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PM Update: Poorly timed showers for trick-or-treaters this evening
There may still be some drier moments.
A warm spell is getting underway, and today’s temperatures rose deep into the 60s despite a lot of clouds. Although it has been dry other than a quick shower for Halloween so far, that’s changing as we head into the evening. Some poorly timed rain moves through tonight before sunshine and 70s make a return Tuesday.
Through Tonight: Unfortunately for trick-or-treating, raindrops are a good bet for much of the evening. There might be a bit of a lull for a time in the early evening perhaps somewhere in the 5-7 p.m. time frame. It’s hard to say if it’ll be long enough for much help, though. Showers may be heavier for a time later in the evening, before winding down around midnight. Temperatures will be on the mild side, staying above 60 in most spots through the evening, on the way to lows in the mid-50s to near 60. There could be some patchy late fog.
Tomorrow (Tuesday): Clouds may still be around in the morning, but they will be lessening with time. Partly to mostly sunny conditions in the afternoon will help boost temperatures to near and above 70. Winds will be from the north around 10 mph, with gusts to near 20 mph.
Spooky weather: This is the first Halloween with measurable rain in Washington since 2019, when 1.25 inches fell. Although our average high is down to 64 degrees, four of the last five Halloweens have been at least as warm as today. The hottest Oct. 31 came back in 1950, when the high reached 85 degrees. In 1925, it only got to 41, during D.C.'s coldest Halloween. As recently as 2002, it was a chilly 47 for the high. | 2022-10-31T20:13:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PM Update: Poorly timed showers for trick-or-treaters this evening - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/10/31/dc-area-forecast-halloween-showers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/10/31/dc-area-forecast-halloween-showers/ |
People rally in support of affirmative action in college admissions outside the Supreme Court on Monday, Oct 31, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Conservative Supreme Court justices on Monday seemed open to ending decades of precedent allowing race-conscious admission decisions at colleges and universities, repeatedly expressing doubt that the institutions would ever concede an “endpoint” in their use of race to build diverse student bodies.
After nearly five hours of oral argument, the programs at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill seemed endangered. The question is how broad such a decision might be, and what it would mean for other institutions of higher education.
Overturning the court’s precedents that race can be one factor of many in making admission decisions would have “profound consequences” for “the nation that we are and the nation that we aspire to be,” Solicitor General Elizabeth. B. Prelogar told the justices during arguments in the Harvard case. She said educating a diverse group of national leaders had consequences for the military, medical and scientific communities and corporate America.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito on Oct. 31 challenged attorney Seth Waxman on Harvard's admission policies. (Video: The Washington Post)
But the court’s conservatives took the two cases to revisit decades of Supreme Court decisions that tolerated a limited use of racial classifications, and seemed unsatisfied with assertions from lawyers representing the schools that the end was near for the use of race-conscious policies. Under repeated questioning, those lawyers conceded they could not provide a date-specific answer to the question: “When will it end?”
Read live updates from Monday's oral arguments on UNC, Harvard cases
Patrick Strawbridge, the lawyer representing Students for Fair Admissions, the group that brought both challenges, argued that the Supreme Court had rejected racial classifications in marriage, jury selection and assignment of children to elementary schools.
By allowing it in college admissions, “Some applicants are incentivized to conceal their race,” Strawbridge said in the UNC case. “Others who were admitted on merit have their accomplishments diminished by assumptions that their race played a role in their admission. And there is no evidence that after two decades [the court’s precedent] has somehow reduced the role of race on campus.”
Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has said that race may be used as one factor universities can consider in evaluating applicants for admission. Universities say there is a continuing need for affirmative action to build diverse student bodies, which they say strengthen the overall learning environment with distinct perspectives and experiences.
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued on Oct. 31 that Reconstruction-era integration policies are relevant to current racial disparities in education. (Video: The Washington Post)
Harvard and UNC describe as “holistic” the process the universities use to review applicants. If schools are not permitted to use race, these universities say, enrollment by minorities will decline dramatically.
Challengers want the court to overturn long-standing precedent and rule that considerations of race violate federal law and the Constitution. Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, said universities put too much weight on race and that the nation cannot remedy past discrimination with racial preferences, which he considers a different form of discrimination.
By the end of Monday’s contentious arguments, Prelogar and the lawyer for Harvard urged the justices to send the cases back if they had doubt about how closely the processes were scrutinized, rather than overturn the court’s precedents.
A majority of Americans support a ban on race-conscious admissions policies, according to a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll, but an equally strong number back programs to boost racial diversity on college campuses.
In 2003 and again in 2016, the court upheld the limited use of race in admissions and said that the educational benefits of a diverse student body justify some intrusion on the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, which generally forbids the government from making decisions based on race.
But only one justice in the four-member majority in the 2016 case involving the University of Texas is still on the court; three Trump nominees have solidified a conservative 6-3 majority. There is disagreement among the justices about whether the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment means the Constitution must be colorblind.
Challengers say that under the equal protection clause, government-run universities like UNC cannot use race as a factor in admissions’ decisions. Harvard is not subject to that constitutional clause, but must adhere to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That statute prohibits racial discrimination, exclusion or denial of benefits under “any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Harvard, a private institution, is subject to Title VI because it receives millions in federal grants and enrolls students who pay in part with federal financial aid. UNC, a public university, is covered by both the Constitution and Title VI, which incorporates equal protection standards after Title VI.
The cases are Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Sens. Booker, Baldwin to campaign with Wisconsin’s Barnes
5:59 PMWarnock campaign presses Walker over Kanye West shout-out
5:35 PMRepublican National Committee sues over poll workers in Flint, Mich. | 2022-10-31T20:17:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UNC, Harvard affirmative action programs seem endangered by Supreme Court - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/supreme-court-race-college-admissions-harvard-unc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/supreme-court-race-college-admissions-harvard-unc/ |
Amid rising autocracy, Latin American democracy is holding on
Candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva kisses his ticket after voting in the presidential runoff election in São Paulo, Brazil, on Sunday. (Andre Penner/AP Photo)
Leftist candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has won Sunday’s presidential election in Brazil by a slender 1.8 percentage-point margin over the right-wing incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro. News of his victory came with more than a few caveats and qualifications: As of Monday afternoon, Mr. Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who had previously questioned the validity of Brazil’s election process and whose supporters had made scattered attempts to block election-day poll access for Mr. da Silva’s supporters, had not yet conceded the race.
Brazil emerges from this bitterly contested campaign divided almost in two, between the Trump-like populist movement Mr. Bolsonaro built and the anybody-but-Bolsonaro-coalition that rallied to Mr. da Silva’s banner. Gridlock might lie ahead in Brasília, given that Brazil’s voters elected a conservative Congress stocked with pro-Bolsonaro legislators. Mr. da Silva’s own record is hardly pristine. A former president himself, Mr. da Silva, 77, was ineligible to run in the 2018 presidential election because he was serving jail time for corruption. His candidacy in 2022 was allowed only because a court annulled that conviction last year — on a technicality.
On balance, though, this is a positive story for democracy, both in Brazil and in Latin America generally. Contentious as it was, the election itself came off mostly peacefully; the Superior Electoral Court’s tabulation of about 124 million digitally cast votes was swift and accurate. Mr. Bolsonaro’s concession — or lack thereof — seems decreasingly relevant given the clarity of the results and the fact that world leaders quickly expressed their congratulations to Mr. da Silva on his victory. Those leaders included, appropriately, President Biden. Perhaps more important, though, was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of Mr. da Silva’s win, which included praise for his “high political authority.” This, after Mr. Bolsonaro had expressed “solidarity” with Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, and had criticized international sanctions against Mr. Putin’s regime.
In short, if Mr. Bolsonaro does attempt some sort of resistance, it would be against the — rare — unified sentiment of Washington and Moscow. It’s possible, though political allies are advising him against it. Crying fraud, Trump style, between now and Mr. da Silva’s inauguration Jan. 1, might be too much of a contradiction even for Mr. Bolsonaro, given that he accepted the validity of the election process when it produced a surprisingly strong first-round finish for him on Oct. 2, forcing Sunday’s runoff.
Mr. da Silva’s win completes the “pink tide” of victories for presidential candidates that ushered in leftist Chilean, Colombian and Peruvian winners over the past two years. Rather than left-wing dominance in South America, however, these results are more indicative of political realignment and polarization. Much like their kindred democracies in the United States and Europe, those of Latin America are experiencing a decomposition of traditional party allegiances amid waves of right- and left-wing populism. Left-wing presidents often contend with congresses that are fragmented or dominated by their political opponents. Often portrayed as a symptom of instability, divided government can serve as a healthy check on the executive, which is how Mr. da Silva at least promised to treat it in his post-election remarks. “I will govern for 215 million Brazilians, and not just for those who voted for me,” he said.
In some countries, institutions have not been able to withstand the pressure. Nicaragua has fallen under the totalitarian rule of President Daniel Ortega; in El Salvador, populist President Nayib Bukele is steering an increasingly authoritarian course and has announced his intent to seek a second five-year term in 2024, after his loyalists on the Supreme Court overruled a previously applicable reelection ban. And yet even in Peru, where President Pedro Castillo’s 15-month-old administration is mired in corruption scandals and an opposition-dominated Congress has tried twice to impeach him, the basic constitutional framework is still holding. In September, Chile’s voters overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional overhaul backed by President Gabriel Boric — who accepted the result and promised to work with opposition legislators to come up with new reforms.
For the health of the climate, Mr. da Silva will likely be an improvement over Mr. Bolsonaro, who resisted efforts to protect the Amazon rainforest. On the great contest between democracy and autocracy that is the war in Ukraine, Mr. da Silva has expressed the view that Mr. Putin’s invasion was wrong, but regrettably added that Ukraine shares the blame for it. Perhaps that is why Mr. Putin was prepared to accept his victory.
A better arena for Mr. da Silva’s diplomatic influence would be his own hemisphere, where the most pressing issue might be the restoration of democracy in neighboring Venezuela. As a veteran leftist, Mr. da Silva has the ideological heritage and connections to engage with Caracas; as a democrat, he has a duty to do so. The Biden administration should explore the possibilities to work with him. Enabling a transition to free and fair elections in Venezuela could be the crowning achievement of Mr. da Silva’s long career. | 2022-10-31T21:01:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Bolsonaro loss completes 'pink tide' with Chile, Colombia, Peru - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/brazil-election-results-latin-america-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/brazil-election-results-latin-america-democracy/ |
America must step out of this self-destructive zombie dance
By Amanda Ripley
A police officer rolls out yellow tape on the closed street below the home of Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in San Francisco on Oct. 28. (Eric Risberg/AP)
Amanda Ripley is the author of “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped — and How We Get Out” and host of the Slate podcast “How To!”
For all the chaos of political violence, one thing is predictable. In highly polarized countries, it spikes right before and after an election, no matter the continent.
So, here we are. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband has been viciously assaulted in the dead of night, and reported threats against members of Congress are up more than tenfold since 2016, coming in last year at the rate of 26 per day.
But if it is a frightening time, it’s not a surprising one. There’s nothing to see here that hasn’t been seen in other countries for years. High conflict — the kind that is self-destructive and stubbornly resistant to resolution — is not mysterious. And we have much more wisdom about how to respond to it than we think.
I find it hopeful to remember this: We have not even begun to do the most basic things you would do if you wanted to interrupt this conflict.
The Post's View: How to respond to the horrifying Pelosi attack
The usual intuition right now is to blame, quite understandably. Blame the dehumanizing rhetoric of certain GOP politicians, blame the lack of security at the Pelosis’ home, blame mental health. That is all fair game. But if you think it will be enough to change this diabolical cycle we’re in, you are going to be disappointed.
“It’s not that these questions are irrelevant, not at all,” says Nealin Parker, who has worked in conflict zones worldwide and now heads Common Ground USA, part of the world’s largest peacebuilding organization. “But if you want the future to look different than the past, you have to focus on what to do differently. You have to reject the whole set of actions that got you to this point.”
What would “different” look like? The only good option is to do counterintuitive things. We must step out of the zombie dance we are in.
One lesson I’ve learned in covering dysfunctional conflict for the past five years is that most people, even very violent people, want to live. And they want their families to be safe. That is one thing we all have in common. Horrific incidents such as the one at Pelosi’s home offer an unusual (and fleeting) opportunity to invite people to do something differently.
First, sign the contract. All over the world, the U.S. government has pushed politicians to sign codes of conduct in times of conflict. Gang-violence interrupters do this every day in Chicago and other cities — urging combatants and their supporters to join a nonaggression pact. It’s time to invite American politicians and pundits to do what we’ve long asked other people, in far more harrowing circumstances, to do.
In gangs, nonaggression pacts might include rules about social media (the place where most gang violence gets triggered today). Each side promises not to disrespect those who have been killed in the conflict, for example.
In politics, this might mean pledging not to dehumanize one’s opponent on social media or elsewhere (by saying they are evil or hate the United States, for example). The codes could include vows to accept the results of the election after reasonable due process and, of course, to condemn all acts of violence, especially when they are perpetrated against a member of the opposition. This is the lowest possible bar for a democracy to function, something our own government has asked people emerging from civil war and genocide to do.
Why haven’t we asked the same of our own leaders?
Now, just so you know, it’s also true that almost every such pact gets violated. There’s invariably some rogue partisan or gangbanger who tries to blow up the deal. That is what conflict entrepreneurs do, and we’ve got a lot of them in powerful places right now. But the agreement creates a nonviolent mechanism to put the deal back together again — to seek redress from the leaders of the group, when violations happen. That might mean taking down a dehumanizing post on Twitter or it could mean a party withdraws support from a candidate for a period of time. This is what civilized societies do: They create a process that is imperfect but knowable and reliable. Without a trustworthy process, humans take vengeance into their own hands.
Walk the walk. Part of how we got into this mess is by watching politicians and pundits gleefully attack each other on TV. Part of how we get out of it is by doing the opposite: having credible messengers from each side demonstrate human decency.
In 2020, the two candidates running for governor of Utah, Republican Spencer Cox and Democrat Chris Peterson, jointly filmed an ad in which they committed to respect and uphold democratic norms and a peaceful transition of power. Right in front of our eyes, they treated each other like humans — albeit humans who profoundly disagree about many things. That ad went viral, giving both of their campaigns an unexpected boost — and suggesting that voters were hungry for more.
Recently, researchers at Stanford University, MIT and a handful of other universities tested this ad to see whether it had a measurable effect on some 32,000 people who watched it. It turned out to be one of the most effective “treatments” studied, significantly reducing support for partisan violence and for antidemocratic practices (such as overthrowing an election and preventing people from voting).
One thing Americans still do exceptionally well is to produce original, creative content. We tell stories that move people to imagine a better world. Now is the time to tell a different story, one of courage and decency alongside honest debate.
Right-size the fear. One predictable cause of collective violence is collective fear. When threat levels are high and fear is mixed with contempt, disgust and humiliation, humans will feel they have no choice but to annihilate one another. (Note: This is an ancient and human algorithm, the kind you can count on.) Politicians, journalists, podcast hosts, pundits and other influencers have jacked up the threat level beyond what the evidence for our troubles supports. Fear of the end of democracy (I’m talking to you, my journalist friends), fear of one another (I’m talking to you, Tucker Carlson), fear of the other party (I’m talking to you, dear reader, who is right now chastising me for this false equivalency).
All of this behavior is un-American. Yes, some people are more to blame than others. What now? It’s time to get out of the conflict trap we’re in, to cease obsessing over the same questions and storylines and expand our imagination.
We, the public, are being manipulated by conflict mongers. We are being turned against each other and we are all suffering, to different degrees. It is time to question these storylines, to question our fears as often as we have learned to question truth. And then demand something radically different, something that will enable us to coexist. We know how to do this. | 2022-10-31T21:01:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | America must step out of this self-destructive zombie dance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/political-violence-pelosi-conflict/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/political-violence-pelosi-conflict/ |
The Paul Pelosi attack aftermath highlights what’s broken in politics
Police tape blocks a street outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband, Paul Pelosi, in San Francisco on Friday. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
There are still questions surrounding last week’s attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). But what is known, particularly since the release of a federal indictment on Monday, is fairly uncomplicated.
A man with an apparent history of abusive behavior who had increasingly embraced conspiracy theories and delusions broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home and awoke Paul Pelosi. The suspect, David DePape, indicated he was looking for the House speaker. When police arrived, they found Paul Pelosi and DePape struggling over a hammer. DePape managed to strike Pelosi before being subdued and is now in custody. Paul Pelosi remains in the hospital.
This core set of facts, though, lands in the center of a political and media whirlpool sped up by years of polarization and churned to a roil by the midterm elections. In the days since the attack, we’ve seen disconcertingly familiar responses rooted in some of the most toxic and dishonest patterns in America.
We can begin with DePape’s professed views, as posted online and reviewed by The Washington Post. In recent weeks, he amplified a barrage of views that are unquestionably associated far more with the political right than the left. Those include “support of fringe commentators and far-right personalities” and many posts “filled with screeds against Jews, Black people, Democrats, the media and transgender people.”
When a man ascribing to the QAnon conspiracy theory allegedly committed a murder on Staten Island and after a fervent supporter of Donald Trump mailed inert pipe bombs to members of the media, I spoke with a psychologist about the overlap of violence, delusions and political rhetoric. Cheryl Paradis, professor of psychology at Marymount Manhattan College in New York, explained that the increased presence of politics in American culture had supplanted past triggers for delusional behavior.
That put political figures at more risk, she said. “Whenever people are identified as targets, it increases the likelihood that someone might act against them.”
While Paul Pelosi hasn’t been a common target of political discussion in recent years, that’s not whom DePape was looking for when he arrived at the Pelosi house. He was seeking Nancy Pelosi, who has for years been a target of right-wing hostility. If DePape is shown to have been suffering from mental illness that contributed to his actions, it’s clear that political rhetoric about Pelosi was a key factor in bringing him to the house.
The attack is inextricable from a broader concern about political violence in the United States. That DePape was allegedly seeking out the speaker immediately drew comparisons to the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That riot was unique in one way that isn’t common to other acts of political violence: There was no question about sanity or intent. Individual acts of violence can often be attributed to questions about the perpetrator’s mental health, as was the case with Cesar Sayoc, the man who sent those inert pipe bombs. Similarly, some of the response to DePape’s having promoted right-wing rhetoric led to his actions being attributed to mental illness.
But that’s not the narrative that gained the most traction. Instead, many observers tried to link the attack to a rise in crime in San Francisco and, by extension, in many cities with Democratic leaders. This is a central argument for the Republican Party as the midterm elections loom, despite being at best loosely tied to available evidence. That’s the appeal: It turns a violent attack against a frequent target of the right by a suspect espousing right-wing rhetoric into a political ding on Democrats. It allows the narrative to be about what Democrats are doing wrong, instead of having to talk about where right-wing rhetoric is problematic.
That was the less grotesque response. Many on the right went further, claiming without evidence that DePape and Paul Pelosi were engaged in some sort of intimate relationship. On Monday, this nonsense was trending on Twitter.
It cannot be expressed frequently enough that this is baseless. It’s largely based on incomplete or inaccurate early reports about what happened in the attack. It also defies credulity from the standpoint that DePape spent weeks sharing right-wing and conspiratorial content on the web, something that fits far more neatly into the real story than the contrived one.
The contrived, false one, though, holds other appeals. It plays into the unceasing assumption by many on the right that non-Republicans in positions of power lie constantly about everything. It shifts the blame from the rhetoric of the right to the perceived sins of the left. Most importantly, it allows the right to treat Paul Pelosi as an object of ridicule instead of a victim. To treat Democratic leaders not as actual targets of violence but, instead, as the real wrongdoers.
What made this particular narrative so potent — and what made it trend on Twitter — was that it was juicy chum for the right’s social media sphere. Media Matters’ Matt Gertz summarized the system well over the weekend: There’s an audience for extreme conspiracy theories and an infrastructure for vetting and promoting them. There’s also very little interest in self-correcting, as made most obvious in the response to Donald Trump’s false claims about the election. So once the attack became news, there was an entire attention economy ready to pounce and sell anti-left claims to right-wing consumers. Grotesque memes emerged and were shared by people including Donald Trump Jr.
Think about the effect here: Instead of there being a discussion about how an 82-year-old man was beaten with a hammer simply because his wife is a prominent Democrat, the discussion was instead about how Democrats are bad on crime or, worse, how the husband of that prominent Democrat is a deviant who brought it on himself. The currency of that latter frame was so robust that Elon Musk, new owner of Twitter and an expert in the business of appealing to the fringe right, shared a baseless conspiracy theory on his platform.
Charlie Kirk calls for his audience to post bail for Pelosi attacker: "If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out...Bail him out and then go ask him some questions" pic.twitter.com/EkMqFIYUn1
According to the federal indictment, DePape told San Francisco police that he wanted to hold Pelosi hostage and break her kneecaps if she lied to him. His alleged attack on Paul Pelosi suggests that he was willing to go further, but it’s not clear that he was engaged in a clearheaded effort to assassinate the Democratic leader as a function of his considered political beliefs.
But even if that was some consolation, which it really shouldn’t be, the aftermath of the attack was perhaps worse. It’s not simply that a man seriously injured Paul Pelosi unquestionably because of his spouse; it’s that there’s an ecosystem interested in scoring points against the left regardless of how morally repulsive doing so might be.
Donald Trump Jr., the son of a former president of the United States, did briefly share an even more repulsive homophobic image.
This is the son of a former president of the United States. That post was later deleted or removed, but, when viewed on Monday afternoon, the comments left by his followers were appreciative.
Ahead of midterms, Biden accuses oil companies of ‘war profiteering’
7:46 PMSens. Booker, Baldwin to campaign with Wisconsin’s Barnes | 2022-10-31T21:23:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Paul Pelosi attack aftermath highlights what’s broken in politics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/paul-pelosi-attack-right-wing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/paul-pelosi-attack-right-wing/ |
Ketanji Brown Jackson asks the right question about affirmative action
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson at the Supreme Court building in Washington on Oct. 7. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
The Supreme Court’s newest member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, got to the heart of the matter in Monday’s oral arguments over affirmative action in college admissions: Does the nation’s long history of racial discrimination still matter?
The court’s conservative majority seems poised to tell universities they may no longer consider race as a factor in admissions. But if any justices end up having second thoughts, it might be because of a hypothetical situation Jackson posited to Students for Fair Admissions’ attorney Patrick Strawbridge, who argued for banning the University of North Carolina and Harvard University’s affirmative action policies.
Jackson’s riddle: One applicant writes in his essay that it is important to him that he be admitted because his family has lived in North Carolina since before the Civil War and he would be the fifth generation of his family to proudly attend UNC. Another applicant writes that his family, too, has lived in North Carolina since before the Civil War, and it is important to him that he attend UNC because he is the descendant of enslaved people and his ancestors were barred from attending the university. Was Strawbridge arguing that the university could give preference to the first candidate but not to the second?
Strawbridge hemmed and hawed, but acknowledged that, yes, that was his position. He said nothing prohibits “honoring those who have overcome slavery or recognizing its past contribution to racial segregation,” in other contexts but that this is not “a basis to make decisions about admission of students who are born in 2003.”
That makes no earthly sense. It is a historical fact that race has mattered massively, decisively and tragically in this country since its founding, and in ways that continue to shape the lives of young people today. If the court decides that race is now irrelevant and must be ignored, it negates that history by pretending it does not still resonate.
The fact is that universities have admissions policies that greatly favor wealthy White applicants — “legacies” whose parents attended the school; sons and daughters of major donors; applicants who are good at arcane sports not offered at the high schools most minority students attend. One of the court’s most conservative members noted this reality. If those preferences were ended, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch observed, “We just would have a crummy squash team and no art museum. Then what?”
The answer: Universities might have more room in their freshman classes to address alleged discrimination against qualified Asian American applicants. Fairness would suggest that ending preferences for the wealthy and well-connected is a better remedy than ending policies designed to provide opportunity for underrepresented applicants.
The court’s three liberal justices — Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — tried to press home the continuing reality of structural racism. But the conservatives sounded impatient with the idea that any measure of race-consciousness is still necessary.
“I don’t know how you can say the program will ever end,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Y. Park, who was defending UNC’s admissions policies. “You’re always going to have to look at race because you say race matters.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett cited the court’s 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger ruling that allowed limited use of race as a factor in college admissions but predicted that such preferences would probably not be needed 25 years from then. “All governmental use of race must have a logical end point,” she read from Grutter, before asking: “When is your sunset? How do you know when you’re done? I appreciate that you’re undertaking all those efforts, but when is the end point?”
How about when the racial wealth gap is closed? As a report last year by the Federal Reserve pointed out, “the average Black and Hispanic or Latino households earn about half as much as the average White household and own only about 15 to 20 percent as much net wealth.” What about when the mean SAT scores for Black, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native high school students consistently are on par with those of White and Asian students? Maybe when we are a generation removed from the vast racial inequities of mass incarceration?
That’s the honest answer: Affirmative action is a very late-in-the-game intervention to try to prevent larger inequities from replicating themselves inside a small number of elite institutions. Affirmative action will no longer be necessary when the larger conditions that make it necessary have been done away with.
I wish we lived in a society where race was irrelevant, but we do not. As Jackson’s thought experiment demonstrated, racism has left a deep and enduring imprint. Members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority might close their eyes and ears, but they cannot wish away our history — or our present.
Opinions on affirmative action
Opinion|Ketanji Brown Jackson asks the right question about affirmative action
Opinion|On race-conscious university admissions, SCOTUS should follow precedent | 2022-10-31T21:31:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ketanji Brown Jackson asks the right question about affirmative action - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/ketanji-brown-jackson-legacies-affirmative-action/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/ketanji-brown-jackson-legacies-affirmative-action/ |
D.C. Council members disagree on bill to rename street for Marion Barry
People cross the street in front of Good Hope Carry-Out restaurant along Good Hope Road SE in D.C. in 2019. (Marlena Sloss/The Washington Post)
For years, D.C. has debated the merits of renaming a major thoroughfare in Southeast Washington in honor of Marion Barry, the four-term leader known as the “mayor for life” who died in 2014.
But one legislator’s push to rename the road right away has turned the issue from a long-brewing idea into a suddenly bitter disagreement among some council members.
Trayon White Sr. (D), who represents Barry’s home of Ward 8, released a video on Instagram on Monday asking the ward’s residents to support his bill to rename Good Hope Road SE as Marion Barry Avenue. White said he had introduced emergency legislation to speedily rename the road but that D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) blocked White’s bill from the agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting.
“This is an insult to our intelligence and our democracy. We need to decide what we need in our own community. We don’t need no one else deciding what we want for our people in our community,” White said in his Instagram video, saying that thousands of Ward 8 residents have signed a petition in favor of renaming the road. He then urged residents to call Mendelson’s office to express their support for the bill, twice repeating Mendelson’s phone number.
“We had a champion, Marion Barry, our mayor for life who fought for us. And it’s time for us to fight for him,” White said.
At a news conference Monday about upcoming legislation, Mendelson said he blocked White’s bill from Tuesday’s agenda because he believes the bill should have a public hearing before the council votes on it. The bill would have significant impact on residents and businesses: More than 1,000 would have to change their addresses to Marion Barry Avenue, Mendelson said.
“There’s this false narrative that I am opposed to the legislation. I am not,” Mendelson said. But, he said, he felt that to vote on the bill before a hearing on the permanent, rather than emergency, version of the legislation would be unfair and “disrespectful” to affected residents and business owners. The permanent legislation, which is supported by 10 of the council’s 13 members, is scheduled for a public hearing on Dec. 13, he said.
In a text message to The Washington Post, White said he would support a public hearing, but he still wanted a rapid vote on the emergency legislation before the council term expires at the end of the year, which would mean the bill would be reintroduced next year.
Shortly after White posted his Instagram video on Monday, Mendelson said, a person called Mendelson’s office and made a violent threat. He said it was the first time he has reported a threat to police in many years.
The District erected a statue of Barry outside the seat of city government after his death, and more recently renamed a government building in his honor. The proposal to rename Good Hope Road has been met with mixed reactions in Ward 8, where some have said they are reluctant to change the name of a street with a long history.
Barry himself once unsuccessfully tried to rename the road, proposing that it should honor human rights activist Marcus Garvey. | 2022-10-31T21:31:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Council members disagree on bill to rename street for Marion Barry - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/31/dc-marion-barry-avenue-trayon-white/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/31/dc-marion-barry-avenue-trayon-white/ |
Philadelphia 76ers lose two draft picks for free agency violation
Daryl Morey and the Philadelphia 76ers were docked two second-round draft picks for their recruitment of forward P.J. Tucker and Danuel House Jr. (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
The Philadelphia 76ers have been docked a pair of draft picks after an NBA investigation concluded that the franchise made improper contact with two free agents last summer.
The NBA announced Monday that the 76ers must forfeit their 2023 and 2024 second-round picks for making contact with P.J. Tucker and Danuel House Jr. before the free agency period officially opened. Both players eventually signed with the 76ers as part of President Daryl Morey’s effort to bolster his rotation around stars Joel Embiid and James Harden.
Tucker, a 37-year-old defensive stopper, left the Miami Heat to sign a three-year, $33 million contract with Philadelphia. House, a 29-year-old wing, signed a two-year, $8.4 million deal with the 76ers after spending last season with the Houston Rockets, New York Knicks and Utah Jazz.
The signings completed a reunion for Morey, Harden, Tucker and House, who were all previously together in Houston. Harden, 33, turned down a $47.4 million player option to sign a two-year, $68 million dollar contract this summer, saying that he had made a financial sacrifice to help accommodate Houston’s other moves.
“Taking less money this year to sign as many players as we needed to help us contend and be the last team standing was very, very important to me,” Harden said at the time, according to the Associated Press.
The NBA, which implemented stricter rules and punishments around improper free agency contact between teams and players in 2019, opened its investigation into the 76ers in July. Previous investigations into the Chicago Bulls, Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks resulted in draft-pick forfeitures.
“The Philadelphia 76ers fully cooperated with the NBA’s investigation and acknowledge the league’s ruling,” the 76ers said in a brief statement. “We’re moving forward, focused on the season ahead.”
Philadelphia entered Monday’s action with a 3-4 record.
NBA stars are already having trouble staying healthy after comebacks | 2022-10-31T21:36:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Philadelphia 76ers lose two draft picks for free agency violation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/76ers-tampering-pj-tucker-danuel-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/76ers-tampering-pj-tucker-danuel-house/ |
Commanders’ Chase Young is set to practice, but Ron Rivera urges patience
Defensive end Chase Young works out at FedEx Field before the Washington Commanders' Week 7 win over the Green Bay Packers. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Washington Commanders Coach Ron Rivera said Monday that defensive end Chase Young will be designated to return to practice Wednesday, which will start the 21-day window in which the team can add him back to the active roster.
“For all intents and purposes, we’re going to start on Wednesday with him,” Rivera said. “ … He had a final good visit with [Dr. James Andrews]. [Andrews] was very, very pleased. Chase has been working out with the strength-and-conditioning group the last few days, and he’ll continue right into Wednesday, where he’ll start with positional drills, and by doing so he’ll get an opportunity to be involved in all the walk-throughs and installation periods that we have.”
From there, Young will go to the side field to work with the athletic trainers so as to ease him back into football shape. How his body feels each subsequent day will determine the team’s pace in bringing him back.
Washington has preached patience with Young after he underwent extensive surgery last November. In the summer, Young indicated to reporters that his right ACL was not repaired but reconstructed, with the torn ligament removed and replaced with part of the patellar tendon from his left knee. Such a procedure is common, but typically comes with a longer recovery period.
Young has been sidelined for nearly a full year since suffering the injury in Week 10 last season, missing a total of 16 games.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time with an ACL tear, the ligament is reconstructed,” said Clint Soppe, an orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles. “A repair [a less invasive surgery to reattach the torn ligament] is extremely rare, and it’s only been done more recently. … Almost every high-level athlete who has an ACL tear gets a reconstruction.”
The Commanders will have three weeks to add Young to the active roster once he resumes practice, but his game-day availability likely won’t be immediate. Rivera, who originally indicated Young was going to return to practice in Week 8 decided instead to slow his return to get further approval from the doctor. Rivera said at the time Young wouldn’t play in the team’s meeting with the Colts.
Next up for Washington is the Minnesota Vikings at FedEx Field on Sunday.
“He’s going to have to get back into the mode,” Rivera said Monday. “He’s going to have to get back into condition. Believe me, playing football is completely different from rehabbing, obviously, and the more reps he can get on the practice field prior to stepping onto the game field would be very beneficial to him.”
Young spent part of the offseason rehabilitating in Colorado Springs before returning to the facility in the spring to continue to build up his strength. His workload in recovery seemed to increase in recent weeks as he ran through full pregame workouts under the guidance of an athletic trainer. Ahead of Washington’s win in Indianapolis on Sunday, Young worked out without using the large leg brace he had worn in previous weeks.
As Young has inched closer to a return, Rivera has said his eagerness to return has been palpable.
“He was fired up. He was really ready to go,” Rivera said. “He had that look on his face that, ‘All right, I’m ready.’ But I had to tell him now, we’ve got to follow the directions. We can’t push more for more until each step is cleared.”
Candace Buckner: Taylor Heinicke gives an unstable franchise a small taste of stability
Young’s absence has, at times, prompted Washington to get creative in filling the void on the edge of the line. For the latter half of the 2021 season, the Commanders used more five-man fronts — the most in the league from Week 10 on — to apply pressure on the quarterback and plug the holes in the run defense.
This season, Washington benefited from the growth of its reserves, led by James Smith-Williams. The former seventh-round pick has started six games opposite Montez Sweat and has notched two sacks and a batted pass. Casey Toohill and Efe Obada have also rotated in reserve, providing a relatively seamless transition when the starters roll out or when used in certain pressure packages. It wasn’t until Sunday against the Colts that Washington utilized more five-man fronts, largely to compensate for the loss of linebacker Cole Holcomb. Rivera said he’d get more clarification on Holcomb’s foot injury and the status of receiver Jahan Dotson, who is dealing with a hamstring injury, on Wednesday.
Despite not having Young up front, the Commanders’ defense has again become their leading unit. After holding the Packers to an 0-6 outing on third downs in Week 7, Washington now has the third-lowest opponent third-down conversion rate in the league at 31.0 percent — a significant leap from its second-highest conversion rate last year.
Washington also has the fourth-highest pressure rate (36.9 percent of opponent dropbacks), per TruMedia Sports, and boasts three linemen — Sweat and defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne — with at least 23 pressures this season.
Rivera lauded the communication and synchronicity of the line earlier this year, especially in comparison to last season when players seemed more inclined to freelance. Rivera felt his defensive linemen often struggled to get home for sacks because the four were trying to create big plays individually, instead of coordinating rush games and using discipline in their rush lanes.
But on Monday, Rivera said he again noticed some players, in all three phases, resorting to past behaviors.
“A couple of those things when guys did their own thing, that hurt us,” he said. “And that’s what you got to be aware of. If you got 10 guys doing their job and one guy not, that one guy they’re going to find. You can’t have that because that hurts. … We got fortunate winning the game because if we had lost this game, you could point directly to those instances on offense, defense, special teams, [of] guys not doing their jobs the way they’re supposed to.” | 2022-10-31T21:36:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders’ Chase Young is set to practice, but Ron Rivera urges patience - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/commanders-chase-young-is-set-practice-ron-rivera-urges-patience/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/commanders-chase-young-is-set-practice-ron-rivera-urges-patience/ |
Ex-officer who shot Patrick Lyoya to face trial for murder
Ex-Grand Rapids police officer Christopher Schurr appears for the second day of his preliminary examination at the Kent County Courthouse in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Friday. (Joel Bissell/The Grand Rapids Press/AP)
A former Grand Rapids, Mich., police officer who shot a Black man in the back of the head as the two scuffled during a traffic stop will be tried for second-degree murder.
In an opinion he read in court Monday, Judge Nicholas S. Ayoub wrote that there was probable cause for Christopher Schurr to stand trial in the April killing of Patrick Lyoya. Footage of the incident was released days after the fatal encounter, drawing protesters to the streets of the Western Michigan city. It showed Lyoya and Schurr fighting for control of the officer’s Taser before Schurr fired the fatal shot.
Family of Lyoya, a 26-year-old Congolese refugee, had demanded justice for what they called an execution. Their attorney, Ben Crump, decried the shooting as “another senseless killing of a Black person in America by the very people who were supposed to protect them.” He and his co-counsel, Ven Johnson, said in a statement Monday that a trial is “the next step in our pursuit for obtaining full and complete justice for the murder of Patrick Lyoya.”
“Our legal team will continue to fight to ensure former Grand Rapids police officer Christopher Schurr and the City of Grand Rapids are held accountable for his actions,” they said.
Schurr, 31, has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys have argued his use of force was appropriate under the circumstances. A seven-year veteran of the Grand Rapids Police Department, he was fired after his arrest in Lyoya’s killing.
His defense team said they were disappointed in the judge’s decision but added that “given the extremely low burden at this stage of the proceedings, we are not necessarily surprised.”
“Chris Schurr maintains his innocence and we believe that he will be exonerated at trial as the evidence overwhelmingly shows that he is not guilty of wrongdoing,” said the statement from attorneys Matt Borgula, Mikayla Hamilton and Mark Dodge.
For Patrick Lyoya, the American Dream became the American nightmare
The judge’s 11-page opinion followed two days of testimony offered last week during a preliminary examination. In it, he wrote that prosecutors had presented probable cause to support the second-degree murder charge. He noted that his own role is “very limited” and it will be up to jurors to review the facts of the case and determine whether the shooting was justified.
“Factual questions remain as to whether defendant reasonably believed that his life was in imminent danger (or that he was in imminent danger of suffering great bodily harm) and that deadly force was reasonably necessary,” Ayoub wrote. “These are questions of fact that the jury must decide based on the totality of the circumstances as presented by the evidence at trial.”
The April 4 shooting was captured in multiple videos made public by the Grand Rapids Police Department. The recordings showed Schurr pulling over a Nissan Altima in a neighborhood and telling Lyoya, the driver, that the license plate did not match the car. Lyoya stepped out of the vehicle; the office told him, “Stay in the car!” and added, “Dude, I’m stopping you.”
Lyoya, appearing confused, asked what he had done wrong. The officer asked whether he spoke English, and Lyoya responded that he did. Asked to provide his license, Lyoya briefly spoke with a passenger in his car, then closed the door and started to walk away. Schurr grabbed him, apparently preparing to handcuff him. Lyoya struggled and broke free. He ran into the front yard of a house, where Schurr tackled him.
“Get your hands behind your back!” the officer yelled.
“Okay!” Lyoya replied.
Yet they continued to struggle on the ground, Lyoya apparently trying to break free and Schurr trying and failing to gain control. Within a few moments, Schurr took out his Taser and Lyoya grabbed at it. “Let go of the Taser!” Schurr told him. The two continued fighting over the device, with both cartridges discharging in the struggle.
The officer’s body camera stopped filming during the struggle, though it was not clear whether it happened intentionally. Other cameras continued recording, showing Lyoya attempting to get up and Schurr shouting “Drop the Taser!” According to the judge’s opinion, Lyoya gained control of the Taser in the seconds before Schurr shot him. He was facing the ground when struck once in the back of the head.
Video shows officer fatally shooting Patrick Lyoya in Michigan
Ayoub wrote in the opinion that the underlying facts of the incident were not disputed, adding, “The only real debatable question here is whether defendant’s actions were justified under the law.”
“The reasonableness of those actions can hardly be fully and fairly judged by one person in a black robe with 20/20 vision of hindsight and from the comfortable and safe vantage point of the high perch of the armor-plated judge’s bench,” the judge said in court Monday, according to CNN.
“It is precisely, though, for this reason that questions of reasonableness and all questions of fact are determined by a jury after a full and fair trial.”
Kim Bellware contributed to this report. | 2022-10-31T21:49:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ex-officer Christopher Schurr to stand trial in killing of Patrick Lyoya - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/31/christopher-schurr-patrick-lyoya-killing-grand-rapids/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/31/christopher-schurr-patrick-lyoya-killing-grand-rapids/ |
Harvard, UNC students on why they’re for and against affirmative action
Over 100 students gathered outside the Supreme Court in support of the policy, but others say it leads to inequality in university admissions
Harvard students Shruthi Kumar, left, and Muskaan Arshad rally with other activists in Washington on Oct. 31 as the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on affirmative action in college admissions. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Angie Shin, 21, arrived in Washington on Sunday, exhausted from an early morning flight from Boston and months of helping mobilize their Harvard University classmates in support of affirmative action policies now in peril.
“I’m running on, maybe, six collective hours of sleep in the past 72 hours,” Shin said. The Korean American college senior was one of hundreds of students and supporters who gathered on Monday outside the Supreme Court, which was hearing arguments on cases that could end the use of race-conscious admissions policies in higher education.
The protesters weathered intense rainfall, holding up umbrellas and protest signs for cover while chanting despite a microphone malfunction halfway through the rally.
Many were students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard, which are named in the lawsuits being argued before the court. But there were also those from Yale, Howard and Georgetown universities. Some huddled around phones to listen to the oral arguments.
“It’s beautiful,” Shin said. “I can’t believe there are so many people that are enduring the rain, enduring audio visual issues, all to show their support. We didn’t budge.”
The high court’s decision could usher in a new era for a generation of students that has only known an America where many universities consider race in their admissions processes. For decades, the court has upheld affirmative action in higher education, but with a new conservative majority, these students — and those following them — may need to adjust to a country without it.
That concerns students like Jorren Biggs. Growing up in a large Black community in Durham, N.C., Biggs has always considered race a central aspect of his identity. When college application season rolled around, he wrote his application essay about Black masculinity.
“I talked about … how I came to terms with being a Black man,” said Biggs, 21. “And what that meant from a performance standpoint.”
Now a senior at UNC, Biggs worries the Black student population, currently about 9 percent, would dwindle if the use of affirmative action — which he says promotes educational equity — were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Already Biggs said he is often the only Black student in his classes and is sometimes mistaken for a recruited athlete or a blue-collar campus staff member.
An African American studies major, Biggs said he fears less diversity at the university could also spell trouble for his department and other majors tailored around identity.
“Blackness is something that has always been stressed by my family as an integral part of my identity, so coming to UNC, it was crucial for me to develop a Black community,” he said.
While pro-affirmative action groups dominated the hundreds protesting on the Supreme Court steps, there was also Frank Paul Lukacs, an attorney who said he has filed legal briefs against affirmative action in the past. He stood alone behind three signs that read “End Affirmative Discrimination Now” and “End Racism,” and referenced the “European American Legal Defense and Education Fund.”
“There’s a lot of us, but nobody has enough guts to stand in front of this antagonistic crowd,” Lukacs said. “They just didn’t want the confrontation.”
The two cases, filed by Students for Fair Admissions, an anti-affirmative action nonprofit founded by conservative activist Edward Blum, allege that race-conscious admissions policies at American universities disadvantage Asian American studies.
But at both UNC and Harvard — the defendants in the cases — Asian Americans have led the charge in defending the use of affirmative action.
Sally Chen, who graduated from Harvard in 2019, is part of the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard and works as the education equity program manager at Chinese for Affirmative Action.
“Racial diversity on campus was key to expanding my own understanding of issues that I work on today, even within Asian America,” said Chen, 25, adding that she met undocumented Asian Americans students on campus for the first time, a testament to the diversity of the community. But she said she has also grappled with anti-Asian racism, including an experience when a campus staff member mistook her for a tourist in Harvard Square and asked her to leave a campus building.
Asian Americans as the “model minority” being harmed by affirmative action policies is a myth, Chen said.
George Yeadon, who graduated from Harvard in 1975, was among the first Black Harvard students accepted under a policy that considers race in the admissions process. He is “certain” he was admitted under this affirmative action program.
“I think my class may have been the second or third class where the number of Black students increased two- or threefold,” he said, adding that the Black student community was integral to his time at Harvard, where Black students were “expected to fit into what was already there as opposed to bring a different kind of culture,” leading them to form their own cultural organizations and bond over meals together.
But some students, including Jon Wang, say institutional racism no longer exists, rendering affirmative action unnecessary and unfair. The 18-year-old freshman at the Georgia Institute of Technology was rejected from all eight Ivy League schools and was wait-listed at the University of California at Berkeley, he said, despite scoring a 1590 on the SAT and earning a weighted grade-point average of 4.65.
“Definitely before college admissions, I knew … being Asian or Indian definitely makes it harder for you to get into college,” he said, adding his views were confirmed during a high school Quiz Bowl state championship tournament when he felt that his team, composed of four Asian American students, was held to a higher standard than its opponents, who were Black and Latino students and “weren’t buzzing in at all.”
His college rejections helped him “reflect on my time in high school and maybe what I could have done better,” Wang said, but he says he would have had a better chance at admission were he Black or Latino.
Perhaps some admissions slots should be “allocated for lower income people. But I think this broad base, sort of factoring in of race, is unfair,” said Wang, who is a member of Students for Fair Admissions.
His Asian American peers at Georgia Tech aren’t speaking up out of fear, he said. “Some people are afraid of getting canceled,” he said, but are privately against affirmation action, too.
Affirmative action is still needed, said Erika Munguia, 21, co-president of Mi Pueblo, an organization that has launched a pro-affirmative action social media activism. But it’s not the best system to increase educational equity overall, she said.
“If on a national level, the government and the states were to allocate … more funding for education prior to college, that would address the gap,” said Munguia, who is Salvadoran and immigrated to the United States at age 12.
“I think having people who share my race, who share similar backgrounds, it’s helpful in the sense that you feel like you have people you can fall back on … for moral support,” she said. “I think there are times when there’s a lot going on at home, there’s a lot going on at school, and I think it helps … having people who look like me.”
Shin, the Harvard student, echoed Munguia’s sentiment.
“I’ve run into a lot of bad days at Harvard,” they said. “And I can say with full confidence that I would not be mentally stable to pursue my student career … if it weren’t for my support network, and if it weren’t for my friends, and if it weren’t for my communities of color that are there to support me.”
The latest: The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday on the race-conscious admissions policies at Harvard University and UNC-Chapel Hill. Conservative Supreme Court justices seemed open to ending the use of affirmative action in admission decisions, repeatedly expressing doubt that the institutions would ever concede an “endpoint” in their use of race to build diverse student bodies.
What happens next? The court will rule on the legality of using race as a factor in college admissions. The court can publish its rulings at any time, but because of the significance of this case, the justices will likely wait to finalize their opinions until the end of the term in late June or early July. | 2022-10-31T21:49:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harvard, UNC students on why they're for and against affirmative action - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/31/supreme-court-arguments-college-admissions-affirmative-action/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/31/supreme-court-arguments-college-admissions-affirmative-action/ |
Paul and Doris McKinney at their home in Spotsylvania, Va. (Parker Michels-Boyce for The Washington Post)
Early voters lament high prices and disunity, yet vote for opposite sides
As millions of Americans vote early in the midterm elections, two competitive House districts in Virginia illustrate the divide as voters share similar concerns but cast ballots for different candidates
It wasn’t the big-ticket items like cars or houses that hit Paul and Doris McKinney. It was the cat food. The cans they buy went from 48 cents to 79 cents in just a few months, and while the pennies didn’t break the bank, the cat food became their family’s symbol of what’s gone wrong with America.
“It felt like they had a handle on things, and then it all fell apart,” said Paul, now retired after careers as a UPS delivery man and a custodian at the local high school. The McKinneys, both 79, live mainly on Social Security, and things are just not adding up.
This fall, the McKinneys — raised as Democrats but increasingly solid in their Republican voting in recent decades — went with the Republican in one of the country’s most hotly contested House races, mainly to throw out whoever’s in power but also because they’re scared: scared of not being able to afford the basics; scared of crime, even in their rural stretch of Virginia, 15 miles from the nearest town of any size; scared of what they see on TV about schools “teaching sex to second- and third-graders,” Paul said.
“It’s too early for little kids; they’ll find out soon enough,” said Doris, a retired school bus driver.
As millions of Americans vote early in midterm elections that are likely to underscore the nation’s deep divisions, there’s little evidence of either the unity that President Biden promised to rekindle in his 2020 campaign or of the permanently ruined nation that former president Donald Trump has warned against. Rather, many Americans say they feel called to the polls because — despite being exhausted by the cavalcade of bad news and ping-ponging election results, and despite polls showing the widespread unpopularity of Biden, Trump and other leaders of both parties — they still harbor hope that the country can be put back together again.
Early voting this fall is up sharply in Virginia over the last midterm elections — nearly 600,000 early votes as of Oct. 30, compared with about 345,000 in the entire 2018 early vote — but analysts say that boost is a result of the nationwide coronavirus- and convenience-driven shift away from in-person, Election Day voting, far more than a reflection of attitudes about this particular election. Similar surges have been seen this fall in hard-fought races in Georgia and Michigan, where absentee voters no longer need an excuse to vote early. But in some other states, including Arizona and Texas, which tightened ballot access in recent years, early turnout has been down this fall.
The McKinneys, who live in Spotsylvania County, a rapidly suburbanizing place 70 miles southwest of Washington, have had it with the anger they see on TV and in their community. Doris has a cousin, “and we don’t speak now because she’s a Democrat,” she said. “It’s just sad.” Paul prays for Americans to come together and stop hating one another.
That’s No. 1 on Rose Gonzalez’s list, too. A retired nurse, she lives 45 miles up I-95 from the McKinneys, in Lake Ridge, in another fast-growing county, Prince William, which has become a suburban magnet for growing families and for people from Washington’s close-in suburbs, from New York and other crowded Northeast cities, and from Central America, Asia and Africa too.
The Deciders: Women powered Democrats in the 2018 midterms. Will they again in 2022?
Unlike the McKinneys, Gonzalez voted Democratic last week. She’s not happy about inflation, either. She wishes crime stats weren’t climbing. But nothing matters to her nearly as much as “the perilous time we’re in in our country,” she said. “I’ve been through all the racism, and I thought we were moving toward more understanding.
“Now, it’s scary, the divisiveness,” she continued. “What is changing us? People struggled to get the vote, and now they want to take it away? Have you ever seen Congress or a president solve high prices? That’s not the reason to vote. Get people who will work together to make people’s lives better. Get basic rights in order. The economics will follow.”
Watching the back-to-back political ads that dominate commercial breaks on TV in places with contested races, you’d think the country was divided not only by party allegiance but also by people’s daily experience: One side is weighed down by soaring prices and a constant fear of rising crime, while the other side worries about the loss of abortion rights and the threat of tighter restrictions on voting.
But in dozens of interviews last week in two hard-fought congressional districts in deeply divided Virginia, voters overwhelmingly told fairly similar stories about what they’ve been going through lately: Republican or Democrat, they’re straining to cope with sharply higher grocery and gas prices. And people on both sides of the partisan split say they’re deeply concerned about the state of American democracy; the harsh, even angry political divisions within families and among friends; and the sense that the people running the country have gotten too old, too stuck in their ways and too detached from the lives of regular folks.
Those similar sets of grievances do not for a minute mean that Americans are putting aside their differences. Far from it.
In these two Virginia districts — each a blend of rural expanse and burgeoning suburbia — voters seem to mirror the nation’s divisions and similarities closely.
In the 7th District, stretching from the D.C. suburbs to the farmland that was home to several of the country’s Founding Fathers, a Trump-endorsed firebrand who serves on the Prince William County Board, Yesli Vega, is vying to become the state’s first Hispanic congresswoman by unseating Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer. In the 2nd District, dominated by Virginia Beach and Chesapeake in the Hampton Roads region, the House Jan. 6 committee’s only vulnerable Democrat, Rep. Elaine Luria, is trying to fend off a challenge from a Republican state senator and fellow Navy veteran, Jen Kiggans, in a military-heavy district known for its swing voters.
Both Spanberger and Luria won their seats, previously held by Republicans, in 2018 during a midterm wave powered in part by female voters rebelling against Trump’s presidency.
The flood of early voters this fall has been accompanied by polls showing a boost in enthusiasm about voting. Nationwide, 36 percent of voters said in an Economist-YouGov poll last week that they are more enthusiastic than in past congressional elections; 35 percent said their attitude was about the same as in the past. Republicans expressed more enthusiasm than Democrats, 48 percent to 38 percent. What voters across the board say about their lives right now, however, reveals that even though many Americans see the same changes and stresses in the country, they put vastly different weight on different issues, leading them to choose sharply different solutions.
Take, for example, Claire D’Amore and Jose Resto. D’Amore, 22, lives in Virginia Beach and is just out of Virginia Tech, laden with student loan debt. Resto, 64, drives a big truck, delivering groceries and pharmaceutical items, which means he’s feeling the harsh pain of filling his 200-gallon diesel tank. Both said they felt compelled to vote this fall to send a message — but hardly the same one.
D’Amore’s mother, Victoria, a former Republican, said that years ago she would have considered Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan “ridiculous,” but now she has to think about Claire and her debt load. Victoria said she voted for Luria in hopes that Democrats can retain control of Congress and push back against how “Donald Trump just totally disgraced our country.”
Claire also voted for the Democrat, but not so much because of her student debt. Rather, her main motive was to protect women’s rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision establishing a national right to abortion.
“I want to protect my own rights,” Claire said, recounting how pro- and anti-abortion-rights protests on her school’s campus sounded like people talking right past each other. Claire explained to her mother that “our generation is so polarized. Your generation sort of made us polarized. And now … I don’t know. Like, I don’t know what the future holds.”
Resto, the truck driver, who lives in Spotsylvania County in Spanberger’s district, is also pained by the divisions in the country — even in his own family. His wife and daughter are voting Democratic, and he’s on Trump’s side. “Honestly, I think he’s a [jerk], but he delivered on his promises — he made the economy better,” Resto said.
The family’s split goes far deeper than party labels. “My family thought I was homophobic because I don’t agree with them on those issues,” Resto said. “Then my daughter came out to me, and she thought I’d hate her for it. I told her, ‘You think I didn’t know you were gay?’ I could never be angry at her. People think just because you have different views about politics, you don’t love them. You either love them or disown them, and I’m not about to disown my own daughter.”
Resto said his vote for Vega, the Republican challenger, stems not from his attitudes about morality or sexuality but from his concern about the crushing impact of inflation and his belief that Democrats are too sanguine about illegal immigration.
Born in Missouri of Puerto Rican descent, Resto said he and many other Hispanics “who are here legally don’t like seeing the Democrats pushing to bring in more Hispanics. … The Hispanics get blamed for the gangs and violent criminals, and we’re just tired of getting lumped with them. So I had to go with the Republicans.”
Resto doesn’t vote every year — as a truck driver, he’s often out of town on Election Day. But he made a point of voting early this year in part because he’s convinced that Spanberger “votes 100 percent with Pelosi,” a phrase that more than a dozen Republican voters used in interviews last week, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Word for word, that’s the phrasing used in an attack ad running over and over on Washington-area TV channels. Diane White used the same words to explain her vote for Vega: “It’s my groceries and gas, and the electric bills, but it’s also that Spanberger votes 100 percent with Pelosi,” said White, 72, a hairdresser who lives in Stafford County, which has transformed from a mainly agricultural area to a swift-growing exurb in recent years.
Spanberger and Pelosi did agree on all major votes in the 2021-22 House session, according to a ProPublica analysis, but Spanberger broke with the speaker more often than all but seven House Democrats in the previous session, 2019-20.
White said her political views have hardened in recent years. She used to vote for the occasional Democrat; no more. She’s too worried about crime and overdevelopment of her formerly rural community to consider the other side, she said: “We don’t have the country friendliness anymore. I really miss it.”
She sees how bitter people have become about politics, so much so that at work, she often has to “cut off the conversation. I tell them, ‘Let’s drop it.’ I shut my mouth because I won’t let politics hurt relations with customers.”
She wouldn’t mind another four years of Trump but said she’d be just as happy to see Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the next Republican nominee for president. “Trump is getting up there in age,” she said, “and DeSantis is not as outspoken — he doesn’t get people as angry.”
Angry people are much on the minds of the Johnson family in Dale City in Prince William County. Brian Johnson, a 32-year-old heating and air conditioning technician, went with his parents, Terry and George, to vote for Spanberger because they’re rattled by the state of the union.
For the Johnson parents, the haunting images of a mob attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were too reminiscent of what Black families like theirs went through during the Jim Crow era, the civil rights movement and on and on. “As a Black woman, I’m concerned to see the right to vote threatened like it is today, to see the level of hate we’re seeing,” said Terry, 66, a retired Fairfax County government employee.
The Deciders: The Latino vote shifted toward Republicans in 2020. Will it again?
“Prices go up and down all the time,” said George, 62, who retired from a career as a corrections officer. “But democracy is the big thing. If we don’t have that, we don’t have anything.”
Brian nodded, agreeing with his parents, but for him, the primary motive to vote this fall is “women’s rights. I have a lot of women in my life — sisters, mother, wife. I can’t ignore what’s happening. We have other issues, but nothing’s more important than what a woman decides to do with her own body.”
One hundred and seventy miles south, in Suffolk, southwest of Norfolk, Margaret and Floyd Dugger have agreed to disagree on abortion rights. Margaret, 69, thinks back to a friend she had in junior high who was molested by her father and whose family skipped town after she became pregnant. She can’t countenance a return to the secrecy and tragic outcomes of the time before abortion was legalized.
Her husband, 71-year-old Floyd, is morally opposed to abortion. Though he’s no Republican, he sees the overturn of Roe as one thing the country finally got right.
But as they exited an early-voting center, the couple were in sync on their choice of Luria, the Democrat, because democracy, as Margaret said, “is in pain. I’ll soon be 70 years old, in December, and I would have never thought this could ever happen,” she said, referring to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Floyd, an Army veteran and former U.S. marshal, admires Luria for serving on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack, which left him unnerved, recalling ugly chapters of American history that he wanted to believe were behind us.
The Duggers grew up at the tail end of segregation. Floyd attended a segregated all-Black high school in rural Southside Virginia, even a decade after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. Margaret, who grew up in New York, remembers having to use the back doors of cafes and snack bars while passing through Richmond with her grandmother on summer trips south.
In recent decades, the couple said, they’d felt proud of a country that had made real progress on civil rights. Margaret, who for 20 years taught special education in Suffolk, loved organizing field trips to the nation’s capital to make kids “feel proud of where they are and where they’re coming from.”
But since Trump took office, she hasn’t wanted to go back to Washington, which now fills her with dread. “He brought us 100 years backward,” she said.
Even after nearly two years without Trump in the White House, her pride in America hasn’t returned. Yet Margaret remains hopeful, and that’s why she voted: “You’ve got to believe in something, and I believe it’s going to get better. But when? I don’t know.”
That uncertainty about the road back to something more workable was another theme that bridged the partisan divide among many voters.
Many voters seem to crave a path toward an acceptable middle ground. Others yearn to be inspired; they’re tired of settling for what Chuck Foster, a 57-year-old Republican in Virginia Beach, called “the lesser of two evils.” This year’s election reminds him of 2016, when it seemed to him that most people were making their choice from a place of dismay with both candidates, Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
For Foster, the lesser evil now is Luria’s Republican challenger, Kiggans, a retired Navy pilot who, for reasons Foster doesn’t understand, hasn’t been able to affirm that Biden was legitimately elected in 2020. Foster wants to make a statement against Democratic policies that he thinks are dragging down the economy, but he also wishes Republicans didn’t seem so beholden to one man, Trump.
“We as a country have just lost our way,” said Foster, a former principal at a Virginia juvenile detention center. “I’m a Republican, but I’m terrified of this whole Trump wave, and it just won’t go away.”
Foster doesn’t see Kiggans as a fresh start. She’s not a moderate, he said, though she has tried to portray herself that way. Still, she isn’t Luria, who Foster said is “too aligned with Biden,” who he believes is damaging the economy with government aid to “the lowest common denominator of liberal voter: ‘I’m here for you.’ Handout, handout, handout.”
Brian A. Young shares that frustration with Democrats. Living paycheck to paycheck, the 60-year-old military contractor showed up to vote for Kiggans in Virginia Beach because “the country is going to hell in a handbasket, and we have got to do something or we won’t have a country anymore” — a phrase right out of Trump’s rally speeches.
Every time Democrats are in power, Young said, “it’s just like we’ve got to come back and clean up Aisle 13 … to get things back in order.” Even though Biden was certified as the winner and there was no evidence of widespread fraud, Young said that he believes Trump actually won in 2020. He misses Trump but is not certain he should run again in 2024.
“We’re probably as close to a civil war that we’ve ever been,” Young said. All he can do about it, he said, is vote: “I love America, and I want to keep America great, which is extremely difficult at the moment.”
Gonzalez, the retired nurse in Prince William, voted the other way, but like Young, she wants her country to be better than what it has become. “I see Biden working hard to find what makes us similar,” she said. “I want to tell people: This is not a show, like ‘The Apprentice.’ This is real life.” | 2022-10-31T21:49:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Early voters lament high prices and disunity, yet vote for opposite sides - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/early-voters-lament-high-prices-disunity-yet-vote-opposite-sides/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/early-voters-lament-high-prices-disunity-yet-vote-opposite-sides/ |
Call of Duty teases the return of gaming’s most controversial level
‘Remember, no Russian.’
A still from “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II's” post-credit scene. (Activision)
This article contains spoilers for the campaign of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.”
The post-credits scene of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II” set up the return of the franchise’s iconic villain and referenced one of the most controversial and hotly debated scenes in video game history.
The game ends with the protagonists, Task Force 141, saving the day. The multinational special forces squad neutralized Quds Force officer Hassan Zyani and foiled his plot to destroy Washington, D.C. using a stolen American missile. During the post-mission debrief, there’s a big reveal: Task Force 141 learns that the missiles were stolen by Vladimir Makarov and his extremist Russian Ultranationalist faction, a primary antagonist from the original Modern Warfare trilogy, which started with 2007′s “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” and ended in 2011 with “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.” This year’s “Modern Warfare II” is a sequel in the rebooted trilogy, not a remake.
In the post-credits scene, three hooded passengers on a Russian airplane surreptitiously assemble 3D printed pistols in preparation for a hijacking. When one of the gunmen texts that he is ready, the other party, named “M,” greenlights the mission with a response that should be familiar to longtime “Call of Duty” players: “No Russian.”
The reboot series reintroduced familiar protagonists from the original, such as British SAS officers Captain Price and Soap MacTavish, but most of the antagonists have been new additions. One exception was Imran Zakhaev, a Russian gun runner and revolutionary in “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” who was reworked as a high-ranking Soviet official in 2019’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.”
In the original trilogy, Zakhaev was the leader of the Ultranationalists, a revolutionary paramilitary group that accuses the current government of being corrupted by Western ideology and interests. He is killed at the end of “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,” and Makarov takes over the Ultranationalists in the ensuing power vacuum. Makarov then commits numerous heinous terrorist attacks, the most notorious of which is the infamous “No Russian” mission in 2009’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.”
“No Russian” put the player in the role of an undercover CIA agent who is embedded with an Ultranationalist cell as they carry out a horrific terrorist act at a Russian airport. Before the attack, Makarov warns the squad — “Remember, no Russian” — in English before stepping out of an elevator and brutally gunning down dozens of civilians waiting at customs. The rest of the map involves slowly walking through the airport and killing all the other innocents in sight. As the player, you can choose to participate in the slaughter or walk through without firing a shot, at least until the police and military show up. Regardless of your choice, the slaughter continues around you.
At the end of the mission, Makarov kills the player character (the CIA agent), informing him that he knew his true identity all along. When the Russian authorities discover the body of an American soldier and determine that the mass shooting was carried out using American guns, it incites an all-out war between the United States and Russia.
The level was enormously polarizing upon release. Some game critics hailed it as evidence that games were a legitimate art form willing to tackle uncomfortable topics; other dismissed it as a clumsy sequence played up for shock value. Beyond the industry, politicians and religious leaders demanded a cultural reckoning, arguing that video games were an especially dangerous incubator for violence because of their interactivity. “No Russian” was censored in Germany and removed outright in the Russian version of the game. Not even the game’s own development team could agree on “No Russian”: Infinity Ward studio art director Joel Emslie said that the studio’s workers were deeply divided over the mission.
“There was a side of the studio that felt that it should be played from the perspective of a security guard that got caught up in it, then there was the other side that liked the way it was going,” Emslie told Game Informer. “There was a point in time where we were discussing how gory we would get with the people who were getting hit. I pulled back, and I said, ‘You don’t need it. People are getting tagged and their squibs are going off; it’s all good.’ ”
Although it’s clear that Makarov will be the Big Bad of the next “Modern Warfare” campaign, it’s unknown how he’ll play into the greater narrative; the reboot series has diverged quite a bit from the original. The post-credits scene references several beats that don’t precisely match the “No Russian” mission from the original — but still rhyme well enough. The “M” from the post-credits scene is almost certainly Makarov, though it’s unclear whether he’s one of the three gunmen or if he’s ordering the hijacking from afar.
More broadly, General Shepherd, the traitorous American officer who was killed in 2009’s “Modern Warfare 2,” fulfills a similar role in the reboot, and vanishes at the end of “Modern Warfare II.” Philip Graves, CEO of the shady private military outfit Shadow Company, was ostensibly killed in “Modern Warfare II” but we never saw the body. Both could be involved in a subplot that marks Makarov’s rise to power.
From the story in “Call of Duty: Warzone,” we can assume that Makarov took over the Ultranationalists after Price killed Victor Zakhaev, son of Imran Zakhaev. The recent Modern Warfare campaigns have not prominently featured the Ultranationalists, but it’s heavily implied that the Ultranationalists have been pulling the strings behind all the global threats that Task Force 141 has been facing. The villain of 2019’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” was rogue Russian general Roman Barkov. Barkov was vehemently anti-Western and ruled over the fictional country of Urzikstan with an iron fist, justifying war crimes and atrocities in the name of law and order. Although never stated outright in-game, Barkov clearly had sentiments that aligned with Ultranationalist ideology.
The post-credits scene may have also set up the return of “Alex,” the CIA agent from 2019′s “Modern Warfare,” whose background is shrouded in secrecy. In the finale of “Modern Warfare,” Alex stayed behind to destroy Barkov’s clandestine chemical factory and “died” (off camera, of course) in the ensuing explosion. He was confirmed alive when he returned for “Call of Duty: Warzone,” but lost his left leg while escaping.
Makarov’s on-screen debut may not be far off. “Call of Duty” will be skipping a 2023 title release in favor of “Modern Warfare II” DLC which will add more campaign content, according to noted “Call of Duty” leaker TheGhostofHope. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier corroborated the claim.
Infinity Ward has made a habit of remixing memorable set pieces from the past games, such as the ghillie suit sniper scene in “Modern Warfare 2,” which was one-upped by a much more impressive sniping mission in “Modern Warfare II.” We may get to play out that post-credits scene — depending on how much the developer wants to push the envelope with “No Russian” more than a decade after its original release. | 2022-10-31T22:15:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 post-credits scene: Makarov, No Russian - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/31/modern-warfare-post-credits-no-russian/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/31/modern-warfare-post-credits-no-russian/ |
Nibel gave Twitter a lot for little in return
A popular Twitter user’s departure says a lot about the platform’s troubles
The Twitter user known as Nibel, a prominent resource for gaming news, announced his departure from the platform Monday morning. His account, with more than 440,000 followers, is currently locked. On his way out, he cited financial constraints and disillusionment with the platform and its new management as the reasons for his exit.
“After some introspection, I’ve made the decision to focus my time and energy elsewhere and move on from Twitter,” Nibel wrote in a now-locked tweet. “This marks the end of my video games coverage and my active participation in this platform.”
Nibel said he would leave his account up to prevent people from squatting on and misusing his handle.
Under the handle @Nibellion on Twitter, Nibel was among the fastest and most reliable sources of breaking video games news. He was an expert in curating announcements from a variety of sources, whether it was news outlets, gaming blogs, YouTube channels, Twitch streams or official company sources. He started his Twitter account in 2012; since then, his tweets have almost always spread virally across the platform.
The burning out of a power user — widely followed and trusted on the platform — points to some broader issues bedeviling Twitter.
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In late September, Nibel tried to monetize his work on Twitter by introducing $1 and $3 tiers on the membership platform Patreon, where followers could pay him monthly. As of Monday morning, he had 987 backers.
“Unfortunately, I was not able to create an interesting and sustainable Patreon which is evident in the number of Patrons stagnating during the first weekend and the first (of many) pledges being deleted during the first week,” he wrote in a pay-gated post on Patreon, according to Kotaku.
“I have miscalculated the value of my Twitter activity and realize that it is nothing worth supporting by itself for the vast majority of people. It is not me who is popular, but it is that work that is useful. It is not valuable by itself, but a comfortable timesaver, and I get that now,” he continued.
Compounding this lack of support, Nibel said he had no confidence in Twitter’s viability as a platform since billionaire Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of the company.
“I do not trust Musk and his seemingly infinite immaturity. I do not think Twitter will fall apart instantly but that it could die a slow death. Why waste more time?" he wrote.
Nibel almost never did original reporting or coverage. Still, he provided a valuable service as a news curation feed. He provided a service of convenience, especially considering the massive size and diversity of the gaming industry, which is reported to hit $200 billion in revenue this year.
His followers were saddened by his sudden departure from the platform, a testament to the amount of trust he built through accurate and concise repackaging of gaming news. Geoff Keighley, the media entrepreneur and founder of The Game Awards, the video game industry’s marquee awards show, saluted the account with a heart emoji.
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However valuable Nibel’s work was, the onus of supporting him should not have been on his thousands of followers. The onus is on Twitter, as it benefited from his continued high-profile usage of the platform.
Historically, Twitter has been among the worst social media platforms when it comes to supporting its most visible and valuable users. YouTube and TikTok are currently the industry leaders when it comes to providing high-profile creators with opportunities to make money. Twitch shares ad revenue (though that split has gotten worse for creators of late). These platforms have issues and controversies when it comes to payments. Regardless, those companies all pay to keep the power users who attract and service an audience on their respective platforms. Not Twitter, which only offers a still-in-development subscription called a “Super Follow” and a donation tip jar for its users to monetize their audience.
On Sunday, The Verge reported that under Musk’s leadership, Twitter was contemplating charging up to $20 a month for users to remain “verified” with a blue checkmark. Nibel was not a verified checkmarked account, and his account was often parodied to spread fake news and misinformation, which spoke to the level of trust Nibel cultivated on Twitter. People saw his profile picture — a picture of the character Mob from the anime Mob Psycho 100 on a yellow background — and immediately understood that what they were seeing was news. Which speaks to the bigger issue: Instead of figuring out how to retain its most valuable users, Twitter appears intent on extracting money from them.
Curating news on Twitter is a difficult job. While some journalists, such as Kyle Griffin of MSNBC, have become prominent sources of news on Twitter, their tweets are supplemental to their work and main sources of income. Nibel, from all indications, was simply doing this on his own time. And he eventually realized that his own time was more valuable than the zero compensation he was receiving from the company that benefited from his work.
A recent Reuters report cited internal Twitter research that shows its power users are leaving the platform. The report states that heavy users account for 10 percent of the platform’s user base but create 90 percent of its content. Nibel, with more than 80,000 tweets in recent years, was easily among that tier of power users. These users get little for the value they bring to Twitter: As someone with more than 100,000 followers, I can attest that a following of that scale only paints a target on your back for harassment and other distasteful methods of digital engagement.
From Nibel’s statements on Patreon and Twitter, it’s clear the hope was to turn a Twitter presence into a regular job. In that respect, he was not unique among popular Twitter accounts trying to capitalize on their popularity. The Twitter account Sh*t My Dad Says, started in 2009, wrote a book based on the gimmick and even worked on a short-lived CBS sitcom based on the account, starring William Shatner. But Nibel’s attempt at monetization only lasted a month; he said a number of supporters unsubscribed after the first week.
It’s arguable that Nibel didn’t provide a unique enough service, something he acknowledged in his farewell Patreon post, noting that he did not cultivate an online “personality" as established creators have done on YouTube, TikTok and Twitch. It’s also important to note that growing an online paying audience often takes a lot of time. (Source: I work for a newspaper).
Paying Twitter’s most visible and active users has been a topic of conversation for a while. The departure of a high-profile, beloved account like Nibel raises questions about the long-term viability of Twitter if it can’t keep its most valuable accounts active — and if it’s willing to start charging for some of the protections that keep those valuable accounts around.
Twitter is a place that extracts value from its users while giving almost nothing in return. We can’t even edit our own words without needing to pay a monthly subscription fee. Facebook has offered that feature free for years.
As long as Twitter continues to suck people’s precious time with no compensation, more users like Nibel will depart from the platform. Elon Musk’s dream of overseeing the digital town square may prove a lonely one. | 2022-10-31T22:15:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nibel leaving Twitter says a lot about the platform’s problems - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/31/nibel-twitter-elon-musk/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/10/31/nibel-twitter-elon-musk/ |
Silverman’s stumble opens a door in the D.C. Council at-large race
D.C. Council member Elissa Silverman in 2019. (Marlena Sloss/The Washington Post)
“While the Councilmember is seeking Re-election in the November 8, 2022, General Election as an At-Large Member of the Council who is elected citywide, she chose to expend Fair Election Funds on a poll regarding a Ward Primary Election in which she was not a candidate,” wrote the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance on Oct. 27, concluding with this:
“Clearly, this was not an acceptable expenditure of campaign funds.”
The council member referenced, Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), disagrees with that finding. She wants the D.C. Board of Elections to reconsider the Campaign Finance Office’s order that she reimburse the city’s public financing program for two polls that cost taxpayers a combined $6,277.
Silverman, in my view, doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
The law is indeed clear: Funds from the D.C.’s Fair Elections Program can’t be used for “any purpose other than the furtherance of the participating candidate’s nomination or election.”
Through her polling of the Ward 3 primary, Silverman was trying to influence the outcome of a contest in which she was not competing. Her interest was to marshal information that could be used to help defeat a Ward 3 candidate, Eric Goulet, who was supported by an outside interest group, Democrats for Education Reform, not aligned with Silverman’s political interests. The District’s public campaign financing program cannot be exploited that way.
The Post's View: Elissa Silverman’s unacceptable conduct was not some minor violation
The city’s Office of Campaign Finance, to its credit, performed as required by law.
That office was created in 1974 by the D.C. Campaign Finance Reform Act, which I had a hand in drafting, as a staff member with the Senate District of Columbia Committee.
The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Charles Mathias Jr. (R-Md.), recognized that the District’s election laws were dangerously weak when it came to regulating campaigns for the newly established offices of elected mayor and council members. That void had to be filled, and Mathias was first to act.
It should be noted that 1973’s Home Rule Act was created under the dark cloud of Watergate. The country was just beginning to digest reporting by The Post’s Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodwardon the hundreds of thousands of dollars in President Richard M. Nixon’s reelection contributions that had been set aside to pay for an extensive undercover campaign aimed at discrediting and disrupting Democratic presidential candidates and their campaigns.
The last thing District supporters in Congress wanted was to leave a path open for the newly elected local government to be rooted in political corruption. They produced a law to create an electoral process that would, in Mathias’s words, “generate confidence among District citizens in the integrity of the officials they select to govern them,” ensure “that qualified candidates will not find their access to the political arena seriously conditioned by their financial resources,” “create an electoral process which promotes broad and active participation in the political system,” and “remove a large part of the corrosive influence of big money and the abuses rooted in secrecy from the political campaigns and the new governing process.”
The overriding goal the D.C. Campaign Finance Reform Act was to ensure the integrity of the District’s electoral process.
“Not only must this new election system be fair, honest, and open,” Mathias said at a committee meeting, “but it must also be believed to be so.”
Silverman’s mode of operation to benefit her interest in the outcome of the Ward 3 primary campaign undercuts that purpose.
Congress declared “elective and public office ... a public trust, and any effort to realize personal gain through official conduct ... a violation of that trust,” in the campaign reform law. That ethical point seems lost on Silverman. And it outweighs, in my book, whatever points she has earned for vigorous oversight of the executive branch.
Silverman is running to keep her at-large council seat. Which candidate in the race benefits most from her self-inflicted wounding?
That’s for voters to decide on Election Day. But I take my hat off to Karim Marshall, an independent who is also contending for one of the two at-large seats at stake, for filing the complaint against Silverman that prompted the Campaign Finance Office’s investigation. Silverman denounced Marshall’s complaint as a “political stunt.” She’s wrong again.
His was an act of ethical leadership. Marshall’s judgment and knowledge of the law are exactly what’s needed on today’s D.C. Council. I wrote in a September column that Marshall was an independent candidate who brought not just new energy but genuine ideas and plans to the campaign and that he made a good case for a place at the legislative table.
If anything, thanks should go out to Silverman for affording Marshall the opportunity to demonstrate his respect for the public trust.
Opinion|Elissa Silverman’s unacceptable conduct was not some minor violation | 2022-10-31T22:45:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Elissa Silverman’s stumble opens door in D.C. Council at-large race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/elissa-silverman-campaign-finance-dc-council-race/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/31/elissa-silverman-campaign-finance-dc-council-race/ |
For Gen Z voters, combating climate change is top of mind
Good morning! Your Climate 202 researcher, Vanessa Montalbano, wrote today’s newsletter. Today we’re wondering what your favorite climate and environment inspired Halloween costumes are 🌎 👻. Send any tips and tricks to vanessa.montalbano@washpost.com. But first:
Shaped by frequent flooding, extreme heat waves and increasingly destructive hurricanes, Generation Z is serious about taking bold action to tackle climate change. And, they are aiming to fight for it when they make their way to the polls next week.
“As time moves on every single moment becomes more and more of a critical point for climate action,” said Iris Zhan, an 18-year-old from Maryland who is voting for the first time this November and considers climate a top priority. “That’s where the politics and the legislation need to be to make a difference.”
In 2020, the most recent presidential election-year, 53 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds cast a ballot, a nine percentage point jump from 2016.
At that time, youth-led environmental organizations such as the Sunrise Movement mobilized millions of people to vote in record numbers, with organizers as young as 12 and 13 making countless phone calls to talk to community members about what’s at stake and registering eligible peers to vote.
Now, in 2022, Ezra Oliff-Lieberman, who leads Sunrise’s electoral organizing arm, said that young people are still feeling that fire.
“I feel a lot of hope. Hope, hopefully, that things will pay off and we’ll be able to win some things in the next couple of weeks,” he said. “But more importantly, hope that in the long-term young people will continue to fight and put power in our communities.”
The midterm elections on Nov. 8 are set to determine if young climate activists will be able to continue to throw their political weight around at a time when control of Congress is up for grabs and a majority of the top youth issues are on the ballot, including climate change, abortion, gun control and LGBTQ rights.
“If we think about what's coming with the climate movement, when we see, you know, the young people who are protesting, who are getting trained in civil disobedience … that's happening as the planet warms up and we experience substantial climate shocks,” said Dana Fisher, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland who studies protest movements. “So I think what we're going to see is that come together to push for social change.”
Not just liberal young voters
Benji Backer, president of the American Conservation Coalition, a conservative climate advocacy group geared toward young people, said he is also seeing a lot of energy and momentum around the midterms this year, especially among young Republicans, adding that although Democrats have largely taken the lead on pro-environment policy, climate change’s wrath doesn’t care about political parties.
Backer said that as the generations shift, the question for political campaigns will no longer be whether they accept the science that the world is warming but rather a question of what is the best solution to address the rapidly changing climate.
“If you deny climate change, and, or if you don’t have a plan for climate change … you won’t have an opportunity to win young voters,” he said. “Those sorts of candidates will never win again at the level that they have in the past.”
Fisher agreed, saying that as they grow older, and become eligible both to vote and to run their own campaigns, Gen Z has the potential to change part of the political landscape.
“The people who are in office, when they run for reelection, they're either going to have to change their opinions to reflect more of the voters or they're going to get voted out,” she said.
But… It’s ‘hard to mobilize’
Despite widespread care for the environment, climate activists say it’s hard to get young people to vote when they’ve already faced so much disappointment on other issues this year.
“Gen Z overall really pushes for gun safety, climate change, the right to choose. And, that’s all kind of backfired,” said Kate Fraser, a 17-year-old from Florida who is not old enough to vote during this election cycle but has been working to register hundreds of her peers to vote on a climate platform.
“I think it could absolutely be big if we actually get people registered, and we actually get people to the polls,” she said.
Oliff-Lieberman said one challenge to mobilization is that “young people feel disillusioned and they feel like their politicians are not fighting for them at the scale that these crises demand.”
Others, like Cam Fowler, an 18-year-old first time voter from North Carolina, said that being an environmentalist and being aware of so many weather disasters has led to climate anxiety, which for some means a sense of doom or of not being able to take action, that could turn people away from activism.
But now, he said, “I think that voting and the opportunity to vote is going to be really important to my generation because it's finally a way for us to feel like okay, we can do something, even though we are young.”
Not a ‘kid’ issue
Meanwhile, Fraser criticized the notion that climate is an issue that is only taken seriously by youth.
“Older politicians view it as something that the young people will deal with,” she said. “But they don't realize that they are the people who actually need to make the changes now, to prevent what could happen in the future.”
Alexia Leclercq, a 22-year-old from Austin who is voting for the first time after receiving citizenship this year, said one of the biggest issues facing her generation is the limited time to take action.
“All of these social justice and environmental justice issues are tied,” she said, adding that “taking any action while we still have the time and advancing ambitious goals and passing legislation to support ambitious climate goals” is the most at stake.
Even as the planet warms and youth climate activists face barriers to being taken seriously or achieving change, Alison Gill, a 22-year-old studying molecular engineering at the University of Chicago, said she still has a lot of optimism for the future.
“The positive spin is that our need to take climate action also creates an opportunity for us to remake infrastructure in a greener and a more equitable way,” she said.
For Zhan, the 18-year-old from Maryland, there’s a lot riding on this moment. But, they said it’s the small successes that sometimes matters the most, and that those wins are what keeps them going.
“A lot of times I’m like oh God, we’re gonna put so much energy to organize something and it’s not gonna do anything,” Zhan said. “But then it does do something. And I’m like okay, activism works. Activism works!”
Lula defeats Bolsonaro, potentially restoring the fate of the Amazon rainforest
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday defeated President Jair Bolsonaro in what was widely seen as the country’s most consequential election since the collapse of the military dictatorship in 1985, Anthony Faiola, Paulina Villegas and Gabriela Sá Pessoa report for The Washington Post.
Lula, an icon of the Latin American left, received 50.83 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results, marking a remarkable political comeback. His win is expected to help restore the health of Amazon rainforest, which is on the brink of a tipping point after years of illegal deforestation, logging and other human pressures, including climate change.
Under Bolsonaro deforestation rose to a 15-year high, with environmentalists accusing him of encouraging criminal actors to exploit the world’s largest rainforest with his rhetoric and actions. They argue that Bolsonaro has repeatedly sided with people who seek to capitalize on the forest’s resources and reacted with suspicion to pleas by the international community to safeguard the forest while loosening environmental protections.
The Amazon acts as a massive carbon sink, helping to absorb carbon emissions and slow the rise of rising temperatures. But scientists worry that if it passes the tipping point, it could become a “carbon bomb” that emits huge amounts of greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere — leaving the world no chance of achieving its most ambitious climate goals or averting catastrophic climate change.
Interior to speed up process to save drought-stricken Colorado River
The Interior Department on Friday said that it is considering invoking its federal authority to “expedite” changes in water flow operations on the Colorado River as basin states remain locked in contentious negotiations over how and where to make cuts amid the region’s worst drought in 1,200 years, Ella Nilsen reports for CNN.
The announcement comes as water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell are falling to record lows. In an effort to avoid a crisis on the Colorado River, which provides water and electricity to more than 40 million people, officials from the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation have been working for months with Western states to encourage massive voluntary cuts — though those talks have dragged on and it’s unclear whether they will come to an agreement anytime soon.
On Friday, the agency said that it soon will issue a notice of intent indicating that it might have to modify the current operations of the Glen Canyon Dam and the Hoover Dam while reducing downstream water releases to ensure that the crucial reservoir can continue to generate power.
The public will be able to comment on three potential courses of action through Dec. 20 — including one option where the relevant states strike a deal voluntarily, one where the federal government mandates water flow changes, and one where current conditions continue and no action is taken. A final decision on the changes is set to take effect for the next water year, in the fall of 2023.
Sen. Carper announces Environment and Public Works Committee staff changes
Chairman Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) on Monday announced changes to Democratic staff on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that are effective immediately. They include:
Alexandria Teitz, who will now serve as the panel's new chief counsel. She is currently a principal at AT Strategies, where she offers policy and legal advice or services to environmental groups, with a focus on the climate, air and energy issues being discussed by the White House and Congress. Before that, she was an Obama administration appointee in the Bureau of Land Management, working as a counselor to the director on climate and regulatory matters for the Interior Department.
Jake Abbott, who will officially take over as communications director after serving as Carper’s deputy communications director on the EPW committee.
In Nevada, a tribe and a toad halt a renewable power plant — Dino Grandoni for The Post
Along a withered Mississippi, a mixture of frustration, hope and awe — Brady Dennis for The Post
Md. Dept. of Environment permit lets Trappe project advance with limits — Frederick Kunckle for The Post
This jack-o'-lantern sun came just in time for spooky season 🎃:
The Sun's Halloween face this year.
(@NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory) pic.twitter.com/s5Uqazhllx
11:00 AMElection denier Mark Finchem’s sleeper campaign closes in on MAGA prize
10:39 AMDemocrats attack GOP over entitlements, with abortion leaving some unmoved
10:38 AMRepublicans blame ‘both sides’ for political violence after Paul Pelosi attack
10:37 AMDemocrats worry GOP could win traditionally liberal Miami-Dade | 2022-10-31T22:59:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For Gen Z voters, combating climate change is top of mind - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/gen-z-voters-combating-climate-change-is-top-mind/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/gen-z-voters-combating-climate-change-is-top-mind/ |
MLB postpones Game 3 of the World Series amid inclement weather in Philadelphia
The tarp covers the field in Philadelphia on Monday. (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
Breaking: Game 3 of the World Series has been postponed amid inclement weather in Philadelphia.
Game 3, originally scheduled for Monday night, will now be played at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday, according to Major League Baseball.
Game Three of the 2022 #WorldSeries presented by Capital One has been postponed and rescheduled for Tuesday at 8:03 p.m. (ET). The remainder of the Fall Classic will push back by a day. Tickets for all games remain valid for the game number on each ticket. pic.twitter.com/IZaM66l0Ql
The best-of-seven series is tied 1-1. The Philadelphia Phillies took Game 1 at Minute Maid Park, but the Houston Astros bounced back to earn a Game 2 win. | 2022-10-31T23:29:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | MLB postpones World Series Game 3 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/world-series-game-3-postponed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/world-series-game-3-postponed/ |
Thomas Cahill, best-selling explorer of the Western past, dies at 82
His 1995 book ‘How the Irish Saved Civilization’ championed the work of 5th-century Hibernian monks. It spent almost two years on bestseller lists.
Historian and author Thomas Cahill at his home in New York in 2006. (Paul Hawthorne/AP)
Thomas Cahill, who combined a fascination with the ancient world and a gift for droll, exuberant storytelling in best-selling books such as “How the Irish Saved Civilization,” which argued that Ireland was a haven for Western thought during the tumultuous period after the fall of Rome, died Oct. 18 at his home in Manhattan. He was 82.
The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, author Susan Cahill. Mr. Cahill had heart disease and suffered a stroke in 2017, she said, but had continued to work in recent years.
A devoted student of ancient Greek and Latin, the Jesuit-trained Mr. Cahill worked in journalism and publishing before becoming a full-time author. Capitalizing on the phenomenal success of “How the Irish Saved Civilization” (1995), which spent almost two years on the New York Times bestseller list, he wrote five more books about key moments in the development of Western civilization, drawing from scholarly research and primary sources while crafting books that were as entertaining as they were erudite.
Mr. Cahill was not a professional historian, and was criticized at times for making far-reaching claims without ample evidence. Yet his work was praised for transporting readers into the distant past, and for bringing history alive without getting bogged down by fusty details.
Scholars, he once told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “tend to be extremely cerebral and go toward ‘what’s the philosophical structure here, or what’s the ideological structure?’ They miss the tears and the laughter, the blood, the sweat, all those things that actually put us in touch with these people of the past.”
Mr. Cahill was working as Doubleday’s director of religious publishing when he wrote “How the Irish Saved Civilization,” inspired in part by a trip to Ireland 20 years earlier. The book told the lively — but relatively little known — story of how 5th-century Irish monks copied down classical texts onto sheepskin, rescuing works of literature and philosophy that were being destroyed by Germanic invaders after the collapse of the Roman Empire. It was, Mr. Cahill wrote, Ireland’s “one moment of unblemished glory.”
The book sold some 2 million copies and was a jubilant affirmation of Irish culture and history after years in which the country’s role in world affairs was often derided or ignored. As Mr. Cahill put it, the Irish would generally be considered “a very uncivilized people to save civilization.”
His book offered a corrective to that view while introducing characters including Augustine of Hippo (“almost the last great classical man”), Saint Patrick (“the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery”) and the warrior queen Queen Medb of Connacht.
“His writing is in the great Irish tradition he describes: lyrical, playful, penetrating and serious, but never too serious,” wrote New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein. “And even when his conclusions are not entirely persuasive — they do in places hang on rather slender reeds of evidence — they are always plausible and certainly interesting.”
Mr. Cahill went on to write six total volumes in what he called his “Hinges of History” series, an idiosyncratic survey of Western civilization in which he aimed to offer “a narration of how we became the people that we are.” His follow-up, “The Gifts of the Jews” (1998), was a breezy retelling of biblical history that credited the Jewish people — “a tribe of desert nomads” — with pioneering the concept of individuality, not to mention the idea of the weekend. To research the book, he spent a summer learning Hebrew, studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and traveled to the Middle East to visit Old Testament landmarks.
“I tried for several years to live with the people of the Bible,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Finally, I could see Abraham’s tent in the desert heat.”
Mr. Cahill later explored the life and legacy of Jesus (“Desire of the Everlasting Hills”), the role of art and war in ancient Greece (“Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea”), the cultural and political advances that occurred in the so-called Dark Ages (“Mysteries of the Middle Ages”) and the rise of modern individualism during the Renaissance and Reformation (“Heretics and Heroes”).
His books were filled with lengthy quotes from primary sources as well as colloquial asides and comparisons to modern life. A letter from the Middle Ages was “as full of catty innuendo as the dialogue from an episode of ‘Desperate Housewives,’ ” while the Greek city-state of Sparta was “the North Korea of its day.” In ancient Greece, he wrote, “the harder the pecs and the tighter the buns the more spiritual you were.”
“What academic writers forget is that everyone on Earth buys books for diversion, or entertainment,” he told the Associated Press in 2006. “Yes, they want to learn things, but they also don’t want to be bored to death while they learn those things.”
Thomas Quinn Cahill was born in the Bronx on March 29, 1940. His parents were the children of Irish immigrants, and he grew up hearing songs and stories about life in Ireland from his mother, a homemaker. His father was an insurance executive.
Mr. Cahill earned a scholarship to Regis High School, the elite Jesuit private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he was introduced to the work of Plato and Augustine at age 14. He went on to major in classical literature and medieval philosophy at Fordham University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1964, and studied for the priesthood before deciding against it.
At Columbia University he studied film, receiving a master’s degree in 1968. That was a dead-end as well: Filmmakers, he decided, “either starve or have rich daddies and connections.”
Going into journalism and publishing, he worked as an advertising director at the New York Review of Books and an education correspondent at the Times of London. He also wrote book reviews for the Los Angeles Times and taught at schools including Seton Hall University, Queens College and Fordham.
With the former Susan Neunzig, whom he married in 1966, he published his first book, the anthology “Big City Stories by Modern American Writers,” in 1971. They later started a mail-order book catalogue and spent a year in Ireland researching their second book, “A Literary Guide to Ireland” (1973).
For decades, Mr. Cahill kept his idea for an Irish history book in his back pocket, unsuccessfully pitching it to five major publishers before meeting editor Nan Talese, who signed on to the project after they met at a sales conference in 1990.
By then, Mr. Cahill was the director of religious publishing at Doubleday, releasing titles that included the six-volume “Anchor Bible Dictionary,” which became a crucial resource for his subsequent history books. He also published an English translation of “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven,” by German theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann, about women, sexuality and the Catholic Church.
Mr. Cahill told the Irish Times that when he saw the dour cover art that had been planned for the book, he went to Doubleday’s art department and said, “Give me something that’ll give a bishop apoplexy at breakfast.” The resulting book was published with a sensual illustration showing a woman in silhouette, and was attacked by influential Cardinal John J. O’Connor, who declared that Doubleday was a “purveyor of hatred and scandal and malice and libel and calumny.” (Mr. Cahill said he and other editors felt “defamed” by O’Connor, but noted that the cardinal’s comments seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect, boosting the book’s sales.)
After the success of “How the Irish Saved Civilization,” Mr. Cahill quit his day job, aiming to write a new book every two years. His later works included “Pope John XXIII” (2002), a short biography for the Penguin Lives series, and “A Saint on Death Row” (2009), about Dominique Green, a Texan who was convicted — wrongly, in Mr. Cahill’s eyes — of fatally shooting a man during a robbery outside a convenience store. Green was executed in 2004, after Mr. Cahill unsuccessfully sought to clear his name.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Cahill’s survivors include their two children, Kristin Cahill Iñiguez and Joseph Cahill; three sisters; and four grandchildren.
Mr. Cahill was skeptical of institutional religion, saying that he found “churches often get in the way” of faith. But for many years he led a prayer group in New York, taking time off from his writing to read bedtime stories to children with HIV.
“We’re just a bunch of middle class people,” he told the New York Times in 1998. “None of this is earthshaking or monumental. It seems extremely minor, but everything is minor in a way.
“You know the famous response of Mother Teresa when someone asked her how she did it? ‘One by one.’ I think that is always the response.” | 2022-11-01T00:17:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thomas Cahill, best-selling explorer of the Western past, dies at 82 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/31/thomas-cahill-ireland-author-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/10/31/thomas-cahill-ireland-author-dead/ |
Teenager shot, seriously wounded in Southeast, D.C. police say
Gunfire breaks out on Halloween night in Washington.
A teenager was shot and seriously wounded on Halloween night in Southeast Washington, the D.C. police said.
The youth was shot about 8:40 p.m. in the 2600 block of Birney Place, the police said. His exact age was not immediately known.
When found, he was unconscious but breathing, officer Sean Hickman, a police spokesman, said.
No information was available immediately about the circumstances of the shooting.
The site is in a residential neighborhood about a half-mile southwest of the Frederick Douglass Bridge that carries South Capitol Street over the Anacostia River.
It was not immediately clear whether the shooting was connected in any way to observances of Halloween. | 2022-11-01T02:19:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teenager unconscious after Southeast D.C. shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/31/teenager-critical-shot-southeast-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/31/teenager-critical-shot-southeast-dc/ |
Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh, right, shares a moment with Michigan State Coach Mel Tucker after the Wolverines' win. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh said Monday that he expects “criminal charges” to emerge from an investigation of violence that broke out in the stadium tunnel Saturday after his Wolverines defeated visiting Michigan State.
Noting an “ongoing police investigation,” Harbaugh said: “What happened in the tunnel was egregious. It’s sickening to watch the videos, the ones that are on social media right now.”
Video of the incident from different angles showed several Spartans players appearing to assault Michigan’s Ja’Den McBurrows and Gemon Green. On Sunday, Michigan State Coach Mel Tucker announced the indefinite suspensions of four players: redshirt sophomore linebacker Itayvion “Tank” Brown, redshirt sophomore cornerback Khary Crump, junior safety Angelo Grose and freshman defensive end Zion Young.
“We’re not here to make any excuses for the behaviors Saturday,” Tucker said at a news conference Monday. “They are unacceptable.”
Four Michigan State players suspended after brawl with Michigan
“There needs to be accountability,” Harbaugh told reporters earlier in the day. “There needs to be a full, thorough, timely investigation.
“I can’t imagine that this will not result in criminal charges,” he continued. “The videos are bad, and it’s clear what transpired. This is very open and shut. As they say, watch the tape.”
In a video that was shared shortly after the game ended, Brown, Grose and Young could be seen pushing and appearing to punch and kick at McBurrows. Footage from an ABC/ESPN camera mounted in the tunnel that emerged Monday appeared to show Green being hit with a Spartans helmet, with Crump involved in the fracas. In that footage, another Michigan State player who was not immediately suspended, linebacker/defensive end Jacoby Windmon, could be seen putting on his helmet and grabbing Green.
Harbaugh said the placement of the ABC/ESPN camera at a “higher elevation” allowed it to show “much more of what took place” during the incident.
“I’m coming from this from a perspective of being a parent,” Harbaugh said. “These young men are entrusted to me by their families to our program, and we have the responsibility to each player to treat them like our own, and I take that responsibility very seriously. An apology will not get the job done in this instance. There should be serious consequences for the many individuals that are culpable.”
In a statement issued late Sunday night by the Spartans’ athletic department, Michigan State President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. said he was “extremely saddened by this incident and the unacceptable behavior depicted by members of our football program.”
“On behalf of Michigan State University, my heartfelt apology to the University of Michigan and the student-athletes who were injured,” Stanley continued. “There is no provocation that could justify the behavior we are seeing on the videos. Rivalries can be intense but should never be violent.”
Michigan State Athletic Director Alan Haller said in a concurrent statement that the suspensions of the four players were “necessary” in light of the “alarming evidence” of their involvement.
Tucker offered another apology at Monday’s news conference.
“We are deeply sorry to both universities, the conference, our fans, alumni, supporters and of course all our student-athletes, past and present,” said the coach, who is in this third season with the Spartans.
“The incidents involving a small group of our players do not represent our culture,” Tucker added.
Jim Harbaugh opened his Monday press conference with a two-minute statement about the tunnel incident on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/8eTTNXKVhe
Michigan State's Mel Tucker on Monday: "We're not here to make any excuses for the behaviors Saturday. They are unacceptable."
"We are deeply sorry to both universities, the conference, our fans, alumni, supporters, and of course all of our student athletes." pic.twitter.com/heQy5iZFcW
Citing police and university/Big Ten investigations, Tucker declined to comment on reporters’ questions about Harbaugh’s mention of possible criminal charges and about whether it “upset” him that other Spartans players did not do more to stop the assaults.
In response to reporters at his news conference, Harbaugh did not elaborate on why McBurrows, a sophomore defensive back, and Green, a graduate defensive back, were walking through the tunnel toward the locker rooms at the same time as Michigan State players. After games at Ann Arbor’s Michigan Stadium, the visiting team and its staff are first to leave the field and enter the tunnel, followed by the Wolverines’ contingent.
At halftime of Michigan’s previous home game, a win over Penn State, Wolverines and Nittany Lions players had a heated exchange. Penn State Coach James Franklin subsequently described the shared usage of one tunnel as “a problem,” after which Harbaugh accused Franklin of having been the “ringleader” of the confrontation. Franklin called for a “buffer” of a minute or two before Michigan players followed the visiting team into the tunnel and predicted at the time that the ill will that emerged during his team’s visit to Michigan Stadium “won’t be the last” of its kind.
Analysis: The College Football Playoff contenders have narrowed to, oh yeah, 13
On Monday, Harbaugh downplayed the tunnel setup as a problem and reiterated that “actions of these individuals” from Michigan State were at issue. He added that he wasn’t sure if Green, who has made 21 starts for Michigan over his career, would be available for the 8-0 Wolverines’ next game, Saturday at Rutgers.
“This has been a very traumatic experience for everybody, especially for Ja’Den and Gemon,” said Harbaugh, a former Michigan standout in his eighth season as coach.
An attorney for Green, Tom Mars, told the Associated Press that those involved in attacking his client will “feel the full wrath of the law.”
“Severe consequences in this case will deter others who might think they can get away with brutally beating an opposing player and only get a slap on the wrist,” Mars said. “… When college football players brutally attack a member of the opposing team with their helmets, resulting in the player suffering a concussion and other injuries, an apology won’t suffice. There has to be severe consequences for this kind of misconduct.”
Auburn fires Bryan Harsin in the middle of his second season | 2022-11-01T03:41:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jim Harbaugh expects ‘criminal charges’ for Michigan State players after brawl - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/jim-harbaugh-criminal-charges-michigan-state-brawl/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/31/jim-harbaugh-criminal-charges-michigan-state-brawl/ |
What Lula’s victory means for the world
Less than three years ago, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was in prison. On Monday, he woke up on the path to returning to the presidency of Brazil after securing a narrow victory in Sunday’s second round runoff election. The leftist defeated incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro in a bitter contest shaped by ideological animosity and personal enmity. His victory represents one of the more spectacular political comebacks this century.
Lula served two successful terms as president from 2003 to 2010, where he tapped into an epochal commodity boom to lift millions of Brazilians out of poverty through far-reaching welfare programs. But the years that followed his presidency saw an economic downturn, while a vast corruption scandal implicated much of the Brazilian political establishment — and led to Lula himself going to prison in 2018, only for the country’s Supreme Court to order his release in 2019 and later annul the charges against him.
Bolsonaro occupied the far-right fringes of Brazilian politics for much of his political career, notorious for his penchant for making misogynistic and bigoted remarks, as well as spouting nostalgia for the years of military dictatorship. He rode a wave of popular discontent as an anti-establishment candidate and won the presidency in 2018 elections. His turbulent four years in power were marked by scandals, a bungled response to the coronavirus pandemic and a brand of polarizing, hard-right politics that critics feared was fraying the bonds binding Brazil’s young democracy.
Lula, a genuine working-class hero who lost a finger in a factory accident, was perhaps the sole figure who wielded enough popular appeal to counter Bolsonaro’s movement. Now, he has little time to bask in his triumph.
A ‘Brazilian Biden’ defending democracy
At the time of writing on Monday, Bolsonaro had not conceded defeat, even though election authorities had confirmed the results Sunday night and numerous world leaders, including President Biden, had congratulated Lula and cheered the passage of free and fair elections in Brazil. Bolsonaro had not said anything publicly at all (though one of his sons issued a somewhat cryptic tweet urging supporters not to “give up on our Brazil”).
For months as president, Bolsonaro called into question the integrity of Brazil’s electoral processes despite scant evidence to back his claims. Now, stewing in defeat, he may take yet another page out of former president Donald Trump’s playbook, point to the slim margin of Lula’s victory as a reason to question its legitimacy and spend the interim period before Lula’s inauguration complicating the political transition.
“This is the Trump model,” said Marcos Nobre, a political analyst and author, to my colleagues. “That’s to say, the one who won the election fair and square is illegitimate. Bolsonaro will seek to weaken Lula in every way.”
“Does he hold tight, demand a vote audit and spark a constitutional crisis a la Trump in 2020?” my colleagues asked. “Or, because his conservative movement did far better than expected, does he solidify a strong position as Brazil’s most powerful opposition leader since the return of democracy — using his massive social media platform as a bully pulpit to complicate Lula’s job? Or, as some have suggested, does he leave Brazil to escape the possibility of criminal prosecution?”
Lula, on the other hand, has cast himself as a conciliatory figure, eager to represent the whole nation, revitalize trust in its civic institutions and return the country to a degree of calm and democratic normalcy. As Brazilian essayist Bruno Cava put it, he “presented himself as the candidate of the system, as a ‘Brazilian Biden,’ so to speak, putting an end to a Trumpist interlude.”
Lula’s election campaign pulled in a broad coalition of parties and politicians, including former political adversaries. After the election, a number of key Bolsonaro allies also called on the incumbent to recognize the result for the good of the country. “It is time to disarm the spirit, extend your hand to your opponents,” House Speaker Arthur Lira said.
But, like Biden, Lula must contend with significant legislative and political opposition from an emboldened right that will nurse grievance over this lost election. The head winds of the global economy — and a maelstrom of misinformation on social media — will buffet his agenda.
Yes, everything indicates that Latin America will have another leftist president in Lula in Brazil and the anti-incumbent trend continues. But the probable margin of victory is so narrow as to refute the idea of another "pink tide" in the region.
A second pink tide?
In his first stint in power, Lula seemed to be South America’s preeminent and most beloved leftist leader. He was the titan among a “pink” wave of elected left-leaning governments across the continent and his relative pragmatism stood him in contrast to more autocratic and demagogic left-wing regimes in places like Venezuela and Cuba.
Now, Lula returns to power at another such moment in the continent’s politics. Since 2020, left-leaning governments took power in Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Colombia — the latter long ruled by the right. There is no simple narrative to tell about their ascent, but it all took place in the shadow of the pandemic, which exposed underlying social inequities within many countries, especially in Latin America.
“It is more of a rejectionist trend than anything else … people looking for an alternative,” Michael Shifter, former president of Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue, told AFP. “We are in that moment in Latin America where a lot of the governments that are being rejected are of the right or the center right.” And the pendulum may quite swiftly swing the other direction if voters believe these governments have failed to deliver in the years to come.
In terms of foreign policy, it’s hard to see Lula casting himself as an ideological fellow traveler of Biden the way Bolsonaro did for Trump. He may reprise the position his government took back over a decade ago, touting Brazil’s role as a champion of the Global South, while standing at a distance from the West and taking up independent positions on a host of thorny geopolitical challenges.
Like Bolsonaro, Lula may equivocate about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — he even said in an interview earlier this year that leaders in both countries shared blame for the war. Unlike Bolsonaro, Lula likely won’t pander to evangelical voters by embracing Israel and chumming up to right-wing demagogue Benjamin Netanyahu, who could return to power after elections Tuesday.
The burning of Amazonia
Under Bolsonaro, the deforestation of the Amazon region — described for years as the “lungs” of the world — accelerated precipitously. He cut away at environmental protections and undermined the government agencies tasked to enforce them. An estimated 2 billion trees were cut or burned down during his time in power, as his administration tacitly worked to boost the interests of Brazilian agribusiness. Between the summers of 2019 and 2021, an expanse of forest larger than the entirety of Belgium vanished. According to a study published by the journal Nature last year, parts of the Amazon rainforest have gone from being a net carbon sink to another source of emissions.
That’s worrying for all those concerned about the planetary effects of global warming and the international community’s struggle to combat climate change. Lula has vowed to turn back the page and to rein in deforestation, as he previously did in office. One analysis forecast that Lula’s victory could lead to a near 90 percent drop in Amazon deforestation over the next decade.
“Brazil is ready to resume its leading role in the fight against the climate crisis, protecting all our biomes, especially the Amazon forest,” Lula said after his victory. | 2022-11-01T04:12:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Lula’s victory in Brazil means for the world - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/global-lula-brazil-world-foreign-policy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/global-lula-brazil-world-foreign-policy/ |
An election campaign banner shows the faces of, left to right, Ahmad Tibi, head of the Ta'al party; Defense Minister Benny Gantz, head of the National Unity bloc; Prime Minister Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party; and Mansour Abbas, head of the Raam party, on a bus in Jerusalem on Monday, a day before Israel's Nov. 1 general election. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
TEL AVIV — For the fifth time in four years, Israel is holding elections. For many here, it feels like Groundhog Day.
With polls showing another tight race between the two major blocs — the right, helmed by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the center left, led by the current caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid — voter turnout will be the decisive factor.
In Israel, though, winning elections is only half the battle. After Tuesday’s contest, a party leader tapped by the president will have four weeks to attempt to cobble together a 61-seat majority coalition.
As ballots are cast and the political process trudges onward, here’s what you should know:
1. Why does Israel keep holding elections?
Since April 2019, Netanyahu and his opponents have been battling it out at the ballot box, debating long-bubbling questions around the future identity of the state — should Israel be a Jewish homeland, or a regional democracy? — and only peripherally addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In all those years, neither bloc has been able to clinch a definitive win or form a stable government.
Some hoped the grinding deadlock was finally broken in June 2021, with the swearing in of a government that, for the first time in 12 years, was not led by Netanyahu. The so-called “change coalition” — composed of leftists, pro-settler parties and, for the first time in Israel’s history, Arabs — was led by right-wing politician Naftali Bennett.
But that experiment ended abruptly after only a year. The defection in the spring of several members, including from Bennett’s own party, stripped the coalition of its razor-thin majority.
Centrist Yair Lapid took charge of the caretaker government and Netanyahu fired up his election campaign, promising his base a return to a “stable right.” Netanyahu’s supporters, citing a spike in Palestinian attacks since last spring, hope for a crackdown on Palestinians and a freer hand toward Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
His detractors argue that these elections are, like the ones before it, a political ploy — a roulette that Israel’s longest-serving leader will play as many times as necessary to get a parliamentary majority and secure immunity from his ongoing corruption trial. Among Netanyahu’s top supporters is ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir, who, according to a recording leaked by Israeli news site Ynet on Sunday, said he would champion legislation to get Netanyahu’s trial canceled.
2. Who are the main contenders?
Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party is leading in the polls, followed by Lapid’s center-left Yesh Atid. Religious Zionism, a far-right coalition headed by Bezalel Smotrich and Ben Gvir, who have advocated hobbling Israel’s judiciary system and expelling “disloyal” citizens from Israel, has surged in the polls and is predicted to become the third-largest bloc in the 120-seat Knesset.
In an otherwise “lackluster campaign,” the far right has emerged as “the sharpest upward trend that we’ve seen,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster.
But the small parties will be just as critical as the large ones. Any of the three politically unaffiliated Arab parties that pass the four-seat threshold required to enter the Knesset could serve as kingmakers. The same goes for the ultra-Orthodox parties, which, unlike in past elections, have not pledged to support Netanyahu.
Ultra-Orthodox parties have “been outside the government for a year, and face enormous pressure to get funding for their institutions, especially their schools, in any way they can,” said Jonathan Rynhold, a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
3. How has the extended political stalemate affected Israelis?
This year’s election, following a string of Jewish holidays that ended in mid-October, has been notably low-key. But even if the past two weeks of campaigning have been exhausting for most Israelis, some 70 percent are still expected to vote, according to Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think tank.
“The government hasn’t been functioning for almost four years and the Israeli public is paying a dear price for that,” said Plesner, adding that housing prices have skyrocketed, plans for public transportation have remained in stasis, and other large-scale plans have been put on hold during years of political stagnation.
“Israel’s government just isn’t delivering the goods,” he said.
4. How will the results affect Palestinians?
For the nearly 5.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel’s election is another reminder of their exclusion from the political system that controls much of their lives. And Israelis, for their part, have been mostly ignoring them.
“The Israeli population is used to not remembering the conflict and the occupation because it’s a hidden subject,” said Rula Hardal, a Palestinian Israeli political scientist and research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.
Lapid voiced support for a two-state solution in a major speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September. But the government he leads has also presided over a spike in Israeli settler violence toward Palestinians, along with home demolitions and evictions.
Escalating Israeli raids in the West Bank have put 2022 on track to be the deadliest year for Palestinians there since the United Nations began keeping records in 2005. Rights groups worry that Netanyahu’s electoral dependence on Ben Gvir, a lawyer who’s built his career defending Israeli settlers accused of violence and who will likely demand a high-profile position in government, will fuel additional attacks on Palestinians.
Appointing Ben Gvir as a minister would mean “basically accepting and fully legitimizing his policies, his ideas of segregation, discrimination, racism against anyone who is not Jewish in this land,” said Ori Givati, advocacy director for the Israeli advocacy group Breaking the Silence.
Inside Israel, its nearly 2 million Palestinian citizens (about 20 percent of the population) are deeply disillusioned after the collapse of the “change government,” the first in Israel’s history to include an Arab party. Many say the government did little to improve systemic issues of discrimination and rampant crime.
“Arab politicians failed in delivering,” said Mohammad Darawshe, a political analyst. “So the Arab public feels, okay, we pay the price but we don’t get what was promised.”
5. Could there be a sixth election next year?
It’s not inconceivable. Netanyahu’s Likud is predicted to come out as the largest party, with about 30 seats. But his allies, from Religious Zionism (predicted to get about 15) and other religious and right-wing parties, may not get enough votes to reach a parliamentary majority of 61.
Lapid may be able to draw secular voters, those opposed to Ben Gvir, in addition to small, left-leaning parties such as Meretz or the Arab parties, whose ability to cross the four-seat threshold is still unknown.
But Scheindlin, the pollster, said that even if a governing coalition coalesces, it may not be stable enough to survive more than a few months.
Chances for another round of elections next year, she said, are “not at all bad.” | 2022-11-01T04:12:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Israel election: Five things to know as Netanyahu seeks return to power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/israel-election-explainer-netanyahu-lapid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/israel-election-explainer-netanyahu-lapid/ |
Sick at Heart: Your son is facing a credible accusation of a serious assault toward his sister.
My problem is that my old job was at a prominent retailer that is currently very popular with consumers. Every time people find out where I used to work, they ask questions. Even my new co-workers who haven’t worked in the industry are curious about it.
New Job: You should not necessarily discourage these conversations, as annoying as they may be. The way you respond will help you to connect with others.
You could work up a “set piece” of a few sentences, satisfy some curiosity and pivot to your current interests.
If you don’t want to engage, you can say, “Oh, I really don’t want to talk about it.” Most people should respond to that abruptness by moonwalking away.
Hungry: This is genius. | 2022-11-01T05:48:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My son physically assaulted my daughter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/01/ask-amy-siblings-assault-prosecution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/01/ask-amy-siblings-assault-prosecution/ |
Dear Carolyn: My beautiful, funny, smart stepdaughter started high school this year. Like with many kids, the pandemic was very hard on her. It exacerbated her feelings of awkwardness and being out of place.
She’s also dealing with some body-image issues lately. She visits her dad and me on weekends and school breaks. Since January, I’ve only really ever seen her wear one outfit. She’ll wear comfy clothes around the house, but she wears the same outfit if we go anywhere, even multiple days in a row. When we’ve visited her after school at her mom’s house, she’s wearing the outfit.
She’s a clean kid and doesn’t smell, but I’m really concerned that a kid who feels this awkward is going to get eaten alive in high school.
I’ve tried to get her clothing of a similar style, and she’ll say she likes it, but will never wear it. Do we bring it up with her? Or just let her find out the hard way? I want home to be a soft place to land for her but also don’t like the idea of setting up a sweet kid for failure. She won’t go shopping with me. I’ve tried.
Concerned: If the exact components of The Outfit are still available in stores, then order backups. Otherwise, let it go. She needs her people at home to accept her and believe in her more than she needs variety in her clothes.
· This is my daughter to a T. She has been like this her whole life. She is highly intelligent. I, too, worried about the judgment from peers (still do), and anytime she asked for clothing (and only when she asked), I obliged. I also made it clear (in general) that she can always stick up for her choices and decide for herself what is important. Some of the most successful and intelligent individuals have done similarly, wearing the same thing or something close: Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, etc.
· In the summer before seventh grade, my son asked me to buy him four identical pairs of pants and eight identical red turtleneck shirts. That fall, I got a call from the guidance counselor, uncomfortably and politely asking me whether I was aware that he wore the same clothes every day. (Clearly there was some concern that he wasn’t wearing clean clothes.) I was with a client when I got the call, and because it was from the school, I excused myself and answered it. I burst out laughing and explained that he bathed and changed his clothes daily, that his clothes were washed regularly, but that he didn’t want to have to make anymore decisions and chose to wear the same thing. I found out later that his look was so distinctive that another kid was him for Halloween.
· I was this teen, and my grandparents forced me to wear new clothes, and it scarred me for life. I still have major clothing issues at 44. Let her be and be supportive. Also, for me, the attachment to one piece of clothing had its roots in trauma and the desire to control one aspect on my life. The best thing you can do is be a loving, supportive ear. | 2022-11-01T05:48:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Stepdaughter wears same outfit daily, prompting concerns - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/01/carolyn-hax-stepdaughter-clothes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/01/carolyn-hax-stepdaughter-clothes/ |
(Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
— By every single metric, election fraud is rare in the United States.
— Almost no elections in the past 50 years have been flipped because of documented voter fraud, with occasional exceptions at the local level.
The decentralized system of American elections — where elections are run by more than 8,000 local governments and almost 90 percent of Americans vote on paper ballots, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — make it impossible to steal a nationwide election through voter fraud.
But an Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states found fewer than 475 out of more than 25 million votes cast in those states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The disputed ballots amounted to just 0.15 percent of Biden’s victory margin.
The conservative Heritage Foundation maintains a database, dating back to 1979, that it says includes a “sampling” of election-fraud cases brought by prosecutors. “The database is up to 1,384 proven cases and we are following dozens of other prosecutions that are ongoing,” says Hans von Spakovsky, a Heritage senior fellow. That’s an average of 32 examples per year that the group has documented.
But a Washington Post analysis in 2020 of data collected by three vote-by-mail states with help from the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) found that officials identified just 372 possible cases of double voting or voting on behalf of deceased people out of about 14.6 million votes cast by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, or 0.0025 percent.
More recently, in 2018, North Carolina ordered a new congressional election after an absentee-ballot scheme was discovered in one county that helped to narrowly tip the election to the Republican. Suspicions rose after 61 percent of the vote-by-mail ballots in the county were cast for the Republican candidate, despite the fact that only 16 percent of them were registered Republicans.
The most prominent case of a major race likely being decided by election fraud took place 75 years ago. In 1948, Lyndon B. Johnson, then a member of Congress, won a Democratic runoff Senate primary against former governor Coke Stevenson by just 87 votes. Historian Robert A. Caro documented in 1990 that Johnson gained hundreds of votes through fraud and malfeasance — a victory that eventually took Johnson to the presidency.
At a rally on Oct. 9, 2021, in Des Moines, former president Donald Trump continued to unleash a litany of false and unproven claims of voter fraud in 2020. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
But Trump ignores that at least 86 judges, including Trump appointees, rejected at least one post-election lawsuit filed by Trump or his supporters and that they consistently found there was no substantive evidence to support claims of fraud and irregularities. “Calling an election unfair does not make it so,” wrote Trump federal appeals court nominee Stephanos Bibas in one opinion. “Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”
In Arizona, for instance, a Republican-commissioned review of nearly 2.1 million ballots in Arizona’s largest county actually added to the margin of Biden’s narrow victory in the state. Biden gained 99 votes while Trump lost 261 votes. “Truth is truth and numbers are numbers,” said Karen Fann, the Republican Senate president who commissioned the vote review. | 2022-11-01T07:10:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The truth about election fraud: It’s rare - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/truth-about-election-fraud-its-rare/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/truth-about-election-fraud-its-rare/ |
For decades, a slain woman was ‘Lady of the Dunes.’ Now she has a name.
The FBI used forensic genealogy to identify a body found in 1974 on the Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts
Joseph Bonavolonta, head of the FBI field office in Boston, announces the identity of the “Lady of the Dunes” as Ruth Marie Terry, whose body was found in 1974. (Courtesy WCVB)
On Monday, the FBI announced it had identified the woman discovered 48 years ago amid the dunes of the Cape Cod National Seashore as Ruth Marie Terry. She had been the oldest unidentified homicide victim in Massachusetts, according to Joseph Bonavolonta, chief of the FBI field office in Boston. The FBI received confirmation of Terry’s identity last week and notified her family soon after.
“This is, without a doubt, a major break in the investigation that will, hopefully, bring all of us closer to identifying the killer,” Bonavolonta said Monday at a news conference.
Terry’s body was found on July 26, 1974, about a mile east of the Race Point Ranger Station on the Cape Cod National Seashore. The left side of her skull had been crushed, her head nearly severed and her hands removed, which police believed was an attempt to thwart them from identifying her. Her nude body was lying on a beach blanket with her head resting on a pair of folded jeans.
“It was a brutal death,” Bonavolonta said Monday.
Investigators have since learned that Terry was born in 1936 in Tennessee, Bonavolonta said, and that she was “a daughter, sister, aunt, wife and mother.” She had ties to Massachusetts, California and Michigan, according to authorities, who at Monday’s news conference declined to provide any additional information about her, citing the ongoing investigation and the privacy of Terry’s relatives.
“We also realize that while we have identified Ruth as the victim of this horrific murder, it does not ease the pain for her family. Nothing can. But hopefully it answers some questions while we continue to look for her killer,” Bonavolonta said.
And that’s what’s next, authorities said.
“Today’s identification of the Lady of the Dunes is not the end of the case, or even the beginning of the end,” Massachusetts State Police Col. Chris Mason said at the news conference.
“Now, almost half a century since her own voice was silenced in the most horrible of ways, we focus our work entirely on determining what Ruth Marie Terry did in life, on what led her to the easternmost point of our state to the dunes of Provincetown, and to who did this to her,” he added. | 2022-11-01T07:50:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Lady of the Dunes': FBI identifies woman whose body was found in 1974 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/lady-of-dunes-body-identified/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/lady-of-dunes-body-identified/ |
Taylor Swift makes music history, snagging all Billboard Top 10 spots
Taylor Swift attends an event at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 9, 2022. Swift's latest album, “Midnights,” was released on Oct. 21. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Last month, Taylor Swift kept fans up with her 12 a.m. debut of “Midnights,” her tenth and latest album. Three hours later, the pop star — who has a penchant for surprising fans — dropped seven extra tracks in a deluxe version aptly titled “Midnights (3am Edition).”
The sleepless night — mirroring the ones she croons about on the record — paid off. “Midnights” turned Swift into the first artist to snag every one of the top 10 slots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, all with songs from the 13-song album.
It is a previously unheard-of, tremendous achievement for any artist, experts told The Washington Post. Amid the music industry’s changing ecosystem in the age of streaming, the feat could only be pulled off by someone who brings to the table exactly what Swift does: an established stardom, a loyal fan base, a savvy social media strategy and a relentless marketing machine.
“This was just a really good album, and she’s one of the most gigantic music stars in the world,” said Steve Knopper, Billboard editor-at-large. “She also flooded the zone with different versions of the album and pushed it all out there in a week where there wasn’t a ton of competition from other artists. With that combination of things, you can’t go wrong.”
Following the Oct. 21 to Oct. 27 tracking week, the “Midnights” album now has the most-ever top 10 songs on the list — a record previously held by Drake’s 2021 album “Certified Lover Boy,” which had nine hits in the top 10.
“Anti-Hero,” a song about Swift’s inner battles, topped the list with some 59.7 million streams and 32 million radio airplay impressions. It was followed by “Lavender Haze,” a breezy song about love’s all-encompassing glow, with 41.4 million streams, and “Maroon,” a track revisiting a fizzled-out relationship, with 37.6 million.
Billboard’s charts used to be our barometer for music success. Are they meaningless in the streaming age?
To formulate the charts, Billboard takes into account a slew of different metrics that each carry varying weights. Those metrics include digital and physical sales, streams and radio airplay impressions. But the criteria has changed over the years — especially in the last decade, as streaming has become more of a revenue generator.
“Streaming has changed everything — not just music consumption behavior, but the way music is made, how albums are conceived and sequenced, and even the way that songs are written and produced,” said Larry Miller, a professor of music business at New York University’s Steinhardt School.
Major streaming companies like Spotify and Apple Music have made it so that an enormous amount of music is available to a huge pool of users who’ve increasingly moved away from buying physical copies — the previous standard metric for tracking charts. But while streaming services have made it easier for people to play their favorite music on repeat, it’s also led to an increasing volume of streamable songs and records by an almost unlimited number of artists.
“What Taylor Swift has accomplished in this era, where there are north of 70,000 new tracks released every single day, is an enormous accomplishment,” Miller said. “It’s truly a remarkable, historic achievement, even if any person could have correctly guessed that it was set to be one of the biggest albums of the year before it broke all of these records.” According to some estimates, as many as 100,000 tracks are uploaded to music streaming services each day.
Superstar Taylor Swift's tenth album, "Midnights," will debut on Oct. 21. It will contain a trove of hidden meanings tied to her love of numeric symbolism. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post, Photo: Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post)
Even before “Midnights” was scheduled to release, the album’s success seemed predestined. For months, fans had been anticipating another of Swift’s rerecorded albums — with many hunting for Easter eggs that could signal the “Taylor’s Version” edition of “Speak Now” or “1989.” In what seemed like an utter surprise, Swift instead announced in August that she’d be putting out an all-new record.
The artist hyped up her creation of “a journey through terrors and sweet dreams” on social media, sharing clue-ridden clips with each of the track’s names for 13 straight nights. At midnight on Oct. 21, Spotify crashed as fans flooded the app to take a first listen to the new album. Swift also released four differently colored vinyl and CD versions of the album, plus a Target exclusive edition.
How the search for clues in Taylor Swift’s music became all-consuming
“Taylor put out different versions of the album, and she communicated directly to her sizable fan base on social media and said, ‘Hey, this is all available,’ and they all said, ‘Great!’ Anything that she puts out, they’re very loyal to her,” Knopper said.
The different editions led to “Midnights” selling a whopping 1.4 million physical copies in its debut week — the most since Adele’s “25” sold 3.4 million in 2015. Out of those, over 500,000 came from vinyl sales, representing the single-largest sales week for an album since Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991.
“She’s truly one of the few superstar artists in today’s music business who can straddle both worlds: the old-school world of radio play and physical albums, and the new-school streaming world,” Knopper added.
As for Swift, it seems like 10 is set to surpass 13 as her go-to lucky number.
“10 out of 10 of the Hot 100??? On my 10th album??? I AM IN SHAMBLES,” she wrote on Twitter.
Here’s the complete Top 10 list, according to Billboard:
“Vigilante S---” | 2022-11-01T08:03:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taylor Swift snags all Billboard Top 10 spots with 'Midnights' songs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/taylor-swift-billboard-top-ten/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/taylor-swift-billboard-top-ten/ |
Yoon Hee-geun, South Korea's national police chief, bows during a news conference in Seoul on Tuesday. (Yonhap/AFP/Getty Images)
SEOUL — South Korea’s police chief said Tuesday that crowd control was “inadequate” in the Itaewon area in Seoul where at least 156 partygoers were killed in a crush.
In the wake of the crowd crush, one of the deadliest incidents in South Korea in recent years, there is now scrutiny on efforts by police to handle such gatherings. Although there is heavy police presence at protests, festivals, concerts and other events where many people are expected, there was a significantly smaller law enforcement presence in Itaewon.
In his own briefing Tuesday, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo pointed to a lack of a “crowd management system” as a cause of the accident and called for measures to address the issues. “The government is responsible for lives and safety of the people, and it is our absolute duty.”
About 100,000 people were expected per night in the Itaewon area over Halloween weekend. There were 137 local police officers dispatched to the neighborhood — about one for every 730 people — whose primary role was to focus on petty crime, drugs and sexual and physical abuse.
In addition, there were eight U.S. Forces Korea personnel on patrol in the Itaewon area, according to the U.S. military, which has a base nearby and provides “courtesy patrols” there.
Yongsan district office’s countermeasures ahead of the event did not include crowd control efforts. The oversight highlighted limitations in the nation’s policies governing mass gatherings in public places, experts say. Although detailed safety protocols are required for official events, such as festivals, the same disaster prevention methods do not apply to public spaces where large crowds are expected to gather informally, leading to ambiguous safety protocols and no clear agency being in charge, they said.
Nonetheless, members of the public and businesses in Itaewon are questioning why law enforcement failed to anticipate the spike in attendance this year.
The Halloween festivities in Itaewon, Seoul’s foreigner-friendly district popular among expats and younger Koreans, have grown increasingly popular over the past decade. This year was the first Halloween since the start of the coronavirus pandemic that didn’t include social distancing or outdoor masking restrictions, drawing even more enthusiastic crowds.
Seoul crowd crush shows gaps in Korean safety rules, experts say
Police, however, did not expect Halloween crowds to be significantly larger than in previous years and did not deploy additional personnel ahead of the celebrations, South Korea’s minister of interior and safety, Lee Sang-min, said at a briefing Sunday. At that briefing, Lee said he did not believe greater police presence would have mitigated the crowd — a comment that drew sharp backlash. On Tuesday, the ministry apologized for his remarks.
Three days before the incident, businesses around the area of the crush requested the Seoul city to require the subway to pass the Itaewon station rather than stopping at it over the weekend, out of concerns of the volume of people who mass in front of the station, according to Korean newspaper Dong-A Ilbo. The site of the crush was located just north of the station. The Seoul Transportation Corporation told Dong-A Ilbo that it did not receive such a request.
Saturday is the most crowded night of the Halloween weekend in Itaewon. Seoul subway records show Itaewon station saw a spike in traffic this year compared to the Saturdays of Halloween weekends in prior years. About 130,000 people used the station on Saturday, up from 96,400 in 2019 and 102,200 in 2018, traffic data show. In 2021, in the midst of coronavirus restrictions, there were about 59,220.
About 30 to 90 officers were dispatched every year from 2017 through 2021, according to Hong Ki-hyun, chief of the National Police Agency’s Public Order Management Bureau, during a Monday briefing.
At least in one instance in the past, law enforcement took steps to direct the crowd. In 2017, there was a police line in the area that directed partygoers to sidewalks to help them avoid auto traffic, Hong said.
'So many bodies’: Seoul witnesses recall Halloween night of true horror
“We will thoroughly investigate the adequacy of the overall on-site response, including the handling of the [emergency calls],” said Yoon, the national police chief. “We hope that this Itaewon accident will serve as an opportunity to comprehensively inspect and improve the safety system in our society as a whole.” | 2022-11-01T08:42:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Korea police call response before Seoul crowd crush inadequate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/south-korea-police-crowd-crush-itaewon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/south-korea-police-crowd-crush-itaewon/ |
At 30, the broadcast journalism prodigy leaves the White House beat for a bigger challenge: boosting the lagging ratings for CNN’s morning show.
Kaitlan Collins, 30, starts Tuesday as co-host and chief correspondent for CNN's new morning show. (CNN)
Kaitlan Collins became CNN’s youngest-ever chief White House correspondent last year, at age 28. On Tuesday, she takes on an even more prominent role: co-anchoring a morning news show with strategic importance for the network’s future.
How fast was Collins’s rise? Just eight years ago, she was blogging about Miley Cyrus’s latest tattoos and Shia LaBeouf’s trip to rehab — the quintessential starter job of the digital media era.
But thanks to an easy screen-presence and hard-earned reporting chops, she has now catapulted to a co-anchor seat on the just-launched “CNN This Morning” — an attempt by new network leader Chris Licht to reinvent a block of programming that has long trailed its cable-news rivals in the ratings.
The big job required a move from Washington to New York, which had not been part of Collins’s immediate plan. It meant giving up a scheduled stint as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association in 2024, another honor typically reserved for more senior reporters.
But Licht pitched her on his vision for matching her up in the mornings with former prime time host Don Lemon, 56, and veteran anchor Poppy Harlow, 40. “I didn’t even think of saying ‘no,’ ” Collins recalled. “It’s a great challenge for me.”
In an interview, Licht called Collins “the absolute complete package,” praising her reporting skills and her on-screen delivery of the news.
“One of the great things about Kaitlan Collins was that she was not posturing for something else,” he said. “She was certainly not angling for anything. She was very happy doing what she was doing, and doing it well.” Collins will remain a reporter, as she requested of Licht, splitting her time between the Manhattan set and assignments around the country in the additional role as chief correspondent for the show.
Collins, now 30, started her career at the Daily Caller, a pugnacious, right-leaning website co-founded by Tucker Carlson, where she was promoted after two years from showbiz gossip to the 2016 campaign beat, and then in early 2017 to White House correspondent. While covering the Trump White House, she started getting booked for occasional talking-head appearances on CNN.
“I thought it was really nice that I was this reporter for a conservative-leaning website and I could go on CNN, and the question was not for me to explain Trump’s actions but it was, ‘What’s your reporting?’ ” she recalled.
That spring, she approached CNN’s then-president Jeff Zucker at a brunch event after the White House correspondents’ dinner to thank him for the opportunities. That began a series of conversations that led to her joining the network as a reporter by the middle of 2017. “You could just tell there was something very special about her, even at a young age,” Zucker told The Post.
Her Daily Caller pedigree did little to overcome the Trump administration’s suspicions of mainstream media. In July 2018, Collins was barred from a Rose Garden news conference after persistently asking the president questions about Vladimir Putin and his former attorney Michael Cohen at an Oval Office photo op. When press secretary Kayleigh McEnany called her an “activist” a few weeks after the 2020 election, Collins pushed back from the front row and hit back harder on Twitter, writing: “It’s understandable why someone who hasn’t done their job — taking questions from reporters — in weeks would confuse someone else doing theirs with activism.”
Her colleagues took notice. “What I came to be really impressed by was just how unflappable she was in the briefing room,” said New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. “She’s tenacious and she’s aggressive, and people like talking to her.”
Including, it seemed, former president Trump. “Every time she was on Air Force One, he wanted to come to talk to her,” said a fellow White House correspondent who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships.
CNN shakes up morning show — leaving a major vacancy in prime time
Collins has both conservative and liberal admirers — a tough act in a politically polarized age. “She makes it her business to know everyone and she has a kind word for everyone,” said longtime D.C. media veteran Tammy Haddad.
Yet critics on the left still bring up her early association with the Daily Caller as a cause for concern. And Collins endured a brief scandal in 2018, when the LGBTQ advocacy group Log Cabin Republicans resurfaced tweets she sent in 2011, while she was a teenage undergrad at the University of Alabama, using homophobic language. Collins offered a mea culpa: “It was immature but it doesn’t represent the way I feel at all. I regret it and apologize.”
But to succeed as a traditional morning show host, Collins will probably need to move beyond sober news reports and showcase her personality to viewers. An avid college football fan, Collins wore a Wonder Woman T-shirt during her Zoom interview with The Post. (Would she wear it on the air? She said she wasn’t sure.)
While morning shows have the potential to command big ad dollars, CNN’s morning show (known as “New Day” until this week) has regularly ranked third in key Nielsen categories, behind competitors “Fox & Friends” and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” and far below the big audiences generated by morning shows on ABC, NBC and CBS. “My hope and belief is that we can create our own lane into something that is not being delivered now,” said Licht, who was heralded as a programming savant for his overhaul of CBS’s morning show, and helped create “Morning Joe.”
Collins was among the CNN stars outraged by the sudden ouster of Zucker in February. In an internal meeting, she grilled Jason Kilar, who oversaw the network’s parent company at the time, about the decision, according to an audio recording obtained at the time by The Post. (“I am absolutely not going to answer that line of questioning,” Kilar replied.)
Yet, despite her close ties to Zucker, Collins has forged a good relationship with Licht, who has been trying to reposition CNN as a more down-the-middle news brand since its merger with Discovery this year — a strategy that drew the ire of some CNN journalists and producers, especially after Licht’s dismissal of media correspondent Brian Stelter and White House correspondent John Harwood.
“I think Chris is doing a great job, and he’s very invested, and has very good news values,” said Collins. “And I realized that early on. If you’re a reporter who cares about reporting, that’s what you want.” | 2022-11-01T09:56:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kaitlan Collins and her meteoric rise at CNN - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/11/01/kaitlan-collins-cnn-morning-show/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/11/01/kaitlan-collins-cnn-morning-show/ |
Sen. Mark R. Warner and Rep. Abigail Spanberger, Democrats from Virginia, answer questions from reporters after a rally in Woodbridge on Sept. 24. (Robb Hill for The Washington Post)
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, secured the endorsement of Planned Parenthood. Kari Lake, the Republican nominee, and the Yuma County Republican Party spun that into ads dubiously claiming that Hobbs was “endorsed by radical groups that want to defund our police.” Hobbs has said the exact opposite, with calls for “boosting funding for sheriffs and local law enforcement.”
Campaign ads have always had a loose association with the nuances of governance. But as the midterm elections tighten into dozens of battlegrounds across the country, a number of GOP ads are showing a breathtaking disregard for accuracy and clarity, with Republican candidates and their allies twisting tangential elements into baseless or misleading claims.
Donald Trump’s candidacy and presidency erased many of the traditional campaign guardrails in the GOP as Republicans adopted his approach of pushing fact-free arguments.
Ken Frydman, who worked on Rudy Giuliani’s 1993 campaign for New York mayor and now runs his own communications firm, said, “In a post-truth age of Trump, candidates for office may feel more comfortable in exaggerating their records and inaccurately attacking their opponents.” Frydman said he always opposed Trump’s entry into politics “because I knew all about Trump since the 1980s.”
Jason Reifler, a political science professor who taught in Georgia and Illinois before joining the faculty at the University of Exeter in Britain, said Trump introduced a whole new level of lying in politics.
After reviewing several ads at The Washington Post’s request, he said they are “the sort of kernel-of-truth pushing the boundaries of what you can get away with” that both parties have run for decades. The ads “are inaccurate and misleading but they are not anywhere in the same league” as Trump’s lies about a stolen election, former president Barack Obama’s birth certificate, or linking the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to the murder of President John F. Kennedy, he said.
Reifler added: “Thirty-second spots do not really allow for nuanced political discussions and really incentivizes saying things that are as extreme as you can get away with.”
In a statement, Helen Kalla, a spokeswoman with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Republicans “have nothing to run on but lies and disinformation” to avoid talking about their plans to restrict abortion rights and address the economy.
Republicans stood by their ads.
“Yes, the ads are 100 percent and indisputably accurate,” said Calvin Moore, communications director for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC whose ads also call Planned Parenthood one of the “radical” groups looking to defund the police and label any amount of money reallocated from any law enforcement program as part of the “defund” effort.
Here are a few recent examples:
The National Republican Congressional Committee’s attack ad on Spanberger in Virginia says she voted to send “nearly $1 billion in stimulus checks to prisoners, including domestic terrorists.” When the narrator says this last part, the ad shows an image of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
What the ad does not show is the two previous rounds of stimulus funding that Republicans supported, which also allow money to be sent to incarcerated people, according to FactCheck.org. One of the Republicans who supported those earlier, similarly designed rounds of stimulus funding is Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), head of the NRCC.
And any check to Tsarnaev would have been seized to partly satisfy court-mandated payments to victims.
A spokesman for the NRCC did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The IRS ads directed at Porter appeared not only in California, but also targeted Democrats in Florida, Texas and New York.
Brandon Williams, the Republican nominee in Upstate New York’s 22nd Congressional District, began running television ads, with the NRCC, warning about “Biden’s plan to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to target the middle-class.”
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.) was hit with a similar ad, from the Congressional Leadership Fund.
The ads refer to money in the Inflation Reduction Act that may pay for as many as 86,852 new IRS employees by the year 2031.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in an Aug. 10 letter to Commissioner Charles P. Rettig of the IRS that “small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.”
Instead, Yellen wrote, “enforcement resources will focus on high-end noncompliance.”
The Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote earlier that the 87,000 figure “is wildly exaggerated. These people are not all new tax agents.” And a bureau official said about 50,000 employees — more than half of its staff — are eligible to retire within five years.
The NRCC spent more than $400,000 on television ads in North Carolina, saying state Sen. Wiley Nickel, a Democratic nominee for a House seat, “voted against funding law enforcement, defunding the police.” The ad cites a single piece of legislation: the sprawling state budget.
Nickel voted against it. His campaign manager said in a statement that the vote was to protest the elimination of the state’s corporate income tax (which, if you think about it, is a way of defunding government more broadly). In a statement, Nickel said, “I’ve never voted to defund the police and I never will.”
Camille Gallo, a spokeswoman for the NRCC, said it is fair to make that claim based on Nickel’s budget vote since the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said the same thing about Republicans.
The DCCC chair, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), told The Post’s Jonathan Capehart in December that Republicans who voted against the American Rescue Plan “literally voted to defund the police.”
In Arizona, Lake and Republicans have television ads saying Hobbs is “endorsed by radical groups that want to defund our police.”
In Georgia, digital ads from the Republican State Leadership Committee say Bee Nguyen, the Democratic nominee for Georgia secretary of state is “supported by groups that want to defund our police.”
In Michigan, television ads from the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is aligned with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), said Democrat Hillary Scholten “stands with defund the police radicals.”
Hobbs’s campaign spokesperson said she “absolutely does not support defunding the police.” Nguyen’s campaign did not immediately reply to requests for comment. And Scholten told MiLive.com this month, “I have never supported defunding the police.”
The ad against Nguyen ran on Facebook for about a week before it was removed Thursday for violating its parent company’s advertising standards.
Text at the bottom of the ads refers to Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the Sierra Club, groups known for defending abortion rights and the environment.
In 2020, each of these groups said on their respective websites that they support calls to “defund” the police.
Melanie Newman, a spokeswoman for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement recently that the group’s “patients and providers rely on police officers to keep them safe from harm” and that the GOP “wants us to talk about a slogan that came from a community in pain instead of how they are consolidating power to control our bodies.”
Adam Bingman, spokesperson for the Sierra Club, said the group still supports defunding the police and that Republicans are “bending and distorting the real issue at hand: Black and Brown people are dying at the hands of the police at an astronomical rate.”
Angela Vasquez-Giroux, a spokeswoman for NARAL Pro-Choice America, did not address the organization’s stance on defunding the police, but said in a statement: “This is political theater — a clumsy, embarrassing attempt at changing the subject from a conversation Republicans have been pushing for 50 years.”
In California, a television ad from House Republican nominee Kevin Kiley says the Democrat in the race, Kermit Jones, will “join” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to “defund the police.” That claim is false.
Pelosi said in February that defunding the police is “not the position of the Democratic Party.” And Jones’s campaign manager told CNN the candidate “absolutely does not want to defund the police.”
Kiley’s campaign did not reply to an email seeking comment.
In Pennsylvania, Republicans spent more than $800,000 on television ads saying Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate, “stands with the far left who want to defund our police.”
The attack ads against Fetterman cite a Jan. 31, 2016, debate and Aug. 22, 2016, interview with Pitt-News.
In two articles from that time, Fetterman expressed support for Black Lives Matter, but there was no mention of “defund.” In fact, Fetterman told Pitt-News back then that he supported “a Black Lives Matter kind of worldview, but also a community policing.” He also told Pitt-News, “I never positioned myself as anti-establishment.”
This month Fetterman went further, telling Semafor, “It was always absurd to defund the police.”
Katie Sanders, managing editor of PolitiFact, which routinely examines campaigns ads, said the main inaccuracy it sees from Democrats this year is too broadly describing some Republicans’ opposition to abortion rights.
Republicans have pointed to Connecticut’s closely watched 5th Congressional District. Their nominee, George Logan, received a 100 percent rating from NARAL in 2018 when he was a state senator and is now described in ads from the DCCC as vowing “to vote to further restrict abortion.” An image of Logan appears next to the words “Restrict Abortion Nationwide.”
Logan said in a recent debate, “I will do everything in my power to make sure that a woman’s right to choose is in no way infringed from what we have here in Connecticut state law,” Connecticut Public Radio reported. Kalla, the DCCC spokeswoman, defended the claim, citing Logan’s support for parental notification laws, which the state does not have and which advocates warn is a step toward further restrictions. | 2022-11-01T10:05:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Key feature of GOP midterm ads: Half-Truths and Misleading Claims - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/midterm-elections-gop-ads-democrats/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/midterm-elections-gop-ads-democrats/ |
The melting glaciers of Europe are yielding up their secrets too quickly
FORCLE GLACIER, Switzerland — At nearly 8,000 feet above sea level, Switzerland’s Forcle Glacier has for thousands of years been deeply ensconced in a frigid mountain valley overlooked by some of Europe’s highest peaks.
A hike through the ice caves of Austria’s melting glaciers shows climate change
As climate change melts glaciers at unprecedented speeds, such ancient artifacts are emerging from the shrinking layers of ice around the world. For archaeologists, this is both a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and a daunting task as the planet’s rapid warming is exposing objects faster than they can be saved.
When the artifacts emerge from the ice after decades or centuries, many are so well preserved that they seem to have been frozen just hours earlier. European researchers recently grew plants from 100-year-old seeds that had been discovered “frozen in time” in a World War I-era bunker on the Swiss-Italian border. Some of the most scientifically valuable finds are organic, such as wood and leather, which would normally decompose without the ice.
But because of the speed at which the earth’s glaciers are melting — temperatures are rising two times faster in the Alps than elsewhere — researchers worry that they do not have enough time. Large portions of the collective history of about a third of the world’s population in mountain areas are “melting away,” said archeologist Marcel Cornelissen.
The emergence of an object from the ice triggers a race to preserve it before it decomposes. “The mountains are starting to move,” said Regula Gubler, a Swiss archaeologist.
A ‘hurricane’ of melting
The sound of a rockfall echoed through the valley of the Forcle Glacier as Andenmatten and a colleague, archaeology student Tristan Allegro, 25, slowly trekked across ice covered by a thin layer of dark dust, rocks and soil.
The only other sound in these heights was the hum of commercial jets that left their white contrails in the cloudless skies.
“This glacier once cut through the entire valley,” said Andenmatten, pointing at a barren and ice-free basin in front of him. But within the next 10 or 20 years, the whole Forcle Glacier could be gone.
This year alone, Swiss glaciers lost 6 percent of their ice, said glaciologist Matthias Huss, who likens the destructive force of this summer’s heat waves to an Alpine “hurricane.”
Glaciers in Europe are experiencing the most severe melting on record
“We’ve seen an increase in frequency of years with very strong melting over the last decades,” he said. “But what we’ve seen this summer is really completely different from all these previous extreme years.”
The ice is “a dead man walking,” said Lars Holger Pilo, an archaeologist in Norway.
Treasures of the ice
As the melting was speeding up in the early 1990s, early spectacular discoveries awakened the interest of researchers.
Late in summer 1991, two German hikers on the Italian-Austrian border found the frozen body of a man who was initially assumed to be the victim of a recent accident. He later became known as Ötzi, or “Iceman” — a 5,000-year-old murder victim who had been killed with an arrow and had been preserved in the ice.
“The finds have definitely gotten older,” said Pilo, the researcher in Norway, who has been coming across artifacts that radiocarbon dating shows are thousands of years old.
Around half of all global ice discoveries that are medieval or older have been made in Norway, which has a particularly high accumulation of ice that does not move. Archaeologists prefer searching for artifacts in such deposits because — unlike in glaciers — the lack of movement prevents the items from being ground up and “spat out,” said Gubler, the Swiss scientist. In the Swiss Alps, the most promising areas of discovery are the ice patches and snowfields around the glaciers, and not the glaciers themselves.
For Pilo and many of his colleagues, the challenge is no longer identifying sites where discoveries are likely but prioritizing those that are most important for salvaging.
“For every patch we find, there are probably dozens that go unnoticed and quietly melt away — and the cultural heritage embedded in them is out there under the August sun, rotting,” said Nicholas Jarman, an archaeologist for the U.S. National Park Service in New Mexico who uses much of his annual leave to hunt for artifacts in glaciers.
“It’s a small reflection of the broader societal challenge that we’re faced with,” he said. “Will I be looking back in 20 years, wishing that I’d done more?”
‘I wonder if we’re too late’
Allegro, the archaeology student, had used the app to alert the regional archaeology authority when he made the first discoveries on the Forcle glacier this year. The office asked him to join the search term.
As the sun rose behind the mountains, he and Andenmatten put on UV face masks and hats to shield themselves from the burning rays of the sun. By the time they had shrugged off their coats, the glacier streamlet that was still covered by a thin layer of ice in the morning had turned into a bubbling stream of melting water.
Equipped with a GPS receiver and a hammer, the two researchers scanned their surroundings, looking for anything that appeared out of place.
They didn’t have to search for long. Within a few hours, their black plastic bags were filled with dozens of items of crafted wood and the leather strap.
Every time they decided it was time to begin their descent, the scientists stumbled upon a new artifact.
But the influx of artifacts could come to an abrupt end one day.
The Swiss researcher Gubler has hiked up to the Schnidejoch, a mountain pass about 9,000 feet above the sea level, almost every year for the past decade and says it used to be an archaeological treasure chest.
“It all happened very fast,” she said.
“I wonder if we’re too late,” archaeologist Cornelissen said.
The more difficult moments tend to be the ones at home, when the archaeological “exhilaration and excitement is tempered with this sober awareness,” Jarman said. “Like you’re witnessing the end of something.” | 2022-11-01T10:13:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Europe's melting glaciers are yielding up their secrets too quickly - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/glaciers-melting-climate-archaeology-europe/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/glaciers-melting-climate-archaeology-europe/ |
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands next to his wife Sara as they cast their ballots in a polling station in Jerusalem on Tuesday, during Israel's general election. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)
TEL AVIV — Israel is heading to the ballot box for the fifth time in under four years, the latest episode in a paralyzing political deadlock and a referendum on former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he plots his return to power.
Polls show a tight race between the right, helmed by Netanyahu, and the center left, led by the current caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Polls will close at 4 p.m. U.S. Eastern time (10 p.m. local) in Israel’s fifth election in the last four years.
The first exit polls are expected right after polls close. If Netanyahu’s Likud party and his right-wing allies get more than 61 seats, he will be tapped to form a government.
Last summer, the “change government” — a coalition of ideologically disparate parties united solely by the desire to oust Netanyahu — dissolved after just one year in office, following a cascade of defections by coalition members.
Now Netanyahu is angling to resume his tenure as prime minister, which could give him more legal leverage in his ongoing corruption trial.
But both he and his main opponent, the centrist Lapid, who is serving as the caretaker prime minister, face the daunting challenge of cobbling together a 61-seat parliamentary majority in the 120-member Knesset at a time of unprecedented division.
Netanyahu’s strategy has been to embrace the far right, led by Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. The once-fringe politicians have edged, with Netanyahu’s assistance in recent years, toward the mainstream, on a platform bashing the courts and advocating for the expulsion of “disloyal” (both Arab and Jewish) citizens of Israel.
Ben Gvir is “king! He kills terrorists!” said Shmuel Nemirovski, 30, getting onto a motorbike outfitted with a Ben Gvir campaign sticker outside a polling site in Ma’alot Dafna, an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem.
Omer Attias, a 23-year-old law and art-history student who lives in Tel Aviv, called the Ben Gvir phenomenon “disturbing.”
She voted for the left-wing Labor Party, part of the anti-Netanyahu coalition, and said she hoped a new government could bring changes that would be relevant for her generation: the introduction of public transportation on Saturdays, which has long been blocked by ultra-Orthodox parties; and laws that would further enshrine women’s rights, to abortion for example.
The procedure is available to virtually all women in Israel, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States has spurred a legislative revision here that eases access but has also caused a minor right-wing backlash.
“The years under Netanyahu were not all bad, but we now need to ensure we can protect Israel’s liberal values,” said Attias.
The polls, which have remained virtually unchanged over the past four months, indicate that the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu blocs are neck and neck. Turnout — which among the Jewish population is expected to remain around 70 percent, similar to previous rounds — may tip the balance.
The small parties will be just as critical as the larger ones. Any of the three politically unaffiliated Arab parties that pass the four-seat threshold required to enter the Knesset could serve as kingmakers. The same goes for the ultra-Orthodox parties which, unlike in past elections, have not pledged to support Netanyahu. After a year out of the government, the parties are under pressure to find support for their underfunded schools and institutions.
“Bibi Netanyahu is not giving us what we’re supposed to get,” said Nachum Rosenberg, using Netanyahu’s popular nickname.
Rosenberg grew up in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, where he said that his school suffered from a lack of funding. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York City, where his rabbi instructed him to vote for the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism.
“My rabbi is watching that Israel is going in a certain way,” he said — namely, toward a more secular lifestyle where establishments and public services are open on Saturdays, the Jewish sabbath. “If you don’t pay attention, you will lose your specificities.”
Israeli security forces are on high alert, with several security officers stationed at every polling station across the country. The army has also enforced a full closure of the West Bank, warning of a high risk of a terrorist attack.
Since last spring, a spate of Palestinian attacks has resulted in an Israeli crackdown on the West Bank, particularly around the northern city of Jenin, from which a number of the assailants have originated. Escalating Israeli raids have put 2022 on track to be the deadliest year for Palestinians since the United Nations began keeping records in 2005.
This election campaign, like many in the past, has barely mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Over only two weeks and amid general political fatigue, parties instead focused on fortifying their base and encouraging people to get out to vote.
In front of a polling station in Jerusalem, Eric Binisti, a 51-year-old hospital clown, said that he’s hoping for a Netanyahu victory, “because I love Israel, I love the security of Israel. I love all the people, Arab and Jewish.”
“But it’s the same as before,” he said, referring to the seemingly endless election cycle. “Today, we have who? Bibi? Lapid? They are like my profession — clowns!” | 2022-11-01T10:13:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Netanyahu hopes for comeback in Israeli general election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/israel-election-netanyahu-likud-lapid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/israel-election-netanyahu-likud-lapid/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Zelensky accuses Russia of worsening food crisis as ...
U.N. looks to ‘cool’ fears of dirty bomb with visit to Ukraine
Oleg Tinkov. (Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg News)
Russian banking tycoon Oleg Tinkov renounced his Russian citizenship in a public rebuke of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, saying he “can’t and won’t be associated with a fascist country.”
He added Tuesday that he plans to revoke his name from Tinkoff Bank, the Russian commercial bank he founded in 2006, writing: “I hate when my brand/name is associated with the bank that collaborates with killers and blood.”
The businessman announced he had ended his citizenship in an Instagram post on Monday, sharing an image of the official document certifying his renunciation, which was dated Oct. 26. “I hope more prominent Russian businessmen will follow me, so it weakens Putin’s regime and his economy,” he said, adding: “I hate Putin’s Russia, but love all Russians, who are clearly against this crazy war!”
That post was later deleted, with Tinkov saying Tuesday it had “mysteriously disappeared” and speculating that it could have been the work of “Kremlin trolls.”
Tinkov, who is reported to also hold Cypriot citizenship, is one of a few prominent Russian businessmen to have publicly criticized the invasion. He came out against the war in February and later denounced the invasion as “insane.” He claims he was forced to sell his stake in Tinkoff Bank under pressure from Kremlin officials.
Despite his opposition to the war, British authorities announced sanctions against Tinkov in March, freezing his U.K. assets, banning his private boats and aircraft from U.K. territory, and preventing citizens and companies from conducting business with him. Foreign Office officials accused the 54-year-old of benefiting from his involvement in Tinkoff Bank or supporting the Russian government through it. A Foreign Office statement cited reports estimating his net worth at the time to be $3.9 billion.
Last year, Tinkov also pleaded guilty to tax fraud in a criminal case in the United States.
Tinkov is the latest in a small number of Russian-born business executives to officially cut ties with their homeland.
Earlier this week, the Telegraph newspaper reported that prominent Russian executive Nikolay Storonsky, who co-founded Revolut bank, had renounced his citizenship.
In March, the Russian-Israeli oligarch Leonid Nevzlin announced he was renouncing his citizenship, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Everything that Putin touches dies,” Nevzlin wrote in a Facebook post. “I am against the war. I am against the occupation. I am against the genocide of the Ukrainian people.”
Oligarch renounces Russian citizenship, saying ‘everything Putin touches dies’
And in October, billionaire Yuri Milner announced on Twitter that his family had “completed the process of renouncing our Russian citizenship,” having left the country “for good” after the Russian annexation of Crimea.
The exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was Russia’s richest man before his arrest in 2003, has become one of Putin’s highest-profile critics. In an interview with The Washington Post this year in London, he called on other prominent Russians who have fled the country to denounce the invasion. “If you have left, then you should publicly dissociate yourself or we should be forced to suspect that you are acting on [the Kremlin’s] behalf,” he said. | 2022-11-01T10:14:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russian tycoon Oleg Tinkov renounces citizenship over Ukraine war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/oleg-tinkov-russia-citizenship-ukraine-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/oleg-tinkov-russia-citizenship-ukraine-war/ |
Mehmet Oz’s medical research was rejected in 2003, resulting in 2-year ban
At issue were questions about the strength of the data used by Oz to reach an important medical conclusion, according to several of those who recalled the events
Mehmet Oz, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, speaks during a campaign event last month. (Laurence Kesterson/AP)
Oz’s research was scheduled to lead off the scientific session of the 83rd annual American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) conference, according to a program from the event, where physicians in that specialty convene to discuss developments in their field. But Oz was forced to withdraw his work and was banned from presenting research to the organization for the next two years, according to seven people familiar with the events, whose account of his ban was confirmed by the Oz campaign. Oz is now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.
He was also prohibited from publishing his work in the society’s medical journal for the same period of time, according to the people familiar with the events, four of whom recalled details of the controversy on the record. Three others spoke on the condition of anonymity to more openly discuss a sensitive subject that reflects on Oz’s reputation. Some of Oz’s 15 co-authors on the abstract did not respond to requests for comment. The Oz campaign did not respond to questions about the journal.
At issue were questions about the strength of the data used by Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, to reach an important medical conclusion, according to several of those who recalled the events. The penalty he experienced in 2003 was a significant one, according to an expert who was not involved in the dispute, Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, a website that monitors honesty in academic research.
A spokeswoman for the Oz campaign, Brittany Yanick, said in an email that “the original abstract was accepted for presentation, but only included a limited number of patients. Since they had several months between submission of the abstract and its presentation at the national meeting, [Oz’s] team elected to broaden the scope of the work with more patients. Reviewers of his team’s work wanted only the data in the original paper to be presented, which created an academic disagreement amongst researchers.”
Others involved in the matter recalled that Oz submitted the results from a small pilot study of 56 subjects that was designed to help secure a larger grant. The AATS reviewer objected to reaching any firm conclusion with so few test subjects, they said.
Oz has made his career in medicine a central feature of his campaign in a race that could determine which party controls the Senate. Medical experts and the campaign of his Democratic opponent, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, have hammered Oz over fringe ideas and unsupported health recommendations made on his popular television show, “The Dr. Oz Show,” over 13 seasons. In this case, his conflict involved the way he conducted research for a study.
In the 2003 dispute, there was no hint of academic fraud or fabrication of data.
After conducting their own follow-up investigation, medical officials at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, where Oz worked, took no action against him, according to people familiar with the events. And Oz, who has published hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers, is back in the good graces of the AATS, appearing at conferences, according to documents and the Oz campaign.
Bruce W. Lytle, an AATS official involved in the decision to impose the two-year ban, said its severity reflected questions about the presentation’s methodology.
“The decision of the council was in part based on making it absolutely clear that the presentation should reflect the methodology as described in the abstract,” he said. Other members of the panel did not respond to requests for comment or are deceased.
Yanick acknowledged in an email that Oz was “instructed to avoid submitting another abstract for each of the next two annual meetings” after what she called “an academic disagreement amongst researchers.” Yanick said in an email “there were no long term consequences” from the conflict and Oz remains a member in good standing of the AATS.
But Oransky said medical societies are reluctant to sanction members, especially those given prominent positions at conferences. Oransky, who is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University, likened the penalty to a baseball player being suspended for a few games.
David Bobbitt, executive director of the AATS, declined to discuss the events. “The American Association for Thoracic Surgery is an academic medical society that is happy to talk about our mission and our work, but we do not comment about individual members,” he said in an emailed statement.
John D. Puskas, currently chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Mt. Sinai Morningside in New York, who raised the questions about Oz’s work, according to people familiar with the events, did not return telephone calls, a text message and emails seeking comment. A spokesman for Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center also declined to comment.
Eric Rose, chief of cardiac surgery at Columbia University’s medical program and Oz’s superior in 2003, also confirmed the incident. Rose, who was a co-author on Oz’s abstract because he was chairman of the department, said he and Oz had been close, but their relationship soured about three years ago. He said he is opposed to Oz’s political views and has contributed $165 to Fetterman’s campaign.
About three weeks ago, Rose said, Oz asked him to say publicly that Oz did not bear responsibility for alleged inhumane treatment of puppies that occurred as part of medical research Oz oversaw as a principal investigator at Columbia dating back to at least the early 2000s, claims that had surfaced in an online report. Oz’s campaign has denied that he ever abused any animals. The Washington Post has not independently verified the allegations about the abuse.
Rose said he declined Oz’s request. Yanick confirmed the call took place and said, “Oz reached out to Dr. Rose along with several other Doctors to ask for their assistance in setting the record straight.” She added, “Doctors from his time at Columbia offered words of support, and some put their support in writing.”
Rose said that when he told Oz he strongly disagreed with his politics and had issues with former president Donald Trump, the Republican candidate distanced himself from Trump. “He said to me, Trump isn’t the leader of the party,” Rose said, speaking of Oz. “He told me that Mitch McConnell is the leader of the Republican Party.” Oz also said, according to Rose, that Doug Mastriano, the far-right Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, “won’t win.”
Oz spokesman Barney Keller said in a statement that Oz did not make the comments Rose attributed to him about McConnell, Trump and Mastriano. “Doctor Oz never said any of those things, and it’s irresponsible and frankly pathetic that The Washington Post falsely attributes them to him,” Keller said in the statement.
A former colleague, Charles Stolar, a pediatric surgeon at Columbia, said he spoke to Rose shortly after that conversation and corroborated the details as Rose recounted them, including the comments about McConnell, Trump and Mastriano.
“I can assure you as sure as the sun rises that Eric is not lying,” said Stolar, who identified as a Democrat.
Research “abstracts,” which are summaries of findings, are submitted to medical conferences months before the studies are discussed at them. After submitting his, Oz and the other researchers were not able to follow through to Puskas’s satisfaction, according to two people aware of the problem who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive subject that reflects on Oz’s reputation.
The AATS president, Fred A. Crawford, was set to be one of two moderators for the panel, and Puskas was named “discussant” for the proceedings. In an email, Crawford said the abstract withdrawal was “a technical issue and not in any way related to fabrication of data or dishonesty.”
The study was withdrawn shortly before the meeting when Puskas raised questions about it, according to several people who recalled the events.
Oz’s abstract said that on the basis of testing 56 people, he would show there was no difference in patients’ “neurocognitive performance,” regardless of the way the surgery was conducted. At the time, some doctors suspected that hours on the “pump” had an effect on their patients’ subsequent cognitive ability.
Puskas ultimately concluded that the data did not support the planned presentation, three people said.
“My understanding is it was the lack of really solid statistical analysis that called everything into question,” said one person who was sympathetic to Oz, saying he simply ran into funding and deadline problems.
“This paper was very important to the world as to whether [pump-assisted surgery] works or not,” that person said. After withdrawing a featured paper, “the AATS was really embarrassed.” | 2022-11-01T10:18:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oz research rejected from 2003 surgery conference, resulted in 2-year ban - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/01/oz-senate-doctor-research/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/01/oz-senate-doctor-research/ |
A movement to deny legitimate election results is thriving, and this worries experts who study democracy. What kind of pressure is that movement putting on our system, and what does it mean for your vote in this November’s midterm elections and potentially future ones?
Let’s attempt to break this down, in three ways.
Election deniers are running for office around the country
This November’s midterm elections are likely to bring a wave of election deniers into Congress and top state-level jobs overseeing elections in all corners of the country. That’s according to an analysis of GOP statewide and congressional candidates by The Post’s Amy Gardner, who found that more than half of the Republican candidates deny the 2020 election results.
What an election denier could do if elected secretary of state
The movement’s reach is even wider than candidates running for elected office. Republicans are spending millions to recruit partisan poll workers and watchers, who could disrupt the counting process or raise false claims about it. (Michigan Republican secretary of state nominee Kristina Karamo rose to prominence as a Detroit poll watcher who made false claims about election fraud.)
There is a brain drain among experienced election officials
To be an election official in America these days can mean receiving death threats for doing your job, as former Georgia election worker Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss testified to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol this summer.
“IT’S OPEN SEASON on honest election officials,” tweeted the head of Maricopa County, Ariz., a Republican, after the federal government charged a man with threatening an election official in the county. Another man was sentenced to prison for threatening Colorado’s secretary of state.
Tammy Patrick, a former election official in Maricopa County, said these threats aren’t slowing down.
“Election officials are under-resourced, underfunded, under appreciated — and now they are under attack,” she said. She said one Republican election official in a Trump-supporting county in Wisconsin told her, “I used to be the pillar of my community, and now I’m being treated like the pariah.” Patrick worries that many of these officials and their institutional knowledge will leave the field — when they’re needed more than ever.
We’ve seen how just one partisan local election official can leave elections systems vulnerable to bad actors. After the 2020 election, Trump allies and supporters allegedly attempted to access or copy data from voting machines in multiple states, according to a Washington Post investigation. Some experts worry that if that data fell into the wrong hands, hackers could use it to look for voting machines’ weaknesses.
The Supreme Court could give state politicians much more control over election results
Sometime after the midterms, the Supreme Court is expected to consider a once-marginal legal theory that state legislatures alone — and no other structure of state power — determine how elections are run.
This is called the “independent state legislature doctrine.” It’s a controversial, extremely literal reading of the Constitution, which says: “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”
That’s traditionally been interpreted to mean that all of state government — so, state legislatures, but also governors and state constitutions and state courts — has a role in determining how to run federal elections.
“It’s kind of unimaginable that a state legislature could act outside its own state constitution,” said Richard Briffault of Columbia Law School.
Several conservative lawyers pushing this theory brushed off concerns that it would be used to overturn the popular vote or select alternate electors. Even if it’s theoretically possible, one told The Post’s Colby Itkowitz and Isaac Stanley-Becker, “I can also tell you that as a pragmatic matter, I don’t know of any state legislature that has done that.”
But experts say that if the Supreme Court agrees with this theory, it would give state legislatures much more power to change the way elections are run, and with very little oversight. And they’re especially worried because state legislatures have become less democratic themselves, as the parties draw district lines to keep themselves in power (a process known as gerrymandering).
State legislatures were a key part of former president Donald Trump’s strategy to overturn the 2020 election results. He and his allies pressured Republican state lawmakers to override the popular vote in swing states he lost.
Not coincidentally, the doctrine gained a lot of popularity on the right around then. The power to choose electors is “yours and yours alone,” Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote in emails to Arizona elected officials.
Trump’s team was largely rebuffed. “I said, ‘Look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath,’ ” testified Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) to the Jan. 6 committee about the pressure he faced from Trump and his lawyers.
For now, there are backstops in place — like other election officials, or the courts — to prevent a rogue official from simply refusing to certify legitimate results, or overturning how people voted.
“The few instances when we’ve seen people try to do something along these lines, it has resolved the right way because the law does try to prevent these things from happening,” Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights Program, told me earlier this year. (That situation played out this summer in rural New Mexico: When an entire county board refused to certify results, the secretary of state got a court order.)
But democracy experts say we should also be aware that there is a concerted effort to erode those backstops for future elections. If enough election deniers win their various races — including governor, secretary of state, attorney general and lawmakers at every level — those backstops may weaken.
“The ability to actually run a competent election is something not to be overlooked and taken for granted,” she said. | 2022-11-01T10:18:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 3 ways election deniers are threatening U.S. democracy, explained - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/election-denier-threats-explainer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/election-denier-threats-explainer/ |
The recent housing boom created new home-buying opportunities for minority households not seen since the Great Recession, a Post analysis of federal data shows.
Alyssa Fowers
Daniela Capistrano, 40, and their partner Tammara bought their first house back in May 2022 in a gated community 30 minutes outside of New Orleans, La. One of the reasons they like that community was the pool, slide and playground that their young son could enjoy at any time. (Camille Lenain for The Washington Post)
The pandemic housing boom marked a new — though possibly short-lived — entrée into homeownership for Black, Asian and Latino families, many of whom had for years been sidelined into the much costlier rental market.
“We’re seeing a real spark in Black and Latino homeownership because people — in large part, millennials — were able to save during the pandemic,” said Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Now whether it’s sustained, that’s a different story. But what you saw in 2021 is a good thing because homeownership creates wealth and other opportunities that benefit entire communities."
Rents are up more than 30 percent in some cities, forcing millions to find another place to live
For a subset of renters with steady jobs and enough savings to fashion a down payment, that boost was enough to nudge them into homeownership earlier than they’d anticipated.
“Was I planning to buy? Not at all,” said Taria Faison, 45, a Baltimore podcaster who closed on a townhouse in fall 2021. “But rent kept going up and the cracks in our walls kept getting bigger. And finally we just said, ‘something has to change.’
Faison and her husband, Cory, a fire alarm technician, dipped into his 401(k) to cover the down payment on their $333,000 home. Their mortgage payments of $2,000 a month are a bit more than their rent, but Faison said she finds comfort in knowing that she’s building equity. “It’s what I want to be able to do for my children," she said. “This is how generational wealth starts."
Home values soared during the pandemic, except for these Black families
The recently released data from the Census Bureau captures a narrow window in 2021, before interest rates skyrocketed and the housing market reached this year’s fevered heights. A smaller proportion of Americans rented in 2021 than at any point since the Great Recession.
The trend of costlier rent began after the Great Recession and has continued through the pandemic. Today’s renters are about twice as likely to be burdened by housing costs — spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing — as homeowners are. The difference in housing costs for homeowners and renters has widened to a 40-year high, a Post analysis found.
Renters more likely than owners to be burdened by housing costs
Percent of people in households that spend at least 30 percent of income on housing
50% burdened by housing costs
Renters were twice as likely to be burdened as owners in 2021
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Lower interest rates in the 1980s reduced costs for many homeowners
Renters far more likely than homeowners to be burdened by housing costs
Renters were more than twice as likely to be burdened as owners in 2021
Renters are now far more likely to be burdened by
housing costs than homeowners
In 1980, slightly more owners than renters were burdened by housing costs
Interest rate drops in the 1980s lowered housing costs for many owners
Tiffany Harding, a government contractor who bought a $275,000 condominium in Upper Marlboro, Md., last year, lived with her parents for a year to save for a down payment. Even so, she says there’s no way she could afford the same home now. Borrowing costs have more than doubled from the 3 percent interest rate she secured last October, which would add about $600 to her monthly payments and make them unaffordable.
“I’m a Black single woman with a steady career and good credit, but even then I always thought buying was out of my reach,” said Harding, 42. “I found a window where I could make it work."
Four reasons your rent is going up
“There are some promising developments, but it isn’t enough to make up for the fact that Black and Latino families have historically been deprived of access to homeownership,” said Vanessa Perry, a public policy professor at George Washington University. “They have not had the opportunity to build equity and use that equity to fund things like college education and retirements. As a result, every consecutive generation of renters misses out on major opportunities that are hard to match with any other route to wealth building.”
In interviews, minority first-time home buyers who bought during the pandemic said a combination of extra savings, low interest rates and rapidly-rising rents prompted them to purchase property. Many were paying about the same for housing as they had while renting. Almost all said they ended up buying sooner than they’d planned to, because they were quickly being priced out of rental homes and apartments.
Experts say homeownership is just one part of the equation in leveling racial inequality. Not only is it more difficult and costly for minority families to buy homes — mortgage rates for Black homeowners are, on average, 0.3 percentage points higher than for White homeowners, according to the Urban Institute — their homes appreciate at a lower rate, too. A Black-owned house in predominantly-Black neighborhood is valued significantly less than if it were owned by a White family in a predominantly-White neighborhood, according to William Darity, an economics and African American Studies professor at Duke University.
“Even if we were closing the home-ownership gap — which we’re not — there’s still a large equity gap between Black- and White-owned homes," he said. “We’re talking a big difference: $150,000 or $200,000, and that’s been true for half a century.”
Some of the country’s largest banks — which for years have been accused of racial profiling and discrimination — say they’re taking steps to help minorities buy homes for the first time. JPMorgan Chase, for example, said it would underwrite $8 billion in mortgages to help 40,000 for Black and Hispanic borrowers in 2020. Bank of America, which is committing $15 billion to help low- and middle-income families buy their first homes, recently announced a no-down payment homeownership program for first-time buyers in predominantly-Black and -Hispanic neighborhoods in cities like Dallas and Charlotte.
Big business pledged nearly $50 billion for racial justice after George Floyd’s death. Where did the money go?
Rents are rising everywhere. See how much prices are up in your area.
Capistrano and their partner weren’t planning to buy just yet. But rapidly rising rents had them feeling desperate, so they quickly snapped up a $360,000 starter home for themselves, their toddler, cat and dog. Growing up in California, their parents always rented and Capistrano had been saving up for a down payment since they were 19.
After moving 10 times in the last 10 years, Capistrano said it finally feels like they have a place to live for the long haul. Home-buying was as much about “escaping the horrors of renting” as it was about owning a house, said the 40-year-old who identifies as Latinx.
“Ideally we’d have had more time to shop around, to get better loan terms, but we had to make a hard and fast decision in this bonkers housing market,” Capistrano said. "Rents were doubling and tripling. We kind of felt like: If we’re already paying mortgage-level rents, why not get a mortgage?”
Those calculations — monthly rent versus mortgage payments — are quickly becoming even more fraught as mortgage rates climb to 20-year highs. The surge in both home prices and interest rates has made it particularly harder for Black renters to break into the housing market, according to an August report from the Harvard Joint Center, which found that less than half of Black renters who could afford a median-priced home a year ago can still do so. That’s compared to a 44 percent drop among renters of all races.
Mortgage rates rise above 7 percent as Fed scrambles to slow economy
With their $1,500 monthly rent set to rise by $500, Fernando Soto Gaulden and his husband panicked — and bought a house.
Gaulden, a Mexican immigrant, is the first to own a home in his family. He and his husband now pay about $1,700 a month on their mortgage — less than they would have on rent.
“House prices were soaring so much that we really started to feel desperate, like there was no way to we could afford to keep renting,” said Gaulden, 27, who works for a Spanish news website. “It became really important to lock in how much we were paying for housing as quickly as we could. We had to make a lot of quick decisions on needs versus wants."
This story uses microdata from the decennial census and the American Community Survey (ACS). Census and ACS data were accessed via IPUMS for the years 1980-2020 and via tidycensus for 2021. The 2007 and 2010 data points each include three years of data, while the 2015 and 2020 data points each use five years of data and 2021 uses a one-year sample. | 2022-11-01T10:48:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sharp homeownership spikes for Black, Asian and Latino families in 2021 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/01/minority-homeownership-spikes-post-pandemic/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/01/minority-homeownership-spikes-post-pandemic/ |
(Sydney A Foster, Jenn Ackerman, Kyle Monk, Jamie Kelter Davis, Lauren Justice for The Washington Post and provided images)
They quit their jobs. Here’s what they are doing now:
The Great Resignation neared its peak one year ago when more than 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs. Some left low-wage service positions for higher pay. Others set off for new careers or whole new lifestyles. In 2021, federal data show, nearly 50 million workers came to the same conclusion.
People changed their jobs, their cities and their lives, ushering in one of the greatest reshufflings in the history of the U.S. labor force. And yet 40 percent of workers are thinking about leaving their jobs within the next six months, a recent global survey found.
Waves of Americans are leaving their jobs as part of the ‘Great Resignation.’ Here’s why.
Twelve months later, the magnitude of those decisions is sinking in. Job openings are shrinking and economic anxiety persists over what’s next. The long-term effects of the coronavirus are still not fully understood, as an estimated 4 million people are missing from the workforce, according to the Brookings Institution. Either the labor market has not fully healed, or this is the new normal.
Eight Americans who quit jobs last year shared their stories with The Washington Post. They spoke about liberation and autonomy, of self-sacrifice and caretaking, and of their bounty of house cats.
Did you quit your job or leave the workforce in the last year? Share your story with us.
Brian Atkinson, “Kodaq” 32
Quit Date: March 2021
Old Job: Teacher | New Job: Radio and podcast host
The special education teacher turned urban lifestyle podcast and radio host wants people to know quitting will not make your work life easier. “I’ve worked probably 10 to 100 times harder doing it for myself than I did as a teacher.”
Kodaq, as he is known professionally, had been preparing to leave his job at an Atlanta public elementary school in 2020, before the pandemic hit. But when stay-at-home orders were issued in March, it gave him the room to build out his podcast without giving up his day job. He lived frugally, staying with his mom and cutting back on spending.
By early 2021, Kodaq often found himself rushing between his remote classroom to the recording studio. Juggling the two became too much. He cashed out some cryptocurrency investments at a time prices were peaking, and quit teaching that March. Over the next year, he trawled news and social media for conversation material, outfitted his studio with better lighting, met with clients and linked up with the person who’d become his co-host.
This past February, the first ratings arrived for his radio show. They exceeded expectations, coming in first in the 7 p.m. to midnight time slot, beating out more established hip-hop stations in his area. To commemorate his winning gamble and new career, he got his first tattoo, the word “Legacy,” on his right forearm.
The entrepreneurial grind has its own challenges, with days packed with emails, calls, interviews and recordings. But he feels more fulfilled now. “What I want people to know is it’s not the easier route, but it’s the better route,” he said. “And none of this is going to work if you don’t.”
Mercury Stardust, 34
Quit Date: August 2021
Old job: Maintenance technician | New Job: Content creator
There are months when content creator Mercury Stardust has no idea where the money will come from. “We think, have we reached the end of our tether?”
Stardust left her job as a home maintenance technician in August 2021, after supervisors at the property management company told her to stop making TikToks. The videos served as home repair guides, specifically for LGBTQ people who were hesitant to call maintenance professionals.
Since calling it quits, Stardust has expanded her “Trans Handy Ma’am” brand to sponsorships and speaking engagements, and now counts 2 million TikTok followers. She sees her online platform as a means to stamp out stigma and teach people new skills.
But feeding the content machine has its own drawbacks. “My mental health has been at an all-time low,” she said. Keeping up with an online audience, a crucial part of boosting engagement and shaping an online personality, also exposes creators to unrelenting criticism and the casual hostility that shadows much of the social web. “It’s hard to ignore the haters when it’s part of your job to listen to your audience,” she said. But she is adapting, using a separate phone for social media, seeing a therapist and performing a weekly burlesque show to keep her grounded and close to her community.
Danny Randall, 52
Quit date: October 2021
Old Job: Service adviser | New Job: Caretaker for his wife
Randall and his wife have lost nearly half their income since he left his job as a service adviser at a local car dealership. But he says he’s a lot less stressed in his new role as caretaker.
Randall resigned in October 2021 to care for his wife, who has multiple sclerosis. She’d undergone back surgery that year, but took an unexpectedly long time to recover. After she was released from the hospital, it didn’t make financial sense for the family to hire an in-home nurse because it would wipe out Randall’s paycheck and still not provide all the care she needed.
“I really didn’t have much of a choice.”
— Danny Randall
They still have health insurance through her remote job as a digital archivist. And they have generous family support on both sides. His wife’s aunt paid for the construction of a ramp and covered porch at their home, making it easier for his wife to maneuver her wheelchair. The aunt also gives Randall what she calls “walking around money,” for things like gas.
“We are not getting on like before,” said Randall, whose income used to cover home repairs, like the bathroom they are hoping to fix up. “But all the bills are paid and we are not hanging on by a thread,” he said.
Amy Forkner, 56
Quit Date: December 2021
Old Job: Nurse | New Job: Retired
“I don’t like to say I quit. I escaped,” Forkner said of her December retirement after a 30-year nursing career. Still, it wasn’t easy to leave her patients and colleagues. She renewed her license in July, not wanting to give up on a profession she loves and worked hard for. While she puts the odds of returning to a chaotic hospital setting at “very, very slim,” a clinic or a pharmacy might do.
Forkner worked mostly as an OR nurse at M Health Fairview St. John’s Hospital. In October 2020, during the turbulent first year of the pandemic, Fairview Health made dramatic cuts to its hospital and clinic operations. She said chronic understaffing prevented her and her team from properly caring for their patients and she found the last several years demoralizing. In September, when 15,000 Minnesota nurses staged a three-day strike to protest understaffing and overwork, Forkner walked the picket line every day.
The woman who once clocked 25,000 steps before the end of a hospital shift keeps active by walking every day. Florida sunsets also are on her mind. She and her husband, who has 10 months to go before his own retirement, have sold their Minnesota home and are house hunting on the Gulf Coast.
“I just want something to make me happy that will not make me sick to my stomach when I pull into the parking lot,” she said.
Michael Sadri, 26
Old Job: Restaurant host | New Job: Bartender
Fans at Dodger Stadium love Sadri’s agave punch: tequila mixed with orange and lime juice with agave syrup. They also clamor for the rainbow special, a bright, layered concoction of Grenadine rum, pineapple and blue curaçao. The fledgling bartender loves the creativity of mixing drinks and the lively banter so intertwined with his profession. He also appreciates his company’s commitment to his growth.
“Now I have money for leisure, for my friends and family, and I’m happier now.”
— Michael Sadri
It’s a big departure from his last job as a restaurant host at an American cafe, making minimum wage but no tips. He asked his boss for more responsibility, maybe as a server. But once he realized they were not taking his career seriously, he started job hunting.
In August 2021, he landed a food runner job with his current company, which services Dodger Stadium. It was a lower-level position that had him hauling more than 50 pounds of beer up and down the stadium steps. But there were opportunities for advancement. A two-week bartending certification course was all it took to move up to mixing and serving drinks to fans.
Before quitting the restaurant, Sadri felt stuck and worried he wouldn’t be able to advance or afford to leave. The change proved better than he expected. “I’m happier now,” he said.
Allyse Arucan, 29
Quit Date: April 2021
Old Job: Health-care coach | New Job: Software engineer
Arucan learned to code to support herself as a nomad and help her realize her dream of living out of a van, with all the freedom that brings.
Her financial situation has changed dramatically since landing a job as a software engineer at the beginning of the year. She said she doesn’t have to worry about being able to afford her everyday expenses. And she is now able to help her parents, who immigrated to Hawaii from the Philippines. “I put a down payment on a car for my mom which is something I was never able to do before,” she said.
After leaving her job as a health-care coach in April 2021, Arucan lived off her savings and juggled gig work — driving for Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart — and a nanny job that provided free housing to make ends meet while she attended a 10-week coding boot camp. Growing up, Arucan devoured travel podcasts and was especially moved by stories of women who pursued their dreams only later in life.
After she quit, she longed for a steady paycheck. Cobbling together a living through part-time jobs had put her in survival mode. “I couldn’t go back to my job, and there were times that I wish that I could have because I was so desperate to have money,” Arucan said.
Now she’s saving up for a Dodge Ram Promaster — with a customized kitchen space, a desk and a nook for her border collie, Dante — to travel the country and visit as many national parks as she can.
Damion Lawens, 22
Quit Date: September 2021
Old Job: Taco Bell shift lead | New Job: Graphic designer
“I quit my job because I’d rather be a graphic designer than make tacos all day,” said Lawens, who left his job as a shift lead at Taco Bell in September 2021.
The 22-year-old started graphic design after a friend showed him an illustration he’d made using the open-source graphics editor GIMP. When a graphic artist Lawens followed on Twitter announced that he’d bought a Tesla from his design income, he was encouraged to pursue his artistic interests professionally. He sharpened his skills by making thumbnail illustrations for his gaming YouTube channel and earned commissions from other content creators to make theirs.
Lawens said he loves the flow of creativity it takes to transform the picture in his head into something tangible. He recently won a mousepad design competition — a view from above of a small, peaceful chain of islands in cartoon vector style, resembling a video game map. The company running the contest liked it so much it asked him to create more designs.
With more flexible hours, he’s getting more quality time with his wife, who is a teacher, and with his pets. “Everything is just better. I feel more at home,” he said. When he quit his job he had two cats. Now he has four.
Taylor Reid, 28
Portland, Wash.
Old Job: Compliance officer | New Job: Lead copywriter
Reid says her quality of life has improved tenfold since she quit in September 2021. She’s happier now, as a lead copywriter for an international public relations firm, where she helps top executives shape their stories online, works with a close-knit team and meets new clients the world over.
“The vibes are immaculate,” she said.
She’s earning more money and the work is closer to her own writerly, intellectual passions. Every day she’s learning something new.
Reid’s career shift began with a pursuit for higher pay and greater stability. Her old job was a strain on her mental health, with an unreceptive boss, tedious duties and a lack of teamwork that felt isolating. Reid said she has never been especially frugal, but the pandemic shutdowns and social limitations meant forgoing dinners out and travel, allowing her to save money. That gave her the flexibility to step away.
“It took longer than I expected but it worked out for the best in the end.”
— Taylor Reid
But even with a few months’ financial cushion, leaving came with risk because she didn’t have a full-time job lined up. She turned to coaching a girls soccer team at a local high school. She felt rejuvenated and filled with possibility. But as the weeks went by, anxiety set in. She started to question herself and her abilities, but she didn’t want to settle for the first job that came around. “I didn’t quit my last job just to take a new job that will make me feel the same way.”
Eventually a recruiter noticed her “open to work” status on LinkedIn and reached out, helping Reid land her current job. She had applied to more than 30 positions.
“It took longer than I expected but it worked out for the best in the end,” she said. “It was also a reminder to never let anyone make me doubt myself.”
Editing by Karly Domb Sadof and Haley Hamblin. Copy editing by Colleen Neely. | 2022-11-01T10:48:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Where workers of the great resignation are now - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/01/workers-great-resignation-now/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/01/workers-great-resignation-now/ |
It comes as oil companies around the world are seeing earnings surge, with Saudi's Aramco on Tuesday reporting a $42.4 billion profit, it’s second-highest quarterly earnings ever. Last week, Texas-based Exxon Mobil broke records with $19.66 billion in profits in the three months to September and California-based Chevron got close to its peak from last quarter with $11.23 billion. | 2022-11-01T10:49:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | BP profits soar in 3Q as pressure increases for windfall tax - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bp-profits-soar-in-3q-as-pressure-increases-for-windfall-tax/2022/11/01/61c900d8-59cc-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bp-profits-soar-in-3q-as-pressure-increases-for-windfall-tax/2022/11/01/61c900d8-59cc-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
It’s Better to Mine the World’s Rainforests Than Farm Them
As if the world’s rainforests didn’t have enough problems to contend with, even the transition to zero-carbon power is threatening to level them.
Industrial mining ate up 3,265 square kilometers (1,260 square miles) of tropical forest between 2002 and 2019, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Some 80% of that total happened in just four countries: Indonesia, Brazil, Ghana and Suriname.
With the COP27 climate conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh next week expected to increase the focus on the climate needs of developing countries, that’s raised concerns that there isn’t enough land to manage a shift away from fossil fuels. Much of the world’s reserves of nickel, an essential metal for making electric-vehicle batteries, lie under the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Some 6,732 sq km of Indonesian forest has been granted to nickel mining concessions, a coalition of environmental groups wrote in a July letter to Tesla Inc.
Mining certainly involves destruction of the land that surrounds it. Even where minerals are extracted from underground rather than surface mines, the tailings, processing facilities and transport infrastructure that surround them consume many hectares of countryside.
Still, the challenges of preserving the world’s ecosystems are so vast that we risk looking only at one small part of the elephant, rather than the whole beast. Almost every economic activity carries some sort of environmental cost. The question isn’t about finding activities that are cost-free, but identifying the ones that maximize the associated social and economic benefits.
At the outset, it’s worth considering that the sheer amounts of commodities that we use each year vary greatly: about 8.2 billion tons of coal and 4.2 billion tons of oil; 1.2 billion tons of corn and 780 million tons of wheat; 25 million tons of copper and 2.7 million tons of nickel; 3,000 tons of gold and 180 tons of platinum.
That doesn’t give the whole story, though. Nickel ores contain about a thousand times more metal per ton than gold ores, so the far smaller output of the gold industry results in a roughly similar volume of waste rock. Then there’s the question of surface disturbance: commodities extracted from open-cut mines such as iron ore have a far bigger footprint than those like platinum that are mostly mined from deep underground. Oil and gas tapped from the ocean floor don’t take up a single hectare of land, except for what’s used for onshore transport and processing.
Looked at in terms of land intensity — the number of hectares needed to supply humanity’s needs — it’s clear that minerals are still a highly efficient use of space. All the world’s mines cover just 101,583 square kilometers, according to a study this year based on satellite observations — a smaller area than we use to grow oats, and equivalent to less than 0.2% of the world’s agricultural land.
Another consideration is how often the commodity gets re-used. The 50kg of nickel in an electric car battery will get used again and again over the tens of thousands of kilometers the vehicle is driven, and then may well be recycled for other uses when the vehicle is scrapped. The 50 liters of gasoline in your fuel tank, on the other hand, will need to be refilled several thousand times before the car is taken to the junkyard. Farmland, for all the vast areas that it consumes, can produce the same volumes year after year, even increasing over time with improvements in agricultural yields.
Energy is an important and related consideration. If your electric car is charged up with power produced by burning coal, it’s likely to have a far more substantial land footprint than with electricity from nuclear, wind or gas — both because coal is profligate in terms of its demands for land, and because its supplies must be constantly renewed by digging yet more coal. Solar power, for all its advantages in terms of carbon emissions, also chews up a great deal of land.
A final consideration is to think about the cost of land use as well as its benefits. All land is not created equal. Some 60% of the world’s carbon biomass is stored in forests, with another 22% in grasslands and savannah. Keeping that carbon locked up in living tissues rather than venting it into the atmosphere is a burden that falls particularly hard on lower-income tropical countries, which have some of the largest reserves of forest and some of the greatest needs to consume land as an input into economic growth.
That’s where the rest of the world has a part to play. Economic development requires not just land, but labor, capital, and productivity improvements. Most emerging countries have no shortage of labor, but the capital required to develop land efficiently and drive their economies up the productivity value chain is far too scarce. Pledges that rich nations made a decade ago to provide $100 billion in annual investments to the rest of the world to decarbonize and adapt to the effects of climate change have still not been met.
If wealthy countries want the tropical forest lands that have already been cleared to be used more efficiently — and, where possible, returned to their natural state — then they’re going to need more, not less capital-intensive activity. Mining isn’t devoid of environmental impacts. But it’s a lot better than most of the alternatives.
• Even a Lula Victory May Not Restore Brazil’s Forests: David Fickling
• Giant Sequoias Are Built to Withstand Fire, But Not These Fires: Faye Flam | 2022-11-01T10:49:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | It’s Better to Mine the World’s Rainforests Than Farm Them - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/its-better-to-mine-the-worlds-rainforests-than-farm-them/2022/10/30/6d58a618-58a7-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/its-better-to-mine-the-worlds-rainforests-than-farm-them/2022/10/30/6d58a618-58a7-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Ghana is learning the hard way why oil can be a blessing and a curse. The onset of commercial crude production helped turn the West African nation into one of the continent’s top investment destinations, but also prompted successive governments to borrow to the hilt. Skittish investors have offloaded Ghana’s bonds and currency, the cedi, amid mounting concern over its ability to settle its debts. The tumbling exchange rate has caused inflation to soar. President Nana Akufo-Addo’s administration has appealed to the International Monetary Fund for an assistance package of as much as $3 billion, and insists debt holders won’t have to take a hit.
The first sub-Saharan African nation to gain independence after colonial rule, Ghana has been a bastion of stability in a region plagued by civil unrest and coups. Peaceful elections have been held on a regular basis since the 1990s, power has changed hands between rival parties and presidents, and it has an independent judiciary and a vibrant parliament. The world’s second-biggest grower of cocoa and Africa’s No. 2 producer of gold, it began exporting oil in late 2010. The following year, gross domestic product leaped by almost 14%. The economy has expanded every year since then, albeit at a more modest pace, with the government’s embrace of a free-market system helping to lure foreign capital and financing.
The government abandoned fiscal discipline and opened the spending taps in anticipation of an oil windfall. But the revenue it earned was insufficient to cover a succession of expensive flagship programs and it borrowed more to plug funding gaps. Overspending was particularly rife in election years. Akufo-Addo’s administration has scrapped fees for senior high school students. In 2021, the government spent $1 billion on refinancing loans owed by private power producers, a move that was intended to reduce the state’s electricity bills. A plan to strengthen a banking industry that’s been weakened by bad loans has cost more than 25 billion cedis ($1.8 billion), and an estimated 8 billion cedis more is needed to complete the process. Covid-19 dealt a further blow to the state’s already stretched finances. After selling eurobonds for each of the previous nine years, Ghana was shut out of international capital markets in 2022 as investors lost faith in its ability to service its loans. The government shunned an initiative that would have enabled it to suspend interest payments, and vowed not to tap further support from the IMF, before changing its tune in July 2022.
3. How precarious are Ghana’s finances?
The country is on the verge of a fiscal crisis. Its 402.4 billion cedis of debt equated to 68% of gross domestic product at the end of July 2022, up from 62.5% five years earlier. When it could no longer tap international markets, the government resorted to taking out domestic loans, paying annual interest rates of almost 30%. The central bank stepped in to provide the government with funding after it risked defaulting on its local debt, but it plans to limit further support to stay within its legal lending threshold. The IMF has warned that the authorities will have to take remedial action, including restructuring its liabilities, to qualify for assistance should the state’s debt be deemed unsustainable.
There’s been an exodus from the currency and bond markets. The cedi’s decline of more than 55% in the first 10 months of 2022 made it the world’s worst performer. Its dollar-denominated bonds trade at yields of more than 10 percentage points above those of US Treasuries, a sign of distress.
In late October, Akufo-Addo dismissed speculation that an IMF funding deal could translate into losses for any of Ghana’s debt holders. He’s pledged to restore financial discipline by reducing total public debt to 55% of gross domestic product by 2028 and peg external debt-servicing costs to no more than 18% of annual revenue by that year. Lawmakers want Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to take the fall for the economic crisis and have called for his dismissal. The Bank of Ghana raised its key lending rate by 10 percentage points to 24.5% in the first 10 months of 2022 to support the currency and help tame inflation. The central bank also increased the cash reserves that banks are required to hold and began buying dollars from mining and oil companies operating in the country -- moves that were aimed at bolstering depleting foreign reserves.
--With assistance from Moses Mozart Dzawu and Yinka Ibukun. | 2022-11-01T10:49:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Ghana Went From Hero to Zero for Investors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-ghana-went-from-hero-to-zero-for-investors/2022/11/01/6daa4952-599a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-ghana-went-from-hero-to-zero-for-investors/2022/11/01/6daa4952-599a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
It’s not hard to find echoes between the killing of more than 150 people crushed in a Halloween crowd surge in Seoul on Saturday, and the deaths of more than 300 people, mainly high-school students, in the 2014 sinking of the Sewol ferry. In both cases, officialdom failed the nation’s youth, resulting in tragic, avoidable events on a scale that is scarcely imaginable. The public will demand answers.
The nation’s president at the time of the Sewol catastrophe, the disgraced and impeached Park Geun-hye, was for all her faults clearly not personally responsible for the sinking of the ferry, which was blamed on its operator overloading the vessel and the crew abandoning the passengers.
But it was Park’s emotionally distant response to the accident that turned many against her, even before the corruption scandal that would later take her down. A key question during the investigation into her response was the mystery of her whereabouts for seven crucial hours after the incident, before she briefed the nation.
While the incumbent Yoon Suk Yeol has moved quicker, declaring a period of mourning and forming an expansive task force to investigate, he has little margin for error. Even before the Halloween catastrophe, Yoon was the most-disliked leader in the world, with 72% saying they disapproved of him in a recent Morning Consult survey. Only the now-departed Liz Truss, the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister, ranked worse among countries polled.
Tragedies resonate particularly keenly when, like in the stampede in Seoul’s Itaewon district, they involve the young. In 2001, the then-Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshiro Mori, was heavily criticized for continuing to play a round of golf after receiving news that a US nuclear submarine struck the fishing trawler Ehime Maru, a training ship which was carrying high-school students. Four of them died; the already deeply unpopular Mori was out of office less than two months later.
Yoon could therefore do without remarks like that of his interior minister, Lee Sang-min, who told a briefing that the tragedy wasn’t a problem that could have been solved “by deploying police or firefighters in advance.” From the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster to the 2015 Hajj stampede, the underlying lesson of such tragedies tends to be that with sufficient planning they can almost always be avoided, whether through adequate presence by authorities, proactive policing to prevent bottlenecks or limiting access to dangerous areas. Many are now questioning whether the deployment of 137 police officers to the Itaewon celebrations, which attracted tens of thousands, was appropriate.
Having initially leaned into the largely organic festivities that grew in Shibuya during the 2010s, Tokyo authorities began to take a sterner stance in 2019 after unruliness the year before. They asked stores not to sell alcohol, forbade drinking on the streets , and stationed hundreds of police and private security staff on street corners to prevent people from stopping in place. Japanese police have widely been ridiculed for their failure to prevent the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in July, a botched protection job over which the nation’s chief of police resigned. The Seoul crush perhaps makes what many, including myself, had deemed over-zealousness in policing Shibuya seem prescient instead.
There’s no suggestion it’s easy to avoid tragedies such as Saturday’s, particularly if authorities want to let people have freedom and fun. But what happened in Seoul is no natural disaster: Such events can and should be avoided. Yoon’s political future may depend on what he does next.
The Race for Missiles in Asia’s Danger Zone: Gearoid Reidy
Who Holds the Keys to South Korea’s Future?: Marc Rubinstein
North Korea’s Missile Frenzy Must Have Consequences: Editorial | 2022-11-01T10:49:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Halloween Tragedy Is a Test For a Deeply Unpopular Leader - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/halloween-tragedy-is-atest-for-a-deeply-unpopular-leader/2022/10/31/2e4618a4-5968-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/halloween-tragedy-is-atest-for-a-deeply-unpopular-leader/2022/10/31/2e4618a4-5968-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 26: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (C), alongside the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, (centre right) holds his first Cabinet meeting on October 26, 2022 in London, England. Rishi Sunak’s newly formed cabinet featured ministers from both his predecessors’ governments. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images) (Photographer: WPA Pool/Getty Images Europe)
During his Sunday morning broadcast rounds, Michael Gove, the arch-Brexiteer and now UK cabinet secretary in charge of leveling up, repeated a claim he’d made countless times before: Brexit, he said, had been “a significant success for this country.”
And yet, a thaw in UK-European Union relations relations not only looks possible now — it is also Sunak’s and the Tories’ best hope of political survival.
At least two major tectonic shifts have rendered the old Tory Brexit playbook — maximalist demands and ratcheting up tension — pointless. The first is Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Johnson’s view of post-Brexit growth rested on a weaker, sclerotic Europe and a more nimble, free-trading UK that built closer trade ties with China. It also figured on a security pivot toward the Asia-Pacific region, which was captured in the 2021 Integrated Review that the government is now rapidly rewriting.
Russia’s aggression and China’s increasing isolation have changed everything. The UK may not be dependent on Russian gas, but the rapid rise in energy and other prices, and preparations for potential blackouts, underscores the degree to which the UK and European economies are tied and the importance of political and security cooperation.
Then there is the fact that the bond markets are now part of every government decision impacting the economy, thanks to the fallout from the Sept. 23 mini-budget under Liz Truss’s government. Having promised economic stability and a pathway toward growth, Sunak cannot afford to roil markets with talks of ripping up an international agreement the UK signed only three years ago.
Timing is everything in politics. The Brexit vote came after a long period of austerity and wage stagnation and at a time when Britons had been alarmed by the huge influx of immigrants into Germany in particular. In the 2019 election, Johnson capitalized on both weariness with Brexit uncertainty and wariness of socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn.
But lately there are signals of a more pragmatic approach. The government no longer seems in a rush to scrap 2,400 retained EU laws, which would only add to uncertainty for businesses. Plans for a summit with French President Emmanuel Macron — like Sunak, another young leader and former banker — suggests greater realization of the importance of cross-Channel cooperation on issues from energy to immigration and security. | 2022-11-01T10:50:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rishi Sunak Must Detoxify Brexit to Save Himself - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/rishi-sunak-must-detoxify-brexit-to-save-himself/2022/11/01/3e2b9e0e-59ab-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/rishi-sunak-must-detoxify-brexit-to-save-himself/2022/11/01/3e2b9e0e-59ab-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
The Accountant Shortage Threatens Capitalism’s Future
Capitalism can’t function without a healthy system of accounting. The breakthrough from feudalism to capitalism in Renaissance and Reformation Europe was only made possible by the emergence of professional accountants. And a dearth of accountants — or a dearth of respect for accountants — has spelled trouble ever since. “Over and over again,” Jason Soll wrote in his fascinating history of accounting, “The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Making and Breaking of Nations,” “good accounting practices have produced the levels of trust necessary to fund stable governments and vital capitalist societies, and poor accounting and its attendant lack of accountability have led to financial chaos, economic crimes, civil unrest and worse.”
In Renaissance Florence, 4,000-5,000 of the city’s 120,000 inhabitants attended accounting schools at any one time, studying the new device of double-entry accounting with its delicate balance of profit and loss. Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) and other Italian bankers thrived because they kept impeccable accounts (Cosimo himself did yearly audits of all his various branches). Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan friar and mathematician, wrote the first great accounting textbook in 1494.
In Golden Age Holland, in the 16th and 17th centuries, every level of Dutch society, from merchants to prostitutes, practiced double-entry bookkeeping. Public confidence in “the numbers,” both at home and abroad, allowed Holland to launch innovative devices such as the first publicly traded company, the Dutch East India Company, in 1602 and the first stock exchange. It also allowed the Dutch to float bonds at a dependable 4% return.
The cult of accounting then passed to the bigger countries — France and Spain for a while but more permanently to America and England. As postmaster general in the mid-1770s, Benjamin Franklin published a pull-out guide to double-entry bookkeeping. Charles Dickens satirized the British industrialists’ obsession with numbers in the person of Gradgrind in “Hard Times.”
If good accounting frequently led to prosperity, poor accounting invariably led to instability. Fifteenth-century Spain and 18th century France went bankrupt through (sometimes willful) ignorance of financial fundamentals as much as through overweening ambition. (Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the finance minister whose innovations revitalized France, gave Louis XIV an account book, perfectly designed to fit into his pocket, and encouraged him to enter his expenditure every day, but he dispensed with the discipline when Colbert died.) Two of the biggest shocks to the health of the financial system — the 2001 bankruptcy of Enron Corp. (and with it the 2002 collapse of Arthur Andersen) and the implosion of Lehman Brothers in 2008 — both involved dodgy numbers.
All of which suggests that we should pay attention to the cry that has been coming from America’s accountants for years: that the profession is suffering from a shortage of talent. Bloomberg Tax calculates that the number of accountants and auditors employed fell by 17% between 2019 and 2021.
The shortage seems to start with supply. Fewer than 100,000 people take the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam each year — the sine qua non for entry into the profession — and about half of them fail. The number of CPA exam candidates decreased by 7% between 2017 and 2018 while the number of candidates who passed all four sections of the exam decreased by 6% (paradoxically, the available numbers on accountants are rather old). University enrollment in accounting courses fell by 4% between 2016 and 2019. According to Deloitte & Touche LLP, 82.4% of hiring managers for accounting and financial positions in public companies believe that recruitment is a “big challenge.”
The shortage of supply is exacerbated by a combination of high turnover and growing demand. Accountants have been leaving corporations and audit firms in record numbers, thanks to low morale and early retirement. Though the profession has long known that the retirement of the huge baby boom generation will produce a talent crunch, the crunch has been earlier and tighter than expected because of the Great Resignation. What better candidates could there be for early retirement than numerate people who had spent their lives working hard and watching their pension pots?
Accountants also face more demands on both their skills and their time. They routinely have to measure things that they’ve never measured before, not least the impact of carbon emissions on the environment, a job that the Security and Exchange Commission’s crackdown on greenwashing is making more demanding. The shift to working from home is confronting them with new problems such as valuing off-site offices while new regulations are forcing them to reassess the value of leased property.
They are also becoming the victims of their own cleverness (or the cleverness of their corporate bosses who are trying to conceal as much as they can from the taxman). Auditors must deal with complicated global structures that pass economic activities through various tax havens. They also must deal with variations on EBITDA (“earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization”) such as EBITDAR (which excludes rent costs, restructuring costs or both) and “adjusted” EBITDA (which omits a host of expenses).
The labor shortage means that the remaining accountants must work harder in harsher conditions. They are more likely to have to work alone under high pressure rather than enjoying the camaraderie of teams. Blogs about the profession such as Adrienne Gonzalez’s “Going Concern” are stuffed with stories of people who’ve burnt themselves out with marathon work sessions. The entire financial system thus increasingly rests on the shoulders of overworked and frazzled twenty-something Atlases.
Why isn’t supply adjusting to meet demand? One answer, reluctantly conceded by accountants, is that accountants just aren’t cool. A painting of Cosimo de Medici shows him holding his bright and beautiful account books. It is hard to imagine Elon Musk posing for a similar portrait. Another answer is that initial salaries are relatively low given the profession’s demanding entry criteria (accountants need to acquire the equivalent of a master’s degree as well as passing a demanding professional examination) and its grueling work hours. To get the big rewards, you have to become a senior partner of one of the industry’s big four giants.
Patience is harder to come by when numerate people have a bigger choice of careers open to them. Time was when accounting was the ideal destination for the class nerd — a good salary and a lifetime of security made up for the tedium of doing books. Risk-averse parents talked about accounting in the same way that they talked about medicine or the law. Today, lots of other jobs for nerds pay higher salaries and offer higher status (or coolness quotient). Why work for one of the big four accounting firms when you can work as a “strategic financial analyst” for a big tech company and help to generate new products rather than just auditing accounts?
Shaken by the persistent shortages, the profession is debating how to make itself more attractive. How about improving the pay? Though the profession remains wedded to the long-term reward model, it is doing more to attract new recruits by providing bursaries to potential accountants at college or signing bonuses for new hires. Or improving conditions? The big four accountants are leading the way among major companies in embracing “work from anywhere” policies largely because they are finding the market so tough. “The war for talent is over and talent won,” Tim Ryan, the chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers Corp. (PwC), the world’s fourth largest accountancy with 300,000 employees, said last week. Or raising its coolness quotient? Whereas a recent barrage of cringe-making advertisements shows multicultural teams of accountants high-fiving each other, accounting in the real world is an overwhelmingly white profession which obliges lonely nerds to sweat in front of screens.
The obvious result of the talent shortage is an erosion in the quality of audits. Public companies are finding it harder to get accountants to audit their books and, when they do find them, must often work them harder. Important checks are skipped, and errors (or dodges) go unnoticed. If companies are late filing, then they risk running afoul of the SEC; if they include errors, then they risk fines and adverse market reaction. Even small errors can lead to a plunge in stock prices.
The chances that US regulators will catch errors, or worse, are arguably also being reduced by the shortage of accountants: The SEC faces an attrition rate of more than 6%, with a growing proportion of the work done by temps. Poorer oversight increases the likelihood of another Enron out there: a big company that is playing fast and loose with its finances and will eventually collapse, bringing economic havoc in its wake.
There are also more subtle consequences. In “Restarting the Future: How to Fix the Intangible Economy,” Jonathan Haskell, a professor at Imperial College, London, and Stian Westlake, CEO of the Royal Statistical Society, argue that the advanced economies are in the middle of a confusing transition from an economy in which most business investment went into things that you could kick to one in which it goes into things that you can’t touch, such as research and development, branding, management systems and software. This transition is harder to manage if you have a shortage of accountants to think about ways of measuring intangibles.
Dag Detter, a consultant and co-author of “The Public Wealth of Nations,” argues that governments habitually mismanage public assets because, with only 8% of the world’s accountants working in the public sector, they either measure their value sloppily or not at all. Applying modern accounting methods to these assets, which are worth $156 trillion, or twice global GDP, might release significant resources for the public purse (for example, by spurring the privatization of unused assets) while also encouraging better management. But that can’t happen without more accountants. Tellingly, in New Zealand, the country that has arguably done the most to introduce modern accounting to the public sector, an accountant shortage recently caused the Auditor-General to miss statutory deadlines for audits of several public sector organizations.
What are the chances that the cavalry may arrive in the form of new technology? Accounting is just the sort of thing that AI, with its inhuman ability to recognize regularities and irregularities in numbers, is supposed to revolutionize. Software programs can comb through lengthy leases pulling out key phrases or model complex changes in tax laws. Innovations such as online tax software and automated receipts already make the life of regular people a bit easier. And companies such as Trullion Ltd are promising to use machine intelligence and big data to revolutionize a profession that continues to rely on sampling.
But so far, the big four have been relatively bad at developing new technology, despite their huge resources, partly because they don’t have enough expertise in technology and partly because they have a vested interest in the status quo. And there are also limits to the power of AI (or the power of AI as currently conceived): The most recondite accounting problems still require human judgement and political sensitivity. Bottom line: As the dearth of accountants deepens, look for the problems threatening the capitalist system to multiply.
• Recession Alert? Corporate Giants Are Massaging Their Earnings: Shuli Ren
• Opendoor Follows WeWork Into Non-GAAP Land: Chris Bryant
• What Comes After a Week That Shook the World: John Authers | 2022-11-01T10:50:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Accountant Shortage Threatens Capitalism’s Future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-accountant-shortage-threatens-capitalisms-future/2022/11/01/3e760160-59ab-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-accountant-shortage-threatens-capitalisms-future/2022/11/01/3e760160-59ab-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
A geothermal effort to displace coal and gas takes hold in central Europe
The Velika Ciglena geothermal plant in Ciglena, Croatia. (Turboden)
CIGLENA, Croatia – Hidden in the rolling hills of the Croatian countryside, a futuristic structure that looks a little like a flying saucer is what backers say is the hope for the region’s emissions-free future.
In a part of Europe that still generates much of its electricity by burning natural gas and coal, some green advocates say they should look deep beneath their feet to harness the power of the earth’s core. Croatia and its neighbors sit on top of a patch of unusual geology where the vast heat at the center of the world has an especially easy time coming close to the surface.
The result is a high concentration of potential emissions-free geothermal energy, one that can form the base of a carbon-free electricity grid, unlike wind and solar power, which don’t typically generate power around the clock. The UFO-like Velika Ciglena geothermal plant is the first of its kind in Croatia, and backers believe the technology could eventually power much of the country’s needs, as well as in neighboring countries that have similar geology, such as Austria, Hungary and Serbia.
“There is a huge potential to generate a lot of electricity out of this. There is a huge potential for district heating. And there is a huge potential for agriculture,” said Marijan Krpan, the chief executive of the Croatian Hydrocarbon Agency, the state agency that oversees drilling in the country. Krpan said that he hopes that geothermal energy could eventually generate a third of the country’s power demand.
Geothermal energy’s backers are gaining momentum around the world, as the technology improves and societies seek every avenue to reduce the emission of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Among other virtues, advocates say, geothermal energy has a relatively small footprint, generating far more electricity per square foot than either wind or solar power, both of which require a lot of land to create power in any quantity. And geothermal power doesn’t have the same waste or safety risks as nuclear energy, a rival emissions-free source for electricity.
So advocates are advancing geothermal projects around the world, wherever the earth’s crust is conducive. In Paris, geothermal wells are heating elegant 19th-century apartment blocks. In the rugged mountains of eastern California, a major new geothermal power plant opened in August. In Iceland, a tiny island nation that sits atop countless hot springs, geothermal plants are being used to power the world’s biggest carbon capture effort, an innovative attempt to pull carbon out of the air and pump it into the ground.
And in Croatia, there has been a flowering of projects after the government changed regulations in 2016 to allow the country’s thousands of disused oil and gas wells to be reused for geothermal projects. The northern part of the country is part of the geothermal-rich Pannonian basin, a region where continental plates collided about 16 million years ago, then folded back on themselves repeatedly, creating fractured rock that allows heat to rise from the earth’s molten core close to the surface.
“It’s a treasure,” said Zeljka Sladovic, the founder of GeoDa Consulting and a longtime consultant on geothermal projects in Croatia. For decades, the geologist worked for Croatia’s oil and gas industry, since the country was long rich with both of those resources.
The Velika Ciglena power plant is an unlikely futuristic addition to a pastoral landscape. Weathered 19th-century churches back onto farmland and forest, and jouncing roads twist their way from Croatia’s elegant capital of Zagreb, which is an hour away. The installation is dominated by 44 massive silver fans, each about 20 feet across, and spinning parallel to the ground, that cool the water before it is pumped back into the ground.
“We showed to the world and to the sector that Croatia’s geothermal potential is useful,” said Dragan Jurilj, one of the investors who helped build the power plant and who now operates it amid an ownership dispute with his former Turkish partners.
The plant can generate about 17 megawatts of power, although because of the way Croatia’s grid is operated, it’s currently limited to 10 megawatts. At the installation’s higher end, that’s equivalent to about the electricity generated by about 94 football fields of solar panels, on a plot of land that is less than a tenth of that.
Skeptics of the efforts say that solar and wind generate power more cheaply, especially in Croatia, where the geothermal water isn’t as hot as it is in more volcanic places like Iceland.
“I’m not sure that it makes sense from an economic point of view,” said Neven Duic, the president of the International Center for Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment System, a Zagreb-based research group, who said he thought that more modest geothermal projects, such as municipal heating plants, would general fewer profits but might make more social sense than electricity.
But as the climate warms, backers of geothermal energy say that it can be a good hedge against the weather extremes that can sometimes threaten above-ground renewable energy sources. Europe had its warmest summer on record this year, drying up rivers and draining hydroelectric dams of their energy source, for instance.
“This is our own resource. You don’t have to haggle about it with anybody. What’s better than having our own energy in our backyard?” said Dragutin Domitrovic, who served as construction manager when the Velika Ciglena power plant was being built and now runs Calida Aqua, a geothermal consulting group.
Geothermal energy typically works by drilling a well a mile or two into the ground and pumping up water that has been heated by the energy of the earth’s core. The heat is used to make steam that spins turbines, generating electricity. Then the cooled water is pumped back down into the ground. In many areas of Croatia’s Pannonian region, the water is boiling a little more than a mile down and gets hotter the deeper a well is drilled.
Hotter water leads to more electricity. But there is wide variability from site to site, drilling wells is expensive, and often it’s impossible to know in advance whether a drillhole will yield good enough water. That can scare off investors.
“This is a game which is not for the feeble-minded. But with patience you can be there,” said Domitrovic, who said that with European energy prices as high as they were this summer, he thought that many geothermal projects would break even in seven to 10 years.
“We would like to change the name to the Geoenergy Agency,” said Krpan, its chief executive. | 2022-11-01T10:50:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Geothermal energy helps Europe eliminate coal and gas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/01/croatia-geothermal-energy-europe/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/01/croatia-geothermal-energy-europe/ |
Prosecutors to drop dozens of cases amid probe of D.C. violent crime squad
D.C. federal prosecutors say they expect to scrap dozens of gun and drug cases as an internal investigation of officers in the 7th District continues
Police Chief Robert J. Contee III. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Federal prosecutors expect to dismiss dozens of felony gun and drug cases involving officers on a violent crime squad in the D.C. police department’s 7th District, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office said, after an ongoing internal investigation raised questions about the officers’ credibility.
Bill Miller, a U.S. attorney’s office spokesman, said in a statement that prosecutors began reassessing pending cases upon learning that the officers were under internal investigation for seizing guns without making arrests, and possibly lying on police reports. Miller declined to say how many cases had been dismissed so far and refused to answer specific questions.
“When our Office learned of the 7-D crime suppression team investigation, we began a case-specific assessment of impacted pending cases,” Miller said in a statement. “In determining how to proceed with each case, we take a number of factors into consideration, including burden of proof, witness availability, likelihood of success on the merits at trial, and the applicable law. Our review is ongoing, but at this point we expect to dismiss dozens of gun and drug possession cases.”
In September, D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III announced that seven police officers from the 7th District’s crime suppression team had been placed on administrative leave or desk duty, after officials discovered incidents in which police stopped people and took guns from them without making an arrest. Contee said officials were trying to determine — among other things — if the officers were truthful in police reports they submitted about weapon seizures, because video from the officers’ body cameras did not match what was described in the reports.
The seven officers were part of a roughly 20-person specialized unit, which was freed from responding to routine calls to concentrate on patrolling neighborhoods in the 7th District, which includes communities in Southeast Washington such as Anacostia and Washington Highlands, for drugs and guns. A majority of that team has since been replaced with other officers from other departments across the city, D.C. police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said.
Sternbeck said the internal affairs investigation remains ongoing.
If an officer was found to have lied in a report, that information would have to be disclosed to a defense attorney, and it could complicate prosecutors’ having to rely on their testimony at trial.
Jamila White, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in a neighborhood in the 7th District said “trust” between the community and police officers in that area is “severely broken,” and as a result of the internal affairs investigation, policing in the community will only “weaken.”
Defense attorneys in D.C. Superior Court said that after the internal affairs investigation became public on Sept. 30, they began noticing cases involving 7th District officers being dismissed — though often in such a way they could be refiled at a later date. A Washington Post review of recently dismissed gun cases found many involving 7th District crime suppression team officers, though the exact reason for their being dropped was not immediately clear. Some of the cases were for people who had prior felony convictions and were later alleged to have possessed a gun.
Some defense attorneys said they have had concerns about the legality of 7th District officers’ stops and seizures for years.
“That bunch of police officers has been a problem for years. I’m glad it’s coming to everyone’s attention that they don’t follow the rules or act legally,” said defense attorney Tammy Jacques, who said she has had at least one client’s gun-possession case dismissed.
“I am a criminal defense attorney, but my grandfather was a police officer. I have a high respect for police officers, but not these officers,” Jacques said.
Contee said police were first tipped to officers’ seizing guns but not making arrests when internal affairs investigators were reviewing body-camera footage as they explored a citizen complaint. He said that though it appeared to officials the officers had cause to take suspects’ into custody, they were let go. The guns, however, were all accounted for, he said.
Gregg Pemberton, chairman of the D.C. Police Union, said in a statement: “The allegations against these officers are still unclear and no charges of misconduct have ever been sustained against any of these members. The union continues to assert that these officers were properly following policy and directives issued by command staff and we are confident that all of these officers will be exonerated.”
Defense attorney Stephen LoGerfo said that while he applauded prosecutors reexamining current cases involving officers in the 7th District, he was concerned about those in which people already had been convicted. It was not immediately clear if prosecutors were reviewing those cases, too.
“That’s a major issue. If they pled five months ago and are serving a prison or jail sentence, what are they going to do about that?” LoGerfo said. | 2022-11-01T10:50:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prosecutors to drop dozens of cases amid probe of D.C. violent crime squad - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/cases-dismissed-seventh-district-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/cases-dismissed-seventh-district-investigation/ |
A new Pfizer vaccine, given during pregnancy, could help prevent infants suffering from respiratory syncytial virus stay out of the hospital. (Marijan Murat/Getty Images)
Pfizer announced Tuesday that its maternal RSV vaccine, given during pregnancy, protected infants from developing severe symptoms during the first six months after birth — a critical window of vulnerability.
The company plans to apply for approval of the vaccine before year’s end, with the hope that the shot could be the first vaccine to help protect infants against RSV — respiratory syncytial virus — as soon as next winter.
The data was announced in a news release and has not yet been published or peer reviewed. But it offers a glimmer of good news in the middle of a brutal and early RSV season that has contributed to a wave of respiratory illness that is overwhelming many pediatric hospitals.
“We’re very hopeful everything can be done in time to vaccinate mothers before the next RSV season,” said Annaliesa Anderson, chief scientific officer of vaccine research and development at Pfizer. “We’re about to come into a very heavy RSV season. We’re seeing hospitals filling up. Everyone appreciates the urgency that can really help to prevent this.”
RSV is a common respiratory illness, and most people experience it as common cold-like symptoms. But in young infants, whose airways are smaller, the virus can be life-threatening — and it is the leading cause of hospitalization for babies.
For decades, fear and failure in the hunt for an RSV vaccine. Now, success.
Unlike vaccines that are given directly to infants, the Pfizer shot provides protection through an indirect route. Antibodies are naturally passed down to infants during pregnancy, so maternal vaccination is a way of giving babies a temporary, but immediate, shield of immune protection. Vaccines for influenza, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis are also given as maternal immunizations.
The Pfizer vaccine, given early in the third trimester, was 69 percent effective after birth in preventing severe cases of illness that required medical attention over six months. It was even more effective within the first three months after birth, probably reflecting antibody levels that naturally drop off over time.
Researchers also measured whether the vaccine prevented infant medical visits caused by RSV, including cases that were not severe. Those results did not reach statistical significance, but suggested that the vaccine could cut medical visits due to RSV in half during the first six months after birth.
The company said that there were no major safety concerns for babies or vaccinated individuals, but that data will be closely scrutinized by regulators. There were 7,400 pregnant people in the trial, and infants were followed for at least a year.
Barney Graham, a vaccine expert at Morehouse School of Medicine whose work with Jason McLellan at the University of Texas at Austin underlies much of the progress in the RSV field, said the news was gratifying.
“I think this is a big step for protecting babies against RSV and improving overall lung health,” Graham said. “Overall, it’s an exciting time for RSV. It’s also a troubling time, because you see how the patterns of infection have been changed by covid, and we’re having an earlier, bigger season this year than we have for a couple of years — and it’s causing a lot of hospitalization and misery for people.”
Two promising tools to prevent RSV in infants could soon be available, if regulators agree they are safe and effective. In addition to Pfizer’s maternal vaccine, AstraZeneca and Sanofi showed that a single dose of a monoclonal antibody could protect infants from RSV for five months. That drug, nirsevimab, was recently recommended for approval in Europe. Two vaccines for older adults have also showed success, from Pfizer and GSK.
Many pediatricians have been waiting for tools to fight RSV for decades. Early efforts to create a vaccine backfired disastrously, causing babies to develop an enhanced illness if they became infected and casting a shadow over the field.
If both a preventive monoclonal antibody treatment and a vaccine soon become available, it will give physicians options — and lead to debates about how the different tools should be used.
“I’m so thrilled at where the field is right now. I think there are many, many people out there in the world who share my excitement,” said Ruth Karron, a pediatrician and professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is working on a different vaccine that could be given directly to young children, to protect them after the first six months.
“The difference this year is the general public for the first time is probably eagerly awaiting an RSV vaccine, because they’re seeing firsthand just how much of a problem RSV can be.” | 2022-11-01T10:51:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, given during pregnancy, protects infants from severe illness - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/01/rsv-vaccine-infants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/01/rsv-vaccine-infants/ |
The surprising reasons cats are destructive — and how to get them to knock it off
(Christina Gandolfo for The Washington Post)
First, the bad news: You’re not going to stop your cat from scratching altogether. It’s a natural behavior for felines, and they do it for several reasons. It’s a way to keep their claws in tiptop shape and to mark their territory, both with the visual cue of scratch marks and with pheromones they deposit through their paws. Plus, as you’ve probably seen, scratching offers an opportunity for a good stretch. You’ve got to let your cat be a cat, after all!
But don’t despair. There are ways to keep your sofa or rug safe. The key is to redirect your adorable little destroyer to another target. Here’s how.
Do not declaw your cat
Declawing your cat is one 1990s trend that should never be resurrected. Turns out the procedure is quite cruel. It involves amputating the knuckle from the end of the cat’s paw, and it can cause long-lasting pain, says Zazie Todd, an animal behavior expert and author of “Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy." “There is no benefit to the cat,” she says. “If you think of scratching as a normal behavior, you don’t want to prevent cats from being able to do something that’s normal for them.”
A growing number of veterinary practices are refusing to declaw cats, says Sara Everett, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine. Others do so only in extreme cases (like if the owner might otherwise give up the animal).
More than a dozen U.S. cities, along with New York and Maryland, have passed bans on the procedure.
Choose a scratching post
The ideal place for your cat to use her claws is on a scratching post. But not all of them are created equally, and it might take some trial and error to find a post that your cat loves.
One critical factor to consider is texture. Some cats like the knobby feel of a carpet-covered scratching post, while others prefer cardboard or sisal. “You might just have to offer them a little scratching post cafeteria or buffet and see what they select,” says Amy Pike, a veterinary behaviorist and the owner of the Animal Behavior Wellness Center in Fairfax, Va.
There’s also the question of vertical versus horizontal. Most felines love tall scratching posts, but some prefer a surface flush with the ground. If you’re going vertical, make sure you get something sturdy. Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist and author of “Total Cat Mojo,” says that part of the appeal of furniture is that it doesn’t tip over when cats pull down during a long stretch. If you’re looking to supplant a sofa or chair, then you’ll need to find a stable scratching post with some heft at the base.
Put the scratching post in the right location
Finding the perfect scratching post won’t matter if you hide it away. Your cat hasn’t been going to town on your favorite chair as an act of revenge, but because you spend a lot of quality time there. Busy areas of the house tend to be “areas where they get good attention from their owners, like petting and cuddling and playing,” says Everett, so cats want to mark those places as their territory. (When you put it that way, it’s kind of sweet.)
That means placing a scratching post in a rarely used space won’t work: “They don’t care about scratching areas of the home that aren’t valuable to them,” says Everett. Instead, put the post near the furniture that your cat is ruining so she’ll more readily see it as a substitute. You can add catnip to the post to make it even more appealing.
Some owners go to extraordinary lengths to accommodate their finicky cats
Don’t punish your cat for scratching
This section kind of sounds like it was written by a cat, but it’s true: Punishment doesn’t work very well for our feline friends. Your cat probably won’t connect your harsh words or tone with the scratching, so the only thing you’ll accomplish is making her anxious.
Instead, try rewarding your cat for the behavior you do want. “If you see them using their scratching post and you wait until they finish and then you very quickly get them a treat, that will make them more likely to use that post in the future,” says Todd.
Protect your furniture from cat scratching
There are several ways you can guard the sofa, though some methods are more aesthetically pleasing than others.
You can wrap your furniture with a product like Sticky Paws — essentially double-sided tape that makes scratching feel less-satisfying for many cats. Galaxy uses these types of products as a training tool: “It doesn’t mean for the rest of your life with this couch or cat you’re going to need to keep that stuff on there — they’re going to learn.” He also stresses that this tactic only works if you provide another outlet for scratching.
Other options include adding throw blankets to protect a scratch-prone area, or wrapping a material like sisal around the lower part of a chair or sofa to protect it.
If you’re shopping for new furniture, think about the textures your cat likes to scratch. If she loves bumpy fabrics, choose pieces upholstered with smoother materials, like velvet or leather. New furniture also provides a fresh opportunity to train your cat, says Todd, because it doesn’t have your pheromones on it yet. “If you’re bringing home something new, it’s going to smell different, and that would be a good point to make sure that you’ve got your scratching post lined up and in the right place,” she says.
They bought a blender. Three weeks later, their cats continue to hold it hostage.
Get cat nail caps
Some cats are more tenacious and destructive than others. If you consistently come home to ruined furniture, you might want to consider a product such as Soft Paws — little caps that you put over a cat’s natural nails. These allow your cat to engage in normal scratching without causing so much destruction. They last about a month to six weeks, and while they can be a bit cumbersome to apply, Everett says some veterinary practices will put them on for owners. As a fun bonus, they come in a range of colors, so your cat will look like she’s had a bright manicure.
Sometimes you have to let the cat win
On occasion, you just have to surrender. Pike, for instance, has one chair in her house that became a scratching post for her cat “and we leave it as such,” she says. When cats express such a strong preference for a piece of furniture, it’s kinder to leave it as an option for them than to get rid of it entirely, she says. (This is also true of a scratching post that you may think has reached the end of its life.) By ceding the chair, Pike has basically protected the rest of her furniture.
“When we have company, we take it away and we move it so it doesn’t look so disgusting,” she says, but otherwise the chair now belongs to the cat. “It’s become a cat scratching post that someone can sit on occasionally.” | 2022-11-01T10:51:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to stop your cat from scratching the furniture - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/11/01/stop-cat-scratching-furniture/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/11/01/stop-cat-scratching-furniture/ |
The 1890 midterm election offers hope for both parties in 2022
Republicans used narrow majorities to pass big legislation before getting crushed in the 1890 midterms by rising prices
Perspective by Robert Klotz
Robert Klotz is associate professor of political science at the University of Southern Maine and the author of the biography "Thomas Brackett Reed: The Gilded Age Speaker Who Made the Rules for American Politics" (University Press of Kansas, 2022).
Rep. Tim Ryan greets supporters at a campaign stop in Chillicothe, Ohio, on Saturday. Ryan, a Democrat, is campaigning for Ohio’s Senate seat, against J.D. Vance, a Republican. (Andrew Spear for The Washington Post)
When Congress faces voters on Nov. 8, it won’t be the first midterm election when a party holding narrow control touted policy achievements while battling a head wind of broad price increases. A Gilded Age election with this dynamic offers hope for both Democrats and Republicans in 2022.
Going into the 1890 election, Republicans held a narrow majority in both houses of Congress. Then they made history in the midterms — in a bad way. After an electoral meltdown, Republicans were left with a mere 86 seats out of 332. No House majority has ever returned with a smaller percentage of seats in the next Congress.
The story of how that happened exemplifies the boom and bust political drama of the Gilded Age.
In 1888, Republicans gained unified control of the government without having obtained a majority of the vote for the presidency or Congress. Republican presidential nominee Benjamin Harrison capitalized on narrow wins in Indiana and New York to win the electoral college despite losing the popular vote, while Republicans preserved a Senate majority by winning half the Senate seats (then appointed by the state legislatures) and held a 168-161 House majority despite receiving fewer overall votes for the House nationally.
Despite their narrow margins, Republicans had an ambitious agenda. They couldn’t pass it without procedural changes in the House, where filibustering long allowed by the rules would make it nearly impossible to enact legislation with such a small majority.
And Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed wasn’t about to let the minority thwart his agenda. He revolutionized House procedure by refusing to recognize dilatory tactics and insisting on governance through majority rule. Although the term would not have occurred to Reed’s contemporaries, Reed’s exercise of what in the 21st century became known as the “nuclear option” enabled House Republicans to create the institutional foundation of the majoritarian House that remains in place in 2022.
These rule changes and the unity of Reed’s members resulted in historic productivity. Republicans enacted the McKinley Tariff increase, the first regulation of monopolies with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the granting of statehood to the Republican-leaning territories of Wyoming and Idaho and a welfare state milestone in the Dependent Pension Act that extended pensions to soldiers and their families when war service had not directly caused disability or death.
While Republicans saw this as fulfilling their promises to voters, Democrats denounced Reed as a tyrant who trampled minority rights by changing the rules midstream. They believed that the electorate would deliver his comeuppance.
The 1890 midterm campaign was short and intense. It began in earnest after Congress adjourned on Oct. 1. Since President Harrison hit the stump only for a week of nonpolitical speeches typically at military gatherings, the Republican campaign was led by Reed, who had already won his own reelection in Maine’s early September elections. Touring the nation, Reed argued that Republicans had inaugurated a new era of “party responsibility” because House procedure now enabled a majority to govern instead of being hamstrung by filibustering. He documented how the party’s legislative output was a fulfillment of its 1888 platform.
For their part, Democrats focused criticism on the Republican tariff increase, which Harrison had signed into law on Oct. 1, 1890. Democrats argued that the law was a giveaway to rich industrialists — one that would cost consumers more when they went shopping.
When the votes were counted, the election proved catastrophic for House Republicans. The median change in the share of the vote received by the 103 House Republicans who faced voters in 1888 and 1890 was a four percent decline, such as from 60 to 56 percent. Fifty of the 103 lost, including future Speaker Joseph Cannon and future president William McKinley.
In the aftermath, Democrats made broad assertions about what the result said about democracy. They claimed that voters had repudiated Reed’s rebalancing of majority rule and minority rights. There is little evidence, however, that voters were angry that the new set of rules had allowed Congress to act. Instead, voters were probably upset at what Congress did with its newfound ability to act.
Specifically, voters blamed Republicans for the price increases that had been imposed in anticipation of the higher cost of future imports. The Baltimore Sun foreshadowed this Democratic advantage in its Oct. 10 report that shops are “crowded with persons growling and grumbling” as they “are beginning to feel the effects of the new tariff law in the material increase in prices all along the line.” In his own way, Reed reached the same conclusion. Asked about the defeat, Reed said, “The women did it.” Given that the only women who voted were in the Republican state of Wyoming, his remark required elaboration. Writing in the January 1895 North American Review, Reed explained the 1890 election outcome: “Every woman who went to a store and tried to buy went home to complain, and a wild unrest filled the public mind. The wonder is that we got any votes at all.”
History suggests then that inflation will give Republicans a major electoral advantage in 2022. Democrats, however, benefit from defending comparatively few marginal districts. While 68 percent of the 168 House Republicans who transformed the House in February 1890 had been elected with less than 55 percent of the vote, just 18 percent of the House Democratic caucus won with less than 55 percent of the vote in 2020. This stark difference between eras probably means that the record for electoral futility held by the House Republicans in 1890 won’t be broken anytime soon, but their fate is a reminder to Democrats in 2022 of the peril of price increases for the party in power. | 2022-11-01T10:51:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 1890 midterm election offers hope for both parties in 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/01/1890-midterm-elections-congress/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/01/1890-midterm-elections-congress/ |
Misty Copeland: Ballet ‘gave me a sense of security and structure’
Misty Copeland is a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre and the author of "The Wind at My Back." (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Misty Copeland, 40, is a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre and the author of the new book “The Wind at My Back,” which shares the story of Copeland’s mentor, Raven Wilkinson, and her journey to be a Black ballerina in the 1950s and ’60s. Copeland lives in New York City with her husband and son.
When did you first encounter ballet?
It would be when I was 2 years old and was given a tutu for Halloween. I think I was a ballerina for three years in a row. I had never seen ballet. I’d never heard classical music. But my mom loved to tell that story that I was obsessed with being a ballerina even though I didn’t officially know what it was until I was 13 years old. And it was at my Boys & Girls Club on a basketball court. It was through a program that was being given to local students. And I didn’t initially like it. It was so outside of what I had been exposed to. I grew up listening to R&B and soul, and hearing classical music was a bit of a shock. And dancing in such a structured way was as well. But I went into an actual ballet studio; I was given a scholarship to join the local ballet school. And once I was in a ballet studio and in front of a mirror and wearing the proper attire, it all just clicked. The music made sense in my body. And the technique of classical dance was organic and natural. I don’t think a lot of people would use those words to describe the ballet technique, which can often feel so foreign on people’s bodies. It all just kind of made sense to me.
In your book, you say that ballet is a calling.
I really think that it calls people to be a part of it. To be a part of such a disciplined art form, it’s an incredible thing to experience, but I don’t think that it’s something that everyone fits into. We start so young, and it’s hard to have a social life and do anything outside of being in the studio. I do think that it takes a special person to give of their bodies, to sacrifice.
You’ve talked about being the only African American. You felt compelled to continue, even though you were often the only one?
That’s part of the calling part. There was something pulling me towards this art form that was stronger than the lack of representation that I saw. Classical ballet gave me something that I wasn’t getting in my home life — coming from underprivileged communities and growing up in a single-parent home and not having a lot of money, and not often having a place to sleep. It gave me a sense of security and structure. And that, to me, was more important and enriched my life so much, that being the only one in a room wasn’t going to stop me and wasn’t going to hold me back. At least in the beginning. That’s how I felt — it wasn’t something that was going to deter me.
When did you learn about Raven Wilkinson?
I was a professional dancer in the American Ballet Theatre. It’s such a shame that I was in the midst of my professional career before I found out who Raven Wilkinson was. It was through a documentary that I saw on the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which is the first professional company that she danced for. And it was just stunning to be watching this film, with no expectation or knowledge that there was a Black woman in this company in the 1950s. I was just watching it as, you know, a bunhead [laughs], as a dancer who wanted to know more about the history of ballet and the history of this company, which was the first American ballet company that succeeded and that was touring in America. I was stunned to see Raven come onto the screen. And I say this often, but my life changed. My career changed. I found purpose in such a rich way that I didn’t have before. Just by seeing her on that screen. It’s given me a different understanding of how I fit in.
I got to a point in my professional career being the only Black woman at the ABT for over 10 years, where I felt like: Is this really what I’m supposed to be doing? Does this make sense? Am I really moving the needle in any way? And connecting the history of Black people in America and how we came into so many different art forms and into classical ballet has connected me to my history and to ballet history in a very different and more positive way.
And then meeting her in person for the first time it, it was overwhelming, but it was this safe feeling, like meeting a family member that I’d never met. To connect with someone who looked like me was really moving. It was the sense of coming home.
The book gives insight into the struggles of Raven Wilkinson’s career — being forced out of the South and later having to leave the country to perform. It’s a story of unrealized potential. But I didn’t sense any bitterness or negativity, just the joy that Raven had about the art.
That is Raven in a nutshell. There was never any bitterness or anger towards the art form. When you think about the technique, the core of what ballet is, it’s not racist, it’s not exclusive. It’s the people associated with it. It’s the gatekeepers. And Raven just had such a deep, deep love of the craft and of the art form. And I think that’s what kept her connected to it in spite of all of that she experienced — because of ballet.
And both you and Raven were, at some point, encouraged to pursue a dance form more connected to your background?
Yes. That happened very blatantly to her. In my experience, in a classical ballet company, we do a lot of modern contemporary works. And a lot of Black dancers tend to be pushed into that lane. And that happened to me throughout the beginning of my career. Probably not until I did “The Firebird” in 2012 — that was the first time in my career that I was given an opportunity to be seen in a leading role on a classical work. For the first, I don’t know, 12 years of my career, I was pushed into doing the more contemporary works that aren’t so focused on the ballet technique. That happens to a lot of Black and Brown dancers.
Raven was the first person who told you that you could be a Swan. What was the significance of that?
Swan Queen [in the ballet “Swan Lake”] is the ultimate classical role for a ballerina. The technique of the Swan Queen is not something that you just organically learn. You have to almost train separately to emulate the arms to look like wings. All these things. Raven saw that potential in me when I performed the role of the Firebird, which is a bird, it’s a creature, an ethereal character, and it just meant so much for her to see the spirit of what I could be as the Swan Queen. Being a Black woman, you are never told that someone sees you as the Swan Queen. So it was the stamp of approval from, you know, the queen.
I was struck by a passage of the book that describes the connection between the two of you. After seeing the two of you together, a friend described the way she looked at you like “you were running some last miles in a marathon she started a long time ago.”
And it’s, you know, it’s Raven, but it’s so many people before Raven. It’s so many of Raven’s peers in that time, these Black women who started this race. And the fact that I have had the opportunity to kind of pick up where she left off and go where she wanted to go or where she should have is exactly what my experience has been. And it’s been so important for me to show the world that that’s what happened. I didn’t just — poof — appear out of thin air. It’s been generations and generations of these women who started this race for me and for other Black dancers of my generation.
I’m sure you’ve thought about what you mean for young Black and Brown ballerinas?
I feel like it’s something that I’ve been so conscious of — that there are Black and Brown girls and boys who are looking at me. I feel comfortable in this position because I know that it’s part of the work that I have to do. Because it’s so rare to be in a position like this, in a field like this, as a Black person, and specifically as a Black woman.
This interview has been edited and condensed. Robin Rose Parker is a writer in Maryland. For a longer version, visit wapo.st/magazine. | 2022-11-01T10:51:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Misty Copeland: Ballet ‘gave me a sense of security and structure’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/01/misty-copeland-ballet-black-dancers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/01/misty-copeland-ballet-black-dancers/ |
House GOP will move quickly to lock down leadership team
Analysis by Tobi Raji
Good morning to everyone who buys bags of candy the day after Halloween because it’s cheaper. We don’t do it, but we’re not judging the readers who do. Send us your best tips and pet costumes: earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us.
In today's edition … Solicitor General Prelogar highlights Supreme Court bar's lack of diversity during affirmative action argument … More from our project on the Supreme Court bar … The latest on Paul Pelosi … Marc Fisher and Meagan Flynn report that early voters lament high prices and disunity, yet vote for opposite sides … but first …
House GOP will quickly move to lock down their leadership team
NEWS: House Republicans will announce later today that their leadership elections will take place just one week after the midterms, a source familiar with the planning said.
The decision to quickly lock down the conferences' top slots is a strategic move to ride the high if Republicans retake the House and cement the top leadership team and pave the way for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to become speaker in January.
Members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, however, have said they want the conference to vote on House rule changes to give rank-and-file members more power before leadership elections.
It's unclear if the announcement expected today will include a schedule for rules votes.
McCarthy will run for the top slot as either speaker or leader, depending on whether Republicans win the majority.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the current minority whip, is running for the No. 2 spot, whether it’s majority leader or minority whip.
The race for the No. 3 position in the House Republican hierarchy — majority whip if Republicans regain control — is the most contentious race. Three lawmakers are running: Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the current chair of the National Republican Campaign Committee; Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), who’s currently deputy whip; and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the head of the Republican Study Committee.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is all but guaranteed to win reelection as conference chair — the No. 3 slot in Republican leadership right now, but the No. 4 position if Republicans are in the majority — but will be challenged by Freedom Caucus member Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
Reps. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) and Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) are running for NRCC chair, and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) is running for vice chair of the conference. Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) is hoping to stay as policy chair. There will also be a race for GOP conference secretary.
The candidate forum will take place Monday, Nov. 14, the first day the House is back in session after the midterms, the announcement is expected to say. That’s also the day that newly elected lawmakers make their first trip to the Capitol as members-elect
The elections are conducted via secret ballot. The winner of the conference election for speaker must then be elected speaker by the full House in January.
Democrats have not announced when they will hold their leadership elections, but aides note it will not be the week of Nov. 14.
Thanks to Marianna Sotomayor for her help with this item.
Prelogar highlights Supreme Court bar's lack of gender diversity during affirmative action argument
Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito on Oct. 31 challenged attorney Seth Waxman on Harvard's admission policies. (Video: The Washington Post)
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority appears poised to strike down affirmative action, overturning decades of precedent used to cultivate diverse student bodies in higher education. The end of affirmative action could also mean a sharp decline in the number of Black and Hispanic students who attend college.
During the nearly five-hour-long hearing concerning the constitutionality of race-conscious admission policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, the court’s conservatives “seemed unsatisfied with assertions from lawyers representing the schools that the end was near for the use of race-conscious policies,” per our colleagues Robert Barnes, Ann E. Marimow and Nick Anderson. “Under repeated questioning, those lawyers conceded they could not provide a date-specific answer to the question: ‘When will it end?’”
“What if it continues to be difficult in another 25 years” to create a diverse student body? Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Y. Park. “So what are you saying when you’re up here in 2040? Are you still defending it like this is just indefinite? It’s going to keep going on?”
And Cameron Norris, a lawyer for Students for Fair Admissions, said that racial classifications “increase racial consciousness” and “cause resentment,” by “treating people differently based on something they can’t change,” per the New York Times’s Anemona Hartocollis.
U.S. solicitor general Elizabeth B. Prelogar argued ending affirmative action would negatively impact “every important institution in America,” including the military, medical and scientific communities, and corporate America.
Bar diversity
During an exchange with Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Prelogar pointed to the lack of gender balance among Supreme Court litigants as “a common sense example of that I would hope would resonate with this court” with regard to measuring the progress of diversity in American institutions.
There is a “gross disparity” in the makeup of lawyers who argue before the court, she said.
“The court is going to hear from 27 advocates in this sitting of the oral argument calendar, and two are women, even though women today are 50 percent or more of law school graduates,” Prelogar said. “And I think it would be reasonable for a woman to look at that and wonder, is that a path that’s open to me, to be a Supreme Court advocate? Are private clients willing to hire women to argue their Supreme Court cases? When there is that kind of gross disparity in representation, it can matter.”
It’s almost as if Prelogar read our story that ran Sunday on how women and Black and Hispanic lawyers are underrepresented among the lawyers who argue before the court. That said, the solicitor general’s office itself has fewer female attorneys than male ones:
As we wrote, only seven of the 21 lawyers who work under Prelogar are women. All five deputy solicitors general are White men. And while four of the lawyers in the solicitor general’s office are Asian American, there don’t appear to be any Black or Hispanic lawyers in the office, nor any women of color.
In the legal world, particularly in the rarefied air of the Supreme Court universe, there’s a big focus on which elite law school you attended.
But as Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, a Republican, told us, there is some tension over the lack of educational diversity at the court.
“There are a lot of great advocates who may be men, may be women, may be from diverse economic backgrounds or diverse cultural, racial backgrounds, that we have kind of excluded because they didn’t go to Ivy League schools, or didn’t work in the solicitor [general’s] office, or didn’t clerk for a Supreme Court justice,” Brnovich said. “And that’s the problem.”
So, where did the lawyers we looked at for our examination of the bar from the start of the 2017 term go to law school?
Nearly a quarter of the 374 lawyers who’ve appeared before the court since the start of the 2017 term graduated from Harvard Law School, according to an analysis done by The Early. More than half of them went to law school at only five universities: Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, the University of Virginia and Stanford.
Other top law schools whose alumni often argue before the court include Columbia (11 since the start of the 2017 term), Georgetown University (10), New York University (10), the University of Michigan (10), the University of Pennsylvania (eight), the University of Texas (seven), Duke, (six), Northwestern (six) and the University of California, Berkeley (five).
The numbers are comparable for law clerks.
Nearly 30 percent of the 159 lawyers who’ve clerked for the current justices since the 2018 term graduated from Yale Law School — more than any other law school. Harvard was No. 2, Chicago was No. 3, Stanford was No. 4 and NYU and Virginia are tied for fifth place.
Still, lawyers from less prestigious schools sometimes appear before the court.
Brnovich is one of three lawyers who graduated from the University of San Diego School of Law to argue before the court since the start of the 2017 term. Graduates of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico’s Escuela de Derecho, Texas Tech University School of Law, the University of South Dakota’s Knudson School of Law and the University of St. Thomas’s law school have done so, too.
Former clerks point to financial constraints that prevent low-income students from attending the prestigious law schools that provide pathways to Supreme Court clerkships and, later, to arguing before the court.
Travis Crum, an associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, is a first-generation college graduate whose father was a firefighter and whose mother was a secretary at an elementary school. He clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens and for Judge David S. Tatel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. While clerking for Tatel, he lived in a group house with seven other people.
“A lot of first-generation college students and lawyers are taking out lots of money in loans and might be in situations where they fear having to take care of relatives in the future,” said Crum, who took on substantial debt to attend Yale Law School. “They don’t have a safety net to fall back on within the family — in fact, they might be their family’s safety net.”
“Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds just don’t feel like they can take those risks,” he added.
Lawmakers, including former Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.), a University of Florida law school graduate, have pressed the justices during congressional budget hearings on the lack of educational diversity among clerks. During a 2010 hearing, Crenshaw noted that “a disproportionate share of clerks” came from either Harvard or Yale.
While Justice Clarence Thomas admitted that the justices themselves aren’t educationally diverse, he said each justice has their own hiring process. “I, for one, think that there’re excellent kids all over the country,” he said. “I tend to hire from a very broad pool.”
Some former Supreme Court law clerks said students from the most prestigious law schools make better clerks.
“I really would trust an A-student at Harvard or Yale more than I would trust an A-student at Emory to be a Supreme Court clerk,” said Sasha Volokh, a Harvard Law School graduate who clerked for Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Samuel Alito — and who is a law professor at Emory.
“If I were a Supreme Court justice, I would have a hard time justifying choosing people from the lower-ranked schools,” Volokh added. “If you get into Harvard or Yale, go to Harvard or Yale, because that’s going to open all doors.”
Paul Pelosi will have ‘a long recovery process’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) put out a short last night about the status of her husband, Paul, who was attacked early Friday morning by a man with a hammer.
“Paul is making steady progress on what will be a long recovery process,” Pelosi said. “Our family thanks everyone for their kindness.”
A “long recovery process” is a less optimistic assessment than what the speaker's office earlier called “a full recovery.”
Federal and state criminal charges were announced Monday for David DePape, 42, who allegedly broke into Pelosi's home with a hammer.
Here are more details law enforcement officials revealed about the attack per our colleagues Devlin Barrett, Eugene Scott and Holly Bailey:
Paul Pelosi, being awakened in the middle of the night by a strange man in his bedroom, demanding to know where his wife was. When Paul Pelosi said she would not be back home for days, DePape allegedly said he would wait.
At some point during their confrontation, Paul Pelosi was able to get to a bathroom and call 911, which brought police officers to the scene, the court papers said.
After he was taken into custody, DePape said he planned to “hold Nancy hostage and talk to her,” according to the charging papers. “If Nancy were to tell ‘the truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps,’” the charging papers said.
When the door to the home was opened, the responding officers saw a strange situation: The elderly resident opened the door, but he was simultaneously holding onto a hammer in DePape’s hand, while DePape gripped Paul Pelosi’s arm with his other hand, according to court papers.
Officers told the men to drop the hammer, at which point DePape wrested the tool free and struck Paul Pelosi with it in the head, knocking him unconscious, the affidavit said.
In a news conference, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins released additional details about the attack, including that Paul Pelosi — who was dressed in a “loosefitting pajama top and boxer shorts” — allegedly had first tried to access an elevator which has a phone but was blocked by DePape.
Jenkins said it was clearly a “politically motivated” attack.
As our Hill colleague Paul Kane wrote, these details counter every conspiracy theory about the attack. But that still hasn't stopped elected Republicans and high profile conservatives from spreading them.
Putting the country back together again: “As millions of Americans vote early in midterm elections that are likely to underscore the nation’s deep divisions, there’s little evidence of either the unity that President Biden promised to rekindle in his 2020 campaign or of the permanently ruined nation that former president Donald Trump has warned against,” our colleagues Marc Fisher and Meagan Flynn write.
“Rather, many Americans say they feel called to the polls because — despite being exhausted by the cavalcade of bad news and ping-ponging election results, and despite polls showing the widespread unpopularity of Biden, Trump and other leaders of both parties — they still harbor hope that the country can be put back together again.”
The deciders of the 2022 midterm election, visualized: “No single group of voters holds the key to the midterm elections,” but both parties see White women with college educations as a critical voting bloc, our colleague Dan Balz writes. “Will they stay with Democrats in the way they did four years ago? Will some shift back toward Republicans, as happened in the Virginia governor’s race in 2021? Will many of them choose not to vote, conflicted by their choices or simply out of disinterest or exhaustion with politics?”
GOP push to monitor voting in Texas’s Harris County spurs outcry. By The Post’s Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Amy Gardner.
Key feature of GOP midterm ads: Half-truths and misleading claims. By The Post’s Azi Paybarah.
The truth about election fraud: It’s rare. By The Post’s Glenn Kessler.
Jewish leaders call on GOP candidates to reject antisemitic comments. By The Post’s Hannah Knowles, Colby Itkowitz and Isaac Arnsdorf.
ICYMI: As Elon Musk expands his reach, Washington worries. By The Post’s Mary Jordan.
‘Where is Nancy?’: How threats against women in power are tied to threats against democracy. By the 19th*’s Barbara Rodriguez and Jennifer Gerson.
In Trump company trial, each side finds a villain. By the New York Times’s Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess, William K. Rashbaum and Maggie Haberman.
Were you at the White House for Halloween? If so, send pics 📸
POTUS and FLOTUS out for Halloween in the rain. Dr. Biden dressed as a butterfly pic.twitter.com/Rair6Lx5aB
— Emily Goodin (@Emilylgoodin) October 31, 2022
Thanks for reading. You can also follow us on Twitter: @tobiaraji, @theodoricmeyer and @LACaldwellDC. | 2022-11-01T10:52:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House GOP will move quickly to lock down leadership team - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/house-gop-will-move-quickly-lock-down-leadership-team/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/house-gop-will-move-quickly-lock-down-leadership-team/ |
Was Seoul’s deadly Halloween crush preventable?
The Itaewon district’s history may have contributed to dangerous governance gaps — and less safety oversight
Analysis by Darcie Draudt
Mourners leave flowers Monday near the site of a deadly crowd crush in the Itaewon district of Seoul. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News)
On Saturday, an estimated 100,000 people flocked to celebrate Halloween in Itaewon, a popular entertainment district in Seoul. The government loosened crowd limits last November, and this was the first big holiday without face mask requirements.
But the local streets and safety protocols could not handle the crowds. As partygoers struggled to move through the narrow streets, pedestrian bottlenecks became a deadly crush. Local first responders and police could not easily reach those who needed help, or keep up with the sheer number of injured.
As of early Tuesday, authorities had reported 155 deaths and more than 150 injured. Was this tragedy preventable? Why did local authorities seem unequipped to respond to the thousands of revelers on one of Seoul’s busiest party nights of the year?
My research suggests that the district’s history as an enclave for foreigners may have compounded the disorganization. First, Seoul’s programs for immigrant-majority areas focus on short-term social and workplace supports, not long-term integration. And second, the Itaewon district’s history and the huge U.S. military base a few blocks away may have limited the municipal government’s attention to sustained safety and security measures. While the Korean government provides the human capacity and resources for public safety at the national level, local variations in safety protocols and other public services probably intensified the crowding, confusion and lack of coordination.
Why Itaewon?
It’s particularly significant that the crush unfolded in Itaewon. While Koreans like to visit this area, a sizable number of Itaewon residents are immigrants. The district is popular among foreigners working in South Korea: Americans, Europeans, South Asians, Africans and those from the Middle East. Short- and long-term immigrants, especially unregistered migrants or foreigners who overstay their visas, find Itaewon’s cheap, short-term housing appealing. The most recent (pre-pandemic) census shows foreigners and immigrants comprise 9 percent of the residents of the broader Yongsan District, which includes Itaewon. Nationwide, immigrants comprise just 3 percent of Korean residents.
Government officials and advisers I interviewed noted that the government tends to view immigrants as temporary residents — and this may have created lapses in emergency response preparedness in immigrant neighborhoods like Itaewon. In my analysis of 17 local Global Village Centers across the city of Seoul, I found legal and safety services focus on public welfare and post-incident response, rather than preventative planning for emergencies. According to the local administrators I spoke with, public services in these districts provide translation services, job-finding fairs and cultural events, but focus less on long-term integration or safety programs.
When I worked as a field researcher for the International Organization for Migration Research and Training Center in 2012, the Korean government commissioned research on foreigners’ opinions on public provisions in “ethnic enclaves” across Seoul. My interviews with dozens of Itaewon residents and city employees specifically reported their complaints about public service shortcomings, including social services, information about the law and public safety.
The U.S. military presence in Korea since the 1950s also helped shape how the government allocated public safety and policing in this part of Seoul. Itaewon nightclubs and businesses catered to U.S. military personnel stationed at Yongsan Garrison, which housed around 17,000 U.S. service members as well as U.S. diplomats.
The garrison largely emptied by the end of 2019, when it relocated southwest of Seoul. Nevertheless, Itaewon maintains its historical legacy as a “foreigner entertainment district,” and the three main commercial streets rely on outside shoppers and partygoers. Bars, clubs and shops, along with small local services aimed at immigrants living there, were hard-hit by the pandemic lockdowns.
Which kinds of democracies respond more effectively to a pandemic?
Crowd control efforts prioritize managing protests
These demographic legacies have implications on how local authorities provide for public safety. Until Yongsan Garrison moved, the Korean police and U.S. military police had been in charge of public safety, tasked with making sure U.S. GIs followed local laws and curfews. Rather than address crowd control in the congested, narrow streets packed with bars, the public safety system focused on isolated incidents of visible violence.
The incident is particularly tragic since South Korea has robust protocols in place for crowd control. However, most of these protocols focus on political protest in this vibrant democracy. On any given day in Gwanghwamun Square — the historical locus of political demonstration — hundreds of police and “bus walls” stand vigilant while patrol officers walk in pairs.
Since democratization in 1987, protests in South Korea have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Even the largest and most contentious protests were nonviolent, such as the 2008 demonstrations against the Korea-U. S. Free Trade Agreement or the 2016 multiweek protests that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. But for social or entertainment spaces, the national and local governments lack clear crowd-control design and assign few public safety officials to monitor and assist. A 2017 Ministry of Public Administration report uncovered insufficient laws, infrastructure or protocols to protect public safety in concert or entertainment spaces, for example.
In Itaewon, the lack of planning for large crowds played out in dramatic fashion. One person on the ground in Itaewon described the situation as “post-apocalyptic,” with civilians — not medical personnel — taking on the responsibilities of first responders.
The public seeks answers
This tragedy is likely to serve as a pivotal moment in which the Korean public will demand government accountability and new measures to confront the cracks in public safety and infrastructure. Saturday’s deadly crush has striking similarities to the “Katrina-like reckoning” when the Sewol passenger ferry sank off the South Korean coast in 2014, killing 300 schoolchildren. After that disaster, public outcries and an organized protest movement instigated deep scrutiny into the lack of oversight of the Korean Coast Guard and the government’s failure to fully investigate the tragedy.
The Itaewon tragedy has already sparked global conversations on Korea’s public safety protocols. As the film “Parasite” brought to international attention, Korean society includes layers of unprotected, even invisible, residents. Korean citizens are likely to demand accountability from the national government, asking why local officials didn’t follow through on implementing existing safety protocols and building regulations.
South Korea’s new leader says there’s no gender inequality problem
The incident will also lead to further investigations into how entertainment and social spaces are regulated. The public will probably call for more thoughtful protocols on public spaces, particularly when it comes to updating and modernizing public infrastructure and planning new construction.
Will deepening partisanship and disapproval of President Yoon Suk-yeol turn the Itaewon catastrophe into a political football, similar to the scenario following the Sewol incident? It’s possible politicians might use this tragedy for political purposes, and scapegoat public officials — rather than prioritizing the necessary policy changes to mitigate future incidents.
Darcie Draudt, PhD (@darciedraudt) is a postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. She also holds nonresident fellowships at George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies, the Korea Economic Institute and the National Bureau of Asian Research. | 2022-11-01T10:52:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Was the deadly Halloween crush in Seoul's Itaewon district preventable? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/seoul-itaewon-stampede-korea-immigrants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/seoul-itaewon-stampede-korea-immigrants/ |
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark held a national election Tuesday that is expected to change the Scandinavian nation’s political landscape as new parties seek to enter parliament and others see their support dwindle.
Of the 179 seats in the Danish parliament, Denmark’s two autonomous territories —the Faeroe Islands and Greenland - choose two each. Voting was held Monday on the Faeroes -- Tuesday is a public holiday there - and one seat went to the center-left and one to the center-right, Danish broadcaster DR said Tuesday. Voting in Greenland was taking place Tuesday. | 2022-11-01T10:53:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Danish elections could pave way for a center government - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/danish-elections-could-pave-way-for-a-center-government-/2022/11/01/45b9b19a-59b7-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/danish-elections-could-pave-way-for-a-center-government-/2022/11/01/45b9b19a-59b7-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Daijun Edwards and No. 1 Georgia will face No. 2 Tennessee on Saturday. (James Gilbert/Getty Images)
1Nov. 18, 2006: No. 1 Ohio State 42, No. 2 Michigan 39
2Dec. 6, 2008: No. 2 Florida 31, No. 1 Alabama 20
3Dec. 5, 2009: No. 2 Alabama 32, No. 1 Florida 13
4Sept. 9, 2006: No. 1 Ohio State 24, No. 2 Texas 7
5Nov. 5, 2011: No. 1 LSU 9, No. 2 Alabama 6 (OT)
No. 1 Georgia and No. 2 Tennessee are scheduled to meet Saturday in only the 24th regular season meeting between the top teams in the Associated Press top 25, and the first in 11 years.
Here’s a ranking of this century’s “Games of the Century”: the five meetings between No. 1 and No. 2 teams that took place in the regular season or in a conference championship game.
This one was just saturated with importance.
It was the only game in the history of “The Game” that featured the top two teams in the AP poll.
It was the first regular season No. 1 vs. No. 2 game between conference rivals since No. 2 Oklahoma defeated No. 1 Nebraska in 1987.
It was the first time since 1973 that both the Buckeyes and Wolverines entered their rivalry game undefeated.
It kicked off about 27 hours after the death of legendary Wolverines coach Bo Schembechler.
Michael Wilbon from 2006: Bo knew toughness
As for the game itself, Ohio State was in control nearly throughout in a contest that featured more than 900 yards. After Mike Hart gave Michigan a 7-0 lead with a first-quarter touchdown run, Ohio State reeled off 21 straight points. The Wolverines got within four in both the third and fourth quarters, but each time the Buckeyes answered with a touchdown of their own. Michigan was able to cut its deficit to three after a touchdown and a two-point conversion with 2:16 left, but Ohio State recovered the onside kick and ran out the clock.
It was the most-watched regular season college football game since a 1993 contest between Notre Dame and Florida State, with 21.8 million viewers tuning in on ABC.
Dec. 6, 2008: No. 2 Florida 31, No. 1 Alabama 20
Nick Saban would have to wait another year for his Alabama dynasty to begin after Tim Tebow and Florida won their second SEC championship game in three seasons on their way to their second national title in three seasons.
Over the course of Tebow’s Gators career, Florida had gone 0-5 in games in which it had trailed in the second half, and Alabama held a 20-17 lead entering the fourth quarter. But behind the running of Jeff Demps and Emmanuel Moody, the Gators went ahead for good with a touchdown on their first drive of the fourth quarter, forced Alabama to go three and out, then sealed the win when Tebow found Riley Cooper on a five-yard touchdown pass with 2:50 to play. On the final drive, Tebow completed all three of his pass attempts for 53 yards.
The Gators would go on to defeat Oklahoma in the BCS championship game.
Dec. 5, 2009: No. 2 Alabama 32, No. 1 Florida 13
The Crimson Tide ended Tebow’s chance at a third national title, shutting out Florida in the second half and avenging its loss to the Gators in the previous season’s SEC title game.
Alabama running back Mark Ingram cemented the Heisman Trophy he would eventually win, rushing for 124 yards and three touchdowns, while Trent Richardson and Roy Upchurch combined to average 7.6 yards on 18 carries against the nation’s top-ranked defense. Crimson Tide quarterback Greg McElroy upstaged Tebow, completing 12 of 18 passes for 239 yards and a touchdown, and Alabama’s defense stifled the Gators, particularly in the second half — when Florida managed two punts, a Tebow interception and a turnover on downs on its four possessions.
By the end, Tebow was in tears on the sideline after a hugely disappointing end to his SEC career.
Alabama would go on to defeat Texas in the BCS championship game, giving Saban the first of his six national titles with the Crimson Tide.
Sept. 9, 2006: No. 1 Ohio State 24, No. 2 Texas 7
In the first regular season meeting between No. 1 and No. 2 since 1996, the defending national champion Longhorns had their 21-game winning streak snapped by the Buckeyes, who got two touchdown passes from eventual Heisman winner Troy Smith and a combined 239 receiving yards and two scores from Anthony Gonzalez and Ted Ginn Jr.
Texas had scored at least 40 points in 12 straight games — a streak that started one game after its 25-22 win over No. 4 Ohio State in 2005 — and though Selvin Young and Jamaal Charles were able to move the ball on the ground to the tune of 165 rushing yards, freshman quarterback Colt McCoy (making his second career start) averaged only four adjusted yards per pass attempt.
Nov. 5, 2011: No. 1 LSU 9, No. 2 Alabama 6 (OT)
In its 13 other games that season, LSU averaged 37.8 points, and Alabama averaged 37.3 in its 12 other contests. But when the SEC foes met in the most recent regular season No. 1 vs. No. 2 game (and probably the most hyped in recent memory), it ended up being the kicking fight of the century.
The teams combined to boot five field goals, with LSU’s Drew Alleman winning it on a 25-yarder after Alabama’s Cade Foster missed from 52 yards on the opening possession of overtime. It was Foster’s third miss of the night, and when Saban replaced him with Jeremy Shelley in the second quarter, his attempt from 49 yards was blocked.
Neither team topped 300 yards. Alabama gained 18 and 22 yards on its first two plays from scrimmage and then averaged only 4.4 yards per play the rest of the game. Eight of LSU’s 12 possessions ended with either a punt or an interception, and the Tigers averaged only 4.1 yards per play; take away a 34-yard catch by Russell Shepard in the second quarter, and they averaged just 3.6 yards per play.
The teams would have a rematch in that season’s BCS title game, with LSU again No. 1 and Alabama again No. 2. But the Tigers couldn’t overcome their offensive woes and failed to score in another snoozer, this one a 21-0 Alabama win. | 2022-11-01T10:53:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When was the last time No. 1 played No. 2 in college football? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/no1-vs-no2-college-football/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/no1-vs-no2-college-football/ |
The coveted blue check mark could soon cost up to $20 a month
The company is considering charging users to get verified and display the signature blue check mark next to their account name. It’s something Twitter has offered to some accounts for free in the past, with mixed success.
Over the weekend, Jason Calacanis, a longtime Musk associate who has been brought in to help run Twitter, posted a poll asking how much people would be willing to pay for the honor. The vast majority voted “wouldn’t pay.”
If undeterred, Twitter could charge as much as $20 a month for the privilege of having the blue check, according to a person familiar with the issue who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Twitter’s existing paid version, called Twitter Blue, would be combined with the verification process, and some of its existing features may be cut, according to the person.
What apps to use if you leave Twitter | 2022-11-01T10:55:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Twitter's plan to charge for verification could mean - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/01/twitter-verification-blue-check-mark/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/01/twitter-verification-blue-check-mark/ |
Tuesday briefing: Airstrikes across Ukraine; Pelosi attack charges; RSV vaccine; Taylor Swift’s historic moment; and more
What to know: Battles over election integrity, like these in Houston and Arizona, are shaping up across the country — even though fraud is rare by every single metric in the U.S.
Why? Trust in the election process is low, especially among Republicans, influenced by former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Ready to vote? Election Day is next Tuesday, Nov. 8. Local, state and congressional races are on the ballot, with control of Congress at stake. More information here.
Russia hit Ukraine with a wave of airstrikes yesterday.
The target: Critical infrastructure in the capital, Kyiv, and regions across the country. Many people were left without power or water, and at least 13 were injured, officials said.
The bigger picture: This was the widest-spread attack since Oct. 10, when Russia began bombings designed to punish civilians.
The man accused of attacking Nancy Pelosi’s husband will be in court today.
What happened? An intruder broke into the House speaker’s San Francisco home Friday and attacked Paul Pelosi after discovering she wasn’t there, officials said.
The latest: Federal authorities filed attempted kidnapping and assault charges against the suspect, 42, and alleged that he had planned to break the House speaker’s kneecaps.
Brazil’s next president has promised to protect the Amazon.
What to know: Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who was elected Sunday, could have a big impact on the fight against climate change.
Why? The Amazon absorbs a huge amount of carbon emissions. However, deforestation under President Jair Bolsonaro has pushed the rainforest toward a tipping point.
What to watch: Bolsonaro still hasn’t conceded, leaving Brazil in a state of uncertainty.
U.S. workers have gotten way less productive.
How we know: In the first half of 2022, the measure of how much output in goods and services an employee can produce in an hour fell by the sharpest rate on record.
What’s behind this? No one knows for sure. But many people feel burned out after working harder during the coronavirus pandemic, experts said.
A new RSV vaccine could come by next winter.
What’s RSV? A respiratory virus — spreading early this season — that causes cold-like symptoms in most adults but can be serious for infants.
The latest: The vaccine from Pfizer is given during pregnancy and can protect infants through their first six months, the company said today.
What’s next? Pfizer plans to seek government approval by year’s end.
Taylor Swift made music history with her new album.
How? She became the first artist to snag all of the top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, all with songs from “Midnights,” released last month.
At No. 1: Her song “Anti-Hero.” It has at least 59.7 million streams and 32 million radio airplays.
And now … some mental health tips: 10 ways to find help during a therapist shortage, and a musical method that changes nightmares into better dreams. | 2022-11-01T10:55:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Tuesday, November 1 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/11/01/what-to-know-for-november-1/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/11/01/what-to-know-for-november-1/ |
For healthy knees, being 11 pounds lighter can make all the difference
Gaining even a small amount of weight may not only damage your knees — leading to pain, stiffness and mobility issues — but also increase your odds of needing knee replacement surgery, according to research presented last month at the International Congress on Obesity.
Among study participants, a gain of just 11 pounds made total knee replacement 34 percent more likely for women and 25 percent more likely for men. The finding stems from the researchers’ review of two studies, involving some 264,000 people.
Overall, however, they reviewed data from 23 studies, focusing on the relationship between weight gain and knee osteoarthritis and finding that, as weight increased, participants’ symptoms and radiographic scans of their knees indicated worsening osteoarthritis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites osteoarthritis as the most common type of arthritis; more than 32 million American adults have the degenerative joint disease. It can damage any joint, but the knees are one of the most commonly affected joints.
Osteoarthritis develops when the cartilage that acts as a cushion between the bones in a joint breaks down or wears away, giving the condition its “wear and tear” disease nickname. This leaves the bones in the joint to rub together, causing pain, stiffness and movement issues.
No cure exists for knee osteoarthritis, but treatment may include medication, physical therapy and activity modifications. If that proves to be insufficient, knee replacement surgery may be an option, with arthritic parts of the joint removed and replaced with metal, plastic or ceramic parts.
First performed in the 1960s, the surgery has become fairly common, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, with more than 750,000 knee replacements done each year in the United States. Based on their findings, the researchers suggest that preventing weight gain — which they say is easier than losing weight — should reduce the risk for knee osteoarthritis and the number of needed knee replacements. | 2022-11-01T10:56:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | For healthy knees, being 11 pounds lighter can make all the difference - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/01/weight-gain-knee-pain/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/01/weight-gain-knee-pain/ |
By Sheikh Saaliq and Aijaz Hussain | AP
MORBI, India — India’s prime minister was scheduled to visit the site in western India where a newly repaired 143-year-old suspension bridge collapsed into a river, sending hundreds plunging into the water and killing at least 134 in one of the country’s worst accidents in years. | 2022-11-01T10:56:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Modi to visit India's bridge collapse site as families mourn - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/modi-to-visit-indias-bridge-collapse-site-as-people-mourn/2022/11/01/20ed42fc-59b0-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/modi-to-visit-indias-bridge-collapse-site-as-people-mourn/2022/11/01/20ed42fc-59b0-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Never underestimate how much people hate Nancy Pelosi
If you’re surprised by the attack on Pelosi’s husband, or the right-wing smirking about it, you haven’t been paying attention
Nancy Pelosi gets a kiss from her husband, Paul Pelosi, at a 2007 event. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
God, they really hate her, don’t they?
I’m not talking about the man who allegedly attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband with hammer, but rather about the people who learned about the assault — a skull fracture requiring hospitalization — and whose reaction was to tweet (or, in the case of Donald Trump Jr., retweet) an image of a hammer and a pair of underwear with the text, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”
To fully appreciate the joke, you’d have to be up to speed on an insane conspiracy theory that — honestly, I’m not going to get into it here. You’d also have to appreciate that posts like this (and there were many like them) are not just jokes. They’re not rhetorical escalations. They’re not dirty politics, either, though it’s easy in this political climate to wish that they were simply that, and to hope that a fair-and-square election might simmer everything down.
It’s about this: people hate her. Specifically her. They hate this woman who is rich, and coastal, and powerful, and who was thankfully not at home with her husband in California because she was instead in Washington, working on legislation that they also hate. Nancy Pelosi gets devil horns on Etsy mugs, witch hats on posters. In memes, she’s a harpy, she’s a hag, she’s a prostitute for Barack Obama or Joe Biden.
After this traumatic and terrifying thing happened to Pelosi and her husband, the reaction of many on the right was to turn it into a punchline.
“Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. — apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection,” Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) joked, to a reaction of guffaws, at a campaign event.
“There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re gonna send her back to be with him in California,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said over the weekend. “That’s what we’re going to go do.”
Classy of him, to include that violence-is-wrong-but clause. But seriously, why go there at all? Because these politicians understand that there are rewards in tapping, however coyly, the reservoir of Pelosi hate on the right.
Do the same voters also hate Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the majority leader of the Senate? Sure. But when Jan. 6 rioters trundled their way through the U.S. Capitol, they were not caught on video calling out, “Oh Charlie,” in a menacing, sing-songy tone. They were calling out, “Oh Nancy.”
Hesse: Capitol rioters searched for Nancy Pelosi in a way that should make every woman’s skin crawl
A male acquaintance asked me at the time what I thought the rioters planned to do if they actually caught her and I stared at him like the innocent, dumb bunny he was. His argument was that an actual encounter with the formidable House Speaker would smack the bravado right out of these men; they’d bluster and yell for a little bit and then bashfully grab a souvenir pen on the way out. My argument was that no amount of formidable dignity can stop a mob of men who are gnawing on a woman’s first name like it’s a leg of smoked turkey.
“Where is Nancy?” Paul Pelosi’s attacker was alleged to have asked upon breaking into the couple’s home, before he attacked the 82-year-old.
When you want to complain about inflation, you ask for Speaker Pelosi. You ask for Nancy when you plan to do something else.
According to police, the man later explained that he intended to hold the speaker hostage, question her and break her kneecaps if she “lied” so that she’d have to roll into Congress in a wheelchair as an example. Federal authorities have charged David DePape with one count of attempted kidnapping of a United States official on account of the performance of official duties, as well as with influencing, impeding, or retaliating against a federal official by threatening or injuring a family member. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins also announced a charge of attempted murder.
The break-in at the Pelosi residence was a natural culmination to the rage that’s been on public display for years now, toward Pelosi and toward any number of other left-leaning female politicians — a very particular brew of misogyny and tribalism and eagerly gulped Kool-Aid.
I learned about the attack via scrolling through social media Saturday. “They finally tried to kill her,” someone had written, and my only immediate confusion was wondering which outspoken female politician we were talking about here: AOC? Rashida Tlaib? I brace myself every time Hillary Clinton trends online.
We know a moderate amount about the alleged attacker, DePape. We know that he blogged that he attempted to purchase a fairy house, and was then annoyed that the door was merely painted on — he’d wanted fairies to be able to use it. He wrote that an invisible fairy had attacked his friend. This fairy, he wrote, sometimes appeared to him in the form of a bird.
Make of that what you will. But when I think of DePape’s alleged plan to make an example of Nancy Pelosi, I’m going to be thinking about how much time and effort other people have put into building her up as someone who deserves all the hate they can spare. | 2022-11-01T11:27:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Paul Pelosi attack: Don't underestimate hatred of Nancy Pelosi - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/pelosi-home-attack/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/pelosi-home-attack/ |
Why Greta Thunberg is shunning the U.N. climate conference this year
The young Swedish activist called the international summit ‘greenwashing’
Analysis by Shannon Osaka
Climate zeitgeist reporter
Updated October 31, 2022 at 2:49 p.m. EDT|Published October 31, 2022 at 2:04 p.m. EDT
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks at a launch event in London for her new book, “The Climate Book,” on Sunday. (Henry Nicholls/Reuters)
Greta Thunberg, the activist from Sweden, was catapulted to worldwide fame at a climate conference. In 2018, the then-15-year-old wandered the halls of a United Nations conference venue in Poland in a black zip-up hoodie and tennis shoes, followed by a gaggle of media and policymakers impressed by her straight-talking realism about the climate crisis. “I expected it to be more action and less talking,” she said then, of her first international climate summit.
Thunberg’s behavior at climate conferences made her famous: the way she stared down world leaders in Poland, the way she shouted “How dare you!” in 2019 to a plenary of governments in New York. But this year, the now 19-year-old climate activist says she plans to skip next week’s U.N. climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt — the 27th since the process began — entirely.
“The COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing,” Thunberg said during a question-and-answer session in London for the release of her book, “The Climate Book,” a collection of essays featuring climate scientists, activists, and other experts on climate science and solutions. “COP” stands for “Conference of the Parties,” and is the shorthand for the annual climate conferences run by the United Nations. The conferences, she added “are not really meant to change the whole system.”
“So as it is, the COPs are not really working, unless we use them as an opportunity to mobilize,” she said.
Thunberg’s frustration with the international climate diplomacy process has seemed to be growing in recent years. Last year, she attended COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, but called the meeting “blah blah blah.”
At some level, of course, Thunberg is right: The United Nations climate summits are, practically by definition, not intended to overthrow the world economic system or even drastically cut emissions. The structure of the 2016 Paris Agreement, in which nearly every country in the world agreed to hold warming to no greater than 2 degrees Celsius, doesn’t include much in the way of binding international law. If a country doesn’t follow through on its emissions-cutting targets — or doesn’t introduce new targets at all — the only recourse for other countries is to “name and shame” the offender. It’s a weak motivator for one of the greatest problems humanity has ever faced.
Despite this, the system has sometimes appeared to be working. More than 70 countries have pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, accounting for about three-quarters of the world’s total emissions. In recent years, landmark climate laws have been passed in the United States and Europe while the price of renewable energy has plummeted.
But ambitious pledges — as Thunberg and other activists have noted — do not necessarily mean ambitious action. Humanity is still releasing approximately 36 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. The COP process has succeeded in getting many countries to pledge to cut their carbon emissions in the long-term; it has largely failed, however, to get them to actually cut emissions in the short-term.
Thunberg’s shunning of this year’s COP may, at some level, be a recognition of the fact that the climate conferences’ usefulness is limited. Most of the most dramatic emissions cuts will come from countries enacting national policies — none of which happen at the bureaucratic international meetings. But her absence may also be a sign that climate activists are struggling to find the right place for their messages. In recent weeks, protesters have thrown food and glued themselves onto precious works of art. Carbon emissions are everywhere: They come from cars, planes, power plants, factories, and much more. There is no single place where decisions about the future of the planet are being made — not even at COP.
Over the past year, Thunberg has stayed a little more distant from international politics: She has continued her famous climate school strike in front of the Swedish Parliament, spoken to musical festival attendees at Glastonbury in the U.K., and worked on her book, the proceeds of which will go to charity. According to the Times in London, she now lives off of a small student grant and shares an apartment with a friend.
Still, her strength has always been her ability to point out, in no uncertain terms, that the world is not doing enough on climate change. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, she credits her different way of thinking with giving her a staunch moral clarity that many lack. At previous international climate conferences, she has stood on the sidelines, repeating over and over again some version of “This is not enough.” | 2022-11-01T11:27:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Greta Thunberg is shunning the U.N. climate conference this year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/31/why-greta-thunberg-is-shunning-un-climate-conference-this-year/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/10/31/why-greta-thunberg-is-shunning-un-climate-conference-this-year/ |
N.K. Jemisin offers a hopeful — if fantastical — message of tolerance
In Jemisin’s new novel ‘The World We Make,’ avatars representing the boroughs of New York take on a malevolent alien
Review by Vivian Shaw
N.K. Jemisin’s new novel, “The World We Make,” is the kind of book you lose an entire day to, hour after hour going by unnoticed, and emerge shaken and dazzled on the other end. The writing is clear and visceral and intense. It’s some of the most brilliant, unapologetic speculative fantasy I’ve read in years.
Like its prequel “The City We Became” (2020), “The World We Make” is a love letter to New York. (“City” need not be read to enjoy “World,” but it helps.) Jemisin conjures up a city embodied and represented by physical avatars who must balance being people, having jobs and families and real lives, with the vast metaphysical responsibility of being the city itself.
The novel is also an exploration of what it means to be part of something greater than oneself, and a fantasy built around the idea of fighting back against an erasing, destructive xenophobia that seeks to remove individual identity and replace it with blank enforced compliance — or with utter destruction. Jemisin takes the conflict between diversity and tolerance on one hand and malevolent erasure on the other and lets us imagine what it would be like if that conflict could be resolved — if that war could be won — and what that resolution might look like. Against the backdrop of our current world, it’s a powerful and hopeful story.
In “The City We Became,” the individual boroughs’ newly awakened avatars joined to fight against an invading extradimensional force bent on destroying not just the city but the concept of the city. Now it turns out they’re not finished after all: The threat of alien destruction is back, and this time it’s not just New York that’s in fatal danger. No one else seems to recognize that danger or be willing to do anything in response; it’s up to New York City and his boroughs to fight back.
N.K. Jemisin’s fantasy tale ‘The City We Became’ shows the resilience of New York
These include Padmini, Math Queen of Queens; Bronca, who is the Bronx but mostly runs the Bronx Art Center with steel-toed boots; Brooklyn, a single mother who is both Brooklyn and the latest candidate for mayor of New York; Manny, who is currently Manhattan but possibly meant to be something very different instead, smiling and dangerous; Veneza, who is Jersey City; and the primary avatar of New York City, NYC (pronounced “Neek”), now rescued from his newspaper-cradled slumber in the depths of City Hall subway station.
After the events of the first novel, Neek is now wide-awake and dealing with a whole host of issues, including possibly romantic tension with Manny, who’s having identity and responsibility troubles of his own. That tension only worsens as they gather more information about the danger facing them — danger not just from the alien city-creature R’lyeh but from a racist, xenophobic mayoral candidate determined to Make New York Great Again by tearing it apart.
‘The Cartographers’ is one of those brilliant books you have to read twice
Meanwhile, Aislyn, Staten Island’s avatar, estranged from the rest of the city, must deal with her previous decision to let the enemy take over her borough — and what that means for the island itself, as every important thing that defines it is fading into impersonal blank mediocrity before disappearing forever. Aislyn’s rejection of the other boroughs and acceptance of the alien Woman in White as a friend in a friendless world is clearly understandable, if self-destructive. What makes Aislyn’s journey in this book particularly effective is the way in which — despite the new and better-informed choices she is making — she sticks to what makes her intrinsically her, stubborn as Staten Island itself.
The novel approaches viciously bigoted beliefs head-on. Jemisin writes about prejudices such as racism, transphobia, homophobia and xenophobia because they are an inescapable part of the current world — and yet this story balances the only-too-real hate with genuine kindness. Over and over the book quietly offers examples of total strangers who without hesitation or question step up to help someone in need. These people aren’t especially saintly; they’re just people. They’re kind without meaning to be; their action comes from fellow-feeling, of being part of a larger whole, of being New Yorkers — and that is part of why the city is what it is, glorious and lush and awful and alive. It embraces nuance, shades of gray in a world that’s never been stark black and white no matter how much the hostile entities want it to be. (These bad guys aren’t interested in negotiation or discussion of any kind: They want you to be dead, right now, and it is precisely this inflexibility that contains the seeds of their defeat.)
“The World We Make” is a satisfying ending to Jemisin’s Great Cities duology. The author mentions in the acknowledgments how real life — inevitably, inescapably — involved itself in her creative process, how the flow of “World” changed based on the way the real world was being affected by politics and the pandemic. It’s a reminder that all stories are shaped by the environment in which they are being created and told — and it makes the book’s hopeful conclusion that much more satisfying.
Vivian Shaw is the author of “Strange Practice,” “Dreadful Company” and “Grave Importance.”
By N.K. Jemisin
Orbit. 368 pp. $21.49 | 2022-11-01T12:16:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | N.K. Jemisin offers a hopeful — if fantastical — message of tolerance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/01/nk-jemisin-offers-hopeful-if-fantastical-message-tolerance/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/01/nk-jemisin-offers-hopeful-if-fantastical-message-tolerance/ |
Endangered right whales still declining, but new numbers give hope
North Atlantic right whale numbers fell 2 percent last year, less than in the past. But more protections are needed, scientists say.
A North Atlantic right whale feeds on the surface of Cape Cod Bay off the coast of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 2018. Scientists released new data October 24, showing that the whale population had declined by eight between 2020 and 2021. (Michael Dwyer/AP)
The decline of an endangered species of whale slowed last year, as it lost about 2 percent of its population, but scientists warn the animal still faces serious threats and is losing breeding females too fast.
The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, a group of scientists, government officials and industry members, said last week that the North Atlantic right whale population dropped to an estimated 340 last year, down from 348. An estimated 480 whales were alive in 2010.
The whales are vulnerable to ship collisions and becoming trapped in commercial fishing gear. They have also given birth to fewer calves in recent years.
“The reality is we are still seeing unsustainable levels of human impacts on the species,” said Heather Pettis. Pettis is a research scientist in the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life and executive administrator of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. “We’re still injuring these animals to a point where it’s not just about survival. It’s about health, it’s about reproduction.”
The right whales live off the East Coast and migrate each year from calving grounds off Georgia and Florida to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. They were once abundant, but their numbers shrank drastically during the commercial whaling era, when they were hunted for their oil and meat.
The whales have been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act for more than 50 years but have been slow to recover. The population was even lower in 1990, when it was 264, Pettis said. One of the biggest challenges facing the right whales today is that the number of female whales that are capable of breeding appears to be falling.
The whales appear to be getting smaller, and that is hurting their ability to reproduce, said Peter Corkeron, chair of the Kraus Marine Mammal Conservation Program at the Cabot Center.
The troubles of the right whale have become a major issue for commercial fisheries in the United States, especially the American lobster industry, which is based mostly in Maine. The whales are particularly vulnerable to becoming entangled in the fixed vertical underwater lines used to fish for lobsters and crabs.
The federal government has created new restrictions for lobster fishing in an effort to save the right whale, but fishermen have said that the rules could put them out of business. A group of lobster fishermen sued to stop the rules, and their case is pending.
The new right whale estimate indicates that the population is stabilizing, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. The new fishing rules, however, could “decimate the Maine lobster fishery,” McCarron said.
Warming oceans are also a concern. The whales are aided by a network of protected zones designed to allow them to eat the tiny organisms they feed on without danger of entanglements and collisions. However, warming waters have caused their food to move, and they have followed it into unprotected areas where they are more vulnerable, scientists said.
Conservation groups have asked for speed limits for ships and stricter fishing regulations to save the whales.
“These latest population numbers confirm that the species continues to teeter on the verge of functional extinction, and current measures to save it are falling short,” said Sarah Sharp, a veterinarian with International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Nevertheless, there is hope on the horizon. Solutions do indeed exist.” | 2022-11-01T12:33:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Endangered right whales still declining, but new numbers give hope - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/01/north-atlantic-right-whale-count/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/01/north-atlantic-right-whale-count/ |
Police canvas the scene of a drive-by shooting in Chicago on Monday. (Jim Vondruska)
At least 14 people, including three children, were injured in a drive-by shooting in Chicago’s west side on Halloween, police said. The youngest victim, a 3-year-old girl, was in serious condition with gunshot wounds to both legs.
There were no immediate reports of fatalities, though police said that could change as victims received medical care in various Chicago hospitals. Law enforcement authorities have opened a preliminary investigation and are searching for suspects, Chicago Police Superintendent David O’Neal Brown said in a news conference.
The drive-by is one of nine mass shootings that have occurred across the United States over Halloween weekend spanning Florida to California.
These incidents meet the threshold for mass shootings as defined by the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research organization that tracks casualties from police statements and news reports. GVA defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.
At least 10 people were killed and 46 injured in the mass shootings from Friday night through Monday night, including the one in Chicago, according to GVA.
While some mass shootings — such as the one at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., that left 19 students and two teachers dead — capture national attention and spark renewed debates about gun control, most mass shootings as defined by GVA go largely unnoticed outside of the communities they take place in.
U.S. marks Memorial Day weekend with at least 12 mass shootings
Around 9:30 p.m. in Chicago on Monday, a crowd of people was gathered for a vigil at the corner of California Avenue and Polk Street, “when two unidentified occupants traveling in a dark SUV began shooting,” according to police.
It’s not clear if the shooters were targeting those attending the vigil or just happened to drive by the busy intersection that night. That time of night would also have been toward the end of Halloween trick-or-treating for many families.
The drive-by shooting was over in “seconds,” Superintendent Brown said. Thirteen people were shot and a woman was struck by a car as she attempted to flee the scene, the police statement said, amending Brown’s earlier statement that up to 14 people had been shot. The woman was “in fair condition” on Tuesday.
Five of the victims — including children ages 3, 11 and 13 — were in “serious” condition, and at least two were in critical condition.
After the shooting, police say the SUV fled south. As of early Tuesday, police did not have any suspects in custody.
Photos captured by The Washington Post showed police canvassing the scene overnight.
Chicago has long experienced high rates of gun violence. According to the Brookings Institution, in 2019 and 2020 gun homicides in Chicago “were concentrated in neighborhoods far from the city center that have long suffered from severe disinvestment as a result of white flight, and are now centers of concentrated poverty with predominantly Black residents” — neighborhoods, the think tank said, such as East Garfield Park, where Monday night’s drive-by shooting took place.
Before the shooting, Chicago police said that at least 35 people were shot across the city over the weekend, ABC7 Chicago reports. | 2022-11-01T12:50:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chicago drive-by among 9 U.S. mass shootings on Halloween weekend - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/chicago-shooting-halloween-garfield-park/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/chicago-shooting-halloween-garfield-park/ |
Sacheen Littlefeather may have lied about her identity. Does that matter?
After a startling op-ed alleges the recently deceased activist was a fraud, heated discussions emerge about ‘policing’ Native American heritage
Kelsey Ables
(AP, Frazer Harrison/Getty Images/Washington Post illustration)
Sacheen Littlefeather left an indelible impression at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony, when Marlon Brando chose her to publicly decline, on his behalf, the best actor Oscar he received for “The Godfather” and instead take the opportunity to call out Hollywood’s mistreatment of the United States’ Indigenous people. Littlefeather, who was 26 at the time, cut a regal figure — wearing moccasins and a tasseled dress, her long, dark hair parted and clipped with intricate beadwork.
Introducing herself as an Apache and president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee, Littlefeather looked out at the audience (which she later said was as White as a “sea of Clorox”) and delivered a short speech that was interrupted by scattered applause and boos. Some speculated that it was a kind of surrealist performance. Members of the press and Hollywood’s elite at the time derided Brando for the gesture. Others looked into Littlefeather’s background (she was born Marie Louise Cruz, in Salinas, Calif.), questioning her motives and accusing her of faking her identity.
She died Oct. 2 at the age of 75, not long after the Academy formally apologized for how she was treated and threw an event in her honor.
Twenty days after Littlefeather’s death, however, Native American writer and activist Jacqueline Keeler wrote an opinion column, published by the San Francisco Chronicle, alleging Littlefeather committed “ethnic fraud” by pretending to be Native American for more than 50 years.
Throughout her life, Littlefeather said she was White Mountain Apache and Yaqui, through her father’s side of the family. But Keeler’s article includes interviews with Littlefeather’s sisters, Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi, who dispute their late sister’s claims.
“It is fraud,” Cruz told Keeler. “It’s disgusting to the heritage of tribal people. And it’s just … insulting to my parents.” The sisters also challenged several aspects of Littlefeather’s life story, including that she grew up in abject poverty and was abused.
The article has since unleashed a bigger discussion online and among Native American activists and scholars, one that goes much deeper than most people’s understanding of Native cultures and tribal identity. Some took Keeler to task for “policing” Indigenous identity, arguing that such efforts have isolated and hurt those earnestly trying to reconnect with their Native tribes. (Keeler has publicly tracked “Pretendians,” people who appear to be falsely claiming and profiting off Native American heritage, since 2021.)
But others have defended Keeler’s work, saying that Littlefeather’s alleged fraud was an “open secret” among Native scholars and activists for many years. Falsely appropriating Native identity can cause real harm, they argue, entrenching harmful stereotypes and undermining the communal and legal bonds that have defined Native tribes for centuries.
“It’s not just about … your right to claim or to reconnect to that tribal identity, it’s about what your responsibilities are to it,” said Dina Gilio-Whitaker, a writer and lecturer of American Indian studies at California State University at San Marcos.
“The controversy about Sacheen Littlefeather is not that she’s not Indigenous; it’s that she is not who she claimed to be — as an Apache or a Yaqui,” she said. “That kind of identity implies a relationship, a legal relationship to a tribe, or in this case, two tribes. That is what she did not have.”
After all, being a member of a Native tribe is not just an ethnic identity, but a political one. A long history of genocide, forced migration, assimilation and erasure has magnified these tensions, Gilio-Whitaker added: “There’s no identity more fraught than American Indian identity in the U.S., none.”
Gilio-Whitaker, a certified descendant of the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington, was aware of the rumors surrounding Littlefeather’s heritage for decades, but considered it “unthinkable” to question it.
“In Indian Country, we don’t have a lot of heroes. And so when we do have them, we tend to hold on to them, and take for granted that they are who they say they are,” she said.
After meeting with Littlefeather in 2016 to work on a book proposal about the actor’s life, Gilio-Whitaker’s doubts bubbled up. But Gilio-Whitaker still couldn’t bring herself to question Littlefeather explicitly, even when she wrote a 2018 letter to filmmakers at One Bowl Productions, who were producing a 26-minute documentary on Littlefeather.
In that letter, shared with The Washington Post, Gilio-Whitaker cited “colossal misunderstandings about Native identity” at a time when “tribal sovereignty and nationhood are under attack.”
“There are controversial aspects of Sacheen’s background and history that will inevitably bring some of these issues to light with the releasing of a documentary film about her,” Gilio-Whitaker wrote. The film was released anyway in April 2019. Gayle Anne Kelley, founder and CEO of One Bowl Productions, said in a statement that the company “stands by” its documentary.
Gilio-Whitaker, who wrote about the controversy last week, said she wishes she had been “more upfront” about her concerns: “I feel like I, on some level, have been complicit in that fraud.”
But critiquing Littlefeather publicly also seemed “unseemly,” she said. Littlefeather was diagnosed with breast cancer at the time, and had been public about her mental health issues, which include a schizoaffective bipolar diagnosis.
Cruz, Littlefeather’s estranged sister, said she, too, had felt inclined to believe Littlefeather.
When reached by The Post on the day Keeler’s article lit up the internet, Cruz said she had assumed that the story Littlefeather told the world had some accuracy to it.
“We were confused and didn’t know. Sacheen went off and cultivated American Indian. So we just assume, okay, we’re probably American Indian. We never pursued it,” she said, adding that she thought maybe Littlefeather was exaggerating a small amount of Native heritage. “We know that my father is Spanish and Mexican, and we always knew that she lied by playing it up like, ‘He’s Yaqui and he’s Apache.’ … Listening to Sacheen tell us the same thing over a thousand times, we thought, maybe we might have some [Indigenous ancestry].”
Cruz said the person she spoke to at the White Mountain Apache tribe could not find any record of her family and she was denied membership. The Post contacted the tribe to confirm Keeler and Cruz’s accounts, but received no response.
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, meanwhile, issued a statement in the aftermath of Keeler’s article: “The Academy Museum is aware of claims that have been made over several decades regarding the background of Sacheen Littlefeather. This is something both Littlefeather and the Native American community have addressed continuously since the 1970s. Native American and Indigenous identity is deeply complex and layered, especially in the United States, and these communities have long battled erasure and misrepresentation. With the support of its Indigenous Alliance — an Academy member affinity group — the Academy recognizes self-identification.”
After her sister died, Cruz said she came across Keeler’s work, which confirmed her suspicions that Littlefeather was a fraud. “I started reading on Jacqueline’s tweets and the research she did, I went, ‘Yes, she’s right.’ ”
Still, many of those debating the new revelations online looked beyond Littlefeather’s personal history, drawing their attention to what they regarded as cultural gatekeeping.
Keeler is herself controversial among Native writers and activists for her ongoing investigations of “Pretendians.” Her list of alleged impostors has included actor Johnny Depp, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and former senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), an enrolled member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. Until recently, Keeler’s project was a “show your work” kind of endeavor — with dozens of pages of research, compiled into a single Google Doc, vetting people’s various claims to Native identity. In an interview with The Post, Keeler said she has removed five people from the list after determining their claims were accurate.
The most straightforward way of belonging to a tribe or nation is to be enrolled in it. Some tribes ask potential members to show lineal descent, meaning an ancestor who was a registered member. But many require a “blood quantum” — that is, a minimum amount of “Indian blood.”
There are a lot of issues with this way of determining heritage. As Elizabeth Rule, a professor of race, gender and culture studies at American University, told NPR in 2018, these were not genetic assessments, and officials would mark someone as “full blood” based on appearance or cultural involvement in the community. Mixed-race Black Natives were often excluded from official rolls. And in recent decades, some tribes have aggressively disenrolled members.
Keeler, speaking to The Post, defends her methodology, which she detailed in a 40-page article on Substack: “Native identity has to be based in something.”
This act of public vetting is harmful for a number of reasons, said Angelina Newsom, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation who wrote about Keeler’s work in Pow Wows, a Native American publication.
What Keeler did is try to “police” Indian Country — something no single person has a right to do, Newsom said.
That should be left to tribes or councils, Newsom said. “They do have the capacity, if they so choose, to investigate these types of claims or to speak out publicly if they want.”
“We are not one big group of people in the United States. We have different sets of culture, values, traditions,” Newsom said. “So it just kind of felt like she was stepping on everyone’s toes.”
Such conversations can be particularly painful to people who have been looking to reclaim their Native lineage.
Raised by a White single mom, Carly Butler is in the process of reconnecting to her Yaqui heritage: learning the language, researching Yaqui history and unpacking her family’s past. She was told by her mother that her dad is a Mexican Yaqui, but while Butler said she has reached out to family members who have verbally confirmed her Yaqui lineage, she doesn’t have the kind of formal documentation that “people like Keeley” look for.
Butler, who defended Littlefeather in a Twitter thread, said she saw similarities between herself and the famed activist. Butler said she worries that if she ever fulfills her dream of becoming a published author, skeptics will say she doesn’t belong or accuse her of trying to profit off her identity.
“I just want to be honorable and respectful of my nation and tell the story of what happened to me personally, being displaced and not being able to reconnect in a way that I would like, without being harassed or delegitimized,” she said.
There is a notable “gray area” when it comes to claiming Indigenous identity, said Kimberly Tallbear, a professor of Native studies at the University of Alberta and a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate. Blood quantum requirements can carve up bloodlines, leaving members of the same family on the outside of tribal citizenship — including her own.
But these cases are not the same as falsely claiming a Native ancestor or identity, Tallbear said: “There is just no good excuse for lying.”
The people making false claims tend to double down on harmful stereotypes, leaning into traumatic stories about poverty, alcoholism and abuse, Tallbear said. And, she added, some have gone on to influence policy, as well as perceptions and portrayals of Indigenous people and communities, all while having no lived experience or legal relationship to those nations, which continue to fight for resources and sovereignty.
Littlefeather herself didn’t seem to financially “profit” off her alleged lie, Gilio-Whitaker of UC-San Marcos noted. But the scholar believes Littlefeather did benefit from it, at least in recognition and acclaim.
For the people most invested in Littlefeather’s story — Native activists, scholars and descendants — there is no single lesson or focal point.
While Keeler said her work exposing “Pretendians” has come at a cost to her career, she still finds the project valuable, because being Native “is not a subjective experience.”
Others were dismayed at how the conversation has focused on defending individual identity rather than considering community responsibility, which is itself a hallmark of Indigenous cultures: “When we assert Indigenous definitions of kinship, we are talking about relatives,” Tallbear said.
This emphasis on community and one’s obligations to it are especially important, she added, at a time when tribal sovereignty and land rights are being rolled back.
Newsom of the Northern Cheyenne Nation said these “sensational” concerns about authentic Native identity are more important in academic circles and online discussion than they are in everyday life in Native communities. When she brings up such matters back home, people feel it’s “outrageous” to even talk about.
“They’re like, ‘We’re trying to get clean running water. We’re trying to find how we’re going to send our kids to college. We’re trying to survive.’ ” | 2022-11-01T13:08:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The debate over Sacheen Littlefeather’s identity isn’t only about proof - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/sacheen-littlefeather-identity-controversy-indigenous/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/sacheen-littlefeather-identity-controversy-indigenous/ |
A member of the Ukrainian Special Forces is seen in silhouette as he stands while a gas station burns after Russian attacks in the city of Kharkiv on March 30, 2022, during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)
LONDON — We’ve all been living in a state of permanent crisis, a “permacrisis” if you will, according to lexicographers at Collins Dictionary who have anointed it the word of the year for 2022.
The portmanteau describes the feeling of “living through period of war, inflation, and political instability,” and “sums up quite succinctly just how truly awful 2022 has been for so many people,” the company said in an upbeat statement on Tuesday.
“Permacrisis” which is defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity,” by the publisher is one of a handful of words relating to challenges, amid rampant climate change, war in Europe, a cost of living crisis and political chaos in many quarters. It was first used in academic contexts in the 1970s, according to Collins, but has seen a spike in use in recent months.
“It was very apparent this year that the conversation was dominated by crisis,” Helen Newstead, language content consultant at Collins Dictionary told The Washington Post on Tuesday.
Her team look at the “Collins Corpus,” a database of 18 billion words, to come up with its choice, as well as taking “snapshots” at intervals throughout the year analyzing newspapers and social media among other sources, she said, to find new words and increased usage.
“Permacrisis,” Newstead said, encapsulates “lurching from one crisis to another without really drawing breath.”
“I think it does resonate … as something everyone can relate to,” she said.
“There hasn’t been a huge amount to celebrate,” she continued, noting that the word of the year captures “the way we’re all feeling at the moment, sadly.”
‘Quiet quitting’ isn’t really about quitting. Here are the signs.
In 2020, Collins picked “lockdown” as its word of the year amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Last year, it opted for “NFT” a non-fungible token, which is a unique digital representation of a good — usually art — akin to a certificate of authenticity or a deed.
Another word to make the list this year was “Partygate,” referring to the British scandal over social gatherings held by former prime minister Boris Johnson and his colleagues at No. 10. Downing Street, in defiance of government-imposed social restrictions.
“Carolean,” the formal name for the new era of King Charles III following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II in September, also is on the list.
What does ‘splooting’ mean? And why are squirrels doing it?
“Quiet quitting,” also made the list and has gained popularity, according to the dictionary, which defines the act mostly carried out by younger Gen Z and millennial workers as opting to renounce hustle culture by undertaking to work no more than contractually obliged to, to spend more time on quality of life pursuits.
Newstead said the word had gone “viral” and “struck a chord” especially after the pandemic “when we all had a existential crisis,” about reshaping the rules of the workplace and prioritizing a work-life balance.
The “cute-sounding” word “splooting” also made the dictionary’s list, denoting a position taken up by animals in the heat as they splay their legs and arms to cool down, delighting amused pet owners and onlookers.
Word such as “vibe shift,” “lawfare” and “sports washing” were among others that made the Collins list.
“Language can be a mirror to what is going on in society,” said managing director of Collins Learning Alex Beecroft, in a statement, adding that 2022 had “thrown up challenge after challenge.”
“Our list this year reflects the state of the world right now — not much good news,” Beecroft added, citing rising energy prices, severe weather and lingering impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Work will begin in the second half of next year, Newstead said, to come up with the word that defines our preoccupations in 2023. | 2022-11-01T13:25:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Collins Dictionary names "permacrisis” its 2022 word of the year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/permacrisis-2022-word-year-collins-dictionary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/permacrisis-2022-word-year-collins-dictionary/ |
Fans sitting courtside at Barclays Center sent a message about antisemitism to Kyrie Irving during the Brooklyn Nets’ game against the Indiana Pacers on Monday night. (Jessie Alcheh/AP)
A group of fans seated courtside at the Brooklyn Nets game Monday night at Barclays Center aimed a pointed message at Kyrie Irving, wearing black T-shirts that read “Fight antisemitism” in white letters.
Last week, the Nets guard tweeted a link to “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” a 2018 movie based on a book that contains antisemitic tropes. Irving said he was not antisemitic but defended his tweet Saturday night, telling reporters: “I’m not going to stand down on anything I believe in. I’m only going to get stronger because I’m not alone. I have a whole army around me.” After criticism from Nets owner Joe Tsai and the Anti-Defamation League, and a statement from the NBA condemning hate speech but not naming Irving, he deleted the tweet Sunday.
Analysis: NBA stars are already having trouble staying healthy after comebacks
“I hope he realizes how much antisemitism he is stoking by putting out [a link to] a film like this, which is extremely anti-Jewish,” Jungreis said. “And I hope he comes to his senses. … I think he should be suspended and he should understand what he did, but I don’t know if [the Nets] will [suspend him].”
Before the game, Nets Coach Steve Nash said he was not part of every internal discussion within the organization but added that the team’s handling of Irving is an “ongoing conversation.” It “certainly helps,” Nash said, that Irving deleted the post. The Nets have another home game Tuesday night against the Chicago Bulls, which will be nationally televised on TNT.
“I just hope that we all go through this together,” Nash said. “There’s always an opportunity for us to grow and understand new perspectives. I think the organization is trying to take that stance where we can communicate through this and try to all come out in a better position and both more understanding and more empathy for every side of this debate and situation.”
The Nets are already preaching patience. That’s not a great sign.
The Nets declined to extend Irving’s contract this past summer, putting in question whether this might be his last season in Brooklyn. Irving has made headlines for supporting the idea that the Earth is flat, and he recently shared a video clip from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Irving was unavailable for most of the Nets’ home games last season because he refused to comply with New York City’s coronavirus vaccination mandate.
“They should not keep a guy like that around,” Jungreis told Ian O’Connor of the New York Post.
Antisemitism became a flash point in sports over the weekend, when antisemitic messages were on display in Jacksonville, Fla., before and after the college football game between Florida and Georgia. Both schools and the SEC condemned the messages, as did Shad Khan, owner of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.
On Sunday, a video from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, the Kraft Family Foundation and the Kraft Group’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism was shown during the first quarter of the game between the Patriots and New York Jets, encouraging people to speak out against hate speech.
NBA stars are already having trouble staying healthy after comebacks
Ex-Spur Josh Primo allegedly exposed himself to former team employee | 2022-11-01T13:25:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nets fans wear 'Fight Antisemitism' shirts directed at Kyrie Irving - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/nets-fans-kyrie-irving/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/nets-fans-kyrie-irving/ |
Alaska’s ranked-choice voting is flawed. But there’s an easy fix.
By Edward B. Foley
Eric S. Maskin
Candidates for Alaska's sole U.S. House seat on Wednesday in Anchorage. From left, they are former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R); Rep. Mary Peltola (D); Republican Nick Begich; and Chris Bye, a Libertarian. (Mark Thiessen/AP)
Edward B. Foley holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at Ohio State University, where he heads the university’s election law program. Eric S. Maskin, a Nobel laureate in economics, is an Adams University Professor at Harvard University.
More than a few Pennsylvania voters are probably thinking, after the Senate debate last week between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz, that they would like to have other options.
Pennsylvania is not the only state where a large swath of voters are dissatisfied with the nominees chosen in this year’s primaries. Many Arizona voters, for example, wish Karrin Taylor Robson, rather than ultra-MAGA Kari Lake, had received that state’s GOP nomination for governor.
Alaska’s new voting system — in which the top four candidates in a nonpartisan primary advance to the general election, where ranked-choice voting permits voters to indicate their preferences among all four candidates — shows a way out of this predicament.
If Pennsylvania used Alaska’s system, the November choice for senator there would include not just Fetterman and Oz, as the winners of their respective partisan primaries, but also Conor Lamb and David McCormick as the runner-up in each of those races. In Arizona, New Hampshire, North Carolina and elsewhere, Alaska’s system similarly would have added alternatives that include non-MAGA Republicans.
But before Pennsylvania or any other state embraces Alaska’s system, there’s an important detail that needs to be fixed.
Alaska’s special election in August for the House of Representatives was heralded as a triumph for ranked-choice voting, because MAGA favorite Sarah Palin, a personification of polarization, could not attract enough second-choice votes from moderate Republican Nick Begich’s supporters to win.
That’s true. But the way Alaska uses ranked-choice voting also caused the defeat of Begich, whom most Alaska voters preferred to Democrat Mary Peltola, the candidate who ended up winning.
This anomalous outcome, contrary to the principle that the majority’s preference should prevail, would be easily remedied by one small change.
The key to ranked-choice voting is that a voter lists the candidates in order of preference, starting with their favorite, rather than naming just that favorite. The problem in Alaska — and other ranked-choice systems now in use, from Maine to San Francisco — is the rule for eliminating candidates when no one gets a majority of first-place votes. By tweaking this rule, Alaska’s system would become more palatable to Republicans and Democrats alike, and more likely to be adopted across the country.
Begich was eliminated because he had the fewest first-place votes. That seems logical at first glance. But the flaw in this outcome — and why Republicans have reason to be resentful — is that a majority of voters would have favored Begich had the race come down to a head-to-head matchup against either Peltola (52 percent to 48 percent) or Palin (61 percent to 39 percent). He lost only because it was a three-way race.
Here’s how to fix the flaw. If Alaska eliminated the candidate with the fewest total votes, rather than the fewest first-place votes, the ranked-choice system would be sure to elect a candidate such as Begich who defeats all rivals in one-on-one matchups.
Call it a “Total Vote Runoff.” A candidate’s total votes in such a system would be determined by the number of other candidates he or she is ranked above. For example, when a candidate is ranked first on a ballot in an election involving three candidates, then this first-choice candidate is ranked above two other candidates and gets two votes from this ballot.
When that same candidate is ranked second on another ballot, the candidate is favored over only one other candidate and would receive only one vote from that ballot.
A candidate ranked last on a ballot, or not ranked at all, is not favored over anyone and gets no votes from that ballot.
Calculating the number of votes that a candidate gets on each ballot — two, one or zero — and adding up the candidate’s votes from all the ballots yields the candidate’s total votes.
Using this method, we can identify the number of ballots on which each of Alaska’s three candidates was ranked first or second and then calculate each candidate’s total votes (there were only three candidates in the House special election):
Palin had the fewest total votes, so she would have been the first candidate eliminated in a “Total Vote Runoff” tweak to RCV.
With Palin eliminated, the race would have been between Begich and Peltola. Because a majority preferred Begich to Peltola, he would have been elected. Total Vote Runoff captures the will of the majority more accurately than Alaska’s current elimination system does.
Republicans should like Total Vote Runoff because its procedure would help ameliorate the “candidate quality” problem that plagues their party, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lamented. A candidate popular only with the party’s base would be eliminated early in a Total Vote Runoff, leaving a more broadly popular Republican to compete against a Democrat.
Democrats, too, should welcome Total Runoff Voting to protect against losses caused by excessively progressive candidates who are unacceptable to a large portion of independent voters. Alaska-style ranked-choice voting might keep in contention a left-wing candidate whose first-place votes reflect enthusiastic but limited support, but Total Runoff Voting would promote Democratic candidates whose wide appeal makes them more competitive overall.
The lesson of Alaska’s special election is not to abandon ranked-choice voting, as some have misguidedly charged, but instead to improve it. One small yet powerful change in how it operates would help Alaska’s new voting system achieve its objective of electing less polarizing, less extreme winners and fulfill ranked-choice voting’s promise of making elections consistent with the premise that in a democracy the majority should prevail. | 2022-11-01T13:47:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Alaska’s ranked-choice voting is flawed. But there’s an easy fix. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/alaska-final-four-primary-begich-palin-peltola/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/alaska-final-four-primary-begich-palin-peltola/ |
Let’s say a permanent goodnight to daylight saving time
By Heather Turgeon
(Paige Vickers for The Washington Post)
Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright are the authors of “Generation Sleepless: Why Tweens and Teens Aren’t Sleeping Enough and How We Can Help Them.”
Earlier this year, the Senate passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent. The idea of ending clock changes and sticking to one time was met with celebration — until scientists pointed out that such a change could cause a nationwide case of seasonal depression, learning loss and physical health problems.
Now the Sunshine Protection Act sits with the House. But as we prepare to change our clocks this November — and with news of Mexico mostly opting out of daylight saving time, effective this past weekend (the exceptions: towns and cities on the U.S. border) — the idea is sure to be debated again. Popular opinion supports getting rid of clock changes, and for good reason — they’re disorienting and disruptive. But eternal daylight saving time is not the answer. Especially if we want to protect young people.
Humans evolved outside, in nature, and our brain clocks are exquisitely attuned to the sun. Standard time is an approximation of the solar day and is more or less in line with the rising and setting sun. Decades of research shows we’re at our best when we live harmoniously this way.
Daylight saving time, on the other hand, is essentially mandated jet lag. Permanent daylight time would leave us perpetually out of sync with our powerful internal clocks and would deny us the sun’s rays when our brains and bodies need them most: in the mornings.
Guest Opinion: Changing time is fine, but Congress wants to push our clocks in the wrong direction
If the House were to pass the Sunshine Protection Act in its current form, then for the first time in 40 years, the United States would experience daylight saving time in winter. The sun would rise unnaturally late, particularly in the northwestern part of every time zone: 9 a.m. in parts of Texas, 9:15 a.m. in Indiana, 9:45 a.m. in parts of Michigan. Students wouldn’t see the sun until well into their school day. This experiment happened in the United States in 1974. People found it so painful, it was abandoned after one winter.
This would all be tremendously bad for kids. Because of the later biological pacing of the teenage brain, waking at 7 a.m. already feels to young people like waking at 5 a.m. With permanent daylight saving time, it would feel like 4 a.m. This would put a serious strain on teen mental health. The result would be, among other things, shortened sleep for a population that is already severely sleep deprived and a potential uptick in rates of depression, when teens are already struggling with elevated levels of depressive symptoms and suicidal thinking.
And let’s not forget: A policy that’s bad for teens is bad for the rest of us. Sleep-deprived teens are driving next to us on the freeway. Sleep-deprived teens are twice as likely to experience mental health symptoms, which affect families, schools and health-care systems.
In some parts of the United States, teens are getting relief in the form of later high school start times, which California has pioneered and New York is considering. If the country were to impose permanent daylight saving time, the beneficial effects of these policies would be erased.
All of us, children and adults, need morning sun and evening darkness to get enough sleep and to be healthy and happy. Morning sun tells every cell and organ in the body to start its daily work; in our repertoire of daily habits, morning sun is the slam dunk.
Daylight saving time takes this from us. During this period, the majority of people go to bed later, while still having to wake at the same time for school or work, which leads to accumulated sleep debt. The reason our health hasn’t deteriorated further is that this happens in spring and summer, when the day length is long and the sun is already up when we wake. Daylight saving time in winter would make every morning a dark, dreary struggle — and people’s health and moods would unravel.
Dana Milbank: The Senate accidentally agreed to move our clocks forward. Blame Putin.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and others snuck the Sunshine Protection Act through the Senate without review or deliberation. Under the bill, Sinema’s Arizona would get to keep its already permanent year-round standard time, which it has had since 1968. (Why Sinema would rejoice at the rest of the country being forced to spring permanently forward is baffling.)
We all enjoy the sun. But in winter, when sunshine is scarce, we don’t have the luxury of tinkering with time. Evening sun is for our entertainment. Morning sun is for our health.
Healthier than permanent daylight saving time would be to stick with what we have, changing times twice a year. But healthiest would be for Congress to change the wording of the Sunshine Protection Act to permanent standard time.
It’s rare that we have the chance to elevate youth mental health — everyone’s health — in a sweeping and immediate way. Permanent standard time would give us this opportunity. | 2022-11-01T13:47:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Let’s say a permanent goodnight to daylight saving time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/daylight-saving-end-standard-time-permanent/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/daylight-saving-end-standard-time-permanent/ |
Vote for me to run elections, and you’ll never have to vote again
Doesn't this just look AWFUL? (Ross D. Franklin/AP)
You might be asking: “Why should I vote for you? Don’t you not believe in (to put a fine point on it) voting? The last time a lot of people voted, didn’t you say that you didn’t accept the outcome, even though the fraud you alleged was nowhere to be found? Why would you, of all people, ask me to do the very thing you hate and mistrust the most?”
Sigh. We have been over this.
Yes, I’m a noted election denier, someone who keeps saying things such as, “We need to go through all the ballots to check them for bamboo fibers! We need to go through all the voting machines and make certain that there is not a deceitful homunculus inside them! We need someone in charge who is willing to whack all the ballot boxes with a sledgehammer to make certain there are no opossums inside sorting votes in dubious ways! We need someone who will high-five the folks who sit outside polling places with folded arms and weapons, looking menacing. All votes cast for candidates of whom I disapprove are full of evil wind, and if no one else will set them all on fire so that the state can be purified, I will!”
And, yes, I am asking for your vote.
But this is the last time, I promise! After I am elected, you will never have to worry about voting again. That’s my pledge to you.
Everyone knows that voting is a bore, a pain and a chore. Right now, we live in a world in which voting involves standing in long lines, being intimidated at drop-boxes, having one’s ballot challenged after submitting it, even getting arrested!
And there is one thread that runs through all of this nastiness: people voting. This is bad, and I want them to stop, at least until we can get a handle on everything. The only way to make absolutely certain nobody has an unpleasant time voting is to make absolutely certain nobody votes. And that is what I vow to do.
Think about it: In the best-case voting scenario, you have to remember to put a stiff piece of paper in the mail. Onerous! Impossible! Worst case, you have to get to a physical location on a Tuesday and the only thing you get in exchange is a sticker.
Even if you know one of the names on the ballot, you do not know all of the names on the ballot, not to mention the ballot resolutions, which are always confusingly titled something like “Resolution 9: Honor Our Waitstaff,” which, when you look it up, is actually a bill to kick every waiter in the shin and then run away.
Isn’t life confusing and stressful enough — rights being taken away, gerrymanders being unleashed, political violence on the rise — without also having to vote? (Don’t worry: Those things are almost certainly not connected.)
That is why I am asking to be put in charge of elections. That is the only way to guarantee a smooth, secure vote: to take it out of the hands of the people, and put it into mine. | 2022-11-01T13:47:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Vote for us election deniers and you’ll never have to vote again! - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/election-deniers-never-vote-satire/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/election-deniers-never-vote-satire/ |
Has Fetterman been tested for cognitive impairment? Voters have a right to know.
Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman speaks during a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on Oct. 30. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
John Fetterman’s painful debate performance has raised a vital question for Pennsylvania voters: Does the Democrat have speech and auditory processing issues? Or did his stroke leave him with serious cognitive impairment?
If his stroke damaged his ability to hear and speak but not to think, many voters might not care. After all, if Fetterman were deaf and needed closed captioning to understand what people are saying — or if he had a speech impediment that made it difficult for him to verbally communicate — few would question his fitness to serve. But if his stroke has damaged his ability to understand and process information, and thus make competent decisions about serious public policy issues, that is an entirely different story.
Many people have no cognitive complications after suffering a stroke. But according to an article in the medical journal Stroke, “More than 40% of stroke survivors are found with cognitive impairment (poststroke cognitive impairment [PSCI]) sometime after the event. Almost two thirds of these patients are affected by mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A meta-analysis showed … 10% developed dementia soon after first stroke, and more than a third had dementia after recurrent stroke.”
There are several clinical tests to determine whether a patient is experiencing cognitive impairment. In 2018, when some were questioning President Donald Trump’s cognitive fitness for office, Trump asked his White House doctors to administer a test called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment — which he reportedly passed with flying colors. The test is 30 points and designed to take 10 minutes. Patients are asked to draw a clock showing the time as 10 past 11, including the proper hands and numbers; to list as many words as they can think of that begin with a certain letter of the alphabet; to repeat a list of numbers forward and backward; to repeat certain sentences word for word; to explain several ways two objects (an orange and a banana, or a train and a bicycle) are alike; to repeat a series of numbers in backward order; to subtract from 100 by sevens; to name the year, month, exact date and day of the week, and the location and city they are in. A score of 26 or greater is considered normal; 18 to 25 is considered mild cognitive impairment; 10 to 17 is considered moderate cognitive impairment; and a score of less than 10 is considered severe cognitive impairment.
There are other cognitive tests Fetterman could take, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination or the Cognitive Assessment scale for Stroke Patients, which is specifically designed to assess post-stroke cognitive impairments in patients like Fetterman, who appear to have severe expressive aphasia — the loss of ability to understand or express speech.
Has Fetterman taken any of these tests? If so, what were the results? We don’t know the answers because Fetterman has not been transparent about his condition. He won’t release his medical records, which would show the results of any cognitive tests he might have taken. After Trump underwent his assessment, his then-White House doctor spent nearly an hour taking questions from the media at a White House news briefing. But Fetterman won’t make his doctor available to the media, so reporters can’t ask what testing the candidate has undergone or the details of his cognitive prognosis.
Fetterman has a history of being less than forthcoming about his medical condition. Recall that his campaign waited nearly two days after his stroke to say that he was in the hospital and weeks to disclose a 2017 diagnosis of cardiomyopathy, a separate heart condition.
Pennsylvania voters are being asked to elect a senator who just had a very serious stroke. They might be willing to do so, as long as they can make an informed choice. They have a right to know whether what they saw in last week’s debate was simply a man struggling with speech and auditory processing — or whether it is something deeper.
If Fetterman has test results showing he has no cognitive impairment, he can easily put any concerns about his candidacy to rest. But if he has test results that show impairment — and refuses to share that information with voters — that would qualify as deception and should render him unfit for office, regardless of the effects of his stroke. | 2022-11-01T13:47:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | If Fetterman has cognitive impairment, voters have a right to know - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/fetterman-stroke-cognitive-tests-impairment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/fetterman-stroke-cognitive-tests-impairment/ |
By Jim Moore
From left, Republican gubernatorial candidate Christine Drazan, Democratic nominee Tina Kotek and unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson at a July 29 debate in Welches, Ore. (Jamie Valdez/AP)
Jim Moore is a professor of politics and government at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore.
Over the past few decades, Oregon elections have tended toward predictability. Virtually all statewide offices and congressional seats are filled by Democrats (there is one Republican member of our House delegation). No matter a Democratic candidate’s quality or funding, Republicans usually lose.
That predictability has evaporated this year. Three races for the U.S. House are up for grabs. But the main event is the Oregon governor’s race. We could see the state’s first Republican governor in 40 years.
With the departing governor, Kate Brown, term-limited, handing off the seat to Tina Kotek — the longtime speaker of the Oregon House — would have been almost automatic in a typical election year. But these midterms, even in Oregon, are different. Kotek is campaigning as a progressive who’ll build on the status quo, and that is a gamble.
Her Republican rival, Christine Drazan, is a former legislative staffer and lobbyist who won a seat in the Oregon House in 2019, where she is the minority leader. She campaigns on the theme that Oregon is falling apart — with crime and homelessness in the forefront — as a result of incompetent Democratic leadership.
The wild card in this race is unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson, a former Democratic state legislator of more than 20 years, often the swing vote on matters of taxation and climate policy. Johnson’s pitch is that both her opponents are examples of the extremes that now guide the major parties and her leadership will bring the best ideas of both groups to the table while rejecting the craziness.
Polls have Kotek and Drazan in a dead heat, with Johnson well behind but possibly siphoning away enough Democratic votes to elect the Republican.
Some of the big national issues are not having a major impact in Oregon. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade might galvanize voters elsewhere, but Oregon’s abortion laws are not under assault. Even among the 35 percent of Oregon voters who are unaffiliated and thus presumably movable in one direction or the other on the issue, polling about voter concerns from late summer showed that they ranked abortion far behind the economy, homelessness and crime.
Crime in Portland is, unusually, a major issue in this election. It has everything to do with the highly publicized protests and rioting that occurred in the summer of 2020, and their lingering effects. Drazan and Johnson both are pushing plans to get more funding to the state police to be ready for any future clashes. This is more politically popular than Kotek’s more nuanced stance that talks about the Black Lives Matter movement behind many of the protests and about the issues Oregon needs to face with its history on race.
Homelessness in Portland is also a big factor this year. All three candidates have said they will declare a “homeless emergency” if elected. Homelessness is a statewide issue, so this is not just a case of picking on Portland; people see it in cities and towns across the state. Both Johnson and Drazan are working to tie Kotek to the homelessness crisis, blaming failed progressive policies. Kotek responds by pointing out that neither Drazan’s nor Johnson’s plans to address homelessness are detailed enough to be more than campaign themes.
And, of course, inflation and economic uncertainty figures into the mix. Drazan and Johnson push lower taxes and fewer regulations; Kotek advocates for programs to help those who are hurt the most. On this issue, Johnson sounds like a Republican.
The polling suggests that Johnson’s message is not working as voters sort themselves into the Drazan and Kotek camps. Johnson had been polling as high as 25 to 30 percent during the summer but is now dropping into the teens and maybe lower. Still, given the fact that Oregon Democrats have won by single-digit margins for nine of the past 10 gubernatorial elections, Johnson could essentially play the role she did as a legislator: the swing vote.
The tightness of the race has attracted some major outside attention. President Biden has campaigned for Kotek in Portland (to what effect, no one knows — other candidates around the country have avoided appearing beside a president with low approval numbers). Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also came to town. Former president Barack Obama recorded a video for Kotek.
Drazan has received visits from Republican governors Larry Hogan of Maryland and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia. The message to voters was clear: Both of them won in states that voted for Biden in 2020. | 2022-11-01T13:48:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How Oregon could end up with a Republican governor in Christine Drazan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/oregon-governor-race-homelessness-crime-issues/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/oregon-governor-race-homelessness-crime-issues/ |
A preproduction electric Ford F-150 Lightning with a short bed in Bruce Township, Mich., May 12, 2021. (Paul Sancya/AP)
At a moment of rapid social change in which gender norms are being challenged, it was predictable that conservatives would begin warning of a new “crisis of masculinity” — practiced as they are in fomenting backlash to trends that unsettle their traditionalist base. That makes this a good time to consider one emblem of manhood that has fascinating implications for gender and politics: the pickup truck.
Nineteen years ago, then-presidential candidate Howard Dean caused some controversy when he said that Democrats needed to appeal to “guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks.” While he was accused of stereotyping Southerners as Confederate sympathizers, no one questioned the idea that Democrats had a serious deficit with the pickup demographic.
Since then, a significant divide has opened up between what pickups symbolize and who’s actually buying them — a divide that says a lot about the place of geography and masculinity in a country that grows more urbanized with each passing year.
While some people still buy trucks for work, the pickup has also become a luxury item that carries in its bed a cargo of ideas about rural culture and manhood, enabling men to spend as much as $100,000 on an identity that may have little to do with their actual lives.
I spoke about this with Mark Metzler Sawin, a historian at Eastern Mennonite University who has given serious thought to the meaning of the pickup truck in America. Its popularity, he notes, took off as the number of people who need one for work — farmers, for example — was steadily declining.
More Americans than ever are employed in service industries and jobs that involve working at computers all day. At the same time, men’s dominant position in the culture is under constant challenge. They remain atop society’s hierarchy — 91 percent of Fortune 500 chief executives are men this year, as are 41 of 50 governors and 76 of 100 senators. But women are making more and more progress toward equality in high-status jobs in business, law, medicine and plenty of other fields.
Meanwhile, today’s cultural debate around gender often characterizes old-fashioned masculinity as something dangerous and harmful. Conservative men in particular watch with horror the denigration of “everything that their grandpa did and was praised for,” the traditional habits and obligations of manhood, says Sawin.
“The same impulse that caused people to vote for Trump,” Sawin says, “is also what is causing them to continue to buy pickup trucks: this frustration that the world changed, and it changed in a way that made my life worse — or at least made me less powerful.”
Which brings us to how pickups are marketed: by placing power at the core of their appeal.
In the most common type of pickup ad, the truck is presented as a work machine that gives the man who drives it almost limitless power. “A man will ask a lot of his truck,” says the rough-hewn voice of Sam Elliott over scenes of pickups traversing dusty landscapes and job sites in one ad for Ram trucks. “Can it tow that? Haul this? Make it all the way over the top of that? Well isn’t it nice to know that the answer will always be: Hell, yes!” The truck makes you strong and capable, up for any challenge. Does it make you a man? Hell, yes!
That idea of the pickup as a tool for work — especially agricultural work — goes back to its beginnings. The first production pickup truck, the Ford Model TT, debuted in 1917 as a vehicle that would allow farmers who were already using their Model T’s for farm work to haul bigger loads. Its roots in rural American work remain central to its marketing, even if rural people are no longer the target customers. That imagery is meant to evoke a kind of manhood that embodies self-reliance, competence, mastery over the environment and a physicality most men have no need for in their day-to-day lives.
It’s almost impossible to overstate the symbolic place of pickups in the rural ethos. There are so many country songs about pickups — from “Truck Yeah” to “If My Truck Could Talk” — they constitute their own subgenre. Of course, like pickups, country music may be rooted in rural America and popular there, but it is consumed by people everywhere.
More recent truck marketing uses rural imagery to evoke masculine virtues that you can capture no matter who you are, where you live or what you do for a living. As Sawin told me, once the auto companies realized the rural market for pickups was saturated, “they still needed to sell more trucks. So they really start[ed] to turn to targeting the suburban White man.” Those may be primarily conservatives, but liberals could constitute a fruitful market as well. In one television ad, a diverse cast of people, including a young Black woman riding a subway, sings “Thank God I’m a country boy.”
It’s a kind of double bank shot whose main target may be urban and suburban liberals who feel the urge to buy a truck but need to be convinced that it can be integrated into their worldview. But men are still the primary audience, and sometimes the marketing comes right out and tells them that getting a truck will make them more handsome, strong and appealing to women.
Look closely at the most popular trucks today, and you’ll notice that in many cases the bed — the part that’s useful for work — has gotten significantly shorter, even as the trucks have gotten taller and more imposing. While it’s still possible to buy a truck with an eight-foot bed that will hold a full sheet of plywood, the beds on most trucks have shrunk to make room for larger, more comfortable back seats. The bench seats up front were long ago replaced by comfortable bucket seats, and today’s trucks are outfitted with all the comforts and infotainment options one could want. What you end up with is a luxury vehicle that happens to have a bed in the back — but might not be that useful on a farm.
Unsurprisingly, most owners aren’t using their trucks the way actors do in the TV ads. As a marketing executive told an automotive website in 2019, according to industry data, “75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling … once a year or less.” Owners do, however, cite their desire to “present a tough image” and “have their car act as [an] extension of their personality” as reasons to own a pickup.
Many of these luxury vehicles have luxury prices, too. The 2023 Ford F-150 Limited has an MSRP of just under $85,000, before options. Searching in my area on Cars.com, I found many F-150s selling for over $100,000.
And people with no need to haul hay to the back 40 are willing to pay that much. The three top-selling vehicles in America last year were pickups: the Ford F-series, the Ram pickup and the Chevy Silverado — the same three that have held the top rankings for years.
Like political parties, marketers of consumer goods sell us not just products but also emblems of identity. Pickup owners can now be found everywhere, so if there is a “crisis of masculinity,” it may not be all on the political right. But it will definitely sell a lot of trucks. | 2022-11-01T13:48:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Pickups are manly, even for city folk who never use them as trucks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/pickup-trucks-men-masculinity-rural-symbols/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/pickup-trucks-men-masculinity-rural-symbols/ |
Why the architecture of affirmative action was always destined to collapse
Participants pose for a group photo on Oct. 31 during a rally in support of affirmative action policies outside the Supreme Court. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
One of my favorite statistics for shocking Washingtonians is to reveal that in 1960, more than 9 in 10 Americans accounted for in the census were White — and of the remainder, the overwhelming majority were Black, with the rest of the “non-White” population totaling less than 2 million. (This is slightly complicated by the fact that the census didn’t even try to tally Hispanics until 1970 — but it seems unlikely that they were as much as 5 percent of the population.)
Unsurprisingly, our civil rights architecture was primarily structured to equalize the relations between a Black minority that had suffered centuries of state-sponsored racial oppression and a majority group that had perpetuated that manifestly unjust system. The civil rights establishment ended up with a dual mandate to prevent discrimination while narrowing the lingering gaps that reflected past injustice.
Those goals were often in tension, the results awkwardly jury-rigged. The desire to rapidly equalize outcomes suggested quotas, a solution popular with some left-leaning institutions that wanted to bolster their legitimacy on racial issues. But this conflicted with another deeply held social value: that we treat individuals as individuals, not representatives of some racial category.
This tension was not intolerable; societies can handle a considerable gap between de facto and de jure, and we managed ours tolerably well, with recourse to euphemisms such as “diversity” rather than admitting the stark fact of racial balancing. The larger problem was that the United States didn’t stay one nation, Black and White. The 1965 immigration reform, passed just a year after the Civil Rights Act, eventually complicated the old accommodations to the point of collapse.
As legal scholar David Bernstein points out in “Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America,” “Experience around the world shows that affirmative action categories almost always expand rather than contract, as more and more groups lobby to get affirmative action preferences and then lobby to protect those preferences.” A system that drew its political support from our desire to eradicate Jim Crow ended up covering a number of protected classes, though along somewhat arbitrary lines that were driven as much by political maneuvering as by any rational criteria. This created various ad hoc absurdities — a Pakistani is “Asian,” but an Afghan born a few miles across the border might be coded “White”; the daughter of a Spanish doctor is Hispanic, eligible for various private and government-sponsored affirmative action programs, while the child of an Italian janitor, who might be visually indistinguishable from the doctor’s child, is presumably in no need of help.
The more immigrants who arrived, the more these complications multiplied, even among Black Americans. American descendants of enslaved people are our most disadvantaged citizens, with enduring gaps in education, income and wealth, but African immigrants are much better educated than average. The old system assumed a large White majority that was self-contained and thoroughly dominant; it was simply not built for a world where “biracial” was a meaningful category, or where some minority groups were more successful than the (rapidly shrinking) White majority.
In 1960, schools could have given underrepresented minorities a boost, allowed some minorities such as Asian Americans to be overrepresented, while retaining a representative White majority. But today, Harvard University’s own internal research has suggested that Asian Americans would make up 43 percent of an admitted class if only academics were considered. Allowing Asian numbers to grow in accordance with their academic overperformance, while keeping affirmative action in place, would presumably have left the White majority substantially underrepresented.
That might be morally justified on various grounds, but it is politically untenable and eventually those contradictions would have forced substantial reforms of our current system. A more liberal court might have kept things as they are for a few more years, but eventually it would have come up against the same problem.
In the name of making its elite institutions fully representative, America can ask some members of the White majority to step aside in favor of underrepresented minorities with lower grades and test scores. And in the name of procedural fairness, America can ask disappointed White applicants to suck it up when they were outcompeted for university places by overperforming minority groups. But America cannot ask both those things at once — not when the numbers get so big and the stakes so high.
Opinions on affirmative action
Opinion|Why the architecture of affirmative action was always destined to collapse | 2022-11-01T13:48:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Affirmative actionis no longer a workable solution to racial problems - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/supreme-court-affirmative-action-demographic-change-tensions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/supreme-court-affirmative-action-demographic-change-tensions/ |
If today’s GOP baffles you, consider what motivates its base
President Donald Trump holds a Bible outside St. John's Church across Lafayette Square from the White House. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
How can so many people buy into false election fraud claims, climate change denialism or panic over White people being “replaced”? How can they vote for manifestly unfit Republicans such as Georgia U.S. Senate nominee Herschel Walker or Pennsylvania gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano?
For answers, turn to the Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Survey, which provides insight into the beliefs of White evangelical Christians, who make up the core of the GOP. It reveals a lot about what they think and why they vote the way they do.
A striking 71 percent of these voters think the country has gone downhill since the 1950s (when women were excluded from most professions, Black Americans faced barriers to voting, 50 million Americans still used outhouses and only about 5 percent of Americans were college-educated). Because White Protestant evangelicals make up such a large share of the GOP, that means 66 percent of Republicans want to go back to the time of “Leave It to Beaver.”
Half of White evangelical Protestants also think God intended America to be the promised land. Nearly two-thirds say immigrants are a threat, and 61 percent say “society has become too soft and feminine.” And they are the only discrete religious group polled to support overturning Roe v. Wade.
On race, only 19 percent of the group agrees that “the legacy of slavery and discrimination have limited Black Americans’ upward mobility.” They are the least likely to accept that African Americans disproportionately receive the death penalty. And here’s the kicker: Unlike a majority of Americans, “six in ten white evangelical Protestants (61%) agree that discrimination against white Americans has become as big a problem as discrimination against racial minorities.”
Given these figures, it shouldn’t be surprising that while 58 percent of Americans think white supremacy is still a major problem, only 33 percent of White evangelical Protestants do, the lowest among religious groups. Similarly, 51 percent of the group believe that public teachers and librarians are “indoctrinating students with inappropriate curricula and books that wrongly portray America as a racist country,” compared with only 29 percent of Americans broadly.
And on immigration, only 30 percent of Americans buy into the “great replacement theory.” But 51 percent of White evangelical Protestants agree that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.”
As one might expect, this group is bolstering former president Donald Trump. “White evangelical Protestants are the only major religious group in which a majority of adherents say they view Trump favorably (63%), roughly similar to the share in 2021 (67%),” the survey finds. Likewise, 54 percent believe in the “big lie” of a stolen election, compared with 28 percent of all Americans.
In a nutshell, this group’s beliefs clash with the essence of the American experiment and conflict with objective facts, demography and economics. White evangelical Protestants’ outlook is warped by right-wing media and refracted through a prism of visceral anger and resentment.
It makes little sense to debate whether the MAGA movement radicalized White evangelical Protestants or the other way around. They are essentially one and the same.
Last year, Eastern Illinois University professor Ryan Burge wrote for the New York Times, “In essence, many Americans are coming to the understanding that to be very religiously engaged and very politically conservative means that they are evangelical, even if they don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.” In other words, Burge explained, more people are “conflating evangelicalism with Republicanism — and melding two forces to create a movement that is not entirely about politics or religion but power.” (This helps explain how evangelicals can embrace views that fly in the face of Christian theology; it’s not about the religion.)
The implications of the American Values Survey are profound. If millions of Americans think our country was best when White males were dominant and now think feminization plagues it, a great many would find comfort in the GOP’s toxic masculinity and in forced-birth laws that relegate women to the role of motherhood against their will. And if they dismiss the legacy of racism, many would favor policies that make it harder for minorities to vote and to access higher education (i.e., opposing affirmative action to rebalance college admissions in Whites’ favor).
These views also explain why so many Republicans seem perpetually angry and dissatisfied. What they want is unattainable. America is becoming less White, less male-dominated and less religious. Nothing politicians do or say will change this.
Moreover, White evangelicals are fundamentally out of step with the majority American opinion on everything from abortion to immigration to the legitimacy of the 2020 election. That, too, won’t change, no matter how angry they become.
Millions of White evangelical Protestants will therefore remain bonded with whatever cultlike figure can channel their anger. As long as he reaffirms and amplifies White evangelical Protestants’ fears, he can do no wrong. It also follows that a group that feels so besieged won’t much care about a candidate’s smarts, ethics or decency. Faced with a perceived existential threat, these Americans are inclined to support anyone who gives voice to their frustrations.
What endangers American democracy and democratic values goes far beyond one demagogue, one election or one set of policies. When so many Americans are driven by fear, resentment and antipathy toward inclusion, pluralistic democracy is at risk. Until we grapple with that reality, millions will remain vulnerable to cynical right-wing media and ruthlessly ambitious Republicans. | 2022-11-01T13:48:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | If today’s GOP baffles you, consider what motivates its base - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/white-evangelicals-survey-trump-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/white-evangelicals-survey-trump-republicans/ |
Sanam Mahoozi
Iranians are seen protesting Oct. 1 in an image obtained from social media, following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, after she was detained by the morality police in Tehran. (AP)
Across Iran, schoolgirls have defiantly taken off their headscarves, stomped on pictures of the supreme leader and chanted for freedom, producing some of the most iconic images from the country’s anti-government uprising. Now, the state is coming for them.
Many families fear sending their children to school, afraid they could be surveilled, beaten, detained or disappeared, rights groups and Iranians told The Washington Post. Iran’s clerical leaders are betting the crackdown on schools will help quell the unrest, now in its seventh week, but risk further radicalizing the public against them.
In interviews with The Post in recent weeks, three students and two parents described the assaults on schools, where teachers are under pressure to squash any sign of dissent and are often powerless to stop security forces from targeting the minors in their care. School attendance lists, report cards and security cameras have become tools of repression. Parents are warned to keep their children in check.
The Iranians interviewed for this piece spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing backlash from the government, which has punished people for communicating with foreign journalists. The Post could not independently verify their accounts, but they echo reports by human rights groups, as well as other international and local media.
“We are all in shock and sadness and don’t have the energy to do anything,” a 12-year-old boy in Tehran told The Post after plainclothes police raided his school this month to arrest a fellow student. He said he joined his classmates and teachers in physically intervening to stop the abduction.
Authorities refuse to say how many children they’ve arrested, but a deputy with the Revolutionary Guard Corps said Oct. 5 that the average age for “rioters” arrested was just 15. Iranian Education Minister Yousef Nouri said Oct. 11 that an undisclosed number of kids were being held in “psychology centers” for reform and reeducation, which rights groups say are notoriously abusive. Activists and lawyers told The Post at least 700 teenagers have been detained.
“We don’t know where they are taking these children or what is happening to them [in detention],” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights. “In some cases, these children are beaten and taken away by plainclothes [police].”
In Bukan, a Kurdish city in the northwest, there have been repeated reports of armed security forces entering schools and demanding security footage. In the capital Tehran, parents gathered outside a school amid reports of a raid by plainclothes police.
ورود نیروهای ویژه به مدرسه دخترانه تمدن در بوکان
۴شنبه ۲۷ مهر#مهسا_امینی #اعتصابات_سراسری pic.twitter.com/wTnaKYiBS0
— Bitter🍯 (@Be_Yourself38) October 20, 2022
Iran’s longest-running demonstrations in decades were sparked in mid-September by the death of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the hated “morality police.” Women and girls have since taken a leading role in the protests.
“Since the high schools and girls become involved in protests in Iran, the government became so sensitive about this situation,” said Hossein Raisi, a human rights professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. “They tried to first of all be silent about that and then tried to use oppression against them to push it down.”
While patterns of abuse are emerging, the pressure on families to remain silent and restrictions on internet and cellular access have made documenting and verifying cases a challenge.
Fifteen-year-old Esra Panahi from the northwestern city of Ardabil appears to have been the first minor reportedly killed by security forces while in school, according to Shiva Amelirad, a Canada-based international spokesperson for the Coordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates, Iran’s independent teachers union.
Esra was beaten to death by plainclothes police Oct. 12 after she and other classmates shouted “death to the dictator” and “woman, life freedom” at a pro-government rally they were ordered to attend that morning, Amelirad said. Other girls were injured and detained.
The Post could not independently verify the syndicate’s account.
But as the story began to circulate, Esra’s brother told Iranian state TV that his sister died from a heart issue. An uncle claimed it was suicide. Authorities frequently pressure family members of the dead and detained to issue false statements, according to rights groups.
Days after Esra’s death, her brother attempted suicide and was hospitalized, according to Amelirad. The Post could not determine his current condition.
Minors have been killed at alarming rates, especially in Iran’s minority Kurdish and Baluch regions. Human Rights Activists in Iran, a Washington-based group, said Monday it had verified the deaths of 121 people — 46 were under the age of 18.
More deaths are likely to have gone undocumented, with families fearful of bringing their children to hospitals and intimidated into silence. Others have been forced to sign falsified death certificates to retrieve their children’s bodies, Amiry-Moghaddam said.
Raisi, who worked for 20 years as a human rights lawyer in Iran, said the Intelligence Ministry and the intelligence wing of the Revolutionary Guard are overseeing detained minors beyond the scope of the law. “They’re keeping them outside of the standards of children’s rights in detention,” he said.
Juvenile correction centers are more akin to “brainwashing” sites, Raisi said, where children are forced to sign incriminating statements and pledge allegiance to the state. “They put them under pressure and there is psychological torture,” he said.
Amelirad said she spoke directly to a 15-year-old and 17-year-old arrested in different incidents outside the same school in western Iran. Both took off their hijabs when classes ended. The children were held for days in a crowded cell, interrogated and beaten before being released with fines, she said.
“They asked them if someone from a Western country tried to push them to protest,” she said. “They told them that their life is over.”
The Coordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates has been actively organizing school strikes and publicizing reports of attacks on kids and teachers — some have been violent, others more subtle.
A 17-year-old in Mashhad, in northeast Iran, told The Post her school had permitted long nails, fringes and dyed hair in recent years. But after protests began, she said, a new headmistress came and imposed a strict dress code, punished girls for loose headscarves and forced students to pray.
A conservatively dressed woman with prayer beads began roaming the school taking videos of students who shouted protest chants, the 17-year-old said. The school started organizing day trips and other events to distract students, who were told their grades would suffer if they did not attend.
The teenager said she occasionally joined in chanting slogans but was too afraid to be more vocal.
“They smile to your face and say nothing when you protest, but then they take videos and betray you behind your back,” she said of the school principal and teachers.
A 14-year-old girl from Tehran said she and her classmates only talk about the protests in private. They worry teachers have enlisted other students to spy on them. In mid-October, she said, police came to check if students had ripped out photos of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, from their textbooks — as other young girls had done in a viral video.
Amid calls for school boycotts, she said, administrators warned that students absent for longer than a week would lose marks.
The 12-year-old boy in Tehran said after the school rallied to prevent the police from arresting his classmate, officers vowed to return later to take the child.
The school principal sneaked the student out and sent him home in a taxi. Teachers gathered at the main door to block police from reentering, the 12-year-old said.
His mother, a 45-year-old painter, said she was terrified about her son’s mental health and future. Administrators told parents they will protect students inside the school — but could do nothing once they leave the grounds.
“The regime has lost massive credibility” for targeting schoolchildren, said Manijeh Moradian, an assistant professor at Barnard College. “It becomes harder and harder to defend a government that assaults its own students.” | 2022-11-01T13:48:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As unrest grips Iran’s schools, the government is going after children - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/iran-protests-children-hijab-amini/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/iran-protests-children-hijab-amini/ |
Roads blocked, flights canceled as Bolsonaro still silent on election
Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro, mainly truck drivers, block the BR-101 highway in Palhoca, in the metropolitan region of Florianopolis, Santa Catarina State, Brazil, on Oct. 31, 2022, as an apparent protest over Bolsonaro's defeat in the presidential runoff election. (Anderson Coelho/AFP/Getty Images)
RIO DE JANEIRO — Scattered roadblocks by Brazilian truckers supporting defeated President Jair Bolsonaro grew to more than 200 actions in 22 states by Tuesday morning, forcing the cancellation of some flights in Brazil’s largest city as the incumbent’s silence after losing Sunday’s election spread uncertainty over his next move.
At one point, more than 300 roads were partly or totally blocked, leading Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the country’s top election authority, to demand the Federal Highway Police use “all necessary measures” to unblock the highways, threatening the head of the police with imprisonment and fines of equal to nearly $20,000 if he did not comply by midnight Tuesday. As Moraes claimed inaction by the federal highway police, he authorized state police to act, even beyond their jurisdiction on federal highways, and authorized fines for truckers.
The warning came after the pro-Bolsonaro police unit had set up check points on election day in areas heavily populated with Lula voters, delaying voters by hours in some cases.
Brazil is on edge waiting to see whether the Trumpian Bolsonaro accepts the results of a narrow loss to his nemesis: Two-time former president and icon of the left Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was declared the winner by election authorities around 8 p.m. Sunday. Lula, who won by less than two percentage points and becomes the latest in a string of victorious leftist leaders to claim the presidential sash across Latin America, has already been warmly congratulated by world leaders including President Biden, and he met Monday with Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández.
For months, Bolsonaro has sought to sow doubt in the election system and has raised the unproven specter of fraud. His intentions now have been the subject of conflicting reports.
The highway police announced on its social networks this morning that it has already broken up 246 demonstrations. But Brazilian media reported that there are still more than 200 blockades in 22 states. The actions are affecting bus station and airports — at least 25 flights have been canceled. Brazilian media report that a United Airlines flight from Chicago to São Paulo had to return to the United States because access to the international airport was blocked.
The images of the demonstrations show blockades lined by pockets of a few protesters or trucks parked across highway lanes.
The demonstrations have been organized in part via Telegram groups. Early Tuesday morning, Bolsonaro supporters in these groups were asking for donations of money, water and food and encouraging members to mobilize toward roadblock locations. Some of the Telegram groups have more than 35,000 members.
Lawmakers close to Bolsonaro, such as Zambelli — who had pointed a gun at an unarmed Black man after a political argument in São Paulo on Saturday — have urged the truckers to resist. She recorded a video that spread quickly in the groups, asking for calm and for people to stand by the president.
On Monday, the president’s eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, was the first in his immediate circle to speak out publicly on his social networks. He told his supporters to raise their heads and not to give up on Brazil. Then he posted on Twitter: “Dad, I’m with you come what may!
Another son of the president, Jair Renan, posted a story on Instagram defending his father: “The devil saw me with my head down and smiled, but only until I said amen. You will see that your son does not run from the fight! I carry Bolsonaro in my name!” | 2022-11-01T14:09:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As Bolsonaro remains silent on election, supporters block roads, force canceled flights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/brazil-bolsonaro-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/brazil-bolsonaro-election/ |
Police officers examine the site of the Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon on October 30. ( Jean Chung for The Washington Post)
TOKYO — The desperate pleas for help came in as early as 6:34 p.m., several hours before unconscious bodies would be lined up along the main street in Seoul’s Itaewon district after a massive crowd surge.
“There are a lot of people going up and down this alley, I’m very nervous about it,” the caller said. “I think people might be crushed. I barely escaped, but there are too many people. I think you need to intervene.”
Over the next few hours, more people would arrive in that same alley, and partygoers would be packed to the point where they could not even move their fingers and toes. At least 156 people died and at least another 157 injured in the country’s deadliest incident in years.
Transcripts of about 11 emergency call logs released Tuesday show mounting desperation and repeated warnings from partygoers for at least four hours before the crush turned deadly. They pleaded for emergency personnel to intervene and control the crowd.
“This is chaos. Chaos,” one caller said. “I’m not even kidding.”
“We’re all trapped. This is about to become a major disaster.”
“Please do something about this street. I seriously think people are going to die.”
The transcripts reflect the chaos of that scene and corroborate some witness accounts that the area was worryingly crowded from early on in the evening. Many partygoers and members of the public have criticized the lack of police presence in the area.
South Korea’s police chief said Tuesday that crowd control was “inadequate” in the Itaewon area where the crush took place.
About 100,000 people were expected per night in that neighborhood over Halloween weekend. There were just 137 local police officers dispatched to the neighborhood — about one for every 730 people — whose primary role was to focus on petty crime, drugs and sexual and physical abuse. | 2022-11-01T14:09:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Itaewon emergency calls expressed alarm early in the night - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/south-korea-itaewon-emergency-transcripts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/south-korea-itaewon-emergency-transcripts/ |
Pastry chef Claudia Fleming in Union Square in New York. (Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post)
As a young girl, Claudia Fleming turned her nose up at pizzelles. The wafer-thin Italian cookie was omnipresent in the pastry chef’s childhood, thanks to a grandmother who spent hours every Sunday pressing sticky batter between two hot patterned metal plates until it was wide as a saucer and thin as a coin. They’d get stacked into towers to cool into crisps. “I think it was her way to relax,” Fleming says, recalling her grandmother’s habit — and family’s collective, low-key disdain. “Back then, my cousins and I made fun of them, like, ‘Oh, here come the pizzelles again…’ and everyone pretended like they didn’t eat them, but somehow they kept disappearing.”
So it still surprises Fleming a little bit that there are two pizzelle recipes in her newest, highly anticipated cookbook, “Delectable: Sweet and Savory Baking,” written with Catherine Young. One is based on her grandmother’s infamous pizzelles, and the other, a gouda pizzelle, is a nod to Fleming’s longtime fascination with the savory side of the kitchen.
To be clear, Fleming is not known for pizzelles — or she wasn’t, anyway. She’s probably most famous for a salted chocolate caramel tart that mimics a rich bonbon and was, for years, on the dessert menu at New York City’s Gramercy Tavern, part of Union Square Hospitality Group. The tart made it into her first book, “The Last Course,” a genre-defining collection of recipes that those in the baking and pastry world still hold dear more than 20 years after its initial release in 2001. After the book went out of print, copies of it were selling on eBay and other resale sites for more than $200 each. In 2019, Penguin Random House reprinted it to much fanfare. Not long after, the publisher struck a deal with Fleming for a second book. “Delectable” represents not just a new chapter in the pastry chef’s life and career, but also a homecoming.
In contrast to her first book, this one is aimed at home bakers, and that’s because when Fleming began writing it, she was stuck at home, like most of us: “It was the beginning of the pandemic, and I was mostly alone for months, baking for myself, tinkering, sharing with neighbors… I was revisiting the past through baking,” she says, noting that her grandmother’s pizzelle maker was passed down to her. That helped inspire her to try her hand at the classic Italian treat — alongside others that she didn’t like as a kid but has reimagined, including taralli, a crisp, savory pastry flavored with olive oil and wine; pignoli cookies; and cassata cake.
The book’s release also coincides with a professional development: Fleming first worked for Union Square Hospitality Group founder Danny Meyer in the 1980s. In 2021, she rejoined the group as executive pastry director. This month, she takes on a new role: executive culinary director of Daily Provisions, the group’s chainlet of casual cafes that serve a tight menu of such reimagined American classics as bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches, tomato soup and crullers that melt in the mouth. For those who know her as a pastry chef, it might seem like a surprising move. But for Fleming, it’s serendipity.
Claudia Fleming was born in 1959 in Brentwood, on Long Island, to an Italian mother and an Irish father. “The Italian side of the family easily won out, when it came to food,” Fleming says. “I mean, my mother made corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day and a green heart-shaped cake for my father’s birthday, but that was about it. Everything else was Italian.”
Fleming was not only the youngest daughter but also the youngest granddaughter. There were many aunts and uncles and cousins, and everyone went to Grandma Anna’s for Sunday supper. In addition to pizzelles, Fleming’s grandmother would make a feast, including manicotti and a Sicilian salad with sardines, fennel, white raisins and pine nuts.
During the week, Fleming’s mother would make sauce with meatballs and pork, meatloaf, stuffed shells, “the usual sort of stuff,” she recalls. Fleming was a gregarious student who still has many friends from elementary school. The new cookbook’s savory chapter includes a recipe for Mrs. Stasi’s Escarole Pie, named for the mother of one of her best friends from kindergarten.
Despite growing up around a lot of it, Fleming’s first love was not food but modern dance. “The fact that I chose a physical, not very intellectual, profession speaks to how much I didn’t like school,” Fleming says. “I always felt like working in restaurants was very similar to training as a dancer.” After high school, Fleming went to a dance conservatory in Connecticut, part of the Connecticut Ballet, and then followed one of her instructors to New York. Waiting tables was supposed to be a way to pay the bills while she studied and performed.
Her first job in the New York City restaurant industry was as a server at Dannon’s on the Park. When Jams, from chef Jonathan Waxman, opened in 1984, Fleming took a job as a server there. “I wasn’t one of those people who hated working in restaurants,” Fleming says. “I loved it.”
Restaurants seemed to love her back. She moved on to Union Square Cafe. After spending time in the front of the house, she asked whether she could intern in the pastry department, where she got her first taste of working in the kitchen. After three years there, she moved on to Tribeca Grill, where she became the pastry assistant to sous chef and pastry chef Gerry Hayden. Fleming remembers appreciating Hayden’s talent instantly, but the two were never more than friends — until a few years later, when he asked her out to dinner. (They married in 2001, the same year her first book was published.)
Meanwhile, newly obsessed with baking and cooking, Fleming went to Biarritz, France, and Paris to study pastry for a year. She landed a prestigious internship at Fauchon under the legendary Pierre Hermé, which eventually opened a lot of doors. But that wasn’t the only reason she went to Paris.
She had been carrying around a clipping of a Metropolitan Home magazine article by Coleman Andrews, who wrote about a sandwich shop called Così with such lavish admiration that Fleming was determined to get more than a taste. “I went to this place and just said, ‘I want to work here; I’ll work for free!’ ” Fleming recalls excitedly, “and they said, ‘We’re not French — we’ll pay you!’ ” The place — which in the 2000s merged with another group, went public and became a franchise operation — was run by expats from all over the world, and Fleming fit right in.
Eventually, Fleming went back to New York where she bounced around, doing catering here and there, before Meyer asked whether she’d talk to Gramercy Tavern chef Tom Colicchio about being the restaurant’s opening pastry chef. In 2000, she won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef and was part of the team that earned the restaurant’s first three-star review from the New York Times.
Pastry chef Pichet Ong worked at Tabla, another Union Square Hospitality Group restaurant, at the time and remembers that managers had a monthly dining allowance so they could try the other restaurants in the group. “Everyone wanted to use their dining allowance at Gramercy Tavern. It was a monthly ritual — all of the other pastry chefs would go there together and get the whole dessert menu,” he says. “Her desserts, seven or eight of them, were ideal for a group of four to eat. Her department was impressive — it had a staff big enough to service a restaurant on its own, and Claudia became known as an incredible mentor. Her kitchen generated a lot of proteges.”
The pastry world was somewhat surprised, then, when she left to become a director at the British sandwich chain Pret a Manger. It was the second time, after her stint at Così, that Fleming would get a taste of what it was like to manage and develop recipes for a cafe. Nevertheless, Pret was a blip; eight months after taking the job, she was back in the front of the house at Charlie Palmer’s now-closed Amuse, where Hayden was the chef and a partner.
“Gerry’s dream was always to go back to the North Fork [of Long Island], where he had spent summers as a kid,” Fleming says. After the couple bought a home there, Hayden started looking at commercial real estate. “I was caught off guard and didn’t think we could afford to open our own place, but when someone is so passionate about something, so in love with an idea, so motivated to make it work, you just want to help them see it through,” Fleming says. “We also both felt like we had worked for the best of the best. Gerry felt that way about Charlie [Palmer], and I felt that way about Danny [Meyer]. The only people left to work for were ourselves.”
The couple opened the North Fork Table & Inn in an old French bed-and-breakfast in 2006. The restaurant that served farm-to-table food with a few rooms above it soon became a community hub with a weekly farmers market where Fleming had a bakery stand. Their casual-fare food truck attracted a perpetual line that stretched down the street.
But in 2011, Hayden was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative condition also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Fleming helped care for her husband as his condition deteriorated. In 2014, the couple put their property up for sale. In 2015, Hayden died. Fleming, who couldn’t afford to take time off, somehow carried on running the place. In the interim, she sold their house and rented a small cottage on the water in Southold, down the road from dear friends. The North Fork Table & Inn sold to investors in January 2020.
“I always say that was Gerry looking out for me,” Fleming says. “Because we would have never made it through covid.” Fleming is glad to see that the renovated inn and restaurant is again thriving at its full potential, but is also grateful to be done with that debt. “When we bought it, I don’t think we had $15 in the bank,” she recalls, a grim expression on her face. “And we never got out from under. It’s hard to continue living out someone else’s dream, you know?”
Death has pricked Fleming throughout her life. Her brother, Jimmy, died when she was 14; she was 23 when her father died. Her mother died three months after Hayden died. “Having lost my brother at a young age … not a day goes by when I don’t think about death,” she says.
Yet Fleming never lost her stage presence. Her smile is grand, her eyes sparkle. She speaks with her hands, and even her whole body, when making a point or for emphasis. Her shoulders shimmy as she describes adding smoked gouda to a grilled cheese, “for a little somethin’ somethin’, you know?”
On weekdays Fleming lives in her mother’s old apartment on East 79th Street. She starts every morning on a yoga mat for some stretches. After that, she showers and then takes Baci — named for the Italian chocolates her grandmother loved — to doggy day care before commuting to a Daily Provisions location. She pulls up a photo on her phone of a dark brown cockapoo, approximately 75 percent fluff and 25 percent dog. Then she swipes over to Instagram to find a photo of a pastry she recently tasted. “But, wait, I have to show you something,” she says, navigating to her Instagram “Explore” page. Up pops an endless stream of cockapoo photos and videos. “I just love them!”
The past few years have been a reflection point for the entire world. In Fleming’s life, they’ve been a whirlwind of change. At the end of 2019, as she was in the process of selling the North Fork Table & Inn, and celebrating the reprint of her first book, she sent Meyer Christmas wishes. He asked whether she wanted to talk, and they eventually agreed that she should come back to work for the group. (They both tell the story of Fleming’s exit interview from Gramercy Tavern, when she told Meyer she would “never work for another restaurateur again.”)
But life had other plans, at least initially. In mid-March 2020, Fleming was at Maialino waiting to meet with Chip Wade, then COO (now CEO) of Union Square Hospitality Group, to discuss her new job. He called: “Chip said, ‘I have covid. We have to shut down the restaurants,’ ” Fleming recalls. What was to be a grand new beginning was put on indefinite hold.
So she went back into the kitchen — her home kitchen in Southold.
As she writes in the foreword to her new book, “I yearned for adventure but missed order and soon settled into a routine at home, firing up my anything-but-fancy oven to bake ingredients I bought at my not particularly well-stocked local grocery, I started by ‘tweaking’ old recipes, fiddling until I felt completely pleased with them, then I moved on to cooking things I never had. At some point — I can’t say when — I realized my practice of baking at home was just what I needed.”
These recipes — gruyere and onion cocktail biscuits, her mom’s Irish soda bread, pecan olive shortbread, the chocolate chip cookies she served off the North Fork Table food truck, an Italian plum and hazelnut tart, and a reimagined version of her salted caramel tart (this time with peanuts in the filling) — became “Delectable.” Home bakers will find a mixture of easier cookies and pastries alongside more challenging cakes and candies. The more complex chapters include interstitial essays describing techniques such as tempering chocolate, the chemistry of sugar, the best way to frost a cake and how to master pastry doughs like a pro. Nearly a third of the book is devoted to savory recipes. “Honestly, what calls to me most loudly are plates full of umami — ironically, I confess I sometimes prefer to end a meal with cheese,” she admits in the savory chapter of the book.
“I think I’m really a frustrated cook,” Fleming told me.
So when the executive culinary director of Daily Provisions left the group, Meyer thought she’d be a good fit. “Her taste in food is just spectacular,” Meyer says by phone. “I’ve seen this in the world of chefs and the world of winemakers — you can taste someone’s personality in their food, and that’s true for Claudia, whether she’s making a cookie or a sandwich.”
Still, the job isn’t without its challenges. There’s a whole new generation of cooks and bakers in the kitchens at Union Square Hospitality Group, and most of them don’t know Fleming’s impressive résumé. She is tasked with creating menu items for and training teams in four Daily Provisions locations, including two commissaries, and it can be tricky when the boss wants something done one way, but a young cook thinks they know a better way. Fleming’s guidance tends to be equal parts firm and gentle; she is built of patience.
Meyer puts it another way: “I don’t know if you can be humble to a fault, because it’s a great human quality, but that’s how I would describe Claudia in the kitchen and in life.” | 2022-11-01T14:26:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pastry chef Claudia Fleming’s new cookbook and job take her home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/01/claudia-fleming-pastry-chef-delectable-new-cookbook/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/01/claudia-fleming-pastry-chef-delectable-new-cookbook/ |
Anthony Fauci looks at a portrait of himself, and sees the future
A new artwork in the National Portrait Gallery reveals his career, his legacy and ‘how complicated it all was,’ he says
Artist Hugo Crosthwaite created a five-minute stop-motion drawing animation featuring Anthony S. Fauci. It will be shown in D.C.'s National Portrait Gallery. (Video: Hugo Crosthwaite)
Anthony Fauci doesn’t know how history will remember him, but he does know how it will see him.
On a recent Saturday, he’s inside a private room at Washington’s National Portrait Gallery, looking at the work of art that will hang alongside presidents, celebrities, inventors and other distinguished Americans. It’s a video — a stop-motion animation — chronicling his landmark career through a series of intense drawings that leap out from the screen.
“I don’t think of myself in the same category as the people in the National Portrait Gallery, even if other people do,” says the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who became the face of the pandemic, for better and worse. “You never quite see yourself at that level.”
Fauci has been photographed too many times to count, and people have sent him dozens of paintings — notably singer-artist Joan Baez, who called him up and said, “I’ve admired what you’ve done. I have a portrait of you.” The two became friends; Fauci was her date when Baez received the Kennedy Center Honors last year.
“You always think things don’t do justice to you until you realize that maybe your own image of yourself is a little bit distorted compared to what the world sees,” he says. In Fauci’s mind, he’s far more human than he’s often depicted: “I don’t take that kind of personal vanity stuff seriously. Brad Pitt played me on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ I know I’m not Brad Pitt, no matter how much I would love to look like Brad Pitt.”
The gallery’s portrait is a decidedly modern take on the genre: Artist Hugo Crosthwaite made graphite and charcoal drawings and adapted them into the animated video, which will go on exhibit Nov. 10, part of the gallery’s Portrait of a Nation awards. (Other honorees include José Andrés, Clive Davis, Ava DuVernay, Marian Wright Edelman, and Serena and Venus Williams.)
A successful pairing of subject and artist is a feat of creative matchmaking; as much about chemistry as artistry. The gallery curators thought that Crosthwaite, winner of its 2019 portrait competition, would be an intriguing complement to Fauci.
“They said, ‘You’re not going to believe it, but we have somebody for you who is one of our real stars,’ ” remembers Fauci. “And then they said, ‘But he’s very unusual.’ And I said, ‘Fine. I don’t know what that means, but that sounds interesting.’ ”
Crosthwaite recalls, “They proposed Fauci and I almost fell out of my seat. Yes, yes, definitely yes!”
Anthony Fauci is up against more than a virus
The process began more than a year ago with an hour-long interview at Fauci’s kitchen table, where the artist quizzed him about his career. Then he went back to his Mexican home, where he created 19 black-and-white images depicting the two historical bookends of Fauci’s life: his role in the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and the pandemic of 2020.
Crosthwaite, whose works are laced with social issues, says he wanted to capture not just the man, but the era. He knew he wanted to do a stop-motion animation based on those drawings; the trick was how to squeeze everything into a five-minute video.
In that private room at the gallery, surrounded by classic portraits of first ladies Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush, Fauci watches the final video, which will run on a loop surrounded by seven of the drawings.
“The pace of the music right away attracts you because it is commensurate with how he sketches,” narrates Fauci. There’s the National Institutes of Health building where he’s based, his lab, his co-workers — then victims of HIV, and the demand from AIDS activists that Fauci and the government do more.
The action fast-forwards to a new virus — the coronavirus — attacking the lungs of a woman who dies. “Here’s me at the White House now with my famous palm to my head when the president [Trump] said something completely ridiculous,” he points out. And then images of protesters against vaccines and masks.
Now a sketch of Fauci’s face — serious, pensive: “Here I am, getting a bit older. You notice my eyes?” It’s the first thing you notice; he looks infinitely sad.
Fauci plans to step down in December after half a century in government
This portrait is as much about suffering and death as it is about Fauci. What stands out for him is the differences between the vocal protesters of the two eras: The activists of Act Up, a movement to bring more attention to the AIDS crisis, were trying to cure a disease, unlike anti-vaccine activists, who Fauci says were anti-reality and anti-common sense.
He respected and became close friends with those activists from the 1980s — and remains so today. “They were good people and there was no way they were going to hurt me,” he says. “So I didn’t need the protection that I have now with the people who really want to hurt me.”
Fauci has no problem explaining that journey, but has a harder time articulating how it feels. “You remember yourself when you were quite young in the beginning, and then you see what you went through — and then you’re still kind of living through what’s going on right now with covid. So it’s a very poignant feeling.”
Not proud?
“No, it’s poignant,” he says. “Proud is a funny word because it can be taken out of context. I am proud of the things we’ve done. But what Hugo did was to show, in a very interesting, subtle way, how complicated it all was.”
He hopes that visitors to the gallery in, say, 50 years — people who never heard of him — might get curious: “Maybe somebody wanting to explore that history a little bit more deeply, because those are really two very historical events that have occurred within the single lifetime of us. Not just me, but of our generation.” | 2022-11-01T14:26:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Anthony Fauci looks at a portrait of himself, and sees the future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/anthony-fauci-portrait-gallery/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/01/anthony-fauci-portrait-gallery/ |
Roberts temporarily delays release of Trump tax records
Visitors leave the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 31, 2022. (Eric Lee/for The Washington Post)
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. temporarily halted the release of former president Donald Trump’s tax records to a congressional committee, and called for more briefing in the case.
Without the Supreme Court’s intervention, the records could have been handed over to the House Ways and Means Committee as early as Thursday.
Last week, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined to review earlier rulings finding that lawmakers are entitled to the documents in the long-running legal battle. The court also said it would not put the release of the papers on hold.
Roberts, the justice designated to hear emergency orders from that court, put the release on hold and called for a response from the committee by noon on Thursday.
In Mich., Rep. Kildee calls his GOP opponent ‘a California trust-fund millionaire'
1:20 PMTwitter says China-based accounts tried to stoke division before midterms
12:58 PMWoman who has accused Walker of pressuring her to have abortion appears on camera
12:33 PMArizona Libertarian candidate ends campaign, endorses GOP’s Masters | 2022-11-01T14:48:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Roberts temporarily delays release of Trump tax records - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/supreme-court-trump-taxes-roberts/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/supreme-court-trump-taxes-roberts/ |
‘Saturnalia’ is a morbid jigsaw puzzle that’s more clever than scary
(Washington Post illustration; Santa Ragione)
Developed by: Santa Ragione | Published by: Santa Ragione
Available on: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Release: Oct. 27
During classical antiquity, the Roman festival of Saturnalia was a time for merriment and role reversal. For the duration of the holiday — traditionally celebrated during the second half of December — relations between the economic classes softened, blurring to the point that masters sometimes attended to their servants’ whims. Loosely inspired by the legacy of such events, the new survival horror game “Saturnalia” focuses on a small Italian village that holds its own version of the festival, calling into question the relationships between villagers. Playing it is like putting together a morbid jigsaw puzzle, where the draw is seeing how the pieces fit together.
At the start, we’re introduced to Anita, one of the game’s four playable characters. Visiting Gravoi for work, she has an affair with Damiano, a married man employed by the village church. Anita’s plan to leave Gravoi is frustrated by the fact that the only road out of the town is blocked for the mysterious “Festa di Santa Lucia.” Anita goes looking for her housemate and second playable character, Paul, who excitedly tells her about a creature he photographed while exploring the area that recoiled from the flash of his camera. Soon thereafter, Anita has a run-in with the deadly creature after she goes to the church to confront Damiano, who contrives to have the monster attack her by luring it with the sound of the church bell.
Why Damiano would try to murder his former paramour is one of the many mysteries that surface throughout the night. As players poke around Gravoi, they’ll come to find out more about the grievances, vendettas and other secrets that the residents of the village harbor. It becomes evident that the festival is used as a backdrop for conspiracy and murder.
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Visually, the game looks like a colorful sketchpad from 1989 — the year the game is set — brought to life. Characters are rendered in hatched, muted tones while the environments are splashed in color. Wandering around the village, one encounters patches of pink fog that call to mind the bright color palette of a Dario Argento movie and inky-blue interiors that evoke nimble penwork.
Rounding out the game’s cast of playable characters are Claudia, a teenager who chafes at her father’s attempts to keep her home during the festival, and Sergio — a good friend of Paul’s — who was effectively banished from Gravoi in 1969 when his relationship with one of the village’s largest landowners came to light. Each of “Saturnalia’s” playable characters has a special ability: Paul can use his camera to distract the creature and photograph clues for later analysis; Sergio has a wireless phone (that puts him in the vanguard of tech enthusiasts in 1989); Claudia can squeeze into places too narrow for anyone else; and Anita can remember the location of places not listed on any of the maps posted throughout the town. With the press of a button, Anita can call up the direction of any location without having to consult a map, and with another button press, she’ll point in the direction of her chosen destination.
I favored Anita, since Gravoi is unevenly paved with capriciously curving roads, bewildering cul-de-sacs, and narrow lanes with dead-ends. Though the part of me that is directionally impaired was frustrated by the village’s serpentine layout, I admired it nonetheless for its suboptimal, all-too-human character, which would drive a rational urban planner mad.
Switching between the four players can be done by either having one character talk to another or by calling them on the phone. Each of the characters has their own quest. Most of the missions in the game involve solving basic puzzles — i.e. find a tool to unlock something or figure out a way to exert vengeance on a deserving malefactor.
If all four characters die, the village’s roads reshuffle. Early on, this poses a real penalty as you have to retrieve your dropped inventory on a new run as well as (re)discover a certain number of places on the map before Anita’s ability is activated. Unlocked shortcuts are carried over between runs, and eventually a most-welcome, timesaving mechanic is introduced that grants you access to important tools retrieved in previous runs.
I suffered a handful of party wipeouts during my 20 hours with the game, but I never felt particularly unsettled during the monster encounters. I suppose that’s because they’re all scored with the same music and lead to a similar animation if you get caught (the creature chains characters up to an altar). The village is dotted with hiding places (like trash bins) that you can hop into to wait out the creature if it passes by. In addition, there is a cover-your-eyes mechanic to draw less attention to your character should the creature be in the vicinity. By the second half of the game, I found myself dispensing mostly with such tactics in favor of using the game’s twisty pathways to outmaneuver the monster. Most of the characters tire rather quickly if you use the run button, but even so I never found a need to use stamina-boosting items; the creature is no bloodhound and is really only a threat if it corners you.
Since the monster encounters failed to generate much tension, I’d hoped to latch onto the game’s story. Alas, most of “Saturnalia’s” dialogue unfolds as short snippets of on-screen text that feel more like notes to conversations than anything else. The information gleaned from working through the game’s puzzles also lacked emotional resonance — so-and-so died by suicide because of X reason, that person met a bad end because of Y politics, etc. The characters felt like cogs in an impressively intricate structure.
That said, I took satisfaction in watching the dense spiderweb of clues and connections unfurl. Details found while exploring the village, more than stories, constitute the narrative backbone of the game. (Here is one that stuck with me: In a hidden room that once housed a sick patient, there is a tool that looks like a hammer lying on the bed. Clicking on it brings up an info box: “Accabadora’s Hammer: A traditional tool to end the suffering of the sick.”)
“Saturnalia” is best approached as a darkly themed puzzle game constructed around the social bonds that unite a village. The handcrafted art style nicely counterbalances a decent game that is let down by its survival horror elements. | 2022-11-01T16:20:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Saturnalia review: A morbid puzzle that’s more clever than scary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/reviews/saturnalia-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/reviews/saturnalia-review/ |
Political appeals to White insecurity are now explicit
Stephen Miller makes remarks at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas on July 11, 2021. (Emil Lippe for The Washington Post)
The story of racial politics in the United States over the last half-century isn’t complicated. The passage of the Voting Rights Act helped solidify African American support for Democrats — and provided an opportunity for Republicans in areas hostile to the expansion of voting rights for Blacks. That primarily meant the South, where partisan differences on race and generational change contributed to a deep-blue region becoming a dark-red one.
At the same time, though, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s aspirational declaration that the arc of history bent toward justice seemed accurate: America was becoming more open to Black voices and leadership. Appeals to racial hostility were still valuable to the GOP politically, so the “Southern strategy” emerged.
Instead of talking specifically about limiting the power of Black Americans (as was common in the Jim Crow era), Republican candidates talked about issues with obvious racial subtexts: integration efforts, states’ rights, support for social services. Richard M. Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign focused on crime — very much with the understanding of how that focus would be interpreted by White Americans.
In recent years, the facade has slipped. Former president Donald Trump’s appeals to White insecurity were far more explicit than those of prior political candidates. That was in part because he shared that insecurity and saw how it played in conservative media. But it was also timing: A surge in immigration in 2014 and the emergence of Black Lives Matter that same year heightened the concerns of heavily White older Americans. This was measurable and measured.
Still, though, the appeals were usually subtextual. Trump ran close to the line, suggesting that he was being targeted by New York’s attorney general because she, a Black woman, was racist. With a new radio ad from a Trump-allied group, though, the appeal is explicit.
Politico obtained a copy of the ad.
“When did racism against White people become OK?” it begins. The spot then rehashes news stories elevated in conservative media that cast efforts to ensure equal access for non-Whites to things like medical care with limits on access for Whites. “Progressive corporations, airlines, universities: All openly discriminate against White Americans. Racism is always wrong. The left’s anti-White bigotry must stop.”
The ad was paid for by “America First Legal,” an organization founded by former Trump aide Stephen Miller. Miller was best-known during his tenure in the administration for his hard line anti-immigration position. Since leaving government, he’s mostly dedicated his time to railing against the supposed dangers of the political left and making broad claims of how President Biden has undercut America.
Politico reports that the ads are running in Georgia — the only state in the Deep South to swing back to the left after the Civil-Rights-era backlash. The New York Times reports that America First Legal is spending $5 million on radio advertising, though it’s not clear if all of that is going toward this particular ad. Regardless, it is a non-insignificant effort to make a very specific, unsubtle appeal to the concerns of White Americans.
Again: Those concerns exist. White Republicans commonly tell pollsters that they view Whites as targets of discrimination to the same extent as other groups, including Blacks and Hispanics. Polling released last week from PRRI, in fact, found that Republicans see discrimination against Whites as a problem just as big as discrimination against Blacks — and that Republicans are less likely to think that Black people still face systemic disadvantages. Like ones that would warrant ensuring that they have equal access to medical care.
The latter claim from the ad is worth separating out. To the extent that it is meant as anything other than a wave of the hand at perceived “wokeness,” it appears to loop in White backlash against affirmative action policies. Such policies have gotten renewed attention in recent weeks, thanks to the Supreme Court’s consideration of a challenge to them. Recent polling from The Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School found that most Americans, including most White Americans, think universities shouldn’t consider race for admissions policies. There’s robust opposition to perceived systemic disadvantages to a racial group — at least when that group includes Whites.
The poll also found, though, that most Americans think there should be an effort to increase diversity on campus. That includes 6 in 10 Whites, though Whites were less likely than other groups to hold that view. This is a core divide in discussions of race in the United States, of course: Can we or can’t we figure out how to build a society with equal opportunity without instituting systems aimed at doing so directly?
But in the context of politics, the line between tacit and explicit support for diversity erodes. The right’s backlash against this vague thing called “woke” is largely a function of treating individual calls for respecting minority voices as somehow being a systemic call to do so. It is the idea that there is a hierarchy of power that exerts itself outside of the law and forces compliance through shaming and compliance. So some professor at San Diego State who puts “she/her” in her Twitter bio becomes part of the vanguard of organized oppression against real America.
This idea that Whites are disadvantaged is cultural and generational and amplified repeatedly in an increasingly unconstrained right-wing media. Miller’s unsubtle intertwining of hostility to immigration and race manifests in this ad that specifically asserts that White America is on the decline.
The appeals used to be coded, quiet. Present and identifiable, but shying away from specific “they’re coming for you” language. The coding is gone. The elevation of racial fear is explicit. The Southern strategy is gone; the Jim Crow appeals to Blacks usurping power are back.
That PRRI poll found that two-thirds of Republicans think American culture and way of life have changed for the worse since 1950. The America First Legal ad is nostalgic for that era in all the wrong ways.
Patty Murray, in closing pitch, says opponent will be controlled by McConnell
4:05 PMAnalysis: In a last-minute attack, Democrats say GOP wants to cut entitlements | 2022-11-01T16:50:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Political appeals to White insecurity are now explicit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/race-republicans-stephen-miller-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/race-republicans-stephen-miller-trump/ |
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection interviewed Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi on Monday, in part focusing on his role in issuing statements that undercut former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony, according to people familiar with the interview.
Lawmakers and investigators on the committee are working to finish a final report, delving into intelligence failures and why the Secret Service failed to take action after they were notified of various threats regarding Jan. 6, according to people familiar with the committee’s work.
During her live testimony in June, Hutchinson testified that Tony Ornato, the deputy chief of staff who served as a liaison for Secret Service, told her that Trump tried to wrestle the steering wheel away from the head of his Secret Service detail Robert Engel after his appearance at the “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse.
The committee repeatedly on Monday asked Guglielmi to walk through how he chose to describe Ornato and Engel’s accounts of events on Jan. 6, 2021, and the agency’s rebuttal of Hutchinson’s account of the story provided by Ornato about Trump’s behavior in the heavily fortified SUV.
Many of the lawmakers on the panel were present for the interview. A committee spokesperson declined to comment. | 2022-11-01T16:59:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 panel interviews Secret Service spokesperson over Cassidy Hutchinson testimony - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/01/jan-6-panel-interviews-secret-service-spokesperson-over-cassidy-hutchinson-testimony/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/01/jan-6-panel-interviews-secret-service-spokesperson-over-cassidy-hutchinson-testimony/ |
So you’re thinking about eating more plants?
You’re in good company. Whether people are actually doing it, they’re certainly thinking and talking about it. A recent poll from Oklahoma State University that’s still undergoing peer review puts the number of American adults who say they’re vegan or vegetarian at 10 percent (a number consistent with other polls I’ve seen). Meanwhile, flexitarianism has also become a thing, and plant messages are everywhere.
Is carbon-neutral beef possible or a pipe dream? Soil may offer clues.
Plants themselves, not so much. So far, there’s no evidence that people are actually eating more of them — and meat consumption hasn’t decreased — but if you’re gonna do something, talking and thinking about it is a necessary first step.
Eating more plants gives you lots of room to maneuver because there are lots of kinds of plants. But, from a climate perspective, they’re not created equal; some are way better than others. If climate impact is one of the things making plants climb your personal dinner chart, it helps to know which tread most lightly on our earth.
When you think of vegans and vegetarians, you naturally think of vegetables. Salads, leafy greens, broccoli, asparagus! And they’re all better climate choices than meat. But, among plants, they’re the worst choice. Sounds weird, I know, because they’ve gotten more of a health halo than any other plant category, but there are three reasons vegetables are climatically suboptimal.
The first is that they have higher fertilizer and pesticide loads than most other plant crops. While there aren’t reliable input-per-crop statistics (that I’ve found), you can get a sense of the disparity by looking at production costs. A 2017 analysis of broccoli’s costs puts fertilizer at $269 and pesticides at $335, about $600 per acre per year. Look at corn or soy from that same year, and total fertilizer and pesticide costs ran about $200 per acre for corn, and less than $100 for soybeans. Vegetables are also mostly irrigated, and mostly tilled (California, for example, has very few no-till acres). Consequently, their impact on the environment is relatively heavy.
Second is their perishability, which contributes to food waste. Something like one-third of the food we grow in the United States gets wasted, but for fruits and vegetables, it’s closer to half. I’m betting that, if you were to check your fridge right now, you’d find something at the bottom of the crisper to prove the point.
Third is that most vegetables, especially the green kind, have very few calories, and that’s a conundrum. In a world of overabundance, where obesity is a pressing public health problem, foods with few calories are a good thing. But when we have a growing population to feed, and limited land on which to do it, using that land to grow nutrients without calories is a luxury.
We’ve got about 7.7 billion people on Earth, and 2.7 billion acres growing crops. That comes to one-third of an acre per person, to grow crops both for us and the animals we eat (we also get calories from grazing animals, which is problematic for other reasons). Green vegetables yield some of the lowest calories per acre; spinach and leaf lettuce, for example, are about 1.6 million. Yes, they’re high in nutrition! But ideally, we’re looking for crops that deliver both calories and nutrition. Oh, and protein’s good, too; there are still places in the world where people don’t get enough (although the United States is emphatically not one of them).
I’m not anti-veg! I eat plenty of them, and they absolutely, positively have a place in a diet that both people and planet can thrive on. But if you eat more than a few servings a day, your diet’s going to have a bigger climate impact than if you focus on other kinds of plants.
Fruits and nuts
Climate-friendly foods grow on trees!
Tree fruits and nuts aren’t perfect. Fruits use a lot of pesticides (one 2019 estimate for growing apples in Washington state puts the cost at nearly $2,000 per acre per year), and nuts use a lot of water (almost 500 gallons per pound), but the amount of food they produce — without farmers having to till soil and replant every year — makes them some of the most climate-friendly foods we can eat. Apples, oranges and avocados (yes, a fruit) come in at 5 million to 7 million calories per acre, and nuts do even better, with almonds and walnuts in the 6-to-7-million range.
Plant an orchard, and you get a climate twofer: food, but also the perennial, carbon-storing plants they grow on.
On a per-calorie basis, apples have less than one-third the climate impact of brassicas (the group of vegetables that includes cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage). While berries and grapes aren’t quite as good as tree fruits, with almost three times the impact of apples, they’re still a fine choice. Nuts are crazy carbon-friendly, with a mere 2 percent of the footprint of that cauliflower rice.
These are the crops that, obviously, grow in rows, but are also planted and harvested by big machines. It’s corn and soy, but also oats, barley, wheat, dry beans, chickpeas, lentils and all the other grains and legumes that are the backbone of a diet that’s good for both people and planet.
Let’s start with corn and soy, which are, respectively, the highest-yielding cereal grass and plant protein source we grow. Corn rolls in at about 15 million calories per acre, and soy is about 6 million (protein production uses a lot of plant resources, so high-protein crops are generally lower-yielding).
I know what you’re thinking: “But externalities!”
And there are many! I think the biggest one is that nutrient runoff causes toxic algae blooms and fish kills. But all crops use fertilizer (and the nutrients can be from either manure or chemical versions), and vegetables use more than the crops we’ve all learned to hate.
The externality that’s unique to corn and soy is the obesity and disease that result from eating way too many foods that contain the industrial ingredients derived from them. But imagine if, instead of putting our crops into cars (about 40 percent of our corn becomes ethanol) and pigs (another 40 percent of corn and 70 percent of soy become animal feed) and Twinkies (most of the rest goes into processed foods), we ate them as tortillas and tofu? Our 90 million acres of corn and 88 million acres of soy could, together, meet the caloric needs of nearly a quarter of the entire world’s population. (No, of course, people shouldn’t eat exclusively corn and soy. I’m just trying to give this a sense of scale.)
Staple crops — whole grains and legumes, but also tubers (potatoes and sweet potatoes) and even some starchy tree fruits (jackfruit and bananas) — are where the climate action is. They’re healthful, nutritious, versatile and much less perishable than garden-variety fruits and veg. They deliver calories and nutrition in one package. They use fewer inputs than other plants, and they’re often grown without irrigation.
I’d go so far as to suggest that we need a name for a diet that’s mostly staple crops, but “stapletarian” sounds like you’ve got a job in the copy shop. If you’ve got a better idea, please let me know. | 2022-11-01T17:08:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Here's which plant foods are best for the planet - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/01/plant-foods-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/01/plant-foods-climate/ |
A picture of Iranian Mahsa Amini is seen at a protest against her death, in Berlin on Sept. 28. (Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)
Two journalists in Iran, both women, did what independent journalists are supposed to do when they see an injustice — they reported on it. Reporters Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi helped expose the tragedy of the young Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, who died Sept. 16 after being detained in Tehran by the Islamic “morality police” for an alleged headscarf violation. Her death set off a nationwide uprising led by women. Now the journalists are in prison — simply for having disseminated the facts.
The uprising was sparked in part by photographs from the hospital where Amini died, which went viral on social media and triggered a massive outpouring of pent-up frustration and anger at the Islamic theocracy. The authorities claimed 22-year-old Amini had a heart attack; her family said she was beaten by police. Her death appears to have brought a wave of young Iranians to the streets who had not participated in previous protests in 2009.
Ms. Hamedi, a reporter with the reformist daily newspaper Shargh, published a widely circulated report from Kasra hospital, where Amini died, and also shared a photo of Amini’s distraught family. The Post’s Miriam Berger writes that Ms. Mohammadi, a journalist with Ham Mihan, another daily newspaper aligned with Iran’s reformist politicians, reported from Amini’s funeral in her hometown of Saqqez in the northwestern Kurdistan province. Security forces attacked mourners when they shouted anti-regime slogans and women removed their mandatory headscarves.
Government authorities arrested Ms. Hamedi on Sept. 22 and Ms. Mohammadi on Sept. 29. They were accused of being CIA spies and “primary sources of news for foreign media.” The espionage charge is punishable by the death penalty. A statement from the Iranian intelligence services claimed the CIA orchestrated the journalists’ reporting, joined by British and Israeli spies. The statement warned that the “super spy services” had laid the groundwork for and instigated the mass protests.
No one for a minute should believe such nonsense. The two journalists were doing their job, and Amini’s death was reported by others as well. It says a lot about Iran’s security agencies that they had to concoct a wild CIA plot when even the most rudimentary intelligence gathering would reveal that the streets are filled with discontent. Six weeks after Amini’s death, students clashed with security services in Tehran on Sunday, and on Monday authorities announced plans to hold a public trial for 1,000 people accused of fomenting unrest. Overall, at least 270 people have died and 14,000 have been arrested since the protests began.
Iran is being convulsed by a generation in revolt. Iran’s leadership is in denial, looking for scapegoats among journalists and the CIA. This is a dead end. Only giving the Iranian people the freedoms they demand — and have longed for — will end the unrest.
Opinion|Why the sense of election dread is greater than ever in Israel | 2022-11-01T17:34:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Iran jails journalists who reported on Mahsa Amini's death - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-journalists-charged/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-journalists-charged/ |
Brooklyn Nets and coach Steve Nash part ways after lackluster start
Steve Nash is out as Brooklyn Nets coach after two-plus seasons. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Mired in an uninspired start on the court and consumed by another round of off-court controversies, the Brooklyn Nets parted ways with Coach Steve Nash on Tuesday just seven games into the NBA season.
Nash, 48, departs with a 94-67 (.584) record and just one playoff series victory in his two-plus seasons in Brooklyn. Assistant Coach Jacque Vaughn, who coached the Orlando Magic from 2012 to 2015, will step in as the interim coach for Brooklyn’s Tuesday night game against the Chicago Bulls. Vaughn previously served as an interim coach following the 2020 firing of Kenny Atkinson, Nash’s predecessor.
“We want to thank Steve for everything he brought to our franchise over the past two-plus seasons,” General Manager Sean Marks said in a statement. “Since becoming head coach, Steve was faced with a number of unprecedented challenges, and we are sincerely grateful for his leadership, patience and humility throughout his tenure. Personally, this was an immensely difficult decision; however, after much deliberation and evaluation of how the season has begun, we agreed that a change is necessary at this time.”
Following a turbulent summer in which all-star forward Kevin Durant requested a trade, Brooklyn has started the season with a 2-5 record and possesses the NBA’s 29th-ranked defense.
Nash was hired in 2020 as a player-friendly alternative to Atkinson, and Brooklyn envisioned the two-time MVP overseeing a free-flowing offense that made the most of Durant and Kyrie Irving’s skills. While the Nets boasted the NBA’s best offense in Nash’s first season at the helm, they have tumbled to 16th this season following the February trade of James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers. Meanwhile, Irving has become embroiled in multiple controversies, including his refusal to be vaccinated last season and his recent promotion of an antisemitic film on social media, for which he refused to apologize on Saturday.
Nets Owner Joe Tsai backed Nash in August following a report that Durant was seeking a coaching change, but the Hall of Fame point guard nevertheless entered the season on the hot seat due to Brooklyn’s unresolved culture questions. In a sign of mounting pressure, Nash earned the first ejection of his career last week for disputing a non-call in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.
“I’ve gotten to know Steve during his time in Brooklyn, and he is not one to shy away from challenges,” Tsai said in a statement. “My admiration and respect for him grew over time as he brought hard work and positive attitude to our organization every day, even in periods of exceptional storm surrounding the team.”
Nash retired after an 18-year playing career in 2014, dabbling in player development work and soccer commentary before being hired by the Nets.
“It was an amazing experience with many challenges that I’m incredibly grateful for,” Nash said in a statement. “I wish the Nets all the success in the world and the Nash’s will be rooting for our team as they turn this season around.” | 2022-11-01T18:13:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brooklyn Nets, Steve Nash part ways after lackluster start - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/steve-nash-fired-brooklyn-nets/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/steve-nash-fired-brooklyn-nets/ |
By Ana Vanessa Herrero
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, seen in Cúcuta on Oct. 27. (Mario Caicedo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States has long relied on Colombia as its closest Latin American ally against the socialist government of Venezuela. Former Colombian president Iván Duque was a critical partner in the U.S. effort to drive Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro out of office. In an impassioned speech in 2019, he crowed that the Maduro “dictatorship” had “very few hours left.”
Three years later, the authoritarian Maduro remains in power. And on Tuesday, Duque’s successor was on his way to Caracas to meet him for lunch.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s trip to the Venezuelan capital is his most significant step yet toward fulfilling a campaign promise of mending ties between the neighbors. He has reopened their shared border and sent an ambassador to Caracas. Now his visit cements a new era in regional diplomacy toward Venezuela.
It comes just two days after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential election, bringing the left back to power in all of the major countries in Latin America, including several that had been key Maduro foes. Maduro celebrated Lula’s win over right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on Twitter and said he spoke with him over the phone about their plans to resume a “binational cooperation agenda.”
It also comes as the Biden administration has shown a willingness to deal directly with Maduro, and as the U.S.-backed interim government in Venezuela, led by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, appears to be nearing its end.
“Even before this, the era of pressuring Maduro to democratize has been sort of waning,” said David Smilde, a senior fellow specializing in Venezuela at the Washington Office on Latin America. Seeing that the strategy has failed to oust Maduro — and looking to disrupt his relations with Moscow, and perhaps reopen another source of oil — leaders now are choosing to engage with him.
Colombia, the largest cocaine supplier to U.S., considers decriminalizing
Petro and Maduro planned to discuss the countries’ bilateral relationship, the border opening and the return of Venezuela to the Inter-American Human Rights System, according to a Colombian news release. The meeting is part of Petro’s effort to boost the regional economy, advance Latin American interests and protect the Amazon. Maduro has agreed to Petro’s request that his government act as a “guarantor” in peace talks between Colombia’s government and the National Liberation Army, the largest remaining rebel group in Colombia.
The question, analysts say, is whether the warming relationship will be a means for Petro to guide Maduro toward democracy, or simply confer prestige on a dictator under indictment in the United States on charges of narcoterrorism and accused by an international court of crimes against humanity.
“The problem is if we’re only going to see a photograph that will provide legitimacy to Maduro without putting his victims first,” said Tamara Taraciuk Broner, the Human Rights Watch deputy director for the Americas. “Is Petro going to use this as an opportunity to take advantage of the leverage he has to get concrete concessions? Or is this a pat on a back for a dictator who has no interest in going anywhere?”
Petro’s government drew criticism in August when the new Colombian ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, appeared cozy next to Maduro in photographs during their first meeting in Caracas. Petro has been accused of declining to forcefully call out human rights abuses by Maduro.
Taraciuk was concerned that Colombia was notably absent from the group of countries in the region leading the charge for renewal of the United Nations Fact-finding Mission on Venezuela, an investigative body that has published reports critical of the Maduro government. But she and others were pleased to see Petro calling publicly for Venezuela to rejoin the Inter-American Human Rights System, a monitor for the Organization of American States.
Human Rights Watch last week urged Petro to prioritize “concrete human rights commitments from Venezuelan authorities” and address violence, abuse and human trafficking.
The U.S. relationship with Venezuela is also changing. The Trump administration declined to recognize Maduro after he claimed reelection in a 2018 vote widely seen as fraudulent; the countries severed diplomatic ties the following year.
Now Biden administration officials have discussed lifting some oil sanctions on Venezuela after a rare trip to Maduro’s presidential palace in March to discuss energy sanctions and secure the release of two detained Americans.
In September, as Venezuelan migration to the U.S. soared, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced nearly $376 million in new humanitarian assistance “to respond to the needs of vulnerable Venezuelans” in Venezuela and other countries abroad.
Colombia wants to put the boy up for adoption. But he has a family in Venezuela, and they want him back.
Opposition leaders in Venezuela, meanwhile, are discussing moving away from Guaidó, the head of the country’s last democratically elected National Assembly, who has been recognized by Washington as the country’s rightful leader.
While the Guaidó-led interim government maintains control over some Venezuelan assets held overseas, it is increasingly irrelevant at home and supported by a dwindling number of countries abroad. Venezuela’s main opposition parties have decided against participating in the renewal of Guaidó's parliamentary mandate when it expires in January, according to two people with direct knowledge of the decisions.
A person close to the interim government told The Washington Post that the plan is for the National Assembly to maintain its status as a democratically elected institution while the future of the interim government is unknown. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.
Opposition leaders hope to unify behind a single candidate, chosen through a primary, to compete in presidential elections in Venezuela in 2024. Maduro has hinted that he might be willing to hold the elections as early as 2023.
The question of Guaidó’s future, the source said, is to be resolved by the end of this year. | 2022-11-01T18:48:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Colombia's Petro, Venezuela's Maduro meet in Caracas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/petro-maduro-colombia-venezuela/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/01/petro-maduro-colombia-venezuela/ |
Emily Langer
Julie Powell makes potato leek soup, one of the first recipes in Julia Child's “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” at her apartment in New York in 2005. (Henny Ray Abrams/AP)
Julie Powell, a writer and home cook who became a culinary phenomenon while trying to make every recipe in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” a year-long project that she chronicled in an irreverent blog and a book, “Julie & Julia,” that was adapted into a hit movie, died Oct. 26 at her home in Olivebridge, N.Y. She was 49.
The cause was cardiac arrest, said a friend, Nicole Mabry.
Ms. Powell was a bored administrative assistant, living in a cramped New York apartment on the cusp of turning 30, when she launched her project in 2002 in “one of those panicked, backed-into-a-corner kind of moments,” as she later told the New York Times. Her blog, the Julie/Julia Project, was a humorous, idiosyncratic catalogue of her attempt to cook all 524 recipes from her mother’s dog-eared copy of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” Child’s 1961 classic, which required her to scour grocery stores and butcher shops for rare ingredients (kidneys, sweetbreads) and learn to peel potatoes into an olive shape.
The blog brought her a wide audience and eventually a publishing deal.
Her book, “Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen” (2005), sold some 1 million copies and was adapted into a 2009 movie. Written and directed by Nora Ephron, “Julie & Julia” starred Amy Adams as Ms. Powell, whose story was intertwined with that of Child (played by Meryl Streep) and Child’s husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci).
A complete obituary will be published soon. | 2022-11-01T18:52:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Julie Powell, food writer behind ‘Julie & Julia,’ dies at 49 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/01/food-writer-julie-powell-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/01/food-writer-julie-powell-dead/ |
Trustees approve Sen. Ben Sasse as next University of Florida president
A unanimous vote by the university’s board of trustees sets up the Nebraska Republican to be the flagship’s next leader
Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, speaks during a hearing in Washington on April 27, 2021. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
Sen. Ben Sasse was unanimously chosen Tuesday to be the next president of the University of Florida by the university’s board of trustees, despite facing tough questions from some students and faculty over his higher education credentials and political views.
The decision, which is subject to approval by the State University System of Florida’s board of governors, came after nearly four hours of questions and answers that touched on everything from artificial intelligence to the Gator mascot to Chinese geopolitics.
Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, was named as the sole finalist for the UF post last month. If he accepts the job, he is expected to resign from the Senate in December. He would take office in early 2023, the university said.
UF trustees voiced support for Sasse’s vision to harness technological disruption to make Florida’s flagship university more nimble and relevant, promising great change even as he reassured faculty members that he supports academic freedom and the tenure system.
On Tuesday, protesters gathered outside the meeting — they were barred from entering — some wearing Sasse masks, and chanting, according to the campus newspaper the Florida Independent Alligator.
Protestors are walking up and down the side of the road chanting. pic.twitter.com/bt6piR1IMA
— Makiya Seminera (@makseminera) November 1, 2022
In recent months, some faculty members have complained about excessive political influence on the public university, charging that Republicans in Tallahassee, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, have threatened academic freedom.
Last week, the university’s faculty senate passed a no confidence resolution, criticizing what they said was a flawed selection process, and the UF chapter of the United Faculty of Florida passed a resolution expressing deep concern with the choice of Sasse as a finalist.
University of Florida faculty has ‘no confidence’ in Sasse selection
On Tuesday, Sasse pledged to leave partisan politics behind if selected as university president. He told the board members interviewing him that he is a romantic when it comes to the importance of education and the mission of the university. “The quest for knowledge and truth is a lifelong endeavor,” he said.
Sen. Ben Sasse’s candidacy to be U-Florida president draws protests | 2022-11-01T19:01:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sen. Ben Sasse approved as the next UF president by board of trustees - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/01/ben-sasse-approved-uf-president/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/01/ben-sasse-approved-uf-president/ |
Police stand at the top of the closed street outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her husband Paul Pelosi in San Francisco on Friday. (Eric Risberg/AP)
Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, appeared on Fox News Monday night with a familiar complaint: The media was trying to silence her, she told host Tucker Carlson, this time for joking about the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
“Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. — apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection,” Lake had said at a campaign event earlier that day, drawing laughter the interviewer and some in the crowd for her reference to an incident in which a hammer-wielding assailant broke into the Pelosis’ San Francisco home last week. Paul Pelosi, 82, is continuing to recover from a fractured skull and other wounds he sustained in the attack.
On Monday night, though, Lake lamented to Carlson that she was the one being attacked, over criticism she had received for mocking the Pelosis.
“We can’t talk about all these issues because the media has told us they’re prohibited," Lake said. "You know, you can’t talk about vaccines. You can’t talk about elections. You can’t talk about Paul Pelosi — now you can’t talk about Nancy Pelosi. And you can’t talk about the elections and you can’t talk about covid and I’m talking about all those things because I still believe we have a little bit of the First Amendment left—”
“That’s right,” Carlson chimed in.
“— but I’m dangerous to people like [Wyoming GOP Rep.] Liz Cheney and the folks that she hangs out with, and they want to stop people like me,” Lake added.
Most Republican leaders have condemned the attack on Paul Pelosi — though many were also quick to couple those denunciations with blame on “both sides” for the rise in political violence. But Lake’s quip at her campaign event was just the latest instance of some Republicans turning a brutal attack on the House speaker’s octogenarian husband into a punch line.
On the same day news of the attack broke, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) made light of it at a campaign rally in Stafford, Va., for GOP congressional candidate Yesli Vega.
“There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re going to send [Nancy Pelosi] back to be with him in California,” Youngkin told the crowd.
Youngkin, too, was swiftly criticized for a “disgusting, vile, and crass” joke and called on to apologize, though he did not.
Though both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have strongly condemned the attack on Paul Pelosi, they have remained quiet about their party members joking about or belittling the incident.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) retweeted a thread from far-right activist Matt Walsh challenging the notion that the alleged assailant was a militant right-winger, despite his blog in which he appears to have been deeply drawn into election falsehoods and political conspiracy theories.
Cruz quoted the thread dismissing DePape as “a hippie nudist from Berkeley” with one word: “truth.”
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) tweeted and deleted a post Sunday that pushed a conspiracy theory mocking the attack. And the evening of the attack, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) retweeted a photo of several men carrying hammers outside a home with a “United Against Hate” sign and a gay pride flag.
"LOL,” the freshman congresswoman added.
Pelosi, who has vehemently denounced political violence in the past, including the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, has so far not linked politics to the attack on her husband.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter to members of Congress late Saturday night, Pelosi confirmed that “a violent man broke into our family home, demanded to confront me and brutally attacked my husband Paul.”
“Our children, our grandchildren and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack on our Pop,” she wrote.
At a campaign event last week, President Biden called on the crowd to “clearly and unambiguously” stand up against political violence, while suggesting that Pelosi’s alleged attacker was influenced by Republicans’ inflammatory rhetoric.
“What makes us think one party can talk about stolen elections, covid being a hoax, [that it’s] all a bunch of lies, and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced?” Biden said then. "What makes us think that it’s not going to alter the political climate? Enough is enough is enough.”
Federal authorities on Monday filed attempted kidnapping and assault charges against David Wayne DePape, 42, the alleged home invader. According to charging documents, DePape told authorities after his arrest that he had planned to “hold Nancy hostage” and break her kneecaps to send a message to other Democrats.
But that has not stopped DePape’s arrest from becoming the center of more right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theories promoted by allies of former president Donald Trump and even Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter. Trump himself called the attack “a terrible thing” in an interview Sunday.
Trump’s eldest son has made several social media posts making light of the incident, including retweeting a picture of a hammer atop a pair of underwear with the message, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”
“The internet remains undefeated,” Donald Trump Jr. added.
Devlin Barrett, Eugene Scott, Holly Bailey and Laurie McGinley contributed to this report. | 2022-11-01T19:01:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Attack on Paul Pelosi becomes punch line for some Republicans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/paul-pelosi-attack-youngkin-lake/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/paul-pelosi-attack-youngkin-lake/ |
Lawrence “Brad” Bradford dances with partner Maxine Grant. Bradford, who died Sept. 26 at the age of 78, taught a style of swing called D.C. hand dance to thousands of students. (Lloyd Franklin/National Hand Dance Association)
Lawrence Bradford — who died Sept. 26 at age 78 — was the Johnny Appleseed of D.C. hand dance, the fluid swing dance that is the official dance of the District of Columbia.
I’d heard Bradford had taught roughly 10,000 people to dance at his Smooth & EZ Hand Dance Institute, the dance school he founded in 1992.
I was wrong. “We taught closer to 15,000 people to dance,” said Shirley Robinson-Turner, who was a student in Bradford’s first class and went on to run the dance school with him.
Among those were hundreds of people who were certified to teach Bradford’s method, which at its most basic level involved listening for the rhythm and following it. Bradford spent his life following the rhythm — in all its myriad forms.
To those in the dance community, the native Washingtonian was known as “Brad,” but, to mix metaphors, Bradford had his feet in a lot of pies. To the basketball community, he was “Catfish,” a nickname bestowed because “he basically looked like a catfish, or something to that effect,” said his son, Dwayne Bradford.
Bradford was a standout basketball player at Western High School and later at Federal City College, as the University of the District of Columbia was known then. He joined the staff at UDC, where he became director of the computer center and served a brief term as interim vice president.
Bradford was also a black belt in karate. He taught martial arts. He coached youth basketball, too, and his teams from St. Augustine’s smoked the Catholic Youth Organization competition.
You hear people say those who can “do,” those who can’t “teach.” Bradford could do both. He loved to master something, then share that mastery with others. Dwayne said his father announced one summer that he was going to teach his children how to play chess.
“We were like 8, 9 years old,” said Dwayne. “Even checkers, he’d teach us the moves. Tic-tac-toe. This man, he played jacks and jumped double-Dutch. Everything he did, he taught an angle around it, how to approach it.”
And so it was with hand dance. Hand dance is a couples swing dance, the “hand” in the name signifying that dancers touch and hold one another. It grew out of the jitterbug and the Lindy Hop of the 1930s and ’40s, said D.C. filmmaker Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, who made the 2010 documentary “Hand Dance: A Capitol Swing.”
When the dance seemed in danger of fading away during the height of disco, people such as Bradford were determined to keep it alive. He had grown up devouring the movies of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers, his son said.
Smooth & EZ grew out of a class Bradford taught in 1992 at the Solar Eclipse nightclub on Bladensburg Road NE. The club’s owner, Larry Beasley, had noticed couples hand dancing to the oldies music he played. But many people sat on the side, unsure of the moves. He asked Bradford to teach them.
“Back in the day, nobody took classes,” Lindsay-Johnson said. “You learned from your community, you learned from your sisters and brothers and cousins and parents.”
Bradford broke down the steps and demonstrated the patterns. There were 32 pupils in his first class, said Robinson-Turner. Over the decades, students ranged in age from 6 to 80. And always, Bradford was thinking of the future.
“Brad said, ‘If I teach people how to use my verbiage and my method, then they can help me teach more people,’ ” Robinson-Turner said. “Brad’s goal was for D.C. hand dance never to die.” (Most recently, the classes have been taught at Joe’s Movement Emporium in Mount Rainier, Md.)
Bradford’s students competed around the world. So did he, most often with his partner B.J. Jones. He helped found the National Hand Dance Association, was featured at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and was instrumental in having hand dance named the city’s official dance.
Besides his son, Dwayne, Bradford’s survivors include his daughters Cherine Dyson, Gertrina Avent and Lannette Bradford-Preston. His daughter Vera Bradford died in March. His sister Annette Bradford-Miller also survives him, as do nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Those are his blood relatives. But thousands of others are descended from Lawrence “Catfish”/ “Brad” Bradford, too, the ones who listen to the rhythm and let it take them away.
Said Robinson-Turner: “You hear people say, ‘Oh, she has a song in her heart.’ Well Brad had a dance in his heart. Brad had a rhythm in his head that he wanted to share with everyone.” | 2022-11-01T19:05:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lawrence Bradford taught thousands the joys of D.C. hand dance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/lawrence-bradford-hand-dance/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/lawrence-bradford-hand-dance/ |
Canvassers examine ballots at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Gaithersburg, Md., on Oct. 29. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
About half of Maryland counties have started counting mail-in ballots before Election Day, making use of a court ruling aimed at streamlining election results after a primary season marked by delays. But even with the head start, local election officials said voters can still expect to wait days or weeks for all ballots to be counted — meaning potential holdups in calling tight races.
Most large jurisdictions, like Montgomery, Prince George’s and Baltimore counties — which account for nearly half of the total requested mail-in ballots — started canvassing in October. But smaller counties with fewer staff, resources and ballots are sticking with the old rule: waiting until two days after the election to begin counting mail-in ballots.
Shortly after polls close on Nov. 8, results from early voting and mail-in ballots counted before Election Day will be released. In subsequent hours on election night, in-person Election Day results will be released. For landslide races, it is likely that the number of mail-in ballots remaining to count will not be statistically significant enough to impact the outcome of the race, and news organizations will be able to project a winner on election night. But for tighter races, the surge of mail-in votes means voters could wait days for a victor to be named.
Maryland voters have requested more than 625,000 mail-in ballots as of Monday, according to State Board of Elections data. Eleven of Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions have already begun or scheduled dates before Election Day to begin canvassing — or counting — the mail-in ballots. Those 10 counties, and Baltimore City, account for about 75 percent of requested ballots statewide. Anne Arundel County is the largest jurisdiction opting to only canvass after Election Day, with more than 68,000 mail-in ballot requests.
“[Early canvassing] helped, but I can’t say it’s significant,” said Montgomery County Board of Elections spokesman Gilberto Zelaya. “It all depends how much we get at the end. That’s the magic question.”
As of Monday, local election offices had received more than 290,000 mail-in ballots. In Maryland’s 2018 general election, which like this year had no presidential race, 2,335,128 people — 59 percent of eligible voters — voted, and just over 120,000 submitted absentee ballots.
This summer, primary results were delayed as voters’ growing preference for mail-in voting ran up against pandemic-era staffing challenges and a Maryland election law that prohibits counting mail-ins until two days after Election Day. Legislators this session tried to change the law, which dates back to a time when mail voting accounted only for a small percentage of overall ballots cast, but Gov. Larry Hogan (R) vetoed the bill, citing other concerns about election security.
It took three days for the Associated Press to name Wes Moore as the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, as election officials worked through more than 346,000 mail-in ballots in the primary. Montgomery County, which received more than 75,000 mail-in ballots and had the most significant delays, took nearly four weeks to complete its canvass.
The State Board of Elections sought emergency relief ahead of the general election from a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge, who suspended the law and allowed election officials to begin canvassing on Oct. 1. Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox appealed the decision, arguing that the power to change election rules rests with lawmakers, not a judge. The Maryland Court of Appeals sided with the State Board of Elections.
Cox, who has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump and has described the 2020 presidential election as “stolen,” has not publicly committed to accepting the election results since the judges’ ruling and has urged supporters to monitor state ballot drop-boxes for suspicious activity.
But even for counties that have already begun canvassing, there will be significant work remaining after Election Day. Frederick County hosted three days of early canvassing from Oct. 17 to 19, in which canvassers tabulated about 4,000 ballots and smoothed out the process for a more streamlined system when they begin canvassing again on Nov. 10, said election Director Barbara Wagner.
Still, with more than 28,000 requests for mail-in ballots, Wagner said it will be a significant effort to certify results by Nov. 18, the earliest date local boards of elections can do so under state law. (The cutoff for mail-in ballots postmarked be Election Day is 10 a.m. on Nov. 18.)
“We’re going to need every bit of those 10 days,” she said.
In canvassing, each ballot is reviewed by a two-person team — one Republican and one Democrat — for any rips, tears or alterations that would prevent a machine from reading it. For damaged ballots that cannot be scanned, the canvassing team copies the voter’s choices onto a blank ballot, checks the work and sends the ballot off to be scanned. Web delivery mail-in and provisional ballots also have additional steps that take longer to properly account for.
The team also checks for whether a voter has signed the outside of the ballot envelope, since only signed ballots can be opened and counted. If a ballot is missing a signature, local election officials will try to contact the voter to come in and sign it.
Zelaya of Montgomery County, Maryland’s largest jurisdiction, said the office has received about 39,000 mail-in ballots and canvassed just over 30,000. But, more than 138,000 ballots have been requested as of Monday. The office has scheduled two more canvassing days before Election Day and 14 days after with the goal of making it through the bulk of mail-in ballots by Nov. 30, he said. The statewide certification deadline is scheduled for Dec. 13.
In Harford County, election officials opted to wait until Nov. 10 to begin the canvassing process because of the significant space, resources and number of people it takes to canvass ballots. Election Director Stephanie Taylor said with other pre-election preparation, like election judge training, elections officials wanted to wait until they could give canvassing their full attention.
Taylor said she has no doubt they will be able to make the Nov. 18 deadline with just over 21,000 requested mail-in ballots and the capacity to canvass up to 10,000 ballots a day.
In Carroll County, Election Director Katherine Berry said in an email that her office was also able to canvass 10,000 ballots a day during the 2020 election. With only 9,000 ballots received so far, she said the number of mail-in ballots did not warrant adding early canvassing days.
“We appreciate the diligence of the local boards in assessing the most appropriate canvassing approach for their individual teams and always placing the integrity of the election process above all else to ensure the will of Maryland voters is heard through their votes,” said Maryland State Board of Elections Administrator Linda H. Lamone in a statement earlier this month. | 2022-11-01T19:05:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Even with head start on counting, some Md. election results could take time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/maryland-early-election-counting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/maryland-early-election-counting/ |
Montgomery County Council members, from left, Andrew Friedson, Tom Hucker, Sidney Katz, and Nancy Navarro. The council on Tuesday voted unanimously for a resolution denouncing antisemitism. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
The Montgomery County Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to pass a resolution to address and combat antisemitism that had been delayed several months because of pushback from community groups over the resolution’s definition of antisemitism.
An increase in antisemitic incidents in the county and nationally spurred council member Andrew Friedson (D-District 1) to introduce the resolution in July. This week, Jewish advocates emphasized the need to take a stand against antisemitism after recent derogatory comments about Jews by the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and former president Donald Trump.
“We are living in very, very dangerous times,” said Ron Halber, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, who supported the resolution. “That just highlights the need for a repudiation of antisemitism.”
Despite widespread agreement that the county should denounce antisemitic hate, a vote on the resolution was postponed until Tuesday after some community groups voiced concerns that the definition of antisemitism in the resolution was too broad.
At the heart of the controversy is a dispute over whether the resolution should use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which has been widely accepted by national, state and local governments but also has been criticized as potentially inhibiting free speech and encroaching on academic freedom. That definition includes an example of antisemitism that some believe conflates criticism of the Israeli government with bigotry.
In the months between the resolution’s introduction and Tuesday’s vote, the language was adjusted to address some of the concerns of those who opposed it. A line was added to clarify that “criticism of Israeli government policies or actions does not constitute antisemitism.” The resolution also states that such criticism or anti-Zionism can become antisemitic if it denies the Jewish right to self-determination or if it employs antisemitic tropes.
Still, on Monday, representatives of a coalition of groups, including a local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the New Synagogue Project, stood on the steps of the council building in the rain to demand that the council reject the IHRA definition and seek more public input on the resolution. The groups said they would support a resolution that condemns antisemitic hate but could not support including the IHRA definition because they thought it could quash criticisms of Israeli government policies and actions.
“This definition poses a significant threat to constitutionally protected free speech,” said Zainab Chaudry, the director of the CAIR office in Maryland. “Resolutions are meant to be unifying, not divisive and contentious.”
Council member Will Jawando (D-At Large) said the county council missed an opportunity to find common ground and take a collective stance against hate and antisemitism. He acknowledged the opposition’s concerns and decried the lack of public debate over the resolution but also called on the council to vote unanimously in support the resolution.
“I do so soberly, acknowledging that no matter what the outcome today, harm will be done,” he said. “I strongly believe that I must still vote for this resolution.”
As members of the council shared their perspectives on the resolution and reflected on the community feedback in its favor and against it, some members of the audience shouted jeers.
“You’re making a mistake,” one person said.
“This is not a dialogue,” another shouted. “This is our county government.”
As the vote neared, the atmosphere was increasingly tense, and the crowd had to be quieted repeatedly. After the council unanimously affirmed the resolution, supporters cheered and opponents heckled.
“This resolution serves as a powerful statement to our community and in many ways is just the start to this very important conversation,” Friedson said. | 2022-11-01T19:06:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Montgomery County Council passes antisemitism resolution amid pushback - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/montgomery-council-resolution-antisemitism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/montgomery-council-resolution-antisemitism/ |
Many Republican candidates haven’t commented on the Pelosi attack
Republicans seem not to see any benefit in standing with Nancy Pelosi and her husband — even now
A police car blocks the street near the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her husband, Paul Pelosi, in San Francisco on Friday. (Eric Risberg/AP)
Paul Pelosi, 82, was confronted by a man in his San Francisco home last week in the middle of the night. According to a federal indictment, the man wanted to hold Pelosi’s wife, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), hostage so that he could ask her questions. If she “lied,” the suspect in the crime told law enforcement (according to the indictment), he would break her kneecaps with the hammer he’d brought. Instead, he ended up using the hammer to strike Paul Pelosi in the head. Paul Pelosi remains hospitalized.
It seems likely that had this happened 20 years ago, there would have been a universal response from both sides of the political aisle: This is a horror, and the Pelosis are in our thoughts and prayers. Perhaps there wouldn’t have been; perhaps even then an attack inextricably linked to politics would have yielded a response itself rooted in partisanship. But it’s hard to believe that the response would have looked like the one that actually followed the Pelosi attack.
For the most part, Republican candidates in close midterm elections haven’t brought up the attack at all. This is probably a reflection of a sense on the right that the attack was somehow not a big deal or is being overblown. It is probably also rooted in ambivalence about something horrible befalling one of the right’s most frequent targets of condemnation. But in a moment where Americans are worried about democracy and the erosion of political comity, the silence echoes loudly.
In the sliding scale of the political moment, though, silence was often better than the alternative.
Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake didn’t offer any comment on the Pelosi attack, on her Twitter account or on her campaign website (which, like several other candidates, offers little more than a fundraising option). But she did address the attack at an event Monday.
As a joke.
The moderator and some in the crowd laughed with appreciation — an indication that at least some of the silence about the Pelosi attack was accompanied by a shrug.
Among those not offering thoughts on the attack on Twitter or their campaign websites are the Republicans running alongside Lake in Arizona: U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters and Arizona secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem.
In Pennsylvania, right-wing gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano has been similarly silent. Mehmet Oz, running in a close race for the Senate, did share thoughts about the attack.
I am deeply saddened by the attack on Paul Pelosi. Americans must solve our differences by talking to each another. Violence is never the answer. Lisa and I are praying for a speedy recovery.
Oz is hoping to appeal to voters in Pennsylvania as relatively moderate. His statement may be a reflection of that effort and the state’s politics, extending a hand across the partisan divide.
That said, none of the leading Republican candidates in also-purple Georgia have released statements about the Pelosi attack, neither on Twitter nor on their campaign websites. Incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger have all refrained from commenting. It’s particularly noteworthy that Raffensperger hasn’t, given his office’s energetic denunciations of threats after the 2020 election when Donald Trump and his allies were threatening his staff and election officials.
Don Bolduc, running for the U.S. Senate in purple-state New Hampshire, released a statement on Twitter.
Sharon and I are sending prayers to Paul Pelosi, and the entire Pelosi family.
We can respectfully have our differences when it comes to politics, but violence should never be the answer. May God bless Paul with a speedy recovery.
— Don Bolduc (@GenDonBolduc) October 28, 2022
So did the incumbent senators in Utah and Wisconsin.
Sharon & I are praying for the well-being of Mr. Pelosi. Violence is never to be tolerated. https://t.co/Mrf4nTJcdV
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 28, 2022
Shocking to hear what happened to Speaker Pelosi’s husband, Paul.
Wishing him a speedy and full recovery.
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) October 28, 2022
This is probably in part a function of their positions; each has known and (to some extent) worked with Pelosi legislatively for years. That may also explain why Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), running for governor in New York, commented on the attack during an interview (albeit in a specifically political context).
“Whether it’s the targeting of pro-life pregnancy centers, it’s the targeting of Supreme Court justices, whether regardless of what branch of government you are, what your party is, what your ideology is,” Zeldin said, “there’s just no room for any of this type of violence or even threats of violence as part of the process.”
Of course, Zeldin’s comment may also reflect that he wants to win election in a heavily blue state.
Other than that, statements about the attack from Republican candidates are few and far between. Govs. Greg Abbott (Tex.) and Mike DeWine (Ohio) haven’t commented on Twitter or on their campaign websites. Neither have Tim Michels and Tudor Dixon, the gubernatorial candidates in Minnesota and Michigan, respectively. Senate candidates J.D. Vance in Ohio and Adam Laxalt in Nevada have also been mum.
Then there’s Trump.
The former president’s first comments on the attack were sympathetic — although he tried to loop it into a broader attack on how Democrats handle crime.
“With Paul Pelosi, that’s a terrible thing, with all of them it’s a terrible thing,” Trump said in a radio interview. “Look at what’s happened to San Francisco generally. Look at what’s happening in Chicago. It was far worse than Afghanistan.”
This was an early response in the conservative media: that the attack bolstered the right’s narrative about crime. That Republican candidates didn’t rush to elevate this argument, though, helps reinforce the idea that this argument was not offered in the best possible faith.
On Tuesday, Trump pivoted — elevating a debunked conspiracy theory about the attack.
“I’m not a fan of Nancy Pelosi,” he said in an interview, “but what’s going on there is sad. Very sad.”
He then made a joke about Paul Pelosi’s recent involvement in a car accident.
6:18 PMBiden will deliver remarks after midterm elections, White House says | 2022-11-01T19:31:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Many Republican candidates haven’t commented on the Pelosi attack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/republicans-elections-paul-pelosi-attack/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/01/republicans-elections-paul-pelosi-attack/ |
David Depape in Berkeley, Calif., in 2013. (Michael Short/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
SAN FRANCISCO – The man accused of breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and assaulting her husband with a hammer is scheduled to make his first court appearance on state charges related to what police and prosecutors have described as a “politically motivated” attack.
Prosecutors have said they will press for DePape to be held without bond, citing the “extreme public safety risk he poses.” DePape did not appear to have legal representation, but was expected to be assigned a public defender during the hearing.
DePape, of Richmond, Calif., is also facing federal charges related to Friday’s attack, including assault and attempted kidnapping. It was not immediately clear when he would make his first appearance in that case.
According to state and federal complaints filed Monday, DePape allegedly used a hammer to break into Pelosi’s San Francisco home early Friday. Upstairs, he found Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, Paul, who was sleeping and demanded to talk to “Nancy.”
When Paul Pelosi said she would not be back home for days, DePape allegedly said he would wait and took out zip ties, according to the federal complaint. State prosecutors said Paul Pelosi tried to access an elevator to call for help before eventually dialing 911 from a cell phone in the couple’s bathroom.
The federal complaint says DePape told responding officers that he had planned to “hold Nancy hostage and talk to her.” “If Nancy were to tell ‘the truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps,’” the charging papers said.
According to the affidavit filed by an FBI agent, DePape claimed Nancy Pelosi was the “leader of the pack” of lies told by the Democratic Party, and that if he broke her kneecaps “she would then have to be wheeled into Congress, which would show other Members of Congress there were consequences to actions.”
DePape also allegedly claimed he wanted to “use Nancy to lure another individual” to him, according to the federal complaint. The affidavit did not identify that person, and prosecutors have declined to say who DePape was referring to.
Authorities found zip ties, a second hammer, rope, a roll of tape and a journal in a backpack said to belong to DePape that was recovered at Pelosi’s home. On Monday, Jenkins described the incident as a “politically motivated” attack and sought to dispute conspiracy theories that have swirled around the incident, pointedly saying that DePape and Paul Pelosi did not know each other.
“This was politically motivated,” Jenkins said.
Pelosi remains hospitalized at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital following surgery for injuries sustained in the attack including a fractured skull. In a statement issued Monday evening, Nancy Pelosi said her husband is making “steady progress on what will be a long recovery process.” | 2022-11-01T20:32:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Suspect in Pelosi attack to appear in court for arraignment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/david-depape-pelosi-attack/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/01/david-depape-pelosi-attack/ |
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi: My husband’s devices should be returned to me
Images featuring Jamal Khashoggi were projected onto the front of the Newseum on Oct. 1, 2019, in D.C. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
As the widowed wife of Jamal Khashoggi, the Post contributing columnist killed by Saudi forces in Istanbul, I have asked the Turkish government for help in obtaining my husband’s devices that it possesses: two mobile telephones, one laptop and one tablet. The devices could reveal previously undisclosed details about my husband’s murder that are critical to knowing the full truth.
Last year, I was informed by The Post, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab that my devices had evidence of Pegasus spyware dating back to 2017. Further examination of my devices showed not only tracking by NSO Group’s spyware but also evidence that another spyware, from Cellebrite, was implanted on my devices by intelligence authorities in the United Arab Emirates. I was heartbroken to discover my devices had been compromised, as Jamal and I discussed our plans for the future, including our travel plans. Who was listening in on us and when? Is this how they knew his every movement and travel plans? I am certain Jamal’s phones were equally compromised by NSO Group’s spyware.
My lawyer, Randa Fahmy, requested these devices through the Turkish ambassador to the United States with no success. I have asked the U.S. director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, to assist with this diplomatic task. These devices are crucial to the investigation into the murder of my husband and to determine the responsibility of all parties involved in this crime.
Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, Alexandria | 2022-11-01T20:37:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Hanan Elatr Khashoggi: My husband’s devices should be returned to me - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/hanan-elatr-khashoggi-my-husbands-devices-should-be-returned-me/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/hanan-elatr-khashoggi-my-husbands-devices-should-be-returned-me/ |
Remote work benefits can also be mundane — and worthwhile
The Oct. 30 Business article about fully remote companies, “Remote work changed their lives. Now they’re never going back into the office.,” was a fun read, and I’m excited for the employees featured, who are clearly making the most of their employers’ flexible policies. But for many of us, having the freedom to work remotely has much more mundane benefits. For me, it’s being able to shuttle my kids to and from activities of their choice or just being at home with them, rather than relying on after-school care, as I did when they were younger and I commuted downtown every day. It’s being able to run errands during the week. It was two weeks in the exotic locale of Cleveland at my mom’s this summer.
These uses of workplace flexibility are just as valid and important — and, for those who don’t have flexibility in when and where they work, rare — as spending time overseas or moving to the country.
Eman Quotah, Rockville | 2022-11-01T20:37:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Remote work benefits can also be mundane — and worthwhile - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/remote-work-benefits-can-also-be-mundane-worthwhile/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/remote-work-benefits-can-also-be-mundane-worthwhile/ |
Broncos outside linebacker Bradley Chubb is headed to the Dolphins via a trade. (Gary McCullough/AP)
The Miami Dolphins fortified their pass rush for a playoff push by making the biggest deal on the NFL’s trade deadline day. They agreed to send a package that included a first-round draft choice to the Denver Broncos for former Pro Bowl outside linebacker Bradley Chubb, a person with knowledge of the deliberations confirmed.
The Dolphins and Broncos completed an agreement on the deal less than two hours before the 4 p.m. Eastern time deadline. Chubb, a Pro Bowl selection in 2020, is expected to sign a long-term contract extension with the Dolphins, according to a person familiar with the situation.
What to know from NFL Week 8: Christian McCaffrey was worth it
The Broncos, meanwhile, are fortifying their draft resources amid a disappointing season. They have struggled to a record of 3-5 even after trading for quarterback Russell Wilson in the offseason and signing him to a five-year, $245 million contract extension just before the season. | 2022-11-01T20:41:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL trade deadline: Dolphins acquire Bradley Chubb from Broncos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/nfl-trade-deadline/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/01/nfl-trade-deadline/ |
FBI agents on Monday work outside the home of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
In the days since Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, was attacked and knocked unconscious by an intruder inside their San Francisco home, law enforcement documents have revealed more details. The intruder had a hammer, zip ties, a rope, a roll of tape and rubber gloves. He broke into the home early Friday morning by smashing through a glass door. He woke Mr. Pelosi and stated that he wanted to talk to “Nancy,” and that he would wait. His plan, the intruder told police, was to hold “Nancy” hostage, demand the truth from her and break her kneecaps if necessary.
Any decent person would find such a violent assault horrifying. Not so for a number of Republicans and conservatives who have seized on it as an occasion for jokes and an opportunity to spread lies about a political rival’s spouse.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) was the first, turning the incident into an applause line at a political rally hours after the Friday attack. He started out by saying the right thing: “Speaker Pelosi’s husband, they had a break-in last night in their house, and he was assaulted. There’s no room for violence anywhere." If only Mr. Youngkin had stopped there. But he added a partisan gibe: "We’re going to send her back to be with him in California. That’s what we’re going to go do.”
Others soon joined in. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a “Paul Pelosi Halloween costume” featuring men’s underwear and a hammer; Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, drew laughter at a campaign event when she said, “Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. Apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) and right-wing activist Dinesh D’Souza pushed absurd internet rumors about the attack on social media.
Guest Opinion: I helped run the ‘Fire Pelosi’ effort. Our toxic politics goes too far.
All this from a party that touts itself as tough on crime. To his credit, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued an immediate and unequivocal condemnation of the attack. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) waited until he was asked about it on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” and said he had been in touch with Ms. Pelosi, adding “what happened to Paul Pelosi is wrong.” But neither leader has called out those who have mocked and minimized this deplorable act of violence that was so clearly politically motivated.
They might not want to offend the GOP base less than a week away from midterms. But looking away as jokes are made and lies told about an elderly man being beaten further coarsens the nation’s already toxic politics. Increasing numbers of Americans believe that those who disagree with them are not just wrong but evil — raising an obvious predicate for violence.
No party is safe from fanatics and lunatics, a sad fact underscored by the 2017 shooting of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and others at a congressional baseball practice and the aborted attempt to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Elected officials — local, state and federal — say threats against them are increasing. Republican leaders should speak out against violence — and against those who make light of it — or there might well be more of it. | 2022-11-01T21:55:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The attack on Pelosi's husband is not a time for jokes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/pelosi-attack-jokes-conspiracy-theories/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/pelosi-attack-jokes-conspiracy-theories/ |
A new round of testing has detected surprisingly high levels of the cancer-causing chemical in dry shampoo sprays, suggesting recent recalls haven’t gone far enough
Aerosol cans have been implicated in the benzene contamination of a number of popular consumer products. (Photo illustration by Chelsea Conrad/The Washington Post/iStock)
Aerosolized beauty products are popular and convenient, allowing us to spray our hair, faces and bodies with fine mists of deodorant, sunscreen and dry shampoo.
But in the past 18 months, several major consumer products companies, including Unilever, Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson, have announced at least 10 recalls of well-known aerosol brands.
The reason: The products contained elevated amounts of benzene, a chemical known to cause cancer and compromise our immune system.
It’s not clear how widespread the problem is, and the major companies involved have refused to answer questions or provide additional details. The affected aerosol products include some of the world’s biggest brand names including certain lots of Neutrogena, Aveeno, Banana Boat and Coppertone sunscreens; Sure, Brut, Suave, Secret and Old Spice deodorants; Dove, Nexxus, Suave, TRESemmé and Bed Head dry shampoos, and Tinectin and Odor Eaters foot sprays.
On Tuesday, the news got worse. Valisure, an independent lab in New Haven, Conn., published a new analysis testing 148 batches of dry shampoo products from 34 different brands, and found that 70 percent contained benzene. The highest level of benzene detected was 340 parts per million in 10 seconds of spray. By comparison the Food and Drug Administration has said that the acceptable level of benzene in a drug is two parts per million.
A timeline of benzene recalls
May 2021 Valisure tells FDA it has detected benzene in dozens of sun care products
July 2021 Johnson & Johnson recalls certain lots of Neutrogena and Aveeno spray sunscreens.
Sept. 2021 Biersdorf recalls some Pure & Simple Baby, Sport Mineral and Coppertone sprays.
Oct. 2021 Bayer recalls certain Tinactin and Lotrimin antifungal sprays
Nov. 2021 Recall of some Odor-Eaters and Stink Stoppers foot sprays.
Nov. 2021 Procter & Gamble recalls some lots of Old Spice and Secret antiperspirants.
Dec. 2021 P&G recalls some Waterless, Pantene, Aussie, Herbal Essences, Old Spice, and Hair Food dry shampoo sprays
Feb. 2022 HRB Brands recalls some Sure and Brut sprays
Mar. 2022 Unilever recalls some lots of Suave antiperspirants.
July 2022 Edgewell Personal Care recalls some Banana Boat Hair & Scalp sunscreens
Oct. 2022 Unilever recalls some lots of Dove, Nexxus, Suave, TRESemmé, Rockaholic and Bed Head dry shampoos.
A problem with the propellant
The issue appears to be related mostly to butane-powered propellants that create pressure inside an aerosol can, which is what ultimately allows us to spray a fine mist of the product when we press the nozzle. Butane is a petroleum-based propellant, and if it isn’t refined well, there’s a chance that the end product could contain traces of benzene, said Chris Cappa, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of California at Davis.
“Aerosol sprays appear to be one of the highest-risk categories for benzene contamination in consumer products,” said David Light, the chief executive of Valisure, also warned in May 2021 of benzene contamination in sunscreen products. “We don’t want to scare people into never using an aerosol can ever again, but it is a real risk.”
In a statement announcing its recall of various dry shampoo products in October, Unilever said the company confirmed the propellant “as the source” of the benzene contamination. Johnson & Johnson also said the contamination was related to the propellant, and said they have adopted new practices “to prevent such an occurrence in the future,” a spokesman said.
A spokesperson for Procter & Gamble said the company has “nothing to share” about the recalls.
The news that many of the favorite products we spray on our bodies might contain a cancer-causing contaminant has left some consumers concerned, prompting conversations on social media and online searches about benzene.
When Kyla Moore, 22, who lives in Alberta, Canada, and works in customer relations, heard about the recall, she discovered her can of Dove coconut dry shampoo was on the list of potentially tainted products. She threw it in the trash a few days after Unilever’s announcement, and said she doesn’t plan to buy it again after switching to a new shampoo she likes better.
The brands with the highest levels of benzene in the newest round of tests include Not Your Mother’s, Sun Bum, Paul Mitchell, dp Hue and Sebastian, none of which have been recalled. The companies that make these products have not yet responded to requests for comment.
Trace amounts of benzene can add up
Benzene is used to make plastics, detergents, dyes and pesticides. Breathing or otherwise absorbing benzene over time can lead to leukemia, anemia and other blood disorders, according to the FDA.
Much of the research on the harmful effects of benzene focuses on occupational hazards. One study published in 1977 found workers in the U.S. rubber industry were at least five times more likely to develop leukemia.
We can be exposed to benzene in many ways. Rubber collars were added to gas pump nozzles to protect us from the benzene in gas fumes. We inhale benzene when we smoke tobacco and expose our families to benzene through second hand smoke. In a study published earlier this month, researchers found benzene leaking from gas stoves in California.
“Everyone is exposed to benzene,” said Stephen M. Rappaport, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. “It’s just a question of how much.”
The World Health Organization has said “there’s no safe level” of exposure to benzene in the air we breathe.
Some experts say the concern with any amount of benzene in consumer products, like dry shampoo or deodorant, is that we’re often spraying these cans in enclosed spaces like small bathrooms where there’s not a lot of air flow and a higher possibility of someone inhaling the known carcinogen.
Last week, Stella Krause, a 20-year-old undergraduate student at University of Chicago learned about the recall on Twitter. Instead of giving up her Dove dry shampoo, she started spraying it on her hair outside. Krause said she already thought breathing in dry shampoo spray wasn’t good for her lungs.
“For carcinogens, it’s not like there’s some safe level,” said Deborah Bennett, a professor of public health at the University of California at Davis. “Any additional exposure you have from consumer products is going to increase your risk.”
Contamination in the supply chain?
Homer Swei, a senior vice president at the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, said he believes the supply chain of propellants for these different companies must have been affected to lead to such a wide range of recalls.
Swei said the good news is “the process is working” and companies are trying to understand the cause. The bad news is there appears to be problems with more than one supplier.
“It hit everybody, it seems, at the same time, which is very strange,” said Swei, who worked at Johnson & Johnson for nearly twenty years. “They all have different supply chains.”
The string of aerosol can recalls started after Valisure, the independent laboratory based in New Haven, Conn., published two separate studies detecting traces of benzene in dozens of different deodorant and sunscreen brands.
Alternatives to aerosols
This isn’t the first time questions have been raised over the propellant used in our spray cans. For years, aerosol cans were propelled by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). But in the 1970s researchers found CFCs are partially responsible for destroying the Earth’s ozone layer, and companies stopped using them and eventually switched to other aerosol technologies, including butane-based propellants.
But not all spray cans rely on petroleum-based propellants. Cans of whipped cream are often powered by nitrous oxide. Other spray cans use a “bag-on-valve” technology that separates the propellant from the product inside the can, said Marisa Plescia, a cosmetic chemist based in Minneapolis.
To find out if your product contains a butane-powered propellant, just check the label. The chemicals used in the propellant should be listed in the ingredients or inactive ingredients box. Look for any ingredients that end in “-ane,” such as propane, butane and isobutane, Plescia said.
Clues that a product may use an alternate technology such as the bag-on-valve system are claims that the product doesn’t contain flammable ingredients or has a “continuous spray.”
Kelly Dobos, a cosmetic chemist and professor at the University of Cincinnati, said if companies decide to change aerosol technologies, it will take time to adjust formulations or develop new products with a different spraying system.
“Product development timelines are often a year, two years or more to account for testing and proving shelf life stability,” Dobos said. “While the levels of benzene found in the products from the Unilever recall are not expected to cause adverse health consequences, the best advice I can give to consumers who are concerned is to eliminate aerosol usage.”
Swei said he would also tell his friends to avoid using these aerosol products “until the industry can fix these problems in the supply chain.”
“While there’s some uncertainty, it’s not good for you,” Swei said. “The lower the better for known carcinogens. But, what that level is? We still don’t know.” | 2022-11-01T21:55:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aerosol hair products tainted by benzene may still be on store shelves - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/01/benzene-aerosol-recall-dry-shampoo-sunscreen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/01/benzene-aerosol-recall-dry-shampoo-sunscreen/ |
D.C.'s criminal code revamp passes first City Council vote
The bill, which is not without controversy, must still pass another vote and be signed by the mayor to become law
The D.C. Council hosts a legislative meeting. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
The D.C. Council voted on Tuesday to revamp and rewrite its criminal code — pushing the massive reform closer to becoming law after a 16-year process.
The bill, parts of which were opposed by some law enforcement and city leaders, passed unanimously through the council in a first vote. The council is slated to take a second vote on the measure in two weeks.
If passed and signed by the mayor, the bill would eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, allow for jury trials in almost all misdemeanor cases and reduce the maximum penalties for offenses such as burglaries, carjackings, and robberies. The reform would take place over a three-year period to give the courts, police, and other groups time to ensure officials are up to date on the changes, officials have said.
D.C. Council is rewriting the criminal code. Not everyone is happy.
Public safety committee chair Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) described the act as a “monumental, consequential piece of legislation,” and the culmination of 16 years of planning.
“A comprehensive modernization of our criminal code has never occurred here in the District,” Allen said. “As a result, our criminal laws are a mess and have been ranked among the worst in the country largely because we have never undergone a revision process like this.”
The bill, though, is not completely uncontroversial. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), Police Chief Robert J. Contee III, and U.S. Attorney for the District Matthew M. Graves have said that while they agree with most of the planned revisions, others would reduce the tools available to law enforcement and potentially strain a court system that is already stretched thin.
Graves said in a statement sent to members of the council that he was concerned in particular over the proposed reform lowering the statutory maximum penalties for offenses such as burglaries, carjackings and robberies. Allen has noted that doing so would make the penalties on the books “more closely match actual sentences handed down every day in court.”
When council member Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5) asked if the U.S. Attorney’s concerns had been resolved, Allen responded: “I don’t think that the final product for any stakeholder is going to reflect every single concern, but they have said they believe it should move forward.”
Allen said that since 2006, the Criminal Code Reform Commission and its predecessor, the Criminal Code Revision Project, reviewed best practices across the country and within the District to draft a modernized criminal code.
Jinwoo Park, the Executive Director of the Criminal Code Reform Commission, asserted that the current code has led to uncertainty for people facing criminal charges.
“This is going to provide so much clarity and make it much simpler for ordinary people, as well as practitioners, to navigate their way through the criminal justice system,” Park said.
The bill drew particular support from those who advocate for a criminal justice system that is less focused on incarceration.
Heather Pinckney, Director of the Public Defender Service, said at a news conference in October that the revised code would modernize and make criminal laws in the city more understandable. Amy Fettig, Executive Director at The Sentencing Project, called the vote “a critical step towards equal justice and fairness.”
“We are pleased that the DC Council voted today to modernize its criminal justice system,” Fettig said in a statement. “As it goes for a final vote later this month, The Sentencing Project strongly urges Mayor Bowser to join with community leaders, experts, and practitioners in support of the RCCA to improve public safety and fairness in DC.”
The bill previously received unanimous support in the five-member judiciary and public safety committee. | 2022-11-01T22:08:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C.'s criminal code revamp passes first City Council vote - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/dc-criminal-code-reform-vote/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/01/dc-criminal-code-reform-vote/ |
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