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WASHINGTON — America’s employers kept hiring vigorously in October, adding 261,000 positions, a sign that as Election Day nears, the economy remains a picture of solid job growth and painful inflation. Hiring was brisk across industries, though the overall gain declined from 315,000 in September. The unemployment rate rose from a five-decade low of 3.5% to a still-healthy 3.7%. The government also said average hourly pay, on average, rose 4.7% from a year ago, a smaller year-over-year gain than in September. A strong job market is deepening the challenges the Federal Reserve faces as it raises interest rates at the fastest pace since the 1980s to try to bring inflation down from near a 40-hear high.
WASHINGTON — The solid U.S. jobs report for October underscores why the Federal Reserve needs to raise interest rates higher than it had previously forecast to control inflation. That’s according to Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. In an interview with The Associated Press, Kashkari says that at the Fed’s next meeting in December he expects to issue a higher forecast for where the central bank’s benchmark rate will be next year than he did in September. He says the jobs data shows that hiring is healthy despite some slowing in recent months.
LONDON — The European Commission has authorized the world’s first one-dose drug against a respiratory virus that sickens millions of babies and children globally every year. In a statement Friday, drugmakers Sanofi and AstraZeneca said the European Commission had given the green light to nirsevimab, a laboratory-developed antibody to protect infants during their first exposure to RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, a highly contagious common infection that infects nearly all babies by age 2. The European Medicines Agency had previously recommended that nirsevimab, sold as Beyfortus, be authorized based on research that showed the drug reduced the chances that babies with RSV needed medical attention and appeared safe.
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Around 1,500 demonstrators gathered at the headquarters of Hungary’s public media company have protested what they say is biased news coverage and state-sponsored propaganda that favors the country’s populist government. Demonstrators called for the director of the public media corporation, MTVA, to be replaced. They also demanded due coverage of a recent wave of major protests and strikes by Hungarian teachers and students for better pay and working conditions for educators. Hungarian public media ignored most of those actions despite some protests drawing tens of thousands of people. Under the leadership of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Hungarian government has been accused of eroding press freedom and rolling back democratic checks and balances. | 2022-11-04T22:07:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Twitter layoffs, interest rate hikes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-twitter-layoffs-interest-rate-hikes/2022/11/04/83b8f1dc-5c86-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-twitter-layoffs-interest-rate-hikes/2022/11/04/83b8f1dc-5c86-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo in 2021. State health officials asked the state medical board to draft new policies on gender dysphoria treatments for transgender youth. (Chris O'meara/AP)
Florida’s medical boards approved a rule Friday that will bar minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy or surgeries as treatments for gender dysphoria.
The ban, which will go into effect after a 21-day public comment period, includes nonsurgical exceptions for young people who are already receiving care.
Other states have attempted to enact bans on such care, but Florida is the first to do so through its medical boards. Alabama and Arkansas approved similar measures through the legislative process, but families filed lawsuits against both, and judges have barred either from taking effect as the litigation plays out. Arizona lawmakers also passed a ban earlier this year, but that law has not taken effect yet, and activists have vowed to sue.
Multiple professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Endocrine Society, have endorsed puberty blockers and hormones as appropriate treatments for young people with gender dysphoria. Studies have found that puberty blockers and hormone therapy can reduce emotional distress for transgender young people and reduce the risk of suicide.
Preventing young people from accessing that care could lead to “tragic health consequences,” the head of the American Medical Association said last year. | 2022-11-04T22:08:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida medical boards ban care for transgender minors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/florida-transgender-minors-rule/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/florida-transgender-minors-rule/ |
SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco judge disclosed Friday that she had worked with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter in the 1990s, giving prosecutors and the public defender’s office the opportunity to object to her role in the case against a man who is accused of breaking into the Pelosi home, beating her husband and seeking to kidnap the speaker. | 2022-11-04T22:10:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge in Pelosi attacker case worked with speaker's daughter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judge-in-pelosi-attacker-case-worked-with-speakers-daughter/2022/11/04/eb273066-5c6a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judge-in-pelosi-attacker-case-worked-with-speakers-daughter/2022/11/04/eb273066-5c6a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Maria Gatti-Cheek, Washington Post marketing manager, dies at 58
Maria Gatti in 2018. (Carlo Gatti)
Maria Gatti-Cheek, a former marketing manager for what became the Washington Post News Service and Syndicate, which distributes Post content to clients, died Oct. 25 at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. She was 58 and a resident of McLean, Va.
The cause was squamous cell carcinoma, a rare form of cancer, her brother Gustavo Gatti said.
Ms. Gatti-Cheek joined The Post in 2002 as a marketing representative for what was then the Post Writers Group and became international sales and marketing manager. After leaving The Post in 2020, she became a partner and director of business development at Oronoco Investments LLC, an asset management company in McLean, Va.
Early in her career, she did global sales work for telecommunications companies and was a country program associate for the Nature Conservancy, among other jobs.
Maria Nazaret Gatti Nuñez was born in Asunción, Paraguay, on Feb. 3, 1964, and grew up in Bethesda after her father, a lawyer, joined the Inter-American Development Bank.
She graduated in 1982 from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda and in 1986 from Catholic University. In 1995, she received a master’s in management degree from what is now the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.
Survivors include her husband of five years, Steven Cheek of McLean; her mother, Livia Gatti of Bethesda; and two brothers. | 2022-11-04T22:16:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maria Gatti-Cheek, Washington Post marketing manager, dies at 58 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/04/maria-gatti-washington-post-marketing-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/04/maria-gatti-washington-post-marketing-dead/ |
Teen arrested in Brian Robinson Jr. shooting previously charged with murder
The court ruled there was insufficient evidence to proceed against the teen in a separate, March fatal shooting at a Prince George’s County mall
Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. during the first half of a game against the Green Bay Packers. (Susan Walsh/AP)
The 17-year-old charged in the shooting of Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. was previously charged with murder in a separate, March fatal shooting at a Prince George’s County mall, though he was later released for lack of evidence, according to the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s office.
The teenager was released from custody after the court determined at preliminary hearing that there was not enough evidence to move forward with the charges in the shooting at the Mall at Prince George’s, the state’s attorney’s office said. Five months after that incident, police allege he was involved in the attempted robbery of Robinson along the H Street commercial strip in Northeast Washington.
The development was first reported by ABC7.
Police said the teen was one of two people with a gun in Robinson’s shooting, and that officers were still trying to determine who fired the shots that wounded the football player. Robinson underwent surgery at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and began a weeks-long rehabilitation program before ultimately returning to the field. The teen was charged as a juvenile in the case with assault with intent to rob while armed.
“Enough is enough,” D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III said Wednesday in announcing the arrest. “We have to keep guns out of the hands of the youth in our city.”
The 17-year-old’s twin brother, Jabree Hawkins, was indicted as an adult in the fatal shooting at the Mall at Prince George’s, according to the Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s office. Hawkins is accused of killing DaQuan Dockery, 22, in a clothing store.
Police have said that attack was not random and may have stemmed from a dispute.
The Hawkins family could not be immediately reached for comment. | 2022-11-04T23:08:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teen arrested in Brian Robinson Jr. shooting previously charged with murder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/brian-robinson-shooting-previous-charge/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/brian-robinson-shooting-previous-charge/ |
Teenager gravely wounded in shooting near downtown, D.C. police say
The boy is unconscious and not breathing, police say
A teenage boy was critically wounded Friday in a daytime shooting near downtown, D.C. police said.
The boy was not conscious and was not breathing after being hit about 4:45 p.m. in the 1200 block of Seventh Street NW, said Officer Hugh Carew, a police spokesman.
The daytime shooting, just north of the downtown area, comes amid what police describe as an increase in attacks by teenagers and on teenagers.
On Monday night, a 14-year-old was fatally shot in Southeast Washington. | 2022-11-04T23:08:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teenager shot, critically wounded near downtown D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/teenager-shot-critically-downtown-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/teenager-shot-critically-downtown-dc/ |
With half of the company gone, political campaigns are gripped with anxiety over how to address election misinformation and potential threats
Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Friday. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
Twitter had become one of America’s most influential platforms for spreading accurate voting information, and the days before elections have often been critical moments where company and campaign officials kept up a near-constant dialogue about potential risks.
But a representative from one of the national party committees said they are seeing hours-long delays in responses from their contacts at Twitter, raising fears of the toll workplace chaos and sudden terminations is taking on the platform’s ability to quickly react to developments. The representative spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
“Law enforcement may lose precious minutes in identifying that person who we think is posing an actual threat,” said Katherine Keneally, a senior research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that studies political extremism and polarization.
Keneally said she’d already seen an uptick in threatening content related to the election. She pointed to one post where a user wrote of the need to “pour in bleach or gasoline” at ballot drop boxes, a target of right-wing conspiracy theories about systematic voter fraud.
Yoel Roth, the company’s head of safety and integrity and one of the few top executives to survive Musk’s takeover, tweeted on Friday evening that the company’s “core moderation capabilities remain in place.” He said that the cuts to Twitter’s Trust & Safety division were about 15 percent, in contrast to the nearly 50 percent in cuts across the company.
“With early voting underway in the US, our efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority,” he tweeted.
Musk, the world’s richest person who spent $44 billion for the site, has said the massive cuts of the company’s 7,500-person staff will help prepare it for future success, and he has instructed workers to roll out services he says will safeguard the platform as a digital town square.
Some of his more aggressive changes, however, are also sparking unease. Under Musk, the company is pushing ahead on a service — scheduled to be unveiled Monday, a day before the election — that would give any paying user the “verified” check-mark icon now offered only to politicians, journalists and other notable figures who have confirmed their identity. That move, some political officials said, could fuel deep confusion in the final hours of the race.
“Impersonation of election [officials] is a serious concern for us as the platform considers modifications to their verifications,” said Amy Cohen, the executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors. “We hope that Twitter leadership deploys any changes in advance of the election carefully and recognizing the critical role the platform plays in the election information ecosystem.”
Among the cuts to Twitter was its curation team, a key part of the company’s efforts to guide users to reliable news sources and tamp down on viral hoaxes and conspiracy theories. The team has worked for years to counter election-related falsehoods, such as claims that vote-by-mail ballots would be discarded, and provide credible information in cases where losing candidates have falsely claimed victory.
In October 2020, ahead of the U.S. presidential election, the team added context to all trends that could be found in Twitter’s prime real estate — its “For you” and “What’s happening” boxes — on its app and website. As recently as two weeks ago, Twitter was touting the team’s debunking efforts as a key aspect of its approach to the 2022 midterms.
But on Friday, multiple Twitter employees told The Washington Post the entire team appeared to have been cut amid Musk’s layoffs. Edward Perez, a former Twitter product director and an expert on election integrity, said, “For Musk to back away from Twitter’s positive efforts to pre-bunk or debunk false claims, just days before a major election, is simply terrible timing.”
The cuts also have shaken members of civil rights and advocacy groups who met with Musk earlier this week to share their concerns about his takeover. Musk had “promised to retain and enforce the election integrity measures that were on Twitter’s books before his takeover,” Jessica González, a co-leader of the group Free Press, said Friday. “With today’s mass layoffs, it’s clear that Musk’s actions betray his words. … Even before Musk took over, this operation was dangerously under-resourced.”
Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change, took issue with Musk’s proposal to change Twitter’s “verified” system right before midterms, saying it “could have [an] unprecedented impact on election chaos.”
“Any right-wing troll can pay $8 on Monday, get a blue check mark and then change their username to ‘CNN’ or ‘Georgia secretary of state’ and appear as verified and call races,” he said.
Even before the layoffs, experts had warned that Twitter did not have enough people on staff to handle content moderation. An audit that company whistleblower Peiter Zatko commissioned from the company Alethea Group found that Twitter’s integrity teams were “persistently understaffed” and “have had to make significant trade-offs.”
During U.S. elections, Twitter has set up an election squad that includes people from outside of the core content moderation units to help identify threats; the company’s ability to staff that unit will probably be impacted by the cuts.
Twitter can’t afford to be one of the world’s most influential websites
Kate Starbird, an associate professor at the University of Washington, said during a virtual conference on Friday that Twitter has been “massively disrupted” and that she is “waiting to see how dynamics change without even knowing what changes have happened underneath the hood.”
“Some of the ways that platform worked yesterday are not going to be the way they work today, tomorrow and going into the election on Tuesday,” she said.
Joan Donovan, research director at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, said she had also seen reports of increased coordinated activity, hateful content and harassing messages. But she said she was encouraged by Musk’s decision not to allow banned users immediately back on the platform, which, she predicted, would avert the “avalanche of misinformation many people are anticipating.”
On alternative platforms, meanwhile, there was glee over the possibility of less content moderation on Twitter. A user with more than 72,000 followers on the chat app Telegram celebrated that the anticipated changes were taking place “RIGHT BEFORE THE US ELECTION” so that “whatever goes down on Tuesday … a lot more people will be talking about it on Twitter.”
To Donovan, that expectation could actually blunt the impact of misinformation. “Because the chaotic changes at Twitter have been playing out in public view, many people are already going to be skeptical of the information they’re getting from the platform,” she said. “It’s not considered a very reliable source in this moment.”
Some employees in roles related to the midterms announced on Twitter that they had been terminated. Michele Austin, the director of U.S. and Canada public policy at the company, wrote that she helped lead the 2022 midterms on the platform and was “in denial” that her time at the company was over.
“He couldn’t have waited till Wednesday? #Election2022,” he tweeted.
Matt Brown, Naomi Nix, Will Oremus, Brittany Shammas and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this report. | 2022-11-04T23:21:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Twitter layoffs worry election officials, politicians - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/05/twitter-layoffs-election-impact/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/05/twitter-layoffs-election-impact/ |
Hae Min Lee’s brother has argued he was not allowed to “meaningfully” participate in the hearing at which the conviction was tossed
Adnan Syed, center right, leaves the courthouse after a hearing on Sept. 19 in Baltimore. (Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun/AP)
Adnan Syed is a free man, eyeing exoneration. Here’s what we know.
Lee’s family — led by her brother, Young Lee — appealed Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn’s decision to vacate, with their attorney arguing that they were not given the opportunity to “meaningfully” participate in the court hearing that at which Syed’s conviction was thrown out. The court had previously asked the family to explain why their appeal should continue after prosecutors dropped the case against Syed all together.
The Lee family filed papers on Wednesday asking the appellate court for a new, public, evidentiary hearing in which all the evidence supporting the decision to vacate was presented. They argued that prosecutors’ claims about why the case should be dismissed — including that evidence wasn’t turned over to defense attorneys as it should have been — were disputed, and should be scrutinized in court.
“Hae Min Lee’s family is thrilled with today’s ruling,” said Steve Kelly, the Lee family attorney, in a statement Friday afternoon. “All they are seeking is what the law requires — a full evidentiary hearing in which they can meaningfully participate and one that makes public the relevant evidence.”
She asked the parties to weigh in on whether the notice to Lee’s family before the hearing on vacating the conviction “complied with the applicable constitutional provisions, statutes, and rules,” whether the appeal was moot, and — even if it was — whether the court could still give an opinion. | 2022-11-04T23:21:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Appeal of order vacating Adnan Syed conviction can continue, court rules - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/adnan-syed-appeal-continue/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/adnan-syed-appeal-continue/ |
The exterior of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, which is the headquarters of the FBI. The agency is looking for a new location for their headquarters. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks and an assemblage of Maryland leaders on Friday publicly questioned criteria for picking a new Federal Bureau of Investigations headquarters site that they said advantaged Virginia.
Speakers at a news conference called for the White House to intervene and ensure what they characterized as fair consideration for the county, which has for years competed to lure the headquarters and its thousands of workers.
At issue is a plan the U.S. General Services Administration — the government agency tasked with deciding on the move — released in September that graded proximity to Quantico, Va., as its top priority and ranked promoting equity fourth out of five factors.
“This is an abrupt change that clearly favors Springfield [Va.] and puts our county at a disadvantage,” Alsobrooks said of the plan. “Why then, is the GSA suddenly changing the rules of the game in the 11th hour? Decisions like this one have major generational consequences.”
Prince George’s and Virginia leaders have sparred for more than a decade over the replacement for the FBI’s aging downtown D.C. headquarters and its potential economic impact. Northern Virginia has long benefited from a federal footprint that eclipses Prince George’s, a point Alsobrooks raised Friday and U.S. Congressman Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) echoed in argument for bringing the FBI headquarters to Springfield.
“Maryland is practicing the old trick: when you can’t compete, change the rules,” Connolly said in a statement to The Washington Post, adding that the federal government already owns and underuses the site, and that Northern Virginia is home to the FBI Academy at Marine Corps Base Quantico and the Central Records Complex in Winchester.
“Additionally, the Springfield site sits at the transportation nexus of Metro, VRE, I-495, I-95, and many major bus routes,” he added.
That imbalance is the point, Alsobrooks and other argued, noting that historic investment in counties like Fairfax have brought job opportunities and growth, while the median income for Prince George’s County is 48 percent lower than in Fairfax County.
“We have faced obstacles in attracting the same types of private investments that we see in jurisdictions like Fairfax County and Montgomery County,” she said. “Once again, it appears that some in the federal government are seeking to favor investing in the same communities that have historically received the majority of these investments for decades.”
Alsobrooks said the new criteria is not in keeping with an executive order President Biden issued promising to advance equity.
An FBI spokesperson said racial bias has no place in the site selection process for the new headquarters.
Agency leaders have been vocal in recent years about wanting to remain in D.C.
The Trump administration shelved long-standing efforts to move the headquarters to the suburbs, prompting Democrats in Congress to accuse the former president of derailing the move only to benefit his nearby hotel — a charge House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) raised on Friday in remarks supporting Alsobrooks and questioning the new criteria.
The GSA has five criteria with subsets. The FBI mission, including proximity to Quantico and the Department Justice, are under this umbrella. Access to transportation, flexibility of when construction could begin, racial equity promotion and cost round out the scoring considerations.
The FBI mission carries a weight of 35 percent while access to transportation brings 25 percent. Construction flexibility and racial equity promotion both hold a weight of 15 percent while cost is determined to be only 10 percent.
In response to questions, GSA spokesperson Channing Grate said “no single factor will drive the outcome of the site selection process.”
Prince George’s leaders have long argued that building in Landover or Greenbelt would be less costly than in Northern Virginia. As Connolly noted, the Springfield site is already owned by the federal government.
A decision date for site selection has not been made public.
Hoyer said the choice about where the headquarters will end up is one with “transformational” impact.
“I am certainly hopeful that the administration steps in to carry out its policies to make sure that when we make substantial investments, they uplift communities that have been ignored,” Hoyer said. | 2022-11-04T23:52:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Md officials say they're not getting a fair shake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/fbi-headquarters-maryland-gsa/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/fbi-headquarters-maryland-gsa/ |
Montgomery County police to receive racial and social justice training
Police vehicles are seen outside Chief J. Thomas Manger Public Safety Headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., on Sept. 2. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich on Friday signed a bill that expands county police training to include 30 hours of coursework at Montgomery College aimed at reducing racial bias.
Cadets will study the history of law enforcement and the disproportionate impact policing and incarceration practices have had on communities of color as part of a curriculum designed by experts in sociology and criminal justice. The coursework also includes racial equity, social justice, health and wellness, community policing, active listening and conflict resolution and civic engagement.
“I think this is a signal to our community that we take seriously the moment we’re in and the need to reimagine what our public safety system looks like,” said Montgomery Council member Will Jawando (D - At Large), who introduced the unanimously supported legislation last month.
Jawando has been raising concerns about racial disparities in police encounters in Montgomery County since racial justice protests broke out in 2020 after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd. He first proposed the 30-hour training program in 2021. Last month, the county published a report requested by the council member that showed Black men are the most overrepresented demographic in traffic stops and citations, accounting for 19 to 20 percent of stops between 2018 and 2022 despite making up 9 percent of the adult population.
Black drivers, including men and women, are also far more likely to be searched and arrested during traffic stops — making up 43 percent of searches and 38 percent of arrests but only 18 percent of the adult population. Latino drivers, too, are more likely to be arrested and searched: they make up 31 percent of searches and 35 percent of arrests despite accounting for 19 percent of the population.
Md. opened police IA files to the public. But here the union looks first.
The data suggests that even in equity-minded corners of the country like Montgomery County, people of color often do not receive equal justice under the law.
“There are issues that bedeviled departments across the country for a very long time,” Elrich, who is seeking reelection, said shortly before signing the bill. “We’re moving beyond that and Montgomery County is doing everything we can to make sure we prepare our officers.”
Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus G. Jones said the county is aiming to have the current class of recruits participate in the new program immediately after they finish their academy training in March. Training runs 26 weeks, and the new program at Montgomery College will add about one additional week of coursework for cadets. Veteran officers will also receive similar training through continuing education.
“We have a very good police department and I’m very proud of the men and women of Montgomery County Police,” Jones said at a news conference Friday. “We can always look at ourselves in the mirror and always do better than we did the day before.”
The police department is grappling with the revisions related to racial justice while trying to boost staffing as veteran officers retire at a faster rate than recruits join the force, and as the county experienced a spike in gun violence in the first half of the year.
The county police department is developing the new training program alongside experts from Montgomery College. Professors and other university staff are helping to design the program.
“Montgomery College is the college of the community, and we will not let the community down,” said professor Ginger Robinson, who serves as department chair for the college’s sociology, anthropology and criminal justice department.
Jawando said he hopes the collaboration will encourage people studying criminal justice-related topics at the college to join the police force. The police force is made up of about 74 percent White officers, 12 percent Black officers, 9 percent Hispanic officers, 4 percent Asian officers and less than 1 percent Native American officers. According to a recent analysis by the Office of Legislative Oversight, the county’s adult population is about 43 percent White, 19 percent Latino, 18 percent Black, 16 percent Asian, less than 1 percent Native American and 4 percent other races. | 2022-11-04T23:52:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Montgomery Police training focuses on racial justice, social equity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/montgomery-police-racial-justice-training/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/montgomery-police-racial-justice-training/ |
Shooting in house in Charles County, Md.
Incident is ‘contained,’ sheriff’s office says
A shooting was reported inside a house in Charles County, Md, on Friday evening, prompting a major response from the sheriff’s office.
The gunfire was reported in the 3000 block of Wildflower Drive in the La Plata area, the sheriff’s office said.
In a tweet, the office said the “scene is contained.”
Such a report often implies no suspect is being sought.
The sheriff’s office said a staging area was being set up for the media. | 2022-11-04T23:52:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | shooting in house in Charles County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/shot-house-charles-county-maryland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/shot-house-charles-county-maryland/ |
Candidates on Friday sprinted toward the final weekend before the midterm elections with control of the chamber up for grabs
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and Pennsylvania congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon are cheered by supporters after in Upper Darby, Pa., on Nov. 4. (Ryan Collerd/AP)
From Nevada, where Republican Adam Laxalt on Friday highlighted high gas prices as he continued a bus tour, to Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman made a pitch in the vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs, to Wisconsin, where Democrat Mandela Barnes implored supporters to tell their friends to vote, the candidates on the front lines of an expensive and bruising battle ramped up their efforts to persuade undecided voters and energize those in their corner to go to the polls.
“I feel confident we’re going to be able to hold the majority in the Senate, and then I believe we’ll have an opportunity to pick up a seat or two,” Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a telephone interview.
Democrats said they are cautiously optimistic that their candidates can withstand a challenging political environment in which high inflation, rising crime in some areas and low approval ratings for President Biden have become difficult for them to overcome. They have run heavily on abortion rights and sought to cast Republicans as extremists who would steer the government in a dangerous direction.
Chuck Rocha, a veteran Democrat strategist involved in races around the country, called the Senate “one of our shining lights of hope,” as he pointed to Republicans nominating “Trump acolytes” in some key races where the president’s endorsement helped determine the nominees. Rocha said “the bad news” was that he felt “uneasy about the House,” where races tend to follow the national mood more uniformly.
Republicans are hoping voters’ frustration with the state of the country will enable them to overcome what strategists in both parties have said are weaknesses in some of their Senate candidates. They have focused on the economy, rising crime in some areas and the Biden administration’s struggles to deal with an influx of migrants at the southern border. On Friday, they expressed confidence Friday in that pitch. “I wouldn’t deviate a lick,” said Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist working on the Nevada Senate race.
With a 50-50 Senate where Vice President Harris has the power to cast tiebreaking votes, Republicans only need to gain one seat overall to flip the chamber. The focus on both parties has been heavily on competitive races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.
New polling by Marist College released Friday showed how competitive the first three races are, while polls in Nevada have also showed a close race. In Pennsylvania, which Democrats see as their best bet for flipping a red Senate seat, Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, held a lead over Republican Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor who has gained some momentum in recent weeks.
A day after Fetterman received an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey, who helped launch Oz’s TV career, the Democrat campaigned in a swing area in the collar counties of Philadelphia. He held a conversation with Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) in front of a small audience where he made a closing pitch that touched on abortion access and the economy while also seeking to raise doubts about Oz’s character.
“Dr. Oz is essentially using Pennsylvania, not serving Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said. “And so I think if somebody was looking for the kind of candidate that is to stand up for anyone that ever got knocked down that has to get back up, or any kind of forgotten community, they can really relate to their lives and kind of see the candidate that would fight for the kind of places where you live in, and that’s really what this campaign is absolutely about.”
On Saturday, Biden, Trump and former president Barack Obama will headline rallies for their parties’ tickets on both ends of the state. Obama will join Fetterman for a rally in Pittsburgh, then the two will link up with Biden and gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro for an event in Philadelphia. That night, Trump will be in Pittsburgh with Mehmet Oz and Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano.
Fetterman is still recovering from a stroke in May that left him with symptoms of an auditory processing disorder, according to the Democrat and his doctor. He has also at times struggled with his speech. Fetterman’s doctors have said he is fit to serve in the Senate.
Oz has sought to cast Fetterman as soft on crime and has distanced himself from Mastriano’s far-right extremism, as he seeks to appeal to more moderate voters. This week, during an event in a deeply conservative part of the state, Oz catered his message to a more centrist audience.
“You got to have less extremism, more balance in Washington,” Oz told supporters at a barn in Lancaster County. “It’s what’s going to allow us to cope with the challenges that this country faces.”
While Oz sought to make inroads with moderates, other Republican candidates wanted to appeal to the conservative base. In Georgia on Friday, former football star Herschel Walker, the GOP nominee, campaigned with former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who has been campaigning with Republicans and former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.
On Saturday, Walker will host a game day rally near the University of Georgia — where he won the Heisman Trophy — with the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s chairman, Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.).
“Voters are clearly rejecting Joe Biden and the Democrats’ agenda and embracing the new vision and fresh ideas from our strong Republican candidates,” Scott in a statement said. He predicted “some big wins on Tuesday.”
The Democrat who Walker is trying to unseat, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (Ga.), did not host any public campaign events on Friday. On Thursday, he made multiple stops on a bus tour with Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.) and other state Democratic leaders.
In a rally on Thursday evening in a majority-Black county considered an important Democratic stronghold, just more than 60 supporters came out. They were ushered into a 500-person theater, where a DJ was playing music and a lectern was set up with a “Warnock for Georgia” sign ahead of his arrival. Moments later, supporters were ushered out of the theater to instead gather in the lobby of the center where it felt more crowded.
In his remarks, Warnock sought to make a case that Walker is unfit to be a senator. The Democrat spent much of his campaign largely avoiding talk of his opponent, but in the final days leading up to the election, he has been vocal in railing against Walker.
“This is not just an election between a Democrat and a Republican. This is not even the difference between right and left. This is the difference between right and wrong,” Warnock said as the crowd cheered in agreement.
“If we can’t trust you to tell the truth about your life, why would we put our lives in your hands?” Warnock added.
Walker, who has made numerous misstatements, has faced scandals related to his personal life, include claims by two former girlfriends that he pressured them to have abortions. The Republican, who has run on a strict antiabortion platform, has denied those claims.
In Nevada, where Democrats are trying to defend a seat, Democrats held a slight advantage in ballots returned as early voting came to a close Friday. Their lead was wider at the same point in 2018, when Democrats did well.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) was running neck-and-neck with Laxalt in race that Republicans have long viewed as their best chance to flip a seat, trying to convince voters that Democrats will bring down costs as well as protect abortion access as Republicans seize on Nevada’s especially high inflation.
Laxalt has been on a bus tour around the state and on Friday headed back toward Las Vegas, where he was set to appear with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and others. In tweets on Friday, Laxalt blamed Cortez Masto and Biden for the prices of gas, rent and groceries on their watch, a message he has underscored on the trail.
In Arizona, the Senate race has tightened in recent polling — boosting GOP hopes to retake a seat considered a long shot earlier this fall as Republican Blake Masters struggled to compete with Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s huge cash advantage and double-digit lead with the state’s all-important independent voters.
Masters and GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake have been campaigning in close coordination, holding packed events together and recently appearing for a joint Fox News interview — a united front that Republicans say has helped lift Masters with the base voters he needed to consolidate.
Also joining Masters on Friday: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who Masters sees as an ideological ally in the Senate. Masters’s campaign, meanwhile, has attacked Kelly over his choice of surrogates in the final stretch, seeking to tie the Democratic to Biden administration and undermine his pitch as a more moderate Democrat. On social media, Masters shared a website aimed squarely at that message, condemning “Joe Biden & Mark Kelly: Two Years of Failure.”
Kelly will appear Saturday with first lady Jill Biden in Phoenix. The president has avoided Arizona since taking office amid anger over his handling of the border and the state of the economy.
Paul Maslin, a Democratic strategist, said where the races have settled is not surprising given the political makeup of the states in play. Democrats would probably be underwater if Trump wasn’t still so prominently in the news and if the Supreme Court hadn’t struck down Roe v. Wade, he said.
“If there never had been a Dobbs case and no Trump, then the entire campaign would have been a debate about the economy. Do you think for a second we could have won that race?” he said. “We were sadly given a gift by the Supreme Court, and it helped us.”
In Wisconsin on Friday, Barnes, the Democratic Senate nominee and lieutenant governor, stood in the shadow of the state Capitol in Madison and urged a crowd of supporters to get their friends to the polls.
“People like Ron Johnson have had their days. It’s our time now,” Barnes said, referring to the state’s Republican senator and the man he hopes to defeat. Barnes would be the first Black senator from Wisconsin if he wins.
As he has during much of the campaign, Barnes made a populist pitch for his candidacy. “The industries that gave my family a fair shot are in decline,” Barnes said. “This is a fight to make sure the American Dream can be realized.”
On Friday, Johnson continued his “Get Out The Vote” tour of the state in his green bus, which he dubs the “Ronmobile.” He made stops in the eastern portion of the state, including Green Bay and Fond du Lac.
During his tour, he has pitched his candidacy as way of protecting traditional American values, emphasized his support for law enforcement, and criticized Biden and the Democrats for their handling of the economy. He has also delved into race, pointing out his opponent’s concerns about systemic racism and asking why someone with those views would want to represent the state in the Senate.
Responding to Johnson’s criticism during a Madison campaign stop Friday, Barnes called Johnson “the worst senator in Wisconsin since Joe McCarthy” and said Johnson is “doing his best to emulate” McCarthy.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is going on a one-man tour in Wisconsin and Michigan to energize his base to vote, though not appearing with Barnes. Two other former 2020 presidential primary rivals, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) plan to campaign together in New Hampshire on Sunday for Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.).
Hassan is running against Republican Don Bolduc in a race that has also tightened in the final weeks.
Knowles reported from Las Vegas. Linskey reported in Madison, Wis. Rodriguez reported from Atlanta. Dylan Wells in Upper Darby, Pa., and John Wagner contributed to this report.
Midterm elections live updates: Some Republicans focus on ‘parental rights’ to close campaign; Biden adds events | 2022-11-05T00:05:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As Democrats see House slipping away, Senate battle intensifies in final days - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/04/senate-midterms-majority-campaign/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/04/senate-midterms-majority-campaign/ |
Global financial system under pressure from all sides, Fed report says
It’s not 2008. But rising interest rates, a bond liquidity crunch and geopolitical tensions pose potential threats, according to the central bank.
The financial system isn’t at risk of a 2008-style meltdown, but fresh threats are complicating the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign to tame some of the highest inflation in 40 years, the central bank warned Friday.
Chief among these risks is rising volatility in the financial markets, diminishing liquidity for government bonds and geopolitical tensions worldwide, the Fed warned in its semiannual report on global financial stability. These combined threats complicate the overall economic picture as chances of a recession next year rise.
The Fed’s tightening campaign — which includes its fourth consecutive 0.75 percentage point increase issued Wednesday — coincides with moves by other major central banks to hike rates. Together, these could further strain the global financial system.
Tremors in the market for U.S. Treasury bonds have also drawn the attention of investors and some Washington policymakers. Those bonds are a key pillar of the global financial system. But there are early signs that the pool of interested buyers could run dry as one unintended consequence of rising rates.
“Today’s environment of rapid synchronous global monetary policy tightening, elevated inflation, and high uncertainty associated with the pandemic and the war raises the risk that a shock could lead to the amplification of vulnerabilities, for instance due to strained liquidity in core financial markets or hidden leverage,” Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard said in a statement accompanying the report.
The report, which comes out each May and November, did not send immediate alarms. Instead, it sought to map out a range of potential threats that could hit the financial system, including unforeseen shocks or any unintended consequences from the Fed’s fight against inflation. In the United States, for example, analysts took heed from the extreme market turmoil in Britain that accelerated the political demise of former prime minister Liz Truss and prompted added scrutiny of bond mutual funds, pensions, corporate debt and government finances.
Still, the Fed wrote, the banking system appears stable and household debt has not emerged as a major source for concern. Prices of risky assets have fallen as the economic outlook has deteriorated and interest rates have risen.
The last five months have brought plenty of bumps in the United States and abroad, and the chief concern remains getting inflation under control. But in contrast to the years leading up to the Great Recession, when the housing market led to a massive meltdown of the financial system, policymakers are not worried about the same kind of instability now.
After home prices exploded over the past few years, the Fed is aiming to slow the market through higher interest rates that, in turn, lead to costlier mortgages and eventually lower home prices. Although the drop hasn’t yet reached the rental market, realtors and housing experts aren’t bracing for a market crash.
Still, vulnerabilities remain. Among the groups surveyed by the Fed, no respondents in May cited market liquidity strains and volatility as a concern. But by November, 54 percent of contacts cited the risk. Attention also grew around a possible conflict between China and Taiwan — up from 14 percent to 42 percent.
Slightly fewer respondents said they were concerned about inflation staying high while rates go up — 68 percent in the May report, compared to 62 percent now. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also prompted slightly fewer concerns — 77 percent versus 62 percent.
But the economic consequences of the war in Ukraine, and geopolitical tensions elsewhere, continue to ripple. Europe is staring down a severe energy crisis this winter, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to halt natural gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and Europe’s tightening embargoes on Russian energy. The U.S.-China relationship is also under economic and national security pressures.
Meanwhile, the Fed’s steep rate increases have strengthened the U.S. dollar. But that, in turn, weakens other currencies and makes other countries’ fight against inflation even more difficult. | 2022-11-05T00:22:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Global financial system under pressure from all sides, Fed report says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/04/fed-financial-stability/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/04/fed-financial-stability/ |
Elon Musk’s whirlwind first week at Twitter: 8,304 miles by private jet
Flight data shows the $70 million Gulfstream jet crisscrossing the country as Musk bounced around from meetings to parties. (Video: Brian Monroe/The Washington Post)
Flight 1: Hawthorne, Ca. to San Jose
Flight 2: San Jose to Hawthorne, Ca.
Flight 3: Hawthorne, Ca. to Teterboro, N.J.
Flight 4: Teterboro, N.J. to Chantilly, Va.
Flight 5: Chantilly, Va. to San Francisco
Flight 6: San Francisco to San Jose
Flight 7: San Jose to Teterboro, N.J.
In his first week atop Twitter, Elon Musk has gotten around: preparing the massive layoffs that started late Thursday, meeting with civil rights groups and advertisers, attending a Space Force event and Heidi Klum’s Halloween bash. His manic schedule is illustrated by the 8,304 miles his private jet logged in that time, hopscotching from coast to coast.
You can see it on Twitter at @ElonJet, a bot built by Jack Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, using public data that tracks the flight plans of all planes — including Musk’s 2015 Gulfstream G650ER.
“Elon’s takeover has definitely brought more interest to my account,” said Sweeney, who also calculates how much jet fuel each leg uses and its CO2 emissions.
The tracker does not show who was onboard during the flights, but aspects of Musk’s travel were confirmed by his public appearances, interviews and tweets. Musk did not respond to requests for comment about his busy week of events and to confirm if he was on the flights during his plane’s trips.
Here’s where the jet flew during Musk’s whirlwind week:
Dep. Oct. 26 at 11:48 p.m., arr. Oct. 27 at 12:38 a.m. | 312 miles flown
The Musk era of Twitter begins.
He tweeted for the first time as CEO last Thursday, concluding a 6-month drama over whether he would buy the social platform for $44 billion.
In addition to Twitter, Musk is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — and the three companies are headquartered in different cities. Twitter is based in San Francisco, while SpaceX is in Southern California. Tesla’s headquarters are in Austin, but its busiest factory is in Fremont, Ca., also in the Bay Area.
As the new owner, Musk immediately fired several longtime top Twitter executives who were swiftly escorted out of headquarters. There were rumors that he would address employees the next day, Friday, but it never happened.
His jet stayed in town until …
Dep. Oct. 29 at 10:52 p.m., arr. Oct. 29 at 11:41 p.m. | 312 miles flown
Musk made Southern California his home before announcing recently he was relocating to Texas. His jet often lands in Hawthorne, where SpaceX is located, after long days of work in Texas, the Bay Area and elsewhere.
Musk plunged into a controversy of his own making after tweeting and deleting a post pushing baseless allegations about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Musk faced immediate and widespread backlash.
Amid the spread of misinformation, Twitter’s relationship with advertisers is crucial to its business.
Musk’s jet would soon take off for where the marketing dollars are …
Dep. Oct. 30 at 9:26 p.m., arr. Oct. 31 at 1:54 a.m. | 2,456 miles
Musk changed his Twitter bio location to “Twitter NY.” One of his associates, Jason Calacanis, who has been working with Musk to enact his plans at Twitter, posted on Monday about the new team’s efforts to court advertisers, which provide the company with the bulk of its revenue.
On Monday night, Musk was photographed attending Heidi Klum’s Halloween party on the Lower East Side. Klum was disguised as a rain worm. Musk, who arrived with his mom, Maye Musk, was dressed in red armor.
As Musk’s jet stayed on the East Coast Tuesday, another long-serving Twitter executive, chief marketing officer Leslie Berland, who just days earlier had encouraged employees to greet the new leader, left the company.
Musk’s attention seemed focused on helping Twitter make money: he tweeted about charging some people to use Twitter, and his team had plans to meet with advertisers.
Over Zoom, Musk on Tuesday also met with civil rights groups worried about the prevalence of hate speech on the platform and pledged not to reinstate banned accounts until there was a clear process in place for doing so. Musk tweeted frequently, often about his plans to implement a fee for some Twitter users, but he also retweeted posts from SpaceX.
From New Jersey, his jet took off for …
Dep. Nov. 1 at 8:50 p.m., arr. Nov. 1 at 9:36 p.m. | 223 miles flown
Musk’s jet arrived at Dulles late Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, Musk attended the change of-command ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, for the retirement of the first head of the U.S. Space Force, Gen. John Raymond. The event was a break from Musk’s Twitter-heavy week: SpaceX’s aerospace contracts place Musk in partnership with the U.S. government.
But Musk’s jet didn’t stay in the D.C. area for long. By midday Wednesday it was on its way to …
Dep. Nov. 2 at 1:56 p.m., arr. Nov. 2 at 6:43 p.m.| 2,419 miles flown
Musk’s jet was back in Twitter’s home city, but he still didn’t meet with employees or formally address the staff. Instead he stoked plans to revamp the company’s premium service, Twitter Blue, while employees anticipated layoffs and traded information through private channels.
The jet was only on the ground in San Francisco a little over an hour when it took off for its third flight of the day, headed for …
Dep. Nov. 2 at 8:04 p.m., arr. Nov. 2 at 8:20 p.m. | 30 miles flown
The last flight of the day covered a route that most Bay Area commuters do by car or train. San Jose is the closest major city to Tesla’s Fremont factory, but it’s unclear if Musk spent any time this week visiting the electric automaker, his most valuable company. While Musk frequently tweets about developments at Tesla, the vast majority of his interactions since taking over Twitter have been about the social media platform.
Meanwhile, inside Twitter employees said they had yet to receive a single official communication from anyone in charge at the company.
That changed late Thursday when an email went out to employees notifying them of plans to cut jobs. By 9 a.m. Pacific time Friday, workers would receive an email with the subject line: “Your Role at Twitter.”
To close out Musk’s first seven days, the jet was back on its way to the East Coast …
Dep. Nov. 4 at 1:29 a.m., arr. Nov. 4 at 5:43 a.m. | 2,552 miles flown
Musk was interviewed at an investment conference at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan on Friday, where he spoke about his attempts to inspire workers at Tesla by keeping grueling hours and sleeping at one of the company’s factories.
Twitter offices were closed Friday as employees tweeted they were shut out of internal systems and assumed they were laid off.
Elon Musk speaking at a finance conference in NYC just now ends his talk but telling the audience to “please use Twitter.” Laughs as he walks off https://t.co/TY0ZwoXRPK
Faiz Siddiqui and Gerrit De Vynck contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T00:26:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tracking Elon Musk's private jet during his first week as Twitter owner - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/04/elon-musk-private-jet-twitter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/04/elon-musk-private-jet-twitter/ |
Oprah Winfrey broke a long silence and endorsed John Fetterman over her old TV pal Mehmet Oz. Experts aren’t sure it really matters.
Oprah Winfrey, seen in 2010, faced pressure to disavow the politics of her former TV pal Mehmet Oz, seen here kneeling. (Charles Sykes/AP)
The queen of all media hadn’t weighed in on her former TV pal’s Senate campaign for nearly a year, and the silence was deafening.
Then, on Thursday: “If I lived in Pennsylvania, I would have already cast my vote for John Fetterman, for many reasons,” Oprah Winfrey said during a virtual town hall meeting.
She reportedly made no mention of Mehmet Oz, the Republican and former TV personality whom Winfrey had long ago dubbed “America’s Doctor” — and who is now running against Fetterman, the Democratic lieutenant governor, for Pennsylvania’s enormously consequential open Senate seat.
“It is an honor and privilege to have Oprah’s support in this race,” Fetterman said in an emailed statement. (Politico reported that Fetterman’s camp had been angling for an Oprah endorsement for months.) “She is a leader on so many issues — fighting for our democracy, passing common-sense gun reform, and ensuring racial justice,” the statement continued. “I’m grateful for Oprah’s support and trust on the issues that matter to people across the country and Pennsylvania as we close out this campaign.”
Winfrey’s silence-breaking endorsement comes at the end of a long campaign filled with medical drama and debate drama and hors d’oeuvres drama and too many social media burns to count, and it remains to be whether her opinion will be a difference-maker.
“I don’t think she has that same amount of influence anymore,” says Craig Garthwaite, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. “She’s still obviously influential, but she’s been out of the public eye.”
Garthwaite estimated that Oprah’s endorsement of then-candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary handed him 1 million additional votes, tipping the scales in his contest against Hillary Clinton. But the circumstances of that race, that endorsement, and that particular moment in Oprah’s trajectory were unique. Between her talk show, magazine, book club and overall empire, Winfrey’s star power was near its peak. It was also her first major political endorsement, and it happened at a time when political media wasn’t as fragmented, says Garthwaite. Winfrey’s level of involvement was also different — she hosted fundraisers and appeared at rallies with Obama.
“This one felt much more like an aside,” says Garthwaite. “It has nowhere near the pomp and circumstance of the Obama endorsement.”
During the virtual event Thursday, Winfrey expressed support for other Democrats, too — Beto O’Rourke in Texas, and Raphael G. Warnock and Stacey Abrams in Georgia. As an indication of her politics, the media mogul’s support for Fetterman is not particularly newsworthy. But Winfrey’s opinion on the Pennsylvania Senate race was of particularly intense interest since many hold her responsible for Oz’s star power, which he is now trying to redeem for political power for the Republican Party.
Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, hosted a show on the Discovery Channel in the early 2000s called “Second Opinion with Dr. Oz.” He was later featured on Winfrey’s popular talk show more than 60 times, which led to a spinoff program, “The Dr. Oz Show,” which was co-produced by Winfrey’s company, Harpo Productions. The Washington Post has reported that Oz’s show provided a platform for questionable weight-loss advice.
Some have asked for Oprah to apologize for her role in elevating Oz’s public profile. “I’m still waiting on Oprah to apologize for forcing Mehmet Oz on all of us,” tweeted actress Bette Midler on Nov. 1. In June, Jimmy Kimmel made a parody video of Oprah’s apology for his show. “I made him a household name. I [messed] up,” said an Oprah impersonator in the video, referring to Oz. “I owe you each a candle and fuzzy pair of slippers. I’m really sorry.”
Others have argued that the current, Donald Trump-endorsed version of Oz is not Oprah’s responsibility. Some felt that the public was being harsher on Oprah, a Black woman, than they were on, say, Mark Burnett, a White man who similarly provided former president Trump with a platform for “The Apprentice.”
“Please stop blaming women in particular black women for problematic men,” one person tweeted.
“I think it’s incredibly myopic to imagine that somebody should have read the tea leaves during the Oprah show days or anticipated this,” says Matthew Baum, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School who has studied the impact of talk shows on politics. “I don’t think very many people saw this coming, even in political circles.”
Still, her decision to stay out of the fray for nearly the entirety of the race had been notable. She is not apolitical, having flirted with the possibility of running for office before. Until this week, Oprah’s only comment on Fetterman vs. Oz was a statement issued last December, through her spokeswoman, Nicole Nichols: “One of the great things about our democracy is that every citizen can decide to run for public office. Mehmet Oz has made that decision. And now it’s up to the residents of Pennsylvania to decide who will represent them.”
Oz said last year that he had told Oprah not to comment on his run. “I asked her to stay out. Don’t support me because if you get involved in any way, you’ll get hurt and I don’t want my friends hurt,” Oz said at a Manhattan Republican meet-and-greet. Janice Peck, professor emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder and the author of “The Age of Oprah: Cultural Icon for the Neoliberal Era,” suspects that Oprah finally spoke up to preserve her reputation.
Fetterman is more liberal than the type of candidates she usually endorses, says Peck, who describes Oprah as a “very centrist, corporate Democrat.”
“The more Oz has moved in the direction of becoming controversial,” Peck says, the “more blowback she got.”
Perspective: What Dr. Oz really said about abortion
Baum, the Harvard professor, suspects that Fetterman’s debate performance — in which he stumbled over some words, a lingering effect of the stroke he suffered earlier this year — amplified calls for Oprah to speak up.
“She probably went against her instinct to get involved in it,” says Baum, “It got harder to stay out of it over time.”
Though Baum says it’s unlikely that Oprah would convert any Oz supporters into Fetterman voters, one area where she might move the needle is turnout particularly among Black voters.
“It’s not going to have a massive effect, but it doesn’t necessarily need to,” says Baum. “All indications are that it’s really close. So, you know, a half-a-percent of increased turnout in an important constituency could make a difference.” | 2022-11-05T00:35:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oprah endorses Fetterman over Dr. Oz, bring drama to an anticlimax - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/04/oprah-fetterman-oz-drama/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/04/oprah-fetterman-oz-drama/ |
Five found apparently shot in house in Charles County, Md.
Victims found in LaPlata, sheriff’s office said
Five people were found dead Friday in a house in Charles County, Md., after apparentl being shot, authorities said.
The scene was confined to the house in the 3000 block of Wildflower Drive in La Plata, the sheriff’s office said.
The five appeared to be adults, said Janelle Love, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff’s office said. It appeared from preliminary information that all had been shot, she said. It was not clear, she said, what relationships existed among the five.
No information was available about any suspect in the deaths, and nothing could be learned immediately about what prompted the shootings.
It appeared that a large contingent of emergency personnel responded to the scene and the matter was under investigation Friday night.
The site is on a street of single family houses, about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C.
One resident said she regarded the street as a quiet one, where “nothing ever happens.” She said she knew of nobody living there who seemed likely to be involved in an incident that brought so heavy a police presence. | 2022-11-05T00:53:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Shooting reported in Charles County, Md., house - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/house-charles-county-shot/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/house-charles-county-shot/ |
Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets in New York City on Nov. 1. (Dustin Satloff/Getty Images)
Nike said late Friday that it was suspending its relationship with NBA star Kyrie Irving, the latest fallout after the basketball player shared an antisemitic film on social media and for days refused to apologize or disavow antisemitism.
“At Nike, we believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form of antisemitism,” the company said in a statement. “To that end, we’ve made the decision to suspend our relationship with Kyrie Irving effective immediately and will no longer launch the Kyrie 8.” The Kyrie 8 shoe was set to be released this month, according to industry publications.
The rebuke from Nike comes a day after the Brooklyn Nets suspended Irving for at least five games without pay, saying he was “currently unfit to be associated” with the organization after he promoted an antisemitic film on social media.
The Nets said in a statement Thursday, “We were dismayed today, when given an opportunity in a media session, that Kyrie refused to unequivocally say he has no antisemitic beliefs, nor acknowledge specific hateful material in the film. This was not the first time he had the opportunity — but failed — to clarify.”
After sharing a link to a film titled “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” on social media, he repeatedly refused to apologize or acknowledge the antisemitism, until an Instagram post late Thursday when he acknowledged that he “posted a Documentary that contained some false anti-Semitic statements, narratives, and language that were untrue and offensive to the Jewish Race/Religion.”
He said he took “full accountability and responsibly for my actions,” adding: “To All Jewish families and Communities that are hurt and affected from my post, I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain, and I apologize.” He said he “initially reacted out of emotion to being unjustly labeled Anti-Semitic, instead of focusing on the healing process of my Jewish Brothers and Sisters that were hurt from the hateful remarks made in the Documentary.” | 2022-11-05T02:59:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nike suspends Kyrie Irving relationship, cancels Kyrie 8 launch - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/04/nike-kyrie-irving-suspend-shoes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/04/nike-kyrie-irving-suspend-shoes/ |
Updated November 4, 2022 at 10:58 p.m. EDT|Published November 4, 2022 at 9:55 p.m. EDT
The Wizards suffered their worst loss of the young season Friday against Brooklyn. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Kevin Durant stepped once with his left leg, quick and spindly as a spider’s, then again, and just like that Daniel Gafford was on the floor. His teammates on the bench and the crowd at Capital One Arena rose in amazement when Durant crossed up the Wizards’ 6-foot-10 center — twice — and reminded the basketball world that, for all their ugly baggage, the Brooklyn Nets need only two things to put on a beautiful show: their focus and an agreeable opponent.
The Washington Wizards acquiesced quite a bit Friday in a 128-86 loss to the messiest team in the NBA. They allowed Brooklyn to shoot 55.6 percent from the floor with a freewheeling offense that was without both Kyrie Irving (suspension) and Ben Simmons (knee).
They were shooting even better, 57 percent from the floor, early in the fourth quarter when Wizards Coach Wes Unseld Jr. pulled most of his starters.
Washington did the unthinkable Friday. It made Brooklyn look functional.
“I’m not pointing blame at players; across the board we all got our butts kicked tonight. Bottom line,” Unseld said. “We all have to own that — it’s embarrassing. But it started with our approach — our approach was lackluster, we thought we could ease our way into a game where they didn’t have a complete complement, roster-wise, and it turned around and bit us in the butt.”
The Nets arrived at Capital One Arena toting a mountain of off-court stressors, primarily Irving’s team-imposed suspension. The 30-year-old was suspended Thursday for at least five games without pay after repeatedly refusing to apologize for a social media post about an antisemitic film and book; he issued an apology hours after the Nets announced his punishment. The point guard stood to lose at least $1.25 million for missing five games, and late Friday, Nike said it was suspending its relationship with Irving.
The Nets, whose two previous wins this season had come against the rebuilding Pacers and the Toronto Raptors, looked just fine without him and Steve Nash, who was fired as coach this week. Interim coach Jacque Vaughn directed from the sidelines as the team started sixth-year point guard Edmond Sumner in Irving’s place.
Durant shredded Wizards defenders for 28 points, nine rebounds and 11 assists. Nic Claxton added 18 points and nine rebounds. George Washington alum Yuta Watanabe had 14 points off the bench.
Washington (4-5) seemed to just step aside while Durant cooked.
Bradley Beal led the Wizards with 20 points while Kristaps Porzingis had 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Kyle Kuzma had 19 points. But they were the only scorers in double figures, and they couldn’t withstand the bulldozing in which the Nets scored 60 points in the paint.
“It was a letdown. It was definitely a step back on the defensive end,” Beal said. “We showed no resistance, no physicality, really no pride on that end of the floor. That’s what it came down to. We didn’t have it, at all, tonight.”
Brooklyn didn’t get to the free throw line all that much — it made 12 of 12 compared with Washington’s 18 of 22 — and didn’t hold a significant rebounding edge until garbage time in the fourth quarter. The Nets hammered the Wizards again and again, opening easy paths to the paint and punctuating with critical three-pointers.
They made 14 of 28 from beyond the arc compared to the Wizards’ 8 of 34.
Here’s what else you need to know from Friday’s loss:
Avdija responds to Irving situation
Third-year Wizards forward Deni Avdija answered questions about Irving’s social media posts and suspension for just over five minutes after Friday’s game. The 21-year-old from Israel is the only active Jewish player in the NBA.
“I’ve heard, I’ve seen. Listen, at the end of the day, I think he’s a role model, he’s a great player. I think he made a mistake, but you need to understand that he gives [examples] to people,” Avdija said. “People look up to him, you know what I’m saying? You can think whatever you want, you can do whatever you want. [But] I don’t think it’s right to go out and publish it and let little kids that follow you see it and generations that come after to think like that, because it’s not true. And I don’t think it’s fair. Hopefully he’s sorry for what he said.”
Kuzma clarifies tweet
Kuzma posted what he said was an ill-timed tweet Friday that many assumed to be about Irving. “Can’t even tell the truth no more,” he wrote, around 30 minutes after Durant and Nets General Manager Sean Marks spoke about Irving at Brooklyn’s shoot-around.
“It’s unfortunate — my tweet got completely taken out of context,” Kuzma said. “Probably a product of wrong place, wrong time. For sure. Obviously anyone that knows me knows my character, I’m all about peace and love. I don’t condone any discrimination or hate of any race or religion, [politics], whatever you want to call it.”
Durant floors Gafford
The highlight of the game came at the end of the first quarter, when Kevin Durant crossed up Gafford. The first time Durant caught the center flat-footed, he just tripped him up a bit, but the second time Gafford lunged into a split stance and slid to the floor.
It’s difficult to make up for a moment like that, but Gafford regained some dignity on the other end with a layup.
Kispert returns
Second-year guard Corey Kispert played in his first game of the year after recovering from a left ankle sprain. Kispert has been practicing with the team’s G League affiliate but had not participated in a full Wizards practice before his debut. He had two points in 17 minutes as he worked his way back into rhythm.
With backup point guard Delon Wright out indefinitely with a hamstring strain, Unseld was pleased to have Kispert back to help smooth out his rotations.
Davis could get G League assignment
Rookie Johnny Davis scored two points in eight minutes, the bulk of which came at the end of the game. Unseld said Davis could be assigned to the Wizard’s G League affiliate, the Capital City Go-Go, for its season opener Saturday to get more playing time. | 2022-11-05T03:29:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nets embarrass Wizards, as Kevin Durant crosses over Daniel Gafford - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/04/wizards-nets-durant-gafford/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/04/wizards-nets-durant-gafford/ |
We really hit it off. We would chat for hours every day. I brought up the fact of our age difference. My match said it didn’t bother them.
Although they were far away, we decided to meet. I decided to make a trip of it and stayed for a few days. We spent the whole time together and had a wonderful time. Our connection grew deeper, and we continued to chat every day for hours.
Well, my match recently revealed to me that they lied about their age. This person is not 24, but 20 years old. My match has accepted responsibility, apologized and accepted any possible consequences. I was able to forgive, and I can easily move on.
My main qualm now is the very real social stigma associated with the 15-year age gap, especially with this person being so young. My heart tells me to just continue. I really care about this person, and my feelings are reciprocated. This is not some fling for either of us.
Concerned: Inflating your age by nearly a quarter of your total life span is exactly the sort of choice 20-year-olds make, but I give this person credit for coming clean about this. (You should ask to see a driver’s license.)
It’s natural for anyone to want their friends and family to approve of a serious relationship, but at the end of the day only you two need to resolve the question of whether this feels right to you. And if it does feel right — really right — then you’ll still seek approval, but it won’t be a game changer if you don’t receive it.
Dear Amy: I had a 10-year marriage and two beautiful children with someone I couldn’t live with, but who has been my best friend ever since. While it didn’t work out, my ex and I have remained solid parents, confidantes and friends.
He has been in a long-term (10-plus years) relationship with a brilliant woman whom I have trusted heart-and-soul with my children for over 10 years. She and I are truly close friends.
Everyone in my life is aware that I have Stage 3 blood cancer.
Here is my question: If I had to write my funeral plans today, at 59, and I had my ex-husband’s permission, I would like for him to give my eulogy. He is clever, witty, humble — and a great friend and father.
I do not expect anyone to object to this request — they just won’t want to talk about it. I don’t know how to raise this topic. I don’t want to make it about my illness, although, of course, it really is.
Trying: Asking your ex and close friend to deliver your eulogy sounds like a wise choice on your part. I assume he would be honored to do so.
You should be as straightforward as possible. Including phrases like, “I don’t expect you’ll be called upon to do this any time soon, but my illness has me thinking about making plans. I don’t want to put you on the spot, but given our long history and friendship, I think our friends, family and children would be very comforted if you gave the eulogy. It is certainly my preference, and I hope you’ll consider doing so.”
Grammarian: “They/them” is used when a gender is not specified. | 2022-11-05T04:09:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My date lied about their age — we're actually 15 years apart - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/05/ask-amy-dating-age-gap/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/05/ask-amy-dating-age-gap/ |
Dear Miss Manners: I live in what one would describe as an upper-middle-class neighborhood. My husband and I spent a great deal of money to make our backyard resemble a resort (including a six-foot privacy fence) since we could not go on vacation the last few years because of covid.
It was very quiet and peaceful until new neighbors moved in next door. They have five children! As most children do, they enjoy playing outside, and they are constantly loud and screaming. I feel as though I cannot fully enjoy the luxury of my backyard because of the incessant shrieking.
Are you suggesting that the children be taught not to use their outside voices … outside?
Dear Miss Manners: I was flummoxed by something that happened to my husband and me. We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary with a family dinner (12 of us all together) at a local restaurant. I ordered flower arrangements for the table that echoed the flowers in our wedding. We preordered some appetizers for everyone to enjoy, but left dinner and drink choices to our guests, which we paid for.
The dinner was lovely and just what we wanted, and the final bill was in keeping with what we had budgeted. I will admit that, at the time, we didn’t look at every item on the check, but added a nice tip and went home very satisfied with the evening.
That someone would take advantage of a free meal? You should read more of Miss Manners’s letters. | 2022-11-05T04:09:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: Neighbor’s kids are ruining my quiet backyard sanctuary - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/05/miss-manners-neighborhood-kids-loud/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/05/miss-manners-neighborhood-kids-loud/ |
Dallas Fuel beat San Francisco Shock 4-3 in Overwatch League Grand Final
‘Overwatch 2’ has brought new life to the Overwatch League, fans, players and league executives say
(Activision Blizzard)
ANAHEIM — The crowd went wild as the Dallas Fuel beat the San Francisco Shock in a thrilling 4-3 victory at the Overwatch League (OWL) Grand Finals. The slugfest, which marks the Fuel’s first Grand Finals victory, comes off a highly successful season that gave them the first seed entering the playoffs.
The Grand Finals, Overwatch esports’ capstone annual event, came on the heels of the global release of “Overwatch 2” in early October, which pro players have been playing on since the season started in May. As the winners, the Dallas Fuel takes home $1 million. The Shock received $500,000. The Houston Outlaws walked away with $350,000 after the Shock beat them to advance to the finals Friday.
Flashy individual plays and laser accuracy were a big part of this year’s playoffs thanks to the new five-on-five format and heroes introduced in “Overwatch 2.” The changes to the Overwatch formula allowed plenty of underdogs to find success — like the 12th-seeded Hangzhou Spark, which finished third place overall, and the London Spitfire making it into winners round three after only winning 12 games last season.
It was the first time since 2019 that the Grand Finals were staged in front of fans, who filled out the Anaheim Convention Center. “Proper different!” shouted San Francisco’s fans during the hotly contested matchup. The Dallas group, a clear minority in the arena, brandished their Fuel-branded flags and jerseys. Sojourn railgun shootouts, Reaper Death Blossoms and Kiriko Kitsune Rushes drew impassioned cheers from fans.
It was a hard fought season for the Fuel and it showed on the relieved and teary-eyed faces of the players. One member of the team, Han “ChiYo” Hyeon-seok, fell to his knees in front of the trophy when the match ended.
“We really as a team relied on each other,” said Yun “RUSH” Hee-won, head coach of the Fuel. “We depended on each other and we worked toward the same goal by thinking that we could defeat any opponent that we face.”
A new game offers new hope
“Overwatch 2” has breathed life into the OWL, which had struggled to maintain viewership in 2021 and most of 2022. The renewed interest in the game and league was felt in Anaheim, Calif., the home of BlizzCon and the 2019 Overwatch World Cup. Friday’s crowd in the venue was just shy of 6,000, and they made their excitement for the game’s new path felt.
“People want to watch people when they actually can play a game,” said fan Steven Youssef, referring to a period of time when “Overwatch 2” was only available to professional players. He had flown out from Egypt to attend the Grand Finals.
“I know, it’s kind of crazy,” Youssef quipped.
Thousands more tuned in on YouTube, which holds exclusive rights to broadcast Overwatch matches through the end of this season. The Grand Finals reached a peak live audience of 350,000 on the main stream on YouTube, and hovered around 300,000 for the majority of the event. The League plans on releasing the Grand Finals average minute audience (AMA) next week. AMA, created by Neilsen, measures the estimated total audience divided by total time broadcast; the figure provides a closer comparison to traditional TV and has been used by OWL to gauge success. Last year’s Grand Finals reached an AMA of 1.68 million.
This year’s playoffs reached a live AMA of 250,000, a figure that takes into consideration rebroadcasts on YouTube. A League spokesperson said playoff viewership exceeded past numbers on Twitch. The platform paid $90 million in 2018 to acquire rights for the first two years of OWL.
Sean Miller, head of OWL, said the impact of the game on viewership was bigger than he expected. Miller had to keep refreshing his phone as the YouTube viewer count rose through the playoffs. The time period between “Overwatch 2” launching and the playoffs was partially to thank, he said.
“A month later, we have this incredible event where we’re doing the biggest thing of the year with this new hero, Kiriko,” Miller said. “And it's really providing a really excellent on-ramp for people to just get more and more invested in the game.”
Stuck playing Support in ‘Overwatch 2’? We’ve got tips.
Mathew Taylor, general manager of the Dallas Fuel, said it’s still too early to tell how “Overwatch 2” will affect the OWL, but he remains hopeful about the upward trend in viewership that has come along with “Overwatch 2’s” release in early October.
“I know how good this game has been and can be,” Taylor said, who has been with the Fuel since OWL launched in 2018. He said he wanted to get back to the level of excitement from back then. “I know where it can be. I personally think we can get back to that.”
Season six, which begins May 2023, will grant the scene’s followers more insight into whether “Overwatch 2” gave the OWL the boost it needed.
The move to five-on-five competition has changed the flow of the game, and made it easier and more exciting to follow, according to fans, players and coaches. Removing a tank role from the metagame has cut back on the early poke phase of games, where opposing teams trade jabs, looking for an opening to fight.
At the highest level — like the OWL — teamwork still makes the dream work, but individual choices are more meaningful. Losing even one player completely changes the tide of a team fight.
“In ‘Overwatch 2,’ I think you can follow the action much easier,” said Jake Lyon, assistant coach of the Houston Outlaws. “If a team’s ahead it's clear that they’re ahead. If a team’s behind it's clear that they're in trouble. I think that that certainly makes the game easier to follow and probably easier to enjoy from a casual perspective.”
Aching wrists, early retirement and the surprising physical toll of esports
Longtime fans in attendance in Anaheim praised the changes.
In the previous meta, “if you made one mistake, that's it, you lose,” said Jasmine Ogle, 24, a fan who traveled from Virginia to see the Grand Finals. “But now we're getting back to that aim style gaming and it's just so, so much better to watch and it's better for the professionals. It's just a lot more competitive, I think.”
DPS player Pak “Architect” Min-ho, who won the 2019 in-person Grand Finals with the San Francisco Shock and now plays for the Hangzhou Spark, concurred.
“The fight is getting more wild with the five-on-five setting, while like six-on-six you need a more systematic approach to team fight,” Min-ho said through a Korean translator.
Making competitive Overwatch more exciting and easier to understand could be helpful to new players who’ve come in since “Overwatch 2” was released as a free-to-play game. Activision Blizzard said 25 million people played “Overwatch 2” in the first 10 days of its release, undoubtedly introducing at least some new fans to the OWL.
“Folks who play a game are the easiest audience to convert into viewers and fans of the sport and at the end of the day that’s really important,” said Grant Paranjape, vice president of esports business at The Washington Justice.
Seven ‘Overwatch 2’ tips to rank up in Competitive Play
Marketing for the Grand Finals is featured prominently on the bottom right of the in-game “Overwatch 2” title page, with a direct link to the OWL website.
Activision Blizzard is also hoping to bring in a more diverse group of fans, not just a larger number of them. It introduced a new program in September, Calling All Heroes, which aims to bring in more female fans, players and broadcast talent.
“It’s things like that, that will help players get in kind of a grass roots and semipro level and give them a reason to build up, that we want to do more,” Miller said.
The Overwatch road map
Activision Blizzard announced a road map for “Overwatch 2” in June, committing to releasing three to four new heroes per year. Game director Aaron Keller told media then that the development team had grown threefold since “Overwatch” launched in 2016.
“We are so committed to putting out more content than we ever have before,” Keller said in June.
As part of that commitment, a new hero was teased Friday night during the finals. Ramattra is a hulking Predator-like robot — also known as an omnic in Overwatch lore. The towering figure features long, black, artificial dreadlocks and fills the tank role. Ramattra’s backstory focuses on his continuing struggle to preserve his race in the face of human prejudice. His core abilities revolve around his ability to transform into a “nemesis” form. Ramattra will be released Dec. 6, when the second content season of “Overwatch 2” launches.
I watched ‘League of Legends’ esports live. I wasn’t sold.
“Overwatch 2” developers have also been in close communication with players and other esports personnel, making balance changes as needed.
“It’s a good relationship we have with the league and the devs,” Taylor said. “I think the devs are actually really trying to listen and then trying to balance things as best they can with a brand new game.”
Min-Ho confirmed that he and others provide feedback to developers. But he added that more time between large patches and tournaments would be beneficial. The latest update left players little time to prepare, leading virtually all teams to fall back on the meta they are most comfortable with — Sojourn, Reaper, Winston, Lucio, and Kiriko.
The overall success of an esport can also be gauged by interest from sponsors. OWL lost its sponsors last year in the wake of a harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing against Activision Blizzard. Brands such as Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, State Farm and T-Mobile jumped ship last August. Individual teams, meanwhile, held on to most of their sponsors.
After the release of “Overwatch 2,” and as the season wound down, the League found its first sponsor in Butterfinger. Butterfinger is owned by Ferrero, a multinational corporation headquartered in Luxembourg.
In-person events aren’t where they were in years past for “Overwatch 2,” but Lyon thinks they’re still extremely important for the community. In interviews during the Grand Finals, fans gushed about new friendships formed and Discord servers made around a shared love for Overwatch.
“In the end, no matter whether we play games online, or play on our computers all day, we’re still humans, and humans want to get together and they want to celebrate their passions together in person,” Lyon said. | 2022-11-05T05:31:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Overwatch League: Dallas Fuel beats San Francisco Shock in Grand Final - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/esports/2022/11/05/overwatch-2-grand-finals-san-francisco-shock-dallas-fuel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/esports/2022/11/05/overwatch-2-grand-finals-san-francisco-shock-dallas-fuel/ |
Environmentalists slam corporate influence at U.N. climate talks
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! To all the PR people who keep asking: No, Maxine isn’t going to COP27 this year, but we’ll be closely covering the conference from afar, with an assist from our amazing colleagues on the ground there. On a related note:
Companies with ties to the fossil fuel industry and poor records on pollution will have a notable presence at the United Nations climate summit starting Sunday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, sparking backlash from environmentalists.
Egyptian organizers have hired Hill+Knowlton Strategies, a public relations firm that has represented oil giants including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and Saudi Aramco, to manage communications for the COP27 negotiations, according to emails and other materials reviewed by The Climate 202.
Meanwhile, Coca-Cola was selected as a sponsor of the summit, despite the beverage company’s connection to the billions of tons of plastic waste choking the world’s oceans.
Hill+Knowlton has touted its focus on sustainability, while the Egyptian organizers said they chose Coca-Cola because of its commitment to reducing emissions. But environmentalists have slammed the significant role of these companies in the world’s largest annual gathering aimed at spurring greater climate action.
“It's like putting Philip Morris in charge of tobacco negotiations,” said Jamie Henn, the founder of Clean Creatives, a campaign pressuring PR and advertising agencies to quit working with fossil fuel companies.
In 2017 and 2018, Hill+Knowlton created ads that touted Shell’s efforts to power London’s buses with biodiesel made partly from coffee grounds. “Your coffee can now help power buses: Shell,” the ads said.
And this year, Hill+Knowlton has helped the Egyptian organizers of COP27 hold virtual briefings for journalists, according to an emailed invitation shared with The Climate 202. The briefing featured remarks by Timothy Hurst, a managing director in Hill+Knowlton’s Dubai office, according to a screenshot.
Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University professor who studies climate disinformation, called it “unconscionable” that the firm is involved with the climate summit, given its work on behalf of Big Tobacco and Big Oil.
“Hill and Knowlton was one of the central players who developed the 'tobacco playbook,' which used half-truths and disinformation to discredit the scientific evidence of the harms of smoking,” Oreskes said in an email. “Then that playbook was used for decades by Big Oil to discredit the scientific evidence of the harms of burning fossil fuels. It’s unconscionable to me that COP would hire them to help with climate change PR.”
Hill+Knowlton did not respond to a request for comment. But on its website, the firm says it has launched a strategy “to empower businesses and brands to have a better impact on people and the planet,” drawing on the sustainable development goals of the United Nations.
‘Corporate greenwashing’
In an open letter released Friday morning, more than 400 scientists wrote that Hill+Knowlton’s work for fossil fuel industry clients is “incompatible” with the aims of the COP27 negotiations.
“These clients’ business plans to increase fossil fuel production run counter to the goals of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process to create a just, global process to limit the worst impacts of climate change,” the scientists wrote in the letter, which was organized by Clean Creatives and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The letter comes after the environmental groups Just Zero and Beyond Plastics on Wednesday urged COP27 to drop Coca-Cola as a sponsor.
“COP27 is supposed to focus on solutions for fighting catastrophic climate crisis,” Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official under President Barack Obama, said in a statement. “Instead, we’re allowing it to be a stage for corporate greenwashing.”
Coca-Cola did not respond to a request for comment. But the company previously told the Associated Press: “Our support for COP27 is in line with our science-based target to reduce absolute carbon emissions 25% by 2030, and our ambition for net zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
The other sponsors of COP27 include IBM, Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group and Vodafone, but they have drawn less criticism for their participation. Microsoft, for its part, has pledged to purchase massive amounts of renewable energy to feed its power-hungry data centers.
Meanwhile, at last year’s COP26 negotiations in Scotland, big oil and gas companies were effectively banned from sponsoring events at the summit after the organizers laid out their criteria. Sponsors had to not only set net-zero targets, which Shell and BP have done, but also show a "credible action plan to achieve this, independently verified through the science-based targets initiative.”
Despite these requirements, the fossil fuel industry ended up sending more delegates to the summit than any single country, according to the advocacy group Global Witness.
A year after world leaders agreed to halt new fossil fuel projects to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the industry is facing a remarkable rebound, with sudden momentum behind more than 80 projects that include coal-fired power plants and gas export terminals — potentially locking in at least three decades of additional planet-warming pollution, The Washington Post’s Evan Halper reports.
The turnaround is expected to be a big point of contention at this year’s United Nations climate summit, which begins Sunday in Egypt, because it could jeopardize the world’s ability to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
Many nations began backsliding on their pledges to not build any new fossil fuel infrastructure as they raced to fill the energy void created by sanctions on Russia amid the war in Ukraine. But now, supply is increasing past what is needed to replace Russian deliveries, signaling to some investors that there is still a market for oil and gas despite strict environmental regulations.
However, International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said that few of the proposed fossil fuel projects make economic sense as the cost of renewable power continues to fall. His agency’s new World Energy Outlook shows clean-energy technologies advancing so rapidly that overall fossil fuel use will peak within a few years and then permanently decline.
Biden administration announces $1.5B for national labs
The Energy Department and White House on Friday announced $1.5 billion to build and upgrade America’s national laboratories, which play a key role in the development of climate-friendly technologies.
The funding, which was authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, will go toward critical infrastructure upgrades and other projects at 13 national labs across the country. The administration on Friday also announced the launch of the Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative, which will seek to spur innovation of technologies that can help achieve President Biden’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050.
“The fundamental science and technology development that’s really occurring at the national labs can unlock the clean-energy technologies that we need to tackle climate change,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Thursday on a call with reporters.
Granholm will join senior administration officials Friday at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Ill., to highlight the investments.
EPA announces largest-ever air pollution monitoring investment
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday said it will direct $53.4 million to 132 air-monitoring projects across 37 states in an effort to better identify pollutants that can cause cancer or respiratory issues. It marks the largest investment for community air surveillance in the nation’s history.
The money, coming from the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, is meant to assist communities that historically have been overburdened by harmful pollution, aligning with President Biden’s Justice40 initiative.
Monitoring will occur in cities and rural areas, including a stretch of Louisiana along the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley” for the many chemical plants, oil and gas refineries, and other industrial facilities there.
The Egyptian government is facing mounting scrutiny over how the country can host a prestigious climate summit while human rights groups allege that thousands of people who were unjustly imprisoned remain behind bars — including Alaa Abdel Fattah, 40, a British Egyptian computer programmer and activist who has been on a partial hunger strike for more than 200 days, The Post’s Siobhán O'Grady reports.
On Tuesday, Abdel Fattah reduced his daily 100-calorie intake to zero in a desperate bid to draw more attention to his case. If he is not released by the time the summit begins Sunday, he has told his family, he will stop drinking water.
A letter on Wednesday signed by 15 Nobel laureates asked world leaders to devote part of their agenda at COP27 to Egypt’s political prisoners, including “most urgently” the case of Abdel Fattah, who they said is “at risk of death.”
Egypt has strict rules against demonstrations and public gatherings, leaving some world leaders also wary that attendees or residents will face backlash for protesting or engaging visibly during COP27. About 100,000 people participated in a climate protest during last year’s summit in Glasgow, Scotland, where no such restrictions are in place.
Global warming twice as fast in Europe as in rest of world, study says — Victoria Bisset for The Post
Lisa slams Belize as Martin becomes farthest-north November hurricane — Ian Livingston for The Post
Forty countries to unveil methane plans at UN climate summit, US official says — Valerie Volcovici for Reuters
How a GOP governor could derail New York’s climate law — Benjamin Storrow and Scott Waldman for E&E News
A friendly reminder before Election Day:
Hello, you otter vote! pic.twitter.com/mlSYIdBfG2
— Oregon Zoo (@OregonZoo) November 3, 2022
Fact Checker: Stephen Miller’s disingenuous ad charging ‘anti-White’ racism
11:23 AMIn Milwaukee, city and suburban voters are at partisan odds over crime
11:00 AMOprah endorses Fetterman over Oz in Pennsylvania Senate race | 2022-11-05T05:32:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Environmentalists slam corporate influence at U.N. climate talks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/04/environmentalists-slam-corporate-influence-un-climate-talks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/04/environmentalists-slam-corporate-influence-un-climate-talks/ |
Deni Avdija, right, spoke with reporters for more than five minutes after the Nets beat Washington on Friday. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Following Washington’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Friday, Wizards wing Deni Avdija answered questions for just over five minutes about the controversy surrounding Kyrie Irving. The Nets suspended Irving on Thursday for at least five games without pay after the point guard repeatedly refused to apologize for a social media post about an antisemitic film and book.
“I can give a big credit to the Jewish community, to the Israelis all over the world that show me the best support I’ve ever had,” he said. “I go to different places around the league, and the amount of support I get is outrageous, and it just makes me smile, it makes me keep going. It gives me motivation to work hard and represent my country, but in terms of things like that, it’s always going to be there. It’s never going away. It’s just if you want to pay attention to that stuff or you just want to keep moving and focus on important s---, important stuff in life. So, I’m a positive guy. I’m not looking for the bad things. If somebody say stuff like that, I think that’s his fault. He comes to a level that he’s being racist or talking about Jewish or Black people, I think that’s his problem.” | 2022-11-05T05:36:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Deni Avdija responds to Kyrie Irving controversy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/wizards-deni-avdija-kyrie-irving/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/wizards-deni-avdija-kyrie-irving/ |
A festive crowd makes its way through the streets of Taipei during Taiwan’s 20th annual Pride parade on Saturday. (Lam Yik Fei/Bloomberg News)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Ho Yu-Jung, a district council candidate in upcoming local elections, stood at a bustling intersection and addressed rush-hour commuters through a megaphone. She also displayed a campaign flag, and a rainbow-colored scarf.
“I am a single parent and a lesbian,” Ho, 45, announced to drivers and pedestrians alike. With all who stopped to chat, she asked for their votes and encouraged them to turn out in several days for the city’s Taiwan Pride parade.
That casual blend of sexual identity, liberal values and local politics would have been unusual until recently. But in the three years since Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage, the island has rapidly become a regional leader in LGBTQ rights. Inclusiveness toward once-marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities has been embedded across Taiwanese society, deepening the self-governing island’s sense of separation from China, where the ruling Communist Party strictly limits LGBTQ information and events.
Such progress in Taiwan’s LGBTQ movement motivated Ho to run for public office, in part to help people like her feel seen. The former radio DJ said she no longer fears talking about her own identity while campaigning, because “Taiwan’s democratization made the existence of diverse groups a natural thing.”
Taiwan’s 20th annual Pride parade last weekend drew 120,000 people to downtown Taipei — just weeks after the last coronavirus border restrictions were lifted — and restored the city to its position as East Asia’s largest Pride destination. Revelers dressed in rainbow-colored costumes filled the plaza outside City Hall and marched alongside floats with corporate sponsors including Nike and the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
The festive though rain-soaked mood lingered late into the night as many attendees flocked to gay bars. In one club, a uniquely Taiwanese scene unfolded when a drag queen danced to a remix of Für Elise, the Beethoven composition played by garbage trucks in Taipei to remind residents to take out their trash.
Nothing says it’s Pride weekend in Taipei more than a drag queen death dropping to a club remix of Taiwan’s bin collection song. pic.twitter.com/vUVnnKVuoC
— James Chater (@james_chater) October 29, 2022
The movement here has developed rapidly in the past decade, said Hsu Chih-Yun, a former chairman of the LGBTQ rights group Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association. In 2004, when Hsu first attended a Pride parade, most people wore masks to hide their identities because few wanted to come out. “That was a really different vibe,” he said.
Today, nearly two-thirds of the population supports same-sex marriage. A survey by the nonprofit Taiwan Equality Campaign found that 60 percent of parents say they would accept their children being gay, up from 42 percent last year.
Hsu, who in 2015 became the first psychiatrist in Taiwan to provide counseling for LGBTQ individuals and their families in a public hospital, said he has been amazed by the shifting attitudes toward sexual minorities.
In early sessions, “when parents heard the word ‘gay,’ they would go nuts,” he said. Far fewer now react negatively or ask how to change their children’s sexual orientation, he said.
Taiwanese politicians commonly address issues of sexuality and gender identity when campaigning for office or speaking publicly. Two candidates running for Taipei mayor in this month’s municipal elections attended the latest Pride parade. The Taiwan Equality Campaign, which tallies gay-friendly candidates, counted more than 200 candidates out of 1,700 who have publicly expressed support for LGBTQ rights.
Activists and scholars have connected the growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community to the island’s vibrant civil society and the momentum from wave after wave of political and social movements dating to the late 1980s as well as the end of four decades of martial law.
In 2014, the success of a student-led “sunflower movement” in blocking ratification of a trade agreement with China reinforced many young people’s belief that activism can bring about real change, said Adam Chen-Dedman, a doctoral candidate in cultural studies at the University of Melbourne who has studied Taiwan’s LGBTQ culture. That optimism then propelled advocacy for same-sex marriage, he said.
Protection for the rights of sexual minorities has paralleled the emergence of a distinct Taiwanese identity, which has solidified in response to China’s aggressive posture toward the island, which it claims as its own territory. A survey in June from National Chengchi University found that 63 percent of respondents identified themselves only as Taiwanese, as opposed to also being Chinese — up 10 percentage points from a decade ago. The biggest jump in that period came in 2019 during the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
In China, national identity is dominated by a state-molded vision of Han Chinese ethnicity and traditional cultural values. In Taiwan, people have pushed for a more inclusive and expansive idea of what it means to be Taiwanese, including supporting aboriginal rights, Chen-Dedman said.
The gap between Chinese and Taiwanese identities has widened as the Chinese Communist Party has censored LGBTQ content, shut down sexual minorities’ college clubs and promoted traditional gender roles. Shanghai Pride, the longest-running and largest LGBTQ festival in China outside of Hong Kong, suspended operations in August 2020.
“Chinese nationalism is developing in a very patriarchal and masculine manner,” said Wen Liu, an assistant research professor at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. “People at Chinese LGBTQ and feminist organizations that we used to keep in contact with have either fled overseas or gone silent.”
It’s why Taiwan’s LGBTQ community joined protests against the security clampdown in Hong Kong and has spoken out against authoritarianism in China. There is a “clear consensus that if Taiwan wants to have any progress in LGBTQ rights, we must first protect our democratic way of life,” she said.
Taiwanese activists continue pushing for more freedoms. Same-sex couples are still prohibited from adopting children to whom they are not related and cannot wed if one of the parties is from a country that does not recognize same-sex marriage.
A heated debate has arisen about whether transgender people should be able to change the gender on their ID cards without proof of gender-affirmation surgery. A 2021 lawsuit allowing a trans woman to do so was a significant step forward.
“Compared to the marriage-equality movement, discussions about trans people’s rights have only just started,” said Alice, a trans woman and former software developer who joined the trans march that took place the night before the Pride parade. Yet, with more Taiwanese coming out as transgender in recent years, she said, “it feels good that more people are living the way they want.” | 2022-11-05T06:19:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taiwan's Pride celebrations show its growing support for LGBTQ rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/taiwan-gay-rights-pride-china/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/taiwan-gay-rights-pride-china/ |
Analysis by Tobin Harshaw | Bloomberg
Who is winning in Ukraine? That may seem an odd question, given the disastrous performance of the Russian military, the success of the Ukrainian offensive this fall, and the strength of the Western coalition in supporting Kyiv and punishing Moscow. But wars aren’t that simple, and the global implications of this regional conflict make it more complex than most. Then, of course, there is Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader, we are constantly told, “ plays a weak hand well.” So, what does he have up his sleeve?It’s a question I put to Mark Galeotti, the author of a new book, Putin’s Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine, and a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC. He has advised the UK government on foreign policy, is a fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, and the principal director of the Mayak Intelligence political risk consultancy. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our discussion:
Tobin Harshaw: Early in the new book, you raise the question, “Who is Vladimir Putin?” How would you answer that in one sentence?
Mark Galeotti: He is a late-era Soviet apparatchik who by good fortune finds himself running the country — despite the fact that he doesn’t really know how to do it.
TH: The invasion of Ukraine by conventional means did not go well. Now the Russian strategy has changed to a “terror bombing” campaign .We’ve seen this sort of thing from the Russians before, right?
MG: We have. You must realize that Putin himself has no military experience of any note. He did his minimal reserve-officer training. So he doesn’t have a military mindset. As a former KGB officer, he has a spook’s mindset. He regards people as full of vulnerabilities that can be exploited. That’s how he relates to whole societies, too. Wars are intrinsically terrifying, and Putin is more willing than us in the West to consider terror to be an acceptable instrument of war.
We saw that in Chechnya, the very brutal campaign to take a rebellious little region of southern Russia and force it back into the fold, with massive bombardments and very brutal treatment of its people. And we saw it in Syria with very heavy aerial bombardments, not just to population centers, but targeting things like hospitals to break the will of those who would resist.
TH: Did you think that Russia was complicit in the Bashar al-Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria?
MG: It’s almost inconceivable that Russia would not have known that it was happening. I don’t know whether they were actually behind it or merely signed off on it. But one way or the other, there was complicity.
TH: Putin has fired a lot of his generals. He has now brought in Sergei Surovikin, the so-called Butcher of Syria. The change in Russian strategy fits Surovikin’s modus operandi. What can we expect from him?
MG: This is a deeply brutal man. One of his own subordinates shot himself in his office after being given a particularly serious dressing down. But on the other hand, no one has ever said he is not competent. We saw in Syria that he has a willingness to use deeply brutal tactics, but with with an aim in mind — not simply for the sheer joy of brutality, but because it’s part of a military strategy.
He wants to break the Ukrainians not at the front line, where that’s not proving possible, but by breaking the West’s will to support them. The weak link in this war, potentially, is us. If we begin to lose the will, the capacity, and the unity to continue to supply the Ukrainians with weapons, and perhaps even more importantly with money, the Ukrainians are going to have serious troubles maintaining their war.
TH: What weaponry do you think they need that we haven’t provided so far?
MG: It’s an interesting question because it reflects the whole question of need. They need a more capable air defense. But it’s not necessarily just about more systems, more and more launchers. It’s at least as much about the ammunition.
The Russians are heavily using very cheap Iranian drones. They aren’t amazingly capable but they’re good enough. And because they’re cheap, the Russians can fire a lot at them. We can estimate that the Russians have spent about $10 million to $15 million on this new bombardment campaign. The Ukrainians have used our ordinance to the value of about $25 million to counter it. This is not just a military campaign, but also an economic campaign. We must make sure that the Ukrainians get a continued flow of the actual ordinance they need to defend themselves.
TH: What might hold us back?
MG: The trouble is that what the Ukrainians think they need and what the West thinks they need diverge. There’s this mantra that the war will end when Ukrainians decide that it will end. This is, of course, nonsense — in the sense that the West has its own interests too. If Ukraine turned around and said that the war will only end when our forces have reached Moscow, for example, we wouldn’t be fine going along with that. But we just don’t really want to have the tough discussions about it. So long as we aren’t, we are storing up potential problems for the future. We need to be talking about the end state now, so that this doesn’t become an issue which breaks Western unity.
TH: Wouldn’t a more realistic problem be if Ukraine was intent on taking back Crimea, which Russia annexed after the 2014 invasion?
MG: A lot of the conversations I’m having here in DC end up defaulting back to what can be done with Crimea, and it’s certainly true that Crimea matters to Putin (and the Russian people) in a way no other part of Ukraine does. I’m really not sure what he might do if he thinks he is going to lose the peninsula. But I think it’s more than that. There’s a concern that the Ukrainians are not entirely open with their allies about what their long-term goals are.
TH: Are you concerned about European support waning as the weather turns cold and natural gas gets scarce?
MG: I’m not as concerned as I was a month ago. Gas prices are going down a lot. At this point, there isn’t really a movement for a quick change of course. To be honest, what really matters is the American position. Washington’s voice drowns everyone else out. So it’s more that we have to see what the midterms election offer.
TH: Why was Putin so deluded about the quality of his military?
MG: Several reasons. One is that he’s had so many relatively easy wins: Chechnya, Syria, Georgia; he’s achieved what he expected to achieve. And the West didn’t do much about it.
Most crucially, though, he has created a system in which no one can really tell him something he doesn’t want to hear. This is something that we’ve known for years, but increasingly now he has pushed out of his circle anyone who might offer any criticism. People now know that they tell Putin what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear.
TH: There are some rumblings that the momentum in the war is starting to swing in Russia’s favor.
MG: I don’t think so. We are at a natural point of a culmination of the Ukrainian offensive. They have had some real triumphs in the north at Kharkiv, and to a lesser extent in the south. They are very quiet about their own casualties, but it’s clear they’ve taken losses. Their military kit is at a point where it needs to be stopped for maintenance and the like.
The Russians have thrown in a number of newly mobilized reservists, who are appallingly bad soldiers and taking horrendous casualties, but do at least provide extra manpower on the front lines.
But the Ukrainians are in the stronger position. The Russians might hope that come spring, they’ll be able to launch a counterattack. I think that’s exactly what the Ukrainians are planning on doing as well, and I think they would be in the better position to do so.
TH: Putin has made several seemingly absurd claims. For one, there was this idea that Ukrainians would ignite a dirty bomb as a false-flag operation, blaming it on Russia. Where did that come from?
MG: It was part of long-running campaign; they’ve made allegations like this for months in the hope of scaring the West into negotiations. We’ve had claims that the Ukrainians are working on biological weapons in conjunction with the Americans, or that they were preparing to launch a chemical attack, or that there was going to be similar kind of radiological attack. This is just part of a stream of bizarre allegations that come up and then disappear.
TH: Which leads to the big scary question: If nothing continues to go right, would Putin go as far as chemical weapons or a tactical nuke?
MG: On chemical weapons, the answer is no. Because there was just no military rationale for it. There’s also really no military rationale for using nuclear weapons. It would purely be a political terror statement.
Do I think that’s impossible? No. However, Putin, for all the fact that he believes a lot of deeply disturbing and unpleasant things, does seem to be a rational actor. If has enough time, he can get his head around the idea of losing things.
But if it looks like Ukrainians are going to just power through and take everything, he might well panic. He may feel so caught in a corner that he has nothing much to lose and might as well throw the dice.
Tobin Harshaw is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and writer on national security and military affairs. Previously, he was an editor at the op-ed page of the New York Times and the newspaper’s letters editor. | 2022-11-05T06:58:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Putin’s Ukraine War Is Entering a Terrifying New Phase - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/putins-ukraine-war-is-entering-a-terrifying-new-phase/2022/11/05/e40dd3c4-5ccf-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/putins-ukraine-war-is-entering-a-terrifying-new-phase/2022/11/05/e40dd3c4-5ccf-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Tom Barrack leaves U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Wednesday (Julia Nikhinson/AP)
NEW YORK — Thomas Barrack, a longtime friend of former president Donald Trump and chairman of his inauguration committee, was acquitted Friday of violating federal law by acting as a foreign agent without authorization while trying to help the United Arab Emirates influence the U.S. government.
Barrack, the billionaire founder of Colony Capital who has had a decades-long relationship with Trump, was accused of promoting talking points from UAE officials to members of the Trump administration. He also allegedly pushed propaganda for the UAE in appearances on major TV news networks and in published pieces.
After the verdict, Barrack descended a ballroom-style staircase into the lobby of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to loud applause and cheers from his family and other supporters. Outside the courthouse, Barrack praised the jury and the justice system.
He said that “against all odds” the jury sorted through a complex case to clear him and his co-defendant, Matthew Grimes, on all counts.
“God bless America,” Barrack said. “The system works.”
Barrack and at least two dozen supporters left the courthouse in downtown Brooklyn to begin a celebration nearby. “I’m going to go have a drink,” he said with a wide grin after a reporter asked where he was headed.
Barrack’s acquittal is a high-profile loss for the Justice Department after several successful prosecutions of defendants on charges of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Rick Gates, all former Trump advisers, faced similar charges and were convicted.
At the trial, prosecutors said Barrack was motivated to keep the UAE happy because its sovereign wealth fund invested $374 million with Colony Capital from 2017 to 2018 and there was a possibility of more to come.
In his testimony, Barrack suggested his ties to Trump made him a target for federal investigators. He described admiring Trump but feeling disappointed that he did not adopt a more moderate approach in office.
Barrack’s attorney, Randall Jackson, said the government’s case misconstrued Barrack’s relationship with the UAE. He emphasized a lack of proof of an agreement between Barrack and officials from the UAE to work on their behalf. Prosecutors suggested an agreement was implied.
“You heard not one word during this entire trial about passing on sensitive intelligence,” Jackson said in his summation this week. “It never happened. Never materialized.”
Jackson told jurors the absence of a witness who could discuss the alleged arrangement between Barrack and the UAE “should be stunning” and that “not a single witness came into this courtroom … who had any personal knowledge of any relevant facts to the case.”
He said proof of an explicit agreement between Barrack and the UAE would have been required for a FARA violation to occur.
A jury at U.S. District Court in Brooklyn reached the verdict in the trial, which opened in late September, after roughly two days of deliberations. A spokesman for the Brooklyn federal prosecutor’s office declined to comment on the acquittal.
Barrack, 75, and his business associate Grimes, 29, were charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government without registering and conspiracy to act as a foreign agent without registering. Barrack faced several other counts related to lying to the FBI during an interview about his involvement with the UAE.
Past coverage: Government rests in foreign-agent case against Trump friend Barrack
Witnesses included two Trump Cabinet members: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The government’s case relied heavily on numerous text messages and emails involving Barrack, Grimes and UAE contacts. Jurors also saw a number of clips of TV interviews and written pieces that depicted Barrack praising UAE leadership.
The main intermediary for the UAE was Rashid Al Malik, an Emirati who was living in Los Angeles. Al Malik was also indicted but fled the country after learning about the investigation.
Prosecutors said at the trial that Barrack was successful in his efforts to meddle in foreign affairs on the UAE’s behalf. Also an adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Barrack allegedly succeeded in getting praise for “Gulf allies” in one of Trump’s campaign speeches. Prosecutors said that term was code for the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Prosecutors said Barrack also allegedly fed “insider information about foreign policy developments” in Trump’s campaign and in his administration to the UAE and he praised the national security for the tiny oil-rich country in nationally televised interviews. He even “assisted the UAE and its allies with White House meetings” in the early days of Trump’s term, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan Harris said in his summation Tuesday.
The UAE is “an autocratic and authoritarian government ruled by a royal family rich in oil and gas and controls some of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the entire world,” Harris said.
Barrack had faced up to 20 years in prison on the top count that applied to him. Grimes had faced up to a decade in prison, if convicted on his top charge.
Grimes, who was mentored by Barrack and started working for Colony Capital as a teen, was accused of assisting Barrack in his dealings with the UAE. Attorney Abbe Lowell, who represented Grimes, said after the verdict that the case was an example of prosecutors overreaching.
“The problem with that is not everybody has the ability to fight back,” Lowell said. | 2022-11-05T06:59:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump ally Thomas Barrack acquitted of violating foreign agents law - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/04/trump-ally-thomas-barrack-acquitted-violating-foreign-agents-law/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/04/trump-ally-thomas-barrack-acquitted-violating-foreign-agents-law/ |
He envisioned a new practice of economics, one in which the environmental impact of commerce matters as much as the flow of money
Herman Daly, second from left, receives a Right Livelihood Award, sometimes described as an “alternative Nobel,” in 1996. (Eric Roxfelt/AP)
He argued for a fundamental shift in the way the economy is understood — not as an independent system, but rather one that exists within the ecosystem of the Earth and is constrained by the resources available on the planet.
“Herman Daly’s deceptively simple act of drawing a circle — representing the living world — around the diagrammatic box of the economy is, I believe, the most radical act in rewriting economics, because it changes everything that follows,” Kate Raworth, author of “Doughnut Economics: 7 Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist,” said in an email.
“This is precisely why so many economists resist it: because it dethrones their outdated tools and analyses,” she continued. “But the social and ecological crises of this century compel us to begin all economics this way. Indeed I believe that today’s economics students deserve it and should demand it.”
Dr. Daly outlined his ideas in dozens of academic articles and in books including “Steady-State Economics” (first published in 1977 and republished in 1991), “Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development” (1996) and “For the Common Good,” co-written with theologian John B. Cobb Jr. (first published in 1989 and republished in 1994).
He saw the concept of “sustainable growth” as an oxymoron — more achievable, in his view, was “sustainable development” — and argued that measures such as gross domestic product were insufficient to quantify the direction of an economy. Even the most robust manufacture of products and increase in wealth did not equate to economic growth, as he saw it, if the resources of the Earth were depleted in the process. Resources depletion was, rather, what he called uneconomic growth.
Growth “can cost more than it’s worth,” he said, “and that’s the new era that we’re moving into, and we have to come to recognize that.”
Instead of the GDP, he promoted measures such as the “index of sustainable economic welfare” and “genuine progress indicator,” which took into account factors such as pollution and the destruction of farm or marshland in addition to the value of goods and services produced.
“If there is an oil spill that we have to clean up, that adds to GDP,” but “this is not a very good measure of progress,” Dan O’Neill, an ecological economist at the University of Leeds in England, said in an interview. “He really got us to question why are we pursuing certain economic goals. Is growth just a means to an end instead of an end itself?”
Dr. Daly studied economics at Rice University in Houston, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1960. He completed a PhD in economics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville in 1967.
He chose economics “because he thought it was grounded in the humanities and the sciences and didn’t want to choose between them,” Peter A. Victor, the author of the 2021 book “Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World: His Life and Ideas,” said in an email. “He discovered it was grounded in neither and made it his life’s ambition to remedy this.”
His work was also deeply grounded in his Methodist faith, his daughter said, and his hope for the survival of what he saw as God’s creation.
Survivors include his wife of 59 years, the former Marcia Damasceno, of Midlothian, Va.; two daughters, Terri Daly Stewart of Suwanee, Ga., and Karen Daly Junker of North Chesterfield, Va.; a sister; and three grandchildren. | 2022-11-05T06:59:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Herman Daly, professor who introduced ecology to economics, dies at 84 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/04/herman-daly-ecological-economist-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/04/herman-daly-ecological-economist-dead/ |
Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob, center, waves to his supporters after his nomination documents were accepted for the upcoming general election in Bera, Pahang, Malaysia, Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Ahmad Yusni)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Campaigning for Malaysia’s general elections formally started Saturday, in a highly competitive race that will see the world’s longest-serving coalition seeking to regain its dominance four years after a shocking electoral loss. | 2022-11-05T07:00:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Campaigning kicks off for Malaysia's general elections - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaigning-kicks-off-for-malaysias-general-elections/2022/11/04/d2394c8e-5caa-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaigning-kicks-off-for-malaysias-general-elections/2022/11/04/d2394c8e-5caa-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Tanardo Sharps guides his alma mater, Meade, to a postseason win
Mustangs 27, Knights 24
Coach Tanardo Sharps helps Meade capture a playoff victory Friday. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Tanardo Sharps spent last football season rather content. He was the junior varsity coach at Crofton High, and he enjoyed his role at the newly opened Anne Arundel County school. In fact, he told the school’s varsity coach that there was only one job in the county he would ever consider leaving for: head coach at Meade.
At the time of that comment, the Mustangs were not exactly a powerhouse. The Fort Meade program went winless last year, losing games by an average of 40 points. But Sharps was a Meade alumnus, a 1998 graduate whose stellar career landed him in the Anne Arundel County Sports Hall of Fame. So when the job opened last winter, Sharps went after it and hoped he wasn’t leaving the comfort of Crofton for a football nightmare.
Nine months after that decision, Sharps and the Mustangs were living a dream Friday night on their home field as the program earned just its second postseason win since 2013 by defeating North County, 27-24, in the first round of the Maryland 4A East playoffs.
The Mustangs, suddenly far from the days of weekly blowouts, will face top-seeded Broadneck next week in the region semifinals.
For Sharps, this evolution started by focusing on the little things: getting players to come to workouts, getting them to register on time, getting them to practice hard. From there, he saw the players develop some confidence. Their first win came in their second game, and the team has earned four more since.
“You have to crawl before you walk, so early on it was all about appreciating the small victories along the way,” Sharps said. “Looking at this team now, it’s been amazing to watch these young men grow over the last few months. It’s been an honor, really.”
Starting a winning tradition was its own success, but Friday’s game against the Knights presented another test for Sharps’s young program. Last week, Meade (5-5) ended its regular season with a dramatic 35-28 loss to the Knights (3-7). But the bracket gave them a shot at immediate redemption, pitting the fourth-seeded Mustangs against the No. 5 Knights seven days later.
“It’s been a long two weeks,” senior wide receiver Kyree Scott said. “But [tonight] was the perfect way to get back. Last week we all felt beat and heartbroken. Last week felt like a must-win to us. But this was an even bigger one.”
The Mustangs started slow Friday and trailed by five points at halftime. But senior Jayden Womble scored the second of his two touchdowns late in the third quarter to give Meade a one-point lead.
Early in the fourth, the Mustangs faced a key fourth and long 22 yards from the end zone. Quarterback Jaquail Marks bought time with his feet and threw a high-arcing 50-50 ball to the corner of the end zone. There, Scott fought off two defenders and came down with the catch, giving his team a two-score lead and enough momentum to carry it to the final whistle.
“It’s a whole different culture this season,” Scott said. “We know we can win this year. Last year, people were out after three losses. This year, we have heart and we have confidence.” | 2022-11-05T07:00:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tanardo Sharps guides his alma mater, Meade, to a postseason win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/04/tanardo-sharps-guides-his-alma-mater-meade-postseason-win/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/04/tanardo-sharps-guides-his-alma-mater-meade-postseason-win/ |
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr watches from the bench in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the New Orleans Pelicans in New Orleans, Friday, Nov. 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
LOS ANGELES — Lauri Markkanen had 27 points and 12 rebounds, Jordan Clarkson added 20 points, and Utah Jazz continued its remarkable start to the season.
SAN ANTONIO — Paul George scored 33 points and Los Angeles rallied against San Antonio for its third straight victory. | 2022-11-05T07:02:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Depleted Warriors lose 114-105 to Pelicans, are 0-6 on road - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nba/durant-leads-irving-less-nets-to-road-rout-of-wizards/2022/11/04/4372878a-5cb5-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nba/durant-leads-irving-less-nets-to-road-rout-of-wizards/2022/11/04/4372878a-5cb5-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
The Florida governor passed a law in April to revoke Disney’s special taxing status
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is accompanied by his wife, Casey DeSantis, at a debate in Fort Pierce, Fla., on Oct. 24. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has been on the offense against the Walt Disney Co. for months, criticizing the entertainment giant for opposing legislation he championed and signing a law to strip the company of its special taxing district.
How Florida’s war with Disney could change the park experience
Neither the governor’s office nor his campaign responded to questions about the wedding. Disney did not respond to a request for comment.
Insider first reported the wedding location on Friday, based on accounts from three unnamed people; the publication said 150 people attended. The New York Times reported early last month that the couple’s marriage license listed the location as Lake Buena Vista, a Central Florida city controlled by Disney. The Washington Post has also obtained the marriage license.
A post shared by Casey DeSantis (@caseydesantis)
Hamilton said the ceremony, at the wedding chapel of the Victorian-style Grand Floridian Resort, was “very elegant.”
“I don’t think there was any Mickey presence at all,” Hamilton said.
After the ceremony, guests moved to the World Showcase at Epcot overlooking the signature Spaceship Earth ball, where Hamilton said one of the station’s meteorologists warned about the perils of the outdoor gathering. It rained, Hamilton said.
Insider reported that Italy Isola at Epcot, described by Disney as a “private island terrace,” was the location of the reception.
How DeSantis used Disney’s missteps to wage war on corporate America
Though DeSantis hasn’t commented on reports about his wedding, he’s had plenty of barbs to throw at Disney in recent months. He attacked the company after CEO Bob Chapek came out against a law that bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools, dubbed the “don’t say gay” bill by critics. The governor is widely seen as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.
The fight escalated through April, when the governor signed a bill stripping Disney of its special taxing status. The structure allowed the company to develop the Central Florida land into the world’s top theme park destination.
Part of the resort’s business: “Fairy Tale” weddings that promise a “magical” celebration and “memories to cherish forever.”
Tens of thousands of Disney fans have tied the knot at the company’s theme parks, hotels or cruise ships over the past 30 years. According to a Washington Post story in 2017, Disney has hosted more than 30,000 weddings since September 1991.
According to the company, the wedding pavilion at the Grand Floridian is “easily our most popular wedding venue.” The event minimum cost for the pavilion runs between $12,500 and $35,000; the Italy Isola minimum ranges from $10,000 to $17,000. | 2022-11-05T07:03:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ron DeSantis, a fierce Disney critic, got married there - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/11/04/ron-desantis-casey-disney-wedding/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/11/04/ron-desantis-casey-disney-wedding/ |
Teen arrested in Northeast teen’s slaying, D.C. police say
The arrest came Friday, the same day as another 15-year-old was fatally shot
A teenager has been arrested in connection with one of three recent killings of teenage boys in the District, the D.C. police said.
The suspect, a 15-year-old boy from Northeast, was arrested Friday in connection with the fatal shooting of another 15-year-old, Andre Robertson Jr., also of Northeast, the D.C. police said.
He was shot Oct. 13 in the 500 block of 48th Place, NE, the police said. No motive could be learned. It appeared that he may have been targeted.
He was sitting on a porch with others in the afternoon when three people approached and began shooting, police said at the time of the incident.
The arrest came Friday, the same day as another 15-year-old was fatally shot at the northern edge of the downtown area. That killing was the second of a teenager in less than a week; a 14-year-old was killed on Halloween.
The arrest in the earlier October shooting, as well as the deaths of the two 15-year-olds, less than a month apart, appeared to exemplify what police describe as a trend in violent crime in the District.
Officials have said that there has been an increase this year in the number of young people who have been either victims or suspects in violent crime.
The trend has involved many incidents in which shootings appear to be prompted by relatively minor disputes, according to police.
Investigators are continuing to look into the Oct. 13 killing, the police said. | 2022-11-05T08:30:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Teen arrested in teen's slaying, D.C. police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/teenager-slain-arrested-northeast-washington/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/teenager-slain-arrested-northeast-washington/ |
All year, Astros front office members, coaches and players argued against comparing Jeremy Peña to Carlos Correa. He could never be Correa. He just had to be Jeremy Peña. (Tracie Van Auken/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
PHILADELPHIA — Of all the shortstops through all the years, from Honus Wagner to Derek Jeter, from Ozzie Smith to that guy named Carlos Correa, no shortstop in major league history had done what Houston Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña did Thursday night.
Until Peña hit one in the fourth inning of his team’s eventual Game 5 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday, no rookie shortstop had homered in the World Series. No one. None of them. Not one.
“You just got to be grateful to be in the position that we’re in. We’re in the World Series. That in itself is something special,” Peña said. “I just go out and enjoy it, have fun, play hard, play my game and then just trust my preparation.”
If that answer sounds canned, too polished to be believed, that is in keeping with how the 25-year-old has presented himself. In his first full season at a premier position for one of the premier organizations in baseball, he hit .253 with 22 homers and a .715 on-base-plus-slugging percentage — good enough for middle-of-the-pack among big league shortstops in most categories. Earlier this week, Peña became the first rookie shortstop to win a Gold Glove Award, too.
“Jeremy has a lot of good things,” Astros second baseman José Altuve said earlier this postseason. “If I start talking about him, we might spend here two hours. He’s a great player, and I love the way he is handling everything.”
For most rookie shortstops, numbers like those and praise like that would be plenty impressive, more than anyone could ask. But the Astros do not plan for a regular season’s worth of action. They plan for a whole extra month of tough at-bats against the game’s best pitching with the World Series on the line. They have made six consecutive American League Championship Series appearances. Peña’s fitness for the position would be measured not only by what he did from April through September but also in October.
“You don’t really know,” Manager Dusty Baker said of Peña earlier this postseason. “You don’t know if guys are going to come in, tear it up or guys are going to come in and fail until they get in that situation.”
The Astros, who enter Saturday’s Game 6 on the cusp of a World Series title, always seemed willing to find out. They did not pursue a replacement for the special shortstop who anchored the start of their recent run of dominance, Correa, when he left in free agency last winter. They had their pick of many established shortstops in a saturated market. But by spring training they had made clear that Peña would begin the season as their starter.
All year, Astros front-office members, coaches and players argued against comparing Peña with Correa. He could never be Correa. He just had to be Jeremy Peña, whatever that turned out to be.
Svrluga: Dusty Baker and Justin Verlander created a throwback World Series moment
He started the season strong. Then he hit .218 across July and August, adjusted his swing to put his foot down sooner — the kind of change young players are often reluctant to initiate and uncomfortable making. But Peña hit .278 with a .790 OPS from September through the end of the regular season, another data point suggesting he wouldn’t be intimidated by anything, including failure.
“He doesn’t act like a rookie. He’s quiet like a rookie should be, but he doesn’t act like a rookie, like some rookies act,” Baker said when asked what makes Peña so well equipped for all that has come his way in his first big league season. “It probably comes from his background, from his culture, from his dad who played, from his mom that he’s close to, and the fact that, I think he’s the only Dominican dude I know who went to University of Maine.”
The spring weather in Orono, Maine, would seem to offer plenty of preparation for the chills and thrills of postseason baseball. But could anything prepare him? Given the reliability with which the Astros win this time of year, and the integral role Correa played in that winning, that the comparison would continue into the postseason felt inevitable.
And that comparison seemed likely to be unfavorable for any young player. Correa hit .272 with 18 homers and an .849 OPS in 79 postseason games with the Astros. As a rookie he once had three extra-base hits in one game, one of just four players ever to do it at the time. But this year, at least, Peña has been better: He enters Game 6 of the World Series hitting .333 with a 1.005 OPS and four homers. No Astro — not veteran Alex Bregman, not slugger Yordan Alvarez, not Altuve — has done better in any of those categories.
“He came into camp as a young player. He had his eyes open. He always paid attention. You could tell he was very attentive and confident but quiet,” Baker said Thursday. “Boy, he’s played remarkably well. Boy, I mean, he’s really carried us for a while here through this postseason, and that’s especially tough for a young player — a young shortstop. I’m just glad we have him.”
Boswell: Game 4's combined no-hitter isn’t a sign of baseball’s decay. It’s the opposite.
Peña was the one who finally drove home a run to give the Astros a win in that 18-inning marathon clincher against the Seattle Mariners in the division series. In his ALCS debut, he doubled twice and homered to become the first rookie to compile three extra-base hits in a postseason game since … Correa. He was named MVP of the ALCS. And on Thursday night, he had three hits in the Astros’ pivotal Game 5 win: a homer, an RBI single through a drawn in infield and a groundball through the right side as part of a perfectly executed hit-and-run. The Astros scored three runs in that game. Peña played a role in creating all of them.
“Just a special kid. He’s been doing it for us all year,” Game 5 winner Justin Verlander said. “It seems like in big spots he comes up. Even when he was struggling a little bit there for a little bit in the middle of the season, if his number was called in a big at-bat, it seemed like he came through for us. So he’s got that, I don’t know, that ‘it’ factor.” | 2022-11-05T09:13:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jeremy Peña delivers for Astros this postseason - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/jeremy-pena-astros-postseason/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/jeremy-pena-astros-postseason/ |
Lincoln College, a small private college in Illinois, shut down this spring. Its students are still reeling.
By Alan Jinich
Max Strickberger
Lincoln College, a small private university in rural Illinois, closed its doors in May 2022. Former students and staff are still left heartbroken. (Video: Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)
“Lincoln was the first place in my life where I had peace,” said Bolden, who grew up house-hopping between relatives. “When the school closed, I didn’t have anywhere to go.”
Six months after Lincoln closed its doors in May, many still wonder if more could have been done to save the college. In the aftermath, students have struggled to adjust, sometimes returning to places they had hoped to leave behind. And Lincoln’s story is becoming increasingly common. According to Higher Ed Dive, nearly 30 nonprofit colleges have merged or closed permanently since the pandemic. What has happened to those left behind?
Lincoln College was a small private college in a rural town — the only higher education institution named after the U.S. president during his lifetime. But instead of attracting local students, it drew many from three hours north: “Lincoln College was like a district of Chicago,” said Willie Spratt, a 2022 graduate and former class president. Even though the town is 95 percent White, the college was registered as a Predominantly Black Institution. More than 40 percent of its students were the first in their families to attend college and 58 percent came from households with an annual income of less than $30,000. Three in five students were Pell Grant eligible.
Students, alumni and faculty described the community as deeply close-knit. And, for many, a “second chance.” “Lincoln was the first time in my life where I felt like I had a chance,” said past student Julia Figueroa. For some, it was also a haven from gun violence.
Dozens of students confronted Gerlach expressing grief and frustration. In a video posted on Facebook, student Kewan Thomas told Gerlach, “We got kids in this room who might die when they go back to their city.”
Three months later, Norvell Meadows, a frequent visitor to Lincoln College, was shot and killed outside his grandmother’s home in Chicago.
“I couldn’t even fathom it,” Bolden said. Meadows’s experience at Lincoln mirrored her own: They had spent significant time on the campus even without being enrolled. “He was trying to keep himself away from the violence in Chicago,” she said.
His friends called him Vell. “We’d all be eating in the cafeteria and he would just get up and start singing,” said friend Aundrae Williams. “He was always laughing.” According to Williams, Meadows wanted to matriculate the following semester to play basketball. He had also recently become a new father.
“Everyone on campus knew Vell, everyone knew he didn’t go here, and everyone loved him,” Bolden said. “He was part of Lincoln.”
After the closure announcement, Klaudia Blaszczyk, a swimming recruit from Warsaw, was one of 60 international students sent scrambling to maintain their visas. “It was an extreme pressure on me,” she said. And with the war in Ukraine so close to her sister and single mother, she worried about what would happen if they needed to evacuate and join her in the United States. Some of Klaudia’s teachers offered to open their homes — a common experience at Lincoln.
Students and employees desperately organized to attract major donations in a bid to save the college. A social media campaign called “I Bleed Purple” spotlighted student stories that emphasized Lincoln’s sense of family on campus. “But as we started to get traction, that goal post kept moving,” said Scott Raper, a faculty member who helped lead student fundraising efforts. In just a few weeks, the president raised the target to $50 and then $100 million. “It’s really hard to put together goals if you don’t know what the actual goal of the fundraising campaign is,” Raper said.
Gerlach said he had to raise the target after students and faculty started transferring to other schools, making the college even more difficult to sustain. “I didn’t want to give false hope just to close in two or three years,” he said. Faculty such as Raper say they wish the school fought harder. In March 2015, Sweet Briar College, a small campus near Lynchburg, Va., was saved from closure after alumni rallied to raise nearly $29 million over several months.
Gerlach ceased all fundraising efforts after two weeks: “We could have operated another year. But that would have crashed the plane.”
Months after the closure, and with leaves now falling on empty grounds, Gerlach still sits in University Hall awaiting a buyer for the campus. Among the dozens of pieces of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia, he often reads one poster that quotes the president: “The difference between history’s boldest accomplishments, and its most staggering failures is often, simply, the diligent will to persevere.”
“We were fighting the fight, persevered as a college,” Gerlach said. “But … we’re closed.”
Williams was part of Lincoln’s last graduating class. He’s now getting his masters and coaching college basketball.
Blaszczyk transferred to Culver-Stockton College, the only institution that accepted her within her visa’s time constraints. “It doesn’t feel like home here,” she said. “This wasn’t a choice that we wanted to make.” She gave up competitive swimming since the college doesn’t have a team.
Bolden is now enrolled at National Louis University in Chicago, where she studies criminal justice. But the pandemic’s effects compounded by the closure were too much for some of her friends, a number of whom are no longer enrolled in school. “They lost their faith,” Bolden said. “We didn’t give up on school. School gave up on us.” | 2022-11-05T10:32:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lincoln College closure leaves some students struggling to adjust - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/05/lincoln-college-closure-students-future/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/05/lincoln-college-closure-students-future/ |
In the Senate race between Democrat Val Demings, who spent nearly three decades in law enforcement, and Republican Marco Rubio, police groups have come out strong for the GOP
Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), who is the Democratic candidate for a Senate seat, speaks during a campaign event in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Oct. 26. (Saul Martinez/Saul Martinez for The Washington Post)
If any Democrat could fend off accusations of being anti-police, it should be Val Demings.
Before seeking office in 2012, the Florida congresswoman spent 27 years as an officer with the Orlando Police Department, including four as the city’s first female police chief. In addition to her own nearly three decades of service, she is married to a longtime cop: Her husband, Jerry Demings, has served as chief of the Orlando Police Department as well as sheriff of Orange County, Fla.
Yet her opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Mario Rubio, has repeatedly attacked her record. His first TV ad in July, featured uniformed law enforcement officials saying Demings may have once been a cop but had turned “her back on law enforcement” and had “called abolishing the police ‘thoughtful’.” (PolitiFact found that the ad took Demings “out of context — undermining her background in law enforcement.”)
Most of Florida’s law enforcement organizations, including Demings’s former union, are supporting Rubio in Demings’s uphill battle to take over his Senate seat. Polls show Rubio comfortably ahead of Demings by as much as 10 points even as she attempts to distance herself from national Democratic policies unpopular in the Sunshine State.
To brandish her law enforcement bona fides, her campaign often refers to her as “Chief Demings” and has repeatedly said she does not support efforts to defund the police. The campaign declined to make Demings available for an interview, but communications director Christian Slater said her record of supporting law enforcement was unassailable, including sponsoring legislation in Congress to increase, not decrease, spending on law enforcement.
“When we talk to communities, particularly those in some of the most high crime areas, they will say we don’t want to defund the police, we want to fund the police. We don’t want to see less police, we want to see more police,” Demings said at a news conference earlier this year. “We need to make sure that police departments have the resources that they need to be able to effectively do their job.”
But Demings has been forced to spend millions in television advertising touting her resume.
“In the Senate I’ll protect Florida from bad ideas, like defunding the police. That’s just crazy,” Demings said in her first televised ad. The 30-second spot also highlighted statistics showing that crime had decreased during her tenure as police chief in Orlando and ends with Demings saying that “it’s time to send a cop on the beat to the Senate.”
Florida Democrats say it is Rubio, not Demings, who has a track record of voting against the interests of law enforcement, pointing to his vote against the American Rescue Plan which led to billions of dollars flowing into police departments for bonuses, hiring initiatives and new equipment. Rubio and other Republicans also opposed legislation earlier this year to invest resources in fighting domestic terrorism, they say because of fears conservatives would be unfairly labeled domestic terrorists and investigated for their political beliefs.
The race highlights Republicans’ successful campaign to both hold the advantage on the issue of crime and consolidate the support of law enforcement groups since the racial protests that followed the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Across the country, Republican candidates have been tying rising crime rates to policies championed by some Democrats like ending cash bail for low level offenses and increasing accountability for police misconduct — collecting support from many law enforcement groups in the process.
In Wisconsin, where Democrat Mandela Barnes is running to be the state’s first Black senator, Republicans have similarly hammered the candidate as soft on crime. In that race, Barnes supporters derided the attacks as racist “dog whistles” that feed on stereotypes about Black people.
John Kazanjian, president of the Florida Police Benevolent Association, a union that represents over 36,000 officers across the state, said his organization supported many Democrats in the past but that the party had moved too far to the left since the calls for police reform that followed the police killing of Floyd and the subsequent racial justice protests.
“It was after the 2020 riots, when the special interest groups painted the police with a broad brush,” Kazanjian said. “I think the congresswoman just got caught up in it.”
He said his organization would have considered supporting Demings, before her vote for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a police reform bill that targeted misconduct, racial profiling among other frequent complaints about police from communities of color. Included in the bill, which was never voted on in the Senate, was a provision to limit qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that makes it harder to sue police officers in civil court. Last year, Demings told the news website, the 19th, that she didn’t support “totally” eliminating qualified immunity, but that new ways of holding rogue police officers accountable needed to be explored.
“That was her time to shine, she could have came out on behalf of the police and got both sides together and work things out to do some police reform, but she didn’t,” said Kazanjian. “2020 was really hard for us to take. When that happened I met with several Democrats to say, ‘Hey, listen, we’ve supported you in the past, let’s stand together.’ All I heard was crickets. But now they’re breaking down my door trying to get my endorsements.”
More than 50 of the state’s 67 sheriffs have endorsed Rubio, including two Democrats. Sheriffs like Grady Judd of Polk County, who says he still considers Demings a friend, and Sheriff Gordon Smith of Bradford County, who called Demings, “an awesome lady, wife and mother,” say their decision to endorse Rubio came down to what Demings has done in Washington and not her time as an officer in Orlando.
“She definitely forgot where she came from,” said Smith. “Instead of being a leader in her party, she has become a loyal follower, puppet and supporter of the anti-police and anti-American way of life Democratic Party.”
Smith was elected as sheriff of Bradford County as a Democrat in 2008 and 2012 before changing his party registration to run as a Republican ahead of the 2016 election.
“I was once elected as a Democrat, however the party left me and everything the party once stood for behind,” said Smith.
Demings’s struggle is not unique, said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, adding that no mainstream Democrat enjoys much law enforcement support in this political moment.
“She was a rank-in-file police officer who rose through the ranks and became chief, and definitely was considered someone who had the officers’ backs,” Jewett said. “She fought for police her whole career, but party labels and ideology just trump all of that in today’s environment.”
Stanley Jean-Poix says that when he started working as a beat cop with the Miami Police Department in the late 1990s, officers were discouraged from talking politics on the job and expected to stay neutral.
That began to change as the country itself became more polarized after the rise of the tea party and then the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the presidency, says Jean-Poix, who is a sergeant with the Miami police department and the president of the Miami Community Police Benevolent Association, the city’s Black police officer’s organization. He says increasingly his colleagues, particularly White and Latino officers, are vocal about their political beliefs.
“The union always endorsed candidates but now it’s on a different level,” Jean-Poix said. “People weren’t blasting you for supporting this or that candidate.”
Some colleagues even say that they think Rubio understands more about being a cop than Demings, he said.
“So you’re going to tell me this woman, who has been a cop for almost 30 years, a police chief for almost four, her husband was a sheriff for almost 30 years, but they don’t know police work,” said Jean-Poix. “You can’t get more pro-law enforcement than that.” | 2022-11-05T10:32:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Val Demings was a cop for decades. So why can’t she land the police vote? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/05/val-demings-florida-police-support/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/05/val-demings-florida-police-support/ |
Elon Musk speaks during the unveiling of the new Tesla Model Y on March 14, 2019, in Hawthorne, Calif. Musk, the CEO of Tesla, recently purchased Twitter. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
When he purchased Twitter a week ago, Elon Musk turned a hobby into a career.
Musk has always been extremely engaged online, responding to Twitter users with followings big and small. But the billionaire is now in charge, and he’s listening.
The new Twitter owner has not slowed down tweeting since taking over the company last Thursday — the past week was his third-most active in the past six months, according to a Washington Post analysis. The analysis stretches from last Wednesday when he entered the company headquarters carrying a sink — a stunt encouraging employees to let his takeover “sink in” — to this Thursday, a day before he enacted massive layoffs.
Experts say his tweets now send important signals: Who he is listening to, who and what is acceptable on his platform, and how he intends to run the company. His tweets and decisions have the ability to foster healthy debates online or give sanctuary to hate speech and misinformation, they say.
“When he says something on Twitter now, it’s much bigger news because it is seen as a bellwether of where he’s taking the entire platform, rather than just Elon Musk being outrageous or being responsive,” said Karen North, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Who and what has Musk been tweeting
The self-described “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” spent his first week on the job fielding complaints about individual account restrictions and responding to suggestions from users.
Roughly one-third of his tweets since he bought the company engaged with users about their suggestions on changes to the platform, per The Post analysis. He signaled support for ideas by responding with emoji and memes. They ranged from his plan to charge users $8 per month for a blue “verified” check mark and removing character limits on tweets to integrating a dogecoin payment system on Twitter.
Sounds like a good idea
In promoting his $8 verification plan, he tweeted a meme that compared the monthly charge to the cost of a single Starbucks drink and ridiculed critics’ willingness to pay for the latter, but not the former. The tweet had garnered 1.7 million likes as of Thursday evening.
Musk has also liked more than 130 tweets during the week. The topics of those tweets vary from free speech to calls to bring back the short-form video platform Vine and pay content creators.
“It’s almost comedic in how he is live tweeting, stumbling through his ideas and how he’s going to make this platform work,” said Brandie Nonnecke, founding director of the CITRIS Policy Lab at the University of California at Berkeley, which studies technology policy.
But some experts say that transparency will score him big points with users, especially if he’s seen as shaking up the norm of how Twitter is run.
Casey Fiesler, an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, compared it to someone replacing the rigorous scientific process of user-experience testing and instead walking into a crowded bar and saying: “Hey, what do you think?”
Tweeting at the boss
Getting the attention of Twitter’s owner used to involve tagging Jack Dorsey, a man who celebrated one birthday by staying silent for 10 days and being eaten up by mosquitoes in a cave.
Musk is a different kind of owner, who is likely discovering that his typical Twitter banter now has more consequences, evidenced by the backlash to his now-deleted tweet promoting a conspiracy theory about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
In addition to engaging with users around changes, about one-fifth of Musk’s tweets since he bought the company have promoted or defended Twitter, including its policies around policing misinformation. Another 10 percent of Musk’s tweets trolled his ideological adversaries or responded positively to other users who did so.
“There's two sides to Musk — there’s the businessman side and then there's this free speech evangelist side,” Nonnecke said. “Perhaps he's trying to facilitate some of that by engaging with individuals on the platform directly.”
Roughly 12 percent of his Twitter activity as owner of Twitter has promoted his other companies, according to The Post analysis. Musk’s Twitter celebrity amounts to free advertising for his car company, Tesla, which has a long-standing policy against paying for advertising, said Michelle Amazeen, the director of the Communication Research Center at Boston University.
The hotline operator bit “is either really good or really bad for Tesla stockholders,” said David Karpf, an associate professor at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.
Power users and conservatives
Musk’s tweets have attracted the attention of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), novelist Stephen King — but also right-wing influencers and others now looking to speak to the Twitter boss.
Conservative politicians and influencers have been gleeful that Musk has taken over the platform because they feel silenced as punishment.
The mood on Twitter now—giddy, hopeful, incredulous—is what freedom does to people’s who have been suppressed. It helps us understand in a small way what Eastern Europeans felt when the Berlin Wall came down. It also helps us understand who our modern-day oppressors are @elonmusk
A group of right-wing YouTubers cracked open a bottle of Louis XIII cognac (which sells for several thousands of dollars) and toasted — “To Free Speech!” — in celebration of Musk purchasing Twitter.
One of the biggest open questions is whether Musk will reinstate accounts that were suspended for spreading misinformation. Musk tweeted on Oct. 28 that he would form a moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints” before taking any action on suspended accounts.
When word broke Monday that the account of Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state, had been suspended, Musk tweeted that he was “looking into it.”
Amazeen noted that the message sends signals to conservatives who have complained about being censored on the platform, without “committing to anything.”
“He’s been very deliberate in implying that he will bring people back, but he’s also been very deliberate in making sure that people know that there will be rules," North said.
Holding the keys to the kingdom
Margaret O’Mara, a University of Washington historian who writes about the tech industry, said Musk has long practiced the Silicon Valley method of disrupting old-school bureaucratic structures for the sake of innovation. But that is usually a facade, she said.
“Underneath that swagger, there are people who have management expertise who run the company with things they teach you in business school,” she said, later adding: “You do have to have the bean-counters or the solid unflashy engineers.”
It appears Musk may actually want to walk the walk of tech owner swooping in to save the day all on his own, considering he dissolved Twitter’s board of directors and installed himself as chief executive, she said.
There is a long history of rich people buying modes of information dissemination, said Matthew Pressman, an associate professor of journalism at Seton Hall University.
He said those with deep pockets have purchased newspapers over the years for one of two reasons: either to exert more political influence or to portray their purchase as benevolence saving democracy.
Musk falls into the second category, Pressman said adding that while Musk’s trial balloons haven’t all gone over well so far, “the results have historically been better when it’s someone who believes in the business.”
(Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, stated the latter reason for buying The Washington Post.)
For Nonnecke, all of Musk’s Twitter activity since the purchase “reinforces his position as the sole owner and overseer of the platform."
“He wants to be the ruler of that kingdom," she said. “And I think by engaging with people on there, he’s trying to reinforce that he’s the one in charge.”
In the ultimate show of being in charge, Elon Musk began mass layoffs at the 7,500-employee company on Friday.
After months of legal disputes, Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter and exerted control of the social media company, firing key executives on Oct. 27. (Video: Jonathan Baran/The Washington Post) | 2022-11-05T10:32:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | AOC to Trump: Everyone is giving Twitter suggestions Elon Musk - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/05/elon-musk-twitter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/05/elon-musk-twitter/ |
Connecticut has been represented entirely by Democrats at the congressional level since 2009
Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) listens to speakers at a Get Out the Vote Rally on Oct. 28 in New Britain, Conn. Despite Connecticut being a stronghold for Democrats, Hayes is locked in a tight race with GOP challenger George Logan. (Joe Buglewicz for The Washington Post)
But four years later, after a global pandemic, increased forecasts of a recession, and record-high inflation, Hayes is in a tight race to keep her seat as Republican challenger George Logan leans into an economic pitch to voters with a heavy focus on small towns struggling due to the lack of jobs.
“The economy is the most important issue,” Steve Griffing, a 68-year-old registered independent voter, said recently in an interview in downtown Danbury.
While Griffing didn’t say who he was going to vote for next week, he noted, “I don’t think Democrats have done a good enough job to win reelection.”
Democrats were confident this past summer that a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade would drive angry voters to the polls and keep the party in the House majority for the next term. But in the final days before the election, Republicans have gained ground with voters who say the economy is their No. 1 priority, putting districts previously seen as safe for Democrats — like Hayes’s — in play.
“I think Democrats now banked on Roe v. Wade carrying them in, and then just didn’t realize what really bothered all of us," said Roberto Alves, the chairman of the Danbury Democratic Town Committee. "It’s not just ‘oh, gas prices are going down,’ but people are still making the same amount of money, and their costs keep going up.”
Connecticut has been represented entirely by Democrats at the congressional level since 2009, and in 2020, Biden won Hayes’s district by 10.7 percentage points. But the district, which includes the state’s western border to central areas like New Britain and Farmington Valley, is also the location of Biden’s lowest margin of victory in Connecticut in 2020.
A recent Cook Political Report with an Amy Walters’ ranking listed the race as a toss-up, increasing worries among Democrats that Hayes’s message isn’t resonating. As the race garners more attention, outside groups and the campaigns have poured nearly $11 million into television and radio advertisements, according to data from AdImpact, a firm that tracks ad spending.
“If you had asked me a few months ago if anybody thought Congresswoman Hayes would be in trouble, I don’t think anybody would have said yes," Alves said.
A focus on education
Hayes is the first Black woman to represent Connecticut in Congress, and her ascension to the House in 2018 came shortly after she won national teacher of the year in 2016, gaining national recognition. The award opened doors for her to meet former president Barack Obama, who awarded her a crystal apple statuette, and allowed her to travel across the country to learn about the challenges other communities are facing. Before running for office, she had no formal political experience.
Hayes was part of the record number of fresh-faced candidates who ran for office for the first time with little political experience after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. She has made education one of her central focuses while in Congress and sits on the House Education and Labor Committee. During her time in office, she has introduced legislation to assist teachers with student loan debt and supported bills that would invest more money into improving the physical infrastructure of public schools across the country.
For some voters, that representation paired with her record, makes her the best candidate this year.
“She knows who we are, she understands what we need and has continued to fight for those things,” Margo Jones, a 34-year-old Black resident of East Hartford, said at a recent Hayes rally in New Britain.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Hayes said she is focused on reminding voters what she has accomplished and what’s at stake if Republicans take back control of the House.
“We cannot be so shortsighted that this becomes an election about a single issue," Hayes said, referring to voters’ concern over the economy. “We have to really take a step back and look at how all of these things impact each other.”
During a recent campaign rally, Hayes criticized her opponent’s record in the state Senate, while touting Democrats’ passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which would lower drug costs and energy costs.
“When he had the opportunity to vote for child-care workers, he voted no. When he had the opportunity to vote for anything that would have made your life and your family’s lives better, he voted no. So not only do I know you, but you know me," she said.
Logan has pushed back on Hayes’s criticism of his candidacy and said Democrats have only worsened the existing problems that residents have had to deal with for years.
“Everything that’s of significance and of importance for people in the district has gone sideways under the one-party Democratic control," he said, “whether it’s the economy, whether it’s community safety, whether it’s the opioid epidemic."
A hope to appeal to the middle
Logan is looking to make history of his own.
A former state senator, Logan would be the first Afro-Latino to represent Connecticut in Congress. He has positioned himself as a moderate Republican, promising to work across the aisle with Democrats. But his candidacy has also garnered the endorsement of some more right-wing Republicans, including House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, an ardent Trump supporter.
Like many other Republicans in this election cycle, Logan has focused on voters’ frustration with Democrats, whether it’s over how they handled the coronavirus pandemic or high inflation. He is also working to set himself apart by making an effort to court Spanish-speaking voters, making advertisements in both Spanish and English. Hispanic residents make up nearly 20 percent of the district’s population, according to census data.
Logan, who has family roots in Jamaica and whose parents migrated from Guatemala to Connecticut, frequently switches between Spanish and English when talking to voters. His candidacy is emblematic of the growing diversity in the state and across the country as Republicans are looking to make more gains with Latino voters. In Connecticut, Latino and Black residents made up about 30 percent of the total population in 2021, an increase of seven percentage points from 2010.
Logan said if he is elected, he wants to pass legislation to lower taxes, increase domestic oil drilling, and stimulate the state’s economy by cutting certain federal regulations.
“I want to be able to encourage an atmosphere of growth for businesses. I want more people working in the district, more opportunities for folks,” Logan said in an interview. “We need a vibrant, healthy economy as a nation, but also here, Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District.”
Republicans have tried to portray Hayes as out of touch with her constituents and blamed her and the Biden administration for the high inflation.
“Washington is driving the bus, and Washington is pushing for the left and for the progressive, and they’re following that pattern,” Brenda Hamilton, a retired Danbury resident, said in an interview in Danbury. “And we’re now waking up and saying, No, we don’t want to go left.”
Hayes has pushed back on this narrative, noting in addition to addressing inflation, she wants to focus on creating more affordable housing, lowering food costs, and creating more employment opportunities in the state.
Some undecided voters acknowledge a lot is at stake for this election but still want to see a change in the economy.
“People are getting more engaged on, what is the interest in the community,” Julie Milano, an undecided voter, said in an interview in downtown Danbury. “It is no longer only talking about what is good in your eyes as a politician; it is more the community coming up together and saying ‘hey, look, we need this and that. What do you offer us? And not the other way around?' " | 2022-11-05T10:49:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A Biden-voting district could send Connecticut’s first Republican to congress in a decade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/biden-voting-district-could-send-connecticuts-first-republican-congress-decade/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/biden-voting-district-could-send-connecticuts-first-republican-congress-decade/ |
President Biden delivers remarks at the White House last week, joined by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen. (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)
Democrats are expected to lose the House next week, and their Senate majority is increasingly imperiled as well — with handicappers placing the odds of a GOP takeover at slightly greater than 50-50.
But the idea that either battle might be close is pretty remarkable, historically speaking. And that’s not just because the president’s party loses the vast majority of midterms. It’s arguably even more remarkable because of inflation, which could well prove Democrats’ undoing.
We’ve run through the numbers on the president’s party and midterms results before. Over the past 100 years, the opposition party has gained Senate seats in 19 out of 25 midterm elections. And they’ve gained House seats in 22 out of 25.
Given that Republicans need to gain just one Senate seat and a handful of House seats to win the majorities back, Democrats salvaging either would be beating history in a pretty big way.
The odds are so inherently stacked, in fact, that the president’s party hasn’t won more than nine House seats in any midterm held since the Civil War. And it hasn’t gained more than two Senate seats in any election since 1934. It’s very tough sledding.
But perhaps the biggest reason the 2022 sledding is tough is inflation.
Big inflation spikes are relatively infrequent in the United States. But when they have come, they’ve been quite bad for the incumbent president’s party.
Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats lost major ground in both the 1918 and 1920 elections when the annual inflation rate spiked into the mid teens — more than 80 seats in the House and 16 seats in the Senate, between those two elections. They also lost the White House in 1920 by a whopping 26 percentage points — what remains the biggest popular vote landslide in the past 200 years.
By 1942, inflation again spiked over 10 percent, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Democrats lost 44 House seats and nine Senate seats. When it spiked even higher in 1946 (above 18 percent), the party lost 55 House seats and 12 Senate seats.
The combined impact: Republicans controlled 246 House seats. That’s just one seat shy of their biggest House majority since the Great Depression.
The other elections in which inflation became a major issue began in 1974.
That year, 11 percent inflation helped the opposition Democrats gain 48 House seats and four Senate seats. A smaller spike (shy of 8 percent) in 1978 helped the opposition Republicans to a more modest 15-seat gain in the House and three-seat gain in the Senate. But when it hung around and spiked again in 1980, Republicans gained another 35 House seats and 12 Senate seats and won back the presidency — with Ronald Reagan defeating Jimmy Carter by another huge margin: 18 points.
As with the inflation spikes of the late 1910s and 1940s, we were suddenly at a high water mark for the opposition party. Republicans didn’t retake control of the House, but the 53 Senate seats they controlled were the most their party had since the start of the Great Depression.
All told, the five inflation-colored midterms detailed above account for three of the eight largest shifts in the House over the past 100 years, and two of the five largest shifts in the Senate.
The big caveat here is that many of these elections happened a long time ago. Inflation has been such a big story this year in part because this situation is so unfamiliar to us; it’s been more than four decades since we saw such a big inflation spike. And our politics change over time. Polarization is strong, meaning it’s more difficult to win a large number of seats, even when the environment tilts heavily in that direction.
There’s also the fact that the current spike in inflation is somewhat smaller than most of the examples detailed above. We’re not talking about inflation in the teens, like in the late 1910s, the 1940s and the 1970s.
But we are talking about a level of inflation that is alien to more than half of Americans, who hadn’t been born before that earlier wave and is perhaps more shocking because of that. And apart from job losses and a stock market crash, inflation is perhaps the most easily recognizable economic indicator to everyday people.
At the very least, the combination of midterms being historically bad for the president’s party and high inflation is a very bad one for President Biden and the Democrats. If they have a saving grace, it’s that Republicans have put up candidates in key Senate races that voters don’t like, and that the job market remains quite strong despite the inflation rate. Perhaps that makes it more difficult for voters to completely write off Democrats.
But if they do, history tells us that it shouldn’t be surprising. | 2022-11-05T10:49:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How bad inflation may be for Democrats, historically speaking - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/inflation-midterms-incumbent-democrats/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/inflation-midterms-incumbent-democrats/ |
Stop building museums on the National Mall
Women and Latinos deserve better than getting squeezed into the unsuitable locations proposed by the Smithsonian
An aerial view of the Washington Monument on the National Mall shows the sites the Smithsonian would like to use for its two new museums. Both spots are in the center right of the image and would add to the urban density encroaching on the Mall. (Daniel Slim/AFP/Getty Images)
The Smithsonian Board of Regents has a once-in-a-century chance to build two essential new museums while remaking the symbolic landscape of Washington. They seem intent on squandering that opportunity.
The regents late last month announced their preferred sites for the future National Museum of the American Latino and the American Women’s History Museum, both authorized by Congress in 2020. The plots chosen — one on the south side of the National Mall near the Washington Monument, the other on a roughly triangular plot close to the Tidal Basin — were selected from a list of four, winnowed down from a longer list of 15 preferred or “Tier I” possibilities. Congress must now approve the selections — and it should decline to do so.
Smithsonian zeroes in on prime Mall spots for Latino and women’s museums
Both spots — the “South Monument site” and the “Tidal Basin site” — are extremely problematic, would lead to unnecessary expense, and would force architectural and design compromises that would diminish the potential beauty and functionality of the buildings. The people of the United States, including women and Latinos whose history will be represented in these spaces, deserve better.
Both sites also fall within a “no build zone” established by Congress almost 20 years ago to preserve the beauty, openness and grandeur of the Mall and to prevent it from becoming urbanized and overbuilt. To go forward with the Tidal Basin site would require Congress to overrule its own better judgment, while building on the South Monument site would also force much of the building to go underground, and would compromise views of the Washington Monument.
The preferred locations would set a destructive precedent for future museums, including the proposed National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture and the National Museum of American LGBTQ+ History and Culture (the former under study, the latter gaining traction in Congress). As competition for dwindling space on and near the Mall grows more intense, Congress will be forced to prioritize one group over another, which will create resentment and division as some are inevitably excluded from “on the Mall” sites. Congress is also likely to be coerced into making destructive exceptions to the laws, plans and regulations that have preserved the city’s aesthetic and the Mall’s integrity for more than a century, eventually destroying the long vista that stretches from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial.
Yet the Smithsonian has dismissed the legal, pragmatic and historical impediments to building on these parcels. Why?
Symbolism. A brief survey of the oversight process, including hearings by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, suggests that the Smithsonian’s overriding concern was to be on the Mall, or as close to it as possible. That’s understandable, given the emotional significance of the nation’s monumental greensward. To be on the Mall is to be at the table, in the family, fully American. It is a space that affords equal dignity to African Americans and Native Americans, and veterans of wars both popular and divisive.
Yet that symbolism is tired, and it doesn’t encompass the reality of the Mall, its past and its future. As America’s sense of history has evolved from a single narrative of White, patriarchal, European-derived culture to a richer, more complicated and more interesting multiplicity of narratives, the need for more museums has become acute. (There are still debates about whether this trend to identity-based history is destructive, but the success of institutions such as National Museum of African American History and Culture should allay those concerns.) The space on the Mall, however, remains finite. Since the 2016 completion of the African American Museum, open space is limited to a handful of parcels, and none are suitable for the hundreds of thousands of square feet required for a modern museum.
Nat’l Museum
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U.S. Holocaust
U.S. Dept. of
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of Asian
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Tidal Basin
Meanwhile, tectonic shifts in how Americans work have created an unprecedented chance to extend the boundaries of the Mall and the greatest opportunity to remake the symbolic core of Washington since the McMillan Plan of 1902. That effort, which used architecture and landscape design to dramatize the nation’s imperial ambitions, transformed a patchwork of gardens, mud flats and accumulated urban clutter into the open vista beloved today.
But the current revolution of telework, accelerated by the covid pandemic, is changing how much space the federal government needs. The Mall, hemmed in by office buildings, could become more porous and grow, especially to the south of Independence Avenue, where the Eisenhower Memorial has already extended the memorial landscape opposite the National Air and Space Museum.
Among the structures that might be eliminated is the Forrestal Building, home to the Department of Energy. Its mid-century brutalism has a certain dour charm, but it sits elevated on columns straddling 10th Street. That not only blocks views of the Smithsonian Castle to the north, but also deters pedestrian traffic along what could be an open, inviting corridor linking the Mall to the newly developed, bustling Wharf and Waterfront neighborhoods in Southwest Washington. The Washington Channel waterfront (and its amenities, including restaurants) is a shorter walk from the Castle than from the Capitol or the Lincoln Memorial — if tourists know it exists and are invited by urban cues to go there.
Remove the Forrestal campus and you could extend the Mall to the south, making room for several museums on the Forrestal site and other plots now linked to the monumental core. Building on the cramped South Monument site (which is substantially smaller than the equivalent site occupied by the African American Museum) would result in a tortured aboveground structure, a mere appendage to a vast basement below the water table. Although the Smithsonian says the site can accommodate a building without violating the rules of the McMillan Plan, it is likely that museum officials and architects would want an exception to the historic building setback line, allowing the structure to encroach on the Mall’s central axis.
Building on the Tidal Basin site would destroy the organic connection of the Mall to the city’s beloved cherry trees and the Jefferson Memorial, impede traffic and endanger pedestrians. No one has seriously proposed developing this site in recent memory and perhaps not since the city plan was laid out by Pierre L’Enfant in 1791, and for good reason.
The Forrestal site would allow architects to create imposing, impressive, worthy structures, with plenty of light and open space, surrounded by greenery and directly connected to the Smithsonian’s 1855 Castle, the oldest cultural structure on the Mall. The new museums would actually feel more central to the architectural and symbolic narrative of the Mall — and the nation — than they would on the proposed sites (one of which, the Tidal Basin plot, isn’t technically “on the Mall” at all).
The Forrestal Building is owned by the General Services Administration, which has encouraged new thinking about the 10th Street corridor. In an emailed statement, a GSA spokeswoman would only say that the Forrestal Building is currently “occupied” by a federal agency. But in a Sept. 28 letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, GSA administrator Robin Carnahan wrote that “there may be new opportunities within the Federal real estate portfolio as agencies continue planning their future of work.”
Carnahan’s letter encouraged the Smithsonian to look beyond the supposedly open or vacant sites it is so determined to develop. A Sept. 14 letter from Billie Tsien, chairwoman of the fine arts commission and a brilliant and distinguished architect, explicitly encouraged the Smithsonian to consider the Forrestal site. Yet another letter sent during the review process, from National Capital Planning Commission Chairwoman Beth White, echoed those concerns and recommendations. The best designers, planners and urban thinkers involved in this process are strongly opposed to the Smithsonian’s shortsighted choice of two ill-advised and ill-suited locations.
The Smithsonian disagrees with their analysis. Ronald Cortez, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for administration, said the review process was rigorous and included a detailed assessment of the probable costs and delays for 27 sites. Moving the offices and federal employees at the Forrestal Building could cost $1.4 billion, Cortez said, and could lead to delays of seven to 10 years. He also stressed that the sites preferred by the Smithsonian would create synergies with the African American Museum and its neighbor, the National Museum of American History.
The Smithsonian acknowledges that it would not be “on the hook” for covering the cost of relocating GSA employees. Congressional intervention and GSA cooperation could limit delays. And the Forrestal site would have affinities and synergies as strong as any on the Mall, connecting the new museums to the Smithsonian’s main campus, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Smithsonian museums devoted to African and Asian art.
It isn’t easy to oppose the old, reflexive “on the Mall” thinking because it invites accusations of being hostile to the purpose and content of a new museum or memorial, and the dignity they are meant to convey. If the African American Museum is on the Mall, then why not the Latino museum? If men overwhelmingly dominate the symbolism of the Mall, is there no room for women?
But this kind of thinking is predicated on the idea that the Mall as defined more than a century ago by a coterie of White men is the only symbolically significant location for a museum or memorial. It is a zero-sum mentality that creates division, the sort of division that impedes the progress not just of marginalized groups, but also a truly cohesive, multicultural and equitable society. Fighting over the last shards of an imperial, heroic, male-centered landscape makes no sense, when there is an unprecedented opportunity to recast the boundaries, the focus and the meaning of that land. On the Mall is tired; extend the Mall is wired. | 2022-11-05T10:58:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Smithsonian has chosen 2 ill-advised spots for Latino, women’s museums - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/05/smithsonian-new-museums-latino-womens/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/05/smithsonian-new-museums-latino-womens/ |
The economy continues to be remarkably confusing as policymakers keep at their fight against inflation
A hiring sign hangs in the window of a Chipotle in New York on Tuesday. The labor market remains hot after months of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. It's a confusing economy for policymakers and consumers alike. (Seth Wenig/AP)
If the economy looks confusing to you, rest assured — it looks that way to the people in charge of stabilizing it, too.
When the Federal Reserve raised interest rates yet again this week, the central bank’s case for how it would tackle inflation without causing a recession boiled down to: It’s unclear. What are the odds of avoiding a downturn? “Hard to say,” conceded Chair Jerome H. Powell. How high will interest rates go? “Very uncertain.” In an hour-long news conference on Wednesday, Powell said “don’t know” four times.
Powell is hardly the only one without answers, and his remarks reflect how confounding the economy remains for those inside and outside the Fed. The markets, policymakers, households and businesses have been operating without a playbook for two-and-a-half years. And now, the latest wave of uncertainty is swelling, with few guarantees about what’s still to come, or how painful the path ahead will be.
“Economists, generally, are being humbled by the experience of the past year,” said Karen Dynan, a former chief economist at the Treasury Department who is now at Harvard University. “And I think the Fed is also realizing that they don’t have as good a grasp on what’s likely to happen as they might have thought earlier.”
There are plenty of reasons. Inflation is still near 40-year highs, with many parts of the economy not yet responding to the Fed’s aggressive moves. This week, the Fed hiked rates for the sixth time since March, announcing its fourth consecutive increase of 0.75 percentage points — when it hadn’t previously raised rates that steeply even once since 1994. That brought the Fed’s policy rate to between 3.75 and 4 percent, with the growing expectation that rates could eclipse 5 percent early next year.
So far, those moves have triggered a massive slowdown in the housing market, as aspiring buyers shy away from soaring mortgage rates. But officials are seeing little progress elsewhere. That could be because rate hikes operate with a lag that is hard to parse. Or it could be because various drivers of inflation — from sluggish supply chains to Russia’s war in Ukraine — can’t be solved by Fed action alone.
Then there’s the labor market, which has remained remarkably resilient through the Fed’s scramble to slow the economy. But there, too, the picture is getting hazier. On one hand, the job market appears to be softening: Employers added 261,000 jobs in October, edging down again after growing like gangbusters in the first half of the year. But employers are still desperate to hire: The number of job openings actually rose in September compared to the month before, to 10.7 million.
Meanwhile, wage growth accelerated slightly in October, with average hourly earnings rising by 0.4 percent, to $32.58. But worker productivity is dropping, falling in the first half of 2022 by the sharpest rate on record going back 75 years.
Add in confusion from abroad. The world’s major central banks are all hiking rates simultaneously as they fight to get inflation under control. But those moves amplify one another and add instability to the global financial system. And Europe is staring down a severe energy crisis this winter, following Russia’s decision to halt natural gas deliveries via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. And the U.S.-China relationship is straining under economic and national security pressures.
Ultimately, questions swirl around how the Fed will cut through the fog. Officials have been resolute that they will get inflation under control, even if that means causing a downturn. They insist that doing too little to stifle inflation now will cause more problems down the line.
U.S. economy grows in third quarter, reversing a six-month slump
During his news conference Wednesday, Powell opened the door to slowing the pace of rate increases in the coming months, but said officials were a long way from pausing. As a result, the chances of avoiding a recession are slimming.
“Has it narrowed? Yes. Is it still possible? Yes,” Powell said. “I think we’ve always said it was going to be difficult, but I think to the extent rates have to go higher and stay higher for longer, it becomes harder to see the path.”
His colleagues seem to agree. The last time Fed officials released economic projections in September, every participant of the central bank’s policymaking committee said the outlook for four key indicators — economic growth, the unemployment rate and two measures of inflation — were more uncertain than the average over the past 20 years. The only other meeting when that has happened was in June 2020, the first time officials submitted projections after the pandemic-driven shutdowns began that spring, according to David Wilcox. Wilcox is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and director of U.S. economic research at Bloomberg Economics.
Over the coming weeks, Fed officials will start to weigh in on what they think the central bank should do next. They will release new projections at their policy meeting next month. (They weren’t scheduled to release any in November.)
“There is no one single indicator that will be sufficient by itself to guide policy,” Boston Fed President Susan Collins said in a Friday speech. “Decisions, even more than usual, will require a careful, holistic assessment of the range of information available. Our task is further complicated by some unusual challenges of extracting the signal from what can be very noisy data.”
Grappling with the unknown is part of the job for a central banker. Wilcox pointed to a 2003 Jackson Hole, Wyo., speech by Fed Chair Alan Greenspan that began: “Uncertainty is not just an important feature of the monetary policy landscape; it is the defining characteristic of that landscape.”
“[Powell] can be clear about the destination,” Wilcox said. “He can’t be clear — and it’s important that he not be clear — about the pathway that leads to the destination.”
Dynan, the Harvard economist, put it this way: “It’s very odd to be reassured by someone saying, ‘We don’t fully understand what’s going on.' But the point there is that that’s better than feeling like somebody understands — or thinks they understand — more than we really can. That would be a worse situation.”
That doesn’t always make the economy feel any less bewildering for most people, though.
Outside Fort Worth, Victor Garcia is managing that uncertainty from his storefronts selling Mexican ice cream and paletas. For the first time since the pandemic, Garcia has finally reached a full staff of almost two-dozen employees. Now he’s looking to expand his wholesale business to find new customers, such as getting a local restaurant to start selling a freezer full of Garcia’s favorite strawberry paletas.
Even if the economy tips into recession, Garcia says that consumers will still crave the little things that brighten their day. The question for him is how to make his company, Sol Dias, the place people seek out.
“It’s up to us to listen to what the market is doing, and shift in that direction,” Garcia said. “At this point, there’s no normal. You just go for what the customer is asking for.” | 2022-11-05T11:02:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Confusing economy for Federal Reserve, other experts - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/05/economy-fed-uncertainty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/05/economy-fed-uncertainty/ |
Standard time starts Sunday: How sunrise and sunset times will change
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday when we set clocks back an hour. Sunrise and sunset shift an hour earlier.
By Justin Grieser
The U.S. Capitol at sunrise in January 2022. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Dusk arrives early these days — and it’s about to arrive even earlier when daylight saving time ends this Sunday. At 2 a.m. on Nov. 6, clocks “fall back” one hour as we return to standard time.
The century-old clock-changing ritual has sparked even more debate than usual this year ever since the Senate voted in March to make daylight saving time permanent. But with major changes to daylight saving time appearing unlikely for now, we still set the clocks back this weekend — and will probably “spring forward” the clocks next March.
The end of daylight saving time means we get an extra hour of sleep, which experts say is better for our health. For early risers, the return to standard time means we’ll see brighter mornings again — at least for a few weeks. But it comes at the expense of evening light, as the sun will set an hour earlier. On Sunday, most of the United States will see sunrise before 7 a.m. again. But sunset will return to the 5 o’clock hour (or earlier), and many of us will soon be heading home from work and school in the dark.
How do sunrise and sunset times change in the weeks ahead?
For those who dread falling back to standard time each November, there is one silver lining: Sunsets won’t get all that much earlier in the coming weeks after Sunday.
“Due to peculiarities of the tilt of the Earth’s axis and its orbit, we lose far more daylight in the mornings at mid-latitudes after the beginning of standard time than we lose in the afternoons as the days continue to shorten,” CWG’s David Policansky wrote in an article last year.
The two tables below compare sunrise and sunset times on Nov. 6 (our first day back on standard time) and the winter solstice on Dec. 21.
Notice how in every city, sunrise times shift later significantly more than sunset times shift earlier. Between Nov. 6 and the winter solstice, Washington loses 43 minutes of morning light, but only 13 minutes in the evening.
Northern cities such as Seattle, Minneapolis and Boston each lose more than 45 minutes of morning daylight, but only 20 to 25 minutes in the evening.
In more southern locations, most of the remaining daylight loss between now and the winter solstice is skewed toward the mornings. Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami each lose at least half an hour of morning light, but sunset will hardly budge over the next six weeks. For example, in Miami, sunset on Dec. 21 is only two minutes earlier than it is on Nov. 6.
Technically, the total loss of evening daylight is a few minutes more than shown in the table above. That’s because many places see their earliest sunset of the year during the first week of December, and it’s typically about 3 to 5 minutes earlier than sunset on the winter solstice. (The earliest sunset in Washington is at 4:45 p.m., while on the solstice sunset is at 4:49 p.m.)
But even when we take this into account, the loss of evening sunlight remains far less than the loss of morning light.
The upshot is that once we’re jolted back to early evening darkness after the daylight saving time ends, at least it doesn’t get much worse until the winter solstice (unless you live somewhere like Anchorage, where afternoon daylight continues to shrink by more than an hour, although still less than the 1½-hour loss of morning light).
Early risers in most of the country can also take comfort in knowing that the latest sunrise of the year happens this Saturday — the day before daylight saving time ends. With less than seven weeks until the winter solstice, sunrise will not fully “catch up” to where it was before we set the clocks back an hour.
Washington’s latest sunrise this year is at 7:39 a.m. on Nov. 5. On Dec. 21, sunrise is at 7:23 a.m. The city’s latest sunrise on standard time (7:27 a.m.) is not until the first week of January. | 2022-11-05T11:15:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How sunrise and sunset change after daylight saving time ends - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/05/standard-time-fall-back-clocks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/05/standard-time-fall-back-clocks/ |
Architect of the Capitol J. Brett Blanton at a news conference on Jan. 4. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Many Americans will likely be surprised to learn that there’s such a thing as the uppercased Architect of the Capitol, rather than merely the architect of the Capitol — William Thornton, who designed the building in the late 1700s. But there is, and the man occupying this presidentially appointed position today has made the most of it, at taxpayers’ expense.
The Office of the Inspector General issued a report last month identifying a series of “administrative, ethical and policy violations” by J. Brett Blanton, appointed by President Donald Trump and sworn in in early 2020. The actions catalogued tell an almost comic story of corruption: The architect and his family logged nearly 20,000 extra miles in his government SUVs driving to a craft brewery as well as destinations as far away as Florida. His daughter even used the SUVs to cruise around with her friends and boyfriend, calling the fuel “free gas.” This included swerving through a Tysons Corner, Va., Walmart parking garage at 65 mph.
Finally, the real doozy: After a vehicle hit his daughter’s boyfriend’s car, Mr. Blanton activated the emergency equipment in his SUV to role-play a police chase — including leading local law enforcement to believe he was a cop in a ruse that lasted throughout the entire court proceedings.
This is, to some extent, just another story of a Trump appointee displaying the same disregard for the norms of good government as his appointor. Yet, in this case, the lapses must be particularly galling for members of Congress who are rightly demanding Mr. Blanton’s resignation. The architect of the Capitol (not, in this case, actually an accredited architect) is responsible for caring for the grounds and buildings in the vast complex where legislative activity takes place. The reason his SUV has sirens he can inappropriately flip on is his membership on the Capitol Police Board, charged with keeping the facilities safe. Yet he doesn’t seem to care much for protecting U.S. property; instead he appears to treat it like a toy.
Despite the architect’s role as an agent of the legislature, appointees can effectively only be hired and fired by the executive. Congress has considered changing that but abandoned its efforts over constitutional uncertainties. Nonetheless, it should consider again. In the meantime, legislators should take seriously the confirmation and oversight of positions so enmeshed in their daily operations. For now, however, it’s up to President Biden to show Mr. Blanton the way out — preferably in his personal vehicle. | 2022-11-05T11:41:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Capitol Architect Brett Blanton provides a lesson in ethical misconduct - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/05/brett-blanton-trump-appointee-capitol-architect-misconduct/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/05/brett-blanton-trump-appointee-capitol-architect-misconduct/ |
Pugilistic adviser has clashed with other lawyers for Donald Trump on whether to be confrontational or conciliatory
Boris Epshteyn, former special assistant to President Donald Trump, at the White House in April 2019. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
Few people speak to former president Donald Trump more these days than Boris Epshteyn.
The pugilistic communications consultant often has five or more conversations with Trump a day, advisers say, with the former president sometimes interrupting meetings with prominent elected officials to take his calls.
A lawyer by training who has also worked as an investment banker, Epshteyn, 40, has morphed into one of the most influential figures in Trump’s orbit, winning his ear on how to respond to investigations that have placed Trump in legal jeopardy unheard of for a former president. Epshteyn’s access and influence has frustrated some of the more experienced lawyers Trump has hired, because of what they see as his unnecessarily confrontational approach, his lack of relevant experience and the fact that Epshteyn’s own actions also have come under scrutiny in some of the probes, people familiar with the situation said.
At the same time, Epshteyn is also dealing with the legal ramifications of his conduct outside of work. He is on probation, according to court records, after pleading guilty late last year to disorderly conduct and fighting during a late-night bar incident in Scottsdale, Ariz. — the second such arrest in Arizona in seven years.
Epshteyn declined to answer questions on the record about those arrests, or any other topic, for this article.
He earned Trump’s loyalty by aggressively pushing false claims about the 2020 presidential election and carrying out Trump’s post-election wishes in states Biden won, according to interviews with 13 people familiar with Trump’s inner circle, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. They said he elevated his rank on the legal team handling the Mar-a-Lago documents case by flattering Trump and feeding his taste for conflict — including presenting options to take a confrontational stance toward the Justice Department while other lawyers counsel a more collaborative approach.
Federal campaign filings shows that Epshteyn has earned almost $1 million from Trump-aligned candidates — who hired him in part to sway the former president for political support, according to advisers on multiple campaigns. While Trump admires Epshteyn for his loyalty, work ethic and willingness to thrust himself into controversies on his behalf, other Trump advisers and lawyers say they fear he is a legal liability — a “sycophant,” one said, who has given Trump the kind of advice that has worsened situations.
Just this week, Trump filed a lawsuit in Florida against the New York attorney general — at Epshteyn’s urging and over protests from others on the legal team who considered it risky and frivolous, according to people familiar with the matter.
In a statement, Trump called Epshteyn “a high energy person with tremendous drive and great intelligence. He takes heat, but he usually ends up being right, and I’m very comfortable with him.”
Trump said Epshteyn was a “terrific student who went to one of the Top Tier Law Schools” and who “likes this crazy life, dealing with Radical Left Maniacs.”
Eight current and former Trump advisers said Epshteyn’s ascent through the ranks was astonishing, especially given his lack of litigation experience, although Trump often acts based on political rather than legal considerations. Epshteyn’s makeshift office is the Palm Steakhouse in downtown Washington, where he cycles through meetings ringing up pricey tabs, people who know him say. He also is a regular at cigar bars. His trademark look is a three-piece suit. He drives a navy Bentley he purchased in 2020 and has told others he likes it because it has a big B on it — like Boris.
“He was the guy you called for everything,” said former New York City Police commissioner Bernard Kerik, a longtime Trump ally who worked with Epshteyn to challenge the 2020 election results and described him as involved in all of Trump’s legal efforts — every lawsuit and every investigation.
“His phone is constantly busy,” Kerik said. “He’s extremely loyal. I think the president trusts him.”
In recent weeks, Epshteyn has told others that he has looked for a place near Palm Beach, where Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s winter residence and private club, is located. He has predicted Trump will be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee and said he wants to be involved in the campaign.
Trump hasn't announced a 2024 bid. But he's acting like he is running.
Epshteyn is elated to be at the center of the action and to talk to Trump so often, those who have spoken to him say. He has joked with associates that the federal authorities may be listening to those calls but did not seem worried about it.
“I’m doing great!” he told a concerned associate recently over lunch.
Entering Trump world
Epshteyn was born in Moscow and came to the United States as a child, growing up in New Jersey, according to public records. He became friends with Eric Trump in college. After Georgetown Law School, he worked for two law firms, then for a financial services firm in New York that was later shut down by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. Epshteyn, who was not personally accused of wrongdoing, is now associated with a different financial firm. He has never tried a legal case, a point regularly made by some of Trump’s other advisers.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Epshteyn became a prominent supporter of Trump on television, defending behavior including the “Access Hollywood” tapes and attacks on Gold Star families even as many other Trump surrogates were sheepish about doing so.
After the election, Epshteyn became an aide on the transition team and in the White House. But his tenure in was short — he lasted about two months in the White House and was abruptly moved from the transition to be communications director for the inaugural committee. Three Trump advisers, including one person with direct knowledge of the matter, said the White House exit came after issues gaining a security clearance and clashing with other White House aides. People close to Epshteyn said he was floated to be placed at other agencies — which did not happen.
Trump loyalist Kash Patel questioned before Mar-a-Lago grand jury in Washington
He found ways to stay involved: talking to Trump and other advisers, sitting in the lobby of the former president’s hotel and showing up for events at the White House. Epshteyn soon took to the airwaves with Sinclair Broadcast Group, doing a pro-Trump segment called “Bottom Line with Boris.” Trump often was shown clips and liked them.
During Trump’s reelection campaign, Epshteyn took a more limited role, advisers said, doing TV hits, mingling at campaign headquarters, traveling to some events and handling some outreach to the Jewish community. Some of Trump’s aides were annoyed by what they saw as his harebrained ideas, former advisers said. “We tried to keep him out of the middle of it,” one top campaign official said.
An election loss, and an opportunity
In the chaotic days after President Biden’s election victory, many of Trump’s advisers wanted to run for the hills. Epshteyn saw an opening. He started showing up at campaign headquarters, often with Rudy Giuliani, campaign aides who were packing up said. Soon he became a key figure in the effort to overturn the election results, and a mainstay at the Willard Hotel suite that became known as the “command center” for that mission.
Epshteyn worked closely with Giuliani and Kerik, as well as pro-Trump lawyer John Eastman and former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, serving as a liaison to other conservative lawyers and Trump allies and as a self-described chief of staff to the team. Epshteyn, Eastman and Giuliani wrangled GOP lawmakers in swing states to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to decertify the results and send them back to the states — a legal strategy devised by Eastman that has been widely discredited but Epshteyn has continued to defend.
“He was like a coordinator with an enormous Rolodex,” Kerik said, describing Trump calling Epshteyn late at night and early in the morning. “Legal, constitutional, when I was trying to get paid. If it wasn’t for Boris, I wouldn’t have gotten paid.”
The scheme to create slates of pro-Trump electors from states Biden narrowly won and send them to Pence was carried out partially by Epshteyn, former Trump advisers say. Epshteyn told The Washington Post this year that he took part in conference calls with the campaign’s legal team, including Giuliani, to discuss elector participation as part of “an overall effort to send it back to the states.”
That effort is now being investigated by the Justice Department. Epshteyn recently had his phone seized by federal agents as part of that probe. A federal subpoena that went to more than 100 people across the country this spring — including fake electors and state officials — sought phone and email communications with dozens of people involved in the effort, including Epshteyn.
Epshteyn also had to testify recently before a Georgia grand jury investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in that state.
Trouble in Arizona
When Trump wanted to overturn the election results in Arizona, he turned to Epshteyn, who decamped to the state for some time. Epshteyn worked alongside Christina Bobb, a former One America News anchor and pro-Trump lawyer, and others to push an array of initiatives, including an audit by a group called the Cyber Ninjas. He also met with lawmakers and urged House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) to pass a resolution that would allow voters to overturn election results.
“I told him straight up, ‘This is a circus. I’m not going to do it,’ ” Bowers, who lost his seat after being opposed by Trump, said in an interview. “He just kept trying to talk me into it. I said, ‘You guys have been telling me you have the proof for a year, and then nothing. I need to see some real evidence.’ ”
Epshteyn repeatedly identified himself as a member of Trump’s team, Bowers said, and mentioned that he was working with Mark Finchem, an Arizona House member who is running for secretary of state. Bowers said Epshteyn sent him more than 100 pages of material, including memos from Eastman that Bowers rifled through and quickly dismissed. The Post reviewed the materials, which showed no evidence to justify overturning the election.
Epshteyn’s willingness to champion such ideas became legendary among Trump’s advisers. As some of them emailed last year about an Arizona grass-roots lobbying effort, one of the advisers suggested it might be illegal due to state lobbying laws, people who have seen the emails say.
A second adviser jokingly wrote: “Let’s just do it and blame Boris!”
While in Arizona last October, Epshteyn was arrested at 1:45 a.m. at the Bottled Blonde bar in Scottsdale, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and disturbance, while three other misdemeanor charges were dropped, the records show.
Epshteyn was given a suspended sentence and a fine, placed on probation, ordered to avoid contact with his alleged victim and remanded to alcohol treatment. His probation ends this year.
A spokesman for the police department did not respond to requests for comment, and the agency did not immediately provide the full police report to The Post.
Epshteyn had been arrested in Arizona for a similar bar incident in 2014, court records show. In that case, charges were dropped after he agreed to get counseling for anger management and to complete community service.
Success as a consultant
Epshteyn’s political consultancy, Georgetown Advisory, has earned close to $1 million from federal candidates and other committees this cycle, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. His clients this cycle included Katie Britt, the Republican nominee for Senate in Alabama; Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona; and Eric Greitens, the scandal-plagued former Missouri governor who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for Senate in that state. Some of the candidates who paid Epshteyn did not ultimately run, such as cryptocurrency investor Brock Pierce who sent Epshteyn’s firm $100,000 before opting against entering the race for Senate in Vermont.
Payments from Trump’s Save America PAC to Epshteyn total $165,000, according to federal filings. The PAC has been paying him since April. In August and September, what had been generally a monthly payment of $15,000 increased to $30,000. Before the 2016 cycle, when he worked for Trump’s first campaign, Epshteyn had never been paid by a federal client, though he advised on John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid.
GOP hopefuls stump with election deniers, despite distancing themselves from Trump
A contract Epshteyn signed with one campaign includes a $15,000 or $20,000 payment per month, plus an additional $75,000 if the candidate wins the primary, and an additional $150,000 if the candidate wins the general election, according to a copy reviewed by The Post. The contract says Epshteyn will provide “knowledge and assistance related to political strategy, national and local communications, and coalition building.”
Epshteyn talked up his clients to Trump, sharing positive news articles and polling, according to Trump’s advisers, and the former president endorsed some of them. An aide on one campaign said they hired Epshteyn for just that purpose.
Epshteyn was also able to help translate Trump and his advisers for his clients and would advise campaigns before they had meetings with him, one candidate said. Epshteyn connected the Masters campaign to Bobb, who hosted an event for the candidate in April where Trump called in, according to a person familiar with the activities.
Mar-a-Lago tensions
Initially, many of Epshteyn’s calls to Trump were about the 2020 election. But this year, as the controversy over classified documents located at Mar-a-Lago intensified, Trump grew furious with some of his lawyers who were urging him to return the material to the federal government. In spring, according to advisers, Trump gave Epshteyn a larger role in his legal defense team — akin to an in-house counsel.
“He came in and started giving orders,” one person familiar with the matter said.
Epshteyn helped bring in attorney Evan Corcoran, introducing him on a call with other Trump lawyers and recommending him to Trump, who hired him sight unseen, The Post has reported.
Corcoran is now under scrutiny himself for how he responded to the subpoena this year from the Justice Department — a response that in part led to the Aug. 8 FBI raid of the former president’s property.
Trump's legal team divided over how to handle Mar-a-Lago case
Epshteyn has urged a pugilistic tone in court filings about the documents, has tried to shape public relations around those filings and has called Trump repeatedly throughout the day to talk strategy, other advisers say.
That has frustrated the lawyers who actually sign the court filings, including Chris Kise, according to people who have spoken to the former Florida solicitor general.
Kise, who Trump hired on a $3 million retainer this summer, has expressed concerns about Epshteyn’s advice to others. In a brief interview, Kise said that his relationship with Epshteyn was “good” and that they talk “frequently.”
“We don’t always agree, but we have — from my perspective — a mutual respect for each other’s viewpoints,” he said.
For his part, Epshteyn has questioned Kise to Trump repeatedly, people familiar with those conversations say.
So far, Trump seems to be listening to Epshteyn. On Wednesday, there was sharp debate between Trump’s lawyers over whether to file a lengthy lawsuit in Florida court attacking New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) — a development first reported by the New York Times.
Epshteyn wanted to go forward with the lawsuit.
Some other Trump attorneys — including longtime Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten, who has battled with James in New York — vigorously argued against doing so, saying it could backfire, people familiar with the situation said. Garten declined to comment.
Late Wednesday night, Trump filed the suit and Epshteyn touted it to the world, sending it to reporters and urging them to write about it.
“Great job Boris,” Garten wrote in an email to others, including Epshteyn, according to people with knowledge of the email. “Another frivolous lawsuit. What a joke.”
Epshteyn did not respond. | 2022-11-05T12:16:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Boris Epshteyn is increasingly influential with Trump, which worries some other Trump lawyers. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/05/boris-epshteyn-trump-legal-troubles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/05/boris-epshteyn-trump-legal-troubles/ |
Scenes of devastation are visible in all directions along Lamar County Road 35940, west of State Highway 271, after a massive tornado hit the area, causing extensive damage and destroying an unknown number of homes, Friday, Nov. 4, 2022 in Powderly, Texas. (Jeff Forward/AP)
Authorities in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas were assessing damage early Saturday after tornadoes wrought damage overnight, killing at least one person, injuring at least two dozen people and damaging scores of homes, officials said.
In McCurtain County, southeastern Oklahoma, one death was confirmed by the county’s emergency manager Cody McDaniel.
“Roads are still blocked and we’re trying to cut into those places,” McDaniel told local news outlet FOX23 on Friday, adding that there was “one fatality in McCurtain County tonight.” He did not provide further information on the fatality.
In a statement posted online early Saturday McCurtain County officials urged people to “stay away from damaged areas” and downed power lines in areas such as Idabel, Broken Bow and Pickens. Teams of first responders and experts were assessing the damage going “block to block, house to house to do a thorough assessment,” it said.
A shelter has also been set up by the Red Cross nonprofit at a local church for those badly impacted, it added.
Dangerous storms and risk of ‘strong’ tornadoes threaten Texas today
Meanwhile, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) tweeted that he was “praying for Oklahomans impacted” by the tornadoes, noting that severe storms had hit several counties with flash flooding also reported.
Elsewhere, in northeast Texas, at least 50 homes were damaged or destroyed in Lamar County, close to the Oklahoma border, due to the extreme weather, said Sherriff Scott Cass in a statement late Friday.
Cass said the tornado hit the region just after 4 p.m. local time on Friday and impacted areas including Hopewell, Caviness, Beaver Creek and Powderly.
Although no fatalities were reported, 10 people were receiving medical treatment at the Paris Regional Medical Center, two of whom were “critical, but stable,” he said.
Teams would be assessing the damage and helping in cleanup operations, the statement continued, adding that Lamar County Judge Brandon Bell had declared an official disaster in the area — a procedural step toward obtaining federal assistance and funding.
Bell’s declaration said that “at least two dozen people were injured around the county,” a local news outlet and AP reported.
One resident in rural Powderly, Lamar County, said she had taken shelter in a closet with her boyfriend and cat during the tornado.
“We felt cold air and we felt the house shake and we heard noises and we felt the ceiling in the hall we were at sucked up,” a woman named as Tammy told local paper the Paris News, adding that her property had suffered roof damage and shattered windows.
“The beautiful trees are all gone,” she said. “It was terrifying. I was pretty scared.”
Atmospheric river blasting Northwest with heavy rain, snow and strong winds
In nearby Hopkins County, Texas, near Sulphur Springs, officials urged residents to take shelter amid the tornado reports, stating that at least “four houses have sustained damage,” but no injuries had been reported, late Friday.
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center had highlighted a level 3 out of 5 “enhanced” risk of severe weather, blanketing much of central and East Texas, southeast Oklahoma, southwest Arkansas and adjacent northwest Louisiana.
Tornadoes form from large thunderstorms as warm, humid air rises while cool air falls inside thunder clouds. The contrasting conditions can cause spinning air currents inside the cloud, which can turn vertical and form a twisting tornado, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A threat for tornadoes, severe gusts and large hail exists today and tonight over parts of central, north and east Texas, southeastern Oklahoma, southern/western Arkansas, and northern Louisiana. https://t.co/VyWINDkBnn for more. https://t.co/up2OKri6pi
Helier Cheung contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T13:04:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tornadoes hit Texas and Oklahoma with one death reported - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/11/05/tornado-texas-oklahoma-weather-storm/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/11/05/tornado-texas-oklahoma-weather-storm/ |
Midterm elections live updates Obama, Biden to rally for Fetterman; Trump to stump for Oz
President Biden and former president Barack Obama enter the East Room of the White House for the unveiling of Obama's official White House portrait on Sept. 7. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Former president Barack Obama and President Biden are both coming to Pennsylvania on Saturday with the aim of giving a boost to Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman, who is locked in a tight race with Republican Mehmet Oz that could determine control of the Senate next year. Oz, the celebrity physician, is getting help Saturday as well, with former president Donald Trump coming for a rally. The state’s gubernatorial candidates — Democrat Josh Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano — are also scheduled to appear alongside the presidents from their parties.
Biden is also holding an event Saturday in Joliet, Ill., focused on prescription drug costs and protecting Social Security and Medicare.
The Washington Post breaks down the top Senate races to watch on election night and how they could affect the balance of power in the chamber. Watch here.
But four years later, after a global pandemic, increased forecasts of a recession and record-high inflation, Hayes is in a tight race to keep her seat as Republican challenger George Logan leans into an economic pitch to voters with a heavy focus on small towns struggling due to the lack of jobs.
Three presidents — one current and two former — are to campaign in Pennsylvania on Saturday as both parties seek to drive up turnout in a key battleground state just days before Election Day.
Former president Barack Obama plans to campaign alongside Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman early in the afternoon in Pittsburgh. They are to be joined later in the day in Philadelphia by Biden and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Doug Shapiro.
Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump has an evening rally scheduled with Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz and Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.
MADISON, Wis. — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a heavy dose of economic populism in an address here Friday night, declaring to a crowd of about 1,000 people that “we are in the midst of class warfare.”
Sanders plans a rally in Oshkosh, the hometown of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), on Saturday. “These are tough times, I’m not kidding you,” Sanders said. “This is not easy to understand, but we are in the midst of class warfare.”
He urged voters to back Mandela Barnes, the Wisconsin lieutenant governor, in the Senate contest. Barnes made campaign stops in the state capital earlier in the day but did not appear with Sanders at the campaign rally.
Polls show Moore, a former chief of an anti-poverty organization, and U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown (D), who would become the state’s first Black attorney general, with commanding leads heading into Election Day. Their victories would set up a concentration of Black state-level power unprecedented in this country. | 2022-11-05T13:44:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Midterm elections 2022 live updates: Obama, Biden to rally for Fetterman; Trump to stump for Oz - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/election-2022-live-updates-biden-obama-fetterman-trump-oz/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/election-2022-live-updates-biden-obama-fetterman-trump-oz/ |
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA - JUNE 21: A voter casts her ballot with her child at a polling station at Rose Hill Elementary School during the midterm primary election on June 21, 2022 in Alexandria, Virginia. In two of the most competitive districts in the U.S., Virginians will be choosing Republican nominees to take on Democratic incumbents Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA). (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) (Photographer: Alex Wong/Getty Images North America)
Campaigns will win or lose based on how much time and effort they can devote to this effort. The last two elections have set records for youth engagement, and indications were that the trend would continue this year. Two years ago, 54% of younger voters cast ballots, up from 45% in previous presidential years. In 2018, 36% of younger voters participated, up from 25% percent in previous midterms. A poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics found that 40% of young people said they would “definitely” vote this year.
TargetSmart, a Democratic political data firm, maintains a dashboard tracking national trends in early in-person and absentee voting. As of this writing, it’s a muddled picture. About 5.6% of early ballots cast thus far were from younger voters. At this point in 2018, that figure was 7%; in 2020 it was 11.2%. The firm also tracks Senate battleground states — defined as Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin — and the figure in those races is 5.6%. That compares to 7.1% at this point in 2018 and 11.1% in 2020.
Past performance is not indicative of future results, as they say on Wall Street. Over the last several elections, a lot has changed about how people vote, including rules about early and absentee ballots. Turnout is always higher in presidential years, and in 2020 early and mail-in voting was especially popular because of Covid. When turnout is lower, as in a midterm, so is youth turnout — especially relative to older voters.
North Carolina, is one state that provides a good comparison with past elections. Its early voting laws are similar to what they were four years ago, and it also has a competitive Senate race, so robust turnout is expected. In 2018, North Carolina’s younger voters made up 6.2% of all early voters, and they tended to vote in larger numbers as Election Day approached, according to Michael MacDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who runs the United States Election Project.
Still, MacDonald found that the younger voters are running 1 percentage point behind their totals in 2018. If North Carolina’s young people aren’t voting in the same numbers as they did in 2018, he writes, “that may suggest turnout could be lower compared to 2018 in other places too.”
On the one hand, even a one-point decline would still represent a high turnout. On the other, that single percentage point could prove decisive in a close election. A CBS News model shows the only way for Democrats to retain control of the House is for younger voters to match their 2018 turnout.
Tom Bonier, the CEO of TargetSmart, points out that this year’s early-voting electorate is older, more White and a little bit more rural than it was in 2020 — and more Democratic. Those numbers are encouraging, he says, but Democrats will still need to rely on “a belief that younger voters and voters of color will come out in bigger numbers on Election Day.”
Democrats may find it unsettling that, at this stage of the campaign, their strategy to turn out the youth vote rests on faith. Part of the reason may be that they have not focused enough on the issues that younger voters, like older ones, are most concerned about.
The Harvard poll asked young voters to rank the two most important of eight issues. The top concern by far was inflation, cited by 45% of likely voters. Next were abortion (33%), protecting democracy (30%), climate change (28%) and gun control (22%). The least important, cited by a mere 9%? Student loan debt.
• Young Voters Don’t Care How Old Hillary Is: Albert R. Hunt
• Is Alaska’s Newfangled Voting System Better?: Jonathan Bernstein | 2022-11-05T14:23:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats Should Be Worried About the Youth Vote - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/democrats-should-be-worried-about-the-youth-vote/2022/11/05/91864eac-5d0a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/democrats-should-be-worried-about-the-youth-vote/2022/11/05/91864eac-5d0a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
The facts were hardly the stuff of which news is made. The plaintiff, a meter reader for Springfield, Illinois, had been discharged for misconduct. He alleged that his firing was discriminatory because a Black meter reader had behaved worse and been retained. The district court dismissed the action, reasoning that because the two employees had committed different offenses, they weren’t “similarly situated” as the law requires.
By a vote of 2-1, the court of appeals reversed. Writing for the majority, Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi noted that because this was a “reverse discrimination case” the plaintiff only had to produce evidence “that the employer has reason or inclination to discriminate invidiously against whites or evidence that there is something ‘fishy’ about the facts at hand.”
If “fishiness” seems a murky test, that’s not the judge’s fault. This “background circumstances” test has been widely followed since first laid down by another federal appellate court in 1981 as a way to deal with bias claims by White (or male) employees. Some critics find it vague; others think it unfair. My concern is that in their constant invocation of “reverse discrimination,” the precedents are unhappily worded. That term and the concept behind it share a history sufficiently odious that I’d advise critics of affirmative action to find a different form of words. Because there’s been scarcely a moment of progress toward racial equality that hasn’t met the same criticism.
We can trace similar language at least back to 1854, when a North Carolina newspaper registered its dismay at the contents of an abolitionist pamphlet: “[T]here seems to be a prejudice against a white skin, and in favor of black one, that would be amusing if it were not disgusting.” In 1866, during the Reconstruction Era, newspapers across the country reprinted an anonymous essay condemning the Freedmen’s Bureau for “discrimination against the white race.”
The examples go on. When Congress appropriated $200,000 for “an exhibit by the colored people of the United States” at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch condemned the vote as “a clear violation of the civil rights bill as a discrimination against white people on account of their color.”
Ten years later, papers chastised President Theodore Roosevelt for publicly trumpeting the large number of Black appointments he’d made. It was one thing, a Missouri editor wrote, to say that color should not be taken into account when hiring. But the president’s evident pride in his record results suggested a policy of “discrimination against white men.”
During the 1920s, after Clarence Darrow advised a Black audience to form a voting bloc to gain more influence, a Michigan newspaper wrote that the famous lawyer “exhibited in numerous ways that most degenerate form of race prejudice — prejudice against the white race that bore him.”
Skip forward to World War II. At a 1944 Senate hearing, Democrat Richard B. Russell of Georgia observed that in the higher-paid positions at the federal Fair Employment Practices Committee “a majority of the employees are colored” and asked a witness, “Don’t you think that is discriminating against the whites?”
Then as now, the “less qualified” label was always lurking — and was particularly likely to be raised when jobs were at stake. At the 1947 convention of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, a committee report lamented the growing “exclusion of white firemen” caused by the hiring of “Negro firemen [who] do not contribute to the maintenance of working conditions and rates of pay as secured by white firemen.”
As to the precise term “reverse discrimination,” by the 1940s it had become commonplace. In 1945, for instance, when civil rights leaders pointed out that the Congress of Industrial Organizations had chosen an all-White delegation for an international labor conference, they were accused of advocating “discrimination in reverse.” In 1956, Connecticut’s commissioner of education used the words to caution against the potential effects on White applicants of a proposal “favoring the hiring of teachers from minority groups.”
In 1951, the syndicated columnist Drew Pearson charged “reverse discrimination” after a Senate subcommittee that had rejected a White nominee for a United Nations post voted in favor of a Black one. Concluded Pearson: “Sometimes it pays to be a member of a minority group.”
Again, though I support affirmative action, I accept that people of goodwill can disagree on how to weigh the great principles at stake. But in the course of a continuing public argument that I hope will prove both courteous and thoughtful, perhaps we can bury the phrase “reverse discrimination” once and for all.
• Supreme Court Will End the Era of College Diversity: Noah Feldman
• Supreme Court Should Just End College Affirmative Action: Ramesh Ponnuru
• Supreme Court Will Make It Harder to Hire a Diverse Team: Noah Feldman | 2022-11-05T14:23:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Reverse Discrimination’ Is a Concept With a Long, Ugly History - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/reverse-discrimination-is-a-conceptwith-a-long-ugly-history/2022/11/05/91e0637e-5d0a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/reverse-discrimination-is-a-conceptwith-a-long-ugly-history/2022/11/05/91e0637e-5d0a-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Suella Braverman, UK home secretary. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
In its bad old Communist days, Albania’s chief export was abuse — courtesy of astonishingly powerful radio transmitters that relayed insults to capitalist and socialist countries alike. Today, the tiny Balkan country’s main export seems to be young men. The illegal arrival of Albanian migrants to claim asylum in the UK has recently ignited a political firestorm in the country.
The Tory Home Secretary tasked with border control, Suella Braverman, is turning up the heat. She horrified liberal opinion and some Tory colleagues when she termed the influx via the Channel an “invasion.” Days before her statement to the Commons, a white extremist firebombed a Border Force center at the port of Dover.
Like her predecessor Priti Patel, Braverman is also the child of immigrants of Indian descent. She was appointed by the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, to placate a right-wing faction that might otherwise have supported Boris Johnson’s comeback bid. But aside from the raw internal politics and dubious language, Braverman has a point that requires attention.
The number of Albanians arriving in Britain has shot up from just 50 two years ago to 12,000 — the Home Office estimates that between 1% to 2% of the adult male population of the Balkan country has decamped to the UK. Unlike Afghanistan, Iran and Ukraine, where refugees have fled by boat to Britain this year, Albania is a corrupt country, but not a repressive or war-torn one. While the UK is very slow to process applications, more than half of Albanian migrants whose applications are reviewed are granted asylum status, most after claiming to be victims of slavery gangs. This argument apparently falls flat in continental Europe: France accepts only 8% of Albanian asylum applications, and other west European countries admit fewer or none. Clearly, Britain’s recent Modern Slavery Act needs tweaking.
Twelve thousand might not sound like a lot of people. Legal UK immigration runs to the hundreds of thousands. But across the West, state failure to stem migration rings alarm bells among the voters who fear that a trickle will soon become a flood. Often they are right. It’s a difficult job at the best of times for governments to balance compassion to strangers with reassurance to voters worried about the effects of migration on jobs, housing, health and welfare services. And these are not good economic times.
Neither the UK government nor the opposition are brave enough to own up to the hard choices and tradeoffs that migration decisions require. The British people are not racist monsters: Polls increasingly suggest they support immigration where it plugs gaps in understaffed health and social services or when it brings in dynamic entrepreneurs. But if politicians fail to follow this logic, they will reap the consequences in public mistrust.
Currently, both main parties are seeking crude political advantage from the chaos. The Conservatives regard immigration as a classic “wedge issue” that bolsters their support among Brexit-supporting former Labour voters. If the opposition fails to back their tough policies — the government is committed to a scheme whereby asylum seekers are to be flown to Rwanda to have their applications processed — then they will be seen as “soft.” Labour, by contrast, wants to portray Tory ministers as both heartless and incompetent.
Both sides have it about right. The government has handled immigration incompetently — the Rwanda scheme, for instance, has swallowed £140 million ($158.2 million) of taxpayer money so far without one asylum seeker being processed there — and Labour hasn’t much of a clue what to do.
This should then be a promising moment for a new home secretary. But even many of Braverman’s natural allies fear that she is not up to the job. Her competence first came into question when she was sacked from a brief stint in the same job by Liz Truss for sending confidential information by personal email to a fellow Tory MP. She had also called for cannabis to be classed as dangerous as heroin and opposed her boss’s attempt to loosen restrictions on economic migrants.
Braverman describes the snail’s pace asylum-verification process as “not fit for purpose.” Right again. In 2004, the Home Office deported 21,000 illegal migrants. Last year, just more than 2,000 were sent home.
Conditions at a holding camp for migrants in a former air force base are so squalid that they could be illegal too. Labour, however, is also right to lay the blame for the chaos squarely with the Conservatives. They have been in power since 2010, so if the system is “broken,” it is the Tories who have failed to fix it.
Even on their own terms, the Conservative record is dismal. They wholly unrealistically pledged to reduce immigration to the “tens of thousands” when first elected in 2010, and have called for reductions ever since, always failing to hit their targets. Then the Tories had a stroke of luck with the Brexit referendum in 2016, as many voters believed that leaving the EU meant they had “got back control” of the borders.
Migrant numbers, however, went up. Legal arrivals no longer come from eastern Europe but largely from the Indian sub-continent and Africa. The government’s promises have come back to haunt them as illegal migrants land in ever greater numbers on the southeast coast.
Political scientist John Curtice, doyen of pollsters, believes the Tories are playing with fire. By putting immigration back to the top of the agenda, they draw attention to their own failures. Liberals will see them as heartless, while their own supporters will view them as useless. The art of politics is to control “the political narrative” — to talk about things where you have a strong message, just as Boris Johnson did when talking up Brexit. But the government is succeeding only in talking up its failures. Only 7% of Tory voters think migration is under control.
Braverman’s answer is to double down on the Rwanda scheme by making deals with Peru, Belize and Paraguay to warehouse asylum applicants. There are also plans for Britain to withdraw from international agreements governing migrants and human rights.
All these ideas, however, are fraught with excessive complexity and the risk of backfiring. Sunak is currently reviewing all the promises he made about immigration during his own leadership bid in the summer. Less grandiose pledges would be a start. Tighter gatekeeping, balanced by granting work visas to fill vacancies, may be the unglamorous solution. It also has a better chance of working. | 2022-11-05T14:23:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tory Immigration Promises Come Back to Haunt Them - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/tory-immigration-promises-come-back-to-haunt-them/2022/11/05/59c42ad8-5ce8-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/tory-immigration-promises-come-back-to-haunt-them/2022/11/05/59c42ad8-5ce8-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
A submerged village in Dadu, Pakistan, in September. (Saiyna Bashir)
DADU, Pakistan — Before the floods, Mazhar Hussain Birhamni dreamed of becoming a scholar. The 22-year-old wanted to pursue a master’s degree in English literature, to comprehend the world beyond the rural village in Pakistan where he lived with his parents.
At this month’s U.N. climate negotiations in Egypt, Pakistan will lead a bloc of more than 100 developing nations insisting on compensation for the irreversible harms of climate change — a class of impacts collectively known as “loss and damage.” The bloc has called for the creation of a dedicated loss-and-damage fund, which hard-hit countries can rely on for immediate assistance after a disaster, rather than waiting for humanitarian aid or loans that will drive them into debt.
Wealthy countries have historically resisted such calls, fearing liability for the billions of dollars in damage that could be linked to their emissions. But the dramatic escalation in extreme weather, coupled with deep frustration over unfulfilled climate funding promises from the industrialized world, have put pressure on nations like the United States — which has resisted providing compensation — to shift their stance.
There are signs that attitudes may be changing. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said Thursday there is “no more time to postpone” the issue. Egypt will make loss and damage a priority agenda item at the upcoming talks. In September, Denmark announced a $13 million fund to assist vulnerable countries — the first U.N. member state to do so.
“With the Pakistan disaster the poster child of climate impacts, there is a change in the political mood, I think,” said Munir Akram, the country’s chief climate negotiator and permanent representative to the United Nations.
“To the developing countries that are suffering these impacts because of the policies of industrialized countries over the past 150 years,” he added, “this is a matter of climate justice.”
‘We never saw such heavy rains’
U.N. climate accords require wealthy countries to provide funds to help developing nations curb their emissions and adapt to a changing climate. But there is no such financial support for vulnerable people to deal with harm that has already occurred.
At last year’s talks, a cohort of developing nations that included major emitters like India as well as tiny island states like Vanuatu fought for language that urged their rich counterparts to fund loss and damage. A majority of countries supported it, but that text was ultimately dropped amid opposition from the United States and European Union.
“There’s a lot of talk about global solidarity and so forth,” Akram said. “But there is this reluctance on the part of the Global North to accept or admit their policies caused this, and therefore they have a responsibility to respond to this.”
About a quarter of all greenhouse gas pollution produced by humans comes from the United States, according to data from the Global Carbon Project. More than 80 percent of planet-warming emissions comes from the world’s 20 largest economies.
By contrast, Pakistan is the source of less than 0.4 percent of historic carbon pollution.
And many Pakistanis have not benefited from the industrialization that drives greenhouse emissions. A 2021 analysis found that more than half of people in Pakistan are “energy poor” — meaning they lack reliable access to electricity, transport, communications equipment and basic household appliances.
But when blistering heat waves beset South Asia this summer — an event made 30 times more likely by climate change, according to scientists — there were dozens of deaths, huge crop losses and a massive flood from a melting glacier in Pakistan. The country suffered again after record rainfall during monsoon season caused catastrophic flooding.
At least 1,700 people were killed and 2 million homes were demolished by the floodwaters, according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority. Roads and bridges were washed away, thousands of schools were damaged and some 7,000 square miles of farmland were ruined, triggering food shortages.
A scientific analysis of the disaster found the rainfall was made 50 to 75 percent more intense by human-caused climate change. Pakistan received three times its usual precipitation in August, with the hardest-hit provinces experiencing their wettest months ever recorded, according to the study by the World Weather Attribution network.
Over the past two decades there has been an eightfold increase in the amount of humanitarian aid needed to respond to extreme weather — but donations are not keeping up, according to a report from the nonprofit Oxfam. Wealthy countries have also failed to fulfill a decade-old promise to provide $100 billion a year in financial support for climate-vulnerable regions.
“It feels totally wrong,” said Birhamni, the young college graduate. “This is a crime we didn’t commit and now we are being punished for it.”
When climate collides with poverty
“If you are telling me that other countries are responsible for this, then yes, I feel anger,” the 55-year-old day laborer told a Post reporter. “But I know that God is almighty, and I believe this is God testing me.”
Langah’s family is among some 12 million people still in need of shelter and basic household items, according to a U.N. situation report published last month. Hundreds of thousands of pregnant women lack access to health care, and millions of children have nothing to eat.
At the same time, Pakistan is grappling with more than $30 billion in physical and economic losses from the floods, a World Bank report found. Devastation to agriculture and other industries is expected to shrink the national gross domestic product by more than 2 percent.
Journey inside Pakistan’s flood zone reveals how poorest were hit hardest
But Pakistani officials say they have been hamstrung by high levels of debt — much of it linked to a stagnant economy, the coronavirus pandemic and the cost of recovering from previous disasters. The necessity of paying off past loans meant the government couldn’t invest in forward-looking projects. Agreements with development banks such as the International Monetary Fund have required Pakistan to slash its federal budget and stopped the country from increasing its deficit to meet immediate needs.
“That forced Pakistan to shift funds out of places like the National Disaster Management Authority,” said Malik Amin Aslam Khan, who served as Pakistan’s minister of climate change until this year. “And when disaster struck … that authority did not have the funds to do what it could have done and should have done.”
In high-income nations, over half of monetary losses and damage from climate-related extreme weather are insured, according to a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Citizens can rely on their governments for help with housing, food and health care after a disaster. Officials will release billions of dollars in recovery money to help communities rebuild.
Such donations can be slow and unreliable, said Akram, the Pakistani negotiator. It may take weeks for money from donor countries to make it into the hands of those who need it. And donor fatigue can hamper the flow of funds in years when the world endures numerous disasters.
“The countries who suffer from this should have the ability to access financing automatically so they don’t have to go around with their hands out, and depend on generosity and largesse of richer countries every time,” Akram said.
Had such resources been available after the floods, said Zebunnisa Kolachi, perhaps Pakistan would not be experiencing a secondary public health crisis.
Kolachi, a senior medical officer at a rural health center in Sindh province, said the long delays in restoring infrastructure and providing shelter and food allowed diseases like malaria to flourish. First-aid kits distributed by the government and aid groups were a bandage on the gaping need. Patchy disease surveillance was making it difficult to stem outbreaks before they spiraled out of control.
‘No one is caring for us’: Pakistanis struggle for survival after floods
“Now winter has started, and it will further increase the diseases,” Kolachi said. Already, patients were arriving with pneumonia, contracted while living in the open as the weather grew cold.
‘We intend to keep the fire burning’
“There is no way anyone can argue there is no loss and no damage,” the U.N. secretary general said Thursday. “The world must come together to support developing countries and vulnerable communities.”
Henry Kokofu, chief of Ghana’s environment agency and lead negotiator for a bloc of countries known as the Climate Vulnerable Forum, said they are “emboldened” heading into the conference.
“This is the result of the consistency and persistency of developing countries,” he said, “and we intend to keep the fire burning.”
The looming question now is how the United States will respond.
U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry has pushed back against the idea that countries like the United States should provide compensation, suggesting in September it was more important to curb emissions and help countries adapt.
But Kerry told reporters last month that the United States had a responsibility to help with climate harms. Although rich countries could not accept language that implies legal liability, he said, “we’re totally in favor” of a system that gets money where it’s needed.
Senior Biden administration officials said the United States supports putting loss and damage on the COP27 agenda and is open to a discussion about funding. But the administration is leery of establishing a finance mechanism, suggesting that money could be funneled through preexisting programs.
Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns for ActionAid USA, which advocates for loss-and-damage funding, said developing nations want money with no strings attached — not a program tightly controlled by donor nations. But he hopes Kerry’s remarks are a sign that the loss-and-damage debate might be reaching an “inflection point.”
“There’s a new level of pressure that the U.S. has not felt before,” he said.
Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad, Pakistan and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T14:23:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At COP27 summit, countries will debate who pays for climate damage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/05/cop27-summit-egypt-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/05/cop27-summit-egypt-climate-change/ |
Some corporations started out using their sustainability goals as a marketing tool, underestimating the challenges. Now they face charges of “greenwashing” and even litigation.
greenwashing illo
Delta Air Lines has embraced one of the corporate world’s most ambitious targets for lowering carbon emissions. In 2020, the airline vowed to invest $1 billion over ten years to reduce its carbon footprint, with money going to new planes, the development of cleaner jet fuel and hundreds of millions in savings in operations.
“Carbon neutral since March 2020,” the airline has touted on its cocktail napkins. “Travel confidently knowing that we will offset the carbon emitted on your Delta flight.”
What the napkins don’t say is that, in 2021, Delta failed to hit its target. To make up the difference, it spent $137 million to buy carbon offsets at a price some experts say has little impact. The offsets cover 27 million megatons of “unavoidable” carbon dioxide emissions – a price that works out to just $5.04 a ton, which some experts find preposterous.
“A bottle of water in an airport costs me $5. There’s no way that the social value of that carbon is $5 a ton,” said Shivaram Rajgopal, professor of accounting and auditing at Columbia University’s business school. “Delta gets to wash away the sins of its emissions.”
With the West Coast withering from a historic drought, the Mississippi River drying up and ever-more intense hurricanes hitting the Southeast, U.S. corporations face more scrutiny than ever before to meet their ambitious climate commitments. Many, such as Delta, are struggling to deliver.
There are a mix of reasons. Early on, some companies adopted climate targets or “ambitions” for public relations purposes. Other companies have grown faster than expected. Still others misjudged the challenge of transforming their operations, or assumed they would never be held to account for their ESG commitments, shorthand for “environment, social and governance” policies.
"A lot of it is marketing and virtue signaling,” said Sam Lissner, a managing director at Ridgewood, a private equity firm with investments in U.S. infrastructure and energy. “The reality is it’s very challenging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of particularly a heavy industrial company like an airline or manufacturer without becoming a lot less profitable in the near term.”
Cynthia Dalagelis, senior vice president for ESG and impact investments at Amalgamated Bank, recalls getting calls from public relations firms seeking advice on how companies could jump aboard the sustainability bandwagon. "I said ‘you’re seeing it wrong way. This isn’t a marketing movement’.”
In the case of Delta, the airline initially embraced carbon offsets that would finance renewable energy, landfill gas and the prevention of deforestation.
But Delta now has a new new chief sustainability officer, Pam Fletcher, who said she opposes buying such credits.
“It was the best tool at the time. So kudos to getting some momentum on climate change," she said. "Now we are laser focused on decarbonization in our company and industry working on the issues within our own four walls.”
Over the past couple of years, a new service industry of accountants, lawyers, and consultants has sprung up to help companies meet climate objectives, and companies are feeling the pressure to move quickly.
“The ticking time bomb is the year 2030 when so many places have said net zero or a certain reduction goal." said Sam Stark, chief executive of Green Project Technologies, which advises firms on how to meet their climate targets.
Companies could face consequences if they exaggerate their climate and ESG pledges or fail to deliver on them. They could become the target of lawsuits and shareholder battles. Or they could run afoul of new Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, which require corporate transparency about climate risks, emissions and investments in sustainability.
In disclosing their climate impacts, companies must detail their “Scope 1 and 2” emissions. These are impacts from their own operations, supply chains and energy purchases. Scope 3 emissions are more tricky to calculate and reduce because they involve the greenhouse gases created when customers use the products.
In its 119-page 2021 Environmental Sustainability Report, Microsoft said that it reduced scope 1 and 2 emissions by 16.9 percent, or 58,654 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. But on the next page, the report includes a chart showing that scope 1 and 2 combined make up just 2 percent of Microsoft’s total emissions of 14 million metric tons.
Its remaining greenhouse gases — Scope 3 — grew 22.7 percent, in part because the company’s sales have grown.
Microsoft says it still plans to remove half of its carbon emissions by 2030.
Greenwashing 101: How to decipher corporate claims about climate change
Proctor & Gamble has been mired in a dispute with its own shareholders, two thirds of whom in 2020 voted for a resolution urging the company to report on its contribution to the degradation of sensitive boreal forests in Canada. Shelley Vinyard, who works on the P&G campaign at Natural Resources Defense Council, said that “one of the things so frustrating about the ESG process is that shareholder resolutions are non-binding. The company has issued several reports. None get to the heart of the matter.”
P&G also has come up with an ESG “scorecard” to calculate executive bonuses. The scorecard can shave 20 percent off executives’ bonuses for failing to meet ESG goals, or it can add 20 percent to those bonuses, according to the company’s proxy statement.
P&G did not comment.
While companies use climate “ambitions” to promote themselves in ad campaigns, there are risks in doing so. In Australia one shareholder advocacy organization is trying to hold a company responsible for its own rhetoric. Last year the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility filed suit against Santos, Australia’s largest domestic natural gas supplier, accusing it of “greenwashing.” ACCR said Santos made misleading comments in its 2020 annual report to reach net zero by 2040 and that Santos had thus violated both corporate and consumer law.
Santos, which says its natural gas is “clean energy,” claims it has a “clear pathway to net zero emissions by 2040” and that its “net zero by 2040 target is supported by a transition roadmap which is clear and credible.” The ACCR also alleges the company is relying on untested assumptions about the viability of large-scale carbon capture and sequestration, without which it will not deliver on its 2040 goals. Santos did not reply to queries on the lawsuit.
David A. Baay, head of energy litigation at the law firm Eversheds Sutherland, said he offers a standard piece of advice to clients: “Avoid broad and vague claims.”
“It’s tempting to whatever you’re putting into the public square for it to be this kind of broad encompassing language like ‘product is clean’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘ecofriendly.’” Baay said at a recent panel discussion in New York. "Those are keywords plaintiffs’ lawyers will pick up on and drill down into your practices to show there’s no way to support that.”
The airline industry faces some of the biggest hurdles in cutting greenhouse gas emissions, largely because there are no quick alternatives to current aircraft engines powered by aviation fuel. As Moody’s Investor Service recently put it, these realities "will not support a rapid decarbonization of the airline industry.”
About 10 million gallons of low-emission aviation fuel was produced globally in 2021, about 10 percent of industry’s current needs, Moody’s said. The replacement of aging planes will reduce emissions by only 15 to 35 percent, it added, noting: “There will not be a new model that materially improves fuel efficiency, or meaningfully lowers emissions, and provides the same utility in terms of number of passengers and cargo as current product lines, before 2040.”
Although Delta once saw carbon offsets as key parts of its future, the airline is now moving to directly slash its emissions, said Fletcher. It has electrified ground equipment that tow planes and carry luggage. It is buying planes that are 25 percent more efficient. It is researching sustainable jet fuels. And it is collaborating with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lab for Aviation and the Environment on a quest to prevent contrails, long-lasting clouds that trap heat and warm the earth.
To hit its 2050 goals, Delta also intends to use technologies that suck carbon directly out of the air and store it underground.
Frequent fliers are harming the planet. Should they pay more?
By contrast, United Airlines was moving in this direction much earlier, and is now bragging about it. It has invested heavily in companies researching synthetic jet fuel with lower emissions. It has set a goal of 3 billion gallons by 2030 for U.S. production, even though that will require the development of 300 to 400 synthetic fuel plants; it currently has about ten.
“Lots of companies set goals without a road map to get there,” said Lauren Riley, managing director of global environmental affairs and sustainability at United Airlines. “We realized that to rely on a mechanism like carbon offsets would be writing a check for someone to capture carbon elsewhere while we wouldn’t make any decisions differently. It felt disingenuous and would not be modifying our operations in any way. Why would we do that?” | 2022-11-05T14:23:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Delta, other companies struggle to meet sky-high climate pledges - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/05/delta-climate-pledges-corporations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/05/delta-climate-pledges-corporations/ |
He helps HBCU students graduate - even though, at 48, he hasn’t yet
Decades ago, Hassan Abdus-Sabur left Howard University before he could get his degree. He now helps raise money for current HBCU students.
Hassan Abdus-Sabur stands on the campus of Howard University. (GoFundMe Heroes: Meet Hassan)
As a freshman at Howard University, Hassan Abdus-Sabur found himself sitting in a crowded auditorium, listening to a speaker instruct students to look to their left and look to their right. Many of the people in those seats, the speaker warned, wouldn’t make it to graduation.
Hassan didn’t realize it at the time, but he would be one of them.
As he tells it, he spent two years attending the D.C.-based university before heading home to Newark. He was financially struggling at the time, and college expenses were adding up. That was one reason he decided to leave — but it wasn’t the only one. He sees that now.
“I could blame it on finances,” he said on a recent morning. “But I could have gotten a job, I could have stayed in D.C., I could have finished out the time I had left.”
He could have graduated with a degree from one of the country’s HBCUs — Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
But he was 19, he said, and his pride and maturity level left him instead trying to make his way through life like electricity — following the path of least resistance. He moved back in with his parents. He started working. He had a child. And it took years before he realized what he gave up when he left Howard. On the day we talked, he ticked off a long list of names of notable alumni, including Vice President Harris and Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, all too aware that he can’t claim one title they hold.
“I don’t get to wear the Howard alumni hat,” he said. “I can wear the Howard shirt, but I can’t wear the Howard alumni hat … That’s such a bitter pill because I love that place. It gave me so much, just in the time I was there.”
The Howard University controversy was never just about dogs. It was about respect.
We all carry our biggest regrets in different ways. Some of us try to push them to the far recesses of our minds in hopes of forgetting the circumstances that led to them. Some of us keep them close, allowing them to take up space in our thoughts as we go about our days. And then there are those among us who openly claim them and use them to propel us in directions we might not go otherwise.
Hassan has done that with his lost opportunity. He is now 48, and he still does not have a bachelor’s degree from Howard or any university. But despite that and because of that, he has spent the last several years working to help raise money for students who attend HBCUs.
Since 2020, he has helped raise more than $100,000, and his effort gained the attention of GoFundMe staff members. Hassan was named a GoFundMe Hero, and he is now collaborating with the company on an initiative that aims to get textbook grants worth $500 each to HBCU students. That effort is being done through the company’s GoFindYou initiative, which is described online as “a place to celebrate stories of Black joy often overlooked.”
“We see a lot of stories of Black joy that get overshadowed by grief and trauma,” GoFundMe communications director Leigh Lehman said. But mixed in with fundraising efforts centered around painful subjects, she said, are ones that aim to raise money to start small businesses, pay for Black and Brown children to see movies such as Black Panther and “fund the next generation of HBCU scholars.”
As of Friday, the fundraising page for the textbook grants showed that more than $22,000 had been raised toward a $75,000 goal. Lehman said the company has been trying to get word out about it to students, so they can benefit from it, and to potential donors, so they can contribute to it.
“We want it to live on in perpetuity,” she said.
As the Supreme Court considers the issue of affirmative action, much public debate lately has centered around admitting Black and Brown students into colleges and universities. But getting in is only part of the picture. Staying in can also prove a challenge, especially since broader economic inequities leave many of those students entering with less financial security than their White peers.
Now that we see what stealing a college slot really looks like, can we stop making students of color feel like frauds?
As someone who grew up in an underserved neighborhood and was fortunate enough to make it into Stanford University, I can tell you that financial help beyond loans would have brought welcomed relief, even if it only came in the form of a textbook grant. For one class, I had to buy more than 30 books.
Hassan, who now works for a Newark council member, said that he grew up in a “typical working poor” household in a neighborhood that was a food desert. His hope with the fundraising, he said, is not only to see students graduate, but to also see them return to their communities and improve lives there. What that might look like, he said, is a student coming home and saying, “My mother’s block is falling apart, I have an engineering degree, how can I help?”
Hassan has launched a nonprofit to handle the distribution of funds that are raised. But in 2020, the effort started in a simple way — with a request from a friend. One of Hassan’s former college classmates told him that his niece had been accepted to Howard but needed help covering her tuition. Hassan donated to her GoFundMe page, but then worried she might not make it to her goal of $18,000. So, he came up with an idea: He would raise money for her by riding his bike from Newark to Howard University. Four friends agreed to join him and their effort became “Bike for Marbella.”
Together they raised about $7,000, which was short of Marbella’s goal, but proved enough when combined with the funds she had collected and the money she saved by studying from home after covid precautions caused the campus to close.
The next year, Hassan biked again — and this year, he did it again. Along the way, he said, he and the other bicyclists met strangers who donated on the spot when they heard about the cause. A man they met in Maryland told them his grandson attends an HBCU and gave them $50. A woman who overheard the exchange then donated, too.
A GoFundMe page for the most recent “HBCU Scholarship Bike Ride” shows a goal set at $50,000 and more than $64,000 raised.
But a different measurement of success also exists. Hassan said Marbella has graduated, and two other students who received funds are set to graduate in 2024. That year will also see Hassan get his bachelor’s degree. He said he was inspired to return to school and has been attending Rutgers University. “You can’t tell children to do something, and you’re not doing it,” he said.
Getting that degree will mark a major milestone in his life, but in a way, he already feels as if he has walked across the stage. Each year, the bike ride ends at the Yard on Howard University’s campus, and the riders are greeted with applause.
“When I roll onto campus, that’s my graduation every year,” he said. “When everyone is cheering, that’s my graduation.” | 2022-11-05T14:23:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Decades after dropping out of Howard, he helps HBCU students graduate - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/howard-student-hbcu-gofundme-hero/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/howard-student-hbcu-gofundme-hero/ |
In one state, every class teaches climate change — even P.E.
A third grader throws a yarn ball — representing a carbon dioxide molecule — during Suzanne Horsley’s climate change lesson at Toll Gate Grammar School in Pennington, N.J. (Caroline Preston/The Hechinger Report)
PENNINGTON, N.J. — There was one minute left on Suzanne Horsley’s stopwatch and the atmosphere remained thick with carbon dioxide, despite the efforts of her third graders to clear the air.
Horsley, a wellness teacher at Toll Gate Grammar School, in Pennington, N.J., had directed the kids to toss balls of yarn representing carbon dioxide molecules to their peers stationed at plastic disks representing forests. The first round of the game was set in the 1700s, and the students had cleared the patch of playing field in under four minutes. But this third round took place in the present day, after the advent of cars, factories, electricity and massive deforestation. With fewer forests to catch the balls and longer distances to throw, the toxins were accumulating faster than kids could retrieve them.
Two years ago, New Jersey became the first state in the country to adopt learning standards obligating teachers to instruct kids about climate change across grade levels and subjects. The standards, which went into effect this fall, introduce students as young as kindergartners to the subject, not just in science class but in the arts, world languages, social studies and physical education. Supporters say the instruction is necessary to prepare younger generations for a world — and labor market — increasingly reshaped by climate change.
Climate change is forcing schools to close early for ‘heat days’
“There’s no way we can expect our children to have the solutions and the innovations to these challenges if we’re not giving them the tools and resources needed here and now,” said Tammy Murphy, the wife of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) and a founding member of former vice president Al Gore’s Climate Reality Action Fund, who pushed to get the standards into schools. Just as students must be able to add and subtract before learning calculus, she said, kids need to understand the basics of climate change — the vocabulary, the logic behind it — before they can tackle the climate crisis.
Historically, climate change has not been comprehensively taught in U.S. schools, largely because of the partisanship surrounding climate change and many teachers’ limited grasp of the science. That started to change in 2013, with the release of new national science standards, which instructed science teachers to introduce students to climate change and its human causes starting in middle school. Still, only 20 states have adopted the standards. Other states may not mention the human causes of the crisis, and a few even promote falsehoods about it, according to a 2020 report from the National Center for Science Education and Texas Freedom Network Education Fund.
Even in New Jersey, many teachers said they lacked confidence in their knowledge of the subject in a 2021 survey. The state has set aside $5 million for lesson plans and professional development, and it is enlisting teachers like Horsley, who holds a master’s degree in outdoor education and has a passion for the environment, to develop model lessons.
For now, the climate instruction requirements haven’t faced much pushback from climate deniers. Conservatives have trained their attacks instead on the state’s new sex-education standards. But state officials anticipate some criticism as the lessons begin to roll out in classrooms.
“It’s not like we’re asking kindergartners to look at the Keeling Curve,” said Lauren Madden, a professor of education at the College of New Jersey who prepared a report on the standards, referring to a graph showing daily carbon dioxide concentrations.
Kids are living with climate catastrophe. That doesn’t mean they believe in it.
On a recent weekday, Cari Gallagher, a third grade teacher at Lawrenceville Elementary School in central New Jersey, was reading to her students from “No Sand in the House!” which tells the story of a grandfather whose Jersey Shore home is devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Later, the students sat down to write about what they’d heard, drawing connections between the book and their own lives, world events or other books they’d read. Then, in a group activity, they built structures — carports, walls and other barriers made of Legos, blocks, Play-Doh and straws — that might protect against climate change calamities.
Research suggests education does have an impact on how people understand climate change and their willingness to take action to stop it. One study found that college students who took a class that discussed reducing their carbon footprint tended to adopt environment-friendly practices and stick with them over many years. Another found that educating middle-schoolers about climate change resulted in their parents expressing greater concern about the problem.
“Education is certainly a way that we could have perhaps slowed down where we are right now in terms of the climate crisis,” said Margaret Wang, co-founder and chief operating officer of SubjectToClimate, a nonprofit that is helping teachers to find and share climate lessons. More jobs related to climate change are already opening up, said Wang, and children will need skills not just to discover scientific innovations but to tell stories, advocate, inspire and make public policy.
One pressing concern in New Jersey is that the lessons are rolling out unevenly across the state. Schools in affluent towns like Pennington tend to have more time and resources to introduce new instruction; schools in poorer communities that are often the most vulnerable to climate disasters, such as Camden, may lack the resources to do so.
“I am happy to see New Jersey as a pioneer of climate change standards,” said Maria Santiago-Valentin, co-founder of the Atlantic Climate Justice Alliance, a group that works to mitigate the disproportionate harm of climate change on marginalized communities. But, she said, the standards will need to be revised if they fail to adequately emphasize the unequal impact of climate change on Black and Hispanic communities or ensure that students in those groups receive the instruction.
How extreme weather has created a disaster for school infrastructure
At Toll Gate elementary, Horsley, the wellness teacher, was getting ready to hand off the third graders to their classroom teacher. Before filing back into the school, a handsome brick building that suffered flooding last year during Hurricane Ida, students reflected on the lesson.
Abby, who wore a “Girl Power” T-shirt, said it was up to humans to drive less and recycle and protect other species from climate disaster.
Teaching global warming in a charged political climate | 2022-11-05T14:24:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Jersey teaches climate change in every class — even P.E. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/05/new-jersey-climate-change-education-schools/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/05/new-jersey-climate-change-education-schools/ |
A Principe scops-owl, or Otus bikegila. Its unique call is a short “tuu” note repeated at a rate of about one note per second, reminiscent of insect calls. (Philippe Verbelen)
A new species of owl with an unusual call has been identified on Príncipe, a small island off the coast of West Africa that was home already to multiple bird species found nowhere else.
Scientists recently described the new owl in the journal ZooKeys. Dubbed the Principe scops-owl, or Otus bikegila, it is named after Ceciliano “Bikegila” do Bom Jesus, a local parrot harvester turned conservationist and nature guide who alerted researchers to the species’ existence and who captured birds for study.
Although islanders have reported seeing the bird since at least the 1920s, it took until 2016 for researchers to confirm its existence.
Part of the larger family of scops owls, O. bikegila has a fast cry that sounds like an insect’s chirping. Its repetitive “tuu” echoes across the island after sunset. The birds can be elusive to the eye, but their loud cries are used to defend their territory and attract mates.
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The birds live in lower-elevation, old-growth forest on the uninhabited, protected south end of Príncipe, which is one of the two main islands that make up the West African nation of São Tomé and Príncipe. “In this small area (about four times the size of Central Park), the densities of the owl are relatively high, with the population estimated at around 1000-1500 individuals,” researchers say in a news release.
Researchers argue the owls should be classified as critically endangered despite their population density on the island because the birds live in just one small area.
Without the expertise of locals, the owl would never have been identified, researchers say. “Curiosity-driven” endeavors such as bird discovery are more likely to succeed “when coupled with local ecological knowledge, the participation of keen amateur naturalists, and persistence,” they write. | 2022-11-05T14:26:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Scientists identify new species of owl with insect-like cry - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/05/owl-discovered-west-africa/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/05/owl-discovered-west-africa/ |
NEW YORK — Nike has suspended its relationship with Kyrie Irving and canceled its plans to release his next signature shoe, the latest chapter in the ongoing fallout since the Brooklyn Nets guard tweeted a link to a film containing antisemitic material.
MINNEAPOLIS — Giannis Antetokounmpo had 26 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists, Jrue Holiday scored 29 points and the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 115-102 to improve to 8-0 for the best start to a season in franchise history.
NEW ORLEANS — The defending champion Golden State Warriors fell to 0-6 on the road, losing 114-105 to Brandon Ingram and the New Orleans Pelicans with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andrew Wiggins sidelined.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Jessica Pegula finished winless in singles and doubles in the American’s WTA Finals debut, losing to Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-5 in a round-robin finale.
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Forte served notice as an early Kentucky Derby favorite, rallying from mid-pack to overtake Cave Rock and win the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile by 1 1/2 lengths at Keeneland. | 2022-11-05T14:26:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Friday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/05/65c165d4-5cda-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/fridays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/05/65c165d4-5cda-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
FILE - Sevilla’s head coach Julen Lopetegui gestures from the touchline during the group G Champions League soccer match between Sevilla and Manchester City in Seville, Spain, on Sept. 6, 2022. Premier League club Wolverhampton hired Julen Lopetegui as manager on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022. Lopetegui was fired one month ago by Sevilla after three years with the Spanish club during which he led it to a Europa League title in 2020. The 56-year-old Lopetegui will take over Nov. 14, subject to being granted work permits, following the team’s final game before the World Cup break. (AP Photo/Jose Breton)
WOLVERHAMPTON, England — Premier League club Wolverhampton hired Julen Lopetegui as manager on Saturday. | 2022-11-05T14:27:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wolverhampton hires former Sevilla boss Lopetegui as manager - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/wolverhampton-hires-julen-lopetegui-as-manager/2022/11/05/cc4a3e6e-5cf0-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/wolverhampton-hires-julen-lopetegui-as-manager/2022/11/05/cc4a3e6e-5cf0-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
In Indigenous communities in Mexico, celebrations for deceased loved ones have been around for centuries
By Robyn Huang
During Day of the Dead celebrations from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, families from San Miguel Canoa and its surrounding areas visit the cemetery, place flowers, make offerings and say prayers or orations for their departed. (Photos by Matt Reichel for The Washington Post)
SAN MIGUEL CANOA, MEXICO — Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is one of Mexico’s most recognized holidays. The celebration from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2 commemorates death as an essential element of life and honors loved ones who have passed. It’s believed the dead have permission to cross the underworld, or Mictlan, and share in a feast with their living family and friends.
The celebration’s historical roots extend back thousands of years to ancient Aztec Indigenous traditions and are still observed by descendants, the Nahua people. The holiday itself is highly syncretic, combining a Mesoamerican worldview of the progression of life and family with Catholic traditions; All Saints’ Day is Nov. 1 while All Souls’ Day is Nov. 2.
In recent years, the holiday has been popularized in films such as Disney’s “Coco” and James Bond. The Mexican tourism board commercialized the celebration in places like Mexico City and Michoacán with extravagant parades with millions of locals and tourists in attendance.
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The communities surrounding Puebla and Tlaxcala’s cities along the Malinche volcano’s base have large Nahua Indigenous communities. Día de los Muertos and its ancient traditions are found within the Indigenous towns outside central Mexico’s larger cities.
One such example is San Miguel Canoa, a Nahua town located a 40-minute drive from bustling Puebla. The area’s population is about 45,000 and sits between three dramatic stratovolcanoes — Malinche, Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl underneath a thick cloudscape. Here, elders prefer to speak in their own language — Náhuatl.
Communities across Mexico celebrate the holiday, but customs differ across regions. According to families in San Miguel Canoa, little has changed about their ancestral traditions for the holiday. For many, practices change in representation, but every action served is for their original cause — to welcome and celebrate the departed.
On Oct. 30 and 31, families go to markets to buy fruit, bread, incense, pine needles, marigold flowers, or cempasúchil, and other ingredients to make their loved one’s favorite dishes, like mole poblano and tamales. Catherine Torres Perez prepares large orders of pan de muerto, which families will place on altars, or ofrendas, as an offering to their loved ones.
Eduardo and Nancy Sanchez lost their 6-month-old son, Eduardo Jr., eight months ago. This year’s celebrations are raw and painful. When they set up the altar, the parents told him, “Son, these are your toys — this is your home. We also put the things you liked to eat and drink when you were still with us.” This year’s Día de Muertos is their opportunity to reconcile with the grief they have experienced since he departed.
Día de los Muertos is not Mexican Halloween
The celebration of the dead is divided into two days of worship. Nov. 1 corresponds to the Catholic holiday of All Saints’ Day and is dedicated to children in Day of the Dead celebrations, while Nov. 2, All Souls’ Day, is devoted to the “faithful departed” — adults like parents, grandparents and other ancestors.
From Oct. 31 onward, families in San Miguel Canoa place flowers and offerings at the cemetery for three days, staying up to two to three hours. People start visiting from 4 a.m. until noon. During this time, there are three Masses — one for each cemetery in the area. Families often have members in each burial ground and attend all three Masses. Then, around noon, everyone eats together with their families.
Pantéon Los Remedios is San Miguel Canoa’s main and oldest cemetery, spanning more than 650 feet. On Nov. 2, the final day of celebrations, each family lights little candles around their relatives’ graves, illuminating the entire cemetery.
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They are part of three families who divide one large altar into three sections. They start cooking their mole poblano using a village recipe at 4:30 a.m., and it takes two hours to build their final offering. They sprinkle marigold petals on their walkways to attract the spirits to their offerings. They believe that when they put the offerings up, by the time the celebration is over at noon on Nov. 2, the departed will have “consumed” everything they have made in a spiritual sense, and the richness and smell of the food, flowers and incense will be gone. | 2022-11-05T14:27:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How ancient Day of the Dead traditions live on in Mexico - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/11/03/day-of-the-dead-mexico-aztec-traditions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/11/03/day-of-the-dead-mexico-aztec-traditions/ |
Losing a job is one of the most emotionally traumatic experiences a person can go through, experts say
Twitter laid off about half of its workforce Thursday and Friday. This image was taken at a Twitter office in San Francisco during a shelter-in-place, May 28, 2020. (Winni Wintermeyer for The Washington Post)
They included a product marketer who’s eight months pregnant, a creative director who spent more than a decade at the company and the former vice president of engineering who promised to help others who need assistance.
“Not a tweep anymore,” one former employee tweeted Friday. “What an incredible time it was! #lovewhereyouwork was every bit true and more. To all the fantastic people I’ve had the pleasure to work with, wish you all the best regardless of the side you’re on. Twitter, you were so good to me.”
#TwitterLayoffs quickly became the top trending hashtag in the United States on Friday after the social media company launched mass layoffs late Thursday, cutting around half the company’s workforce of 7,500.
“Losing a job, for most people, is one of the most traumatic experiences they’ll experience in life,” said Carl E. Van Horn, the director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. “It’s a very serious problem for people.”
Even the stress of impending layoffs can take a toll. In one study, mass layoffs were associated with lower birth weights in babies. The effect was strongest when layoffs occurred later in a woman’s pregnancy. The effect was also seen one to four months before layoffs were announced, ostensibly because people knew the job cuts were coming.
People who remain at a company after co-workers are laid off are also hurt, research shows. The fear of being laid off next and how that would hurt their finances and social and family life increases their stress. Many suffer from survivor’s guilt or a feeling of a failure, research suggests. Plus, their workload tends to increase, and they feel less empowered.
A current Twitter employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, described the past day as “absolutely jarring.” They spent the night refreshing their Twitter feed to see who’s been laid off. The employee claimed their workload has increased since Musk took over, a week ago. The person said they are already applying for other jobs.
“I really feel for all my colleagues who got laid off, and I’m really, really sad for them,” the person said. “But I was really hoping that I was going to be part of that layoff group.”
Van Horn said he would advise people not to wait too long to start looking for work. Landing the next job can often take six months or more. You want to try to take the small steps toward a new job as quickly as possible. Apply for unemployment aid, cut back on unnecessary expenditures (where possible) and start updating your resume once you’ve come to terms with the mental toll of getting laid off.
“Getting the next job is a job in and of itself,” he said. “Some people might get lucky and get a job right away but the labor market right now is good, not great.”
While some people may see a layoff as an opportunity for a fresh start, research shows that many people who’ve lost their job struggle to find a position that matches their last salary and seniority, said Fran McKee Ryan, a professor of management at the University of Nevada at Reno.
“They may end up applying for jobs for which they are overqualified, and hiring managers often view overqualified workers as a flight risk,” she said.
“If people do not have access to a safety net, either through savings, family members' income, or government support, the period of unemployment can lead to intense anxiety about one's capacity to pay bills and maintain their standard of living,” Blustein said.
After you’ve been laid off, ask yourself: What could I apply for? What makes me unique? And where can those skills best be applied? The unfortunate problem is your former co-workers and teammates are also looking for the same jobs, Van Horn said.
The good news is that Twitter’s former employees are highly educated workers with sought-after skills, he said. It’s not like shutting down the only steel plant in a small town. Twitter has employees all over the country, “and the labor market is still okay,” Van Horn said.
Experts say it’s important to emphasize that any layoff is not a reflection of your work — especially a massive layoff like Twitter’s, which potentially reduced half its workforce. Future employers won’t hold that against you.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s not your fault,” Van Horn said. “You lost your job because the leadership of the company decided to go in a different direction.”
Eileen Abbott contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T14:27:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Twitter layoffs likely to exact an emotional toll - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/04/layoffs-stress-anxiety-twitter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/04/layoffs-stress-anxiety-twitter/ |
Republicans sued to restrict this drop box. Meet the voters using it.
Patty Feninez drops off her ballot at the Lehigh County Government Center in Allentown. (Jonno Rattman for The Washington Post)
ALLENTOWN, Penn. — In the political battleground of Lehigh County, a Trump-linked legal group sued to slash the hours of the only around-the-clock ballot drop box, arguing someone could stuff it with fakes votes. Vigilantes pledged online to protect it. Election clerks received anonymous letters: “STOP THE ELECTION FRAUD.”
But on this November evening, there are no citizen guards or sneaky fraudsters at the Lehigh County Government Center’s drop box — just a janitor wiping the glass windows. Leaves skittering across the sidewalk. A husky sniffing grass.
“The rhetoric flying around out there doesn’t match the reality,” said Geoff Brace, the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners chair, a registered Democrat. Investigations nationwide have found no evidence of voter fraud that could have swayed an election, and the same is true here. “It’s just a convenience for people,” said Timothy Benyo, the local elections director, a registered Republican. “It’s not a fraud factory.”
Ballot boxes weren’t always so controversial. When the Republican-controlled legislature approved broad mail-in voting in 2019, the state Senate’s top Republican called it “the most significant modernization of our election’s code in decades.” Drop-off voting skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly among Democrats, as Americans sought to avoid crowded polling sites.
Yet ahead of the 2020 election, former president Donald Trump and right-wing activists claimed — without evidence — that early voting is rife with cheating, and Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania pushed to tighten the rules. There are five drop boxes now open in Lehigh County. Signs at the Government Center’s 24-hour voting slot warn that depositing anyone else’s ballot without special permission is illegal.
In the lawsuit that a county judge threw out last month, the America First Legal Foundation — led by Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, and Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff — cited an investigation by the district attorney that found 288 instances of people dropping off more than one ballot in the run-up to the November 2021 election.
Most of the offenders slipped in two, and no one carried more than six. Authorities declined to pursue any charges. “There is no scary ‘ballot harvesting’ with dump trucks full of extra ballots,” said Benyo, the election official. “These are regular people.”
For eight hours over two evenings this week, The Washington Post watched people place their votes in this historically moderate slice of Pennsylvania framed by Appalachian Mountain ridges. They were Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Some with split tickets. No one wanted to deal with the hassle of Election Day lines. Here are five of their stories.
Deborah White arrived with her husband of four decades, Lawrence, as the sun sank over the autumn foliage. She had retired from her admissions job at Lehigh University and was bound to no strict schedule. She wanted to be here, on her own time — on principle. “I’m a 68-year-old African American woman,” she said. “There was a time we couldn’t vote. I thought, ‘My God. I have to do this.’”
During the last election, White, a Democrat, used the drop box because it was convenient and she didn’t want to get covid. Now she was here to exercise a right she felt was under attack. The efforts to shrink early voting hours bothered her. Closing the slot at night, she thought, would just block voters who worked all day. “It’s dishonest,” she said, “and it’s controlling. They don’t want us to do what we are supposed to do.”
Carter Prokesch
Carter Prokesch, a 23-year-old research-and-development engineer, hadn’t planned to vote at all. Then his father urged him to apply for a mail-in ballot and make his voice heard. So after work, the self-described “moderate conservative” drove to the Government Center.
He held a split ticket: A vote for Oz, the Republican for Senate, and a vote for Josh Shapiro, the Democrat for governor. “Because all of Shapiro’s commercials weren’t about attacking people,” Prokesch said.
The Republican candidate, Doug Mastriano, had chartered buses to the Jan. 6, 2021 rally that erupted in insurrection and vowed to ban abortion without exceptions, suggesting that women who underwent the procedure should be charged with murder. He campaigned at events promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Prokesch was sick of all the fighting. He wanted to be a better Christian and stand by people who treated others with respect. He’d regretted voting for Trump, he said, after watching the former president fling so many insults. Prokesch and his father were registered Republicans. His mother and twin sister were Democrats. “We don’t talk about politics,” he said.
Lax Rode
When Lax Rode voted in the 2020 presidential election, the 38-year-old therapist had to wait in line behind 15 people. Maybe 20. It didn’t take long, but the process was strenuous compared to this: Strolling up to the drop box on a balmy evening. Practically no other humans in sight. Sliding his ballot into the glass-framed slot. Done.
“I saved time,” he said, grinning, “and time is money in this capitalist country, right?” Rode, who considers himself an Independent and prefers to keep his political decisions private, moved to the U.S. from western India in 2008. He became a naturalized citizen about four years ago and marvels at how politics have changed since then.
He has liberal clients and conservative clients. The gap between them has never seemed wider. He encourages people to stick to the facts. “Back in India, we did not have mail-in ballots,” Rode said. “You’d have to go in person. This is one of things I like here. It makes our lives more convenient.”
Mark Stein
Mark Stein, 60, figured Allentown’s city center would be quieter on a weeknight. He was right: The history teacher at Muhlenberg College found a parking spot and cast his ballot within minutes. He enjoyed the energy of the traditional polls in this swing county — “I never missed an election,” Stein said — but the tension leading up to the midterms concerns him.
Stein, a Democrat, had heard about armed groups vowing to “monitor” voting sites, including drop boxes. He’d read that the assailant who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer had railed against liberals, Black people and Jews in blog posts.
He thought of the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mastriano, blasting his opponent, Shapiro, for sending his children to a Jewish day school. (Mastriano has said he was criticizing the school for being “expensive” and “elite,” not for any religious reason.) “As an American Jew,” Stein said, “I see a safe space being winnowed away.”
Janice Altieri
Janice Altieri, 58, is a Democrat. Her husband, Joe, 60, is a Republican. They didn’t want to have to talk to anyone about that. “Around here, a lot of people try to get you to change your vote,” said Janice, a school librarian. “They give you pamphlets,” said Joe, an engineer. “Which are ridiculous!” Janice said. “This way, you don’t have to deal with all that.”
They could have walked five minutes to the polling place by their house, but the couple preferred the ten-minute drive to the drop box. Campaigners in Lehigh County are known to ambush voters on Election Day. The pamphlets would probably be extra ridiculous this year, Janice said, considering all the conspiracy theories about election fraud.
The couple agreed: the 2020 election had not been stolen. Early voting was secure. “I voted straight Democrat,” Janice said, turning to Joe. “I didn’t even ask you! I don’t even know if our votes are matching.” | 2022-11-05T15:15:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans tried to restrict this Pennsylvania ballot drop box. Meet the voters who use it. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/05/pennsylvania-voters-ballot-box/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/05/pennsylvania-voters-ballot-box/ |
Members of the military and Britain's Border Force extinguish a fire from a gasoline bomb attack on a migrant center in Dover, England, on Oct. 30. (Peter Nicholls/Reuters)
LONDON — British police said Saturday that evidence revealed “an extreme right wing motivation” behind an attack last week at an immigration center on the English coast, describing it as “a terrorist incident.”
A 66-year-old man threw at least two gasoline bombs at the walls of a migrant center on Oct. 30 near the port town of Dover, a point of arrival for many who attempt the perilous journey to Britain across the English Channel in small boats. The assailant was later found dead. Authorities identified him as Andrew Leak.
Saturday’s statement said investigators spoke to witnesses and recovered items including digital devices. “Examining these items suggests there was an extreme right wing motivation behind the attack,” it said, without elaborating further on the evidence.
Two people suffered minor injuries and around 700 migrants had to be relocated to Manston in southeast England, where another migrant center came under fresh scrutiny this week.
A girl’s call for help, tossed from the overcrowded center at Manston, became the latest flash point in the heated debate over Britain’s immigration policies. “Please help us,” the letter read.
Since the 2016 Brexit vote to leave the European Union, Britons’ concerns about the economy have pushed immigration down the list of pressing issues facing the country. But this year, the number of people detained crossing the channel has surged, and the handling of channel crossings has fueled post-Brexit friction between France and Britain.
“Whilst there are strong indications that mental health was likely a factor, I am satisfied that the suspect’s actions were primarily driven by an extremist ideology,” Tim Jacques, senior national coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said Saturday.
In July, British intelligence chief Ken McCallum said that investigations involving people with racist, neo-Nazi or related ideological motives represent about 20 percent of the terrorism caseload, adding that many of them are young individuals.
Karla Adam contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T15:41:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dover migrant center attack motivated by 'terrorist ideology,' police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/britain-police-dover-migrants-right-wing-terrorist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/britain-police-dover-migrants-right-wing-terrorist/ |
New ownership could re-open the door to a new Commanders stadium
Sam Fortier
Fans sit outside FedEx Field before last season's regular season finale. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
From the moment Daniel Snyder confirmed he was exploring options to sell the Washington Commanders, the names of various billionaire investors surfaced as prospective buyers.
A parallel conversation is expected soon about rebooting efforts to build a new NFL stadium to replace aging FedEx Field, which is a top-line priority for the league and will be to any future owner.
Snyder long has sought without success to drum up the requisite political and corporate support to build a roughly $2 billion NFL stadium and commercial complex in the District, Maryland or Virginia.
A new team owner, however, could revive those stalled efforts quickly.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) confirmed as much following Snyder’s statement last week that he had hired BofA Securities, a division of Bank of America, to “consider potential transactions.”
“It sounds like a positive move for the team,” Bowser told reporters Wednesday. “There have been a lot of objections raised about the team coming back to RFK, where it played for many years, and the ownership was one. The name was one. So, I think a number of the obstacles of that people have raised as criticisms [are going away].”
Jack Evans, who as former finance chair of the D.C. Council spent years trying to pave the way for a new NFL stadium at RFK, said he remained optimistic that a deal could be struck despite Snyder’s lack of political allies and unpopularity with fans. That changed, in Evans’ view, the moment Congress started investigating allegations of widespread workplace sexual harassment under Snyder’s watch.
“It just became impossible with Dan there — not only for us, but for Virginia and Maryland,” said Evans, who was instrumental in structuring deals that brought Capital One Arena and Nationals Park to the District. “I think it became a game-breaker. As long as he owns the team, there will not be a new stadium. Period. That’s just not going to happen — unless he builds on land he already owns at FedEx Field, which would be a disaster, and did that with his own money.”
If Snyder sells the team in full rather than takes on a co-investor, it could revive efforts to drum up competition for a new stadium among the three jurisdictions, despite arguments over the wisdom of public subsidies.
Snyder’s unveiled plans for a glitzy stadium surrounded by a moat, at a site to be determined, in a nationally televised segment on “60 Minutes” in March 2016.
More than six years later, the team has no site, no suitors, and no plan for financing the roughly 60,000-seat, open-air facility that Snyder envisions anchoring a vast commercial and residential complex. The team is contractually obligated to play at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., until 2027. Without a new stadium, it can continue playing there indefinitely, as Snyder owns the land and the aging stadium, which opened in 1997.
Until June, Virginia had been the most aggressive jurisdiction expressing interest in offering Snyder public funds for the project. But lawmakers failed to pass stadium-authority legislation earlier this year due to the team’s scandals.
Legislators could try again in early 2023, although there’s no sign of a push to do so.
“I think [a full sale of the Commanders] alleviates a lot of the question marks and clouds,” Virginia state senator Jeremy McPike (D-Prince William) said in an interview with WUSA9 last week, citing the pending investigations and “other noise” surrounding the organization. “Frankly, hopefully, they focus on winning the games like they did on [Sunday].”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) responded to news of a potential Commanders sale by telling reporters, “We'll let them make that decision, and then we'll react.”
He added: “I'll repeat what I've said for a long time: Virginia should be the best place to live, work and raise a family. And it'd be a great place to have a professional football team.”
In Maryland, state legislators in April authorized $400 million in bonds to develop Metro’s Blue Line corridor that includes FedEx Field and the site of a potential new stadium. Repeated failed efforts to secure a new stadium have frustrated outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who last month told reporters, “We’ve been trying to work with them for eight years.”
Wes Moore, the Democratic candidate to replace Hogan as governor, said in a statement through a spokesman that, while he hopes the team stays in Maryland, he would not “support leveraging hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to do it.”
In a statement, Republican candidate Del. Dan Cox did not comment on how the sale might impact the state’s negotiation with the team over any future stadium deals.
It’s unclear whether the state would offer more convince the team to stay in Prince George’s County, regardless of its owner. But County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) issued a statement last week stressing the merits of remaining.
“We continue to believe that Largo is the best suited location for the Washington Commanders,” Alsobrooks’ statement read. “A new Commanders stadium would be in the heart of downtown Largo and our Blue Line Corridor.”
Even with a new owner, Bowser likely would face opposition from the D.C. Council in seeking to bring the team back to the city.
D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who represents neighborhoods near RFK Stadium, wrote a letter to Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) in June on behalf of seven of the 13-member Council saying that an NFL stadium on the site is a nonstarter.
The 190-acre RFK site is owned by the federal government via the National Park Service. Norton has introduced legislation that would enable District officials to buy the land and, in turn, decide what to do with it. Norton’s position is that if D.C. wants its NFL team to return and buys the land, it would be free to negotiate a deal to do just that.
Last week, Allen welcomed the prospect of an ownership change via social media but reiterated his opposition to a stadium.
“[Snyder] finally making a good decision here for the team & what it means to so many in the DC area,” Allen wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “Still … finding a better billionaire to own the team won’t make building a massive & rarely used NFL stadium at RFK a good idea. Let’s focus on more housing, jobs, & parks instead.”
Evans, who started working on plans for a new NFL stadium at RFK just a few years after former owner Jack Kent Cooke abandoned the site for Prince George’s County in 1997, argues that the District is by far the best location not only for fans, given its easy access and storied tradition, but also for the league.
“I believe the NFL wants to be in the District of Columbia, at the RFK site. Why? Because the NFL spends, I believe, $2 million a year lobbying Congress,” said Evans, who resigned after 28 years on the Council amid ethics violations and now serves as a D.C.-based consultant. “They know the value of the federal government and its support of the league.”
Snyder, 57, who bought Washington’s NFL team with two former business partners for $800 million in 1999, has not said what precipitated his sudden interest in soliciting a buyer, whether in part or in full, after battling for years in court, in the media, and via private investigators to tighten his grip on the franchise.
Forbes magazine in August estimated the present-day value of the franchise as $5.6 billion.
Snyder remains the focus of four investigations — by former U.S. attorney Mary Jo White on behalf of the NFL, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and the attorneys general in the District and Virginia. In addition, investigators for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia have interviewed witnesses regarding allegations of financial improprieties involving the team, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.
As recently as Oct. 18, in response to Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay’s unprecedented public remarks that he believed the idea of NFL owners removing Snyder from their ranks had merit, Snyder said through a team spokesperson that he would never sell the team
Irsay’s comments followed a privately expressed sentiment of multiple NFL owners who told The Post they believed the league and owners should consider removing Snyder or convincing him to sell.
During his weekly radio appearance on Audacy’s 105.3 The Fan, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones pointed to Snyder’s finances as a reason.
While Snyder and his family own 100 percent of the franchise, he is carrying a heavy debt burden. In March 2021, the NFL granted him a waiver to borrow an additional $450 million so he could buy out the 40 percent collective stake of his three limited partners Dwight Schar, Fred Smith and Robert Rothman, with whom he was embroiled in a legal dispute, for $875 million. That loan must be repaid by 2028 for Snyder to remain in the league
Added to Snyder’s unretired debt on the stadium, that would appear to make borrowing further to finance a $2 billion stadium untenable. If Snyder could find an investor interested in buying a minority share in the team, that could provide the cash to build a stadium himself in Maryland with the state contributing public funds only toward infrastructure.
Jones suggested that’s why he was unsurprised that Snyder was exploring options.
“He recently acquired a very significant portion of the team by 40% from his other partners and, at the same time, he’s entertaining the building of a new stadium. … It’s going to require huge economic resources,” Jones said. “This doesn’t surprise me that he’s in a time of real planning and thinking about how to manage the economic resources it takes that we want Washington to be.”
Snyder’s failure to show progress on delivering a new NFL stadium — with no site selected and no evidence of political or public support for helping him finance the project — does not sit well with several NFL owners who were once impressed by Snyder’s business acumen.
Within years of buying the team, Snyder expanded FedEx Field to seat nearly 92,000 and led the NFL in average attendance. After two decades of losing seasons that also have included front-office turmoil, roster churn and workplace controversy, the stadium has been downsized at least three times. Washington currently ranks last among the 32 NFL teams in game-day attendance, drawing just 58,720.
Economic engine
For the Commanders, a new stadium would represent the best chance of rebooting enthusiasm for a team that for decades united the region but has posted just six winning seasons in 23 years under Snyder.
If done properly, a new stadium also would be a boon for the team’s bottom line, as well as the NFL.
“A stadium is an engine for local revenue,” said former NFL executive vice president Eric Grubman, who was instrumental in helping numerous teams develop new stadiums from financing through construction during his 2004-2018 tenure as the league’s senior manager of business operations — including the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium, San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium, Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium and others.
“Any club that has a poorly run engine has a difficult if not impossible time keeping up with the rest of the clubs in revenue generation. You need that engine for growth.”
Grubman, who left the NFL in 2018 and now works with the publicly traded gaming company Supergroup and DroneUp, declined to comment on any aspect of a potential Commanders sale but addressed why new and newly refurbished stadiums are so important to the league.
All NFL owners share equally in the league’s multibillion-dollar national broadcast deals, which account for the bulk of their revenue. What makes one team worth more than another, in large part, is the additional local revenue that NFL owners generate via luxury-suite sales, stadium naming rights deals, corporate sponsorships, personal-seat licenses and other stadium-related revenue.
According to Forbes.com, the Cowboys’ revenue increased 50 percent, from $280 million to $420 million, in 2009, the year AT&T Stadium opened.
New stadiums increase a franchise’s value, in turn. In the case of the Commanders, a potential buyer might push for a discounted price because FedEx Field is aging and underperforming financially. Conversely, the team’s value would increase considerably with the assurance of a stadium deal in a prime location under favorable terms.
The Los Angeles Rams’ SoFi Stadium, anchor of a $5-6 billion commercial complex largely financed by team owner and billionaire developer Stan Kroenke, reset the value of the franchise after it opened in September 2020.
Forbes estimated the Rams were worth at $3.8 billion in 2019 and were worth $6.2 billion in August.
SoFi Stadium, also the leased home of the Los Angeles Chargers, proved a boon for the NFL as well in setting revenue records as host of last season’s Super Bowl. It will also host matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup — an opportunity denied Washington because of the shortcomings of FedEx Field.
“When you have a declining or decrepit stadium, it affects the enthusiasm of people coming to visit,” Grubman said. “If things are shabby or there are leaks, it’s not a premium experience. Or for players, if the visiting locker room doesn’t look anywhere near like what it looks like at other stadiums — these things all have an effect on branding, marketing and morale.
“A stadium is also a monument that can be a magnetic attraction for a city or a region to bring people in. You build a beautiful stadium, and it’s going to be marketed to the entire planet by NFL TV. A city doesn’t have to do anything for people to know it’s there: Hundreds of millions of eyeballs and ears will see and hear it courtesy of television.”
Laura Vozzella, Erin Cox, Meagan Flynn and Michael Brice-Saddler contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T15:54:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A new Commanders owner could reboot interest in a new NFL stadium - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/washington-nfl-stadium-dan-snyder/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/washington-nfl-stadium-dan-snyder/ |
The story behind some catchy music that punctuated late-night movies
Composer Leroy Anderson, with his wife, Eleanor, and their daughter, Jane. In 1945, while working in Army intelligence at the Pentagon and living with his family in Arlington, Va., Anderson composed “The Syncopated Clock,” which went on to be the theme music for several of CBS’s movie programs in the 1950s, including “The Late Show” and “The Early Show.” (Family photo, courtesy the Leroy Anderson Foundation) | 2022-11-05T16:12:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | CBS's old movie program used 'The Syncopated Clock' as its theme music - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/syncopated-clock-old-movies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/syncopated-clock-old-movies/ |
Updated November 5, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. EDT|Published November 5, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Residents in protective suits enter a specialized hotel for medical observation and quarantine in Zhengzhou on Tuesday. (VCG/Getty Images)
A semblance of normal life has returned to many places after the pandemic, thanks to vaccines and other measures. People are living with the coronavirus while reducing severe illness, hospitalization and death. But China’s government under Xi Jinping has refused to budge from the approach of “zero covid,” using strict lockdowns in an attempt to stamp out every infection. The policy is obsolete and failing and should be ditched.
Zero covid has turned whole cities such as Xi’an, or sections of a metropolis like Shanghai, into ghost towns. Residents are ordered to stay indoors or are confined to special quarantine centers when just a handful of infections are detected. China has also deployed its own vaccines to fight the virus, although the elderly remain undervaccinated, and the shots are not as effective as the mRNA vaccines. China has boasted of a pandemic response that it claims is better than other nations’, but its reported 28,579 covid deaths are almost certainly an undercount.
In sticking with zero covid, China has compelled millions of people to isolate for weeks at a time, often running out of food and medicine. Last week, Wuhan reported about 20 to 25 new infections a day; city authorities ordered more than 800,000 people in one district to stay at home. After six cases were detected at the iPhone factory in Zhengzhou on Oct. 12, and 11 more the next day, the plant sealed itself off from the world in what is known as a “closed loop,” forcing its 200,000 workers to remain inside the plant and dormitories, while carting the infected off to quarantine. This prompted hundreds of fearful workers to flee on foot. Guangzhou, China’s fourth-largest city, is grappling with a major spike in infections. Shanghai’s Disney resort closed its doors for the second time this year.
China faces serious risks if it remains on this course. The Communist Party puts a high priority on maintaining social stability; constantly bottled up, people are growing restless, their patience tested by the endless lockdowns. The disruptions will drag down China’s battered economy. China’s elderly remain vulnerable to the omicron variant. More transmission and illness mean more chance of mutation and new variants that could pose a challenge for the entire globe.
Mr. Xi’s fixation with zero covid reflects an unfortunate penchant of dictators. Absolute rulers don’t like to admit they were wrong, especially after years of propaganda declaring they were absolutely right. But Mr. Xi, having secured his third term, should now shift tactics. Lockdowns were needed when no one knew anything about the virus and vaccines did not exist, but other tools are now available. China could purchase doses of mRNA vaccines and get those shots into arms. It was a good sign Friday that China agreed with Germany to allow expats on the mainland to receive the mRNA vaccine made by BioNTech, the partner of Pfizer. The deal should be broadened to include Chinese citizens. Instead of corralling people into quarantine centers, China should allow citizens to decide when to isolate at home when sick. Nobody has been perfect in fighting the pandemic — least of all the United States — but there is a path back to normal for China, if it chooses to take it. | 2022-11-05T17:04:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | China's 'zero-covid' policy isn't working - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/05/china-zero-covid-policy-failure/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/05/china-zero-covid-policy-failure/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Iran says it gave Russia ‘limited number of drones’ ...
Climate activist Arshak Makichyan plays his violin in front of the Russian Embassy in Berlin. (Monika Skolimowska/Associated Press)
Climate activist Arshak Makichyan built a reputation as the Russian answer to Greta Thunberg, staging lonely weekly protests in central Moscow and often getting arrested.
Makichyan, 28, who fled Russia to Berlin in March following the invasion of Ukraine, is still pushing for climate action, but as of last week, the government says he is no longer Russian. In an unusual case, a Moscow court has decided to strip Makichyan along with his father and brother, who both remain in Russia, of their citizenship, in what appears to be payback for his public antiwar statements.
Makichyan, who is Armenian by birth, emigrated to Russia as a baby in 1995 and holds only a Russian passport, meaning the decision has rendered him effectively stateless. “I am at a loss as what to do going forward,” Makichyan told The Washington Post in a phone interview, saying that a refugee passport in Germany could restrict his climate activism.
After the February invasion of Ukraine, Makichyan, like many Russian activists, made the difficult decision to flee their country. He and his young wife, a fellow activist, had married the very same day Russian troops poured into Ukraine. They both continued to speak out against the war from Germany.
A trial to review his citizenship began in his absence over the summer, and a Moscow court decided to revoke it last month, accusing Makichyan of having provided false information to immigration authorities, despite being just 10 years old when his father made the citizenship application. The court only informed his lawyer of their decision a week later.
“This is my identity. I have engaged in activism in Russia for four years. I have lived all my life in Russia, and despite everything, I see myself in its future, when Russia becomes free,” Makichyan said. The court also revoked the citizenship of his father and brother. Like Makichyan, neither his father or brother hold any other passport and it is unclear what fate awaits them in Moscow.
“The court applied the law very liberally in this case,” Olga Podoplelova, a lawyer for Makichyan, told The Post, saying that they plan to appeal the decision. “Under normal circumstances, we could easily defend the citizenship of Arshak, his father and brother.”
But these are not normal circumstances. Since the invasion, Russian authorities have blatantly and repeatedly disregarded the law, arresting people simply for standing in the vicinity of an antigovernment protest, and forcing people ineligible for military service to sign up for the army. Ethnic minorities have also come under fire.
“Since I was a kid, I felt, well, not totally Russian,” said Makichyan. “I felt that I had no right to participate in political life, because if I said anything, people would say immediately that I am Armenian and that I should go back to my own country.”
“But I continued because I somehow felt responsible. I understood that if there are no changes in Russia, then we would not be able to fight the climate crisis,” he said. “Russia is part of the global world and needs a voice.”
To a certain extent, he succeeded. He drew media attention to his weekly protests and was invited to speak at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2019. He also helped inspire other climate protests in cities across Russia.
Makichyan said Russian authorities were concerned about any form of youth protest no matter how small. “It seems to me that the main threat was that I stood there and simply existed. Now they want to officially say that I do not exist at all, at least not on paper,” he said.
The Russian parliament passed a new bill amending citizenship rules this spring. The new law created what political analyst Ekaterina Schulman calls an “inequality” between two types of citizenship, enabling authorities to easily move against citizens who had previously held a foreign passport.
“When Makichyan became a nuisance, the authorities evidently checked his documents. They asked, what can be done with him? The answer: His citizenship can be annulled. It is much simpler than opening a criminal case,” said Schulman.
Lawyers say there is a practice that precedes the 2022 amendment of “catching out” citizens of predominantly former Soviet states with minor administrative faults. There have been alleged instances of officials claiming to have lost such passports and forcing the individuals to reapply for citizenship.
“This is a form of ethnic discrimination,” said Podoplelova. “Many migrants believe that Russian citizenship gives them more rights or protects them. But this is an illusion,” noted Valentina Chupik, the director of Tong Jahoni, a nonprofit organization that helps Central Asian migrants in Russia.
Makichyan warned that his case could signal the emergence of a new tool of political repression against Kremlin critics. “The Arshak case is a very dangerous precedent, given the Soviet experience of depriving dissidents of their citizenship,” said Podoplelova.
This spring, Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Volodin called critics of the invasion “traitors” and suggested they be stripped of their citizenship. He lamented there was “no procedure for revoking citizenship and preventing them from entering our country.”
Schulman said it is unlikely Makichyan’s case signals a new wave of repression, highlighting the rigidity of Russia’s legal framework. “If you are born the Russian citizen, if you have the citizenship from birth, then there is no way, at least for now, that the state can legally divest you of this status,” said Schulman. | 2022-11-05T17:26:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russian climate activist Arshak Makichyan stripped of citizenship - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/russia-climate-makichyan-citizenship/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/russia-climate-makichyan-citizenship/ |
Md. man returned home to find family shot dead, brother says
The apparent quintuple shooting occurred inside a Charles County home Friday afternoon, according to police
The home in La Plata, Md. where five people were found dead Friday. (Tom Jackman/The Washington Post)
Robin Mann said his brother, Darin Mann, returned home from work Friday afternoon and made a horrific discovery inside his Charles County home: five people dead from gunshot wounds, including his ex-wife and adult son and daughter.
Robin Mann said the alleged shooter, who was known to the family, and another person whose identity remains unclear were also among the dead. Robin Mann said he does not know the motive for the shooting, but Darin Mann and the rest of the family are devastated.
Robin Mann identified the dead as his former sister-in-law Sommaly Mann, niece Sara Mann and nephew Kai Mann. Sara Mann is in her early 20s and Kai Mann is in his late teens, Robin Mann said. Robin Mann did not know the name of the alleged shooter, but said he had a connection to the family.
“What can you say?” Robin Mann said, groping for words to describe the tragedy. “They were full of life. Good kids.”
The Charles County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on Robin Mann’s account of the shootings, saying it planned to release the identities of the victims, their relationships and more details about the killings later on Saturday.
The apparent quintuple slaying was reported to authorities around 4 p.m. Friday in the 3000 block of Wildflower Drive in La Plata, Md., the sheriff’s office said. Authorities said the owner of the home found the victims inside. Detectives are still trying to determine when they were shot, but all appeared to have suffered gunshot wounds.
Diane Richardson, a Charles County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said investigators worked through the night at the large single-family home in the Agricopia neighborhood, piecing together what happened. The house, about 30 miles south of D.C., is situated on a residential street.
Robin Mann said his brother was a former doctor who now owned a painting business. Kai Mann worked with his father, and Sara Mann worked in the field of cosmetic surgery.
Authorities responded a report of a shooting at the home Friday, the sheriff’s office said. When deputies went inside, they discovered the deceased victims, all of whom appeared to be adults, the sheriff’s office said. Authorities said the incident was “isolated” to the home and there was no public threat.
There were a large number of emergency vehicles at the scene Friday night, but by Saturday morning, it did not appear any police remained on the scene. People were seen hugging outside the home on Saturday morning but declined to comment.
Police have not released any information about a suspect or a motive in the shootings. Darin Mann and other people listed as living at the address for the home could not immediately be reached by phone on Saturday morning.
One resident interviewed Friday described the street where the shooting occurred as calm, where “nothing ever happens.” She said she knew of nobody living in the home who appeared likely to be involved in such an incident. | 2022-11-05T17:39:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charles County man returned home to find family shot dead, brother says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/shooting-charles-county-la-plata/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/shooting-charles-county-la-plata/ |
Rep. Susan Wilds is hoping her relationships and demeanor will save her as the head winds come for Democratic-held swing districts
Vulnerable Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) greets a supporter at Franklin Hill Vineyards during an official event in Bangor, Pa., on April 19, 2022. (Mark Makela for The Washington Post)
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — In late October, Rep. Susan Wild (D) ran into an older couple on the streets here, and they instantly began talking about her opponent’s commercials that are, well, less than flattering.
“We’re talking about the one that has the really ugly picture of you,” the older man said, explaining that they actually supported her and, now that they had met her, she was much more attractive than that terrible ad made her look. “They shouldn’t be allowed to use it,” he told Wild.
Wild recalled that conversation in an interview inside her campaign headquarters later that day, in part to bemoan today’s politics of dark money groups but, more important, to illustrate what she hopes will be her saving grace in this toss-up race: her identity as an approachable, accessible and likable person.
Marketers and consultants would call it her “brand,” but it’s a general sense of relatability that she hopes will make the difference, particularly in a race against an opponent whose personal fortune might approach $50 million.
“I honestly believe that’s why I’ll win,” she said. “The hits aren’t sticking, because people know me too well.”
That remains to be seen; Wild and Republican Lisa Scheller are locked in a toss-up race, according to every independent handicapper out there. Outside GOP groups have poured millions upon millions of dollars into the district. President Biden won the district, anchored by old steel towns 60 to 70 miles north of Philadelphia, by six-tenths of a percentage point in the 2020 election.
But Wild’s race will be a test case for whether a lawmaker’s personal brand can help to overcome the toughest of political environments. Unlike many competitive House races, this battle is not highly focused on abortion rights: Wild prefers to focus on Scheller’s business dealings, and Scheller has not adopted the most extreme antiabortion views.
Other races here, particularly for Senate and governor, are testing whether there is a particular type of personal identity that best fits the moment in a key battleground — the rugged outsider posture or the experienced, steady hand.
Democratic and Republican advisers alike think that the incumbent lawmakers who are in the most danger are those who have pretty generic profiles, not having carved out identities of their own. That leaves them most vulnerable to the political winds, which are blowing against Democrats as inflation remains at 40-year highs.
In Senate races, three Democrats with very distinct brands have remained competitive: Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), an astronaut, and Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.), a minister at Atlanta’s most prominent church, along with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), whose tall frame, bald head and penchant for wearing hoodies give him an outsider image.
In past political waves, some lawmakers survived because they had built just enough of a brand.
In 2006, as Democrats swept to power, Rep. Chris Shays (Conn.) narrowly won an 11th term and went on to serve as the only House Republican from New England, and in 2010, as Republicans charged back to the majority, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) survived by less than half a percentage point.
Shays had been a moderate whose ideology fit his district and had spent decades fighting political corruption. Connolly had spent 13 years on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, including five as its chairman, becoming a popular local official before moving up to Congress.
Sometimes, those narrow wins lead to long-term careers: Connolly has locked down his Northern Virginia district. But Shays lost in 2008 as Barack Obama won the district by more than 20 percentage points.
Wild, 65, is hoping for a long tenure like Connolly’s.
A member of the New Democrat Coalition, she is a mainstream liberal with a moderate sensibility. Born on a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, Wild grew up moving around the globe with each new assignment for her father, a trying time that taught her how to make friends and fit in.
“I had to reinvent myself every two years. It was horrible as a kid, I will just tell you,” she said.
She moved to the Lehigh Valley 35 years ago, expecting to stay for a couple of years but settled in and became a partner at an Allentown law firm. After a divorce, she reunited with her life partner, Kerry Acker, and became politically active, losing a county commission race and then being appointed as Allentown solicitor.
She upset a well-known county prosecutor in 2018 for the Democratic nomination to replace the retiring moderate GOP incumbent, Rep. Charlie Dent, and reclaimed the seat as part of the rush for Democratic women in an anti-Trump backlash.
That joy turned to deep despair Memorial Day weekend 2019, when Acker took his life and Wild went into what she called “a state of shock.” She has made mental health one of her top policy priorities, learning, when she talks about it with audiences, just how many others struggle.
“It was entirely circumstantial because of what was going on in my own life and losing my life partner. Little did I know how much that would resonate with people here,” she said.
Scheller, the chief executive of an aluminum manufacturing company, came surprisingly close to defeating Wild in 2020 as the more exurban and rural outer portions of the district surged toward Trump. She quickly launched a bid for a rematch and has been the beneficiary of nearly $11 million from outside Republican groups running attack ads against Wild.
They have focused relentlessly on Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), along with high inflation, while some ads highlight a complex legal case that Wild was involved in early this century regarding abuse allegations at a psychiatric facility.
Wild has countered by highlighting Scheller’s wealth amid allegations of setting up plants in China without supporting enough local jobs.
This district’s voters have trended toward moderate personalities even more than moderate ideologies. Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), who is retiring, first won a House seat here in 1998, campaigning as more of a thoughtful pragmatist than his economic conservative background suggested.
That’s why Wild believes her identity as someone who connects with everyday people, small-business types, can overcome the political climate.
“I think you’re effing amazing,” Danielle Mulligan Botrus, the owner of the Gem Shop in this town’s business district, told Wild during a small-business tour. “A lot of times, I feel like Republicans are known to be small-business advocates. I think that’s a crock of crap. You were there for us when covid shut us down, helping us get grants and actually taking phone calls.”
The top of Pennsylvania’s ticket has two very different Democrats: Fetterman as the rugged outsider and state Attorney General Joshua Shapiro, a polished law-and-order type who has climbed the ranks for 25 years from congressional chief of staff to county commissioner and now gubernatorial nominee.
Shapiro has assumed a solid lead in his race against an underfunded, Trump-loving state legislator, while Fetterman is struggling to hang on against celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz.
Pennsylvania, like this district, has long favored the moderate personalities of Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D) and former governor Tom Ridge (R). Fetterman has placed a bet that his anti-establishment posture is right for this moment, and Wild has appreciated Fetterman’s ability to tap into some voting blocs where Shapiro could never be warmly received.
“They’re each so unique, and yet that combination is kind of really a Pennsylvania thing,” Wild said.
Her own disposition more closely aligns with Shapiro’s, and while some Democrats have run away from Biden, Wild brought first lady Jill Biden to a rally with nearly 1,000 supporters Wednesday.
Wild has become a prolific fundraiser, hauling in more than $6 million for this campaign, while Scheller donated more than $2 million to her campaign but still took in about $1.5 million less than the incumbent.
But those outside groups and their ads — like the one with the “ugly” picture — have forced Wild to spend even more time raising funds. That means less time at town halls, fewer business walks in Bethlehem, not enough campaign rallies.
Those things are supposed to be Wild’s political bread and butter, activities in which she hones her brand and builds up her defenses. If things go bad Tuesday, she fears it will because she was forced into spending less time meeting voters and more time raising money.
“There’s this constant influx of dark money, which requires all of us, not just me, to just spend endless amounts of time dialing for dollars,” she said.
In plugging Fetterman’s candidacy, Obama takes aim at election deniers
3:59 PMRepublicans sued to restrict this drop box. Meet the voters using it.
3:41 PMGOP candidates in Michigan pick and choose from a menu of Trump tactics
3:22 PMManchin says Biden should apologize to coal workers for ‘disgusting’ comments | 2022-11-05T18:09:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | An endangered Pennsylvania Democrat thinks her brand can save her seat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/an-endangered-pennsylvania-democrat-thinks-her-brand-can-save-her-seat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/an-endangered-pennsylvania-democrat-thinks-her-brand-can-save-her-seat/ |
Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers rerelease ‘Iris’ to support abortion access
The singer-songwriters raised almost $75,000 for the Brigid Alliance abortion charity, by making the Goo Goo Dolls cover available as a 24-hour-only download
Phoebe Bridgers performs at the Anthem in D.C. (Kyle Gustafson for The Washington Post)
Indie singer-songwriters Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers have once again invited fans to feel sad, for a cause.
In the wee hours of Friday morning, the artists rereleased their 2020 cover of the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris” to support the Brigid Alliance, a charity that provides travel, food, lodging, child care and other support for people seeking abortions. The song was available for 24 hours, through midnight only, on the audio distribution platform Bandcamp, where fans could pay whatever they were inclined to contribute to download the song.
The artists raised $74,137.87 with 18,185 downloads.
Both artists have been vocal in their support for access to abortion since the fall of Roe v. Wade in June. A post on Instagram by Rogers announcing the fundraiser, captioned “Vote,” declares that “the future of reproductive care is on the ballot these midterms.”
When a draft of the Roe decision was leaked in May, Bridgers opened up about having had an abortion. “I had an abortion in October of last year while I was on tour. I went to Planned Parenthood where they gave me the abortion pill. It was easy. Everyone deserves that kind of access,” the “Punisher” singer wrote on her Instagram story.
Recently she expanded on her feelings about abortion in an interview with Teen Vogue: “Don’t let anybody freak you out about an abortion. Because unless you’re doing it in an unsafe way, there are resources for you if you’re trying to get one.” Anyone should be able to have one, she added, using an expletive — “for whatever reason.”
This isn’t the first time Bridgers and Rogers have rallied fans behind “Iris” and a cause. Their original release of the cover was sparked by Bridgers’s tweet that if Trump lost the 2020 election, “I will cover Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls.”
if trump loses I will cover iris by the goo goo dolls
Bridgers followed through, roping in fellow singer Rogers, who had replied to the tweet with, “U need some harmonies for that special tune?” Bridgers quipped back, “I’d give up forever” — a reference to the song’s lyrics — “to harmonize with you.”
Proceeds from the first fundraiser supported Stacey Abrams’s Fair Fight, a voting rights organization dedicated to combating voter suppression by encouraging participation in elections, fighting restrictive legislation and educating voters.
In 24 hours, the pair raised $173,703.59 for Fair Fight with 46,935 downloads, according to Rogers.
In the cover, Bridgers and Rogers harmonize on such lines as “When everything’s made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am.” | 2022-11-05T18:35:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers rerelease ‘Iris’ for abortion rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/05/phoebe-bridgers-maggie-rogers-iris-rerelease-abortion-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/05/phoebe-bridgers-maggie-rogers-iris-rerelease-abortion-rights/ |
The Taliban wants to segregate women. So it’s training female doctors.
Medical residents watch and assist during a Caesarean section at the Rabia Balkhi public women’s hospital, one of Kabul’s busiest, on Oct. 23. Despite the ongoing training of 55 residents, the hospital is facing an uptick in patients, which has spread the remaining doctors thin. (Elise Blanchard for The Washington Post)
KABUL — After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last year, nearly a third of the resident doctors in Omeida Momand’s class at a Kabul women’s hospital fled the country, she said, leaving the staff stretched thin.
Momand decided to stay, to finish the last step in her 11 years of training to care for Afghanistan’s women. By day, she examines gynecology patients and monitors mothers with high-risk pregnancies in a room sometimes so crowded that patients lie on the floor. Night shifts are spent performing emergency Caesareans.
This marks a rare instance of the Taliban publicly and loudly promoting women’s education and employment. Training female doctors and nurses is part of the movement’s effort to prove it can provide essential services while building a society structured on gender segregation.
Muhammad Hassan Ghyasi, acting deputy minister of public health, said in an interview that his ministry has received “clear instructions from the top level” to bring policies in line with the Taliban’s strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law. A new policy submitted recently to the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, for approval would formalize a rule already applied in some hospitals that female health workers should treat women, while male health workers should treat men.
Ghyasi said the policy will stipulate that if there is no qualified female doctor available, a female patient can see a male doctor. But with Afghanistan’s health system under strain — and an economic crisis fueled by Western sanctions exacerbating hunger and sickness — the need for qualified medical professionals of both genders is greater than ever.
The Taliban effort to expand medical education for women, especially in fields traditionally dominated by men, contrasts with the government’s draconian restrictions on girls and women. Since taking power, the Taliban has barred many girls from secondary school and shut women out of most professions. This fall, authorities prohibited female university aspirants from enrolling in subjects including journalism, engineering and economics.
The educational restrictions seem certain to limit the number of women in the coming years who can train as doctors. Other Taliban policies, such as requirements in some areas that women only travel with male guardians, have hamstrung the efforts of female doctors to practice.
But at several government-run institutes for nursing, radiology and other health fields, the proportion of women admitted — at least 46 percent this semester — represents a slight increase compared with 2020 figures, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which supports the institutes.
Taliban authorities also point to residency programs like the one at Rabia Balkhi Hospital, where Momand works, as evidence of their commitment to educating female health workers. Hospital director Seemin Mishkin Mohmand said the Taliban health ministry has been supportive of her ambitions to expand the program and offer more-advanced training.
Momand is set to graduate this fall at the top of her class, and hopes to open a gynecology clinic in a rural province.
“When I was a child, this was my hope — to become a doctor, to serve my country and my people, especially to serve our poor women,” she said.
A health system on life support
The needs in Afghanistan are enormous. The maternal mortality rate is among the highest in the world. Worsening malnutrition has contributed to a rise in premature births and pregnancy complications, according to Hamida Hamidi, a doctor at Rabia Balkhi and head of its training programs.
The health system, heavily reliant on foreign aid, neared collapse in the wake of the Taliban takeover. After billions in funding were cut, the ICRC and the United Nations stepped in last year to cover tens of thousands of health workers’ salaries. Still, some hospitals have closed. Significant numbers of doctors have left the country. And with war over, the volume of patients seeking care is rising.
The main hospital in Wardak, a province neighboring Kabul, used to be on the front line of fighting. Since the end of the war, the number of patients has doubled, hospital director Mohammad Nader Rahmani said.
As in many areas in Afghanistan, families here prefer that female relatives see women doctors. But while women make up a majority of patients, they account for only a quarter of the hospital’s doctors.
The hospital, run by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, recently hired a female radiologist, Rahmani said. But the limited pool of female health workers has made it difficult to hire more.
The Taliban’s stated goal of creating a separate but equal health system for men and women remains a distant dream, hospital administrators and international aid workers said. “In the short term, this policy is impossible to implement,” Rahmani said.
A dearth of specialists
In Afghanistan, as in many other countries, the essential task of caring for mothers and babies has long been dominated by women. Women make up a significantly smaller proportion of other medical specialists, Afghan doctors and hospital administrators say.
Six years ago, the World Health Organization raised the alarm about how a lack of female health-care workers was preventing Afghan women from receiving adequate care.
But it wasn’t always this way. When Hamidi was in medical school in the early 1990s, the country had female neurosurgeons and urologists, she recalled. When civil war broke out in 1992, many fled to the West. The Taliban took power, for the first time, four years later and “everything changed,” Hamidi said. Families grew uncomfortable with their daughters entering medical fields outside of maternal health, and that attitude outlasted initial Taliban rule.
At the hospital in Wardak and others run by international organizations, gender segregation has not yet been enforced, administrators say. The ICRC has also not observed gender segregation at government hospitals it supports, according to Lucien Christen, ICRC spokesperson for Afghanistan.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, a young woman named Shayma who had gone into labor arrived at the hospital in Wardak, needing an emergency C-section. The only doctors available at that time were men. After some convincing, Shayma’s husband and brother agreed to let two male doctors perform the operation alongside two female midwives.
If male doctors had been prohibited from operating on women, “we would have lost our daughter and my grandson,” said Shayma’s mother, Sharifa, who uses only one name.
While gender segregation has not been enforced in the Wardak hospital, at least so far, three current or former female surgeons at public hospitals in Kabul said male and female staff have already been forced to work separately.
One of the surgeons, a first-year resident from Wardak, said she wanted to become a surgeon to help the women of her province. But in September 2021, Taliban officials barred women at her hospital from working night shifts and said they must work in separate rooms from their male colleagues.
“The problem is you cannot separate men and women because we need to work together,” said the resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “That’s why we stated we cannot be separated. They sent us home and suspended us.”
More than a year later, she has not been allowed to return to her post.
Kobra Safi worked at a teaching hospital in Kabul as a plastic reconstructive surgeon until August 2021, treating burn patients. Several days after Kabul fell, Taliban officials told her she could no longer have contact with her mentor, a male surgeon. “That destroyed my dream of doing plastic surgery,” she said.
Safi got on an evacuation flight two months later and spent nearly a year in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates before resettling in Canada this September.
Counterproductive policies
Even as the Taliban says it is looking to expand medical training for women, other policies are limiting the ability of women to provide health care — or access it.
Fouzia Shafique, senior health adviser for UNICEF in Afghanistan, said the agency is hearing more and more reports, especially in the country’s south and east, of women being told at health facilities that they must arrive with a male guardian to get treatment. Female health workers, meanwhile, have faced “significant issues” traveling to work in some areas because they must find a male relative to take them.
Ghyasi, the deputy health minister, said he had “not seen” reports of women being turned away from health facilities, though he added: “We are not denying it, because at the moment we have some problems.”
The pipeline for future female doctors is also narrowing. Schools in 24 out of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces remain closed to girls above sixth grade, U.N. special rapporteur Richard Bennett told the U.N. Human Rights Council in September.
The Taliban closed the high school Wajeha Kazimi, 19, attended just before she finished 12th grade. She was still able to graduate, and spent more than a year studying for the university entrance exam at a test-prep center in Kabul. In September, she survived a suicide bombing there that left more than 50 people dead.
Kazimi hopes to go into public health or pediatrics, and ranked medicine as her top choice on the university exam.
“When we were choosing, we remembered our friends who were killed who wished to become a doctor,” she said. Her 15-year-old sister, though, remains shut out of formal education.
A year of peace in one of Afghanistan’s deadliest provinces
The Taliban’s curbs on girls’ education are also costing the country some of its best male doctors. Five of the eight surgeons at the Emergency NGO-run trauma hospital in Kabul left the country after the Taliban takeover — some so their daughters could continue their schooling, medical coordinator Dimitra Giannakopoulou said.
Aid agencies continue to lobby Taliban authorities to reopen secondary schools for the sake of public health.
“Girls need to have finished high school if they’re going to enroll in a midwifery course, if they’re going to be a paramedic or if they’re going to train as vaccinators,” Shafique said. “And we now have two years of which we have no cohorts graduating out of high school and therefore no people to train.”
Susannah George and Zahra Nabi in Kabul contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T20:02:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taliban training Afghan women as doctors to segregate medical care - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/afghanistan-women-doctors-taliban-medical/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/05/afghanistan-women-doctors-taliban-medical/ |
Badgers 23, Terrapins 10
It was a rough day for Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa in a 23-10 loss to Wisconsin. (Andy Manis/AP)
MADISON, Wis. — The rainy weather hampered Maryland’s usually strong passing attack, but Wisconsin’s force at the line of scrimmage crushed the Terrapins’ chances. The Badgers bullied Maryland into a deflating 23-10 defeat after four quarters of ineffective offense.
With the teams combining for 15 completions amid persistent wind and rain at Camp Randall Stadium, the run game dictated the matchup. The Terps (6-3, 3-3 Big Ten) didn’t have much success on the ground, and they couldn’t stop the Badgers — a recipe for a disappointing afternoon and a lopsided score.
Wisconsin fired head coach Paul Chryst five games into the season, but the Badgers are now 3-1 under interim coach Jim Leonhard and they showcased the program’s usual strength in the trenches. Wisconsin (5-4, 3-3) rushed for 278 yards, compared to Maryland’s 112. The Terps’ final tally of 189 total yards is a generous reflection of their performance; 73 of those came on a touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter when they trailed by three scores. Nine of Maryland’s 13 drives amassed fewer than 10 yards and lasted no more than four plays.
Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa returned after missing the previous game with a knee injury, but he and the offense struggled all afternoon. The third-year starter finished with just 77 passing yards, the lowest mark in his Maryland career — worse than his rough debut as a college starter when he had 94 passing yards at Northwestern.
The weather forced the Terps to lean on the running game, particularly in the first half, and Tagovailoa finished the dreadful afternoon with 10 of 23 passes completed, an interception and only one consolation touchdown with less than a minute left. Tagovailoa faced consistent pressure throughout the game while the offensive line struggled and gave up five sacks.
With rain pouring, the first five possessions of this game (three for Maryland and two for Wisconsin) lasted seven minutes and resulted in a combined 17 yards, zero first downs and no completions. The Badgers finally showed life with a drive that was fueled by a 36-yard run and ended with a rushing score from Braelon Allen.
The Terps’ trouble continued and they slipped into a deep hole after Isaac Guerendo scored on an 89-yard touchdown run with an assist from receiver Chimere Dike’s key block. Dike kept Jakorian Bennett from closing in on the senior running back for at least 20 yards during the sideline run to the end zone. By halftime, Maryland faced a 17-0 deficit and had tallied only 56 yards and two first downs.
The bad weather pitted the two teams’ rushing attacks against one another, and Wisconsin had a significant advantage. Allen and Guerendo each finished with over 100 yards, while Maryland’s top rusher, Roman Hemby, had just 66 yards on 16 attempts.
After the break, the conditions improved a bit, with the rain subsiding for an extended stretch but the wind still gusting. Maryland’s offense found some rhythm on its first series in the third quarter. Then a near-interception and back-to-back bad snaps from freshman center Coltin Deery derailed the drive, forcing the Terps to settle for a 39-yard field goal.
The offensive progress was short-lived. Tagovailoa, scrambling amid pressure from the Badgers, threw an interception when he tried to pass on the run and Hunter Wohler snatched the ball without a Maryland receiver nearby.
Maryland’s defense offered a few stops after halftime: Wisconsin punted twice, failed to convert a fourth down and went 2 of 3 on field goals. But with the ongoing offensive trouble, the Terps didn’t manage to trim the lead until it was too late for a touchdown to matter.
A win against Wisconsin would have lifted the Terps to a 7-2 start for the first time since 2006, but Maryland couldn’t rise to the occasion. They’ve had similar opportunities this season: They played Michigan, a team still undefeated, close but lost the game that could have turned into a program-defining moment. A few costly turnovers loomed large in that 34-27 defeat. When the Terps faced Purdue, they almost certainly would have been ranked if they had won, but instead Maryland failed to score after the team forced three consecutive turnovers. The Terps left with a 31-29 loss and remained in their normal spot outside the top 25.
This time in Madison, with a similar chance for Maryland to prove its progress, the team couldn’t blame an abundance of penalties, ill-fated turnovers or questionable calls. Both teams navigated the same wet weather, yet Wisconsin stood on a tier above the Terps. | 2022-11-05T20:20:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland loses in wind and rain at Wisconsin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/maryland-loses-wisconsin-wind-rain/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/maryland-loses-wisconsin-wind-rain/ |
Three presidents converge in Pa.; Obama warns, ‘Democracy is on the ballot’
The extraordinary intersection of the current president and his two predecessors highlights the broad implications of the state this year and beyond
Former president Barack Obama greets people as he campaigns for John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, on Saturday in Pittsburgh. (Quinn Glabicki/Reuters)
PHILADELPHIA — President Biden and former president Barack Obama are teaming up here Saturday to campaign for Democrats in this critical battleground state, making their first joint campaign appearance of the midterms and punctuating the high stakes of contests for U.S. Senate and governor in Pennsylvania.
On the other side of the state, former president Donald Trump will hold a rally with GOP contenders Saturday night, delivering a closing pitch as he looks to cement his influence on the 2022 elections. Trump has traveled the country stoking grievances and promoting false claims about the 2020 election, as he encourages voters to elect Republicans who have in many cases echoed his rhetoric and combativeness.
The extraordinary convergence of the current president and his two predecessors highlights the broad implications of Pennsylvania this year and beyond. The expensive and bruising Senate race is seen as key to which party controls the chamber next year. The race pits Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman against Republican Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor. Polls show a close competition.
The governor’s race includes Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who helped lead unsuccessful efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Pennsylvania and would have significant influence over future elections, against Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is viewed as a rising star in the party and who has attacked his opponent as a dire threat to democratic norms.
Earlier Saturday, Obama headlined a rally for Fetterman in Pittsburgh, where he painted a grim picture of a fractured country on the brink of losing its democracy.
“Consider the fact that our democracy is on the ballot,” Obama said. “Democrats may not be perfect, I’m the first one to admit it. I’m not perfect ... but right now, with a few notable exceptions, most Republican politicians aren’t even pretending that rules apply to them. They just make stuff up.”
Obama claimed Trump wants Oz in the Senate to influence the results if there’s another close presidential race in 2024. “Think about that, he’s basically saying if I lose again I need him to put his thumbs on the scale,” Obama said. According to a book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, Trump told advisers that he needs people such as Oz in office in case the election is challenged in 2024 or Democrats try to impeach him again.
During the GOP primary, when Oz was appealing to Trump's base, he questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election, but by September said he would have voted to certify Biden's win. He also has said he will accept the results of his race if he loses.
The 44th president said he realized other issues might feel more pressing to many voters. “I understand democracy might not seem like a top priority right now when gas prices are high and grocery bills are high,” Obama said. “But let me tell you something, Pennsylvania, we’ve seen throughout history, we’ve seen around the world, what happens when you give up on democracy.”
The presidential split-screen comes in a state starkly reflecting the country’s divisions. Trump narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2016 and Biden defeated him there in a competitive race four years later. After the election, the state was a focal point of an unsuccessful effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results. Strategists in both parties expect it to be a key 2024 battleground.
Saturday’s planned appearances also offered a potential glimpse of the 2024 race, with Trump and Biden each signaling an intention to run again.
The more immediate focal point was on races set to be decided on Tuesday. In contrast to the Senate contest, Shapiro has run comfortably ahead of Mastriano in the gubernatorial contest, polls show, as many independents and some Republicans reject Mastriano’s far-right extremism and espousal of Christian nationalist views. Many GOP leaders have stayed away from Mastriano’s campaign, often isolating it from much of the party establishment.
The Senate race between Oz and Fetterman has tightened in recent weeks, polls show, as the two head into the final days of a hard-fought campaign that has often focused more on personal attacks that policy ideas. Fetterman has spent most of the race trying to depict Oz as an out-of-touch celebrity who has lived outside Pennsylvania. Oz has sought to cast Fetterman as soft on crime and he has accused his rival of being insufficiently transparent about his health after suffering a stroke in May.
Obama addressed Fetterman’s health on Saturday, saying in Pittsburgh: “John’s stroke did not change who he is, it didn’t change what he cares about, it didn’t change his values, his heart, his fight. It doesn’t change who he will represent when he gets to the U.S. Senate.”
Fetterman is recovering from a stroke that left him with symptoms of an auditory processing disorder, according to the Democrat and his doctor. He has also at times struggled with his speech. His doctors have said he is capable of serving in the job of U.S. senator.
Trump is scheduled to appear Saturday night at a regional airfield outside Pittsburgh with both Oz, who won a bruising GOP primary with the help of Trump’s endorsement, and Mastriano, who won Trump’s support at the end of the GOP primary, as it appeared he was poised for victory.
Mastriano has been unwavering in his commitment to false claims about fraud in the 2020 election. Oz has run toward the middle in the general, at times de-emphasizing his relationship with Trump, but in a debate pledged to support him in 2024.
Trump’s event Saturday is the second of four rallies for him in a final swing before Election Day. He last appeared in the state in September for a rally in Wilkes-Barre. Pennsylvania was critical to Trump’s electoral path in the past two presidential campaigns and would be again in 2024 as he prepares to formally announce his candidacy shortly after the midterms.
Trump’s super PAC has been running ads in the state attacking Fetterman as aligned with Biden and soft on crime. One of the spots seized on Fetterman’s recovery from a stroke in May, saying he “just isn’t right.”
Biden has spent the final week before the midterms crisscrossing the country with a mix of campaign rallies and official White House events touting his administration’s policies and legislation passed by Democrats, including student debt relief, the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act and a domestic semiconductor manufacturing bill.
The president has also used all of his stops to lambaste Republicans for proposals that would slash or curb Social Security and Medicare and delivered an unprecedented warning to voters that GOP candidates who refuse to accept Tuesday’s results could set the nation on a “path to chaos.”
But unlike Obama, Biden has largely visited states that are safely Democratic, including New Mexico, California and Illinois, with stops in New York and an election eve rally in Maryland still planned. Biden also visited Florida, where Republican statewide candidates hold comfortable leads.
Some Biden aides had been uneasy about the prospect of the former and current president appearing together for fear that Obama would overshadow Biden and invite unfavorable comparisons. But the Philadelphia event came together as a result of Biden advisers requesting that Obama come for a joint appearance, according to those familiar with the planning, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.
Advisers to both men said they are in frequent touch and the Obama staff clears its events with Biden’s so they are in close coordination.
The current dynamic between the two men is in some ways a role reversal from when Obama had to take a back seat during his party’s midterms in 2010 after the passage of the Affordable Care Act brought down his approval ratings. Biden was the sought-after surrogate, as he was in 2018, when Trump was president and Democrats retook control of the House.
Biden’s low approval ratings — hovering at about 43 percent, according to a Washington Post average of polls — have been a drag on many Democratic candidates, who have sought to keep their distance from Biden in their campaigns’ final stretch.
Pennsylvania has been the exception: Biden, a native Pennsylvanian and longtime senator of neighboring Delaware, has visited the state several times since kicking off the campaign season at the end of August, including for a speech on the future of democracy he held on Sept. 1. Biden has also appeared with Fetterman on a handful of occasions, making him one of the few Democrats running on purple terrain willing to appear with the president.
Biden often refers to his upbringing in Scranton as evidence of his blue-collar roots and points to the state being critical to his 2020 victory. If Biden chooses to run again in 2024 — which he has said he plans to do — there is broad agreement across both parties that Pennsylvania would again be key to his path to a second term.
Arnsdorf reported from Latrobe, Pa. Abutaleb reported from Washington.
Midterm elections live updates: Obama stumps for Fetterman in Pennsylvania, takes aim at election deniers | 2022-11-05T20:37:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Three presidents converge in Pa., as Obama warns ‘democracy is on the ballot’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/05/obama-biden-trump-pennsylvania-senate-governor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/05/obama-biden-trump-pennsylvania-senate-governor/ |
Biden’s “consequences” for Saudi Arabia are reaping quiet results
Riyadh’s decision to cut OPEC oil production was met with fury in Washington. But the White House is taking its time on meting out any public punishment.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Biden at Al Salman Palace in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, July 15. (Bandar Algaloud/Saudi Royal Court/Reuters)
Despite its furious reaction to Saudi Arabia’s decision last month to cut oil production in the face of global shortages, and threats of retaliation, the Biden administration is looking for signs that the tight, decades-long security relationship between Washington and Riyadh can be salvaged.
Those ties, and a commitment to help protect its strategic partners — particularly against Iran — are an integral part of U.S. defenses in the Middle East. When recent intelligence reports warned of imminent Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Central Command launched warplanes based in the Persian Gulf region toward Iran as part of an overall elevated alert status of U.S. and Saudi forces.
The scrambling of the jets, dispatched as an armed show of force and not previously reported, was the latest illustration of the strength and importance of a partnership the administration has said it is now reevaluating.
“There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done,” President Biden said after the Saudis agreed last month, at a meeting of the OPEC Plus energy cartel they chair, to cut production by 2 million barrels a day.
The cuts serve only to increase prices, the White House charged, and would benefit cartel member Russia at precisely the moment the United States and its allies were trying to choke off Moscow’s oil revenue to undercut its war in Ukraine.
In the angry days that followed, the Saudis publicly countered that the administration had asked for the cuts to be delayed by a month, indirectly suggesting that Biden wanted to avoid increased prices at the gas pump before the upcoming U.S. midterm elections. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby let loose to reporters that the Saudi’s were trying to “spin” the U.S. concerns over Ukraine and world energy stability into a domestic political ploy, and to deflect criticism of fence-sitting on Russia’s war.
Many lawmakers, some of whom have long advocated cutting ties with the Saudis, reacted with even greater umbrage, calling for the immediate withdrawal of thousands of U.S. troops stationed in the kingdom and a stop to all arms sales, among other punitive measures.
But the White House, as it considers how to make good on Biden’s “consequences” pledge and despite its ongoing anger, has become uneasy over the reaction its sharp response has provoked at home. Rather than moving quickly to respond, it is playing for time, looking for ways to bring the Saudis back in line while preserving strong bilateral security ties.
“Are we rupturing the relationship? No,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about what has become a sensitive political and diplomatic situation. “We had a fundamental disagreement on the state of the oil market and the global economy, and we are reviewing what transpired.”
“But we have important interests at stake in this relationship,” the official said.
Oil, and Saudi Arabia’s influence on the global market, is second only to U.S. strategic interests in the Persian Gulf, where the kingdom plays a central role, not least in countering Iranian aggression. The White House, which confirmed a Wall Street Journal report on the recent Iranian threat and high-level alert, declined to comment on the launch of U.S. warplanes.
“Centcom is committed to our long-standing strategic military partnership with Saudi Arabia,” said command spokesman Joe Buccio. “We will not discuss operational details.” The United States maintains significant air assets in the region, including F-22 fighter jets in Saudi Arabia, although the location from which they were scrambled was not clear.
Only about 6 percent of U.S. oil imports now come from Saudi Arabia. China is the kingdom’s largest trading partner, and commercial ties with Russia have broadened. But security and intelligence ties are the linchpin of U.S.-Saudi relations, and defense officials in Washington are unsettled by what the current upheaval might mean.
Major U.S. deployments there ended after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and there have been repeated bilateral strains in recent years, including human rights concerns over the Saudi-led war in Yemen, and the 2018 murder by Saudi agents of journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and columnist for The Washington Post.
There are about 2,500 U.S. forces now in Saudi Arabia, many of them involved in high-tech intelligence work and training. The United States is the supplier of nearly three-quarters of all weapons systems used by the Saudi military, including constantly needed parts, repairs and upgrades.
Military sales to the kingdom have been the subject of repeated controversy in recent years, as many in Congress have objected to them. While President Donald Trump, who boasted of billions in potential U.S. sales to the Saudis, vetoed congressional attempts to stop particular transactions, Biden banned the kingdom’s purchase of offensive U.S. weapons shortly after taking office.
Since then, there have been two major Saudi purchases, of air-to-air missiles, and replacement missiles for Patriot air defense batteries. Another order for 300 Patriot missiles — at more than $3 million per unit — was approved by the State Department in August, after a Biden visit to the kingdom, where he reportedly believed he cemented an agreement with the crown prince not to cut oil production.
Although Congress did not formally object to the new sale within a 30-day allotted window, there has been no public indication that the next step in the transaction — a signed contract with the Defense Department — has been taken. The Pentagon has “nothing to announce at this time” regarding the sale, spokesman Lt. Col. Cesar Santiago said Friday.
In a reflection of the current level of congressional ire, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said last week that all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia should be stopped, and that any Patriot systems there should be removed and sent to Ukraine. “If Saudi Arabia isn’t willing to take the side of Ukraine and U.S. over Russia, why should we keep these Patriots in Saudi Arabia when Ukraine and our NATO allies need them,” Murphy wrote on Twitter.
While two U.S.-controlled Patriot systems remain in Saudi Arabia to protect U.S. personnel from missile attacks from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and presumably from Iran, the bulk of the systems in use there were purchased years ago by the Saudis and belong to the kingdom.
Biden has said he wants to consult with lawmakers over the promised “consequences,” and while strong statements by lawmakers buttress his threat, the current congressional recess also gives the administration some breathing room.
The strongest objections to business as usual with the kingdom have come from Democrats. Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) last month introduced a bill to halt all U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia until they reconsider the oil production cuts. “The Saudis need to come to their senses,” Blumenthal said in announcing the measure. “The only apparent purpose of this cut in oil supplies is to help the Russians and harm Americans.” A separate bill by a trio of Democratic House members, led by Rep. Tom Malinowski (N.J.) would require the removal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, last month issued a statement saying that “the United States must immediately freeze all aspects of our cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” and vowed he would “not green-light any cooperation with Riyadh until the kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine.”
Most Republicans who have taken a stand on the issue have said Biden should use the opportunity of the cuts to increase domestic oil production, although the United States is already pumping roughly one millions barrels a day more than when Biden took office.
So far, the administration has offered no clues as to what, if any, punitive measures it might consider during its review of the relationship, and appears in no rush to decide. “We don’t need to be in a hurry,” Kirby said last week. In the meantime, officials have emphasized steps they say the Saudis have taken to assuage U.S. anger and prove they’re not leaning toward Russia.
“Our displeasure has already been clearly stated and has already had an impact,” the senior official said. “We’ve seen the Saudis react in ways that are constructive.”
In addition to a Saudi vote in favor of last month’s U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s illegal annexation of four regions of Ukraine, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, called President Volodymyr Zelensky to tell him Saudi Arabia would contribute $400 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine, far more than its only previous donation of $10 million in April.
The Saudis have been actively supportive of a recent truce in Yemen that the Biden administration has championed. And after years of U.S. effort to persuade the Persian Gulf countries to adopt a regional missile defense system against Iran, long resisted by the Saudis, the administration believes it is finally making headway.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has indicated that’s not yet enough. Speaking last week to Bloomberg News, he called the U.N. vote and the Ukraine donation “positive developments,” although “they don’t compensate [for] the decision made by OPEC Plus on production.”
But the more time that elapses, the more chances Saudi Arabia will have to make things right and temper any U.S. response. One key indicator is likely to come next month, when the European Union has scheduled a ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude oil — followed by a prohibition against all Russian petroleum products two months later — and U.S.-promoted plans to impose a price cap on Russian oil.
Any market shortages those measures may create could be made up by increased production by Saudi Arabia, officials believe. Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salma said last week in remarks to an investor conference in Riyadh that this was his country’s plan all along.
The Saudis have repeatedly insisted that their only interest is in global market stability. Reduced production now, the minister said, would create spare capacity to make up for upcoming sanctions on Russia without creating major global shortfalls.
“You need to make sure you build a situation where if things [get] worse you have the ability” to respond, he said. “We will be the supplier of those who want us to supply.”
The Saudis, Abdulaziz said, had “decided to be the maturer guys,” as opposed to those who were “depleting their emergency stocks … as a mechanism to manipulate markets.” Biden has withdrawn about a third of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve this year, in an effort to keep gas prices within reach for Americans already struggling with high inflation and interest rates. | 2022-11-05T20:38:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden's "consequences" for Saudi Arabia are reaping quiet results - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/05/biden-saudi-arabia-oil-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/05/biden-saudi-arabia-oil-ukraine/ |
Director Douglas McGrath, right, with actor Toby Jones and actress Sandra Bullock after the premier of “Infamous” on Oct. 9, 2006, in New York. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)
Douglas McGrath, a film director and writer with an erudite wit and scholarly curiosity who spanned genres including a film adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma,” an Oscar-nominated screenplay with Woody Allen in the crime farce “Bullets Over Broadway” and satirical essays for the New Yorker, died Nov. 3 at his office in Manhattan. He was 64.
The death was announced by the producers of Mr. McGrath’s solo off-Broadway show, “Everything’s Fine,” which opened last month. A show representative, Jim Byk, said the cause was a heart attack.
Mr. McGrath’s interests and career — stage, screen, magazines, books — defied easy labeling. He seemed to like it that way, constantly shifting gears and always offering a breezy appraisal of his successes and poking fun at his missteps. He often deflected questions about his Hollywood work with a self-effacing bon mot or by steering praise to colleagues — as if the movie world and its vanities were a droll comedy and he got the joke.
A “Golightly grace,” a journalist wrote in 1996 after the blithe-spirited main character in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” It was an apt description on other levels, too.
Mr. McGrath was writer and director of “Infamous,” a 2006 drama about Truman Capote, whose books included the 1958 “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” that was made into a 1961 film. And, like the fictional Holly Golightly, Mr. McGrath was a shiny and urbane personality raised far from the big city — a kid amid the oil rigs and tumbleweeds of West Texas.
His autobiographical one-man show, directed by John Lithgow, recounted being a 14-year-old in Midland (‘“I was not precocious. I was barely conscious.”) and how the arrival of an eight-grade history teacher shook up the conservative school, and his life. Reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote in the New York Times that the show had a “can’t-look-away quality of a slow-motion crash.”
“When you get older, you start to think back about days gone by,” he told Texas Monthly earlier this year. “And one of the things I think about is: Of all the things I’ve done in my career, what I love most is telling stories. I love being at a table telling stories. I love being at a party telling stories.”
Mr. McGrath could name drop if he wanted to. His mother, then Beatrice Burchenal, worked at Harper’s Bazaar under Diana Vreeland and was part of Andy Warhol’s crowd before marrying an oil man who was born in Connecticut. Mr. McGrath headed to Princeton University, where he wrote musicals for the Princeton Triangle Club, a troupe whose alumni include F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jimmy Stewart.
After graduating in 1980, Mr. McGrath heard “Saturday Night Live” was looking for writers. He landed an $850-a-week gig that “seemed too good to be true,” he wrote in the New York Times. The timing, however, was not. The show had lost many of its original stars, including John Belushi and Dan Akroyd, and the reviews were ugly.
He quipped to the New York Times that he “helped teach the nation that it wasn’t such a good idea to hurry home from that party and watch the show.”
He later teamed up with a fellow SNL writer, Patricia Marx, on a novel, “Blockbuster,” (1988), a parody of big money and big egos as a Hollywood studio tries to bring the 17th century tome “The Pilgrim’s Progress” to the screen. Publishers Weekly panned it as “stultifying.”
A major flop as a screenwriter — a 1993 remake of the 1950 romantic comedy “Born Yesterday” — was followed by a major break, partnering with his boyhood idol Allen on “Bullets over Broadway” (1994). They were nominated for an Academy Award for best screenplay, which went to Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary for “Pulp Fiction.”
In 1996, Mr. McGrath was writer and director for “Emma,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow in the role of the busybody and self-styled Cupid Emma Woodhouse. Mr. McGrath often said he preferred writing female roles, which he believed offered a greater range for both dramatic and comedic complexity.
“When you think of all the great books, not counting Twain’s, it’s the funniest of all the great novels,” he said of “Emma” in a 1996 interview. “And that’s what I wanted to bring out.”
On Broadway, Mr. McGrath received a Tony nomination for writing the book for “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” which ran from 2014 to 2019. “She was very open, and very helpful, and very honest,” said Mr. McGrath about his research and collaboration with King.
Putting the story together, though, “involved a lot of weeping, and praying,” he said in a podcast with the State Theatre New Jersey.
But it was politics — at its seamy and dishonest worst — that remained a reliable muse for Mr. McGrath. In 1996, he performed off-Broadway in a one-man show, “Political Animal,” about a presidential candidate and the “oily steps” taken on the path to election night.
His 2012 play “Checkers” — referring to a famous 1952 speech by then-Sen. Richard M. Nixon addressing corruption allegations — starred Anthony LaPaglia as Nixon and Kathryn Erbe as his wife, Pat.
During the Bill Clinton presidency, Mr. McGrath entertained New Republic readers with “The Flapjack File,” a White House parody as told by a Secret Service agent describing a fast-food-gobbling president and a conniving first lady, “Mrs. Rodham Flap.” He followed it up during the President George W. Bush era with “The Shrub File.”
For the New Yorker, a choice target for Mr. McGrath was Donald Trump, even before his election.
In the Jan. 18, 2016, edition, he contributed a “Shouts & Murmurs” lampoon of candidate Trump talking to an aide named Jeff.
“I proposed internment camps for the Muslims already here, and then I said that we should bar all other Muslims from entering the country. And you’re telling me that my numbers are what?”
“ ‘The highest ever,’ ” Jeff said, dropping behind a club chair as a platinum blow dryer shot past him.”
“Trump wandered over to the window. ‘We have a serious problem,’ he said, almost not eating the pizza. ‘I might win.’ ”
‘Very dusty’
Douglas Geoffrey McGrath was born on Feb. 2, 1958, in Midland, Tex., where his father, Raynsford, was an independent oil producer.
“I think this sums it up,” Mr. McGrath said in “Everything’s Fine” about West Texas. “It’s very hot, it’s very dusty, and it’s very, very windy. It’s like growing up inside a blow dryer full of dirt.”
He dabbled in cultural satire as co-author of “Save an Alligator, Shoot a Preppie: A Terrorist Guide” (1981), and over the years had small acting roles that included the 2012 HBO series “Girls” and in Allen’s films such as “Small Time Crooks” (2000) and “Café Society” (2016).
In 2000, Mr. McGrath starred in the comedy “Company Man,” a film he co-wrote with Peter Askin about a schoolteacher who stumbles into becoming a CIA spy during the Cold War. The cast includes Sigourney Weaver, John Turturro and Denis Leary.
But Mr. McGrath said he found deeper creative possibilities in bringing literature to the screen, including a 2002 adaptation of “Nicholas Nickleby,” by Charles Dickens.
“One of the joys of being a writer — and it’s a short list — especially if you are adapting things for film,” he told Canada’s National Post in 2002, “is that you learn to study the structure of great writers. You really have to take a book apart and put it back together.”
He is survived by his wife of 27 years, Jane Reed Martin; son Henry; and a sister and brother.
In 2016, Mr. McGrath directed HBO’s documentary “Becoming Mike Nichols,” about the late film director. Mr. McGrath, who was also executive producer, shared an Emmy nomination with the other producers.
Mr. McGrath said at times he thought Jane Austen would be a “great collaborator.”
“Because she writes, you know, superb dialogue,” he said in 1996, “she creates memorable characters, she has an extremely clever skill for plotting — and she’s dead, which means, you know, there’s none of that tiresome arguing over who gets the bigger bun at coffee time.'' | 2022-11-05T20:38:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Douglas McGrath, film director, playwright and writer, dies at 64 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/05/douglas-mcgrath-writer-theater-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/05/douglas-mcgrath-writer-theater-dies/ |
FIEL - Dow Finsterwald of Tequesta, Fla. poses with the trophy after winning the Professional Golfers Association 40th annual tournament at Llanerch Country Club in Havertown, Pa. on July 21, 1958. Finsterwald, a 12-time winner on the PGA Tour, died Friday night, Nov. 4, 2022, at his home in Colorado Springs, Colo. He was 93. His son, Dow Finsterwald Jr., said he died peacefully in his sleep. (AP Photo/File) (Anonymous/AP) | 2022-11-05T20:40:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dow Finsterwald, 1st PGA champion in stroke play, dies at 93 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/dow-finsterwald-1st-pga-champion-in-stroke-play-dies-at-93/2022/11/05/b6091062-5d45-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/golf/dow-finsterwald-1st-pga-champion-in-stroke-play-dies-at-93/2022/11/05/b6091062-5d45-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. (Shuran Huang/For The Washington Post)
The White House spent Saturday trying to tamp down criticism from Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) in response to comments President Biden made suggesting that coal’s days as the primary source of energy in America were coming to an end. The public spat between two prominent Democrats comes as the president and other party leaders are crisscrossing the country making their closing arguments.
While speaking at an event on Friday in Carlsbad, Calif., to highlight the Democratic Party’s achievements heading into the midterms, Biden celebrated the passage of the Chips and Science Act by championing new energy technologies and suggested coal plants should be a thing of the past.
Later, he added: “We’re going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar.”
That prompted a rebuke from Manchin, who on Saturday called the comments “outrageous and divorced from reality.”
Manchin, who represents a coal-producing state, said “comments like these are the reason the American people are losing trust in President Biden.”
“It seems his positions change depending on the audience and the politics of the day,” Manchin added. “Politicizing our nation’s energy policies would only bring higher prices and more pain for the American people.”
In an evenly divided Senate, key parts of Biden’s agenda have often succeeded or failed on Manchin’s leaning. The senator almost single-handedly put the brakes on Biden’s Build Back Better plan, a $2 trillion social spending package.
Manchin said Biden owes an apology to coal workers.
“Being cavalier about the loss of coal jobs for men and women in West Virginia and across the country who literally put their lives on the line to help build and power this country is offensive and disgusting.”
Soon after, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a conciliatory statement.
Jean-Pierre said Saturday that Biden’s words were manipulated to cause harm, noting that the president has no desire to put more Americans out of work. The unemployment rate has dropped below 4 percent since Biden took office, she mentioned, while pointing out that it was 6.2 percent in the last month before the president entered the White House.
“The President’s remarks yesterday have been twisted to suggest a meaning that was not intended; he regrets it if anyone hearing these remarks took offense,” Jean-Pierre said. “The President was commenting on a fact of economics and technology: as it has been from its earliest days as an energy superpower, America is once again in the midst of an energy transition.”
8:30 PMEvers talks democracy on the trail, even though pundits told him not to
8:04 PMCotton goes after Biden on coal while campaigning with Laxalt in Nevada | 2022-11-05T21:03:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | White House responds to Joe Manchin criticism of President Biden’s comments on future of coal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/biden-manchin-coal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/05/biden-manchin-coal/ |
In suburban Md., Dems bet abortion outrage can flip a state senate seat
The closest race in the Maryland legislature hinges on the potency of abortion rights in a district that has favored Republicans for decades. Will Democrats’ $500,000 bet pay off?
Del. Sid Saab (R-Anne Arundel), locked in one of Maryland’s tightest races, signs political literature to tuck into a voter’s door in Arnold as he campaigns for the District 33 seat in the Maryland Senate. (Erin Cox/The Washington Post)
ARNOLD, Md. — While door-knocking in this GOP-leaning suburb north of Annapolis, Republican Del. Sid Saab’s conversation with a Libertarian couple turned into the one he’d rather not have. Again.
“Are you pro-life?” a mother of three asked him, her 9-month-old daughter on her hip.
It was a question Maryland’s Democratic Senate Caucus has spent at least $500,000 — more than in any other statehouse race in Maryland — trying to ensure Saab answers.
He replied with the truth: “Yes.”
“Okay, that’s important to me,” she said, her husband nodding. At this house, he found agreement. But for all the attack ads painting his candidacy as a blockade to progress on abortion rights, he can’t help but explain why he thinks his antiabortion stance shouldn’t matter: there is little a Republican in a legislature with a Democratic supermajority can even do on the issue.
“WARNING,” blares one mailer against him, “Maryland’s State Senate is One Vote Away From Radically Restricting A Woman’s Right To Choose … MAGA Extremist SID SAAB Could Be That Vote.”
“It’s nothing but a distraction,” he told the Libertarian couple, of abortion.
Nationally, Democrats have hammered the fragility of abortion rights, capitalizing on discontent that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to turn out midterm voters in what would otherwise be difficult political head winds. But in deep blue Maryland, where abortion rights have been secured in state law for three decades, Democrats have bet big that abortion outrage can still yield political gains.
Saab is the chief target of that effort in the open contest for a once-Republican stronghold that, after several demographic shifts that favor Democrats, the majority party redrew into a toss-up district this year. Maryland’s legislative districts are so heavily gerrymandered, Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers and only a half-dozen Senate races are competitive in any given year.
Saab’s opponent, political newcomer and lawyer Dawn Gile, declared her candidacy before the district was redrawn to be among the competitive ones, and before the Senate Democratic Caucus zeroed in on Anne Arundel County’s District 33 and Saab’s record on abortion in the House of Delegates.
A businessman and father of three who emigrated from Lebanon at 19, Saab says he benefited from this country’s economic mobility and wants to give back. He calls the abortion ads fearmongering, an attempt to vilify anyone with a ‘R’ by their name on the ballot.
He’s “pro-life” if you have to put a label on it, he explained to the couple, but his primary issues are mental health access and constituent service, and he casts himself as a pragmatist above all else.
“Instead of fighting over things we can’t change, let’s talk about what matters,” he said, saying the abortion debate has been overtaken by extreme points of view. “Most people are closer together on this issue than you think.”
The Libertarians promised him their votes.
A gerrymander and a new line of attack
When Gile filed to run for the District 33 Senate seat as a Democrat in the summer of 2021, the youngest of her three daughters was an infant and the incumbent Republican senator had been representing the area in some fashion for nearly 20 years. A veteran Democratic lawmaker and friend estimated her chances of winning at 5 percent.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 in Maryland, but the Broadneck Peninsula and Crofton area had been a reliably Republican region for decades. The last time a Democrat represented this district in the Maryland Senate was 1999. But Gile, who also helped lead an organization to help fellow military spouses, saw her neighborhood changing and thought their voice in government should reflect that.
She had been upset that at the time, Maryland had not passed paid family leave and other policies that benefited women, and she thought incumbent Sen. Edward R. Reilly (R-Anne Arundel), a Catholic and conservative in his 70s, was out of step with the young families she knew who preferred Democrats’ approach to these issues.
Gile called everyone she could think of for advice on running a campaign, then asked each of those people for three more recommendations. She signed up for an online candidacy school. She filed for office and began knocking on doors for hours at a time in the summer heat, introducing herself to people in the district last year, before Saab filed to challenge Reilly for the GOP nomination to effect the term-limits that Saab believes in, and before Reilly said he’d retire and leave the seat open.
Democratic power brokers, including Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City), took notice of her campaign and started helping. “She’s someone that resonates as common sense, practical,” Ferguson said, calling Gile “a phenomenal candidate” who “has demonstrated a willingness to work.”
Democrats soon presided over a statewide redistricting effort that shifted the 33rd, taking out Republican-leaning precincts and adding Democratic ones, so the district that gave President Biden 52 percent of vote in 2020 now had an electorate that would have given him 59 percent of the vote.
Then, this summer, Gile said, her door-knocking conversations started to change after the nearly 50-year-old Roe precedent fell. Widespread outrage prompted protests and activism across the country. States started rolling back abortion access. Voters started asking her about abortion rights, which she said she supports, and Democrats made District 33 their top offensive target.
“For a lot of people, it’s the only issue they’re voting on,” she said.
As the state’s party machine poured resources and scores of political mail pieces into the race, the tenor shifted too. Republicans accused Gile of hating popular Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. (She says she does not.) Another attack ad said she finds taxes on the middle class “wonderful.” (She used the word to describe a paid family leave program that passed in 2022 and comes with a tax.) Another one accused her of supporting polluters. (A company she once represented as an attorney had an unrelated environmental matter.)
Saab, meanwhile, filed a $2 million defamation suit against Gile over attack ads the Democratic caucus sent out. His Oct. 12 suit alleges the mailers paint him a false light and darkened his face to make him look sinister. He said other campaign mailers unfairly linked him to a Medicaid fraud case and an unrelated sexual harassment case at two businesses that he’s associated with but does not control. One mailer said he wanted to dismantle lifesaving systems like 911. (He voted against a fee increase that expanded an ongoing modernization effort, which he’d previously voted for.) Another said he “wrote a law” removing all exceptions for rape and incest. (The failed bill he co-sponsored banned all late-term abortions.)
The lawsuit is currently scheduled for mediation.
In between houses in a hilly neighborhood where the Libertarian couple lived, Saab said in an interview the abortion mailers saying he’s the tipping point vote to restrict access really grate on him.
“Abortion law is set in Maryland. They’re only talking about it as a way to distract from crime and the economy,” Saab said, pointing out that there are only 15 Republicans in the Maryland Senate.
“We’re 15. They’re 32. How is that one vote?” he said. “Now they’ve switched it from ‘abortion’ to ‘reproductive health,’ as if I’m against reproductive health.”
During his two terms in the House of Delegates, Saab was on the House and Government Operations Committee that hears abortion legislation, which until this spring had not made it out of committee in 30 years. He voted against the two bills the Democrats advanced. One expanded access to abortion by allowing nurse midwives and other qualified non-physicians to perform abortions. (He said that was unsafe for women.) The other, which failed to advance in the Senate, would have asked voters whether to enshrine abortion rights in the Maryland Constitution. (He said that was an unnecessary political stunt.)
Over the years, Saab co-sponsored several bills that would require new mandatory data reporting on abortion; limit the types of abortions that can be done; require fetal heartbeat detection and fine doctors who don’t do it; and dictate what doctors must say to patients.
He co-sponsored, for example, a failed bill backed by antiabortion activists called the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act” three times (in 2016, 2017 and 2019), which would have curtailed access to the procedure after 20 weeks. Another bill, co-sponsored in 2019, the “Woman’s Right to Know Act,” called for a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, required signed consent that the patient was notified that Medicaid pays for prenatal care and that fathers can be required to pay child support. The act, which never got a committee vote, requires both an ultrasound of the fetus and that the images are displayed in the pregnant person’s line of sight, though the proposed law made clear the patient and physician cannot be penalized if the patient is “averting her eyes.”
Cornered on abortion
At the end of the Libertarians’ driveway, after they went back inside, Saab continued to have the conversation he didn’t want to have.
“I don’t think all people who are pro-choice want people to have abortion as birth control,” he said in an interview. So when does he think abortion should not be allowed?
“I don’t think it’s a fair question because I don’t think it’s a black and white issue,” Saab said. He said he considers it a moral issue between a person and God. But the government should still have some role in limiting it, which is why he backed the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Act.”
“Do you really want a fetus to feel pain?” he asked rhetorically, before pointing out he has empathy for people with difficult or medically risky pregnancies. “I’m not a woman. I’m not a doctor.”
Abortion fearmongering, he said, is a symptom of what’s wrong with modern politics. There’s more to agree on about abortion than not, he said, but there’s a reductivism to political messaging.
“Politics and campaigns become about nothing but hope and fear. ‘I’m going to give you hope, and my opponent is going to take away what you want.’ I don’t think campaigns should be like that. We all have so much more in common.”
The questions he wants to answer? “Ask me something that can change your life. Ask me something where I can make your life better.”
He recounted how another woman, a few days earlier, asked if he was a Republican and then slammed the door in his face.
“You’ve discounted me as a human being just because I have an ‘R’ near my name,” he said.
Sometimes, he said, he gets emails that quiz him on his positions, and they feel like a bait for a negative campaign mailer. A recent one, he said, asked “do you believe that contraceptives should be given out on college campuses?”
“I mean, why should the taxpayers pay for that?” Saab said. “You want contraceptives, go get them.”
A few moments later, a Kathy Waisman-Busch, a Democrat, crossed Saab’s path, walking her dogs. Saab tried to hand her campaign mailer. She heard he was a Republican and declined.
“Just because you’re a Democrat, it doesn’t mean we don’t have much in common,” Saab hollered after her.
“Oh, no,” she yelled over her shoulder as she marched up a hill. “We don’t.”
She turned the corner and looked him up on her phone, fuming when she saw he’s voted against expanding abortion access.
She views abortion rights as fundamental and Republicans as trying to erode them, which she finds offensive.
“It’s about a woman’s right to decide what happens to her body. There is black and white,” she said. “We’ve come so far and we could go in the wrong direction so quickly.” | 2022-11-05T21:25:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Md. Democrats emphasize abortion rights in bid to flip state senate seat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/maryland-election-abortion-midterm-saab/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/maryland-election-abortion-midterm-saab/ |
Police identify guard and customer fatally shot at Md. grocery store
Police on Saturday identified the two people fatally shot Friday at a Giant grocery store in Prince George’s County, Md., as Willie Tate, a 43-year-old security guard at the store, and Zaila Akida, 20.
Tate, of Fredericksburg, Va., tried to prevent Akida, of District Heights, Md., from stealing items from the store Friday morning, the Prince George’s County Police Department said.
Akida pulled a gun out of a backpack and shot Tate, police said, and he returned fire.
Tate was pronounced dead at the scene. Akida was transported to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead a short time later, according to police.
It was the second fatal incident at the Eastover Shopping Center in Oxon Hill, Md., this week. A man was fatally stabbed in the same shopping center on Wednesday. | 2022-11-05T22:13:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Police identify guard and customer fatally shot in grocery store - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/oxon-hill-grocery-store-double-homicide/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/05/oxon-hill-grocery-store-double-homicide/ |
Ohio State and TCU avoid upsets (college football winners and losers)
Emeka Egbuka of Ohio State and Derius Davis of TCU both scored touchdowns to help their teams stay unbeaten. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images and Ron Jenkins/AP)
Colin Goodfellow (winner)
The Aggies (loser)
Air Force (winner)
Purdue (loser)
Duke (winner)
Both Ohio State and TCU entered November with 8-0 records.
And both the Buckeyes and the Horned Frogs escaped the first weekend of the month with a victory despite some sluggishness.
And, really, that’s all that matters for a playoff contender at the moment.
Ohio State got caught in bad weather at Northwestern, a team that is no one’s idea of good and also no one’s idea of passive. The Wildcats have created some headaches with an aggressive defense at times this season, and they teamed with the conditions to limit Buckeyes quarterback C.J. Stroud to 76 yards passing.
That left it to the Ohio State defense to stymie Northwestern, which it did for the final three quarters. The final margin of 21-7 was hardly dominant, but it will be largely forgotten about if the No. 2 Buckeyes (9-0, 6-0 Big Ten) get into the barn at 13-0 early next month.
Tennessee-Georgia live updates
The same will be said of TCU’s 34-24 defeat of Texas Tech should the Horned Frogs win out. Their only touchdown before the fourth quarter was Derius Davis’s 82-yard punt return less than two minutes in, and they trailed 17-13 heading into the final period.
That changed with three trips to the end zone in less than eight minutes, the latter two coming when Texas Tech turned it over on downs in its own territory while trailing. The first of those was questionable even before Davis hauled in a 23-yard scoring strike from Max Duggan to make it 27-17. The second was sensible given the deficit.
It was not TCU’s best game, though it wasn’t an atypical one. The Horned Frogs have won three consecutive games (including Kansas State at home and at West Virginia) by exactly 10 points.
The important part, though, was the winning. If No. 7 TCU (9-0, 6-0 Big 12) continues to do so, it (like Ohio State) probably won’t hear much later about this weekend’s bit of survival.
It’s likely nobody took one for the team this week quite like Goodfellow.
The Kentucky punter was carted off after making a game-saving play late in the Wildcats’ 21-17 victory at Missouri, chasing down a terrible snap, somehow getting a punt off near the goal line and managing to draw a roughing the kicker penalty.
Colin Goodfellow with an absolutely INCREDIBLE play
Snap goes wild, he recovers and punts it away while getting ROCKED, drawing a roughing the punter penalty for a Kentucky first down.
Goodfellow got carted off after this. Hope he's okay 🙏pic.twitter.com/o0ptXMoIEB
Even without the penalty, it was a remarkable effort. Instead of Missouri taking the lead (or taking over inside the Kentucky 5), the Tigers would have probably had the ball around the Kentucky 35 with 2:25 to go. That’s not ideal, but it was much better than the alternative.
Yet with the penalty, Kentucky (6-3, 3-3 SEC) was able to avoid sending its defense out again until there were 38 seconds left — and even then, with Missouri buried deep in its territory.
Goodfellow wasn’t the one to pin the Tigers (4-5, 2-4) back there, but it hardly mattered. He’d already done more than his part to ensure the Wildcats secured bowl eligibility.
Now is not the time to pile on the much-maligned Aggies for how they fared in a 41-24 loss to Florida. Illness cost Jimbo Fisher’s team several players, and Texas A&M gamely took a 24-20 lead into the half before fading.
That said, the Aggies (3-6, 1-5 SEC) land here because a team that starts the year in the top 10 nationally shouldn’t find itself needing a three-game winning streak to close the regular season simply to reach the postseason. But that’s the fate staring at Texas A&M as it enters the final quarter of a Murphy’s Law kind of season.
The Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy heads back to Colorado for the first time since 2016 after the Falcons completed a sweep of their service academy rivals by defeating Army, 13-7.
The Falcons (6-3) turned to Brad Roberts to grind out 135 yards on 33 carries, and quarterback Haaziq Daniels accounted for Air Force’s lone touchdown with a 17-yard run in the third quarter. But much like last month’s 13-10 triumph over Navy, the Falcons won on the strength of their defense.
Army (3-5) didn’t cross midfield in any of its five second-half possessions and managed a meager 78 rushing yards on 35 attempts. It was impressive work against a Black Knights team that ranked second in the country in rushing (behind only Air Force) with 334.6 rushing yards per game.
Here’s the thing about being the perpetual joker in the Big Ten deck: The Boilermakers are bound to put together an out-of-nowhere showing at some point most years, but it also means their complete duds are incredibly puzzling.
Such was the case with a 24-3 loss to Iowa at home as the Boilermakers (5-4, 3-3 Big Ten) saw their West Division title hopes damaged. Facing one of the more pedestrian Hawkeye teams in recent memory, Purdue couldn’t generate any sort of passing attack, saw Iowa score 10 points off its two turnovers and was on the wrong end of Kaleb Johnson’s breakout 200-yard rushing day.
The Blue Devils became eligible for the postseason Friday with a 38-31 victory at Boston College. Considering Duke went a combined 5-18 over the last two seasons, it’s a significant feat for the program under first-year coach Mike Elko.
Duke (6-3, 3-2 ACC) hasn’t reached a bowl since 2018, and it has proved plenty opportunistic while collecting victories against sub-.500 teams like Northwestern, Temple and Virginia in addition to Boston College. That’s hardly a criticism; even if their schedule isn’t the most daunting, the Blue Devils have been in every game this season. Their most lopsided loss was a 35-27 setback at Kansas on Sept. 24.
Next up for Duke: Trying to clinch a winning season as Virginia Tech comes to town next week. | 2022-11-05T22:35:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | College football winners and losers for Week 10 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/college-football-winners-losers-week-10/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/college-football-winners-losers-week-10/ |
Pop singer Aaron Carter dies at age 34
Aaron Carter in 2015 (Rich Fury/Rich Fury/Invision/AP)
Aaron Carter, a pop singer who had hits in the early 2000s and was the younger brother of a Backstreet Boy, died Saturday, according to a statement from one of his representatives.
The statement from Roger Paul did not list a cause of death.
Carter, who struggled with addiction, had said he was five years sober earlier this year. He was the brother of Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter. The singer-turned-actor-turned-rapper was known for his early 2000s hits “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It),” “I Want Candy” and “That’s How I Beat Shaq.”
He released his first solo album in Europe on Dec. 1, 1997, six days before he turned 10 years old, The Washington Post reported. The album sold 1 million copies around the world, a signal of his early ascent to stardom.
Carter’s second album, released in 2000 and titled “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It),” was certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, and its title song reached 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. He was also known for “I Want Candy” from that album and “I’m All About You” from his 2001 album “Oh Aaron.” His 2001 single “That’s How I Beat Shaq” included the titular NBA player in a video on a park’s blacktop court and featured preteens dancing along to the bubble gum pop hit.
In 2013, Carter declared bankruptcy, the Tampa Bay Times reported, and a representative for the musician told the paper that a majority of his $2.2 million debt was from when he was a minor and not in control of his finances.
At the time, Carter was on his “After Party” tour, which he embarked on after a years-long hiatus in music to reinvent himself and focus on releasing new songs.
Asked what it was like to perform in 2014, while he was trying to reestablish himself on the pop scene, Carter told The Post: “It’s crazy. People lose their minds. It’s just cool to show them that I’m that guy still.”
This is a developing story that will be updated. Avi Selk contributed to this report. | 2022-11-05T22:52:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aaron Carter dies in Lancaster, Calif., authorities and family reps say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/05/aaron-carter-obituary/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/05/aaron-carter-obituary/ |
Arizona's Nick Ritchie (12) got the puck past Capitals goalie Darcy Kuemper in the final minute to hand the Capitals a 3-2 loss at Capital One Arena. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Alex Ovechkin’s ascension up the all-time goals list continued Saturday night at Capital One Arena, with his second-period strike moving him past Gordie Howe for goals with a single franchise (787). Anthony Mantha’s goal early in the third put the Washington Capitals up two, and they appeared to be cruising.
Until they weren’t. Arizona responded with three unanswered goals, finishing things off when Nick Ritchie collected a loose puck and stuffed in a rebound with 35.4 seconds remaining to hand the reeling Capitals a stunning 3-2 loss. It was Ritchie’s second goal of the night.
The Capitals have (5-6-2) lost five of six.
“Injuries don’t have anything to do with the game tonight,” Coach Peter Laviolette said. “We had a game. We were in control of it. We were up 2-0. We needed to bury it, and we didn’t. It’s on us. Injuries are part of it, and there are things we could have done on the ice to win the third period or be better in the third period.”
Ovechkin’s latest milestone goal came from his signature spot in the left circle on the power play. Mantha doubled the lead with a backhander from in tight for his fourth goal of the season.
Then it went sideways. The Coyotes (4-6-1) cut Washington’s lead in half with 13:27 remaining off a rebound from Josh Brown. Washington challenged for goaltender interference, but the call stood. Ritchie then tied it with his first goal, a blast from between the circles that slammed into the crossbar and bounced down and over the goal line. Play continued for a few beats before officials determined it to be a goal.
Coyotes netminder Karel Vejmelka finished with 34 saves. Capitals goalie Darcy Kuemper stopped 23 of 26 shots.
“Obviously, it’s a huge moment,” Ovechkin said of his milestone goal. “The last couple games it was big milestones, and unfortunately, we didn’t get the win. But it’s a special moment, and it’s nice to have both my kids, my wife, all the fans. My parents watched in Moscow. So it’s a special moment.”
Ovechkin has scored seven goals on the season and four in the past five games. He is 15 goals away from passing Howe for second on the NHL’s all-time list.
The injury-ravaged Capitals have needed Ovechkin’s offensive spark. They have scored just 10 goals in the past six games.
The injury situation didn’t get any better Saturday night. Defenseman Dmitry Orlov suffered a lower-body injury in the first period and did not return. Laviolette had no update on his status after the game. Washington was already playing without veteran defenseman John Carlson, who is on injured reserve after getting hurt last week in Nashville.
“No excuses, obviously. It starts from us leaders and we can’t blame [injuries] on it,” Ovechkin said. “We have to pull on the rope with all our hands and don’t panic and don’t think it’s over. We just have to bounce back and play together as a team and as a group.”
The loss marked the start of Washington’s four-game homestand, the longest of the season. The Capitals’ next game is Monday against Edmonton. For the Coyotes, it was their first of 14 consecutive contests on the road, matching the longest stretch of games away from home in NHL history. The extensive trip is mainly the product of scheduling conflicts for the Coyotes’ temporary home at Arizona State University.
Milano makes debut
Sonny Milano made his Capitals debut after his recall Wednesday. Signed to a one-year, $750,000 deal in mid-October, Milano, 26, recorded two goals and one assist in five games for the Bears.
Milano had a decent early chance against Arizona from the slot on his second shift of the night, but Vejmelka made the save. He had another good chance late in the first, when he and Martin Fehervary had an odd-man rush chance, but Milano’s shot was stopped by Vejmelka on the left side.
Washington claimed forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel off waivers from Toronto. The 26-year-old played in six games with the Maple Leafs and could not crack the scoresheet. Toronto signed Aube-Kubel to a one-year deal in the offseason after he recorded career highs in goals (11) and assists (11) with the Stanley Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche last season.
To make room for Aube-Kubel on their roster, the Capitals sent Garrett Pilon back to Hershey. Pilon was recalled earlier in the week but had not gotten any ice time.
Aube-Kubel, a right-handed shot, was chosen in the second round of the 2014 NHL draft by Philadelphia.
Carlson on the ice
Carlson practiced for the first time since he was injured last week. Carlson suffered a lower-body injury after an awkward collision into the boards and was retroactively placed on injured reserve. He is not eligible to play until Monday against Edmonton.
Laviolette said Saturday’s practice was encouraging but was coy about whether he would play against the Oilers. Carlson was in a full-contact jersey at Saturday’s practice.
Debut of Reverse Retros
The Capitals debuted their black Reverse Retro “screaming eagle” jersey against the Coyotes. The Capitals will wear these alternate jerseys for six additional home games this season.
Washington brought back the screaming eagle with a red, white and blue color scheme for its first Reverse Retro uniform during the 2020-21 season. This year’s Reverse Retro design combines the original screaming eagle look with the black-and-copper color scheme of the third jersey the Capitals introduced in 1997 and that replaced the team’s road blue jersey in 2000.
Kuemper also paid homage to Olie Kolzig with his new Reverse Retro goalie mask that has a depiction of Godzilla on it. Kolzig wore his signature Godzilla goalie mask during the Capitals’ 1998 Stanley Cup finals run.
Darcy's mask homage to Olie tonight is literal Godzilla breathing fire levels of perfection 🔥🦖 pic.twitter.com/yCBFgPB4VO | 2022-11-06T04:02:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals collapse against Coyotes on a milestone night for Alex Ovechkin - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/capitals-collapse-vs-coyotes-denting-alex-ovechkins-milestone/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/05/capitals-collapse-vs-coyotes-denting-alex-ovechkins-milestone/ |
Dear Amy: My husband, “Don,” battled substance abuse and addictions, major depression, anxiety, and severe sleep apnea. Don and I also had relationship issues, much like any other married couple after 20 years of marriage.
One day this past April, I learned that Don had once again stolen my legally prescribed pain medication. I became angry with him, said harsh words, and then I asked him to pack his belongings and leave.
Instead, that day, he took his own life. I called 911, and they walked me through CPR. In the end, I could not save him.
To rein in my emotions and anger, I’d like your advice on how best to respond to those questions — whether they’re from people I’ve never met or people with whom I do have a relationship.
Recovering: As a public service announcement, I’m going to remind people not to inquire about a person’s cause of death. In my (sadly extensive) experience, grieving survivors will often volunteer this information on their own after condolences are offered and they are feeling more comfortable. If this information isn’t offered — don’t ask.
My sister Rachel Dickinson has written (and illustrated) a beautiful and heartbreaking collection of essays about her own experience in grieving her son’s death. Her unique path through grief led her to some of the most remote parts of the globe — not looking for answers, necessarily, but finding her own way through. Look for her book, “The Loneliest Places: Loss, Grief, and the Long Journey Home" (2022, Cornell Press).
I have mentioned this to her a couple of times, and it almost kills me to do so, but observing others’ reactions (it is that noticeable) makes me sad. I don’t want to alienate her, but is there anything I can do to help?
Wondering: You’ve already brought this up a couple of times.
Now it’s her father’s turn. If her father corrects her (privately), she may turn to you to complain about him.
Mara: I like it. | 2022-11-06T04:15:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: People keep asking me questions about how my husband died - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/06/ask-amy-husband-suicide-death/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/06/ask-amy-husband-suicide-death/ |
Dear Carolyn: Long ago, I wanted a family — husband and children. My marriage ended in divorce 20 years ago, and fate said “no” about children. It hurt like crazy for a while, but then my niece was born and I “got over it.” I just made a choice that I didn’t want to be sad. So I took what life did give me and made it the best life I could have.
And it worked. I’m now the world’s greatest aunt to two nieces, a nephew, and one niece-in-law who all live close by. I have strong relationships with my brother and his family, and even with his wife’s family — I was part of the package when she married my brother (ha!). I have a great career, own a nice home, self-sufficient, etc. I have good friends, frequently host social gatherings, and have many hobbies. I can confidently say 99 percent of the time I feel completely satisfied and content with my life, and never lonely.
Before I got to this, however, I had other relationships that ended with me picking up the pieces of my broken heart. Once it was also a broken bank account, another I had to get a restraining order. After those situations, part of my “best life” plan was basically to take relationships off that table for a while — obviously I needed to work on something to make better choices.
That “break” turned into a lifestyle. I just didn’t want to risk my peace with it anymore.
Even though everyone I know thinks one day I’m “going to find the right guy,” I don’t know if I would ever take the chance. I have zero tolerance for anything that makes me the slightest bit uncomfortable. My life is my sanctuary now.
A few close friends think I have an unhealthy fear about love and need to be open to meeting someone. They are always trying to introduce me to people, and it’s always a very firm NO WAY! from me! I think I’m happy and don’t need anything else … but there’s that other 1 percent of the time, I wonder sometimes if I’m punishing myself for those bad choices. What do you think? Should I trust my feelings of contentment, or am I lying to myself out of fear?
— Happy?
Happy?: I have so many questions.
If fake happiness is that hard to distinguish from real happiness, then why bother?
Why do these friends want a relationship for you more than you do?
What is it about being single that becomes a mission for those who aren’t?
When someone says she’s happy, what kind of friend corrects her?
If your 99 percent is accurate, then make that unusually happy, in a society that recently was urged en masse to get some help.
I don’t think you’re lying to yourself or working so so hard to talk up your own happiness that you’re scaring your friends.
But even if you are, I won’t tell you that or advise you to fix it, because that’s not the answer. A blind-date vending machine isn’t the answer, either.
It’s for you to figure out for yourself that something isn’t working and make the changes you see fit.
We both know you can do this because you’ve already done this: When several relationships went awry, you saw the problem and dealt with it.
So trust yourself to judge not only your own happiness, but also unhappiness. You’ll know when it’s time to act. Meanwhile, seeing your life as a “sanctuary” gives you the patience and strength to add people only when they’re good for you (vs. good for your friends).
Tell yourself this, tell your friends this, then tell the squirrels in your yard this so your friends will have more interesting reasons to worry about you.
Hi CH: I canceled out on a get-together the night before. The hostess was deeply hurt, and another friend was furious at me for hurting Friend 1. She lambasted me in a text that day. I did NOT want to hurt my friend but saw no alternative.
I am still angry at Friend 2. She hurt me deeply and on purpose. But was she correct to stand up for Friend 1?
Anonymous: She’s certainly entitled to her opinion.
But I wonder why 2 felt she needed to speak for 1 — seems either infantilizing, if 2 felt 1 couldn’t speak adequately for herself, or presumptuous, if 2 felt the response wouldn’t be adequate without her input.
I also wonder why, when you “saw no alternative,” your friends didn’t either ask you why you bailed (if they didn’t know) or respect your reasons for bailing (if they did know). Etiquette does allow for a guest to cancel last minute, disappointing and inconveniencing the host; it just needs to be for something worse, not better. Contagion, calamity, incarceration — but never a sexier social offer.
So why didn’t they agree your canceling was unavoidable? Therein lies the answer to who isn’t behaving like a friend. | 2022-11-06T04:15:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Did 'world's greatest aunt' give up on love too soon? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/06/carolyn-hax-give-up-love/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/06/carolyn-hax-give-up-love/ |
Dusty Baker celebrates his first World Series title as a manager after the Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-1, in Game 6 Saturday night in Houston. (Harry How/Getty Images)
HOUSTON — As many of the Houston Astros celebrated their World Series championship on the Minute Maid Park field Saturday night, a smaller, just as exuberant celebration broke out in the near corner of the home dugout. It was there that his coaches and players piled on Manager Dusty Baker, who had just won his first World Series title in 30 years of managing with a 4-1 Game 6 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
In the end, the winning equation was simple: Framber Valdez threw six dominant innings. Yordan Alvarez hit a three-run homer in the sixth to give the Astros a lead. Their dominant bullpen held it. Perhaps, after all that, Baker had endured the difficult part already.
The Astros completed a stunning postseason run in which they lost two games on their way to their second title in six years — their first since the sign-stealing scandal that forced them to clear out their coaching staff, the one that left them in need of a manager capable of weathering inherited storms to come. Jeremy Peña, who had 10 hits and three RBI in 25 at-bats, was the first rookie position player to be named World Series MVP.
Whether this win qualifies as redemption for the Astros’ tainted 2017 title is a question for the collective baseball consciousness, which can rarely agree on much of anything. But one of the things it does agree on is Baker, a presence beloved around the sport. He is not a perfect manager. He is not a perfect person, something he has brought up many times since taking over here. The Astros made mistakes, he says. But so has every single person that boos them, and so has he.
Fortunately, baseball does not reward perfection. It rewards resilience. It unearths truth. And the truth about Baker, three decades into his managerial career, is that few people in this game are as universally respected — as constantly, consistently, kind.
As the rest of the industry rooted for him, Baker trained himself not to need a title. He had come to terms with a legacy that didn’t include one; he said no one would make him feel like a failure, not with 2,093 regular season wins to his name — ninth most all-time, trailing only Hall of Famers.
But he didn’t take new jobs, again and again, just to put himself in a position to be fired, to answer questions about every decision, to be told he wasn’t analytical enough to handle this data-driven era. No, Baker always had a feeling that fate played a role in this, that something bigger was at work. And for years, he was left to hope that whatever that something was, it would lead him here eventually. When Kyle Tucker caught the final out Saturday night, Baker became the oldest manager to win a World Series title, at 73.
Baker hadn’t been on the verge of a title like this in 20 years. The Astros never got within a win of a title last season. But on Saturday, he did the usual pregame handshaking of friends and celebrities, adding country star George Strait to his long, long list of famous acquaintances. He leaned on the cage during Astros batting practice, and as usual, several people made their way over to lean with him, just to chat.
And he admitted that he was holding back emotion. At times in his pregame news conference, he seemed nervous. At other times, such as when he described the support he feels from African Americans around Houston and the sport, when he talked about the responsibility that comes with his role as the most visible Black manager in baseball history, one for which he never asked.
He talked about souls that came before him. With each passing season, he watched friends and loved ones go, watched younger men leave the sport or pass away, watched the game move into an era in which he sometimes thought he had no place. Earlier this postseason, Baker speculated that he might have “10 to 12 more years” left, and the implication was that he meant on the earth, not merely in the sport. He has never shied away from his mortality. But he never let the World Series dream die, either.
His son, Darren, was a 3-year-old batboy the first time he got this chance, too young to know what was happening, small enough for Giants first baseman J.T. Snow to pluck him out of harm’s way in one of the more iconic images of recent baseball history. Darren was there Saturday, too, old enough to share in champagne celebration — old enough to know exactly how much this means.
Baker started his hunt for a title before Darren was even born. He managed 10 years before he got to his first World Series. That was 20 years ago now, two decades during which Baker wondered whether his decision to pull starting pitcher Russ Ortiz from what could have been a decisive Game 6 would be his World Series legacy. The Giants’ bullpen couldn’t hold the lead Baker handed it.
Valdez was born a few weeks after Baker wrapped up his first season as a manager in 1993. Baker probably wouldn’t have this title without him. The lefty entered Saturday’s start having allowed three total earned runs in three postseason starts this year. He left Saturday having allowed four earned runs in four postseason starts this year. At one point, he struck out the first five batters in the Phillies order in a row, the second lefty in World Series history to do so. The only other one was a guy named Sandy Koufax.
But Phillies starter Zack Wheeler matched him nearly every step of the way. They both pitched into the fifth without allowing a runner to get to third base, let alone to score. In fact, it was Valdez who blinked first when he allowed a no-doubt homer to Kyle Schwarber in the sixth. Then the Astros put two men on in the bottom of the inning. Now it was Rob Thomson who had to decide how best to hold a lead in a potentially decisive World Series game — to stick with Wheeler, who had been dominant, or to go to his top reliever and cross his fingers.
And it was Thomson who would be left wondering for years to come what might have been because the first batter Jose Alvarado faced was Yordan Alvarez. Alvarez hit a three-run homer 450 feet to center field. Baker was nine outs away.
When Alvarez got back to the dugout, Baker was down at the end furthest from home plate, a different spot than normal. Alvarez made his way all the way down, climbed the steps, and shared a high-five with Baker that might well have been the most vehement either man had ever shared in his life. Legend has it that Baker invented that move during his playing days. Baker’s life has never been short on legend. In fact, it hadn’t been short on much of anything — save a World Series win as a manager.
The curse got his promising Cubs in the 2003 NLCS. His Reds were never quite complete enough. The Nationals twice pushed division series showings to five games on his watch, but they fell a hit or a play or a break short both times.
The second time, in 2017, ownership would not work out a contract extension ahead of the playoffs. After the Nationals lost Game 5, he waited a few days to wrap up a deal. It didn’t happen, so he flew back to California assuming it would happen there instead. He got a phone call, not a contract. And he found himself out of a job at 70, torn from the team he thought would finally get him the title he desired. Two years later, he watched one of his mentees, Dave Martinez, lead them to it instead.
A week or so ago, Nationals owner Mark Lerner called him to congratulate him, to wish him well. This is Baker’s experience in the sport he loves, treasured until he isn’t, cast aside at the whims of a fickle sport. But that fickle sport gave him one last complicated chance when the Astros needed a fresh start. And as fate would have it, that last chance came with one of the most successful organizations in the sport. Had the Nationals not fired him, had the scandal never happened… well, Baker learned long ago that what he wanted wasn’t always going to be what he got, nor always what he needed.
But on Saturday, Baker got the title he wanted, the title everyone said he needed. The quest that has consumed most of his later adult life is now complete. But Baker has always insisted that if he won one World Series, he would win two. After all that, he will be happy to have a chance to test the theory. | 2022-11-06T04:28:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Astros win World Series as Dusty Baker finally manages a champion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/06/astros-dusty-baker-win-world-series/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/06/astros-dusty-baker-win-world-series/ |
Heba Farouk Mahfouz
Mahmoud Shawky and his wife, Rana Ragab, 32, pose with their five children in their home in Cairo on Nov. 1. (Sima Diab for The Washington Post)
GIZA, Egypt — In her crowded neighborhood on the west bank of the Nile River, her friends call her “the mother of children.”
At 32, Rana Ragab already has five kids — and just found out she is pregnant with her sixth. She and her husband, a butcher, are thrilled.
The Egyptian government, though, sees families their size as a grave threat to the country — and has spent millions of dollars over the past several years trying to convince parents to have fewer children.
The state’s longtime anxiety over its birthrate is shared by many other countries in Africa, where natural resources and social services are struggling to keep pace with fast-growing populations. Nigeria has more than twice as many people as Egypt. The population of Ethiopia — locked in a longtime fight with Egypt over access to the Nile — has reached 121 million. More than one billion people already live in Africa. By 2050, the populations of at least 26 African countries are expected to double.
The government in Cairo says the issue is more urgent than ever, as rising temperatures increasingly threaten the country’s food and water supplies — topics that will be near the top of the agenda during the U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, that begins Sunday in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
In Egypt, birth and fertility rates are gradually declining — just not fast enough. For the country to create enough jobs and improve national living standards, and to avoid resource shortages, it would need to reduce its yearly births from more than 2 million last year to around 400,000, the government has said. But more than 1 million babies were born in the last seven months alone — bringing the total population to 104 million, a nearly fivefold increase since the country won independence in the 1950s.
This arid country is on the front lines of climate change — as temperatures continue to rise, Egypt will be increasingly vulnerable to sea level rise, water shortages, and extreme weather, experts predict, including heat waves and dust storms.
According to Egypt’s 2021 family health survey, around 65 percent of married women between the ages of 15 and 49 were using modern family planning — an increase of 8 percentage points from 2014. Around 63 percent of those using contraceptives said they obtained them from government-run facilities.
Late last month, she sent a Washington Post reporter a photo of her pregnancy test — two pink lines on the small white screen. “I have good news for you. I took a test and am pregnant!” she said in a voice note. | 2022-11-06T08:28:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As climate change worsens, Egypt is begging families to have fewer kids - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/06/egypt-cop27-climate-change-population/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/06/egypt-cop27-climate-change-population/ |
By Joyce Lau
Hong Kong Sevens fans dressed up as the coronavirus to mark the first time the rugby tournament has taken place since the initial outbreak. (Vernon Yuen/AP)
HONG KONG — For the first time in more than three years, thousands of revelers packed a sports stadium to watch the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens, a three-day tournament that ends Sunday. With drinks in hand and masks off (or at least under the chin), they danced to local bands, watched fireworks and donned the silly costumes that have become the event’s trademark.
The Hong Kong Rugby Sevens was last held in 2019, before the city imposed anti-coronavirus border closures and social distancing restrictions in early 2020. While rules are relatively relaxed now compared with mainland China, Hong Kong still requires masking in public spaces, use of a cellphone tracking app and medical quarantine for some positive cases.
In September, the government said it would abolish mandatory quarantine for travelers, easing rigid pandemic rules that have pummeled the economy and fueled an exodus of residents.
Poking gentle fun at the rules, spectators at the rugby tournament dressed up as government QR codes, or even the coronavirus itself.
Several visitors discovered to their dismay that they could not enter the stadium. Hong Kong’s covid-19 app — which gives users a green, amber or red code — bars anyone who flies into the city from entering certain venues, such as restaurants or bars, for three days.
After local media outlets picked up on the case of Renier Du Plessis, a barred South African tourist who become known as #AmberCodeMan on Twitter, he was finally allowed in.
More than 25,000 tickets were sold for the Hong Kong event, which is part of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series circuit. This year, 16 men’s teams are competing, fewer than in past years, when up to 24 teams played and some women’s teams were included.
Just days earlier, Hong Kong’s first major financial summit since the start of the pandemic had concluded with rousing declarations that the “worst is behind us.” | 2022-11-06T08:28:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Costumed Hong Kong Rugby Sevens fans celebrate end of covid hiatus - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/06/hong-kong-rugby-sevens-covid-costumes/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/06/hong-kong-rugby-sevens-covid-costumes/ |
The annual wildebeest migration from Tanzania to Kenya. A drought in the region has caused mass animal deaths. (Joe Mwihia/AP)
Among the deaths related to the drought are 512 wildebeests, 430 zebras, 205 elephants and 51 buffalo.
The report provides insight into the effects of a years-long drought on wildlife in the area, as the United Nations and other organizations have for months warned about the humanitarian impact.
“In Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, we are on the brink of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” Guleid Artan, director of the World Meteorological Organization’s climate center for East Africa, said in August. This season is the “fifth consecutive failed rainy season” in the region, he said.
Kenya’s secretary of tourism and wildlife, Peninah Malonza, said at the news conference Friday announcing the figures that the country was attempting to intervene by providing hay, water and “enhanced surveillance of wildlife outside protected areas to reduce human-wildlife conflicts.”
The figures come as world leaders gather in Egypt on Sunday for COP27, the annual U.N. climate change summit. Amina J. Mohammed, deputy secretary general of the United Nations, called on richer nations to focus on providing climate assistance to developing nations in Africa, writing in an op-ed that the “worsening climate chaos is wreaking havoc across” the continent.
Among the 430 zebras killed by the drought, 49 are Grevy’s zebra, an endangered species with only about 3,000 estimated to be left in the wild, according to the Grevy’s Zebra Trust, which assisted in collecting data for the report. The deaths come despite ongoing feeding programs in the area, the report said.
Elephants were also impacted, especially young ones, which are not tall enough to reach up to higher food sources, it said. In the Amboseli ecosystem, in southwest Kenya — which is home to about 1,900 elephants — 76 elephants died; 45 of them were juveniles who died of malnutrition “since the mothers could not produce enough milk.”
The deaths are a “stark reminder of the devastating impact of climate change on biodiversity,” said Sophie le Clue, chief executive of ADM Capital Foundation, an environmental nonprofit organization. “The world is facing a biodiversity crisis as we face unprecedented species extinctions globally,” she said, adding that the problem “remains far from being a priority on political agendas.”
The report recommended the “urgent and immediate” supply of water and salt licks — a source of minerals — in the ecosystems affected by the drought. It also called for the supply of hay for Grevy’s zebra in the country’s northern region to be “enhanced” during November and December to cover a wider area.
In the Amboseli ecosystem an “urgent total aerial census of wildlife” should be conducted, it said, before the next rainy season — this spring — to evaluate the effects of the drought. | 2022-11-06T10:28:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Zebras, elephants among hundreds of deaths in Kenya due to drought - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/06/zebra-elephants-kenya-drought-deaths/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/06/zebra-elephants-kenya-drought-deaths/ |
Rescuers in boats are seen around the tail fin of a crashed Precision Air passenger aircraft on the shores of Lake Victoria in Bukoba, in western Tanzania Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. The small passenger plane crashed Sunday morning into Lake Victoria near Bukoba airport and the company Precision Air said the flight was coming from the coastal city of Dar es Salaam, though it was not immediately clear how many people were on board. (AYO TV via AP) (Uncredited/AYO TV)
NAIROBI, Kenya — A small passenger plane crashed Sunday morning into Lake Victoria on approach to an airport in Tanzania. | 2022-11-06T10:28:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tanzania: Small passenger plane crashes into Lake Victoria - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/reports-precision-air-plane-crashes-into-lake-in-tanzania/2022/11/06/dd875d3e-5da8-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/reports-precision-air-plane-crashes-into-lake-in-tanzania/2022/11/06/dd875d3e-5da8-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html |
Alex Spiro went from representing Jay-Z to participating in one of the biggest technology company overhauls in years.
Alex Spiro exits federal court in New York in 2018. (Louis Lanzano/Bloomberg News)
The 39-year-old lawyer has become a central figure in Elon Musk’s inner circle, tapped by the billionaire as one of a small group of men to enact his shock doctrine takeover of the company. Spiro has quickly risen to be one of Musk’s closest lieutenants, confidants and consiglieres.
Evidence of Spiro’s meteoric rise could be felt throughout the social media company on Thursday and Friday, when a large portion of the company’s workforce was terminated while Musk frantically tried to stop an exodus of advertisers. Musk has assumed the public face of Twitter’s overhaul, but Spiro has done a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes on virtually all legal matters. Musk has built an inner circle that relies on people with an indefatigable work ethic and a strong sense of loyalty, traits that Spiro embodies.
He first worked for the billionaire back in 2019, when he helped quash a defamation lawsuit brought by a British diver who Musk called a “pedo guy” during one of his Twitter fights. His role in Musk-world skyrocketed, however, after he helped lead Musk’s doomed legal argument that he should be able to back out of the legal contract he signed to buy Twitter earlier this year.
Musk would ultimately reverse himself, again, and decide to buy the company after all. That deal — which Musk closed last month for $44 billion — has launched a new chapter in Spiro’s career. Hours after Musk closed the acquisition and fired Twitter’s CEO and three other top executives, Spiro gained oversight of Twitter’s legal, marketing, and trust and safety teams, which are responsible for Twitter’s elections work, according to four people familiar with Spiro’s role who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
A spokesperson for Twitter did not return a request for comment. It couldn’t be learned whether Musk plans for Spiro to play a longer-term role with the company or was just brought in to be part of the immediate shake up.
Spiro isn’t the only one in Musk’s inner circle taking an active role. Jason Calacanis, an investor, podcaster and associate of Musk, has been pitching ideas for new features for Twitter and meeting with advertisers to try to assure them about the company’s new direction. David Sacks, who worked with Musk years ago at PayPal and has been a successful venture investor since then, is also on board.
But Spiro is unique in his lack of previous corporate experience. He’s been a lawyer since 2008, and though he has extensive white-collar defense experience, he isn’t a trained manager.
Musk is a lawyer’s nightmare. He tweets constantly, getting in spats with celebrities, politicians and random strangers. Sometimes his unserious musings run up against the fact that he helms several giant companies, including one that’s publicly-traded, leading to lawsuits and fees.
He churns through lawyers, once cutting ties with a major law firm because they refused to fire an employee he didn‘t like. Tesla, his electric vehicle company, has had three legal heads in the past two years.
Spiro has worked for years as a defense lawyer, representing some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment, including Aaron Hernandez, Jay-Z, Chance the Rapper and Naomi Osaka. His rapid rise to the center of Musk’s inner circle, and his newfound responsibility for helping run Twitter, shows how the tech billionaire prizes loyalty and tenacity over experience and a traditional skill set.
What Musk might mean for cybersecurity at Twitter
“He’s got a dogged personality and he will get after and continue to get after an issue until he gets what he wants,” said Ronald Sullivan, a professor at Harvard Law School who has had Spiro help him teach a class on trial litigation and has worked on a handful of cases with him.
While a typical partner at a corporate firm might have six or seven years-long trials going on at once, Spiro is often working 30 to 40 shorter ones at once. “He is in constant motion,” Sullivan said. “That is Alex personified, he seems to have unlimited wells of energy and he takes on all sorts of cases.”
Spiro grew up in Massachusetts and stayed local for college — studying psychology at Tufts University. While there he worked at Harvard’s psychiatric hospital, working with children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, and considered going on to medical school, he told Harvard’s newspaper the Crimson in 2020.
But he opted for law instead, telling the Crimson he saw it as a better way to fight for the issues he cared about. He graduated from Harvard Law in 2008 and did a fellowship at the Central Intelligence Agency before getting a job as a prosecutor in the New York County District Attorney’s office. In 2013 he got a job as a defense lawyer at Brafman & Associates, a New York City law firm with big-name clients including pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli and former movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
In 2014 he represented rapper Bobby Shmurda who was charged in a 69-count indictment that included murder. The trial went viral, with hip-hop fans mounting a campaign called “free bobby shmurda” that was part internet meme, part protest the U.S. prison system.
The Shmurda case brought new media attention to Spiro and landed him on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” Comedian Roy Wood Jr. presented him with champagne and a cake that said “You did it,” for winning the case. Spiro responded in a serious tone, saying he warned his client it was incredibly risky to not take a plea deal and go to trial with the case.
Since then, he’s represented a parade of famous clients. In 2016 he helped represent former NFL player Aaron Hernandez who was standing trial for allegedly killing two men, while appealing his conviction on a different murder charge. The tragic case had a tragic ending, as Hernandez was acquitted in the double murder trial but died by suicide days later. Spiro went on to win a lawsuit for former NBA player Thabo Sefolosha against the New York Police Department for using excessive force against him. He represented several other famous people including musician and investor Jay-Z, billionaire owner of the New England Patriots Robert Kraft, and tennis star Naomi Osaka.
Elon Musk claims ‘pedo guy’ is actually a South African insult that doesn’t mean pedophile
During a Twitter spat, Musk called Unsworth a “pedo guy.” In court documents, Musk was quoted saying that emailing unverified information about Unsworth to a reporter in hopes it would lead to an investigation was “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done.”
Since then, he’s represented Musk in a range of legal situations. He defended Musk in a fight with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused him of breaking an earlier agreement not to tweet about Tesla’s share price after he said online that he was taking Tesla private at $420 a share — a marijuana reference. He took on the Alameda County health department when it shut down a Tesla factory during the early months of the pandemic out of concern over coronavirus transmission. And he defended Musk in another defamation lawsuit brought by an online critic of Tesla.
He’s taken some unusual approaches in his work for Musk. In a filing in the SEC case, he quoted lyrics from the 2002 Eminem Song “Without Me.” “The [SEC] won’t let me be or let me be me so let me see,” the filing said. “They tried to shut me down …”
Tesla demands removal of video of cars hitting child-size mannequins
When The Washington Post reported in August that a former Twitter security chief was accusing the company of having bad cybersecurity practices, Spiro successfully fought for Musk to be able to amend his complaint against Twitter, arguing in court that the whistleblower’s allegations showed the company was not forthcoming during discovery.
Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been celebrated by conservative politicians and media figures as a win because the billionaire has criticized the company’s content moderation policies and said banning former president Donald Trump was a mistake. Sacks, another prominent member of Musk’s inner circle who has been active at the company over the last week, is a conservative media figure in his own right.
But Spiro is harder to pin down. He hasn’t publicly aligned himself with either political party, but he has worked with left-leaning groups on efforts to change the criminal justice system. He serves as an adviser to the charitable organization United Justice Coalition, alongside CNN commentator Van Jones and Rashad Robinson, the president of the civil rights group Color of Change, which coincidentally is one of the organizations which called for an advertiser boycott on Twitter out of concern that layoffs would affect the company’s ability to police its platform for hate speech.
He also has connections in the Washington-area. Earlier this year, he attended the White House correspondents’ garden brunch that was also attended by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Anthony Fauci and prominent media figures.
At Twitter, Spiro is already working as a conduit for Musk, a loyalist the billionaire can trust to steer the company in his absence. During the first week of Musk’s ownership, the new CEO did not hold any all-company meetings or send out an email acknowledging he was now in charge. But as workers shared intel and tried to piece together what the new normal of their company was, one name kept coming up as someone who was making decisions: Alex Spiro. | 2022-11-06T11:21:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alex Spiro, Musk's lawyer, plays key role in Twitter overhaul. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/06/alex-spiro-musk-twitter-lawyer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/06/alex-spiro-musk-twitter-lawyer/ |
The billionaire has installed several members of his inner circle to enact his vision for the social media platform
The Twitter offices in San Francisco in May 2020. (Winni Wintermeyer/For The Washington Post)
Late last month, Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter and immediately fired four of the company’s most senior executives.
In their place, he’s installed a small council of lieutenants to assess the company and begin implementing his vision. The group includes Musk’s personal lawyer, his chief of staff, a couple investor friends and a former Twitter executive who left the company years ago.
The new regime has already started mass layoffs, discussed the company’s content moderation plans and sent out orders to employees to begin working on a paid verification feature. They also met with advertisers who provide Twitter with most of its revenue and have shown concern over how Musk might run the company.
It’s not clear long this group will be running Twitter, but for now, they’re tasked with keeping the company going and ramping up its revenue. Here’s a run-down of who they are.
The world’s richest man with a net worth around $200 billion according to Bloomberg News, has long been a power user of the social network. As owner, he refers to himself as “Chief Twit” and on Monday a financial filing from the company confirmed he was the official chief executive. Musk already helms several other companies, including Tesla and SpaceX. As Twitter’s new owner, he wields tremendous power to steer the company, from changing the site’s approach to content moderation to enacting dramatic cuts to Twitter’s workforce, to pushing users to pay for using the site.
Musk has a hands-on management style, and has spoken in the past about sleeping in the Tesla factory to make sure work was on schedule. He’s taking a similar approach to Twitter already, with one employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity saying that Musk was micromanaging individual projects. On Twitter, he’s been busy replying to suggestions from individuals about how to change the company, as well as responding to complaints about accounts being unfairly locked.
A tech investor, podcast host and longtime Musk associate, Calacanis’ texts with Musk were among those that appeared in court documents released as part of Twitter’s lawsuit to force Musk to buy the company. Calacanis pitched Musk ideas on how to change Twitter before the acquisition. And now that Musk is formally the owner, Calacanis has been on Twitter soliciting feedback from users on what kind of features they want to see.
In his private texts to Musk, Calacanis suggested that Twitter require employees return to the office for at least two days a week, which he said would reduce the workforce by 20 percent, through “voluntary departures.” He also criticized Twitter’s premium features and proposed expanding verified badges to more users, the messages show. In private texts, he told Musk that becoming the new chief executive of Twitter is his “dream job.” He’s not CEO, but Musk has kept Calacanis around as part of the transition and his title is listed internally as a software engineer. On Monday, Calacanis tweeted that he was in New York to meet with advertisers on behalf of Twitter.
Birchall is one of Musk’s closest advisers and manages the billionaire’s personal fortune as head of his family office since 2016. He’s a former Morgan Stanley wealth manager and helped set up the financing for Musk’s Twitter buyout.
Birchall also serves as chief executive of Neuralink, Musk’s brain interface tech start-up and as a director of his tunneling company, Boring Co., though it’s unclear if he actually wields power there or is simply in charge on paper. Birchall is Musk’s fixer, helping arrange the purchase and sale of his houses and the hiring of security guards, according to Bloomberg. Over the last few days, Birchall has been one of the people strategizing inside Twitter.
A lawyer at New York law firm Quinn Emanuel, Spiro has become a bigger and bigger figure in Musk’s orbit over the past few years. He helped Musk win a defamation lawsuit for his comments insulting a cave diver he got into a Twitter fight with over the rescue of a Thai boys soccer team several years ago. Spiro has also represented a roster of famous athletes and musicians, including Aaron Hernandez in his 2016 murder trial and Jay-Z in a business dispute over a perfume endorsement deal. When Twitter sued Musk for backing out of his deal to buy the company earlier this year, Spiro helped lead the billionaire’s defense. Musk gave up on getting out of buying Twitter, but he’s kept Spiro on.
The lawyer is now managing the legal, government relations, policy and marketing teams at Twitter, according to four people familiar with internal discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He was also involved in the layoff plan that went into effect in recent days.
Sacks has worked with Musk since the two were part of PayPal’s team in the early 2000s. They both made fortunes when the company sold, and Sacks has invested in a string of successful start-ups since then, including Airbnb, Facebook and Uber. He’s also become a conservative media figure and a major Republican donor who helped fund the successful recall of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin earlier this year. In September, he wrote an article advocating for a referendum in Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine asking residents if they wanted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, an idea Musk later tweeted himself.
Sacks recently appeared in a Twitter company directory with an official Twitter email and the title “staff software engineer,” according to photos obtained by The Post.
Krishnan helps lead cryptocurrency investments at Silicon Valley venture capital heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz, which invested $400 million in Musk’s Twitter acquisition. He’s also worked in product development positions at Facebook, Snapchat and, from 2017 till 2019 at Twitter. On Monday he said he was helping Musk out at Twitter “temporarily.” It’s unclear exactly what Krishnan is doing, but he’s the only one in Musk’s team that has actually worked at Twitter before. | 2022-11-06T11:22:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elon Musk owns Twitter. These are the men he put in charge - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/06/elon-musk-inner-circle/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/06/elon-musk-inner-circle/ |
John Fetterman gives us a chance to banish eugenic ideas of fitness
Our ideas about what makes someone fit are deeply rooted in eugenics. Rethinking them could produce better policies and insights.
Perspective by Jaipreet Virdi
Jaipreet Virdi is a historian of medicine, technology and disability at the University of Delaware, and author of "Hearing Happiness: Deafness Cures in History."
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic candidate for Senate, acknowledges supporters during a campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Thursday. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
Democrat John Fetterman’s performance in Pennsylvania’s lone Senate debate provoked intense discussions about his fitness for office while recovering from a stroke. Fetterman’s verbal stumbles and pauses intensified Republican accusations that his health is too frail to withstand the job of a senator, even as doctors and disability advocates pushed back on these charges.
But while some saw Fetterman’s halting speech and need for closed captioning as evidence of cognitive impairment, the conversation surrounding his fitness is premised on bias and ableism. The polished, articulate and groomed image we associate with the ideal politician means that anyone who does not meet this ideal is considered subpar — and hence “unfit.” But that understanding of what makes someone capable of holding office is actually rooted in eugenics.
In 1883, British polymath Sir Francis Galton first developed eugenics as a science for improving the inborn qualities of the human race. Eugenics swept into American society around the turn of the 20th century as a Progressive solution for addressing widespread problems caused by groups deemed “socially inadequate.”
As far as eugenicists were concerned, science said “moral” deficiencies were hereditary and threatened the health of the nation. That meant the solution to social problems like criminality, promiscuity and poverty was targeting the “morally degenerate” for institutionalization and sterilization. As Galton envisioned it, human betterment was only possible through consistent, scientific intervention brought about by eugenics: “What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.”
Yet, at its core, eugenics simply applied a scientific gloss to existing race, class and gender prejudices. Immigrants, disabled people and racial and ethnic minorities were among those labeled socially “unfit.” As historian Natalie Lira explains, new terms such as “moron,” “imbecilic,” “feebleminded” and “degenerate” branded those who ran afoul of these existing prejudices. And their supposed lack of fitness was deemed detrimental to the future of the race — which made these groups susceptible to fundamental infringements on their freedom.
The language of eugenics bore deep roots in American culture that spilled over into every aspect of life. The eugenic impulse created perceptions about what kinds of traits were “desirable” — intelligence, health, appearance and success — and therefore who should reproduce to propagate normal or superior traits, and who shouldn’t.
Controlling human reproduction through better breeding was a must. In a 1914 article in the Virginia Law Review, for instance, J. Miller Kenyon argued that sterilization should be performed “upon all of the unfit, a class that includes not only the insane, the criminal insane, but rapists, syphilitics, and degenerates.” Such arguments extended to the “disabled” — a label equated with being defective — leading to the involuntary sterilization of 60,000 disabled people over the course of the 20th century.
What justified such draconian ideas? The good of society as a whole.
Such stakes justified the adoption of deeply unequal and bigoted policies. In 1919, for instance, Detroit police revoked licenses held by deaf drivers after legislation barred “defectives” from operating motor vehicles; over the next 20 years, deaf people had to beat back proposals to ban deaf drivers in many other states as well.
The exclusionary power of eugenic fitness significantly shaped how Americans perceived disabled and chronically ill people. If the goal of eugenics was to define the normal, fit and genetically superior individual, then the logical corollary was that everyone who didn’t meet that standard should be subjugated. It especially made them unfit for positions of power.
This understanding compelled disabled politicians to take tremendous strides to conceal their disabilities from the public. Though many voters were aware of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bout with polio, Roosevelt took great pains to hide his inability to walk and to project strength and virility — using canes, leg braces and even the Secret Service to “walk” — to avoid being perceived as weak, even as opponents launched whispering campaigns declaring he was not “fit” for presidency. Several of Roosevelt’s successors also hid significant ailments: Dwight D. Eisenhower had Crohn’s disease and the public perceptions of John F. Kennedy’s youthful vigor were only possible because he hid the impact of Addison’s disease and other medical issues.
But the work of disability activists in the decades after World War II began to change what was politically possible for the disabled. They protested against ableist ideologies that viewed disabled people as inherently deficient, and argued discriminatory policies needed to change. Energized by other civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the activists forged coalitions with disabled war veterans, student activists and other groups, with their efforts culminating in what lobbyist Patrisha Wright labeled the “golden age of disability rights legislation,” including Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).
Massive moral and legal victories, Section 504 and the ADA paved the way for increased accommodations and opportunities for disabled Americans to hold office — with more and more disabled candidates appearing on the ballot in each election, especially at the local and state levels. For the first time, disability exclusion in public spaces was viewed as discrimination and these laws guaranteed protection for disabled people to ensure they had the same opportunities for employment, education and housing. That counteracted eugenicists’ insistence that it would be better for society to segregate and sterilize disabled people. It also helped credential potential disabled candidates and transformed the way Americans viewed them.
Despite these gains, as disability rights advocate Sarah Blahovec writes, too often disabled candidates still face increased scrutiny, see their autonomy denied or their agency stripped. Indeed, bias, inaccessibility and ableist prejudices not only prevent disabled people from running for office, but studies have indicated voters tend to follow a “hierarchy of impairments” when determining whether a candidate is fit for office. They disavow candidates who have heavily stigmatized conditions or disabilities — such as deafness, blindness, bipolar disorder, cancer or HIV — that they perceive might hamper their ability to function effectively. Indeed, researchers Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse reported in 2019 that the percentage of elected officials who are disabled — one in 10, with the most common disabilities being hearing impairment and mobility impairments — remains below the nearly 16 percent of the adult population who is disabled.
Disabled people have long fought for inclusive spaces for themselves within society and politics and challenged ableist assumptions about their lives and worth, for they know firsthand how every policy is essentially a disability issue, from employment and health care to mass incarceration and voting. And they know that they can handle any job — as disabled design advocate Liz Jackson emphasizes, disabled people are the “original lifehackers,” people who adapt to their circumstances and make their way through the abled world by creating new objects and pathways that allow them full participation.
These skills — and the unique perspective they provide — help explain why jettisoning the ideas shaped by eugenics about disability would benefit American society and government. The need for adaptation and accommodations is not a character flaw but an opportunity to examine the world through different perspectives. Seeing the world through these lenses could inject new understandings into our government and produce policies that will collectively benefit us all.
Instead of a liability, disability can be a strength for bringing new ideas and insights to our government. While John Fetterman’s auditory processing problems may run afoul of traditional standards about fitness for office, his candidacy gives us an opportunity to reevaluate ideas that are long out-of-date. | 2022-11-06T11:26:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fetterman's stroke gives us a chance to banish eugenics-based ideas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/04/john-fetterman-eugenics-stroke-fitness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/04/john-fetterman-eugenics-stroke-fitness/ |
What to watch with your kids: ‘Good Night Oppy’ and more
Good Night Oppy (PG)
Inspiring doc about Mars rovers has teamwork, curiosity.
“Good Night Oppy” is an inspiring, educational documentary that showcases the amazing accomplishment of the NASA team members who sent Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity to the Red Planet. The film’s interviewees include a diverse mix of people engaging in STEM pursuits, as well as demonstrating curiosity and teamwork to complete their mission. Empathy is another major component of the film. Expect a little bit of language (“damn”) and drinking by adults, as well as a clip of a Heineken commercial featuring Opportunity. (105 minutes)
In theaters; available Nov. 23 on Amazon.
Gorgeous, exciting musical anime; some bloody violence.
“One Piece Film: Red” is part of a long-running anime series based on a popular manga. Available both dubbed (in English, for the purposes of this review) and the original subtitled Japanese, it’s exciting and funny and even has several catchy musical numbers. Expect lots of animated fantasy fighting, with characters using various weapons (guns, blades, etc.), superpowers and more. There are bloody wounds, monsters and demons, scenes of suffering and hunger, and arguing. Language varies a bit depending on whether you’re reading subtitles or listening to a dub, but words heard in the English-language version include “a--hole,” “damn,” “c--p,” “b------,” “frickin,” “jerk,” “hell,” etc. Busty female characters wear revealing outfits, and a male character tries to sneak a peak under someone’s skirt. There’s some background drinking (wine) and cigar smoking, and “booze” is mentioned. Although this is the 15th movie in the “One Piece” franchise, it has a more or less self-contained story that’s centered on a new character, so it’s good for both newcomers and seasoned fans. (115 minutes)
Lots of jump scares in tired demon-possession movie.
“Prey for the Devil” is a demonic-possession/exorcism movie that argues that women should be allowed to learn the craft of exorcisms. It also urges empathy and understanding, but it’s so sluggish and tired that it fails to make much impact. Expect lots of demon-related violence, several jump scares, bodies contorting in weird ways, moments depicting the abuse of a child, dead bodies, blood and other gross/gory/shocking digital effects. A woman talks about getting pregnant at age 15, adding, “I was so wasted, I don’t remember who the father was.” Two priests and a nun drink celebratory wine. Language includes a single use of “s---” and a use of “b----.” (93 minutes)
1980s-set drama looks at privilege, prejudice; pot, cursing.
“Armageddon Time” is a coming-of-age dramedy based on writer-director James Gray’s experiences growing up in 1980s New York City. While it’s about the strength and complexity of family, it also paints a picture of what it was like for Gray to be an 11-year-old kid in that time and place, including the frequent expression of racist attitudes, kids being harshly disciplined (a father beats his son with a belt in an intense scene), and the idea that the only measure of success was your bank account. White adults and kids refer to Black people with the n-word and talk about them as if they’re inferior. This alarms the main character, Paul (Banks Repeta), a White kid whose best friend is Black. Paul’s beloved Jewish grandfather (Anthony Hopkins) enlightens him on what it means to be a part of a persecuted community and tells him to stand up against prejudice. Kids curse (“s---,” “f---,” “a--hole,” etc.) and use derogatory language to/about teachers. (There’s also a joke about a student getting intimate with a teacher.) Kids smoke pot at school, and it’s made to look fun. (114 minutes) | 2022-11-06T11:26:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Common Sense Media’s weekly recommendations. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/04/common-sense-media-november-4/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/04/common-sense-media-november-4/ |
The United States is no longer the world’s friendliest country to migrants
Then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak lights a candle for Diwali at 11 Downing Street on Nov. 12, 2020 in London. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The Migrant Integration Policy Index measures policies to integrate migrants in dozens of countries around the world. As of 2019, the United States is in the top 10, but in the bottom half. In general between 2014 and 2019, the average country studied improved its score by two points. The United States on the other hand retreated by two points.
The story is largely one of the rise of the rest. Countries such as Canada have long been welcoming to immigrants but have gotten even better. Any would-be immigrant with technical skills and strong academic standing knows that it is easier to get a green card equivalent in Canada or Britain (or Ireland or Sweden) than in the United States these days. And since the Trump crackdown in every area of immigration — from business visas to work permits — the experience has become even more hellish and demeaning for people trying to move to the United States.
Others have also become far more tolerant. If you look at a recent Pew Research Center survey on attitudes toward national identity, you see that major European countries are becoming more tolerant and inclusive. The percentage who say that to truly belong you need to be born in that country is about the same in Britain, France and the United States. (Germany is even lower.) And those who say you have to be Christian to belong make up 14 percent in France, 20 percent in Britain, 23 percent in Germany and a high of 35 percent in the United States.
Britain did not score as high on the Migrant Integration Policy Index in 2019 as the United States, but the more you observe the day-to-day reality, Javid’s comments do not look like an empty boast. (Though Canada likely does better than Britain or the United States on any objective set of measures.) When Boris Johnson resigned, of the eight candidates who came forward to replace him, four were members of ethnic minorities (Sunak, Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch and Nadhim Zahawi). And not one — unlike, say, Bobby Jindal or Nikki Haley — has converted to Christianity. Sunak took his oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita and lit Diwali lamps at his 10 Downing Street residence.
The Tory Party, the party of the old English aristocracy, has had an explosion of diversity. In contrast, about 90 percent of Republicans in Congress are White and virtually all the Republicans are Christian. Much of the credit in Britain should go to David Cameron, the former Conservative prime minister who took it upon himself to make his party more open to minorities of all kinds, including gender minorities. Once the party put out the welcome mat, it should not have come as a surprise that so many migrants proved to be natural Tories. After all, the Indian community in Britain is socially conservative, often with an entrepreneurial streak (including an aversion to high taxes). The same is true of Indian Americans, but because the Republican Party so powerfully signals its embrace of White racialist politics, it turns off many minorities who would agree with them on most issues. It is also worth noting that Britain does not have affirmative action policies, which might explain why there is less resentment toward minorities who have succeeded there.
America has had distinct advantages compared with other countries that have allowed it to thrive — an open market, business-friendly policies — but many of these have been copied by other countries. I always believed that being truly welcoming to immigrants was America’s last and greatest competitive advantage. It does appear that now others are catching up or even beating the United States at a game that it invented.
Opinion|The United States is no longer the world’s friendliest country to migrants
Opinion|No, Biden’s immigration policies are not to blame for the fentanyl crisis
Opinion|Ron DeSantis’s migrant stunt is set to take another ugly turn | 2022-11-06T11:26:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The United States is no longer the world’s friendliest country to migrants - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/04/america-becoming-less-immigrant-friendly/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/04/america-becoming-less-immigrant-friendly/ |
Masculinity in America
Eight seconds to pain or glory
Every bull ride is a contest of life and death -- and also of story and history. A Mexican American cowboy tries to hang on.
By Jose A. Del Real
A bull rider is thrown amid a cloud of dust during the Wyoming Rodeo Association finals in Laramie, Wyo., on Aug. 27. (Rachel Woolf for The Washington Post)
In LARAMIE, Wyoming
A stocky cowboy climbs onto a 1,400-pound bull. For the moment, they are both bound within a bucking chute. But already their muscles are tense and the arena is thick with dirt and adrenaline — and soon, perhaps, also with blood. Joseph Quintana, the 25-year-old rider, is at once the trigger and the target. He needs to hang on for eight seconds to qualify here at the Wyoming Rodeo Association finals. The animal, named Wild Turkey, has been trained to make that nearly impossible.
Joe gives the nod.
The bull bounds out of the chute. The purple tassels from Joe’s riding chaps fly akimbo as the animal kicks up and down. But Joe himself looks sturdy; he keeps his left arm down on the bull-rope and shoots his right one into the air. One second.
Rodeo celebrates the raw skills of ranch work. It is an enunciation of dignity and of nostalgia for a lifestyle that feels far away in modern America. It also provides a respite from the isolation that persists in rural regions like this one. About 150 spectators are gathered here in late August at the Albany County Fairgrounds in Laramie to celebrate “the western way of life.”
“This is the time of day for a cowboy when all the hard work was being done. The bronc stompin', the fence buildin', the well diggin’ and the cattle tendin’,” an announcer says in a treacly voice at the start of the show. “It was this way of life that the sport of rodeo came to be, and folks, we are about to embark on one of the nation’s greatest feats of history. Because for a cowboy, this is his story.”
The script of American manhood is often set here in the frontier West, ever since the cowboy emerged as an iconic symbol of the United States more than 100 years ago. In that narrative, the cowboy lives by his own rules and bends others to his code. Stoic by nature, he betrays no emotion, except perhaps anger. He is good but also bad when the situation calls for it. He works alone but never gets lonely. He is almost always White.
At the rodeo, the bull ride is the culminating event, the main draw. There are few things that appear more macho than riding bulls. In a time when there are many conflicting ideas about how to be a “real man” in the United States, to cling to a bull is to cling to tradition, to embody a simple idea in a country where everything else feels adrift.
But unlike other rodeo events — tie-down roping, breakaway, and even steer wrestling — bull riding is unrelated to the grueling day-to-day skills necessary to subsist in Cowboy Country.
Riding bulls is entertainment.
The bull kicks up more violently now, again and again, but Joe hangs on. Two seconds.
Now the animal starts to corkscrew like a crashing warplane. The dirt it kicks up is flying everywhere, from ground to sky like a sepia filter. Three seconds.
In his day-to-day life, Joe breeds and raises high-altitude cattle in Saguache County, Colo., in the San Luis Valley about 300 miles south of Laramie. He is here to compete for thousands of dollars in prize money alongside scores of other athletes. They come from faraway parts of Nebraska and Colorado and Montana and Wyoming and even Texas
Joe isn’t a legacy cowboy, like many in the Western United States who have inherited property and are trying to figure out what to do with it. He made himself into a cowboy, methodically, even obsessively.
Joe, who is Mexican American, gravitated toward cowboy things even as a child. Western hats and saddle boots. Giant belt buckles. Riding around on horses.
In time, he began to identify with the men around him who did agricultural work. It seemed honest and dutiful — and manly. When he was a teenager, Joe started attending rodeos and training on his own to master the bull ride. It felt like a declaration of freedom, like a step toward becoming his own man.
“I just looked up to those guys for some reason. They were like heroes to me. And I just said, man, I’m going to ride bulls one day,” he says. “Rodeo is not like a job that you go apply for. It’s one of them deals that you got to want it more than you want anything.”
The story of the American cowboy is often framed as one of authenticity.
But it has always been about creation. And re-creation.
Joe was born and raised in Golden, Colo., a suburb of Denver where the quintessential American entertainer William Cody is buried.
Buffalo Bill, as Cody came to be known and immortalized, was the person most responsible for popularizing the lore of the Wild West in the late 19th century. His highly produced and scripted Wild West show recast cowboys from undesirables into figures of romance and virtue, says Richard White, an emeritus historian of the West at Stanford University.
A new narrative of American manhood was born — a highly profitable one.
The transformation from cowboy to Cowboy, from worker to showman, happens in the moments before Joe climbs into the chute and onto the bull. On the platform, his face becomes less soft as the ride approaches. His mouth turns down. Joe paces side to side, like he’s dancing a two-step. He practices jolting up and down. A shadow cast by his hat covers his eyes.
Joe is still upright, looking every bit the iconic cowboy in silhouette. Except Joe is flesh and blood. And so is the bull. Four seconds.
Wild Turkey spins and spins and spins like a hydroplaning car. Joe looks like he’s hanging on tight. And then, suddenly, he looks unsteady. Five seconds.
Gilbert Quintana, Joe’s dad, was not supportive of bull riding, and even now he wishes Joe would stop. He think it’s dangerous but that Joe is too headstrong to see all it could cost him.
After Joe’s parents divorced when he was about 3 years old, Gilbert did his best as a single father to keep his four kids on a schedule while working as a tower crane operator. Wrestling was not only the family sport but also a lifeline, which Joe, his brother and two sisters practiced seven days a week, all year round. But for Joe, it was a secondhand intensity. He came to resent the sport. “It’s like anything. Like, you can’t eat a ham sandwich every single day for every meal,” he says. “It wasn’t what I wanted to do. Rodeo was what I wanted to do.”
Joe dropped out of school in 2014 when he was 17 years old, in part to get away from wrestling. He moved out of his dad’s house abruptly; the two were estranged for a time. Joe worked as a cowpuncher in Flagler, Colo., making $150 a day tending to cattle on horseback.
In his free time, he rode bulls.
He thought he had his life all figured out. He recalls his elation when he bought a Dodge pickup truck with his own money.
Hard times followed. Once, with no money and no gas, Joe showed up at his dad’s house to ask for help. It was snowing.
“Do you remember what I told you?” Gilbert recalls telling Joe. “You’re a man now. And if you leave here, not to come back. You made a man’s decision, and you have to live with a man’s decision.”
Gilbert cried afterward. It was one of the hardest things he ever did, he says, but he wanted to teach Joe a lesson about accountability.
Later that year, a bull stepped on Joe’s chest at the end of a ride. It broke his sternum and his clavicle, and pushed bones so far back into Joe’s chest cavity that doctors thought his aorta was going to rupture. Both of his lungs were punctured and he lacerated his liver. He also broke his jaw after getting hit in the face several times. To help him breathe, Joe went on a ventilator and his lungs were sewn with mesh to the inside of his ribs.
The damage could have killed him.
For the next three months he could hardly walk or shower by himself.
About halfway through his 13-month recovery, Joe began to ask his doctor when he could ride bulls again. She shot that down.
And yet the week Joe was officially given a clean bill of health, he says with pride, he entered another rodeo. The six-inch plate left in his chest from the accident provided some reassurance: “I don’t think it’s going to break again.”
After his accident, he went at bull riding even harder than before.
He figures he has “about five solid years left in this body” and he’s going to keep going until it gives out. He knows each bull ride could be his last.
What could possibly be worth such high stakes?
He can’t put it into words. The prize money isn’t good enough on its own to justify the sacrifices. Maybe he does it for the adrenaline. Maybe it makes him feel alive. Maybe it makes him feel like a man. Maybe it’s an old story: a young guy grasping for somewhere to belong.
Or maybe it’s none of those things, exactly.
“People call it the worst drug in the world. They say you can’t do it just once,” he says. “You’ve gotta be the right type of person. And if you are, and you do it, there’s just no other feeling in the world like it.”
And what is that feeling? The one that shaped his life and his work and his ambition?
“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just that feeling.”
Whatever it is, Joe is always thinking about bull riding — when he is planting seed, when he is putting up hay, when he is driving to pick up his daughter. Sun up to sun down.
The bull kicks up again one more time, and as Joe pulls down to find his center of gravity, the bull starts to spin again, except this time Joe can’t hang on.
For the slightest moment he is hovering above the bull but is no longer on it. Five-and-a-half-seconds.
Every rodeo is a contest between story and history.
Behind the announcer’s booth, freight trains heave back and forth, betraying the truth of the land. Wyoming is called “The Cowboy State” but agriculture is a very small part of the economy here today — just two percent of Wyoming’s gross domestic product, according to government data. The state’s population relies heavily on the extraction and exportation of natural resources like oil, gas and coal.
As an icon of manliness, the American cowboy exists somewhere in the space between myth and reality as well.
The Frontier Thesis, an intellectual consensus of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, bolstered the idea that American exceptionalism was forged through mastery over the continental wilderness. The idea spread, from paintings to Wild West shows to frontier films, and turned the West into the cradle of American masculinity.
In the popular telling, American virtue and maleness and Whiteness became one thing. Today, the cowboy remains a stand-in for the ideal man in American life; dominant, independent, and unwavering.
In truth, the crucial skills of rural Western life find their historic origins with Mexican vaqueros, mestizos of mixed Indigenous and Spanish lineage whose presence in North America preceded the Republic. But the frontier exceptionalism notably did not apply to the indigenous peoples who had lived on the land since time immemorial.
And cowboys in the Old West were corporate cogs, not mavericks. They worked primarily for large profit-driven corporations that were at the time consolidating ownership of once-open ranch-lands.
Joe comes crashing down. He lands on his flank and then his head falls into the dirt. The ride won’t count. Joe turns his body and is now face down. The bull still is on top of him, kicking. Six seconds.
“The cowboy’s life is not a glorious life but it’s his life,” the announcer tells the audience at the start of the show. “He owns a horse and a saddle. His life is hard work and true grit to survive and to live by the unwritten code. Week to week, trying to earn his wages, freedom and pride are the driving forces of the American cowboy. As we keep our soldiers, pride, and our freedom in our hearts, I want to ask you one thing: are you proud to be an American?”
Euphoria scatters throughout the arena like a cloud of dust.
Cheers ring out.
Two years ago, Joe bought about 2,600 acres and leased another 10,000, which he uses to run an operation of about 300 mother cows. “A bunch of critters,” he calls them. It was his dream. One thing he has learned is that the most valuable players in ranching towns are community-minded men. And women. Their lives are about attention to unglamorous details, not bravado and myth.
Joe finds so much beauty and joy in cowboy life. So much purpose.
But he has grown wary of the myths that circulate around “real America” — who belongs, who doesn’t, and the unspoken reasons why. Some of the best cowboys Joe knows are Brown, Black and Indian.
“They’re the good workers,” he says with a chuckle.
You wouldn’t know it looking at the crowd or the athletes here at the rodeo, which are almost exclusively White. When the announcer lauds Bill Pickett, the Black cowboy who inspired steer wrestling, it registers more as oddity than overture. No one in the audience reacts.
There are very good rodeo performers, Joe points out, who aren’t real cowboys at all. He has encountered bull riders in the past who don’t even know how to ride a horse, who “show up in an Escalade and Air Jordans with their skinny jeans,” he says, laughing. “Then they’ll put on their rodeo attire and go out there and win, too!”
All those contradictions become irrelevant when Joe rides.
Every time he gets on a bull, he marks his territory.
The bull’s two hind legs fall on each side of Joe’s body, a miracle in motion that spares Joe’s spine from getting crushed. Joe needs to get out from underneath the bull. Seven seconds.
Addie, Joe’s 5-year-old daughter, has been watching the action. It’s all happening very quickly but she is following as best she can.
Joe had just been teaching her how to lasso in the hours before his ride.
“Hold your spoke,” Joe instructed, warmly, a gold cross resting atop his button-up western shirt. “Slide your head up. Flip it again.”
Addie’s giant belt buckle glittered in the sun as she swung the lasso around and aimed for a bottle of yellow Gatorade.
“You missed again! We gotta try a little harder,” he told her. “Here, rope my foot while I’m walking.”
“Swing it a little longer, before you throw,” he added.
A few tries later, she finally got him.
“Nice!” Joe shouted. “That’s the best one I’ve seen you throw!”
Joe hopes rodeo is something he and Addie can share. Women compete in a few roping and horse riding events, which is how Joe met his current girlfriend. Together they are teaching Addie how to ride.
“Are we ready for fast horses and beautiful women?” the announcer asks the crowd before the barrel racing begins.
Joe crawls back toward the pen and away from the spinning bull. A flash of disappointment hits his face at the precise moment he is finally safe.
“It felt good as f---, too!” he shouts.
Joe paces back and forth. His face is hard, turned downward in disappointment, or anger, or sadness. Eight seconds.
Amid the violence of a bull ride, the men who cling on become something other than themselves, brash characters instead of actual cowboys, Marlboro Men instead of the real thing. It is easy to see Joe this way, too.
But what does Joe think? Is a “real man” someone who does dangerous things simply because he can? Someone who knows that pain is a part of glory and pursues it anyway? Someone who works with his hands, or drives a big truck, or always gets what he wants?
It’s none of that, he says.
Joe aspires to be somebody who “will take the time to do something right instead of doing it twice,” he says, “somebody who takes care of his business, someone who is always on top of it.”
“You’re never sitting around waiting. You’re always trying to make something happen. You’re always on your way,” he says.
To be a “real man” one must also be a good man, Joe adds, and that is decided outside the arena. It’s about how you treat people. Being there for your family and your friends. Approaching strangers with kindness and respect.
He has messed up before. He probably will again. That’s real life.
“I’ve been in some low places in my life and I know some people are in low places,” Joe says. “And I just try to be a nice face that people can remember.”
The hardness drains from Joe’s face the farther away he gets from the bull chute. He catches his daughter’s gaze and he finally smiles. Joe’s ride didn’t qualify but he’ll try again soon. Another rider prepares to go on. | 2022-11-06T11:35:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eight seconds to pain or glory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/06/eight-seconds-pain-or-glory/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/06/eight-seconds-pain-or-glory/ |
In key states, labor leaders are trying to turn out members who flocked to Trump in 2016
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), the Democratic nominee for Senate, speaks during the annual North America's Building Trades Union's Legislative Conference in Washington in April. Labor unions are trying to turn out members in key states to vote for Democrats, but Republicans have made significant inroads with the union vote, especially since former president Donald Trump entered politics. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Calvin Newman is a registered Republican in Mogadore, Ohio. But he’s voting across party lines this year for Tim Ryan, the Democratic candidate for Senate.
The union steelworker appreciates what he sees as Ryan’s pro-worker approach to the economy — the same approach that he says motivated him to vote twice for former president Donald Trump. But he suspects most of his fellow union members at a Georgia Pacific cardboard plant near Akron are voting for the Republican candidate, venture capitalist J.D. Vance.
“Most of the workers in my plant are Republicans,” said Newman, 35. “I don’t ask how they’re voting, but I would assume for [Vance] because they give me a hard time when I wear a Tim Ryan shirt to work.”
If Democrats hope to hold onto control of the Senate, they need as many voters like Newman as they can find in Ohio — and in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada, where campaigns are all close heading into Election Day. In 2016, Trump won all of those states but Nevada, doing far better among union voters nationwide than Mitt Romney or John McCain had. When President Biden won all those states but Ohio, he reversed some Republican gains, but still didn’t do as well with union members as President Barack Obama had in 2008 or 2012.
The labor vote is much smaller than it once was nationally, but whether union members turn out Tuesday — and for whom — could be enough to determine which party runs Capitol Hill next year.
“Union members are really important in this year’s midterms,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who advised Biden in 2020 and warned more than a year ago that inflation was hurting him politically. “They usually vote Democratic, and they are the one group of White men that votes most Democratic. If you get a union member, you usually get their household members, too.”
So as inflation spikes and voters tell pollsters the economy is their top concern, the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of unions, has revived an old-school strategy in nine battleground states to educate and engage members in their worksites about issues and candidates. Canvassers hoped to reach 7.7 million union members nationwide by Tuesday.
“I am pleased to hear Tim Ryan out there talking about bread-and-butter, kitchen-table issues that matter to people,” said Liz Shuler, the federation’s president. “That is exactly what we need more of, and candidates in the Midwest are really doubling down on that.”
Some labor leaders think basic pocketbook issues are friendlier turf for reaching union voters, and they’re glad to see the economy lead the political agenda.
“The more we focus as Democrats on delivering a working-class agenda and messaging on it, the better we are going to do,” said Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America and the chair of Our Revolution, a Bernie Sanders-aligned group.
For decades, union voters, including millions of retired workers, have been a key base for Democrats. Unions have a built-in structure for engaging members, and messages from unions, if they are a trusted source of job security, influence votes.
One out of five voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan in the 2020 presidential elections belonged to union households, exit polling data showed, as did 14 percent of Wisconsin households. That was a steep decline from 2004, when roughly a third of all voting households in those three states had union members, but still a sizable share.
Trump, meanwhile, improved on his share of union voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio from 2016 to 2020, even though his overall percentage of union households dropped slightly, to 40 percent from 43 percent.
For Democrats, winning over White union members in Rust Belt states requires a concerted effort, reaching labor voters by phone and mail to talk about economic issues, Cohen said. Without that, Republicans tend to do better. “If they’re a White male, they’re going to vote the way the rest of White male voters vote,” Cohen said — and in many of the key states in this year’s campaigns, that likely means for the GOP.
Newman, the steelworker in Ohio, said messaging from the state’s AFL-CIO chapter helped sway his vote. He saw Ryan speak at an Ohio AFL-CIO convention in Columbus in late September and immediately related to his positions, such as universal pre-K and keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States.
“I listened to him, and I liked what he had to say,” Newman said. “pre-K really hit us hard. And it was cheaper for my wife to stay home and not work than to pay for pre-K.”
Ryan, who wears Nikes and Ohio State gear on the campaign trail, has promised to “revitalize manufacturing” and “fight for working people” in union halls and diners across the state. In neighboring Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, with his faded hoodie revealing a sleeve of tattoos, has struck a similar, though more anti-establishment tone, pledging to fight to make more goods in the United States and support “the union way of life.”
Many union leaders said in interviews that it’s been easier to engage their members around candidates such as Ryan, Fetterman and Wisconsin’s Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes because of their focus on working people and labor issues.
Scott Parker, a 25-year-old union steelworker in West Mifflin, Pa., a suburb south of Pittsburgh, is a two-time Trump supporter who is voting for Fetterman.
“I liked that Fetterman is talking about raising the minimum wage and his support for fracking,” Parker said. The steelworker supports both his 7-year-old daughter and his grandmother. “Bottom line is, money keeps the world going around. That’s all I care about. I want to work and then go home and relax.”
But neighbors have given Parker heat for wearing a “Steelworkers for Fetterman” T-shirt. “People around town throw Pringles chips at me when I wear it,” he said.
In Ohio, Mike Knisley, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio State Building Trades Council, which represents roughly 100,000 construction workers, said Ryan is “resonating more so than any candidate I’ve ever seen with our members.”
“He hasn’t backed away from social issues,” he said. “But it’s really about economic issues first and foremost.”
Trump made particularly strong inroads among the building trades — unions representing workers like electricians, plumbers and painters. Knisley estimated that half his members voted for Trump in 2016. These are, historically, one of the Whitest and most conservative-leaning parts of the labor movement, with a legacy of institutional racism, in particular controlling hiring practices in ways that used to shut out non-White workers.
Many union leaders said they don’t think Democrats have done a good enough job of telling voters what the party has done. Under Democratic control, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure law and devoted hundreds of billions of dollars in the Inflation Reduction Act to new greener manufacturing and hundreds of billions more to new high-tech manufacturing in the CHIPS Act.
“I think on a national level the Democratic Party has done a terrible job of getting an economic message across,” said Dorsey Hager, a leader of the Columbus Building Trades Council, a coalition of labor unions that represents 18,000 construction workers in central Ohio. “But Tim Ryan and John Fetterman are appealing to working-class voters. They talk about union rights and the workplace, and that goes across party lines.”
Union voters are also playing a crucial role in other races.
Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska) looks likely to beat a challenge from former governor Sarah Palin in part due to strong support from union voters in the state. Alaska ranks fourth-highest in the United States in union density, and Peltola has the endorsements of most of the unions that supported her Republican predecessor, who held the seat for nearly 50 years, until Peltola won a special election in August after his death.
In Nevada, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto may be the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent. Her campaign has focused heavily on threats to women’s reproductive rights, while her Republican opponent, Alex Laxalt, has fixated on inflation and high gas prices.
The powerful culinary workers union in Las Vegas, which represents some 60,000 cooks, waiters and casino workers, believes it could make the difference for Cortez Masto — and save the Senate for Democrats. The union has argued that abortion is a critical economic issue for its members, many of whom are women of color. They plan to knock on over 1 million doors by the time polls close on Tuesday.
“I think we’re making a difference and we’re going to win,” said Maria Bedolla, a union housekeeper at the Mandalay Bay Resort, who has been canvassing since August. “Too many people know who we are and that we fight for the people.”
Labor movement’s next big challenge: Keeping momentum as economy slows
Back in the steel factories of southwest Pennsylvania, where Trump built a wellspring of Republican support, Democrats have faced challenges convincing union voters to support Fetterman.
“Democrat is a dirty word [around here],” said JoJo Burgess, a canvasser for the AFL-CIO in southwest Pennsylvania and a union steelworker. Burgess, 52, has talked to workers outside the gates of steel factories and other union worksites in the region before every election since 2004. That job got much harder in 2016 and 2020, with tough confrontations that sometimes got physical between workers, he said.
The party may still be able to win over these voters — but not if they lose sight of the economic pain experienced by the working class.
Asked why union members turned to Trump, Burgess recalled a fateful comment Hillary Clinton made in 2016 in Ohio about putting “a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” | 2022-11-06T11:39:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats need union voters to maintain control of Congress - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/06/unions-senate-midterms-labor-ryan-fetterman-democrats/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/06/unions-senate-midterms-labor-ryan-fetterman-democrats/ |
Few state programs encourage it. Money and power struggles intrude.
Northrop Auditorium on the campus of the University of Minnesota. (iStock)
One of the most hopeful signs of improved public school learning in these difficult times is the rise of dual enrollment courses. Students can take the advanced classes provided by local colleges while still in high school. They get both invigorating challenges and college credit, similar to the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs.
A particularly well-organized example is in Minnesota, called Post-Secondary Enrollment Options. Unlike the 80 percent of dual enrollment students who take such courses at their high schools, Minnesota high school students can attend the courses free at nearby college campuses.
They experience firsthand what their lives can be like in a few years. They learn about attractive options they never considered. One PSEO student told me his time at the University of Minnesota when he was a high school sophomore was “probably the most transformative event of my high school career.”
I hope other states and colleges will be encouraged to launch more programs that let high-schoolers soak up what’s happening on campus. There are similar programs in other states, such as Washington and Florida, but most don’t offer it as Minnesota does, at no cost to students.
Feds to end dual-enrollment experiment, disappointing participating colleges
There is likely to be more room for visiting high-schoolers in lecture halls now. College enrollment declined for the third straight year, with undergraduate enrollment down 7 percent since fall 2019.
If students and educators want such initiatives to grow, they should be aware that innovative programs can be hurt by low expectations and backward thinking in our school systems.
A new study by People for PSEO, a nonprofit organization that supports the high-schoolers on campus program, found that only 40.2 percent of Minnesota school district and charter school websites comply with state law requiring that students be informed of this opportunity.
The report’s author is former PSEO participant Zeke Jackson, 21, now a senior at University of Minnesota at Twin Cities. He said that “thousands of high school students use the PSEO program to fill their high school graduation requirements and reduce risks by helping students earn free college credits at the same time. Such programs are especially valuable to students from low income families, rural students with fewer dual-credit options and students who traditionally have not entered or graduated from some form of postsecondary education.”
Veteran Minnesota school reformer Joe Nathan, who helped write both the PSEO law and the nation’s first public charter school law, explained why he thinks so many schools are not informing their students of this opportunity: “Some educators think they are experts and that they know what’s best. … Some have low expectations and don’t encourage some BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] students and students from low income families to participate in these programs.”
Some schools apparently think it is bad for their image to let some of their best students take classes elsewhere during the school day. High schools in Minnesota can’t veto participation in the program if the student is accepted by a college. Some money that would go to a participating student’s high school instead goes to the college.
Jackson’s report noted that 72 percent of Minnesota charters were complying with the law, compared to 33 percent of the state’s traditional public schools. But Nathan detected some false statements on one charter website, including saying applicants had to complete a 10th-grade curriculum and couldn’t participate in the program without their school’s permission.
Should we be easy on students after the pandemic? Maybe not.
I benefited from a strong taste of college life when I was a high school senior. It wasn’t an organized program. My California public school was looking for ways to use money from the National Defense Education Act, passed in the panic that swept America after the Russians launched their Sputnik satellite in 1957. That Cold War crisis allowed me and three similarly nerdy friends to take calculus at night at the College of San Mateo, our local community college.
We learned how fiercely committed to a college education were our adult classmates, many of whom had jobs during the day. In our high school classes we joked around, but not in that night class at CSM. The college was in a run-down neighborhood near the 101 Freeway. Those grown-ups sitting next to us didn’t care. They listened, asked questions and did not waste a second of instruction. They represented a national tradition of self-improvement I had not appreciated before.
Several studies already show that students who participate in dual enrollment classes in high schools are more likely to go on to college and get a degree. Taking a course on a college campus gives the dual enrollment experience extra power. Tatem Rios, a Minnesotan from a low-income family, told me “I lacked the confidence I needed to be successful in college” but because of an on-campus program she learned she could earn a degree in engineering. That changed her life’s trajectory.
Jackson, the young author of the report exposing the uneven school response to PSEO, called it “a case of adults fighting over money and students getting caught in the crossfire.”
He understood from his personal experience that such an experience at a young age can inspire teenagers to go much further. In the recovery from the pandemic, thoughtful initiatives that have worked in some states should be encouraged to spread.
Program so accelerated that 8th-graders take AP Calculus. Will that work? | 2022-11-06T13:45:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | College campuses can be inspirational settings for high school students - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/06/dual-enrollment-high-school-college-students/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/06/dual-enrollment-high-school-college-students/ |
Researchers explain the difficulties of getting promising new medications into the hands of doctors and their patients
By Katherine Ellison
Only three medications are approved for treating alcoholism. Researchers say they hope to increase the number of options but it has been hard to do so. (Ann Cutting for The Washington Post)
News organizations were quick to trumpet the recent findings of a small study suggesting that “magic mushrooms” could be part of a breakthrough treatment for alcoholism.
It’s no wonder. Every year, alcohol abuse kills more than 140,000 Americans and affects millions more, with a steep increase in deaths in recent years, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Nov. 4. But excitement about the psilocybin study also raises a question: Why aren’t there more medical treatments for such an obviously devastating problem?
“There is a desperate need for new medications, and there are many good avenues that we’re pursuing,” said Dorit Ron, a neurology professor at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center, who has been studying potential treatments that include rapamycin, a drug designed to help transplant patients tolerate new organs.
But getting promising new medications into the hands of doctors and their patients has proved difficult, said George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), adding “it doesn’t go for lack of trying.”
Lack of awareness by doctors, funding decisions by the pharmaceutical industry and the stigma surrounding alcoholism have all held up progress, he said.
Can pills help?
Ron and other researchers say medication can play a vital role in combating alcohol use disorder, the medical condition commonly known as alcoholism. But fewer than 2 percent of people with an alcohol addiction take medication for the condition, national surveys show, compared with 13.4 percent of those dealing with opioid addiction.
A possible contributing factor is that existing treatments are limited. Since 1949, the Food and Drug Administration has approved just three medications to treat heavy drinking, none of which is commonly used. Nor are several medications that doctors sometimes prescribe “off label” — without FDA approval for use as an alcoholism treatment — including gabapentin, baclofen, topiramate and ondansetron.
Several researchers said problems with the existing FDA-approved medications, including limited efficacy, play into undertreatment.
Acamprosate, which can dull cravings in patients who have already stopped drinking, must be taken three times a day and cannot be used by people with kidney problems. Naltrexone, designed to block the pleasure of drinking, can block the pleasure of other activities, such as eating, and cannot be used by those with liver failure, which frequently accompanies alcohol abuse disorder. Disulfiram, marketed as Antabuse, can cause headaches, nausea, choking and vomiting following consumption of even small amounts of alcohol.
“I tried them all,” said Jon Kostas, 32, who took his first drink at age 13 and was drinking so heavily by age 25 that doctors warned him he might not live until 30. “Nothing worked.”
Looking to psilocybin
Desperate for another answer, Kostas, who today runs a nonprofit group advocating research into medical uses of psychedelics, was one of the first patients to join the psilocybin study, results of which were published in August in JAMA.
Researchers led by Michael Bogenschutz, the director of the NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine, studied 93 people diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. Those who received two doses of psilocybin reduced their alcohol consumption by 83 percent within eight months, compared with 51 percent of those who received a placebo.
Twenty-five percent, including Kostas, who first received psilocybin in 2015, stopped drinking altogether, the study says, compared with 9 percent who took the placebo.
Psilocybin as mental health therapy? Here’s what I found.
All the participants received an extraordinary amount of psychotherapy: 12 outpatient sessions, each lasting an hour to 90 minutes, plus two all-day sessions for those who took the drug. This was key both to ensure patients’ safety while experiencing an altered state of reality and to provide maximum benefit, Bogenschutz said.
While it’s still unknown precisely how the psilocybin helps, it may work by magnifying the effect of the therapy, such that “the person who has taken the drug becomes more open … and more flexible and willing to learn new behaviors and patterns,” he added.
Hurdles and hopes
The three FDA-approved drugs could help many more people if doctors only knew they existed, said Koob, adding: “I dare you to ask any primary care doctor to name even one of them.”
In its ongoing efforts to address this problem, Koob said, the NIAAA this year launched an online educational program, “The Healthcare Professional’s Core Resource on Alcohol,” that offers continuing education credits on topics including alcohol’s clinical effects and strategies for prevention and treatment.
Patients may be even more in the dark about medications than their doctors.
Unlike drugs for depression, cancer and erectile dysfunction, medications for alcoholism are not abundantly promoted on television or in magazines, even as ads for alcohol and positive portrayals of drinking abound.
“A lot of people still think all you can do is go to rehab for 28 days and then [Alcoholics Anonymous] for the rest of your life,” Bogenschutz said. Surveys suggest many patients are reluctant to do that, with fewer than 6 percent of those with alcohol use disorder getting treatment of any kind.
Stigma and research
The stigma surrounding someone’s lack of control with alcohol can also make both patients and doctors hesitant to discuss treatment, Koob said.
But yet another factor is lack of interest by the large pharmaceutical firms that once paid for many of the costly trials needed for FDA approval of psychiatric drugs, including those for addiction, Koob added. This is a particular problem, he said, with repurposed drugs such as gabapentin and rapamycin that have shown promise in treating alcoholism in trials but which have expired patents, making them less lucrative to sell.
Andrew Powaleny, a spokesman for PhRMA, a lobbying association for major pharmaceutical firms, took issue with Koob’s characterization. Powaleny shared a 2019 report showing that biopharmaceutical research firms were developing 138 medicines to treat mental illness, including six for excessive drinking. As of mid-September, Powaleny said, the number of alcohol use disorder medications in development had risen to 17.
Regardless, Ron said she has not heard from pharmaceutical firms interested in furthering her research, even as news reports on her studies of existing drugs have generated letters from people seeking to join clinical trials.
Ron and other researchers continue to hope their work will one day make a meaningful difference. Meanwhile, the CDC estimates that excessive drinking cost the United States almost a quarter-trillion dollars as far back as 2010.
“We may have a current epidemic of opioid use, but our alcohol use disorder has been of epidemic proportions for thousands of years,” said Susan E. Bergeson, editor in chief of the Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly and a professor of women’s health at Texas Tech University Health Science Center.
“I think the pharmaceutical firms must be interested in this market and are just waiting for the right approach with lower risks,” said Bergeson, who has received $7.5 million in federal funding to study how a molecule derived from the antibiotic tetracycline might be used to reduce drinking.
After testing it on alcohol-loving pigs, which subsequently preferred to drink water when offered both options, she is applying for FDA approval of human trials and has also applied for patents that will be owned by Texas Tech. “I am grateful to be on the cusp of something this productive,” Bergeson said. | 2022-11-06T13:45:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why aren’t there more ways to treat alcoholism? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/06/alcholism-psilocybin-medication-treatments/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/06/alcholism-psilocybin-medication-treatments/ |
Long waiting lists can make it hard to find a therapist. So we asked 300 mental health providers what patients should do.
Be persistent, and cast a wide net
Consider an out-of-network provider
See a therapist in training
For college students, check out university health centers
Take advantage of your employee assistance program
Try apps
Look into self-help options
Anxiety and depression have been on the rise in the United States since the start of the pandemic. This has led to a crisis in mental health that has been worsened by the shortage of mental health counselors.
A significant number of mental health professionals are not accepting new clients. Others have long waiting lists.
The Washington Post asked mental health professionals what advice they would give people who are struggling to find a therapist. About 300 experts from across the country responded with advice on getting an appointment — and tips on what people can do in the meantime to try to help themselves. Here are their recommendations.
Websites such as Psychology Today, Therapy Den and ZocDoc have directories that allow you to search for mental health professionals who specialize in particular issues such as anxiety and depression. They also show you which therapists take insurance and, most important, which ones are accepting new clients.
Once you have your list, prepare for that initial phone call or email — many therapists’ preferred method of contact — by providing detailed information about your needs and what you hope to get out of therapy. This helps them know whether they can help or whether they should refer you to someone else.
“Doing a little bit of that prep work to figure out what it is that you’d like to work on can go a long way in getting matched up with a therapist who may be a better fit than just cold-calling and saying, ‘Hey, I need a therapist,’ ” said Esther Benoit, a licensed professional counselor in Newport News, Va.
If you find a therapist who seems like a good fit but can’t see you for a while, ask to be put on a wait list and then request recommendations for other therapists who specialize in the same mental health issues. Also, keep in mind that group practices may be able to fit you in sooner than solo practitioners.
When all else fails, you may be able to ask your health insurance provider for appointment assistance. “Tell them you’re not able to find providers and have them do the work for you,” said Jenna Wolfson, a licensed clinical social worker in Santa Cruz County, Calif.
Michelle Slater, a licensed mental health counselor with a private practice in Jacksonville, Fla., said it is easier to squeeze in telehealth appointments partly because she can meet with clients from any private location. “I have been in a parked car to do sort of crisis support in the moment,” she said.
Wolfson said, however, not everyone has that flexibility during work hours. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis and cannot leave work, she suggested speaking to your human resources department about using the Family Medical Leave Act, which allows up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for eligible employees, so you can properly address your mental health needs.
Many providers do not accept insurance but will give a superbill that clients can submit to health insurance companies for reimbursement.
If you cannot pay standard rates out of pocket, ask therapists about a sliding scale. Some therapists may reduce their rates to accommodate clients on a case-by-case basis. But Slater said it helps to have an established relationship with a therapist before asking them to do it. “The better I know my clients, the more willing I am to work with them,” she said.
Jonathan Schettino, a licensed psychologist with a private practice in Baltimore, said people often balk at seeing a trainee, but there are a number of advantages — the main one being that you will have two sets of eyes on your case rather than one.
Trainees may be students who have not yet completed their degrees, but more often they are pre-licensed graduates who are earning their hours under the supervision of a licensed mental health professional. “If the training program is high quality, the person that you’re working with may be supervised by someone who is a nationally recognized expert in the field,” Schettino said.
Where do you find one? Colleges and universities with counseling programs will sometimes have training clinics where trainees can work at lower rates to gain experience. Others work in community health-care centers that serve lower-income clients. And some can be found in private practices and are often listed as interns or residents, Schettino said.
Coaches — such as a health and wellness coach — may be another option when you cannot find a therapist.
“Coaches can be a nice way to move forward with an issue while waiting to take the time to explore the underlying issues that are contributing and/or causing problems,” said Lakeasha Sullivan, a clinical psychologist with a private practice in Atlanta who has written a wellness article for The Washington Post. But, she said, make sure that the coach is recommended by a nationally recognized organization.
Support groups and therapy groups facilitated by mental health professionals are a great resource.
Support groups aim to help people feel normalized as they cope with similar issues such as anxiety and depression, substance abuse or grief. Therapy groups try to help people with similar diagnoses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder feel supported by one another as they work on their issues.
“I love groups,” said Slater, who leads a mindfulness group on SESH, a membership-based platform for therapist-led online support groups. “We’re all walking around feeling alone, and really we’re not. There’s something very validating about being with people who are struggling in similar ways.”
Support, however, does not always have to come from a structured mental health group. Religious, cultural and other social support networks can be invaluable.
“There’s a difference between getting support in the moment and then getting therapy that’s actually going to produce change,” Slater said. “What is it that you need? Are you looking for change? Are you in crisis? Are you looking for new coping skills? Do you just want to vent and be heard? Because that puts it in different categories of what your friends, family, bartender or hairdresser can do versus what you might need therapy for.”
Many health centers or counseling centers at colleges and universities offer a set number of therapy sessions for students. Once that number has been met, they may refer students to outside therapists.
Some employers offer an employee assistance program as part of the benefits package for their workers and immediate family members. It includes a set number of free therapy sessions with a mental health professional.
Perhaps the most popular hotline — 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — is touted by many therapists as a free but valuable resource for people in crisis, and it is not only for those struggling with suicidal thoughts. Slater said she has encouraged her own family members to call it during difficult times and uses it as a backup for her clients when in crisis.
You can reach it by dialing 988.
The American Psychological Association also has a list of other hotlines that provide support and resources for specific issues, such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
In a life-threatening mental health crisis, however, call 911.
Try using apps such as BetterHelp and Talkspace to engage with a licensed therapist while you wait to see one in person.
Or, if you prefer the self-help route, apps such as Insight Timer, Calm and Headspace offer things such as guided meditations aimed at reducing stress and anxiety, which some experts say can be beneficial regardless of where you are on your therapeutic journey.
Be open to some DIY mental health work, including books, apps, TED Talks and stress-reducing activities such as meditation and exercise — regardless of whether you have found a therapist.
Carmen Grant, a licensed clinical social worker in Ramona, Calif., said she recommends self-help books or workbooks, which work well for motivated people, written by mental health professionals.
“I would stay away from self-help books that aren’t written by therapists only because that’s just the person coming from their own experience, and people aren’t all the same,” she said.
The same goes for other self-help tools.
Schettino said you have to be “a little bit savvy” to make sure those books, apps and chats are based in science.
This is a challenging time for many people who are searching for therapists. But one expert urged people to try to reframe their frustrations.
“The act of going to therapy is not therapy. Therapy is applying the skills — thinking through different ways of understanding oneself between the sessions,” Sullivan said. “The real work happens between sessions, and people can engage in that real work before they consult with a professional.”
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the name of the National Alliance on Mental Illness as the National Alliance on Mental Health. This version has been corrected. | 2022-11-06T13:46:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 10 ways to get mental health help during therapist shortage - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/13/how-to-find-therapy-therapist-shortage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/10/13/how-to-find-therapy-therapist-shortage/ |
Are trekking poles right for you? Here’s what to consider.
Use of them is a matter of personal preference, but the devices have many benefits for some populations
By Amanda Loudin
A woman hikes the Ebenalp trail in the Appenzellerland canton of Switzerland. (iStock)
Hiking is a shared passion for Ellen and Keith Dobbins. Over their 25 years of marriage, they’ve hiked in over 100 national parks and climbed many states’ highest peaks. It’s what they do together on vacation. But as they’ve aged — Ellen is 56 and Keith is 55 — they’ve diverged in how they hike. Ellen is a fan of trekking poles. Keith is not.
Trekking poles stir up surprisingly strong emotions among their proponents and opponents.
For many hikers, they provide much-needed stability and security, in addition to giving them the strength to ascend sometimes long climbs. Opponents, on the other hand, often eschew them in favor of simplicity. They like paring down the gear they tote and keeping their hands free to scramble over rocks. The question is, which camp is right?
By and large, it’s a matter of personal preference, but there are benefits to using them for some populations. For those who would rather not, there are ways to prevent dependence on them, if you’re willing to put in some work.
Ashley L. Hawke, a biomedical engineer at the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health, became interested in the value of trekking poles when she sprained an ankle on a hike.
“Someone handed me a pair to use, and I was surprised by how much they helped in that moment,” she says. “I’ve always thought people looked silly using them.”
Does running really wreck your knees?
After that experience, in 2020, Hawke and a colleague reviewed scientific literature on the topic from 1980 to 2019. They looked at the relationship of using trekking poles on joint forces, physiological responses and balance, among other factors, publishing the results in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine. “All of the studies came to the conclusion that there is a general net positive to using poles versus not using them,” she says.
A sense of security
Like Ellen Dobbins, 67-year-old Julie Baker, a retiree from Columbia, Md., considers her trekking poles a favorite piece of hiking gear. “I started using them about a year ago when I began taking serious hiking trips,” Baker says. “I immediately realized they gave me a sense of security on rocky and uneven terrain.”
Baker has taken several active vacations around the world over the past year, toting her poles for every one involving hikes. “As I’ve aged, balance has become more of a central concern, and poles give me the sense of confidence I need,” she says. “There is no doubt they allow me to do more in terms of difficulty and distance.”
Ellen Dobbins likewise discovered the value of poles for her stability about 10 years ago when hiking through the Narrows at Zion National Park. “We couldn’t see the bottom of the river where we were hiking, and I knew it could get deep,” she says. “We weren’t on stable ground so I felt more comfortable having poles to guide every step.”
Balance, which begins to decline as early as your 40s, is improved with trekking poles, Hawke says. “For many aging hikers, balance can be a limiting factor to getting outside and exercising, so the poles can be a gateway to the outdoors,” she says.
Other benefits turned up from Hawke’s review include a reduction in the ground reaction forces that extend up to joints when hiking, especially while descending hills — the poles take on some of that force. “This was especially true on knees,” Hawke says. “If you are taking 5,000 steps on a hike, that can add up.”
Ellen Dobbins appreciates this. “They’re particularly helpful on the downhills,” she says. “Psychologically, they feel like a friend helping you up and down climbs.”
Readers reply: This is what ‘aging well’ is all about
Hawke’s review also revealed that delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) after long hikes was much lower for users of trekking poles than those going without. Baker has appreciated the strength boost she gets from her poles. “On rigorous hikes, I use them to hoist myself up and over rocks,” she says.
Despite all the literature supporting the use of trekking poles, plenty of people still would rather not, including Keith Dobbins. “I don’t want another complexity to my gear,” he explains. “I’ve already got a backpack, water, snacks, and I don’t want to add in poles.”
Even proponents admit trekking poles can sometimes be a hassle. “When you hit a smooth or flat part of a trail, it’s a bit of a hindrance to carry them or stop to put them in your backpack,” Baker says. “You might want them 15 minutes later, so it can be a lot of back and forth.”
On a physical level, Hawkes’s review found that using poles will actually elevate your heart rate more than leaving them behind, especially when going uphill, because they engage your upper body, as well. “Some people might find that a bonus because they’re getting a better workout,” Hawke says, “but others don’t like the sensation of working harder.”
Exercise offsets
For those who prefer to hike without poles, with exercise, you can offset some of the age-related declines and other issues that make them appealing.
“Every senior I work with talks about having bad balance,” says Meghan Wieser, a certified strength and conditioning specialist at Maryland-based Recharge Modern Health & Fitness. “I’d argue strength and balance deficits are equal in the equation.”
Aging affects the vestibular, muscular and vision systems, all of which play a role in balance. Wieser recommends working all three with simple exercises. “Start with movements that work your single-leg stance capacity, like slow marches, first in place and then forward and back,” she says. “Then add load with handheld dumbbells or kettlebells.”
You can also add moves called “farmer’s carries,” “suitcase carries” and “farmer’s marches” to the mix. For a “farmer’s carry,” hold a heavy dumbbell in each hand hanging at your side. Walk forward, keeping the weights a few inches out from your thighs. The same goes for a “farmer’s march,” only you’re slowly marching, not walking. A “suitcase carry” involves holding only one weight at a time, offsetting your balance as you move.
Squats, weighted step-ups/step-downs from a bench and working on foot strength can all make you a more confident hiker, Wieser says. With consistency, all will improve both strength and balance, making you steadier on your feet. Then it’s up to you if you’d like to wean yourself off the poles, or not, remembering that the longer you hike, the more fatigued your body will become.
For Baker, who does some strength training, there’s probably no going back.
“When I look around the trails and see people not using them, I’m amazed,” she says. “On these trips, the poles are my buddies.” | 2022-11-06T13:46:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Are trekking poles right for you? Here’s what to consider. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/06/trekking-poles-pros-cons/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/06/trekking-poles-pros-cons/ |
The 36-year-old lefty is still recovering from the internal brace procedure he underwent on his elbow back in July. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Just hours after the official start of Major League Baseball’s offseason, the Washington Nationals announced that reliever Sean Doolittle will return on a minor league deal that includes an invite to spring training. Years of familiarity meant little time was wasted.
Doolittle, 36, is still recovering the internal brace procedure he underwent on his left elbow in July. He opted for that surgery instead of Tommy John, hoping to be ready for spring training with Washington or another club. Yet when the regular season ended in early October, Doolittle was only hoping the Nationals would call, unsure if he could fit in their plans again.
A minors deal comes with no guarantee of making the team next April. Doolittle, then, will have to earn his way into a bullpen typically short on experienced lefties. He bought a house in D.C. this past summer and now calls the city his year-round home. For the past few months, he has rehabbed with Seth Blee, the Nationals’ head physical therapist who also sees athletes at a facility in Fairfax, Va.
Doolittle began throwing two weeks ago, right on schedule, and says he is progressing well. What that will mean for his arm in March or April remains a guessing game. But the Nationals made a low-cost bet on him being ready to face hitters and prove himself. Last March, they signed him to a one-year major league contract, seeing him as the perfect fit for a young clubhouse and inexperienced bullpen. Before he injured his elbow, though, he was more than that, retiring 16 of the 17 batters he faced.
In parts of five seasons with the Nationals, Doolittle has a 2.92 ERA in 148 innings. He has often battled injuries in that stretch, yet the internal brace procedure was the first major operation on his elbow. Doolittle’s highlight with Washington is helping the to a World Series title in 2019. He finished four of the 12 wins needed for that championship.
Bringing back Doolittle shouldn’t preclude the Nationals from surveying the left-handed reliever market this winter. If they continue to sign players with the aim of flipping them at the trade deadline — as they attempted to do with Nelson Cruz, Steve Cishek and César Hernández in 2022 — reclamation relievers make sense. At the onset of free agency, it feels safe to pencil in Kyle Finnegan, Hunter Harvey and Carl Edwards Jr. for the Opening Day bullpen. Tanner Rainey, once a fixture of such projections, underwent Tommy John surgery in early August and should be recovering through spring. The rest of the spots should be up for grabs.
On Sunday morning, Doolittle became a free agent along with Cishek, Will Harris, Hernández Erasmo Ramírez, Joe Ross and Aníbal Sánchez. Cruz joined that list Sunday afternoon when Washington declined his mutual option for 2023. Subtracting those eight guys from the 40-man roster, then adding back those who will soon be activated off the 60-day injured list, puts it at 41. Turnover should begin this week, as at least one player has to be immediately removed from the 40-man.
From Monday to Thursday, Mike Rizzo and his inner circle will be in Las Vegas for the annual general managers’ meetings. So that’s where the next step of Washington’s rebuild will take place. | 2022-11-06T18:50:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals, Sean Doolitte agree to minor league deal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/06/nationals-sean-doolittle-minor-league-deal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/06/nationals-sean-doolittle-minor-league-deal/ |
On SNL, Schumer and Strong urge voters to preserve abortion rights
“I was thinking of what’s at stake if we don’t vote,” host Amy Schumer tells viewers in her opening monologue. “Remember, we all love someone’s who had an abortion,” cast member Cecily Strong said during a “Weekend Update” bit.
Host Amy Schumer performed stand-up comedy during her monologue on the Nov. 5 episode of “Saturday Night Live.” (Will Heath/NBC)
With midterm elections looming, “Saturday Night Live” edged into its more political mode, encouraging its viewers in a couple of instances to get out and vote to preserve abortion rights.
As has become standard practice for comedians, host Amy Schumer, microphone in hand, delivered her monologue as a six-minute stand-up set that focused primarily on married life and her pregnancy a few years back that ended in a C-section (“He came out the sunroof.”) But, first, she made a quick quip about the midterms: “I can’t believe I have the honor of being the final host before the midterm abortions,” she said. “Elections! What did I say? Sorry, I was thinking of what’s at stake if we don’t vote.”
The monologue came on the heels of a fake tourism ad for Colorado that Schumer created for her Paramount Plus sketch comedy show, “Inside Amy Schumer,” which stirred controversy as it went viral. The ad begins innocuously enough with a plaid-shirt-and-vest-clad Schumer espousing the best parts of the Centennial State.
“Come for the fresh air, the perfect mountain’s majesty, a magical night under a magical sky. Whatever kind of experience you’re looking for, you can find it here, in Colorado,” she begins. Then, as images of cities and, soon, a reproductive health clinic pops on screen, she says, “We also have bustling town centers and access to all the services you may need.”
“Not that you need some big dramatic reason to come to Colorado,” Schumer adds. “No one should have to justify a trip to Colorado. Maybe you just want to do with your own body what you want to do with your own body. If that’s ‘come to Colorado,’ that’s all right by us. … There are even organizations that will help you get to Colorado and experience Colorado and recover from Colorado, as discreetly as you please.”
During SNL’s “Weekend Update,” segment, co-anchor Colin Jost introduced Tammy the Trucker (played by Cecily Strong) “who promises she is here to talk about gas prices and not abortion.”
Dressed in a red flannel shirt, aviator sunglasses and a trucker hat, and holding a steering wheel and a CB radio mic, Strong slid over to the desk. “All I’m here to talk about is gas, even though the Supreme Court sent Roe v. Wade to that big pit stop in the sky,” she said, hitting the horn on her steering wheel. “Beep beep! Fifty years of precedent! Beep beep!”
Jost, sensing that maybe the Tammy the Trucker character is a front, asked, “Cecily, are you okay? It seems like maybe you do want to talk about abortion.”
“I’m Tina the trucker, or whatever name I gave you,” Strong responded, before fully breaking character. “I’m just trying to get through his moment, okay? Gas prices are up, and families are really hurting. But that’s not going to magically disappear no matter who you vote for. We’re in a global recession, fueled by corporate greed and war. Honk honk! Breaker breaker! But what will keep disappearing is safe access to abortion. It’s not really magic, because they told us that’s exactly what they’re going to do, and they’ve been doing it.”
“These are scary times, because they don’t want to just take away access to health care. They want to criminalize it too,” she continued. “I mean, it’s so bad us truckers are all out here warning each other to delete our period-tracking apps from our phones. I just want to know what week I wear my bad underwear, but I can’t, in case some d---head in Texas thinks my period is evidence of a crime.”
“My point is you shouldn’t have to pull the convoy across state lines to find a doctor who will provide health care for your anatomy without having to call their lawyer first,” she added. “The truth is I have felt pretty helpless over the past year, and it’s hard to know what to say to make other truckers feel better, even though I have this big giant radio. So there’s one thing I can say: There’s one mother-truckin’ thing we can do to fight for mother-truckin’ freedom to make our own health care decisions, and that’s vote. And I hope to hell everyone votes, because remember, we all love someone’s who had an abortion. I mean, drives a truck.”
Strong herself is among that number. In November 2021, she appeared on Weekend Update as “Goober the Clown, who had an abortion when she was 23” right after the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in two cases challenging Texas’ six-week abortion restriction. The setup was similar: Goober didn’t want to talk about abortion, but Jost sensed that maybe she actually did.
“I actually really don’t, but people keep bringing it up so I got to keep talking about freakin’ abortion,” Strong, in a red nose and spinning bow tie, told him. “But it’s a rough subject so we’re going to do fun clown stuff to make it more palatable. Whee!” | 2022-11-06T18:54:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | On SNL, Schumer and Strong urge voters to preserve abortion rights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/06/snl-schumer-strong-urge-voters-preserve-abortion-rights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/06/snl-schumer-strong-urge-voters-preserve-abortion-rights/ |
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FILE - Singer Aaron Carter arrives at a premiere of “Saints & Strangers” at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif., Nov. 9, 2015. Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022, at his home in Southern California. He was 34. (Rich Fury/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-11-06T19:34:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nick Carter remembers his 'baby brother' Aaron Carter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nick-carter-remembers-his-baby-brother-aaron-carter/2022/11/06/77107c24-5dfe-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/nick-carter-remembers-his-baby-brother-aaron-carter/2022/11/06/77107c24-5dfe-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
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