Supreme Court would take away the fundamental right to an abortion.
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Less than two months after her tubal sterilization, the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked. The very next day, Salkowski published an op-ed on Medium about her decision to get sterilized. She also started a Reddit thread to answer questions about the procedure.
OB/GYNs have also taken to the internet to educate others about tubal sterilizations.
Franziska Haydanek, an OB/GYN in Rochester, N.Y., has been creating TikToks about tubal sterilizations, among other aspects of obstetrics and gynecology, since 2020.
Shortly before the Dobbs decision came out, Haydanek started an online list of gynecologists she describes as “willing to perform a tubal ligation on any patient, 18-21+, no matter their marital status or number of children.” The list evolved from a Facebook group of OB/GYNs, she said, but patients can also submit the names of doctors to the list.
When the Supreme Court officially announced its verdict on June 24, Haydanek made a TikTok promoting the list, which at that point included 150 gynecologists. In just over a week, the list had expanded to include more than 1,000 gynecologists willing to perform sterilizations, sourced from doctors and patients alike. As of early August, that number has grown to more than 1,300 physicians, and the TikTok has 4.7 million views.
Haydanek said she was inspired to create the list in part because several of her own patients had told her about the barriers they’d faced in getting sterilized, including being denied the procedure more than once by other physicians.
“I felt so bad that in a time that we were already facing a lot of issues with bodily autonomy and making our own reproductive choices, these patients who thoroughly knew what they wanted weren’t being helped,” she said.
Other OB/GYNs have also used social media to help compile resources about tubal sterilizations. Amy Lasky, an OB/GYN in Stony Brook, N.Y., posted a Twitter thread in 2020 offering tubal sterilizations to anyone older than 21, regardless of how many children they have, and listing other physicians who would do the same. Last month, she promoted the original thread and told The Post that more people have engaged with it after the Supreme Court decision.
“Virtually every person I’ve seen since Dobbs has mentioned the decision,” she told The Post, referring to sterilization consultations. She has also seen a “significant increase” in the number of child-free patients younger than 30 seeking sterilizations, she said.
But some patients are still unsure whether they can afford a tubal ligation. Under the Affordable Care Act, tubal sterilizations must be fully covered under private health insurance plans, unlike vasectomies. Patients using Medicaid to cover sterilization must wait at least 30 days to receive the procedure after giving consent — another requirement that some say is a barrier. And tubal sterilizations can cost up to $6,000 without insurance, also unlike vasectomies, which are often a fraction of that cost.
Debunking myths about vasectomies as their popularity increases post-Roe
Stephanie Locey, a 41-year-old from Sebastopol, Calif., is worried about the cost. She said she has a blood disorder that prevents her from taking birth control or using an IUD, and it could cause a miscarriage if she were to get pregnant. But her private insurance provider has been unclear as to how much she will have to pay out of pocket, she said, given the elective nature of the procedure.
On Monday, Locey, who has previously had a miscarriage because of her blood disorder, met with an OB/GYN for an initial consultation for a tubal ligation — an experience she called “discouraging.”
Locey said her quest for a tubal ligation has been a long one: It began two years ago, when she consulted a hematologist for her blood disorder and brought up the possibility of sterilization to remain child-free and prevent future miscarriages. “He just brushed me off and told me I’d change my mind,” she said. At her Monday consultation, her OB/GYN put her on a year-long waitlist to get the procedure, in part because of the coronavirus pandemic, and encouraged her to “shop around” for other providers in the meantime, Locey said.
But Locey remains committed to getting a tubal ligation, even if it takes another year. “Maybe if more people realize what a process it is, knowing what’s happening with Roe v. Wade, maybe there can be something done to help make this more accessible,” she said.
Vermillion, of Iowa, has scheduled their tubal ligation for November. They are “really excited and happy” about getting the procedure, which they said is gender-affirming and especially important to them as a person with multiple mental health issues. This includes a recent borderline personality disorder diagnosis, which they worry their potential future children could inherit.
“I have had to be hospitalized before for my mental health,” Vermillion said, explaining one of their reasons for seeking a tubal ligation. “Sometimes I can’t even take care of myself. And I just don’t think that I could be the parent that my child would deserve or the parent that I would want to be.” | 2022-08-15T14:03:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Post-Roe, Americans seek tubal sterilizations — but barriers persist - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/15/roe-tubal-sterilizations-barriers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/15/roe-tubal-sterilizations-barriers/ |
Trump’s new argument on the Mar-a-Lago files is both weak and insufficient
President-elect Donald Trump listens to reporters after a meeting with military leaders at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 21, 2016. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
It’s not surprising that Donald Trump’s latest effort to deflect criticism over his possession of White House documents at Mar-a-Lago was routed through writer John Solomon. Solomon has for years been a favored conduit for Trump-friendly confirmation. His intermingled relationship with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani helped propel the rhetoric that Trump used as a defense in his first impeachment trial — rhetoric that was later debunked. Trump trusts Solomon to document the investigation into Russian interference, which says a lot.
So it was Solomon, too, who on Friday night was fed the new rationale for why it was A-okay for Trump to retain a document cache near the swimming pool at his resort. During an interview on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, Solomon read a statement that Trump’s team had sent him.
Solomon later wrote an article about this claim for his bespoke website. In that article — likely unintentionally — he revealed one of the two flaws with this argument: that there’s no evidence it’s true. Sean Hannity, you may not be surprised to hear, did not spend a lot of time testing its credibility on-air; it seems unlikely that he will opt to clarify the reality during his show on Monday evening.
The other flaw, of course, is that this assertion about a standing order is largely irrelevant to the legal question at hand.
The question of the validity of the order is itself twofold: Can such an order exist, and did such an order exist?
The “can” question has been the subject of some significant chatter since the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago one week ago, a discussion that has made clear how the rigors of the classification system — like so much else in government — rely on norms of executive behavior that Trump often disregarded. A president does have broad declassification authority, but Trump regularly stretched the boundaries, as when he mentioned classified information to Russian officials in May 2017.
There were also times when Trump publicly indicated that material would be declassified … only to have his lawyers and staff walk the claim back. Journalist Jason Leopold noted how White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in 2020 responded to a request for material “declassified” by Trump in a tweet: Trump didn’t really mean to declassify all of it.
Then there was a 2018 lawsuit from the New York Times arguing that Trump had inadvertently declassified the existence of a program by mentioning it; Trump’s lawyers disagreed.
“To prevail in any claim of declassification,” the attorneys wrote in a filing, the Times had to show “first, that President Trump’s statements are sufficiently specific; and second, that such statements subsequently triggered actual declassification.” Otherwise, the documents weren’t declassified. After all, they continued: “Declassification, even by the President, must follow established procedures.”
Which a blanket “if I take this upstairs, it’s declassified” order likely wouldn’t meet.
But, again, there’s no evidence that such an order was in place. Solomon, seemingly eager to boost Trump’s position, interviewed a former administration official who could offer no more than a lack of denial about such an idea: “I don’t know anyone or anything that disputes that,” Solomon was told of the alleged order, to his apparent complete satisfaction.
Not too long after, someone disputed that. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday morning, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton denied knowledge of such an order.
“If he did take materials out of a safe space to the residence,” Bolton added, “it would have to be documented what they were — each document, so that people would know what had been declassified.” He knew of no such documentation, he said.
This is Schrödinger’s declassification. Everything is both classified and declassified until Trump is asked about it, at which it settles into whichever position is most useful for Trump. A government program he shouldn’t have talked about? Still classified. A document sitting in a box at Mar-a-Lago? Declassified. It’s government security through vibes.
But then we come to our original second point: In broad strokes, this doesn’t matter.
The Times’s Charlie Savage (who pointed out that Times lawsuit) made this point in a useful piece over the weekend. If you look at the three statutes the Justice Department believes Trump might have violated — 18 U.S. Code Sections 793, 1519 and 2071 — you’ll see no mention that the documents being retained in potential violation of the law need to have been classified documents.
Section 793 deals with “information respecting the national defense” and provides an exhaustive list of things that qualify (information concerning “aircraft, work of defense, navy yard, naval station, submarine base, fueling station, fort, battery, torpedo station, dockyard,” etc.), but it doesn’t stipulate that the information must be secret. Section 2071 centers on anyone who “takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office.”
Where Trump’s argument might aid his case is with Section 1519. It centers on efforts to impede or obstruct investigations by falsifying records and might apply to Trump’s response to the government’s efforts to get documents back. In June, a lawyer for Trump attested that Trump was no longer in possession of classified material. The FBI removed classified material, according to the manifest it provided to Trump’s team last week, potentially violating Section 1519 — unless that material had been Schrödingered into nonclassified status.
Trump’s arguments are malleable and situational — reinforcing that they are often insincere. Over the past seven days, he has claimed both that the classified material had been declassified and that maybe the FBI was going to plant evidence on him, contradictory assertions that are simply options in the doubt-elevation buffet Trump traditionally offers his political customers.
Solomon and Hannity filled their plates and sat down to eat. Hundreds of thousands of people tuned in to Fox News to watch. | 2022-08-15T14:16:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump’s new argument on the Mar-a-Lago files is both weak and insufficient - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/trump-fbi-search-classification/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/15/trump-fbi-search-classification/ |
Confession: I write for a living, but I can’t pronounce any words
I wish I could say this was the only time something like that happened. But the act of saying words aloud has always kicked my a--, has always made me feel like Batman in the sewer getting his back cracked by Bane, and it feels like it’s getting more and more.
There are the words I know very well and use frequently — I read them in essays and books, and on social media, and I incorporate them in my own writing — but I’ve never said them aloud. “Zeitgeist” is one obvious example (I know how to say it now). I’ve also definitely pronounced “meme” as “me-me” in front of people, I think I know how to say “quinoa,” but I’m scared to try, and … well, I’m just going to stop here.
And then there are the words that I know how to say but just … can’t. A disconnect happens in the space between the word existing in my brain and it leaving my mouth, where the physical act of enunciation becomes insurmountable. Some words, like “rural,” are difficult for many people, and I take solace in that. And then there are some words, like “pattern” and “modern” — which I pronounce “pat-ter-ren” and “mod-er-ren,” giving the two-syllable words a long-lost step-syllable — that are easy for 5-year-olds, but for me it’s like speaking Dothraki.
The worst of them is “hallelujah,” which I can’t even say if I pronounce it one letter at a time, and each time it turns my tongue into origami it makes me feel 8 percent less Black.
Oh, and I’m a great reader — with quick pace, good stamina and easy retention — until I’m asked to read something aloud. My mouth gets juicy, my breath gets shaky and my voice does a magic trick where it sounds both over- and undercooked, like a cake baked with the heat too high.
The worst is “hallelujah,” which I can’t even say if I pronounce it one letter at a time. | 2022-08-15T14:29:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Damon Young: Confession: I write for a living, but I can’t pronounce any words - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/15/damon-young-confession-i-write-living-i-cant-pronounce-any-words/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/15/damon-young-confession-i-write-living-i-cant-pronounce-any-words/ |
(Illustrations by Katty Huertas/The Washington Post)
The environmental, nutritional and moral case for eating wild foods
Perspective by Gabriel Popkin
On a crisp fall day in 2019, I found myself on my hands and knees in a dreary office parking lot, feeling somewhat self-conscious, picking up acorns. The person responsible for this strange turn in my life was a lanky, gregarious landscape architect gone rogue named Lincoln Smith — who is one of the very few people in the Washington area making a full-time living growing, selling and teaching people about wild and native foods. I had joined him on this quixotic scavenger hunt to understand what it means to eat wild in the 21st century.
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Over a couple of mostly pleasant hours, Smith, one of his colleagues and I partially filled three plastic bins with meaty nuts of red oaks that lined the nondescript commercial strip. The haul was auspicious — but acorns don’t give up their goods easily. Sometime later, I met Smith at his home, where, over several hours, he painstakingly shelled the nuts, ground them, poured water over them again and again to leach out bitter chemicals called tannins, and eventually produced an actual food: acorn flour. “I could sell as much acorn flour as I can make for $25 a pound to chefs and curious bakers,” he told me.
I realize this whole exercise may come off as strange. For much of human history, however, acorns have been a major food source for people; at least one book has argued that oaks gave rise to modern civilization. Every year, oak trees shower us with a nutritious, tasty and completely free feast — a feast that now, with the exception of a few groups of people such as Koreans and Native Americans of Northern California, we almost entirely spurn.
“We were born to eat wild,” writes journalist Dan Saladino in his recent book “Eating to Extinction.” Our bodies are built to consume nature’s bounty and turn it into more of ourselves. According to researchers at Kew Gardens in Britain, humans are capable of finding sustenance in more than 7,000 species of plants, each packaging its own unique amalgam of flavors and nutrients.
Yet if you are American — or, increasingly, a resident of any other country — you probably subsist on a tiny fraction of those: corn, wheat, soy, rice, potatoes and a few dozen standardized supermarket vegetables. The rejection of 99 percent of the world’s edible plant biodiversity is part and parcel of much of humanity’s recent rise to extraordinary wealth. While much of the tropics still consumes a diverse, partly wild diet, eating wild has become “taboo” in the so-called developed world, where parents have “taught their kids that this is poor people’s food,” says Alex McAlvay, an ethnobotanist at the New York Botanical Garden. In short, we convinced ourselves that the more we could separate, physically and psychically, from trees, weeds and soil, the better off we would be.
But are we really better off? Industrial food, while amply feeding us, is not exactly nourishing. Only 10 percent of Americans eat enough fruits and vegetables, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported. More than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese; diabetes is at epidemic levels. As the so-called Western diet colonizes the world, such Western diseases spread with it.
According to researchers at Kew Gardens in Britain, humans are capable of finding sustenance in more than 7,000 species of plants.
Our environment’s health is in no better shape. Agriculture now accounts for 11 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, a quarter globally. Fertilizers and chemicals wash off farm fields and pollute our waterways. Industrial food is gobbling up much of what’s left of the planet’s wild land, helping to drive what scientists warn may be the sixth mass extinction of life in Earth’s history.
Wild foods offer a potential off-ramp from these disastrous trends. The oaks whose acorns Smith and I gathered were probably planted at some point, but now they just grow, asking nothing of us, while also pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, thereby helping to slow climate change. And under the oaks’ canopy, a plethora of other native and edible plants can share the space: a human- and wildlife-nurturing polyculture. What’s more, wild foods are available to everyone, at least in theory. No need to strike out for remote wilderness: Edible plants thrive in yards, pocket parks, fallow fields, cracks in the sidewalk.
So rather than ask what’s up with the weirdos scavenging in the parking lot, it might make more sense to ask: What’s up with the rest of us? We’re surrounded by healthy, abundant, free food. In an age of grain shortages, inflation, environmental anxiety and a general feeling that everything could collapse at any time, why aren’t we all eating it?
Before the pandemic, I was at most a casual, opportunistic, somewhat lackadaisical forager. But the year the world shut down, two things happened. That spring, inspired largely by Smith, some neighbors and I turned a small, desolate public park in D.C.’s inner suburbs, where I live, into a food forest, filling it with edible plants. We had already been planning the project, but the act took on new meaning during a scary and isolating time. The food forest became a community hub — a place of hope when hope was sorely needed.
Then that fall, on one of innumerable walks on by-then-painfully-familiar neighborhood streets, my partner and I came face to trunk, on National Park Service land, with a tall, gangly tree that had bark like small charcoal briquettes. My brain’s pattern recognition machinery whirred and clicked: American persimmon. I looked up. The tree, which I’d surely passed a dozen times and never noticed, was laden with small, round orange fruits hanging like so many ornaments, just starting to ripen. I reasoned that another tree must be growing nearby, to provide pollen for this one’s flowers, which is usually necessary for persimmon trees to produce abundant fruit. I scanned left, and there it was — a second tree at least as large, at least as laden, all free for the taking. Up to that point, I had only ever found a few persimmons at a time. This felt like a biblical moment: manna from the neighborhood park.
As we weren’t prepared with bags, we gathered all the persimmons we could carry in our hands and clothes. (The front pocket of the sweatshirt I wore that day is still stained with dried pulp, despite many washings.) We returned several times a week. This ritual became an obsession; the thought of missing even one of the candy-like fruits became almost unbearable, though we lost many to deer and insects. At home we got out a long-neglected hand-crank food mill and pressed our hauls through it to strain out seeds, yielding pulp for breakfasts and desserts. (An annoyingly large seed-to-flesh ratio is a common characteristic of wild fruit.)
In case you’re wondering, rules governing foraging on public land are all over the map and can cause debate and confusion. While we didn’t give it much thought at the time, it appears that, on this particular parcel, the Park Service bans collecting of plants but not necessarily fruits, which can generally be taken without harming the tree; indeed, our activities likely helped the trees disperse their seeds. And if you’re wondering whether foraging is safe, the answer is mostly yes. For wild mushrooms, an accurate ID can be a matter of life or death, but few wild plants are fatally toxic in normal quantities (though some can cause serious indigestion, and you should always be sure you know what you’re eating — and what parts of it are safe to eat).
American persimmon is one of those “secret” foods that were once staples — the name derives from an Algonquin word for dried fruit, indicating a likely Indigenous use — but that have been largely forgotten. (By contrast, cultivated Asian varieties, which produce much larger fruits, can often be found in stores.) As persimmon entered our diet, I thought of my father, who used to serve my brother and me orange juice made from store-bought concentrate each morning to ensure we got our daily dose of life-sustaining vitamin C (and who still enjoys his daily OJ). American persimmons pack far more vitamin C than the insipid oranges whose juice we drank; how much more interesting and nutritious could our mornings have been had we been attuned to what was growing wild around us?
During a hike a few weeks later near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, it seemed like every other tree we passed on the trail dripped with pawpaws — yet another common but largely forgotten fruit native to this part of the world. We shook the trunks, making it rain. We stuffed fruit into jacket pockets and backpacks and carried more in our hands. These, along with fruits from the park trees and a small persimmon tree in our yard that produced a surprisingly large haul that year, fed us all fall and into winter. We made pawpaw pies, persimmon puddings, mousse. When you start planning your outings around gathering wild food and your grocery bill starts going down, it’s time to admit: You’re a forager.
Because eating wild was proving so easy, so fun and so rewarding, I became intensely curious about whether it could be more than a hobby. So I struck out for various corners of the Mid-Atlantic to meet some of the people reweaving the connections between humans and the plants we live among.
One of these places was a small cornfield in the exurbs of Philadelphia. One day early this spring, a group of five — McAlvay (who’d driven in from New York for the occasion), professional foragers Tama Matsuoka Wong and Derek Carty, a Post photographer and me — gathered at the field, where Wong had a long-standing agreement allowing her to forage. We were looking for Brassica rapa, which you have almost certainly eaten: Over centuries, farmers and plant breeders have selected varieties that eventually became familiar vegetables, including turnips, bok choy and the napa cabbage used to make kimchi. But we were after what botanists call a “feral” variety, a plant that has “jumped the fence,” as McAlvay put it, and become a weed rather than a crop. Weedy brassicas thrive in fields and along roadsides from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Many farmers hate it, but eaters love it. “There’s something about this plant that people around the world can’t get enough of,” McAlvay said. He then pulled out his phone and read us a Peruvian poem waxing ecstatic about it.
Wong, who is based in New Jersey and runs the wild food business Meadows and More, forages for restaurant chefs based in New York City and elsewhere, and for online grocery businesses like FreshDirect. When we met, she giddily showed me a text conversation in which she had told one of her chefs that she was headed out for brassica that morning, and he replied with a meme of a jubilant Oprah, which Wong interpreted to mean, “I’ll take as much as you can bring me.”
In the field, Wong sought out tender, green inner leaves and shoots that hadn’t developed purple edges. “You need to get it at just the right moment,” she explained. “If you wait too long, it gets woody.” I grabbed a few leaves and bit into them. The taste was intense — bitter and complex, like eating mustard greens or broccolini, but concentrated and amplified. Wong and her chef clients were in on a secret: Part of what has been tamed in our domesticated crops is flavor. And wild food is the antidote: a wake-up call for the senses.
The work was slow. After a couple of hours, Wong and Carty had gathered just a few small crates of greens; granted, we had spent some of the time gabbing about brassica lore. I pondered how many tractor-trailers full of corn one farmer on a combine could have harvested out of an Iowa field in the time we’d spent scouring this patch.
Foraging is hardly an efficient way to get calories, and if we were simply calorie-consuming machines, it would make little sense in the modern world. But we’re not. We’re complex bundles of needs — nutritional, yes, but also physical, emotional, spiritual and cultural. As if to prove the point, about an hour into our visit, we spotted two people ambling through the field after us, looking for the florets the brassica plants send up when they’re getting ready to be pollinated and set seed. Gary DiBerardinis and his son Nick told me they do this every March, and then blanch and freeze the florets for use throughout the year. “There’s a lot of Italians who do this,” Gary said. “It’s like, you don’t want anyone else to know about your field.”
I thought about everything happening here. People were getting outside, spending time among plants and among each other. A familial bond was being strengthened; several cultures and a small business were being sustained. Restaurants and the freezer of one family were being supplied with a food that demanded no fertilizers or chemicals. Amazingly, a little wild vegetable that nobody had even tried to grow was accomplishing all of this.
Every generation, it seems, has its wild foods moment. During the Depression, people ate wild-growing weeds such as dandelions out of necessity. In the 1960s and ’70s, wild foods were embraced by hippies heading back to the land; they were also popularized by Euell Gibbons, who wrote books such as “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” and evangelized about foraging on TV. In the past few decades, a sort of elite foraging movement has emerged, most notably in Scandinavia, where celebrity chefs like René Redzepi have ridden it to global fame.
The irony is that while a few people, mainly reasonably well-off White men, have gained recognition for “rediscovering” and teaching others about wild foods, countless Indigenous people, immigrants, and rural Black and White Americans — men and women — have carried on foraging traditions, both by choice and by necessity. Often they had good reason for staying out of the spotlight.
Disconnecting Indigenous people who lived in what is now North America from their food traditions, including ones based on wild foods, was part of the colonial project. “It separated us from our traditional knowledge and lifeways, the bones of our ancestors, our sustaining plants,” the Indigenous ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote in her best-selling book “Braiding Sweetgrass.” By 1622, just 15 years after the settlement of Jamestown, members of the Powhatan tribe of Virginia found themselves excluded from parts of their traditional hunting and foraging grounds. As colonialism picked up steam, so did the assault on Indigenous food traditions, including the forced relocations of entire peoples to faraway regions with unfamiliar flora.
Similarly, efforts to keep Black people from foraging their own food became wrapped up in America’s racial oppression infrastructure. Anti-trespassing laws were virtually unknown before the Civil War, when enslaved people often hunted, fished and foraged to supplement meager food rations, but such laws proliferated afterward. As property law expert Brian Sawers wrote in a recent Atlantic article, they were often explicitly intended to prevent Black people from accessing free food.
Class also became a factor. In the late 1800s when elites concerned about resource depletion began creating nature preserves, rural White farmers who were used to foraging herbs and other wild plants suddenly found their rights curtailed. “Supporters of restricting foraging rights,” food policy expert Baylen Linnekin wrote in the Fordham Urban Law Journal in 2018, “typically grounded their efforts in racism, classism, colonialism, imperialism, or some combination of these odious practices and beliefs.”
Those legacies have been formalized in modern times in regulations that prohibit or restrict foraging in parks and preserves. “We have public lands that are managed for all sorts of outdoor activities,” says Samuel Thayer, a forager and wild-plant expert based in Wisconsin and author of several popular books on foraging. “But virtually nothing is managed for foraging.”
Private land is also generally off-limits. That may go without saying, but it reflects a peculiarly American — and peculiarly recent — notion of privacy: In much of Europe, for example, foragers gather mushrooms in privately owned forests, no landowner permission needed. Here, the woods teem with “no trespassing” signs.
Given how much of wild-food culture has been driven underground, it’s perhaps not surprising that no one seems to have hard data on its popularity. But about a year and a half ago, in the depths of the pandemic, I became aware of the Black Forager, a TikTok account started in early 2020 by Alexis Nikole Nelson, a Columbus, Ohio-based forager. The now-30-year-old Nelson makes videos about magnolia blossoms, maple leaves, dandelion fritters, even invasive species like Japanese knotweed. The entertaining videos are fast-paced and feature cheeky jokes, fashion asides and snippets of Nelson singing. Yet they are packed with information and an engaging immediacy largely lacking from deadly serious foraging manuals and websites. And they are extremely popular. Across platforms, Nelson has close to 5 million followers, and she has been profiled in many major media outlets. “There hasn’t been someone since Euell Gibbons with that kind of fame,” says Thayer.
Nelson has been explicit about wanting to reclaim foraging for people who have been historically excluded. And she says she is seeing an explosion of interest in wild foods, including among people of color. “I remember being in junior high school talking to my classmates about wanting to spend time outside and eating wild plants, and some of my classmates … being like, ‘Girl, that is not for Black folks, that is not where we are supposed to be, that is where bad things happen,’ ” she told me. Now, things are beginning to change. She recalled a day last summer when she was hiking in the woods around Columbus and met two Black teenage girls who recognized her and told her about plants they had foraged thanks to her videos. “I definitely have seen more people who look like me out in the woods foraging,” she says.
Many Native tribes, having seen the health-damaging effects of Western food, are also reviving their wild-food cultures and have regained foraging, hunting and fishing rights on lands where they had been excluded. In 2019, after several years of negotiation and an environmental-impact statement they had to pay for, the North Carolina-based Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians secured permission to forage sochan — a wild-growing green better known today as cut-leaf coneflower — in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which was Cherokee land long before it was seized by White settlers and eventually the U.S. government. In 2020, only 11 tribal members sought foraging permits, Desirae Kissell, a natural resources coordinator who manages the tribe’s program, told me; this year, demand was so strong that she handed out all 36 foraging permits allowed under the agreement and had to start a wait list.
Native Americans who grew up shopping at grocery stores may not have connections to wild foods like sochan. But when Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota chef from Pine Ridge, S.D., started visiting Native communities to seek out traditional edible plants, he found that “there’s still a lot of elders and community members in these diverse Indigenous communities who hold a lot of that knowledge.” In 2021, Sherman opened a restaurant in Minneapolis based on Indigenous foods — from bison to wild rice to turnips to crickets — and his team recently won a James Beard Award. Sherman applauds the renewed interest in native and wild foods — with a caveat. “The most important piece is for people who are interested in wild foods to not treat it as a trend, or fall into extraction mode,” he says. “Take the time to learn how the plants work.”
A few years ago, during a visit to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, my partner and I learned about the yaupon holly, the only plant native to North America that produces a chemical many of us cannot live without (or at least, don’t want to live without): caffeine. I filed the find in my brain as probably worth investigating at some point, but being habit-bound, I stayed hooked on the globalized commodities coffee and “true tea.”
This spring I ran out of tea and dug yaupon out of my mental file drawer. My partner and I went online to see if we could order some; it turned out several small yaupon purveyors have sprung up in the Southeast. I ordered several bags and wrote to Crystal Stokes, the head of the one nearest to me, to ask if I could come visit.
I arrived on the second day of spring at a tiny farmlet in a corner of Richmond, where I was welcomed by Stokes and her business partner, Adam Weatherford, the founders of Project CommuniTea. The two friends had just shuttered a vegetable operation they had labored over for several years and, with evident relief, were pivoting to a business based on yaupon.
They invited me into a small geodesic dome lined with plastic where they hope to revive yaupon tea culture, which has been all but dormant for at least a century. As we sat around a circular table, they took me through four yaupon preparations: green, medium roast, dark roast and smoked. The taste of yaupon is both familiar and strange. It is a tea in the broad sense — an infusion of a plant — but it has unique floral and tangy notes, and as we proceeded toward the darker roasts, caramel entered the equation. I recognized this as an example of that ineffable concept of “terroir”: a taste that expresses the place a food comes from.
I desperately wanted to believe that here in the Virginia Tidewater, I was witnessing the infancy of the biggest story in caffeine in a century.
As we drank, I felt as though my brain was expanding. We laughed more. Stokes and Weatherford called this getting “tea drunk.” If coffee is a sledgehammer blow to the brain — admittedly sometimes useful — yaupon was more like a gentle neural stroking. I could have sat all day drinking.
What intrigued me about Stokes and Weatherford is the space they’re carving out in the food economy. They mostly don’t forage yaupon themselves but obtain it from someone who does; they’re also starting to grow it. In one light, theirs is just another food start-up trying to get off the ground. But Project CommuniTea is a rare venture grounded in ecology and tradition — one that seeks to elevate a plant that’s from here and plays nicely with others, rather than an outsider that demands that local ecosystems be wiped out. And let’s face it: Foraging, wonderful as it is, has its limits. If wild and native foods are going to play substantial roles in our food system, we will need businesses to carefully cultivate them and bring them to market.
The next day, the pair drove me to Virginia’s Tidewater region, where we pulled off the road at a modest house and met Vickie Shufer, a small firecracker of a woman who has become Stokes’s and Weatherford’s mentor and supplier. Shufer led us to a circular patch of about a dozen yaupon trees that she mysteriously called the “chicken coop” and went after a few of the trees with clippers. She had soon harvested a decent-size collection for the two entrepreneurs to take home and sell.
Yaupon once grew abundantly here, in part thanks to people. Shufer says she can identify abandoned home sites from old yaupon plants that have outlasted the buildings. But today, she is the only person she knows of in her area cultivating it for sale. As we sat down at a picnic table and clinked tea cups, she joked, “We’re the secret society. Don’t tell anybody!”
Yaupon is an odd thing to be secret about, considering that caffeine is by far the most popular psychoactive substance in the world; 4 in 5 Americans consume it daily. You probably drink coffee or true tea (Camellia sinensis), but you almost certainly haven’t tried yaupon, even though it may grow in your neighborhood. “It’s American tea,” Shufer says. “It’s been pushed under the carpet.”
As Shufer described in a 2016 article in the journal HerbalGram, yaupon’s disappearance is a crime of both botanical and cultural erasure. Indigenous Americans drank it in ceremonies before making important decisions. Early colonists got addicted to it; it was sold in Europe. Then a Scottish botanist who never even saw the plant in the wild gave it a derogatory Latin name, Ilex vomitoria. Some speculate this is because Europeans saw Native people vomiting during ceremonies that included yaupon and mistakenly blamed the plant, but there may be a more sinister reason: to establish the dominance in America of so-called true tea, which was already a heavily marketed global commodity. Yaupon tea was further derided as “poor man’s coffee” and almost totally lost from the American cultural and culinary landscape, persisting only in isolated spots like North Carolina’s Knotts Island, a few miles down the road from Shufer’s place, where thickets of the stuff grow to this day.
To Stokes, who is Black, yaupon’s erasure evokes multiple injustices that she wants to make right: the forced removal of America’s Indigenous people and the plants they relied on, and the story of her own family, who also suffered land loss. But she recognizes that to sell yaupon, she can’t just appeal to nostalgia or social justice; she has to convince modern consumers to try an unfamiliar food. She has labored over her roasting technique and spent much of our visit thinking aloud about how to market yaupon to Richmondites. Some of her customers, she’s found, are attracted to yaupon’s story; others just like the tea. Gen Z, a generation that is into health, has proved to be a natural customer base for a product that contains not only caffeine but also theobromine, an anti-inflammatory compound most closely associated with chocolate, and a potpourri of antioxidants. Stokes has learned that young people also often gravitate toward blends rather than pure tea, so she’s been perfecting mixtures of yaupon with various herbs and flowers. “If most people knew what it takes to sell and get people to like yaupon, they wouldn’t last a day,” she told me.
Stokes and Weatherford have gotten their product into a few stores, and a local restaurant has featured it in a cocktail. Walmart recently started carrying another yaupon company’s items. But the road to making the plant profitable is long. Stokes has so far been able to pay herself only a “stipend,” she says, and holds down a part-time job as a social and mental health worker.
Still, a yaupon revival seems obvious, even inevitable. Yaupon is about as hardy and undemanding as a plant can be, and the warming climate should help it thrive in areas north of its historical range, which peters out around Shufer’s place. “Yaupon can handle anything,” says Stokes. Meanwhile, the United States imports some 260 million pounds of tea annually, nearly one pound per American adult. Why not produce at least some of those pounds locally, using a plant that’s part of the native ecosystem? I desperately wanted to believe that here in the Virginia Tidewater, I was witnessing the infancy of the biggest story in caffeine in a century, the emergence of an all-American rival to tea and coffee.
In my immediate habitat, Lincoln Smith may be wild food’s most influential popularizer. Like Stokes and Weatherford, he is trying to build an agricultural venture that enhances nature rather than harms it. And similar to them, he’s found it to be a long road.
On a chilly but sunny early spring day, I met up with him and a few staff and volunteers at a 10-acre “forest garden” he maintains. The garden is on the property of the church he has attended since childhood in the outer reaches of Maryland’s Prince George’s County (and near the office parking lot where we foraged for acorns). Smith and his colleagues were pruning fruit and nut trees and generally tidying up for the coming growing season. Everything looked full of potential and ready to burst; various herbal aromas wafted through the air. Smith gave me one of a half-dozen or so tours I’ve taken of the site over the years, pointing out some of his newer and more surprising plantings: true-tea plants native to China (he’s also growing yaupon), a monkey-puzzle tree that is native to Chile and prized for its nuts. He’d recently gotten access to a new area with a pond and a stream and was experimenting to see what edible plants would grow there.
Smith launched the company Forested a decade ago, burned out by high-end landscaping work and inspired by Martin Crawford, director of the U.K.-based Agroforestry Research Trust. “I found it to be the most hopeful idea I had come across in the environmental movement,” he says. On an old field, he built garden beds, planted native and food-bearing trees and shrubs in complex, multilayered arrangements, infused wood chips and logs with fungal material that would eventually grow mushrooms, and invented various low-tech hacks — a composting wood-chip pile warms water from a local hydrant to sustain his ducks and geese in winter, for example. He sought out permutations the local climate and soil favored, rather than fighting them. If a patch seemed to want to grow persimmon or pear trees, he let them grow, then grafted onto the fast-growing stems the highest-yielding and most delicious varieties he could find.
When I first visited several years ago after discovering the project online, I envisioned someone popping out of the woods saying bizarre things like “Ever eat a pine tree?” — one of Euell Gibbons’s famous lines. Smith instead proved to be, if perhaps slightly quirky, a practical, serious and welcoming ambassador for wild eating. “Forest feasts” that Smith has thrown — featuring acorn-flour pancakes, elderberry cocktails and other delicacies, and prepared by high-profile chefs like Zaytinya’s Michael Costa — have attracted hundreds of people paying up to $300 apiece for tastes that can hardly be found anywhere else.
Admittedly, Smith has produced relatively little actual food compared with a conventional farm. He attempted a small community-supported agriculture project through which people could pay in advance for a weekly box of food, but abandoned it after it proved more trouble than it was worth. Though each of his feasts have sold out, they are so complex to produce that he’s been able to hold only two per year (and none for most of the pandemic); they haven’t generated much profit, either. And despite increases in the land’s carbon stores and biodiversity — two goals promoted by a wide range of environmental groups and the federal government — few programs exist to compensate small landowners or managers for such ecosystem services. The first five years, Smith lost money. His income derives mainly from landscaping for public and private clients and a course he teaches on permaculture, a sustainable agriculture system based on growing a mix of trees and perennial plants, rather than monocultures of annual crops.
That’s partly because he had to rebuild the ecosystem from a degraded state, a situation describing most of our land today. “Food forests take a sustained, long amount of attention,” he says. Smith is excited that the forest is entering its second decade, the one in which the first decade’s work will literally bear fruit. Fruit and nut trees have had time to put down their root systems and grow tall. He’s gotten his first handfuls of pecans and groundnuts, a legume native to eastern North America that grows underground. Over time, he says, the forest’s productivity could begin to rival that of conventional farms; he has calculated, for example, that mature red oak trees can churn out as many calories per acre in the form of acorns as can wheat. For those willing to wait, “the forest works,” he says. “This ecosystem is incredibly productive … and there is a tremendous amount of yield potential there that we can tap into.”
Whether or not Forested ever becomes profitable, it has certainly attracted some perhaps surprising followers. Very mainstream, non-hippie-ish organizations such as the governments of D.C. and various Maryland suburbs have hired Smith to create at least six food forests on public land, with more to come thanks to new funding. Smith’s mantra has long been that food forests “should be as common as basketball hoops and playgrounds.” The culture, it seems, may be catching up with him.
As Wong, Stokes, Smith, Thayer and Nelson all point out, there are myriad reasons — practical, nutritional, environmental, cultural (and countercultural), pure fun and joy — to eat wild. There are, of course, also many reasons not to. Eating wild requires constant attention, and not just for reasons of safety: When something leafs out, blooms or ripens, you have to get out there, or you may miss it for the year. And it takes work: evenings pressing fruit or processing nuts instead of, say, ordering DoorDash and watching Netflix. Is it worth it? For me, most of the time it has been. For others? Maybe not.
Some argue that wild plants need protection from ravenous, irresponsible humans and that foraging is acceptable only on one’s own land, which cuts out renters, condo owners and anyone else without a sizable yard. My social media has started to feed me regular admonishments about foraging without permission. “Any foraging requires the permission of the landowner (if it isn’t you) and/or park system. It is best to be done on your own property,” one commenter wrote recently on a popular local Facebook group. (Is there anything more American than the constant demand for permission to do things — and the constant chiding of our fellow citizens to obtain it?)
A few wild plants, such as ramps, white sage and ginseng, have indeed become swept up in fads and are at risk of overharvesting in places. It’s important to understand the growth habit of what you’re harvesting and take only the parts the plant doesn’t need for regeneration, and in moderate amounts. Kimmerer describes the ethic of foraging, what she calls the “honorable harvest”: No matter how much you desire what you’re gathering, take only what you actually need and will use; never take the first or the last of anything.
But the vast majority of wild edibles are nowhere near threatened by foragers. In fact, Thayer argues, many are in greater danger of disappearing through neglect, because without people having a reason to cultivate and care for them, they risk being overrun by faster-growing invasive plants or paved over for the next strip mall. Kimmerer writes about how sweetgrass grows better when it’s harvested responsibly than when it’s ignored, because harvesting some stems gives the remaining ones more light and space, which they quickly fill with new shoots. Similarly, research led by Cherokee Band members has revealed that traditional harvesting of sochan boosts the plant’s seed production. “The plant actually needs to be harvested in order for it to flourish,” says Kissell. “It wants to be harvested.” When we engage knowledgeably and respectfully, we can improve rather than destroy.
Forested provides another case in point. If Smith hadn’t done his thing, the place would have remained a corn and hay field or perhaps become the next housing development. Instead, it has become a site for hundreds of plant, fungi and animal species and, over the past decade, well over a thousand humans, who can encounter one another and begin to stitch back together long-frayed bonds. Studies have even found higher insect diversity in forest gardens than in native forests allowed to grow “on their own.” While we might imagine we can protect nature by staying away from it and making the occasional donation to an environmental organization, initiatives like Forested show that we may be able to do even better. We can actually enhance nature by engaging — asking what it needs from us and what we need from it.
As I’ve been working on this story, I’ve been bothered by a question: What Wong and Stokes and Smith are doing is inspiring, fresh, provocative and lately maybe even hip, but it also feels tiny, indeed marginal compared with the behemoth that is our corporate food system, the one that fills the nation’s grocery stores. Can wild foods truly scale?
The entrepreneurs all speak of the need for specialized equipment and facilities, ones that would speed the harvesting and processing of a wide diversity of plants and products, not just a few mass-produced commodities. Smith has a business plan ready for anyone wanting to fund the construction of an acorn-processing facility that he feels could unlock the potential of the abundant nut. As it is, the entrepreneurs do nearly everything — roasting of yaupon, leaching of acorn tannins, harvesting of brassica — by hand, which means, by today’s standards, slowly and, in economic terms, inefficiently.
But I’ve also realized that I may be asking the wrong question. We are not going back to a forager society. There are far too many of us; we live too densely; most of us have other priorities. Maybe I — we — need to ask instead: Is potential to become the next billion-dollar company really the best way to measure value? Wild foods can quietly change lives, one by one, in ways that skirt rather than depend on the consumer economy. They certainly have changed mine. I’ve mostly switched from imported tea to yaupon and don’t see myself going back. During peak pawpaw, persimmon and serviceberry seasons, I often virtually stop buying fruit. Greens may be next. This year my diet has included chickweed, dead nettle, bittercress, dock, garlic pennycress, wild onion, brassica, wood sorrel, cleavers, dandelions, lamb’s quarters, day lily shoots, sochan, purslane and poke (amply boiled to remove toxins).
The sochan I planted a few years ago to restore native plants to my yard grew so aggressively that I got irritated and started digging it out. Only this past spring did I learn, thanks to one of Thayer’s books, that it’s a food — and a once-prized one at that. (Nelson also recently featured it in a video, pointing out how colonialism and forced removal of most Cherokees led to sochan being forgotten.) This information has transformed my relationship with the plant; I now want as much of it as possible. Meanwhile, as I wrote this piece, half a bunch of kale languished in the crisper drawer of my fridge. Nothing against kale, but I’ve eaten so much of it in my life; how can something so familiar and predictable compete with the new tastes I’m suddenly awash in?
After 40 years of eating, I had, without fully realizing it, begun to feel a bit trapped in a closed ecosystem that limited me to combining and recombining the same few handfuls of species. Eating and drinking wild has opened up almost limitless flavors and possibilities. We all have wild eating in our ancestry. It might be obscured by a lifetime of exposure to marketing and grocery-store shopping, but it’s there. You just have to crack open a window in the edifice of modernity where we spend our lives — and let a bit of wildness in. | 2022-08-15T14:29:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ditch your grocery store. Go foraging instead. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/15/wild-foods-foraging-eating-healthy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/08/15/wild-foods-foraging-eating-healthy/ |
In this Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, photo, a Saudi man carries his coffee pot as he walks past a banner showing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, outside a mall in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. (Amr Nabil/AP)
BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia has executed 120 people in the first six months of 2022, according to a rights organization, nearly double the number put to death in all of last year despite its promises to reduce capital punishment.
As early as 2018, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, spoke of curtailing the death penalty, one of a string of public promises made by the young prince as he ramped up efforts to modernize the kingdom.
After a major drop in 2020, 65 were put to death in 2021 and then this year, in just six months, the number of executions nearly doubled. By June, the numbers had exceeded those of 2020 and 2021 combined, according to a statement from the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights sent to media Aug. 9.
“If Saudi Arabia continues to execute people at the same pace during the second half of 2022, they will reach an unprecedented number of executions, exceeding the record high of 186 executions in 2019,” the report stated.
Saudi Arabia says it executed 27 people in 2020, the lowest number in years, rights groups say
The year 2020 saw a dramatic decline in executions: the government-run Human Rights Commission said only 27 took place that year, compared to the record number the year before.
Rights groups and activists treated the news with caution with the ESOHR and Reprieve saying in a joint statement that the decline could be partly be attributed to the lockdown in 2020 from February to April, during which “the government carried out no executions due to restrictions to control the virus.”
Most of the executions for 2022 took place on one day in March when 81 men were put to death in the single largest mass execution in years. New York-based group Human Rights Watch quoted activists saying that 41 of those killed belonged to the Shiite sect of Islam, whose adherents are largely seen as heretics by many hard-line Sunni Muslims in Saudi Arabia.
Executions increased as pandemic rules eased in 2021, report finds
Shiites have long complained of marginalization in the country and are viewed with suspicion by many Sunnis, who often see them as sympathizers of rival Iran, the world’s largest Shiite country.
ESOHR found that in the March mass execution, which the group said was the largest in Saudi history, 58 of the 81 men were executed for nonlethal offenses, and 41 were executed for participation in pro-democracy protests. None of the bodies were returned to the families, the group added.
Families typically push to retrieve bodies of those executed but are frequently faced with stonewalling from the government. One reason could be that public funerals could turn into protests or the graves become rallying points.
Saudi Arabia executed them after questionable trials. Now it won’t give up the bodies for proper burial.
In the statement that announced the mass execution in March, the Ministry of Interior said the order was to carry out death sentences for “those who had embraced deviant thought, and other deviant methods and beliefs.” It linked some of the men to terrorist activities.
Last August, seven United Nations officials penned a letter to the Saudi government concerning the cases of two Shiite men, Mohammed al-Shakouri and Asaad Shubbar, who had been sentenced to death. The letter — signed by the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, among others — said the trials of the two men “did not meet due process guarantees and [were] for crimes which do not appear to meet the ‘most serious crimes’ threshold as required under international law.”
The two men were part of March’s mass execution. ESOHR said this decision “exemplifies the opacity in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system.”
According to ESOHR’s data, collated from government announcements, 72 of this year’s executions were for so called “discretionary offenses,” crimes not specified in Islamic law, despite promises by Mohammed to end the use of the death penalty for such offenses.
Saudi Arabia releases protester arrested as a minor after commuting his death sentence
Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism law has long been criticized by the United Nations. To make matters murkier, punishments often depend on the judge’s discretion, leading to inconsistency and arbitrariness in verdicts.
Saudi Arabia says it is in the process of codifying its laws and last February, the crown prince announced plans to approve a set of four new draft laws, including personal status law and the penal code for crimes whose punishments are not detailed in Islamic law.
While there were no men executed so far this year for crimes committed as minors, human rights groups have been raising the alarm for a while about several cases, namely that of Abdullah al-Howaiti, who is on death row after being convicted of robbing a jewelry store of more than $200,000 in gold, wounding two employees and fatally shooting a police officer. He was 14 at the time of the crime.
Another case is that of Jalal Labbad, who faces charges including participation in demonstrations when he was 15 years old. ESOHR said Labbad was arrested and his house raided in 2017 without an arrest warrant nor an accusation before the raid, and was later denied his right to legal counsel and was subjected to many forms of torture and ill-treatment. | 2022-08-15T14:42:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Saudi Arabia executions already nearly double from last year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/saudi-arabia-executions-double-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/saudi-arabia-executions-double-2022/ |
Samsung’s Odyssey Ark is a 55-inch, curved monster that eats your face
(Washington Post; Samsung)
Imagine being engulfed by a monitor. You’re playing “Doom Eternal,” glory-killing demons with a chain saw, subwoofers on full blast with a monitor over four feet, enveloping your face. That’s the pitch Samsung used on tech enthusiasts when introducing the Odyssey Ark monitor at CES 2022 in Las Vegas, earlier this year. And it lives up to the billing.
In person, the Samsung Odyssey Ark feels every bit as big as its 55-inch size suggests, even when you rotate it to a vertical view.
Utilizing such a massive display, in this case connected to an Xbox Series X and a PC packing a premium graphics card (Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti), is a weird and somewhat overwhelming feeling. Samsung employees joked about daisy-chaining a whole room full of them together to make a tidal wave of monitors. Another comical visual was the suggestion by Samsung’s representatives was that of Wall Street traders utilizing the humongous monitors, perhaps at the New York Stock Exchange, just a few blocks from the August demonstration.
“This is not the ‘casual dad who plays a game once in a while.’ This is a high-end monitor product,” said Harry Patz Jr., Samsung Display senior vice president and general manager. “We think it’s a new category, this premium, immersive cinematic experience. This is someone who’s a pretty dedicated gamer. They’ve spent money on it.”
The Ark boasts 4K resolution with a 165Hz refresh rate, a pairing that’s seen in higher-end monitors. Displays that often target competitive gamers boast higher refresh rates, up to 240Hz and 360Hz but they typically come with a trade-off against the resolution quality, which gets bumped down to 1080P. Not so in the Ark, which also has four speakers and two built-in woofers.
The Ark monitor retails for $3,499.99 and has features like cockpit mode (the aforementioned vertical view), and a matte display that’s anti-glare. With its size, it’s possible to stack a Wikipedia entry for Rio de Janeiro, a YouTube video of “Microsoft Flight Simulator,” and the game itself across the monitor as you soar over the statue of Christ the Redeemer. Users can toggle the size of each window using a remote that comes with the display. Passionate gamers often build their own computers, buying PC parts and separate displays. Those setups can get elaborate on the higher-end and cost thousands, making console gaming look relatively low-end in comparison.
Samsung will release the Ark in early September, with preorders starting Aug. 15. The timing of the monitor comes as the U.S. economy faces numerous setbacks, with inflation rising to a 40-year-high, consumer spending declining and a labor market slowdown. Even the video game industry — often described as “recession-proof” because of consumers’ tendency to turn to games in a downturn — hasn’t been insulated from the general downward shift.
“I wouldn’t say the gamers are recession-proof, but they’re an audience,” Patz said.
Despite inflation and wage stagnation, Patz said he believed the Odyssey Ark would find its audience among gamers who care about size.
“Clearly inflation is up. People are looking at their spending, saying, ‘Where am I going to spend money?’ “ Patz said. “For many of [these PC and console hybrid] gamers, they have already invested in their setup. They’re going to spend hours per day. So getting a monitor, which is their core form of entertainment, versus going out and spending money, that is a good value proposition for us and I think a great opportunity. We do believe that even in an inflationary environment, an iconic product for something that is a lifestyle for some gamers will be very good value for us and continue to build on our success.”
As for supply chain issues, such as logistical delays and semiconductor part shortages, Patz said the company has been planning ahead to ensure supply can meet demand.
“This is also one of the hero products for Samsung,” he said. “We’ve been hard at work prepping and that’s part of our strategy with the preorders and the reserve to manage that experience because no one wants to order something and then it takes forever to get to them. I attend four supply chain meetings a week, I can assure you. We as an industry were in a tougher place a year ago.” | 2022-08-15T15:04:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Samsung Odyssey Ark monitor is bigger than a toddler - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/15/samsung-odyssey-ark/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/08/15/samsung-odyssey-ark/ |
With Kevin Durant’s future in Brooklyn uncertain, the NBA is leaving the Nets off its Christmas Day slate. (Frank Franklin II/AP)
LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant have been mainstays on the NBA’s Christmas Day schedule for the past decade, but that holiday tradition is set to change barring a blockbuster trade.
While James’s Los Angeles Lakers and Curry’s Golden State Warriors were included in this year’s five-game slate, which was first reported Sunday by the Athletic, Durant’s Brooklyn Nets were snubbed. That history-bucking development marks the latest twist in the Nets’ ongoing standoff with their franchise player, who has repeatedly requested a trade this summer.
Adam Silver displeased by trade requests from NBA star players
For context, James’s teams have played on Christmas every year since 2007-08 and Curry’s Golden State Warriors have appeared every year since 2013-14. Durant’s teams have been included every year since 2010-11 with the exception of 2019-20, when he was sidelined for the entire season with an Achilles’ injury.
The Lakers, who missed the playoffs last year, will visit the Dallas Mavericks for a star-studded faceoff between James and Luka Doncic. The Mavericks, who are fresh off an unexpected Western Conference finals trip, will be holiday hosts for the first time since 2011-12, while the Lakers will hit the road on Christmas for the first time since 2018-19.
Meanwhile, Curry and the defending champion Warriors will host Ja Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies in a rematch of their entertaining and tense second-round playoff series. Morant, who missed the final three games of the series with a knee injury, had publicly lobbied for the rematch.
“We got what we wanted,” Morant tweeted Saturday.
The other three games will see the Milwaukee Bucks face the Boston Celtics, the Philadelphia 76ers take on the New York Knicks and the Denver Nuggets host the Phoenix Suns in intraconference matchups.
Jayson Tatum’s Celtics outlasted Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Bucks in a seven-game conference semifinals series, setting up an enticing rematch between the early Eastern Conference favorites. After adding free agent guard Jalen Brunson this summer, the Knicks will host Joel Embiid and James Harden at Madison Square Garden. Finally, two-time MVP Nikola Jokic will get another shot at the Suns, who posted a league-best 64 wins last season following their 2021 second-round series win over the Nuggets.
With Christmas landing on Sunday this year, the NBA will be forced to compete with an NFL triple-header featuring the Green Bay Packers against the Miami Dolphins, the Denver Broncos against the Los Angeles Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against the Arizona Cardinals. However, the two leagues won’t go head-to-head in the same markets; the NBA didn’t include the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Clippers while sending the Lakers and Suns on the road.
Indeed, Durant and the Nets are hardly alone in the snub department. Miami made the 2020 Finals and finished with the East’s best record last season, while the Clippers are expected to rejoin the title hunt with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George back healthy. Two of this offseason’s biggest buyers, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Atlanta Hawks, were left off despite adding Rudy Gobert and Dejounte Murray, respectively.
The Heat, Clippers, Timberwolves and Hawks all have cases, but they haven’t established themselves as bankable television darlings like Durant and Nets guard Kyrie Irving. Omitting Brooklyn, then, feels like a purposeful move by the league to sidestep the uncertainty around Durant’s future in favor of East teams that are more deserving (Milwaukee and Boston) and safer bets (Philadelphia and New York).
If Durant gets traded, the remaining Nets wouldn’t be worthy of center stage. Even if no trade materializes, it’s hard to bank on Durant, Irving and Ben Simmons hitting on all cylinders after all three have been consumed by off-court distractions and missed significant time over the last two seasons.
The NBA did set up a tantalizing backdoor possibility for its holiday lineup, given that Boston and Phoenix have both been mentioned as Durant suitors. Imagine Durant and the new-look Celtics welcoming Antetokounmpo to the TD Garden parquet for a superstar showdown that would trump James vs. Doncic and Curry vs. Morant. Christmas wishes don’t get much bigger and bolder than that. | 2022-08-15T15:35:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NBA Christmas features rematches, showdowns — and no Kevin Durant - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/15/christmas-games-nba/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/15/christmas-games-nba/ |
Ruto defeated veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, who was on his fifth bid for the presidency. What happens next will be closely watched.
Kenya's Deputy President and presidential candidate of Kenya Kwanza (Kenya First) political party coalition William Ruto supporters hold posters of him as they gather while waiting for results of Kenya's general election in Eldoret on August 15, 2022. (Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images)
Deputy President William Ruto, who painted himself as a champion for Kenya’s poor, was declared winner in the country’s presidential election Monday, defeating veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga.
But the announcement was enmeshed in controversy just minutes before, when four electoral commissioners said they would not stand by the results because of the “opaque nature” of the process.
And the contest was extremely close. Ruto, 55, won 50.49 percent of the vote, compared to 48.85 percent for Odinga, according to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission. The new president will succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta, who has served his two-term limit
The results came after nearly a week of tension-filled waiting across this East African nation, where past elections have been followed by deadly violence that many Kenyans desperately hoped to avoid this year.
What happens next — especially the reaction of Odinga and his supporters — will be closely watched in Kenya and abroad, including Washington, where Kenya is considered an important counterterrorism ally and anchor of stability in the region.
Odinga, who was on his fifth bid for the presidency, could challenge the results in Kenya’s Supreme Court, as he successfully did in 2017, when the court declared the results invalid during a period marred by violent street protests and human rights violations.
Although voting unfolded largely peacefully Tuesday, tension ratcheted up in the days since polls closed. Disinformation has proliferated online, fueled by both campaigns.
Kenya’s independent election commission announced one of its officials had gone missing. Media organizations , which had started tallying the results on their own, paused and then resumed their counts, giving a variety of explanations that left Kenyans with more questions than answers. Election officials urged patience.
As anxiety increased, some families in parts of the country that had seen violence erupt in past elections packed their bags and moved. Others did not have that option.
“I don’t have money, but if I did, I would move,” said 89-year-old Monica Waithera, whose daughter was killed when violence erupted in Mathare, one of Nairobi’s largest slums, in 2008.
Waithera had been having trouble sleeping since the polls closed, worried about what could happen — but hopeful there would be peace.
“I’m praying that things will not get bad again,” she said, "and that God will send us a leader... a leader who can help me buy milk.”
The new president will have to tackle the country’s massive debt, soaring inflation, a drought in the north that has left millions hungry and increasing youth unemployment.
The race to succeed Kenyatta was among Kenya’s most tightly contested, pitting two of the country’s most established politicians against one another. This year, in a twist, Kenyatta backed Odinga, a longtime adversary with whom he formed an alliance in 2018, over Ruto, his deputy. Kenyatta and Ruto publicly fell out during their second term in government and frequently sniped at each other on the campaign trail.
Unlike past elections, this competition was shaped more by class than ethnicity, with Ruto describing the competition as one between “hustlers” like himself and “dynasties” like those of the Kenyattas and Odingas. (Odinga’s father was the country’s first vice president, and Kenyatta’s was its first president.)
Ruto often talked about being a chicken seller in his youth, arguing that he is best positioned to represent Kenya’s youth and poorest citizens and promising a “bottom-up” economic model targeted toward small businesses and addressing unemployment.
Odinga countered that Ruto is trying “to create a class war” and is not the champion of the poor he claims. Ruto, who built his career as a businessman, now travels frequently in helicopters and owns numerous properties, including a mansion, a luxury hotel and a massive chicken plant.
Ruto has dismissed claims by critics that his wealth was acquired through corruption. His running-mate, Rigathi Gachagua, was ordered by a court last month to pay back about 1.7 million that it determined was linked to corruption. Gachagua said the decision was meant to undermine his candidacy.
Tribe still played an important factor, with Ruto’s success due in part to his support among the Kikuyus, Kenya’s largest tribe, according to initial results. Three of Kenya’s four presidents, including Kenyatta, have been Kikuyus (the late-President Daniel arap Moi was from the Kalenjin tribe). Ruto is from the Kalenjin tribe, and Odinga is from the Luo tribe, which historically has had an especially tense relationship with Kikuyus.
After casting her vote in Nairobi, Anne Mugure, 61, said she voted for Ruto because she thought he would do the best job — and also because, as a Kikuyu, she said had reservations about Odinga.
The grandmother, who said she works multiple jobs to get by, said Ruto’s description of himself as a “hustler” resonated. | 2022-08-15T15:47:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kenya election: Raila Odinga projected to win the presidency - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/kenya-elections-odinga-ruto/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/15/kenya-elections-odinga-ruto/ |
Last week a government agency put out a news release that attracted a lot of attention. It began:
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in July on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 1.3 percent in June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 8.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.
The BLS always reports the monthly change first in these inflation reports (or at least it has since 1994, which is how far back its news release archive goes), but it’s the 12-month change that tends to get cited most in the media and in political discourse. So when President Joe Biden and others in his administration chose to emphasize what Biden called “July’s 0% inflation,” he got a lot of blowback on that narrow but in this case informative slice of the national discourse that is Twitter.
Much of it came from right-leaning politicians and political commentators, as well as Twitter Inc. fact checkers, who don’t understand how inflation is calculated, which in turn inspired much tut-tutting from economic commentators who do. The price level, as measured by the CPI, did not increase from June to July — more precisely, it declined 0.019%, which the BLS rounded to zero. Biden’s statement was not false.
It was of course incomplete, but elected officials have been emphasizing the economic statistics that make them look good and downplaying the ones that make them look bad since the advent of economic statistics. Perhaps it was politically unwise of Biden to do so in this case, but that’s not really my department. What I am curious about is what the right time period is over which to measure inflation.
Most monthly economic statistics are reported in terms of the change from the previous month, which makes sense given that the monthly change is the new information. Again, this is the statistic mentioned first in BLS inflation reports. But the annual percentage change is a lot easier to get one’s head around than the often-sub-1% monthly changes. And while it’s simple enough to convert monthly changes into annual rates (along the lines of what the US Bureau of Economic Analysis does with quarterly gross domestic product), with inflation the results can be dizzyingly volatile. The annualized rate of monthly inflation was -0.2% in July, 17.1% in June, 12.3% in May and 4.1% in April. That’s maybe not so informative!
But while most of the time the 12-month change is a simpler and more sensible way to gauge the inflationary trend, at turning points or “regime changes” it really isn’t. As inflation rapidly accelerated in early 2021, with annualized monthly increases of 3% in January, 5.4% in February and 7.9% in March, the headline year-over-year figures were 1.4%, 1.7% and 2.7%, respectively. That also wasn’t so informative!
One way to get around this might be to look at changes over periods other than one month and one year. As Harvard economist and former Bill Clinton and Barack Obama adviser Jason Furman put it on Twitter:
Some time periods that you can/should measure and usefully think about inflation over: 1 month 2 months 3 months 4 months 5 months 6 months 7 months 8 months 9 months 10 months 11 months 12 months 13 months 14 months ... 23 months 24 months 25 months 26 months 27 months ...
In that spirit, I calculated current inflation over every period from one to 24 months, with all the rates annualized to make them comparable:
The slightly negative one-month inflation number is the anomaly here. The three-month and six-month inflation rates are (when converted into annual rates) even higher than the one-year rate. Maybe July’s price stability is a harbinger of lower inflation ahead, or maybe it’s just a reflection of the volatility of the price of gasoline, which makes up about 5% of the spending basket reflected in CPI. Gas prices fell at a 62% annual rate in July after rising 256% annualized in June and 62% in May.
To get around that volatility, monetary policy makers and other inflation observers often look at the price level minus food and energy, aka “core” CPI. Here’s core inflation measured over every period from one to 24 months.
Inflation is markedly lower over one month than over the other periods here, too, which I guess raises the odds that it really is downshifting. Then again, it was still 3.8% in July, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s inflation “nowcast” as of Aug. 15 has it bouncing back to 5.9% annualized in August.
Other ways of getting at the true inflation rate include measures such as the Cleveland Fed’s median and trimmed-mean CPIs, both of which rose in July while the all-items CPI stayed flat, and the personal consumption expenditures price index for July that will be released Aug. 26 by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and usually generates inflation rates a bit lower than the CPI-based ones.
Last week’s Twitter discussions also revealed some interesting personal approaches. “I try to set half my mood based on the current month’s inflation print, a quarter based on the prior month’s, and the remaining quarter based on the previous 10 months,” wrote Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Alan Cole of the Conference Board offered this (tongue-in-cheek, I think) suggestion:
The ideal is the infinite sum of all monthly inflation measurements, each multiplied by (2/3)^n, where n is the number of months ago. All divided by three, of course, to get a weighted average from the infinite series…
I tried that with monthly CPI data going back to 1913. It came to 6% annualized inflation in July. That’s down from 9% in June (yay!). It’s still a lot more than zero.
• ‘The End of the Beginning’ of the War on Inflation: John Authers | 2022-08-15T17:10:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Inflation Can Be Both 0% and 8.5% at the Same Time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-inflation-can-be-both-0percent-and-85percent-at-the-same-time/2022/08/15/3b711612-1cb6-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/how-inflation-can-be-both-0percent-and-85percent-at-the-same-time/2022/08/15/3b711612-1cb6-11ed-9ce6-68253bd31864_story.html |
Sayedgul lost nine family members, including his parents and 1-year-old sister, when his house was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike on Nov. 19, 2017, in Musa Qala, Afghanistan. (Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post)
When the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan last summer and U.S. forces began a chaotic exit, the world watched in horror as people flooded the airport in Kabul, desperate to escape Taliban rule.
But far from the capital city, in Helmand province, the news of Taliban victory was met with joy and relief. Helmand was home to some of the most gruesome fighting during the war, and people were ready for peace.
Kabul bureau chief Susannah George reports on what life is like there now. At schools, markets, courts and health clinics, a degree of normalcy has returned to daily life – but the year has exposed the depths of Afghanistan’s trauma and laid bare the shortcomings of the Taliban government. | 2022-08-15T17:11:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The cost of peace in Afghanistan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-cost-of-peace-in-afghanistan-/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/the-cost-of-peace-in-afghanistan-/ |
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