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Results slow to come in key Md. congressional race between Trone, Parrott
Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) at his election night event in Frederick on Tuesday. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Maryland’s most anticipated congressional race, a rematch between Rep. David Trone (D) and Del. Neil C. Parrott (R), remains uncalled as of Wednesday afternoon, and it may be a while before results are known.
Thousands of mail-in ballots are outstanding in counties across the district, chief among them Montgomery County — a key blue territory that favors Trone — and Frederick County, purple territory where the candidates have been neck-and-neck. Spokesmen in elections offices in those counties said officials will not resume counting the remaining ballots until Thursday and will not have an update on the count until Thursday night.
With Democrats nationwide defying expectations and the GOP’s hopes of an enormous red wave evaporated, control of the U.S. House remains unresolved, with the final picture depending on outcomes in the outstanding competitive races — including in Maryland’s 6th. Political analysts have seen Trone, a multimillionaire with the ability to self-fund his campaign, as a favorite in the race, pointing to his incumbent advantage and huge wealth — and they considered losing Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox to be a drag on Parrott.
Del. Neil Parrott takes on Rep. David Trone — and his $13 million war chest
With the race too close to call, Parrott was narrowly leading as of Wednesday, boosted by large margins in rural Western Maryland counties, pending all those as-yet-uncounted mail-in ballots.
Maryland law has prohibited elections officials from canvassing mail-in ballots until two days after Election Day. But after chaotic delays during the Maryland gubernatorial primary this year, a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge allowed the law to be suspended so elections officials could begin processing mail-in ballots as they trickled in ahead of the general election. Even with the head start, though, some registrars anticipated they would still need days or weeks after Election Day to finish counting.
State lawmakers passed a bill that would have removed the law permanently, but Gov. Larry Hogan (R) vetoed it.
Spokesmen for Montgomery and Frederick counties could not give a more specific estimate about how long the process would take, only saying they will provide an update Thursday night.
Trone trounced Parrott in 2020 by roughly 20 percentage points — but it’s a different story this year, after a protracted redistricting battle led to a new congressional map that made the 6th Congressional District in the state’s western region more competitive. Parrott, one of the Maryland House of Delegates’ most conservative legislators, in fact led the crusade against partisan gerrymandering in Annapolis, and was among the Republicans who sued over a previous map and won in state court to force changes that ultimately benefited him this year.
The better odds for Parrott led Trone, the owner of Total Wine & More, to invest more than $12 million of his personal wealth in the race — a financial advantage that largely deterred national Republicans from coming to Parrott’s aid and kept Trone commanding the airwaves. Parrott raised roughly $800,000.
“Tens of thousands of ballots are still outstanding, and it may take a few days for every vote to be counted,” Trone tweeted in a message to supporters early Wednesday morning. “But I’m confident that I’m headed back to Congress to keep fighting for the people of the 6th District.”
Parrott, a civil engineer, has served in the House of Delegates for roughly a decade, making a name for himself after launching petition drives seeking to repeal laws with which he disagreed, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage and allowing in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. He campaigned on pledges to rein in government spending, crime, and illegal immigration and drug trafficking at the border.
Trone, in a slew of attack ads, went after Parrott as an “extremist,” hammering particularly on abortion. Parrott has previously proposed a 20-week ban, with an exception for “medical emergencies,” in the state House and said he would support a 15-week ban in Congress.
Trone, on the other hand, sought to present himself as a centrist who leverages a business background to negotiate across the aisle on his main priorities, namely on boosting resources for mental health and addiction — a personal mission of Trone’s after losing his nephew to an overdose of fentanyl-laced heroin in 2016. | 2022-11-09T20:32:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rep. David Trone, Del. Neil Parrott remain in tight, key Maryland race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/results-maryland-trone-parrott-6th/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/results-maryland-trone-parrott-6th/ |
Recent grad is tired of ‘going going going.’ Carolyn Hax readers give advice.
Carolyn Hax (The Washington Post)
Dear Carolyn: I’m 23 and graduated college about a year ago during the pandemic. While at college I worked at least one job, and I have been working since high school. I got a paid internship right out of college that was very related to my field which recently concluded — this was taking up pretty much all of my time and mental space.
I applied for several “adult” jobs related to my field and have done well in the interview processes (made it through all the interviews, top couple candidates), but didn’t receive an offer. In some ways I’m okay with this. I’m young but I feel so burned out in my field that having some time to reevaluate sounds nice.
But how do I reevaluate? I’ve been going going going since I was a kid — with extracurriculars, jobs and classes. Now I suddenly have nothing to do (except apply to jobs) and I’m spiraling a little. How do I reevaluate what I want when maybe I’m realizing I’ve just been going along with the ride? (To be clear: I’m a first-generation college student and paid for school with a mix of loans/scholarships/out of pocket so I did make an effort to go. I loved my major, but I’m just feeling lost now that this phase has ended.)
— Lost Grad
Lost Grad: I was just like you when I graduated from college: My parents pushed me very hard when I was in school, and, once the structure of college fell away, I was left with a diploma that I had no desire to use. If you can afford it, take this time to do something that interests you — even if it’s not a “real” or “traditional” post-college career, or it feels like “settling.” (I enjoyed going to a certain bookstore in D.C., so I got a job there.)
Eventually, I decided that I wanted to pursue another area of education. I never could have made that decision if I were spinning on that initial hamster wheel — when it felt like I had only one, preordained path. I won’t glamorize my old bookstore job, but it was very different. It allowed me to see a perspective and gain experience I never could have if I just dove into a cubicle job after graduation.
Even though there are undoubtedly some things I would have done differently, I know that only now with lots of hindsight. I was not at the right place or maturity level to even think about those choices then. Now, I have the typical “adult” job (incorporating both my undergraduate and graduate fields) but I never would have gotten it without the “weird” job on my résumé. You don’t need to be hard on yourself; the truth is many people are just “going going going” at 23 and never take the time to wonder if it was even to a place worth getting to.
— Wayward Willard
Lost Grad: I knew a fellow who was out of work for several weeks when he was a young man, and while he was applying for jobs, he also read all the works of Shakespeare. This project had nothing to do with his career, but it was something he had always thought about doing. It gave him a sense of accomplishment in a time when he could easily have felt discouraged and useless.
I wonder if there is something you always thought about doing someday but never had time for before. Maybe it’s learning how to cook, or taking an acting class, or building a clock or volunteering at a food bank — any project that stretches you mentally or physically in a way you haven’t been able to do before.
— Cathie Fornssler
Lost Grad: I speak from experience, because your story is very similar to my own. If you financially don’t need to work right now, volunteer part-time for an organization or cause that you are passionate about. It will give you a sense of purpose during your week without burning you out and a different perspective as you think about how you want to focus your life going forward. It also is a good addition to a résumé and can become something meaningful to add to the conversation during job interviews.
Continue looking for full-time jobs in the career you are considering, and keep an open mind. I did this, and after a year of part-time work, volunteering and considering options, I have been working in my originally chosen field full-time for 30 years. Good luck!
Lost Grad: Are you burned out from “going going going” or are you burned out on your field before even really getting started? If the former, take a vacation from applying to jobs; spend a couple weeks putting your apartment together, visiting family, reading. Then get back to it. Employers can likely sense your lack of enthusiasm, and that might be why you aren’t getting any bites.
But if you are burned out in your field, you might want to consider a different field. There are lot of unconventional ways to use you degree without working in the field that you were expecting. Instead of being an electrical engineer, try being a patent agent for electrical inventions. If you studied architecture, it doesn’t mean you have to make buildings; you could be a journalist who writes about architecture. Without knowing your field, I can’t offer any creative options for you specifically, but they are out there. I went through several different careers (all using my degree) before finding the right one that used my degree in a way that I enjoyed. Good luck.
— Find the Source | 2022-11-09T20:32:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Grad is tired of “going going going.” Carolyn Hax readers give advice. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/09/carolyn-hax-recent-grad-burned-out/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/09/carolyn-hax-recent-grad-burned-out/ |
With inflation top of mind, voters raise minimum wage in two states
Nebraskans voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Nevadans voted for an increase to $12 an hour.
Voters fill out their ballots Tuesday at a polling center at the Meadows Mall in Las Vegas. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Voters approved minimum-wage increases for workers in Nebraska and Nevada, as well as for tipped workers in Washington D.C., on Tuesday, as many said that inflation was a top concern in exit polls.
Nebraskans voted to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Nevadans voted to extend a minimum-wage increase to $12 an hour to nearly all workers. Voters in D.C. overwhelmingly voted to triple the minimum wage for tipped workers to $16.10 an hour over four years.
Generally, Americans have tended to favor raising the minimum wage on statewide ballot initiatives. The federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour, and Congress has not updated that, even as many companies have raised wages to keep and attract workers.
Local minimum-wage measures had mixed success on Tuesday. Voters in Portland, Maine, rejected a measure that would have gradually raised the minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2025. But 82 percent of voters in the Seattle suburb of Tukwila, Washington, voted to raise the local minimum wage to $19 an hour by next year, one of the highest in the country.
The minimum-wage victories come as inflation near 40-year highs has continued to strain workers’ finances this year. In an exit poll, about 3 in 10 voters said inflation was the most important issue in their vote.
Democrats have generally tended to embrace hiking the minimum wage. And the passage of these initiatives happened as the Democratic Party performed better than expected across the country in the midterm elections. Yet Republican voters often support raising the minimum wage, as well. Between 1996 and 2022, there have been 28 minimum-wage increase initiatives on state ballots. Only two have been voted down.
“Nebraska proves to the nation that a $15 minimum wage is not a coastal elite priority,” said Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, which helped draft the language for the Nebraska measure. “It’s an absolute necessity everywhere.”
The ballot initiatives faced strong opposition from Republicans and small-business owners who say that raising the minimum wage eliminates jobs, drives small employers out of business, and fuels inflation through price increases to make up for higher labor costs.
“We are disappointed with its passage and the new reality that awaits our vibrant industry during a time of already challenging economic recovery," Julie Sproesser, interim executive director of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, said in a statement after the measure increasing wages for tipped workers passed in D.C. on Tuesday. “This measure will disrupt our city’s hundreds of small and independently owned restaurants.”
Over the past 12 months, a record-hot labor market has given workers more leverage to demand higher wages from their employers, which has resulted in record wage growth. But the rising costs of food, gas and rent have wiped out gains for many households. Emboldened workers who are feeling the pinch have looked for other mechanisms to improve working conditions, such as unionization and minimum-wage increases.
U.S. added 261,000 jobs in October, as labor market softens slightly
Nebraskans voted to increase the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour in 2026, as well as to adjust the wage each year with the cost of living. More than 20 percent of the state’s workers will receive a raise in January thanks to the measure. The initiative passed with 58 percent of the vote.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, opposed the initiative, arguing that markets should determine employee wages.
In Nevada, the minimum wage will increase from $10.50 to $12 an hour by July 2024. The state will also eliminate the current tiered minimum-wage system that effectively penalized workers at companies that offer health insurance. The initiative passed with 54 percent of the vote.
On the East Coast, voters in D.C. approved a measure to raise wages for tipped workers, mostly in the restaurant industry, following months of debate on the potential impact on the city’s wait staff and restaurants. It will raise the minimum wage for tipped workers from $5.35 an hour to $16.10 by 2027.
Voters also weighed in on their collective bargaining rights in the midterms. In Illinois, residents voted to amend the state Constitution to guarantee that workers have a right to organize and bargain collectively. But in a blow to labor unions, Tennessee voters approved a ballot measure prohibiting employment contracts that require union membership, enshrining that ban in their state Constitution. | 2022-11-09T20:32:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | With inflation top of mind, voters raise minimum wages in two states - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/09/minimum-wage-inflation-voters/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/09/minimum-wage-inflation-voters/ |
Latest U.S. weather satellite, set to scan storms like Nicole, launches Thursday
The satellite, known as JPSS-2, will help meteorologists forecast weather, monitor climate change and track wildfires, dust storms and volcanic eruptions
A rendering of the JPSS-2 satellite. (NOAA)
As Tropical Storm Nicole neared Florida on Wednesday, a satellite passed 512 miles overhead, scanning for data to help meteorologists understand what was happening beneath the clouds — and better predict what the storm would do next.
On Thursday, on the other side of the United States, the satellite’s $1.4 billion successor will rocket into space.
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are set to launch an Atlas V rocket carrying the JPSS-2 — the second of four satellites in a series known as the Joint Polar Satellite System — at 1:25 a.m. local time from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Winds increasing, waters rising in Florida as Nicole closes in
The JPSS-2 will be key to observing and forecasting extreme weather for an expected life span of at least seven years. Along with its ability to observe the inner workings of storms like Nicole, the satellite’s instruments allow meteorologists to track wildfires, dust storms, sea ice and volcanic eruptions as the spacecraft orbits around Earth 14 times each day.
It will complement NOAA’s GOES satellites, a pair whose orbits are such that they essentially remain stationary over North America, offering near-constant observations. But while the JPSS satellite passes over any given spot only twice a day, what it does capture will be far more detailed.
And it will add to a continuous stretch of detailed observations from satellites that orbit Earth from pole to pole and have contributed significantly to improvements in weather predictions as much as a week in advance, said Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist and satellite scientist with NOAA’s National Weather Service.
“Weather forecasts have been steadily getting better,” Gerth said. “We know that a lot of that improvement, particularly in the last 20 years, is due to polar-orbiting satellites.”
After its launch, JPSS-2 will become known as NOAA-21, joining JPSS-1 launched in November 2017, then becoming NOAA-20. Launches of the next two JPSS satellites are scheduled for 2027 and 2032, ensuring continuous observations by the series through at least the late 2030s, and likely longer. The launch schedule aims to ensure redundancy, but satellites often outlast their original mission horizons.
The JPSS series builds upon observations of similar satellites including the NOAA-NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP, and satellites operated by EUMETSAT, the European operational satellite agency. The more than two-decade record of consistent data from such satellites help Earth scientists better understand “where we’ve been and where we’re going from a climate perspective,” said Tim Walsh, director of the JPSS program at NASA.
The JPSS-2 launch will mean NOAA operates 17 active satellites monitoring the planet and near space. The latest GOES satellite launched earlier this year.
Also on board the Atlas rocket on Thursday will be the Low-Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator, or LOFTID, a mission to test a new type of heat shield that would be used in missions to Venus, Mars and Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.
As Nicole nears Florida just weeks after Hurricane Ian devastated the peninsula, the situation will stress the value of the JPSS satellites, Gerth said. While a host of observations go into weather models hurricane forecasters use, the initial JPSS satellite that launched five years ago offers a unique view of the inner workings of storms.
“It really is a CAT scan of storms, and not just looking at the movement,” he said. | 2022-11-09T20:32:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Latest U.S. weather satellite, set to scan storms like Nicole, launches Thursday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/latest-us-weather-satellite-set-scan-storms-like-nicole-launches-thursday/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/09/latest-us-weather-satellite-set-scan-storms-like-nicole-launches-thursday/ |
Across the United States, millions of Americans headed to the polls Tuesday. They showed up because they’re concerned about abortion access. Many were anxious about the state of American democracy.
Some worried about voter fraud, though there is no evidence that widespread fraud has affected election results. Others said they were concerned about inflation and the economy or wanted to see more spending on education.
Washington Post photographers fanned out around the country, talking to voters as they cast their ballots.
Eric Brown with his children Milana, 5, and Xander, 7, in Jenkintown, Pa.
“It is a woman’s decision to control their body, and I do not believe politics should come into play when it comes to that,” said Eric Brown, 33, who voted straight Democratic, accompanied by his 5-year-old daughter, Milana, and his 7-year-old son, Xander.
The “last thing I would want is for a law or something to be set in place now that affects my daughter, that could potentially hurt her or harm her health,” he said.
Nick Forsberg in Braddock, Pa.
Joe Lamberti/For The Washington Post
Nick Forsberg, 31, voted for all Democrats at the New Hope Baptist Church polling place.
“The hyper-conservatism is getting scary. I think we need to keep the Democrats in control in Congress,” he said. “The climate is also pretty big for me, and abortion rights need to stay in place.”
Dewey Gongaware in Braddock, Pa.
Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post
“I don’t vote,” said Dewey Gongaware, who operates a long-term garage sale on his property in Braddock, Pa.
“Too much other stuff going on my mind. I fish a lot. I figure one vote ain’t gonna matter.”
Gongaware said his girlfriend was voting for John Fetterman (D) because of his stance on abortion and tried to sway him to do the same.
Barbara Woods in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Evan Cobb for The Washington Post
“I always vote,” said Barbara Woods, 70, at East Congregational Church in Grand Rapids, Mich. Woods, a Democrat, voted on Election Day.
Leroy Hackley Jr. in Byron Center, Mich.
“Given my age, I know the struggles that my folks and grand-folks had to go through to give Black folk the right to vote. So I don’t take that lightly,” Leroy Hackley Jr., 65, said at Byron Township Community Center in Byron Center, Mich.
On Election Day, he texted his three adult sons to make sure they went out and voted.
Sierra Papa in Allendale, Mich.
“It was nice to know my voice was going to be heard,” said Sierra Papa, who voted for the first time Tuesday. Papa, a freshman at Grand Valley State University, identifies as a Republican.
Dianne Fisher, originally from Hamilton, N.C., lives in Denver. She is a Democrat and works as a real estate agent.
Chris Davis, of Denver, is a Republican who works in financial sales.
James Bonar in Steubenville, Ohio.
Rebecca Kiger for The Washington Post
James Bonar is a registered Republican but chose to vote for Democratic Senate nominee Tim Ryan.
Bonar was injured at his factory job in 2011. He went from making over $50,000 a year to barely making $20,000 and was devastated he couldn’t support his family. He became addicted to opioids but is sober now and counsels those in addiction. “I chose Ryan because he said he’s willing to bring the jobs overseas back,” he said.
Mary and Jeff King in Steubenville, Ohio.
“Unfortunately, we voted for J.D. Vance. Unfortunately, because he’s a liar,” said Mary King in Steubenville, Ohio. “We didn’t vote for him in the primary. I don’t think he’ll live up to any of the promises he made.”
“It’s more important to defeat the Democrats,” added Jeff King, who said that, as a Catholic, the number one issue driving his vote was abortion. “I’d like to see a complete ban in Ohio.”
Stephen Metz in St. Petersburg, Fla.
“Our democracy is failing,” said Stephen Metz, 55, in St. Petersburg. “Everyone has a duty to try to prevent that from happening.”
Metz said he felt especially compelled to vote in this year’s midterm election.
Peyton Roemer in Allenton, Wis.
Peyton Roemer, 19, is a student in Allenton, Wis. He said he is “going to support the Republican Party as much as I can … I’m pro-life, so that’s a big issue to me.”
Janna Zaibak in Milwaukee.
“I think it’s really important that every woman has a right to choose, because at the end of the day everyone’s circumstance is so different,” said college student Janna Zaibak, 21, who was voting at a conference center in suburban Milwaukee over the lunch hour. She backed Gov. Tony Evers (D), in part because of his support for abortion rights, she said.
Wisconsin’s abortion clinics shut down this summer after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a right to abortion for half a century. Evers has sued to try to overturn an 1849 state law that bans nearly all abortions.
Mark Koehler in Fond Du Lac, Wis.
Mark Koehler, 68, a retired truck driver of Fond Du Lac, Wis., voted for Republican gubernatorial nominee Tim Michels, along with Sen. Ron Johnson (R).
The “country was going in the wrong direction,” he said. He “was happy the way things were going with Trump.”
Andrea Tavena, a Yaqui Native American, voted in Guadalupe, Ariz.
Sophia Ybarra cast a ballot at the Guadalupe Mercado shopping mall in Guadalupe, Ariz.
Jaimie and William Tadder in Fayetteville, N.C.
Melissa Sue Gerrits for The Washington Post
“We have lots of grandchildren. We’re out here for their future. Education needs to be taken out of political hands and placed in the parents’ hands,” said Jaimie Tadder, who was with her husband, William, at the Reid Ross Classical School in Fayetteville, N.C.
Aaron Acosta and his daughter Ainsley in Edinburg, Tex.
Sergio Flores/For The Washington Post
Aaron Acosta brought his daughter Ainsley with him to vote at the Lark Community Center in Edinburg, Tex. Acosta said he was teaching her a lesson in civic duty.
Acosta, a local avocado importer, voted for Republicans because he believes that they will enact policies that help his workers, some of whom currently live paycheck to paycheck. “I want to see them paying less than $2.00 a gallon for gas,” he said.
He considers himself a moderate and has supported Democrats in the past.
Photo editing and production by Natalia Jiménez and Christine Nguyen. Story editing by Amanda Erickson. | 2022-11-09T20:33:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The faces of the voters who helped decide this year’s election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2022/midterms-2022-voter-voices/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2022/midterms-2022-voter-voices/ |
The big message from the midterms? Voters aren’t impressed with either party.
J.D. Vance, Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, takes the stage after his win during an Ohio Republican Party election night party on Tuesday in Columbus. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
The mixed messages voters sent in the midterms reflected a nation still deeply divided and leery of both major political parties. Most Americans haven’t embraced the rhetoric that “extreme MAGA Republicans,” as President Biden began labeling them, are on a mission to destroy democracy. The New York Times reported that as of noon Wednesday, more than 210 Republicans “who questioned the 2020 election” had so far won House and Senate seats, along with races for governor, secretary of state and attorney general. That number is certain to grow.
The Democrats’ other big election message, on GOP threats to abortion rights, had mixed results. Some Republican candidates, including Ohio congressional incumbent Steve Chabot, bit the dust after being hammered in ads as being “obsessed” with taking away abortion rights, but pro-life Senate candidate J.D. Vance cruised to victory in the same state. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had one of the biggest and widest GOP wins of all while embracing various antiabortion views.
While control of the Senate might very well be decided again by a runoff election in Georgia, Republicans seemed likely to at least win the House, even if by a much narrower margin than predicted. As The Post reported in September, Republicans have promised that, if given the reins, they intend to open countless investigations, including into spending by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Justice Department’s search of Mar-a-Lago, the Biden administration’s “deliberations over weapons sales to Ukraine” and many other matters.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has promised a “big announcement” next week, and he is widely expected to declare his candidacy for president in 2024. But the midterms’ results should provide Republicans with all the evidence they need that Trump’s day has passed. Some are already realizing it. Tellingly, Vance, whose campaign was propelled by the former president’s endorsement and rallies on his behalf, didn’t mention Trump in his victory speech Tuesday night.
Make no mistake, Trump’s issues motivated millions of Americans, and his legacy as the person who remade the Republican Party and restored it to competitiveness after lopsided losses in 2008 and 2012 is secure. “Trumpism” is the GOP’s future, a direction that has been decided not by party leaders, but by rank-and-file Republicans who believe in energy independence, an “America First” foreign policy, cracking down on those crossing the border illegally and a devotion to the kind of God-and-country generational traditions that an increasingly progressive world calls outdated or even “intolerant.” But Trump’s star power is fading. DeSantis is ready for his close-up.
In the meantime, a weary country needs a break — from political drama, from never-ending election cycles and from the accusatory rhetoric unmoored from reality that has been emanating from both sides. Republicans should stop accusing Democrats of rigging past elections. Democrats should stop accusing Republicans of rigging future elections. While party leaders on both sides clearly have work to do, millions of grass-roots Americans should tune it all out for a while and remind themselves that there’s more to life than fighting over politics. We used to know that. We need to remember it. | 2022-11-09T20:34:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | What Republicans should do if they win the House - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/republican-house-agenda-domestic-issues/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/republican-house-agenda-domestic-issues/ |
The 2022 election results tell us nothing about 2024
Former president Donald Trump during a "Save America" rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Nov. 7. (Joshua A. Bickel/Bloomberg)
As soon as the 2022 election results are finalized (which could take weeks in some races), pundits will use the returns to make predictions about 2024. That’s just how the political parlor game is played.
When you see these predictions (and that’s a “when” not an “if”), be skeptical. Historically, midterm results have told us nothing about who will win the next presidential election.
If this table looks like a chaotic mess, you’re reading it correctly. The most direct measure of a party’s success in a midterm election — the number of House seats that change hands — has no meaningful correlation with the popular vote in the next presidential election.
This isn’t surprising when you think about it. Presidential elections follow a simple formula: Republicans vote for the Republican; Democrats go for the Democrat; and swing voters make a game-time decision based on the candidates and economy. The midterm results tell us nothing about who the 2024 candidates will be or what the economy will look like in two years — ergo, they can’t predict the next presidential election.
The midterm returns might tell us something about the demographic future of each party. For instance, in the 2018 elections, Florida Republicans Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis improved on Donald Trump’s 2016 margin in Miami-Dade County, presaging Trump’s 2020 gains with Latino voters in South Florida.
But these demographic inferences are not always reliable. Remember that in 2018, Democrats gained ground in rural Midwestern counties — only to see Trump win these areas again, by landslide margins, two years later.
So when you see the first predictions about 2024, remember that the electorate has a short memory — and both parties start with roughly even odds of winning. | 2022-11-09T20:45:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why the midterms tell us nothing about 2024 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/2022-2024-midterms-presidential-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/2022-2024-midterms-presidential-election/ |
On Nov. 9, the Georgia race between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Republican challenger Herschel Walker are headed to a Dec. 6 runoff election. (Video: The Washington Post)
The Georgia Senate race between Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R) is heading to a Dec. 6 runoff.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed the runoff Wednesday, saying the state has looked at “the outstanding vote totals and neither one would be on 50 percent,” the threshold needed for victory.
With 98 percent of votes counted around 3 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, Warnock had 49.4 percent of the vote, while Walker had 48.5 percent.
“There is one race in our state that is going to be moving to the December 6th runoff,” Raffensperger told reporters. “That is the race for the United States Senate between Senator Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.”
Raffensperger — who was reelected Tuesday night — said his office has already begun working to start creating the ballots for the counties preparing for the runoff. Voters, he said, can request absentee ballots starting Wednesday and until Nov. 28. Early voting must begin no later than Nov. 28 in all counties, he said.
“We do ask the voters to come out and vote one last time,” Raffensperger said. “We have no control over how many campaign ads our voters are going to see over the next 30 days, but we’ll make sure that we have honest and fair elections.”
Georgia is one of two states — along with Louisiana — in which runoffs are required during general elections when no candidate secures more than half the votes. In most other states, a candidate wins a general election if they secure the most votes — known as a plurality.
At 2 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, Warnock prepared his supporters in Atlanta for a possible runoff.
“I understand that at this late hour you may be a little tired, I may be a little tired for now,” Warnock said. “But whether it’s later tonight or tomorrow or four weeks from now, we will hear from the people of Georgia.
“I look forward to continuing on that journey together over the next six years,” he added.
Walker, meanwhile, gave brief remarks during his election watch party Tuesday night.
“I’m telling you right now,” he said. “I don’t come to lose. And I told you, he’s going to be tough to beat.”
Warnock and Walker have been locked in a hotly contested race critical to determining which party will control the Senate.
The Democratic incumbent is running for his first full term in office after winning a special election for his seat in 2021 that flipped the Senate to Democratic control. That year, the state’s two Senate races went to runoff elections, with Democrats picking up both seats — Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) was elected to a full, six-year term.
That dramatic runoff election saw both parties going all-in on investments, ads and appearances. In a move that was detrimental to Republicans, however, Donald Trump leveled attacks on Republican officials in the state as he spread false allegations that the 2020 elections in Georgia were rigged.
One likely 2024 GOP contender triumphed on election night. It wasn’t Donald Trump.
Ultimately, Warnock’s win represented a historic upset in a state once seen as a longtime Republican bastion — which President Biden won by two-tenths of a point in 2020. Warnock then became the first Black Democratic senator from a formerly Confederate state.
Walker, meanwhile, is a political newcomer and former professional football player who was handpicked by the former president and who ran a staunchly conservative campaign that was, ultimately, mired in scandal after several women accused him of pressuring them to have an abortion, then paying for the procedures. The Republican, who ran on an antiabortion platform and on direct appeals to the party’s evangelical base, has denied that he’s ever paid for an abortion.
While Republicans at first were skeptical of Walker’s campaign, GOP leaders — including Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Rick Scott (Fla.) — flocked to Georgia to campaign for him.
Another month of campaigning means Democrats and Republicans are likely to double down on their operations in the Peach State. The race is already the second most-expensive this campaign cycle, with supporters for both candidates spending a combined $271.5 million, according to OpenSecrets.
Still, the level of investment will also depend on the result of two other Senate elections still pending as of Wednesday evening. If Democrats hold on to their seats in Arizona and Nevada, the Senate will remain under a 50-50 split, with Democrats having a razor-thin majority thanks to the vote of Vice President Harris.
As of 4 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, Democrats were favored to win both those Senate seats.
Per Georgia’s rules, all registered voters in the state can cast their ballot in a runoff election; to be eligible to vote in this year’s runoff, they must have registered to vote by Nov. 7.
Kentucky’s Republican AG says state’s near-total abortion ban should stand | 2022-11-09T21:15:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgia Senate race will go to a runoff between Warnock and Walker - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/georgia-runoff-warnock-walker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/georgia-runoff-warnock-walker/ |
Edward Prescott, Nobel laureate economist with policy influence, dies at 72
He argued that central banks and economic policy chiefs did more damage to the economy when they pumped up interest rates to fight inflation.
Nobel laureates Edward Prescott, right, Robert Mundell, center, and Joseph Stiglitz address a seminar in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2009 to discuss the global financial crisis. (Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty Images)
Edward Prescott, a Nobel laureate economist who urged policymakers to take the long view on economic strategies and resist short-range tinkering over issues such as employment and interest rates, arguing that seeking quick booms often can be followed by sobering busts, died Nov. 6 at a health-care center in Paradise Valley, Ariz. He was 81.
Dr. Prescott’s work with Norwegian economist Finn E. Kydland, with whom he shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in economics, was as much about high-level policy as it was consumer psychology — with particular relevance to the current worries over rising food and energy prices and the many voters looking for someone to blame.
He contended that the tweaks may bring temporary relief but end up causing disruptive economic crests and valleys. A calmer path, he asserted, is better for financial markets and job growth, and lessens the chances for mood swings by the public and businesses.
“What I am going to describe for you is a revolution in macroeconomics,” Dr. Prescott wrote in the American Economist in 2006.
The essay further distilled theories from a seminal 1977 paper by Dr. Prescott and Kydland, titled “Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans” and written during a time of U.S. “stagflation,” a combination of high inflation and stagnant economic growth.
Fluctuations and unpredictability in economic policy, they argued, feed into turbulence, exacerbate boom-and-bust cycles and lead to potentially harmful decisions on the home front.
“You should not think in terms of controlling the economy,” Dr. Prescott said in 2004. “That leads to bad outcomes. You should think in terms of committing to good policy rules.”
“So much of his work challenged the way we modeled economic policy, forcing us to dig deeper into our theories and tests of our theories against data,” said a statement from Art Rolnick, former director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where Dr. Prescott was an adviser while he held various teaching and research positions, including at Arizona State University since 2003.
The Nobel Committee said Dr. Prescott and Kydland, now at the University of California at Santa Barbara, challenged views on the “credibility and political feasibility of economic policy.”
Dr. Prescott countered that the Keynesian template is incomplete. He said economic cycles are more influenced by disruptions — new technologies or major events such as wars or the covid pandemic — than by monetary policies.
Peter Lindert, an economics professor emeritus at the University of California at Davis, wrote in 2003 that Dr. Prescott’s was “heavily laden with assumptions” and “educated, intelligent, plausible fiction.” In 2004, former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers told the Wall Street Journal that Dr. Prescott’s theories on business cycles were “implausible.”
“Nothing is easy in politics,” Dr. Prescott said in a 2005 speech.
Meeting in Norway
Dr. Prescott said he worked summer jobs in local paper mills as a teenager. “I got to know, like and respect my fellow workers who didn’t have the opportunities I had,” he wrote later.
He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1962 with a degree in mathematics and received a master’s degree in operations research in 1963 from Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland. He completed a doctorate in economics at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1967.
Before taking a professorship at Arizona State, Dr. Prescott taught economics at the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Minnesota and the University of Chicago. At Carnegie Mellon in the early 1970s, Dr. Prescott met Kydland, then a graduate student, and became his dissertation adviser.
A decision to spend 1974-1975 at the Norwegian School of Business and Economics in Bergen, Norway, resumed Dr. Prescott’s collaboration with Kydland, who was on the faculty.
Dr. Prescott often said one of his great pleasures was teaching and working as a doctoral adviser to “help students in that very difficult transition from student to researcher,” he wrote in his biographical sketch for the Nobel Committee.
A University of Minnesota tribute to Dr. Prescott said he liked to pop into colleagues’ offices and ask with a smile: “What major advances are you making in economic science today?”
Survivors include his wife of 57 years, the former Janet Dale Simpson; sons Edward and Andrew; daughter Wynne; and six grandchildren.
Despite Dr. Prescott’s rejection of monetary policy interventions, he was outspoken in his belief in some conservative ideologies: that lower taxes stimulate economic growth and that Medicare and Social Security benefits should be trimmed back. He regularly took aim at the higher tax rates in Europe that fund programs such as health care but that he claimed also hold back economic dynamism.
In 2009, Dr. Prescott joined more than 200 economists and others in an open letter by the libertarian Cato Institute opposing President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act after the major fiscal upheavals of the global economic downturn.
Dr. Prescott also took a public stand against estate taxes, so-called death taxes, on a person’s assets that are bequeathed to survivors. | 2022-11-09T21:16:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Edward Prescott, Nobel economist who saw harm in quick fixes, dies at 81 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/09/edward-prescott-economist-nobel-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/09/edward-prescott-economist-nobel-dies/ |
The Board of Elections was still counting votes to determine the winners of the at-large council race
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) smiles after holding a news conference on Wednesday to discuss her plans for her third term. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Less than a day after D.C. voters elected her to a rare third term, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Wednesday reflected briefly on her nearly eight years at the helm of the city’s government before outlining her vision for the next four.
“None of us could have expected covid, Donald Trump, a racial reckoning or an economic crisis,” Bowser said, before alluding to some of her administration’s past slogans. “In 2014, we made promises for a fresh start. In 2018, we made promises to ensure we were doing everything possible, that D.C. residents got a fair shot.”
Her mandate this time? “We’re charged with leading the city’s comeback,” Bowser said.
That comeback, Bowser said, entails a focus on solving problems in the District that are largely familiar and that have been among residents’ top concerns in recent months: public safety, keeping children off the streets and on paths toward success, and revitalizing the city’s downtown corridor, which has struggled to return to its pre-pandemic state.
Recalling her successful first-term campaign promise to close the decrepit D.C. General homeless shelter and build short-term family shelters across the city, Bowser said that a third term would give her time to complete other projects that have “started, stopped and stopped again.” She mentioned Skyland Town Center, a mixed-use development in Ward 7 that has advanced in the past year but that was in the works for so long that five D.C. mayors have overseen its progress. “Those are the things and types of ideas that are transformational for people that we will continue to explore,” she said.
She plans to ask residents to help. “We’re asking anybody that has a big idea to submit that big idea,” she said.
In the coming weeks, the city will host job fairs to encourage residents to take positions within the D.C. government.
The transition team that Bowser announced Wednesday, led by two of her allies, former D.C. Health director LaQuandra Nesbitt and former council member Tommy Wells, who directs the Department of Energy & Environment, will be tasked with gathering community feedback.
Although Bowser’s victory in the general election was not a surprise — the Associated Press called the race for her not long after polls closed Tuesday — the fate of two at-large council seats remained unclear Wednesday afternoon, with the Board of Elections saying that it had yet to count 19,000 ballots that were deposited at drop boxes on Election Day, as well as an unknown number of ballots mailed on Election Day or shortly before.
With more than 165,000 ballots counted — about 66,000 fewer than the total in the 2018 mayoral election — current Democratic council members Anita Bonds and Kenyan R. McDuffie held the lead for the two open at-large council seats. If that remains the case after all ballots are counted, McDuffie, who represents Ward 5 on the council but ran in this election as an independent for a citywide seat, will unseat Elissa Silverman (I), who was in third place as of Wednesday afternoon. | 2022-11-09T21:20:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bowser asks for ‘transformational’ ideas for third term as D.C. mayor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/bowser-dc-third-term-council/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/bowser-dc-third-term-council/ |
The News Corp. headquarters, which houses Fox News, in New York on Feb. 26, 2021. (Jeenah Moon/For The Washington Post)
Fox News’s election night coverage and the data it drew on tell us something about the network’s ordinary coverage and our country’s political health.
Consider: Fox News host Tucker Carlson declared in 2018 that immigrants make the United States “poorer and dirtier and more divided.”
Fresh data suggest that Carlson’s view, which prompted an advertiser backlash, isn’t held by the majority in this country. Fifty-two percent of survey respondents said that immigrants do more to help the country, four points more than the share that said immigrants do more to hurt it.
Those findings don’t stem from some random study. They’re part of the Fox News Voter Analysis, a survey of about 100,000 interviews with registered voters by NORC at the University of Chicago for Fox and the Associated Press. The survey is the result of a power move by Fox News and the AP after they grew disenchanted with the results of exit polling in the 2016 elections. (Fox News has used the methodology in the 2018 and 2020 elections as well.) It includes interviews with early in-person voters, mail-in voters and Election Day voters, a range that “allows us to drill down on different demographics in the U.S., different states in the U.S. ... We’ll be able to tell the story of what soccer moms are doing, what suburban moms are doing, what the biggest issue is,” Arnon Mishkin, head of the Fox News Decision Desk, said in a podcast with Fox News host Martha MacCallum published on Tuesday.
The partnership itself merits a bit of gawking: One of the most factually fastidious media outlets — the AP — has joined with a 26-year-old cable news network whose following was built in part on falsehoods and exaggerations. Yet the data from the NORC-powered survey feeds the network’s Decision Desk, a reputable part of the Fox portfolio that stands apart from its high-profile partisans and propagandists. Recall that in 2012 the Decision Desk called Ohio for incumbent President Barack Obama, a move that famously short-circuited GOP strategist and Fox analyst Karl Rove.
Interesting things happen when Fox News commissions research and publishes the results. One question in the survey concerned racism, which 72 percent of respondents said was a very or somewhat serious problem. That makes for a resounding clash of worldviews when one of Fox News’s central themes is downplaying the role of racism in American society. In recent years, Fox News has mounted a sustained attack on critical race theory, a doctrine holding that racism is a deep-seated scourge that lingers in our institutions and laws.
On Fox News, however, the theory itself is the scourge — especially when it pops up in classrooms.
Another survey question asked about the amount of instruction in local K-8 schools on racism in the United States. Forty-one percent responded that there was too little, 35 percent too much and 24 percent “about the right amount.”
Other findings that also suggest Fox News is fighting against American popular sentiment: Fifty-six percent say gun laws should be more strict (compared with 15 percent for less strict and 29 percent for the status quo); 64 percent said the “bigger problem” on social media is people saying harmful things, while 36 percent say it’s censorship; 63 percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, vs. 37 percent saying it should be illegal in all or most cases.
These are not groundbreaking findings. They generally align with previous surveys — including Fox News polls — on issues before voters. And they also included stuff that’s consonant with Fox News’s in-house ideology, such as low approval ratings for President Biden and high public concern with crime. Yet it was refreshing to see the results scrolling in a full sidebar graphic on the right side of the Fox News screen on Election Day during the afternoon roundtable show “The Five.” Transparency!
The Fox News Voter Analysis helped power the network’s election night coverage, which was helmed by anchors Bret Baier and MacCallum, with screen-czar work from Bill Hemmer and commentary from a bipartisan cast including Rove, Ben Domenech, Harold Ford Jr., Jessica Tarlov, Juan Williams, Marc A. Thiessen and Kellyanne Conway. The presentation was seamless and responsible, except for the moments when hosts from Fox News’s normal evening lineup were invited to opine on the proceedings. Host Jesse Watters came on to predict a “powerful wave election”: “The anecdotes that I’m seeing, and the early data shows me we’re looking at 53, possible 54 [Republican seats] in the Senate and maybe get as high as 240-plus House seats,” said Watters.
So much for “anecdotes” and “early data.” It took just a few hours of election returns to embarrass Watters. Host Carlson, in a fleeting appearance, applauded the shift of Hispanic voters toward the GOP in Florida, saying that the “dream” of Democrats was “a country where it’s White men against everybody else.” With that, and comments deploring the breakdown of some voting machines in Arizona, Carlson was done for the night.
And that was something to celebrate: eight hours of coverage driven by data and research with just a few minutes of the usual insanity.
Fox News’s continued empowerment of its Decision Desk and its reliance on top-flight voter research provide a much-needed bulwark against authoritarian creep (and creeps!) in the United States. As the New York Times has reported, more than 370 candidates in the 2022 elections cast doubt on the 2020 election. Their efforts to do the same in future elections will face rougher waters as long as the home team’s cable news network is investing big money in real numbers. Defamation lawsuits from voting-technology firms against Fox News over its promotion of the “big lie” in 2020 add a boost on this front, too. Democracy can use all the guardrails it can get. | 2022-11-09T21:55:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Fox News survey finds Americans think racism is a significant problem - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/fox-news-election-coverage-survey-racism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/09/fox-news-election-coverage-survey-racism/ |
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — U.S. climate envoy John Kerry unveiled a plan at the COP27 climate summit to make it easier for private corporations to send cash to the developing world in exchange for looking green at home. Kerry’s plan comes after failure to get Congress or the American public to spend billions of dollars more a year in climate financial aid. The plan to finance developing nations’ transition to clean energy involves selling “high quality” carbon credits to companies trying to make their carbon emissions “net zero.” However, the idea faced stiff resistance from environmental groups and climate experts, who said it would give polluters a license to keep polluting.
NEW YORK — Bitcoin slumped to a two-year low and other digital assets sold off Wednesday following the sudden collapse of crypto exchange FTX Trading. A day earlier, FTX agreed to sell itself to Binance after experiencing the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run. Customers fled the exchange after becoming concerned about whether FTX had sufficient capital. Bitcoin traded around $17,645, and overnight fell to its lowest level since December 2020. Just a year ago, bitcoin hit an all-time high of $68,990. Ethereum, the second most actively traded digital currency, fell 10%. Crypto exchange Coinbase and the online trading platform Robinhood also fell in early trading.
FRANKFURT, Germany — Adidas has lowered its earnings forecast for the full year to account for losses from ending its partnership with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West over his antisemitic remarks. The German shoe and sportswear maker had previously said ending the partnership with Ye’s Yeezy brand would cost it 250 million euros. As a result, on Wednesday it lowered its sales outlook for the year, halving net profit from continuing operations to 250 million euros instead of 500 million euros. The company had already cut its full-year earnings forecasts five days before it announced it was splitting with Ye. The company’s chief financial officer says the profitability of the Yeezy shoe collaboration with Ye had been “overstated.”
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Gamblers are shrugging off inflation concerns and losing money at casinos at a record pace. Figures released Wednesday show the U.S. commercial casino industry had its best quarter ever, winning over $15 billion from gamblers in the third quarter of this year. The American Gaming Association says the gambling halls are on track to have their best year ever in 2022. Out of 33 states in which gambling was operational a year ago, 16 reported quarterly highs in overall gambling revenue, including five of the six largest markets: Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania. | 2022-11-09T22:04:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Facebook cuts jobs; Crypto slumps - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-facebook-cuts-jobs-crypto-slumps/2022/11/09/3df936f0-6075-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-facebook-cuts-jobs-crypto-slumps/2022/11/09/3df936f0-6075-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Couple who tried to sell nuclear secrets sentenced to lengthy prison terms
A Navy engineer who tried to sell military secrets was sentenced to more than 19 years. His wife, who tried to hide her role, got just shy of 22 years.
Booking photos show Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana Toebbe. (West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority via AP) (AP)
A Navy engineer who tried to sell military secrets to a foreign country was sentenced Wednesday to more than 19 years in prison, and his wife was sentenced to just shy of 22 years for aiding his plans and then attempting to hide her role.
Jonathan Toebbe, a civilian nuclear engineer with a top-secret security clearance, and Diana Toebbe, a private-school teacher in their hometown of Annapolis, admitted they tried to sell restricted data about nuclear propulsion systems on submarines to a foreign country — a violation of the Atomic Energy Act that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Jonathan Toebbe over several months in 2021 provided thousands of pages of documents to undercover FBI agents posing as representatives of the foreign nation, which is not named in court papers, according to his guilty plea. The restricted data included “some of the most secure and sensitive information about our nuclear-powered fleet,” according to the commander of U.S. submarine forces, Vice Adm. William J. Houston.
The documents described the inner workings of a state-of-the-art attack submarine that costs about $3 billion to produce. Jonathan Toebbe had worked for almost a decade on the Navy’s nuclear-propulsion technology, which enables the submarines to remain underwater for longer periods and to move more stealthily, according to court filings.
U.S. District Judge Gina M. Groh called the Toebbes “confessed traitors” who committed “horrible acts against this nation.” Groh said the Maryland couple’s crime was one of the most serious she had seen in her courtroom, with “potential for harm to U.S. soldiers, the military, civilians.” Though Jonathan Toebbe’s position gave him access to the sensitive data, Diana Tobbe’s sentence was longer because the judge found that she obstructed justice and was not entitled to a reduction in her prison term for accepting responsibility.
“The harm to this nation is grave, and these are scary times we live in,” the judge said at a sentencing hearing Wednesday in Martinsburg, W.Va., federal court.
Who are the Toebbes, accused of trying to sell military secrets to a foreign country?
Prosecutors said Jonathan Toebbe, 44, collected tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency payments for initial data drops to the undercover FBI agents, and at one point offered to hand over 51 packages of information he said he had “smuggled” past security checkpoints. His price: $5 million paid in cryptocurrency, according to an October 2021 indictment.
Diana Toebbe, 46, admitted she acted as a lookout at three “dead drops” in which her husband left behind data cards at prearranged locations — concealing them inside a pack of gum, an adhesive-bandage wrapper and half of a peanut butter sandwich.
At one dead drop, the indictment says, Jonathan Toebbe left behind a message that he and his accomplice were prepared to flee the United States: “We have cash and passports set aside.”
Defense lawyers said the Toebbes, who have two sons ages 12 and 16, were seeking to leave the United States because they were opposed to then-President Donald Trump. An FBI search of their Annapolis home turned up passports for their children, thousands of dollars in cash, shredded documents and a “go bag” containing a flash drive and latex gloves.
“I believed that my family was in dire threat, that democracy itself was on the verge of collapse. And that sort of catastrophic thinking overwhelmed me,” Jonathan Toebbe said at the sentencing hearing. He described himself as an overworked family man who “self-medicated with alcohol” during a nervous breakdown that lasted more than a year.
“I failed in my responsibility to the American people to preserve the secrets that were entrusted with me,” he said.
Diana Toebbe told the judge she regretted her “catastrophic decision.”
“I should have followed my instinct and tried to talk my husband out of this plan, but then my family’s difficulties continued, my depression was at an all-time high, and I felt like the country’s political situation was dire,” she said. “I didn’t just fail to talk him out of it; I actually participated in helping him, and I wanted him to succeed. At the time, I absurdly thought it was a way out of these struggles.”
The Toebbes first pleaded guilty in February, but Groh threw out those agreements with prosecutors, calling them “woefully insufficient.” They would have required Jonathan Toebbe to be sentenced to 12½ to 17½ years in prison and Diana Toebbe to three years.
After pleading guilty under revised terms in September, Diana Toebbe faced at least 12½ years in prison and Jonathan Toebbe also faced a longer term.
Groh sentenced Diana Toebbe to 21 years and 10 months in prison, enhancing her penalty because, according to the judge, she tried to communicate with her husband via handwritten letters she wrote from jail, urging him to plead guilty and deploy a cover story to authorities that she had nothing to do with the plan.
Prosecutors did not tell the court about the letters, which came to the attention of a probation officer assigned to the case on Oct. 4, Groh said. Prison officials had intercepted the letters, one of which was secreted in a laundry bag.
“This is an exceptional story. It’s kind of one right out of the movies,” Groh said of the Toebbes.
Prosecutors continued to request a three-year sentence for Diana Toebbe after the revised plea in September. Groh asked at Wednesday’s hearing how that would make sense, after she rejected an earlier agreement that called for three years of prison.
“The 36 months is a big part of why I did not accept the original binding plea,” the judge said, adding that Diana Toebbe seemed to be “driving the bus” in the couple’s attempt to sell military secrets.
Diana Toebbe’s lawyers argued that a sentence of three to nearly five years would be “consistent with, and in some cases greater than, sentences imposed for other accomplices” in similar cases. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarod Douglas said “she is not the person with access” and was “simply a lookout on two or three occasions.”
“Her husband had an ill-conceived idea to make money, and she agreed to go along with it,” defense attorney Barry P. Beck said in an August court filing. At the sentencing hearing, Beck said Jonathan Toebbe instigated the plan and was the person with a government position that let him access the data.
“Mrs. Toebbe was a housewife, a teacher with a liberal arts degree, had no knowledge of what this stuff meant,” Beck said.
Prosecutors said Jonathan Toebbe was cooperating with the Department of the Navy and other authorities. His public defender, Nicholas J. Compton, said it showed Jonathan Toebbe did not hate the United States and accepted responsibility for his actions.
“Nobody was holding a gun to his head,” Compton added. “And whether Mrs. Toebbe was driving the train or not, he was the one who had access to the information.”
Compton said his client’s cooperation with authorities covered not only “the specific case that we are here about today, but … information that the government didn’t even know about.”
Jonathan Toebbe told the judge he had been debriefed by the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, to help the bureau develop better ways to identify “insider threats” in the government and “come up with a better profile for people like me, in hopes that they might be able to intervene sooner, and prevent the next threat from happening — not just for the protection of the country, but to save that lost soul.”
Groh sentenced Jonathan Toebbe to 19 years and four months in prison and said she did not believe he was trying to protect his family from Trump’s presidency.
“In a manner that reads like a crime novel or a movie script, the defendant abused his position of trust … to threaten national security,” Groh said, adding that he “placed every citizen of this country in a vulnerable position.” | 2022-11-09T22:04:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Couple who tried to sell nuclear secrets sentenced to lengthy prison terms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/09/couple-nuclear-secrets-sentenced/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/09/couple-nuclear-secrets-sentenced/ |
One dead after shooting in Silver Spring
Police were called at 4 a.m. Wednesday to the area of Colony Road and Northampton Drive for the report of shots fired
A person was found dead Wednesday morning in Montgomery County after police received a report of gunshots fired near New Hampshire Avenue and just south of the Capital Beltway.
About 4 a.m., officers were called to the area of Northampton Drive and Colony Road. They discovered a deceased person “with trauma to the body” in the 100 block of Colony Road, officials said. | 2022-11-09T22:25:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | One dead after Silver Spring shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/silver-spring-shooting-homicide/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/silver-spring-shooting-homicide/ |
For Black women, Stacey Abrams’s loss ‘feels like a punch in the gut’
The Democrat lost her rematch bid for Georgia governor, after years of organizing voters in the state
Some Black women said Stacey Abrams's loss Tuesday reaffirmed a message about racial and gender gaps that persist. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post; iStock/Washington Post illustration)
The morning after the midterm elections, Nimay Ndolo woke up thinking about Stacey Abrams.
“I just hope that she’s okay,” said Ndolo, an online-content creator in Smyrna, Ga. “I hope she’s sitting in bed with some Starbucks. I hope her feet are up. I hope she’s talking to her mom, talking to her family.”
Most of all, Ndolo said, she hopes Abrams knows that Black women are proud of her: “I hope she doesn’t feel like she failed us.”
Abrams lost her rematch bid in Georgia’s gubernatorial race Tuesday night to Republican incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp. Some Black women and activists called it a devastating blow for Abrams, 48, a Democrat who has dedicated her career to mobilizing voters in Georgia — an effort credited with helping flip the state blue in the 2020 presidential election.
The outcome also, some said, reaffirmed a message about the racial and gender gaps that persist for Black women.
“We always have to work 10 times as hard as our White counterparts,” said Kristyn Hardy, an attorney in Atlanta. “And not only do we have one strike against us that we’re Black … we’re also a part of a second marginalized group because we’re women. And so it always seems like we’re getting the short end of the stick.”
For Ndolo, “it feels like a punch in the gut,” she said. “I was kind of hoping for a win for her, a win for all Black girls.”
Abrams, who was elected to the Georgia house in 2006, rose to become its minority leader before her first governor’s run, in 2018. This election cycle, she centered voting rights, Medicaid expansion and abortion rights in her campaign against Kemp; Black women told The Washington Post the latter issue, following the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs decision, earned their support.
Black women such as Abrams have long pushed national Democratic campaigns to invest in Georgia and other Southern states, laying the organizing groundwork to galvanize voters of color. Along with Abrams, Black leaders like LaTosha Brown, Nsé Ufot, Helen Butler, Ashley Robinson and Christine White have led voting rights efforts and grass-roots organizations in Georgia.
“There’s just so many Black women who are out here toiling and working every day to move the needle for everyone in Georgia,” said Kendra Cotton, CEO of New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan civic engagement organization founded by Abrams in 2014. “They have been visionaries and are dominating these efforts across the state.”
Their efforts include flipping Georgia blue in landmark races, bringing critical victories for candidates such as President Biden and Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael G. Warnock — who following Tuesday is headed to a runoff against Republican Herschel Walker, after Warnock won in another runoff in 2021.
Warnock “stands on her shoulders,” Cotton said. “We have to take into account what she did when she germinated a lot of these entities in our progressive ecosystem here in Georgia.”
The question was whether the voters Abrams sought to mobilize would turn out.
In the lead-up to the election, a key base of Democrats had expressed concern about Abrams’s support among Black men. But early exit poll data Wednesday showed Abrams winning 90 percent of Black voters in Georgia, including 93 percent of Black women and 84 percent of Black men, nearly identical to Warnock’s support among both groups in the state.
But certain conditions of the race made Abrams’s rematch more challenging than in 2018, when she ran for an open seat in a historic bid that catapulted her to the national spotlight, said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta.
“Fast-forward four years, and she’s not running against another person who has never been governor before — she’s running against an incumbent this time,” Gillespie said of Kemp. “And she’s running against an incumbent who had kept his campaign promises and for whom Republican voters were really satisfied. There’s a familiarity with his leadership.”
From 2020: The long history of Black women organizing in Georgia might decide Senate control
There was also a familiar set of obstacles, she and others suggested, considering Abrams’s identity as a Black woman. In the coming days, she said, there will probably be speculation on whether opponents judged Abrams too harshly.
“That is a conversation worth having,” Gillespie said. “She has a different set of disadvantages and, actually, even a different set of attacks that can be levied against her because she’s a Black woman.”
Gillespie pointed to the long slate “of Black women who were running for very high-profile state offices.”
“If we look at the Senate races with Cheri Beasley and Val Demings, I think, in particular, there was a frustration that Democrats did not invest enough resources in Florida and North Carolina Senate races,” she said. “It wasn’t just that Abrams lost.”
Or as Alexus Cumbie, a writer and political strategist based in Birmingham, Ala., put it: “For another election season, Black women continue to be the backbone of the Democratic party, but not the face of it.”
Cotton, the New Georgia Project chief executive, said the work to galvanize more voters of color is far from over.
“The South is going to be a tough nut to crack,” she said. “We are trying to expand the electorate among the Black and Brown folks who already feel disconnected and left behind. The ground is still fertile and ripe to get those folks involved in the electoral process. So our mission hasn’t changed.”
Nor has Abrams’s. “While I may not have crossed the finish line, that does not mean we will ever stop running for a better Georgia,” she said in her concession speech Tuesday night. “We will never stop running for the truth that we know to be true, for the people we know need to see us.”
Ndolo said she’s inspired by Abrams’s resilience. And she finds that familiar, too.
“She reminds me of my older sister. She reminds me of my younger sister. She reminds me of my mom,” Ndolo said. “She is that woman.” | 2022-11-09T22:25:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stacey Abrams’s Georgia loss is ‘a punch in the gut’ for Black women - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/09/stacey-abrams-georgia-black-women/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/09/stacey-abrams-georgia-black-women/ |
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrates onstage Tuesday during his election night party in Tampa. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
MIAMI — The emphatic victories by Republican candidates in Tuesday’s elections cemented Florida’s shift to the right, sending a blaring signal that what once was the nation’s bellwether swing state is firmly red and potentially slipping out of reach for Democrats in the 2024 presidential contest.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was reelected by a margin of nearly 20 points, a blowout victory that was an affirmation of his appeal to the voters who have turned Florida into a haven for conservatives. Sen. Marco Rubio (R) also prevailed easily, as the GOP swept all statewide races while picking up a supermajority in the Florida legislature, defying Democratic gains elsewhere in the country.
Battered and deflated by their party’s worst statewide showing in more than 100 years, Democratic strategists and activists said Wednesday it may take the party at least a decade to rebound from its stunning losses, which they fear are rooted in a fundamental cultural shift in Florida’s electorate as well as their inability to turn out even some of their most reliable voters.
Now, many Florida Democrats worry the state will become even more of a laboratory for Republican policies as candidates elsewhere consider how they can win — and as DeSantis eyes a possible run for the White House in two years.
“This state is really a portrait of what happens when Florida Democrats fail, over many, many years, to communicate a working-class economic message,” said Joshua Karp, a Democratic strategist who worked on two statewide campaigns in Florida this year. He noted that about 1 million fewer voters supported statewide Democratic candidates for governor and U.S. Senate in Tuesday’s election compared with four years ago. “Now, we got to figure out, did they shift to becoming Republicans — or did they just not show up?”
Florida’s shift to the right — which is occurring even as the electorate in recent elections became younger and more diverse, demographic changes that usually usher in a turn to the left — takes place as its beach towns and sprawling suburbs become a magnet for conservatives drawn by DeSantis’s hands-off approach to fighting the pandemic and his assault against what he calls the “woke left.”
“We have gone from the place people move to for the weather and beaches, to the number one thing I now hear is, ‘I am moving to Florida for freedom,’” said Christian Ziegler, a Republican strategist and vice chairman of the Florida Republican Party.
The state’s shift is cultural as much as political. In recent years, Florida has seen a surge in parents who home-school their children and in the number of residents who carry a gun. The state has made itself the epicenter for nationwide debates over school textbooks and the rights of transgender youths. And Florida has increasingly emerged as a hot spot for extremism. More residents were arrested here for allegedly participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol than in any other state. Members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, sit on county Republican Party executive committees, including in Miami.
Even before Tuesday, the signs of building GOP strength here were apparent in voter registration statistics: Four years ago, when DeSantis was first elected by just 32,000 votes, Florida Democrats still had an advantage of nearly 300,000 registered voters over the GOP.
Since then, Florida has added nearly 1.2 million new voters. Republicans added 570,000 registrants, while Democrats had a net gain of just 2,300 statewide. Since the start of the year, Republicans gained ground over Democrats in all 67 Florida counties.
Democratic volunteers such as Judith Grey, a teacher in South Florida, said the party’s efforts to rally voters felt painstaking this year. She went door-to-door in neighborhoods where Democrats have traditionally found support and said some residents didn’t even want to answer the doorbell.
“The people were just not talking, as if there was some kind of fear in the air,” said Grey, who is Haitian American.
Tuesday’s election results followed a trend years in the making.
Although Barack Obama narrowly carried Florida in both of his presidential campaigns, the state’s voters haven’t voted for a Democrat for governor since 1994. Strategists from both parties say Florida may be joining Ohio and Iowa — two other states that Obama carried — as places where Democrats nationally now face long odds of success in a presidential campaign.
“Across the board, the fundamentals have been trending this way for a decade, and [Florida] really now is pretty solidly Republican,” said Terry Sullivan, a partner at Firehouse Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm. “That may change … But in the short term, Florida is every bit as Republican as Texas.”
Despite the state’s general tilt to the right over time, political analysts say DeSantis can take credit for whipping up decisive victories both for himself and Republican candidates statewide.
Twenty years ago, the state GOP was defined by then-Gov. Jeb Bush’s soft-spoken and relatively moderate style of politics. But after former president Donald Trump stormed onto the political scene in 2016, the Florida GOP began gravitating toward a brasher, more rigid style of governing that has intensified under DeSantis.
After his narrow 2018 election, DeSantis initially governed toward the center by focusing on issues such as improving water quality and embracing medical marijuana. But when the pandemic hit in 2020, DeSantis began pushing a more polarizing agenda that included bucking scientists by quickly reopening the state’s businesses and tourism centers, even as the coronavirus went on to kill more than 80,000 Floridians.
DeSantis quickly spun his approach into a broader political message that Florida was a “free state,” a message that appealed both to conservatives as well as some traditionally Democratic-leaning constituencies, including many Latinos and younger voters.
Susan A. MacManus, a veteran Florida political analyst and a professor emerita at the University of South Florida, said DeSantis also succeeded in tapping into widespread unease among parents over education issues, especially in the state’s booming exurban communities, where many mothers “just felt that the country was heading in the wrong direction in almost every dimension.”
“He has a very good read on where the public is on an issue at any particular time,” MacManus said, adding that DeSantis has tried to position himself as a “moral trendsetter.”
As DeSantis has proved adept at motivating GOP voters, Florida Democrats have been beset by poor fundraising and scattered messaging.
Samantha Hope Herring, a member of the Democratic National Committee who lives in the Florida Panhandle, said big donors and national liberal interest groups have long shown interest in Florida every four years — during presidential elections. But little of that attention and money filtered down to county parties and local organizations so they could work year-round to identify and turn out Democratic-leaning voters, especially younger voters and minorities.
“We have to reimagine how we connect with the people in this state,” Herring said. “Just think about seniors. Seniors are literally the largest regular voting bloc in this state, and we do almost nothing to target them.”
Republicans, by contrast, have engaged with voters at a grass-roots level between election cycles — even offering civics courses for immigrants studying to become U.S. citizens, priming a new generation of GOP voters.
Democrats such as U.S. Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who represents parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, place part of the blame for the party’s poor voter mobilization on continued fallout from its decision to limit canvassing and other in-person events in 2020 during the pandemic.
The congresswoman, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said her party needs to quickly find a way to attract new voters.
“There is no presidential campaign that can afford to just cede 30 electoral votes,” she said.
The Democratic Party’s slide in Florida is particularly acute among Cuban American voters, who make up about 30 percent of the state’s Hispanic population.
Many older Cuban American voters in South Florida have been Republicans since the Cold War, but Democrats started making inroads with younger Cuban Americans during Obama’s presidency. Before the 2016 election, a Florida International University poll found Cuban American voters under 40 favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by a 2-to-1 margin.
In FIU’s poll this year, nearly 60 percent of Cuban American voters under 40 said they planned to vote for DeSantis. The poll also showed that just 9 percent of the immigrants who arrived from Cuba over the past seven years planned to register as Democrats.
“From Trump on down, a lot of these [Republican] candidates have courted the Cuban American voter very systematically for many years … and they have promoted this discourse in Florida that all Democrats are socialists,” said Jorge Duany, the director of the university’s Cuban Research Institute.
And strategists warn that even some more traditionally Democratic Latino electorates such as Puerto Rican voters are questioning their allegiances. Over half of Florida’s Puerto Ricans voted for DeSantis over Crist, according to network exit polls.
State Sen. Victor M. Torres Jr. (D) said Democrats’ problem in this year’s election wasn’t that Puerto Rican voters made a major shift toward the GOP. Instead, Torres said, Democrats didn’t do a good enough of a job persuading moderate and left-leaning Puerto Ricans to vote.
“It’s like pulling teeth,” said Torres, who is Puerto Rican and represents suburban Orlando. “I don’t want to point fingers and I don’t want to blame anybody, but I can tell you, we didn’t do it the right way, and we didn’t get organized the right way.”
Away from big cities such as Miami, exurban communities are simultaneously at the forefront of pushing the state further to the right. It’s in places such as Brevard County — located along part of the eastern peninsula known as the “Space Coast” — that some of the most divisive and telling political battles have emerged.
The county has been reliably Republican since the 1970s; DeSantis carried Brevard by about 17 percentage points in 2018. He won it by about 30 points on Tuesday.
Rick Lacey, the chairman of the Brevard County Republican Party, said interest in the GOP soared during the pandemic as well as after Trump lost the 2020 election. Lacey said the county GOP committee now has 300 active members, up from about 100 five years ago.
On Tuesday, the GOP secured a 4-to-1 majority on the county school board after Republican Gene Trent won a seat. In an interview shortly before the election, Trent said one of his top priorities would be to rewrite the school’s policies toward transgender students, including a policy that allows students to use the locker room of their choice.
“The bathroom issue is a big deal for me,” said Trent, who added Florida Republicans increasingly believe “everything that is important” happens at the “local level.”
Robert Burns, a Brevard County resident who is a Republican, said the county’s character is changing as the GOP’s message finds a growing audience. He cited more hostility and less tolerance for opposing viewpoints.
He pointed to a Brevard County Republican Party resolution adopted in July disputing Biden’s victory and falsely alleging “voter fraud” in 2020 as a sign of how local leaders have become more radical.
“Why, in a county where we literally have rocket scientists and highly educated people, do we also have this group of people?” Burns asked.
Jennifer Jenkins, who will be the lone Democrat on the school board, is also worried about the coarsened nature of state and local politics, saying some Democrats are now questioning if they want to stay in Florida.
“It is almost like the first question people ask you when they meet you is about politics, because they want to know where you are politically,” she said. “It’s like this tension, and an us-versus-them mentality.”
State Rep. Randy Fine (R), a staunch conservative from Brevard County, said the state’s turn to the right is ultimately a reflection of what voters want.
“We are not hiding who we are,” he said. “And the people who are coming here now just are not coming for the weather and the taxes. Now, they are coming for the values.”
Emily Guskin contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T22:25:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DeSantis win shows Florida is staunchly GOP ahead of 2024 election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/desantis-florida-republicans-2024-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/desantis-florida-republicans-2024-election/ |
Texas set to execute man convicted of killing mother 19 years ago
A Texas inmate whose lawyers say he was denied a proper psychological evaluation is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against blocking his killing.
A jury convicted and sentenced Tracy Beatty to death in August 2004 for the killing of his 62-year-old mother, Carolyn Click. During his trial, prosecutors argued Beatty had a “volatile and combative relationship” with his mother.
Beatty, now 61, fatally strangled his mother after an argument in November 2003 and buried her body outside her mobile home in Whitehouse, about 115 miles southeast of Dallas.
The Supreme Court last week declined the request to stop Beatty’s execution. His lawyers had appealed after a district judge dismissed a request that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice unshackle Beatty’s hands while he underwent a mental evaluation in September. The judge cited a lack of jurisdiction in turning down the request.
A neurologist and a psychologist hired by Beatty’s legal counsel argued in court records that Beatty was unable to complete the evaluations if his hands were shackled. The tests, experts said, required his hands to be free.
“If Mr. Beatty is shackled and unable to participate in these evaluations, his ability to seek available remedies will be harmed,” Beatty’s lawyers said in court documents.
One expert who examined Beatty said he “is clearly psychotic and has a complex paranoid delusional belief system” and that he lives in a “complex delusional world” where he believes there is a “vast conspiracy of correctional officers who … ‘torture’ him via a device in his ear so he can hear their menacing voices,” Beatty’s attorneys wrote in court records.
In 2021, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice started allowing inmates to be unshackled during an expert evaluation if a court granted it.
Beatty’s lawyers intended to file for clemency and other legal remedies after the experts evaluated their client. But a week before Beatty’s scheduled execution, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with the district court and denied his lawyers’ request to block the execution.
On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously declined to commute Beatty’s death penalty sentence to a lesser sentence or to postpone it for six months.
Beatty, whose execution was rescheduled on three previous occasions, is due to be given a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville after 6 p.m. If executed, he would become the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas and the 13th in the United States. | 2022-11-09T22:47:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas set to execute Tracy Beatty by lethal injection - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/texas-execution-tracy-beatty/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/texas-execution-tracy-beatty/ |
Why was the midterm result such a surprise?
A staff member waits as a lectern is prepared during an election night watch party for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) after the midterm elections on Nov. 9 in Washington, D.C. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
There was a murmur rumbling through American politics over the past week. Press an ear to the wall of a newsroom or eavesdrop on campaign consultants grabbing a sandwich and you heard it: Who knows. Who knows what’s going to happen in the midterms? Could be a blowout, could be a wash, could be a split Congress, could be a landslide, could be anything.
There were voices of certainty, of course. Activists and party representatives were confident of their positions, as activists and partisans usually are. Some of them were convincing, some of them were not. But they were not all pulling in the same direction anyway, leaving the same quiet hum. Who knows.
Now we know — and we know that very few people before Election Day can reasonably be credited with saying they themselves knew what would happen. Speaking for myself, I can say that I did not: I expected Republicans to fare better than they appear to have fared. I’ve been asking myself why I had that expectation. And I’ve landed on a few contributing explanations.
Let’s begin where all of this uncertainty could have ended: with the polling.
The polls were accurate.
This is a bold claim to make by itself, one that can be subjected to endless cherry-picking and challenges. So let’s consider what the polls said.
FiveThirtyEight is generally considered to be the gold standard in poll aggregation, generating polling estimates that either simply average available polling or weight the polls by pollster and other factors, like fundraising. The former is the essence of its “lite” model; the latter, its “deluxe” version. So how did the estimates on Election Day compare to the current margins in the Senate?
They compared well. Notice below how, for any race, the orange circles (FiveThirtyEight’s estimates) and the purple circle (the current margin) are generally clustered together. There are places where there’s a gap, but those are usually in less-close contests where there tends to be less polling.
Across all of these contests, including those where the results weren’t very close, the “deluxe” model was closer to the actual margins. On average, it was about 5 points off; the median deviation was about 4 points. Polling is not good at predicting the winner in a close contest, but, even so, the “deluxe” model gave the advantage to the trailing candidate in only two Senate races: Georgia, which is headed to a runoff, and Pennsylvania.
It wasn’t just the Senate polling, of course. We don’t yet know how many votes Democrats and Republicans received across all of the House contests, but it seems likely that it will land somewhere near the generic-ballot polling average. The Washington Post and our partners at ABC News released a poll on Sunday that gave the GOP a narrow advantage in the House — which appears to be what ended up manifesting.
How do accurate polls result in a surprising election result? Because the elections in 2016 and 2020 have instilled a near-expectation that the polls were going to be off — and presumably to the GOP’s advantage.
The expectations of the polls were inaccurate.
Again, they don’t appear to have been. Results aren’t final! Things can change! But it seems unlikely at this point that the results are going to wind up revealing a massive, structural problem with the polls — much to the relief of pollsters.
It’s important to recognize that I’m cheating a bit here. FiveThirtyEight is assiduous about how it uses and assesses polling. Individual polls were often wrong, occasionally laughably. This is one reason that averaging polls yields better results in the first place: It eliminates much of the peril involved in cherry-picking.
But there were also systemic efforts this year to adjust polls to reflect that expected Democratic bias.
Those of us who’ve been around for a while saw this precisely one decade ago; then, polling showing Barack Obama faring well was “unskewed” to better reflect the expected strength of Mitt Romney. That strength didn’t materialize and “unskewing” was revealed to be a bad idea … at least for a while.
Control of both chambers of Congress remained undecided after Democrats showed surprising strength in key battleground races on Nov. 9. (Video: The Washington Post)
RealClearPolitics, which has traditionally had a straightforward average of polls, introduced an effort to adjust polling to reflect perceived anti-GOP shift. Perhaps because of that expectation that polls were overestimating Democrats Tom Bevan, co-founder of the site, challenged the Economist’s G. Elliott Morris’s publicly presentation that the Senate was a true toss-up. Which, of course, it was.
Not all skepticism of the polls was born of the idea that they were necessarily advantaging Democrats unfairly. There was also the simple fact that this was a weird election cycle, one buffeted by unprecedented concerns about the stability of the democratic system, by the unusual involvement of a former president, by the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Here it was hard to separate the rhetoric from the reality: Were people for whom abortion was a central motivating factor in their vote accurately reflecting a quiet surge in turnout that polling might not capture? Was polling, admittedly hobbled by difficulty in reaching voters, just going to miss different people this year? Were things like the ballot initiative in Kansas somehow reflective of the overall electorate?
As these unanswerable questions swirled, confidence in the fallibility of polls led to a different sort of clamor.
Republicans got ahead of themselves.
Over the past month or two, Republicans and conservative commentators grew increasingly confident of their party’s chances in the federal races. They were generally more skeptical of polling than others, given 2016 and 2020, so it was easier for them to get a sense that things were going their way in a manner that wasn’t captured by those polls.
At the same time, polls were showing movement back to the GOP. During the late summer, the movement was consistently to the left. But that began to reverse in October (thanks in part to a spate of surveys from Republican-sympathetic pollsters) and seemed like it augured Republican momentum for the midterms.
To some extent, Republicans and right-wing commentators got caught up in enthusiasm about an expected trouncing. Predicting Democratic doom is always good for attention on the right and attention is the coin of the modern realm. Republicans were confident in private but effusive in public.
Democrats, meanwhile, were still shellshocked from 2016. (Don’t believe me? Sneak up behind a Democrat and whisper “did you see what the needle did?” in their ear.) They, too, were ready to believe that things were going to go better for Republicans than the polls indicated. Yet it was often the case that the predictions of dominance were unmoored from any evidence and simply reflections of personal desire, the right’s driving energy or both.
Elections aren’t static.
In exit polling, two-thirds respondents reported having made up their minds about how they would vote more than a month ago. But about 1 in 8 said they made up their minds within the last week. That question also doesn’t get at an important factor that’s hinted at above: when people decided to go vote at all.
Elections are often driven by partisans who vote all the time and always vote on the party line. But the results often come down to people who made up their minds late or who chose to vote — or chose not to vote. So we can’t rule out that factors that emerged late in the election had no effect. Did President Biden’s speech about preserving democracy coupled with the attack on Paul Pelosi spur more Democratic turnout? Did falling gas prices prompt people who were furious about the issue a few months ago to not bother to turn out on Election Day?
These things are hard to measure, which is one reason it’s unfair to assume that they had a definitive effect on the outcome. (The other reason it’s unfair is that it’s a cop-out for those of us who were surprised by the outcome. I wish I could just blame a last-minute shift!) But they are nonetheless real, and a real reason why polls can deviate from actual election outcomes.
Speaking of cop-outs …
It was a weird election.
The Post runs a computer model to help pick out trends in the election as votes are being counted. When we first ran it on Tuesday night, though, we noticed it was underestimating how well Democrats were obviously doing.
Why? Because some of the first results it was given for its analysis came from Florida, a state which went particularly badly for Democrats. In other states, things went far better. In New York, badly. In Pennsylvania, they went well.
This was an election in which both the head of the Democratic Party’s House election effort, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) and right-fire firebrand Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) were at risk of losing their seats. (Maloney, in fact, did.) That’s not a pattern that would emerge from a consistent national movement to the left or the right.
History suggested that Democrats would lose the House by a wide margin, as I wrote Tuesday afternoon. President Biden’s low approval rating combined with the past pattern of new presidents seeing their party take a hit in the first midterms suggested a lot of damage was coming. But then it didn’t. The extent of the likely (but not certain!) Republican majority in the House is still unclear, but it will probably end up being one of the better first-midterm-election results for a Democrat in the past 75 years.
Other past patterns similarly collapsed, like independents breaking against the president’s party. (Exit polls suggest they split about evenly between Democrats and Republicans.) It was just a weird, uneven year with weird, uneven results.
Yet all along, there were those polls showing what the likely result would be. The measure specifically designed to evaluate the level of support in the election did so with aplomb. Yet, because it is 2022, a year landing in a string of tumultuous, uncertain, expectation-breaking years, the simple message that the election was close often seemed hard to take at face value.
And lo: a result that was both in line with expectations — and a surprise. | 2022-11-09T22:47:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why was the midterm result such a surprise? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/why-was-midterm-result-such-surprise/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/why-was-midterm-result-such-surprise/ |
Incumbent Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis arrives to speak to supporters at an election night party after winning his race for reelection in Tampa, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
While the outcome of Tuesday’s midterm elections was still up in the air Wednesday evening, political prognosticators on Fox News were already forecasting a very bright political future for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Many pundits on the cable channel have spent years championing Donald Trump as the candidate most likely to lead Republicans back to the White House, but the tone on Fox was notably different as election results rolled in. DeSantis’s landslide victory over Democrat Charlie Christ was one of the few bright spots for Republicans as they watched their hopes of a midterm red wave fade, and many commentators suggested that the governor might make a better 2024 nominee than the former president.
DeSantis “made the single best case I have heard made for the GOP in quite some time,” Trump’s former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said midday Wednesday on Fox. “It was positive, it was sunny, it was forward-looking. It needs to be the future message for the party.”
Fox contributor Jason Chaffetz, who wrote a “Dear Republican Trump haters” column extolling the defeated president’s virtues last year, bluntly declared on-air Wednesday that DeSantis is “probably one of the front-runners — if not the front-runner — to become the next president of the United States of America.”
As if to drive the point home, the former Republican congressman criticized Trump for belittling his rival, who he recently dubbed “Ron DeSanctimonious.” “Even before the votes were closed, to start to take shots at Ron DeSantis?” Chaffetz asked. “Donald Trump’s not going to like this, but I’ve got to tell you, the people I talk to, they say: ‘We love Donald Trump. … But, you know what, we don’t like all the drama. We like Ron DeSantis.’ That’s what I hear.”
Versions of that line echoed across Fox throughout the day. “Trump is the past,” said Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney. “Donald Trump [might] cost us the Senate twice in a row,” complained Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen, who also writes a column for The Washington Post.
The glow extended beyond the top-rated cable news station, to other parts of Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. The New York Post declared DeSantis “DeFUTURE” in a front-page headline.
“That is a White House-winning profile if I have ever seen one, if he can repeat that nationally,” Fox anchor John Robert told viewers Wednesday afternoon, noting DeSantis’ strong performance with Hispanic voters and women.
There were dissenting voices, of course. Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and another pundit on Fox’s payroll, mused early Wednesday morning: “If there is ever a time people are ready for Donald Trump to come back, it could be right now.”
But she was an outlier. A Fox News article summed up the prevailing mood Wednesday morning with this headline: “Conservatives point finger at Trump after GOP’s underwhelming election results: ‘He’s never been weaker.'”
It’s hardly the first time DeSantis has received praise on Fox. He was invited onto the channel regularly during his first campaign for governor in 2018, and even some of the channel’s most stalwart Trump fans have flirted with the idea of President DeSantis. “Ron DeSantis is showing tremendous strength in New Hampshire, Michigan and Florida,” “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade told viewers in July, citing a poll. “He’s leading or tied with the former president.”
But this week’s outburst of flattery for DeSantis is notable given Trump’s longtime relationship with Fox, which employs many hosts who heavily promoted his first presidential run and have stuck by him since he lost the White House. On occasions when Fox personalities or anchors have criticized the former president, Trump often hit back. He said “Fox & Friends” had “gone to the ‘dark side’ after the July segment, for example.
The timing might also be especially problematic for Trump, who has strongly hinted that he intends to announce his 2024 campaign next week.
If he does, candidate Trump may find himself getting a colder reception on Fox than he’s used to. Some insiders have seen signs that the former president has lost the confidence of Rupert Murdoch, the media titan who controls Fox and much of the rest of the conservative media-sphere.
The editorial board at the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper also controlled by the Murdoch family, called DeSantis’s victory a “tsunami” on Wednesday morning. Trump notably drew a stern rebuke from the Journal’s editorial board this year for his conduct during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The Post’s cover anointing DeSantis the future of the party might hit Trump particularly hard. “Let me just say: I know somebody in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, who may cut off his subscription to The New York Post,” Fox’s Ari Fleischer joked Wednesday. | 2022-11-09T23:05:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After midterms, Ron DeSantis eclipses Trump on Fox News - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/11/09/trump-desantis-fox-news-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/11/09/trump-desantis-fox-news-midterms/ |
Dan Cox calls Wes Moore to concede defeat in Maryland governor’s race
Dan Cox, the Republican nominee for Maryland governor, addresses supporters at an election night watch party in Annapolis. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Republican nominee Dan Cox has conceded defeat in his contest against Democrat Wes Moore to become Maryland’s next governor. Moore was declared the projected winner on Tuesday night.
Cox called Moore on Wednesday afternoon to congratulate him. He referred to Moore as governor-elect on the call, according to Moore’s campaign, which described Cox as “very gracious.”
In a statement in which he grapples with his lopsided loss, Cox offered prayers to Moore and his running mate, Aruna Miller, and urged them to “honor and protect constitutional rights … lower taxes … never again lock us down … and ensure that no one is left behind, including parents in their children’s education decisions and choices,” touching on themes Cox pushed in his campaign.
In the weeks leading up to Election Day, Cox had refused to commit to accepting the results of the race. He fought unsuccessfully in court to stop poll workers from counting mail-in ballots early. Cox, who has described the 2020 presidential election as “stolen,” that year demanded a federal audit of the presidential election and volunteered as a lawyer to block the certification of the results in Pennsylvania.
Moore told reporters late Tuesday night that he wasn’t worried about Cox’s lack of acknowledgment.
“He still has not acknowledged the results of the 2020 election,” Moore said. “So, I don’t plan on waiting for that call.”
In his statement issued Wednesday, Cox struggled with his loss and accused Gov. Larry Hogan (R) of harming his campaign. Hogan, who is weighing a presidential bid, called Cox a “whack job,” said he didn’t think he was mentally stable, and refused to back him.
“We always felt it might be a close race, the outcome was a complete surprise,” Cox said, adding that his internal polling showed that swing voters were pulling his way and that he was expecting a huge Republican turnout. Neither happened.
Cox called former president Donald Trump, who backed his campaign and held a fundraiser at Mar-a-Largo, “an American hero” and thanked him for his support. He said Hogan’s “disrespect of the people of Maryland in his own party will go down in history as disqualifying him from any future office as a Republican.”
A Moore spokesman said Cox and Moore connected during the brief call while discussing one of Cox’s sons, a member of the 82nd Airborne. Moore served as a paratrooper. | 2022-11-09T23:05:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dan Cox concedes, congratulates Wes Moore on Maryland governor win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/maryland-governor-cox-concedes-moore/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/maryland-governor-cox-concedes-moore/ |
What Are Carbon Offsets and How Many Really Work?
Analysis by Akshat Rathi and Benjamin Elgin | Bloomberg
You’ll hear a lot about pledges from companies and governments to cut greenhouse gas emissions to “net-zero,” as they aim to eliminate their impact to help stave off climate change. Ideally a big chunk of that will come from switching to new lower-carbon technologies, developing more energy-efficient processes, switching to renewable energy sources, and recycling materials more effectively. But what about the rest? Many companies claim it’s not economically feasible to go all the way. That’s where the concept of carbon offsets comes in. But offsets are highly controversial, and the debate about them was reignited by the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.
1. What is a carbon offset?
The idea is that when a company, government or individual absolutely must emit carbon dioxide, the same amount of the greenhouse gas will be removed from the atmosphere by other means to compensate. Using the word “offset” to describe environmental initiatives traces back decades to early efforts to tackle pollution, such as the 1970 US Clean Air Act, before halting climate change became the ultimate goal. While offsets have historically centered on the planting or protection of trees, which absorb carbon dioxide, the term has since been applied to a variety of environmental efforts globally.
2. Who is involved?
Most of the discussion of offsets revolves around voluntary ones that are purchased by companies, organizations or individuals trying to meet self-imposed goals. These transactions typically involve developers who propose offset projects, registries that validate whether the carbon savings are real and brokers who match offsets with buyers. At the COP27 summit, US climate envoy John Kerry proposed the development of a new framework for offsets. The programs are gaining popularity despite mounting skepticism over whether they’re effective in reducing emissions.
3. How big is the voluntary market?
About $1 billion in 2021, according to Ecosystem Marketplace. It’s not administered by any specific government or organization, and there’s considerable debate about how the market has evolved. BloombergNEF analysts estimate that 1,900 carbon offset projects issued credits from 2015 to 2020 with the four major registries. They created more than 344 million carbon offsets in 2021, up from 185 million in 2020.
4. What kinds of projects can produce offsets?
The vast majority of offsets available fall into a category called “avoided emissions.” These are projects that either protect forests, provide people with alternatives to using fossil fuels, or avert emissions from waste. If done right, such projects can reduce the volume of greenhouse gases being added to the atmosphere while providing other benefits to local communities and promoting biodiversity. Beyond planting or protecting trees, offsets can also be generated by preventing the release of greenhouse gases other than CO2, like methane or nitrous oxide. Typically, more expensive offsets involve removing carbon dioxide that’s already in the atmosphere and storing it away. That may involve projects like growing a forest or installing machines that vacuum carbon dioxide out of the air. Just 4% of offsets actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere, according to data from the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, which receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
5. Are offsets effective?
There’s a big debate about that. Assuming the certification process is watertight (a big “if”), the effectiveness of an offset project comes down to the concept of “additionality.” That’s determined by measuring how much extra good a project achieves compared with what would have occurred in the absence of carbon payments. Projects that flare methane leaking from coal mines or destroy climate-warming gases produced by industry can more easily show that they’re adding real benefits (provided that local laws don’t require these actions). Others, such as new solar farms or preserving well-stocked forests, will often have lower additionality because there’s a good chance these climate-friendly actions would have occurred without money from the offsets market. A growing number of scientists are raising doubts about the effectiveness of the market, and some sellers of offsets have joined the call for more guidelines. For example, weak rules have created incentives for landowners to develop offset projects that don’t actually change the way forests are managed, and therefore do little to help the climate. Brisk sales of meaningless offsets are leading to claims of climate progress that isn’t actually happening.
6. How will the debate likely play out?
Given the credibility issues surrounding avoided-emissions offsets, a few companies are moving to focus only on the carbon-removal varieties. In 2022, buyers including Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Stripe Inc. banded together to launch a $925 million fund committed to buying carbon-removal offsets from new startups. The hope is that the money will help these fledgling enterprises scale up and make carbon removal cheaper; the largest machine capturing carbon dioxide from the air in 2022 had a capacity of only about 4,000 tons annually. | 2022-11-09T23:35:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Are Carbon Offsets and How Many Really Work? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-are-carbon-offsets-and-how-many-really-work/2022/11/09/44f330c4-6079-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/what-are-carbon-offsets-and-how-many-really-work/2022/11/09/44f330c4-6079-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Voters in 4 states reject forced work for prisoners
Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont voted to ban slavery and forced work as punishment for committing crimes.
A person votes Tuesday in Tennessee, one of five states that voted on the issue of forcing prisoners to work. Four of the five states supported changing their state constitution to end the practice.
Voters in four states approved ballot measures that will change their state constitutions to prohibit slavery and forcing someone to work against their will as punishment for crime. Those in a fifth state rejected the move. The measures approved Tuesday restrict the use of prison labor in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont.
In Louisiana, a former enslaver state, voters rejected a ballot question known as Amendment 7, which asked whether they supported a constitutional amendment to stop the use of involuntary servitude in the criminal justice system.
The initiatives won’t force immediate changes in the states’ prisons, but they may invite legal challenges over the practice of pressuring prisoners to work under threat of punishment or loss of privileges if they refuse the work.
The results were celebrated among anti-slavery advocates, including those pushing to further amend the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits enslavement and forced work except as a form of criminal punishment. Nearly 160 years after enslaved Africans and their descendants were released from bondage through ratification of the 13th Amendment, the slavery exception continues to allow jails and prisons to use inmates for low-cost labor.
U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Representative Nikema Williams of Georgia, both Democrats, reintroduced legislation to revise the 13th Amendment to end the slavery exception. If it wins approval in Congress, the constitutional amendment must be ratified (approved) by three-fourths of the states.
After Tuesday’s vote, more than a dozen states still have constitutions that include language permitting slavery and forced labor for prisoners.
Prison labor is a multibillion-dollar practice. Workers usually make less than $1 per hour, sometimes only pennies. Prisoners who refuse to work can be denied privileges such as phone calls and visits with family, as well as face solitary confinement. | 2022-11-09T23:35:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Voters in 4 states reject forced work for prisoners - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/09/voters-reject-forced-labor-for-prisoners/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/09/voters-reject-forced-labor-for-prisoners/ |
The United States will enter the World Cup with a roster lean on top-level international experience but plump with résumés built in high-level European pro leagues.
Missing the 2018 tournament in Russia interrupted the program’s development, but with a wave of young players, Coach Gregg Berhalter has molded a fearless squad that has grown together over four years.
[With the World Cup looming, Gregg Berhalter’s USMNT squad is unveiled]
Even with World Cup rosters expanded by three to 26, Berhalter faced difficult decisions in narrowing his list.
His core group, though, has remained steady since the qualifiers began. Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic, an electrifying attacker who’s on track to become the best U.S. player in history, leads the way. But the team is flush with support, including Juventus’s Weston McKennie; a pair of Leeds United standouts, Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson; and a rising star in Valencia’s Yunus Musah.
Here’s a look at the U.S. men’s national team roster for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Filter by position
GK, Arsenal (England)
Undrafted out of Fairfield University, overlooked by youth national teams and underappreciated for years in MLS, Turner is the ultimate late bloomer. He parlayed exceptional work with the New England Revolution into a U.S. debut in 2021 and, through performances for club and country, moved to the Premier League this past summer. Turner was the 2021 MLS goalkeeper of the year.
GK, New York City FC (United States)
Johnson has been among MLS’s top keepers for more than a decade, first with the Chicago Fire and, for the past six seasons, with NYCFC, the 2021 champion. He made his U.S. debut in 2011 but was always behind Tim Howard, Brad Guzan and, more recently, Steffen and Turner, on the depth chart. His experience and camaraderie with the group, though, made him a prime choice for the No. 3 role.
GK, Luton Town (England)
Horvath’s club path meandered through Norway and Belgium before taking him to England’s second flight with Nottingham Forest. Playing time in 2021-22 was limited, though, leading to a loan within the division to Luton Town. He didn’t appear in any World Cup qualifiers, but as a sub in the 2021 Concacaf Nations League final, he stopped a penalty kick in extra time against Mexico.
DF, Nashville SC (United States)
Like many others, the center back has risen to prominence under Gregg Berhalter in recent years. Unlike most others, he’s been around a while. The MLS standout was initially a backup in World Cup qualifying, but by offering a physical presence, aerial superiority and leadership, he ended up starting nine of the final 11 qualifiers and wearing the captain’s armband multiple times.
DF, New York Red Bulls (United States)
The late-blooming center back returned to the national team in June after tearing an Achilles’ tendon in early 2021. He missed the qualifying campaign, but upon his return helped fill the void left by Miles Robinson, who, in May, also suffered an Achilles’ tendon injury. Long’s speed and finesse complements Zimmerman’s power on the backline. He was MLS’s defender of the year in 2018.
DF, Fulham (England)
Known as “Jedi” for his love of "Star Wars," the English-born left back is the son of a former Duke soccer player who naturalized. The younger Robinson came through Everton’s youth system and played for Bolton and Wigan before landing at Fulham in 2020 and helping the Cottagers return to the Premier League in May. He appeared in 13 of 14 World Cup qualifiers, starting 11 and scoring twice.
DF, AC Milan (Italy)
Born and raised in the Netherlands, Dest gained eligibility through his American father and began representing U.S. youth teams six years ago. In 2019, with the Dutch national team showing interest, he committed to the U.S. program. Few teammates can match his skill level and, though Dest is listed as a defender, his forte is pressing forward on the right flank and complementing the attack.
Until his move to MLS this summer, Moore had spent his entire professional career in Spain, where he’d most recently played three seasons for Tenerife. The right back saw action in four World Cup qualifiers and in all six matches of the Americans’ Gold Cup run in the summer of 2021. During that tournament, he scored the fastest goal in U.S. team history, finding the net 20 seconds into a group-stage match against Canada.
DF, Inter Miami (United States)
The right back has logged the longest continuous service to the national team, beginning months before the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. He made three substitute appearances in Brazil, which helped spur a move to Tottenham from the Seattle Sounders and a 7½-year stay in Europe. His other clubs were Sunderland, Newcastle and Galatasaray. He returned stateside before the 2022 MLS season.
DF, Celtic (Scotland)
The center back’s father, Howard Carter, was a star basketball player at LSU and in 1983 was drafted by the Denver Nuggets in the first round. Cameron, whose mother is English, spent part of his childhood in Louisiana. He came through Tottenham’s system and played on loan at seven clubs before sticking at Celtic. He wasn’t part of World Cup qualifying but reentered the scene in June.
DF, Borussia Mönchengladbach (Germany)
The New York City FC homegrown Scally signed a pro contract at age 15 and, before even appearing in an MLS regular season match, committed to the German club to move abroad when he turned 18. In his first full Bundesliga season in 2020-21, he made 30 appearances and started 20 times. Though not involved in World Cup qualifying, the right back offers the versatility of being able to play on the left.
In his eighth season with Fulham, the center back has been part of squads that have alternated promotion and relegation each year since 2018. His U.S. debut came in 2010, when many current teammates were in elementary school. Ream started the qualifying opener at El Salvador but didn't play again, leaving him out of the World Cup picture until final selections.
MF, Leeds United (England)
The defensive midfielder began his career in the New York Red Bulls academy, played three Bundesliga seasons with RB Leipzig, then moved to the Premier League this summer on a $24 million transfer. Mature beyond his years, he sets the tone for the U.S. team and connects the defense with the attack. In the 14-game World Cup qualifying, he played in all but one and started all but two.
MF, Juventus (Italy)
Hometown: Little Elm, Tex.
Few Americans have ventured to Serie A, and fewer have thrived there. McKennie is in his third season with Italy’s most famous club following five with Schalke in the Bundesliga. A two-way central player, McKennie started seven qualifiers but missed time because of injuries and violating team health protocols. He brings a big personality that has made him one of the program’s most popular figures.
MF, Valencia CF (Spain)
Born in New York to Ghanian parents, Musah grew up in Italy and England and rose through Arsenal’s academy while representing English youth national teams. Eligible for four countries, Musah chose the U.S. program in 2021. While thriving at Valencia, he quickly became a U.S. regular and ended up starting 10 World Cup qualifiers. His skill level and intelligence have made him invaluable to the cause.
MF, Celta de Vigo (Spain)
With an EU passport thanks to a Spanish father, de la Torre moved to England after his freshman year of high school and spent seven years in Fulham’s system. The attacking midfielder's career took flight over two seasons at Dutch club Heracles before he jumped to La Liga this past summer. He didn't gain regular time in qualifiers until late and is now recovering from a leg injury suffered in late October.
MF, Los Angeles FC (United States)
Hometown: Plano, Tex.
Although he’s not a full-time starter, Acosta led the U.S. team in matches played and minutes in 2021, appearing in all but one game. He also featured in all but one World Cup qualifier and started six times. Acosta’s strengths are his ability to disrupt attacks and serve precision long balls into dangerous areas. His U.S. career began in 2016 and he has played 10 MLS seasons for three clubs.
MF, Seattle Sounders (United States)
A Seattle starter for almost his entire eight-year pro career, Roldan has won two MLS Cup titles and helped the Sounders win the Concacaf Champions League last spring. He’s a U.S. roster regular but infrequent starter, providing central depth. Also eligible to represent El Salvador and Guatemala, he committed to the United States in 2017. His brother Alex, a Seattle teammate, plays for El Salvador.
Nicknamed the “Medford Messi,” Aaronson has, over 3½ years, gone from MLS (Philadelphia Union) to Austria (Red Bull Salzburg) and, in a $28 million transfer this past summer, to the Premier League, where he made an immediate impact. He packages high energy, speed and skill into a slight frame. McKennie calls him an “annoying gnat, like a fly that you can't get out of your face.”
FW, Chelsea (England)
U.S. soccer has been exporting players to Europe for decades, but no one has accomplished so much in so little time: U.S.-record $70 million transfer, UEFA Champions League title, FIFA Club World Cup crown, UEFA Super Cup trophy. Pulisic's next big step is the World Cup. His ability to create and finish scoring opportunities will go a long way toward deciding whether the Americans advance far.
FW, Borussia Dortmund (Germany)
A series of hamstring injuries placed Reyna's promising career on hold and sidelined him for almost all the qualifiers. If fit and in form, though, he could play a large role in Qatar as a winger or central figure. He was, at 17, the youngest American to debut in the Bundesliga. Reyna’s father, Claudio, a Hall of Famer, was on four World Cup squads and his mother, Danielle, played one year for the women’s side.
FW, Lille (France)
Weah’s father, George, is arguably the greatest player in African history, a Liberian striker who starred for AC Milan, among other clubs. (He’s now president of Liberia.) Tim Weah grew up in New York and Florida, joined Paris Saint-Germain’s academy at age 14 and, in 2020-21, helped Lille win the Ligue 1 championship. Primarily a winger for the U.S. team, Weah can play anywhere in the attack.
FW, FC Dallas (United States)
Hometown: McKinney, Tex.
In the U.S. team’s never-ending quest for a consistent striker, Ferreira made his mark in 2022 by earning a set of starts and scoring four goals in a Nations League match vs. Grenada. In MLS, he scored eight goals in both 2019 and ’21, and was among the league’s top producers in 2022. Born in Colombia, he moved to Texas at age 10 – his father, David, played for Dallas – and became a U.S. citizen in 2019.
FW, Seattle Sounders (United States)
After missing most of 2021 with an ACL injury, Morris rejoined the U.S. squad in early 2022 for the last stretch of qualifiers. In June, he scored his first international goal in 2½ years, a late equalizer at El Salvador in the Nations League. Since leaving Stanford in 2016 to sign a homegrown contract, Morris has played a key role in Seattle’s two MLS Cups and the Concacaf Champions League title.
FW, Antalyaspor (Turkey)
A former youth national team star, Wright needed several years and clubs to finally find his stride at the club level. He parlayed an 11-goal campaign in Denmark in 2020-21 into a loan to the Turkish circuit, where he posted 14 goals last season. This summer, Antalyaspor acquired him permanently. Wright made his long-awaited senior national team debut in June.
FW, Norwich City (England)
Hometown: O'Fallon, Mo.
Sargent was on the fast path, starring for youth national teams and signing with Werder Bremen in Germany upon turning 18. He began World Cup qualifying as the starting center forward, but struggled with his form for both Norwich City and the U.S. team. This season, he is rediscovered his scoring touch.
Toni L. Sandys contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T23:37:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The USMNT World Cup roster is set. Here’s who made the cut. - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2022/usmnt-world-cup-roster/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2022/usmnt-world-cup-roster/ |
Russia orders retreat from Kherson city, surrendering key regional capital ...
Serhii Tamara, a Ukrainian woman, removes debris from the ruins of her son's house, which was destroyed in a Russian attack on the village of Novooleksandrivka in Ukraine's Kherson region, on Wednesday. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters)
Russia on Wednesday ordered its troops to withdraw from the city of Kherson — a place of strategic and political significance that Moscow seized in the war’s early days.
The withdrawal from the only regional capital Russia has conquered, a gateway to the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, has been interpreted as an indicator of the effectiveness of Ukraine’s grinding counteroffensive, just as the fall of the city served as a benchmark for the progress of Russia’s invasion.
The retreat is a military setback, and a symbolic one, but it remains unclear how it will affect Moscow’s aims.
In a televised appearance Wednesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu — dressed in fatigues and seated beside Col. Sergei Surovikin, the head of Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine — ordered Russian troops to withdraw to the east bank of the Dnieper River. The move would “save the lives of our military and combat capability,” he said.
The apparent fallback follows weeks of costly Ukrainian advances in the south. It also comes on the heels of Russia’s swift and bruising loss of territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region in September.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has faced mounting criticism over his handling of the war, and has launched a crackdown on dissent. The response Wednesday among some of his key allies and supporters was mixed.
Putin ally Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the oligarch who leads the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which is fighting in Ukraine, said Putin’s call it was “not easy,” but the right decision, in comments to state-owned Russian news outlet RIA Novosti. Prominent Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov, meanwhile, called the retreat “a black page.”
The fallback was not entirely unexpected: Russia had hinted in recent weeks that it might withdraw, and had urged residents to leave. Colin Kahl, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters in an online discussion Tuesday evening that the United States had seen indicators of impending retreat.
Ukrainians cheered the victory, but the announcement was also met with initial skepticism by some Ukrainian officials and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who cautioned against reliance on Russia’s word.
A U.S. military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, told The Washington Post that “as far as we can tell,” it appears Russia’s withdrawal from Kherson is underway.
Kherson sits on the west bank of the Dnieper River. The region is north of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. Russian troops poured in from Crimea in February and captured the city just days after the invasion began.
The Kherson region has since served as a key bridge between the peninsula and mainland Ukraine. This connection has allowed for movement of troops and military equipment. Kherson has a soviet-era canal that provides Crimea with water: In the spring, Russia turned it back on after Kyiv blocked it in 2014, when Russian-backed separatists seized territories in eastern Ukraine.
Mercenary chief vented to Putin over Ukraine war bungling
It remains unclear if Russian forces have completely withdrawn from the city, and what parts of the Kherson region remain in Russian control. Ukrainian officials said their forces could be days away from entering the city.
“It is encouraging to see how the brave Ukrainian forces are able to liberate more Ukrainian territory. … But of course the support they receive from the United Kingdom, from NATO allies and partners is also essential,” Stoltenberg told reporters Wednesday after a meeting in London with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The loss of Kherson city could induce Putin to escalate the deadly bombardment of Ukrainian cities and energy facilities ahead of winter, which has killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed key water and energy infrastructure.
“This war is likely to continue for the foreseeable future,” said Seth Jones, head of the international security program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I don’t see any daylight between what the Russians’ long-term objectives are in Ukraine, and Ukraine’s desire to keep all of the territories they’ve lost [since] 2014.”
Karen DeYoung, Robyn Dixon, Mary Ilyushina, Dan Lamothe and Liz Sly contributed to this report. | 2022-11-09T23:39:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What you need to know about Russia’s retreat from Kherson city - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/russia-retreat-kherson-ukraine-what-to-know/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/09/russia-retreat-kherson-ukraine-what-to-know/ |
Justices seemed inclined to reconsider parts of law that prioritizes foster or adoptive parents based on tribal status
Demonstrators stand outside of the Supreme Court, as the court heard arguments over the Indian Child Welfare Act on Wednesday. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP)
The Supreme Court seemed split Wednesday as it considered the constitutionality of a federal law, intended to rectify past government abuses, that prioritizes the foster care and adoption of Native American children by other relatives and tribes.
At stake was the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which was passed to remedy what Congress said was a disgraceful history in which hundreds of thousands of Native American children were removed from their homes by adoption agencies and placed with White families or in group settings.
Tribal representatives told the justices that a broad decision could affect Native Americans in other areas. But it did not appear from more than three hours of oral arguments that there was a majority of justices content to let the law stand as is.
Tribes watch warily as Supreme Court takes up adoption law
The law is being challenged by seven individuals and three states, led by Texas. The plaintiffs contend the law requires state officials to put aside the traditional standard of doing what is best for the child, and relies on racial discrimination in ways the Constitution does not allow.
Five of the court’s six conservatives asked skeptical questions of lawyers representing the Biden administration and Indian tribes in defense of the law, and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh posed the question that he said was at the heart of a tough case.
“On the one hand, the great respect for tribal self-government for the success of Indian tribes with Indian people’s — with recognition of the history of oppression and discrimination against tribes and people,” Kavanaugh said. “On the other hand, the fundamental principle we don’t treat people differently on account of their race or ethnicity or ancestry, equal justice under law.”
But conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who has been a strong supporter of Indian rights in his time on the Supreme Court, joined the court’s three liberals in vigorously defending Congress’s prerogative to pass the law, as well as the idea that judicial humility required leaving it in place.
“You can question the policy, you can not question the policy, but the policy is for Congress to make. And Congress understood these children’s placement decisions as integral to the continued thriving of Indian communities,” Justice Elena Kagan said, adding: “That’s not something that we can second-guess, is it?”
“It is under the Constitution, your honor,” responded Washington attorney Matthew D. McGill, who represented a White Texas couple who have adopted an Indian child and want to adopt that child’s half sister. “The Congress does not have the power to treat these children as property of the tribes because of their ancestry.”
The case comes before a court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., that is increasingly skeptical of government’s reliance on racial classifications, having signaled last week that it was open to ending affirmative action in university admissions.
On Wednesday, Kavanaugh asked Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler whether Congress’s vast authority over Indian affairs gave it the power to “mandate that states give a preference in college admissions to American Indians?”
Kneedler said such a position would be more difficult to defend the ICWA, because college admissions are less related to preservation of tribes and “bumps up against” the interests of others.
But he agreed with Kavanaugh’s suggestion that Congress “couldn’t give a preference for White families for White children, for Black families for Black children, for Latino families for Latino children, for Asian families for Asian children.”
Those decisions would be based on race, Kneedler said, while the preferences in the ICWA are political — based on membership in tribes the federal government has recognized.
When custody and adoption proceedings are in state rather than tribal courts, the ICWA sets up a hierarchy of placement for Indian children, preferring first the child’s extended family, then members of the child’s tribe, then another Indian family even if from a different tribe and then a non-Indian home.
Two members of the court, Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, are adoptive parents. Roberts was especially concerned that the law eschewed traditional custody decisions that make the child the priority.
“Do you think that ICWA incorporates the familiar best-interest-of-the-child inquiry that are applied in family courts throughout the country?” Roberts asked. McGill said that it didn’t.
But Ian H. Gershengorn, representing Native American tribes, said Congress had provided other flexibility in a way that child-welfare professionals said in amicus briefs made it the “gold standard” for placement of children.
Despite the preferences in the law, courts can take into account “the views of the parents, the views of the child, if the child is old enough to express them,” Gershengorn said. “You can take into account sibling attachment. You can take into account bonding with foster parents, as long as it was not done illegally through ICWA. The thing you cannot take into account is socioeconomic status.”
Supreme Court agrees to review Native American adoptions law
Roberts, Barrett and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. expressed concern about the third priority of the law, placing the child with another Indian family, even if not of the same tribe. “Let’s assume I agree with you that these are political classifications — this is just treating Indian tribes as fungible,” Barrett said.
But Gershengorn said that priority almost never came into play, and when it did it was with members of a tribe that shared land with the child’s tribe. There was no evidence of what he called a “Maine to Arizona” adoption. He also said the court could sever that third requirement and leave the law in place.
The case arrived at the Supreme Court from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, where part of the law was upheld and part was held unconstitutional. The complicated ruling ran 325 pages, with opinions from six judges.
Gorsuch and the liberal justices seemed convinced Congress had authority to implement the law, which Gershengorn said was studied for four years and meant to rectify a past in which studies showed that 25 to 35 percent of Native children were being removed from their parents for foster care or adoption. Upward of 85 percent of placements were in non-Native homes.
After getting McGill to agree to the wide authority Congress has to regulate commerce, health care and other issues regarding Native Americans, Gorsuch concluded: “I guess I’m struggling to understand why this falls on the other side of the line when Congress makes the judgment that this is essential to … self-preservation of Indian tribes.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor enumerated many ways Congress has regulated Indian affairs, and pushed back on the notion that state courts implementing the act are restricted from making the best choice for the child.
“All of these parents, to even be in the running, have to be competent parents, correct?” she asked Kneedler. So “the issue is one of policy. Where will you place the child among these competing competent custodians, correct?”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that was a choice for Congress. It “really boils down to a fundamental question that comes up in the law a lot, which is who decides?” Jackson said. “Who decides whether regulation in this area counts for Indian self-government?”
But McGill said the court had a role, too.
The children at issue “are human beings,” he said. “They are citizens of the United States and the states in which they reside … and they have liberty interests that the tribe cannot override simply by unilaterally enrolling them.” | 2022-11-10T00:19:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Law on placement of Native American children divides Supreme Court - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/tribal-adopt-supreme-court-foster-care/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/tribal-adopt-supreme-court-foster-care/ |
The Maryland governor-elect’s “leave no one behind” mantra has interest groups, Democrats and even Republicans with high hopes and a lingering question about how he’ll pay for his vision
Lateshia Beachum
Wes Moore and Aruna Miller, the future Maryland governor and lieutenant governor, respectively, celebrate during an election night party for state Democrats at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
The coalition that Maryland Gov.-elect Wes Moore (D) rallied around his promise to ‘leave no one behind’ has high expectations of the man projected to become the state’s first Black governor.
Universal prekindergarten. Ending child poverty. Raising teacher pay. Launching a statewide paid family-leave program. Accelerating the minimum-wage hike. Reviving the canceled $1.6 billion Red Line transit project. Closing the racial wealth gap. Subsidizing child care. Extending historic tax credits for the working poor and some undocumented immigrants. Buying electric school buses. Creating a service year. Fortifying a hollowed-out state workforce. Starting more ambitious renewable energy projects. Building job training programs.
A partial list of Moore’s campaign promises to tackle systemic problems easily tallies into billions of dollars. Democrats in Annapolis with similar goals moderated their ambitions under term-limited Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.
But even with a single party poised to control the workings of state government, prioritizing plans and finding the cash to deliver on them will require a tightrope performance by Moore, who has never held public office and cast himself as a uniter. The staff he assembles will inherit both large pools of cash, including a $2 billion surplus, and an uncertain economy that could undermine Moore’s agenda.
At stake is a goal he laid out in the hours after he was first elected.
“I want to make sure that our long-term legacy is not that I have made history,” he said on election night. “I want that to be something that gets brought up after people talk about the other things that we have accomplished.”
In an interview Wednesday, he said he is assembling a team that “will look like the state of Maryland” to make the state “more competitive but also more equitable” and to fight poverty, create safe communities and strengthen public schools.
In his first legislative session this winter, he wants to advance a service-year option for high school graduates and begin addressing child poverty.
He also wants to be prudent.
“There’s not a single dollar of state resources that I will allow to just be recklessly spent,” he said. “Everything has got to have a demonstrated societal return on that investment. … We have a real responsibility to be proper stewards of Maryland’s taxpayer dollars and to know, to think about the things that we are going to invest in the long term is going to create the largest level of societal return.”
Some leading Democrats have warned that the state’s financial picture is more precarious than bulging balance sheets suggest.
“The party’s over,” Comptroller Peter Franchot said in September after budget forecasters reported the state’s historic surpluses would be even bigger than expected, warning that “a close look at this well-crafted report shows that the past few years of jaw-dropping revenue surpluses are firmly in the rear view. … History shows that extended periods of economic expansion are followed by fiscal contraction. In effect, what goes up must come down.”
At the moment, the expectations for Moore are atmospheric.
“We’re very optimistic,” said Rich Norling, the political chair of the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club, of Moore’s goal to go beyond Maryland’s already aggressive plan to reduce carbon emissions. “There’s a lot of implementation that’s needed, and building capacity in state government. Under the eights years under the Hogan administration, a lot of the state government has been allowed to wither away.”
Cathryn Paul, the public policy director for the immigrant advocacy group CASA, said the organization’s No. 1 priority is to expand health care to everyone, regardless of immigration status.
Paul said the immigrant community rallied to get Moore “across the finish line” and wants to make permanent a three-year, $65 million initiative that allowed noncitizens and undocumented immigrants to receive the state’s earned income tax credit.
Paul said that as proud as she is to have a Black governor who also is the son of an immigrant, she intends to make sure that the policies important to the immigrant community move forward.
“As much as I absolutely love Wes … he is a governor that we are not going to hold back in holding him accountable,” she said.
Larry Stafford, the executive director of Progressive Maryland, said he is most hopeful about Moore’s plans to tackle child poverty, which includes a $100-million-a-year baby bonds program. Moore wants to accelerate the $15 minimum wage to take effect two years early, but Stafford hopes inflation and housing costs prompt Moore to embrace $22-per-hour minimum wage next.
“Now we have a governor who is receptive and open to addressing the needs of working families,” he said.
Republicans, many of whom were resigned to Moore’s victory after far-right GOP nominee Del. Dan Cox (R-Frederick) won the July primary, also have high expectations for Moore to deliver for rural areas. “I appreciate the slogan that he’ll leave no one behind,” said Maryland House Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel. But he was skeptical that there won’t be disappointment.
“Gov.-elect Moore has never been in public office before. He’s certainly never had to do public budgeting before,” Buckel said. “It’s very easy to promise the interest groups the world, and if the money was out there for every purpose, we would do them all.”
Unions for state workers have complained that Hogan reduced state agencies, soliciting a campaign promise from Moore to address it. Retiring Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore City), who oversaw House budget negotiations during the Hogan era, said Moore should undertake the costly and unglamorous mission of shoring up the state workforce first.
“You have these very important goals,” she said. “You’re not going to get there until you restore, in some cases, some very broken agencies.”
As Laura Weeldreyer, the executive director of the Maryland Family Network, listened to Moore’s acceptance speech Tuesday night, she heard a new promise to add atop the list she expects Moore to accomplish: an even greater expansion of free prekindergarten on top of a planned $4-billion-per-year overhaul of how education is delivered in the state.
“He very boldly said we’re going to make free pre-K for everyone,” she said. That comes alongside previous promises to prop up the state’s child-care network and to implement a long-sought, statewide family-leave program, estimated to cost around $500 million a year but the details of which haven’t been settled.
Each of those policies had been launched incrementally by Maryland Democrats in the General Assembly, but it will be up to the Moore administration to carry them to fruition in the next four years.
Warren G. Deschenaux, a former executive director of the state Department of Legislative Services, said Moore takes the helm at a time that looks much different from any he saw in his more than three decades working on Maryland’s budget.
“All the years, and it was a lot of years, we were always working from behind, handling scarcity,” he said, predicting that the surplus and gains from the federal government would be “sustainable for four years.”
“If we have a recession we’re going to need some of that cash just to keep going,” he said. “It’s possible we think we’re richer than what we will be.”
Plenty of people have been willing to offer the first-time politician advice. During a virtual fundraiser with former U.S. senator Hillary Clinton last month, Moore received what he described during the Zoom as a “master class,” with more than 100 people listening in.
Clinton spent about 15 minutes offering tips to a newbie governor that included staying connected to citizens; being selective on his appointments; and knowing his emergency response system “inside and out” because “literally you could get inaugurated and there’d be a flood or a bridge collapse.”
Clinton also gave a warning about overpromising.
“You have to tell people like, look, this is not going to be easy,” she said. “We’re trying to change a lot of things. But if you stick with me, we’ll get through it together and we’ll actually make something happen. No big razzle-dazzle promises, just kind of we’re rolling up our sleeves — I need you as my partner.” | 2022-11-10T00:45:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Work begins for Wes Moore, who won on a pledge to leave no one behind. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/wes-moore-campaign-promises/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/wes-moore-campaign-promises/ |
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) returns to the Capitol on Wednesday. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Democrats continued to celebrate unexpected victories, notching several more wins in competitive House races on Wednesday, as control of the House and Senate remained uncertain. It could take weeks to find out which party ends up with more seats in the Senate.
Two critical Senate races in Arizona and Nevada remained too early to call Wednesday, and a third in Georgia is headed for a Dec. 6 runoff after neither Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock nor Republican Herschel Walker won more than 50 percent of the vote. To take control of the Senate, Republicans need to flip two of those three seats currently held by Democrats.
Republicans are likely to take control of the House, experts say, but by a much smaller margin than they expected, falling short of the red wave they envisioned. Of the 64 seats considered competitive, Democrats have won more than 20 of them, but Republicans only need to net five seats to win the majority. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R -Calif.) has already started to make calls asking for support in his bid to be the next speaker.
But Democrats outperformed expectations in races across the country, lifted by anger over the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, weak Republican candidates and an aggressive on-the-ground push to turn out voters. Those factors helped overcome President Biden’s low approval rating, current high inflation rates and the historic precedent that the president’s party is often trounced in midterms.
“Here’s what we do know: While the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn’t happen,” Biden said in a news conference Wednesday afternoon. Voters “sent a clear, unmistakable message that they want to preserve our democracy and protect the right to choose in this country.”
Democrats also won control of the state Houses in Michigan and New Hampshire, and were close to doing so in Pennsylvania as well. Republicans also had some big wins called Wednesday, including the ouster of Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee whose job it was to retain Democrats’ power in the House. In Wisconsin, Sen. Ron Johnson (R) prevailed in a hard-fought campaign against Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D).
“Clearly, House Democrats have exceeded expectations,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “With many races continuing to be too close to call, every vote must be counted as cast to determine the final results. As we proceed, we continue to be grateful to Sean Patrick Maloney for the successful operation he led that brought us to this point.”
Republicans seemed to gain momentum in the closing weeks of the midterms as they attacked Democrats on inflation, immigration and crime. National exit polls show that more than 50 percent of voters cited one of those three issues as most important in their vote. Abortion rights was the top issue for 27 percent of voters, proving the saliency of that issue months after the high court’s decision. The midterms were also rocked in the last few weeks by a violent assault on Pelosi’s husband, Paul, at their San Francisco home that brought back into focus the dangerous rhetoric used by some on the far right.
At the same time, former president Donald Trump, speaking Monday at a rally in Ohio for GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance, more clearly indicated his intentions to run for president in 2024, which may have resulted in motivating Democrats and some independents.
“Trump’s self-promoting entrance at the end of the campaign hurt,” said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. “It’s just a signal to a lot of swing voters that he’s back — and he’s coming back within a week after the election.”
“He just kind of injected himself in these states for his own politics and I think it hurt a lot of the Republicans,” he added, referring to candidates that Trump endorsed in several races, some of whom did not fare well on Tuesday.
As Election Day began, Republican candidates, pundits, and social media influencers were giddy with anticipation of a red wave of voters that would sweep candidates around the country into office and usher in Republican majorities in the House and Senate. By election night, their tone had changed, as it became clear the wave had not arrived, according to a Washington Post analysis of social media posts, blog posts, and podcasts, which revealed a change in sentiment among GOP influencers and candidates as the narrative surrounding the 2020 election shifted in real time.
Rep. Mayra Flores (R), who had won a special election in the southern Texas district in June, lamented her loss to Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, tweeting: “The RED WAVE did not happen. Republicans and Independents stayed home. DO NOT COMPLAIN ABOUT THE RESULTS IF YOU DID NOT DO YOUR PART!”
“All the rules are thrown out,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who started the election cycle believing it would be the worst political cycle he’d ever seen for Democrats. “We really no longer know who is coming out.”
Whether Democrats can retain their slim majority in the Senate depends on hundreds of thousands of ballots still uncounted in the races between Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada; and between Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly and Republican Blake Masters in Arizona.
In Nevada, Joe Gloria, Clark County Registrar of Voters, said his office is still receiving mail-in ballots and ballots collected from more than 300 drop boxes across Nevada’s most-populous county.
Clark County can receive mail ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 8 until Saturday, and voters whose signatures on file don’t match those ballots have until Monday to have them cured. The county is still counting provisional ballots and drop box ballots. Gloria promised the “final unofficial” results by next Thursday.
In Arizona, election officials said more than 400,000 ballots still needed to be counted in the state’s most populous county. Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer said Wednesday the county received 275,000 early ballots on Tuesday, and it will be reviewing and verifying signatures on them “today, tomorrow and the next day.”
The Democrats’ biggest prize of the night was in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman flipped a Republican-held seat, a critical race for them to have a chance to keep the Senate. Fetterman made a concentrated push to win voters in conservative areas that Democrats typically ignore, a strategy that seems to have worked; Fetterman exceeded Biden’s support in many red counties.
“I never expected we’d turn these red counties blue, but we did what we needed to do and had those conversations all over the counties,” Fetterman told supporters.
Fetterman’s Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, whose candidacy was championed by Trump, struggled to surmount the characterization of him as an unrelatable, out-of-town celebrity with no strong ties to Pennsylvania.
In Georgia, Warnock finds himself in a familiar political position, as he prepares for a Dec. 6 runoff. The senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta won his seat in a special election runoff in January 2021.
As of Wednesday afternoon, he was leading with 49.4 percent of the vote over his GOP challenger, Walker, who had 48.5 percent. Walker, a football legend in Georgia who was recruited to run for the Senate by Trump, drew scrutiny for allegations of domestic violence and that he paid for two former girlfriends to have abortions. But he drew heavy support from evangelicals for his vow to support a national ban on abortions, and national Republicans rallied to his defense in an effort to take back control of the Senate.
Other Trump-favored candidates floundered, including Republican Doug Mastriano, who ran for governor in Pennsylvania on a platform of denying the 2020 election results and espousing Christian nationalism. Democrat Josh Shapiro won in a resounding rejection of the far right and its conspiracies about the 2020 presidential election. Nearly every GOP gubernatorial candidate who refused to say whether they would have certified Biden’s win lost in competitive races.
“We won firewall states,” Gov. Roy Cooper (D-N.C.), the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said in an interview with The Post, noting that Democrats have control of executive power in the battleground presidential states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. “It’s critical when you have election denying Republicans who will try to change voting laws, and may even try to change the way presidential electors are selected. Now we have Democratic governors in place who won’t stand for that.”
In many places, high voter turnout, including among young voters, helped propel Democrats to victory. In Wisconsin, there was massive turnout in Dane County, which includes Madison, and 70 percent of voters under the age of 30 backed the reelection bid of Gov. Tony Evers — a 10-point swing toward Democrats since his 2018 win. Overall, younger voters supported Democratic congressional candidates at somewhat lower levels than in 2018, but they helped boost Democratic Senate candidates in several key contests. Network exit polls found that among voters under 30, Fetterman won 70 percent support in Pennsylvania, Warnock won 63 percent in Georgia, and Kelly won 76 percent in Arizona.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted Wednesday morning, “Never underestimate how much Team Biden is underestimated,” sounding vindicated after months of predictions that Biden would be a drag on Democrats.
Top Democratic candidates distanced themselves from the White House for most of the campaign. Biden did not campaign in many of the key states during the final stretch, aside from his ancestral Pennsylvania, where he appeared in Democratic-friendly Philadelphia with former president Barack Obama days before the election.
Democrats also appeared largely vindicated in their controversial strategy of meddling in GOP primaries to elevate far-right candidates they believed would be easier to defeat in the general election.
Of the six races where the Democratic strategy in the primary worked, the Democrats won all of them. In two others, Democratic candidates are leading their GOP challengers, including in a Michigan House race that Democrats hope to flip.
Democratic victories also include the three gubernatorial races where the Democrats successfully meddled in the GOP elections: Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Wes Moore in Maryland and J.B. Pritzker in Illinois.
In New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan beat back a challenge from Republican Don Bolduc, who raised doubts that Biden won the election and benefited from more than $3 million spent by Democrats boosting him in his primary. In New Hampshire’s 2nd Congressional District, incumbent Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster also won against a far-right challenger.
Democrats also prevailed in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District, flipping a House seat from red to blue, where they also elevated a far-right candidate. In that race, Democrats boosted John Gibbs, who narrowly defeated Rep. Peter Meijer in the Republican primary. That set up a contest in which Democratic candidate Hillary Scholten was able to beat Gibbs.
Liz Goodwin, Scott Clement, Greg Morton and Jeremy Merrill contributed to this report. Robert Klemko in Nevada, Matthew Brown in Georgia and Annabelle Timsit in London also contributed to this report. | 2022-11-10T01:28:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Congress control still in limbo after Democrats exceed expectations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/congress-control-democrats-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/09/congress-control-democrats-republicans/ |
“What has changed is the uncertainty of what’s the final payroll going to look like — and what’s the ownership group going to look like down the road?” Mike Rizzo said. “As far as coming here and coming to the winter meetings, we’re going as we always have with the Lerners as ownership, trying to just do what we can do to move this process along.” (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
LAS VEGAS — Inside Resorts World here this week, at the casino or any number of restaurants, just about every mention of the Washington Nationals prompts a form of the same question: Who is buying them?
That’s not to imply the Nationals are the talk of Major League Baseball’s general managers’ meetings in Las Vegas. Very far from it. But with free agency starting Thursday, the Nationals’ entire existence — what they are, what they could be, what steps they might take to distance themselves from a 55-107 finish in 2022 — is defined by the uncertainty of their ownership situation.
Asked to connect some dots Wednesday, to explain whether the ongoing sale process will affect spending this offseason, General Manager Mike Rizzo kept with the company line, saying, “We’ve been told to do business as usual.” The reality is Washington is both being shopped and at a rebuilding stage that wouldn’t typically yield splashy signings. Yet key details remain up in the air.
“What has changed is the uncertainty of what’s the final payroll going to look like — and what’s the ownership group going to look like down the road?” Rizzo said. “As far as coming here and coming to the winter meetings, we’re going as we always have with the Lerners as ownership, trying to just do what we can do to move this process along.”
Is it challenging not to have payroll clarity heading into the offseason?
“At this point, there’s not a whole lot of challenges,” Rizzo said. “But there’ll be a time where we’ll need some clarity to make some finite, concrete decisions.”
Last winter and spring, the Nationals signed five players to major league contracts: César Hernández, Steve Cishek, Nelson Cruz, Sean Doolittle and Ehire Adrianza. A year later, one big difference is that they have installed more of a young core, including shortstop CJ Abrams, second baseman Luis García, right-handed starter Cade Cavalli and left-handed starter MacKenzie Gore. Keibert Ruiz, recovered from a testicular injury, is expected to be the Nationals’ catcher of the present and future. Josiah Gray could highlight the next competitive rotation with Cavalli and Gore. And then there are the other prospects who arrived in the Juan Soto-Josh Bell trade, the prospects who were already with Washington and the small handful of surprises in the farm system.
Getting young guys to the majors is not always a linear process. Instead, paths are often littered with hurdles and potential off-ramps. Infielder Brady House, one of the club’s top minor league position players, missed most of last season with a lower-back injury that, according to Rizzo, has since cleared up. Cavalli debuted in August and quickly landed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation. Cole Henry, a top pitching prospect, had surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome toward the end of summer and is facing a long recovery.
Stephen Strasburg gave his body to baseball. Now his future is a mystery.
But Rizzo remains committed to a simple roster-building method: Once the Nationals know what they have in-house, he will return to aggressively pursuing big-name players through free agency and trades. He feels closer to that point than he did a year ago. Until he is fully there, though, the Nationals are more likely to sign veterans and reclamation projects to one-year deals or minor league contracts. Doolittle already has returned on a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. On Wednesday, Rizzo highlighted starting pitching as the club’s biggest need, then added he could add a bat at third base, first base, in the designated hitter spot or in the corners of the outfield.
The middle of the diamond — Ruiz at catcher, Abrams at shortstop, García at second, Victor Robles and/or Lane Thomas in center — is more crowded at the moment. So if the Nationals were shopping for a premier shortstop, wanted a frontline starter to elevate their staff or thought it was time to add a power hitter on a lucrative contract, an undefined budget would seem more consequential. But that doesn’t mean Rizzo isn’t itching to have the parameters set.
His team has finished in last place for three consecutive years. His rotation, once a prized possession, ended 2022 with the worst ERA in the majors. And while Rizzo is getting good at listing Abrams, Ruiz, Cavalli, Gore and so on, he knows there is a long way to go.
“I’m antsy. I’m anxious. I’m competitive. I hate the way the season went,” the GM said. “But you have to be true to the process, and rushing it just compounds the problem.” | 2022-11-10T02:16:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uncertain ownership hangs over Nationals at GM meetings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/mike-rizzo-nationals-ownership-gm-meetings/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/mike-rizzo-nationals-ownership-gm-meetings/ |
Bonds, McDuffie win two D.C. at-large council seats; Silverman ousted
D.C. Council members Anita Bonds (D-At Large) and Kenyan R. McDuffie (D-Ward 5) won at-large council seats in Tuesday's election. (The Washington Post)
In a citywide race that pitted three sitting D.C. Council members against one another for two spots, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s allies Anita Bonds and Kenyan R. McDuffie won at-large council seats — ousting two-term incumbent Elissa Silverman, a longtime favorite of the city’s liberal activists.
McDuffie, who represented Ward 5 on the council for a decade as a Democrat before running for the at-large seat as an independent, was embraced by business owners as a candidate more moderate than Silverman on taxation and business regulation and by longtime Washingtonians as a native son. Businesspeople who have long targeted Silverman (I) for her championing of the city’s paid parental leave law and other worker-friendly policies donated generously to McDuffie’s campaign.
Bonds (D), who has been on the council for a decade and involved in Democratic politics in the District for half a century, touted her longevity and her focus on senior citizens and longtime residents during a campaign in which few doubted she would win another term.
The at-large contest was the last D.C. Council race to be called after Tuesday’s election.
Many who voted for Bonds praised her consistency. The Rev. James Coleman, who voted in Takoma, gave Bonds — who chairs the council’s housing committee — some of the credit for D.C. spending more time and effort on affordable housing creation than surrounding suburban jurisdictions.
“I think we’re doing an average to good job” on one of the city’s most pressing issues, Coleman said.
Still, as Bonds competed for votes with two of her fellow council members and struggled to defend her leadership of the housing committee from criticism of the city’s high housing prices, her vote totals slipped — she won fewer than one-third of the votes cast in the contest, compared with her 44 percent showing four years ago.
James Scales, 23, said his top issue was the cost of housing when he voted in Ward 5 on Tuesday. He was upset by a recent federal report that sharply criticized D.C.’s public housing agency for letting much-needed apartments fall into disrepair and sit unused. Doubting Bonds’ capability to oversee the housing authority, he voted instead for Silverman and independent Graham McLaughlin.
McDuffie put together a winning coalition by appealing to multiple camps, including business owners in some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods and native Washingtonians in some of its poorest.
Silverman, who has served on the council since 2015, has long been a target of some business owners and a favorite of many of the city’s liberal activists for championing worker-friendly policies including parental leave (funded by a tax on employers that many businesses fiercely opposed) and for occasionally clashing with the more moderate Bowser (D) and the council chairman, Phil Mendelson (D), who easily won reelection Tuesday.
While Silverman campaigned on both her liberal achievements and her work extending grants to businesses hard hit by the pandemic, groups funded by business owners spent heavily to campaign on McDuffie’s behalf, and corporations donated directly to McDuffie’s well-funded campaign.
McDuffie meanwhile also appealed to longtime D.C. residents, pointing out on the campaign trail that he was born in the District. Many observed a racial element as well — Silverman is White and grew up in Maryland, and some voters expressed concern about preserving the council’s current Black majority.
“He’s from where I’m from. He’s been through the struggles I’ve been through,” Donald Bullock, 47, said after voting in Columbia Heights.
Bullock, a heavy-equipment operator, remembers playing basketball with McDuffie when they were children, and specifically hopes his old playmate will focus more attention on homelessness in the District. “He can relate to the people that’s in the streets. He comes from the same struggle as us. He understands.”
Ebony Huff, who lives in Columbia Heights, felt the same way. “Hopefully his personal life will pour out into the community,” said Huff, the mother of a 4-year-old. “I’m a federal government worker and I still can’t really afford to live here. … I want to be able to buy a home here in D.C. where I was raised, stay here and raise my child.”
Silverman’s campaign was also dogged in the final days of voting by a ruling by the Office of Campaign Finance that she improperly spent campaign money on a poll of the Ward 3 primary race, which she was not running in.
McDuffie and several leaders in D.C.’s Black community seized on the ruling to impugn Silverman’s ethics. Rick Taylor, who lives in Ward 5, said the campaign finance issue influenced his choice to vote for McDuffie.
“I didn’t have a real strong reason to vote for [Silverman]. And there’s an investigation pending about some ethical thing — I think it broke at a bad time for her,” he said. “It’s not a big thing, but enough to put a little bit of a cloud over her.” | 2022-11-10T02:25:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bonds, McDuffie win two D.C. at-large council seats; Silverman ousted - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/dc-at-large-council-results-bonds-mcduffie/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/dc-at-large-council-results-bonds-mcduffie/ |
Man kills intruder in Oakton home, police say
An Oakton, Va., homeowner shot and killed an intruder Wednesday night during an altercation after the intruder entered the home with a large landscaping rock, according to Fairfax County police.
The incident began when the male intruder, who police described as a young adult, walked onto the property in the 11400 block of Waples Mill Road sometime before 6 p.m. The male homeowner encountered the man outside and a fight ensued, police said.
The homeowner went inside the house to retrieve a gun. A short time later, the intruder entered the home armed with a large rock. There was a confrontation and the homeowner fired his gun, police said.
Officers were called to the home and gave first aid to the intruder, but he was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The homeowner’s wife and another adult, along with the homeowner’s two children, were home at the time of the incident but none were harmed, police said.
The homeowner was taken to a hospital with minor injures. As of late Wednesday, police had not identified the intruder. Authorities are investigating the incident as a self-defense incident, police said. It was not immediately clear to police what prompted the initial altercation or what brought the intruder into the area.
The single-family home is located in a wooded, remote area of Fairfax County. The home has a long driveway, and police had not found a vehicle connected to the intruder. Police are trying to determine why he was in the area. | 2022-11-10T02:25:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oakton homeowner shoots, kills intruder - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/intruder-shot-killed-oakton-homeowner/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/09/intruder-shot-killed-oakton-homeowner/ |
Goaltender Darcy Kuemper only can watch as a shot by Penguins defenseman Jeff Petry hits the back of the net in the Capitals' 4-1 defeat at Capital One Arena. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
For an up-and-down Washington Capitals team, the goaltending tandem had been among the bright spots in the early stages of their 2022-23 campaign.
But in a 4-1 loss Wednesday to the Pittsburgh Penguins at Capital One Arena, starting netminder Darcy Kuemper wasn’t sharp, particularly in an ugly second period. That allowed Pittsburgh (5-6-2) to snap a seven-game losing streak.
Kuemper didn’t get much help on the other side of the ice. Marcus Johansson scored the only goal against Penguins goaltender Casey DeSmith, who made 24 saves. It cut the deficit to 3-1 with 7:38 left, but the Capitals didn’t get any closer. Forward Jake Guentzel scored an empty-netter with 96 seconds left to produce the final score.
After both teams were scoreless after the first, the Penguins took full control with a three-goal second period.
Washington, which erupted for five goals Monday night in a win over Edmonton, reverted to its offensive struggles. While the Capitals went 4 for 5 on the power play against Edmonton, it went 0 for 4 on the power play against Pittsburgh and gave up a shorthanded goal.
Kuemper, who entered the game with a 2.42 goals against average and a .919 save percentage, stopped 24 of 27 shots, but the ones that got by him weren’t pretty.
Forward Jason Zucker gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead with 12:17 left in the second period. Zucker threw the puck on net, and it got loose behind Kuemper in the crease. The goalie couldn’t locate the puck and instead accidentally knocked it in with his left leg.
Forward Brock McGinn doubled Pittsburgh’s lead with 7:07 left, this time shorthanded. Again, Kuemper appeared to be in a prime position to stop the puck, but it trickled through his pads.
Jeff Petry gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead at 15:05 of the second. His center point shot beat Kuemper clean. Captain Sidney Crosby was credited with the primary assist, his 1,424th career point. Crosby and Alex Ovechkin entered Wednesday’s game tied at 1,423.
The Capitals again were without defensemen John Carlson and Dmitry Orlov. Carlson was hurt Oct. 29 at Nashville and remains on injured reserve with a lower-body injury. He was eligible to return for Monday’s game against the Oilers and has been skating over the past few days, but he has not been medically cleared.
Orlov has not played since he suffered a lower-body injury in the first period of Saturday’s home loss to Arizona. He is still listed as day-to-day.
Washington started strong, but the Penguins pushed back to challenge Kuemper in the final 15 minutes of the first period. The Capitals had a 5-0 shots on goals advantage in the first five minutes, but the Penguins went outshot Washington 10-2 to end the period.
Alexeyev debuts
Alex Alexeyev made his season debut against the Penguins. He spent the beginning of the season on the long-term injury list after he hurt his left shoulder in the offseason. His injury occurred in Russia, where he was skating in a five-on-five game and “some guy just went straight at [him] and dislocated it.” He played three games with the team’s American Hockey League affiliate in Hershey, Pa., before being called up to Washington this week.
Alexeyev said Wednesday morning he felt “100 percent” after his lengthy rehab process. Against Pittsburgh, Alexeyev was with Matt Irwin on the third defensive pair.
To make room for Alexeyev on the roster, Washington sent prospect Lucas Johansen back down to the Hershey. Johansen, 24, played in one game before he was sent down.
Fehervary hits 100
Martin Fehervary has taken on a bigger responsibility with Carlson and Orlov out of the lineup, and Wednesday was his 100th career NHL game. Physicality has been a big part of Fehervary’s game, and he got some good licks in against a gritty Penguins team.
“He’s been really good since he got on a regular shift last year,” Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette said Wednesday morning. “From the time of his entry, we didn’t hide him. We didn’t move him around or keep him away from certain players. He has played against top players since being in the league.”
T.J. Oshie skated Wednesday morning for the first time since he suffered a lower-body injury Oct. 29 at Nashville. Oshie is on injured reserve and is eligible to come off the list whenever he is medically cleared to play.
Oshie’s injury has been a bit of a mystery. It was so severe that the injury forced him to stay overnight in Nashville after the game rather than fly back with the team. The Capitals have not offered any details. Oshie played in nine games this season and scored two goals and recorded three assists.
Laviolette said Wednesday morning that Oshie was “progressing” but added there was no update to his injury status and he is out “indefinitely.”
T.J. Oshie (lower body, on IR) is on the ice before Capitals’ morning skate vs PIT. Just working on his own. Good sign. He was injured in Nashville on Oct. 29. pic.twitter.com/d0evIhAfJo | 2022-11-10T03:39:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Darcy Kuemper no help for ailing Capitals in a loss to the Penguins - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/capitals-penguins-darcy-kuemper/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/09/capitals-penguins-darcy-kuemper/ |
Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at Canfield Center in Dearborn Heights, Mich., on March 10, 2020. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/file)
Though the typo only affected 34 Dearborn voters who had requested Arabic absentee ballots before it was caught, the incident underscores the struggles in jurisdictions with large groups of eligible voters who have limited English proficiency amid an ongoing nationwide push for more language access on ballots and in other election materials. Legal experts say election administrators should pay attention to the need for non-English voting materials, a nonpartisan issue aiming to increase voter turnout in the United States.
Offered for the first time during midterm elections, Dearborn’s Arabic-language ballots had a mistake in the “Justice of Supreme Court” section, which had instructed voters to select “not more than one” when it should have said “not more than two.”
This year, Michigan had two open Supreme Court seats and five candidates on the ballot, meaning people who did not change their submitted Arabic-language ballot may not have cast their vote for multiple candidates when they could have.
D.C. elections board acknowledges error on Spanish-language electronic ballots
The use of Arabic ballots for the first time in Dearborn was born out of a resolution introduced by city councilman Mustapha Hammoud that required access for election materials in any language spoken at home by a minimum of 10,000 residents, or 5 percent of the population, based on census data.
The city has one of the highest percentages of Arab Americans in the United States — and Arabic was the only language that passed the resolution’s requirement for language ballots in this year’s primary and general elections.
Languages including Arabic, Farsi, Haitian-Creole and others are not covered under federal law. The Voting Rights Act protects language minority groups, but restricts them to “persons who are American Indian, Asian American, Alaskan Natives or of Spanish heritage.”
This often puts an onus on state and local leaders to expand election materials for their constituents who speak languages falling outside of federal law, said Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel at the Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting rights organization.
“There’s nothing preventing election officials, policy wise, from offering materials and information in additional languages,” Kanter Cohen said.
In September, Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.) introduced a bill that would allow publishing election materials in those additional languages and fund state and local officials in the effort.
The Dearborn City Council approved the voting rights resolution in March, the same month it was introduced, meaning Arabic-language ballots would be in use during primaries in August and midterms in November. The resolution was approved after “intense debate” about the costs and lack of time to implement it, the Detroit Free Press reported.
It’s unclear how exactly the mistake was made, but City Council President Mike Sareini said the timeline for the Arabic-language ballots was tight. Moving forward, he said, Dearborn officials will seek to learn from other cities that use minority language ballots to make the process “as flawless as possible.”
“There was an oversight,” Sareini said. “And we’re going to work hard to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Starting over in Dearborn, Michigan: The Arab capital of North America
Like Dearborn, communities across the country have worked for years to introduce new language ballots despite the barriers.
This year, San Diego County voters for the first time had access to Persian and Somali facsimile ballots, which are translated sample ballots to use as a reference. The move came after California Secretary of State Shirley Weber reinstated minority language determinations that had expired in 2021.
Jeanine Erikat, the policy lead at the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, said her fears were particularly focused on diverse border counties such as San Diego County.
“Our community is so excited to have facsimile, or reference, ballots in their own language and to be able to learn about elections and measures,” Erikat said. “I know that California really is setting a precedent for other states on this, and it’s something I’d love to see across the nation.”
Erikat said she also hopes to see official ballots, not just facsimile ones, in more languages in future elections.
In 2018, nonpartisan civic groups in Florida filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to order state and local officials to provide Spanish-language ballots. The suit alleged that Florida’s secretary of state and other officials were violating the voting rights of thousands of Puerto Ricans who’d moved there after Hurricane Maria.
Florida lawsuit seeks Spanish translation of ballots, alleges voting rights violations affecting Puerto Ricans
In September 2018, the judge ruled in the groups’ favor, ordering 32 counties to provide Spanish-language sample ballots, but stopped short of requiring official ballots because of the lack of time before the midterm elections.
“It really requires constant advocacy and vigilance and community engagement, even when we make gains,” said Miranda Galindo, senior counsel for LatinoJustice PRLDEF, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit.
“This is a nonpartisan issue,” Galindo said. “This is something about having fair access, that voting and democracy are not conditional on being fluent in English.”
For decades, Osama Siblani, who lives near Dearborn and is the publisher of the Arab American News, has published election information in Arabic. He was one of three volunteers who were commissioned to help with the city’s Arabic-language ballots.
Despite the mishap this year, Siblani said he is waiting to see if the translated ballots and election materials will have a tangible effect on the community’s voting numbers.
“I have been publishing the Arab American News for 38 years and I know my community was not participating [in elections] because of the lack of knowing the English language enough to make an important choice,” he said.
Arelis R. Hernández contributed to this report. | 2022-11-10T04:01:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Error on Arabic ballots in Michigan spotlights challenge for non-English-speaking voters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/arabic-language-ballots-voting-access/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/arabic-language-ballots-voting-access/ |
This electron microscope image shows a listeria monocytogenes bacterium, responsible for the foodborne illness listeriosis. (Elizabeth White/CDC/AP)
“The true number of sick people in this outbreak is likely higher than the number reported, and the outbreak may not be limited to the states with known illnesses,” according to the CDC website.
The CDC reported that New York is home to seven of the sick people. Three live in Maryland. Massachusetts and Illinois each have two people who were sickened. New Jersey and California each have one person who fell ill.
The agency said symptoms of a severe case usually start within two weeks after eating contaminated food — but symptoms could present anywhere between the same day or 10 weeks after ingesting the bacteria. | 2022-11-10T04:09:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Listeria outbreak from deli meat and cheese kills 1, sickens dozen - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/listeria-outbreak-deli-meat-cheese-kills-1-sickens-dozen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/09/listeria-outbreak-deli-meat-cheese-kills-1-sickens-dozen/ |
Dear Amy: I recently joined a meditation group that has sessions both in-person and online. During an online session, I put a note in the chat saying that everyone could go and look at the full moon after the session.
The group leader became irate. He said aloud to the group that I was distracting and that no one should read what was in the chat. I found that odd because if he did not want it, he could have disabled the chat function in Zoom.
At the end of the meeting, I told everyone that I hoped they enjoyed looking at the beautiful full moon and signed off. The teacher contacted me after the session and said that I had been disruptive. I had not.
Nonetheless, he suggested that I find a different group. I live in a small town and there is no different group. (I do have a weekly online group with a different teacher.)
I think that request might have made him bristle toward me. I had hoped to make friends there. Do you have any suggestions?
Stargazer: Wow, and I thought middle school was full of drama!
Using the online “chat” function, you made a benign comment directed to the group, but if you had made this comment verbally during an in-person class, the group leader would probably have asked you not to speak.
After being corrected during class, you decided to once again interject a thought directed to the group before “quickly signing off.” You don’t seem to want to meditate. You want to communicate. There’s nothing wrong with that, unless you are trying to do so during a group meditation.
Your leader might be retaliating for a previous unrelated incident, but it’s his group. He can run it however he wants. It’s a shame that you don’t have any other groups to join — except that (according to you) you do.
Dear Amy: My wife and I have been married for 22 years. We met at 28 and married at 30. Ours is her first and only marriage, and is my second. We have had a great life, loving each other, having fun and raising our two daughters in a wonderful community. Both our daughters are enrolled in universities and doing very well.
Wondering: I don’t see this as momentous news, but I do see it as information your daughters will find intriguing. (Dad has a past!)
And actually, this previous marriage does have an impact on your life today. Surely you learned, grew and changed as a result of this relationship. And having been through a divorce, you have probably made choices to avoid repeating the experience.
I don’t see this as a: “We have to have a family meeting” discussion, but as a fact that you can share in context. Your daughters will probably respond: “Dad! No way!” They’ll be curious to know more, and then they’ll move on.
Grateful: The more established neighbors were going to have to teach these younger parents a few basic lessons. | 2022-11-10T05:28:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Meditation group leader says I was ‘disruptive.’ I disagree. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/10/ask-amy-meditation-group-chat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/10/ask-amy-meditation-group-chat/ |
My in-laws have a very different way of celebrating. My mother-in-law does all the cooking and cleaning up, refusing help from anyone except me and my sister-in-law (her daughter). This means my two preteen children can sit around and watch football and play on their phones until dinnertime, they can wolf their food down while everyone watches the football game — it’s so loud that conversation is impossible — and they can then go back to their phones or the TV.
My parents expect everyone to pitch in, including my children — which I’m in favor of — and we eat our meal leisurely and everyone is encouraged to contribute to the conversation.
Because we’re going to my parents’ house this year, I’m hearing loud complaints from my children that Thanksgiving sucks at my parents’, that they hate it and that they can’t wait to go to the other grandparents’ house. My husband says I can’t blame them for feeling this way, that any 11- and 12-year-old would feel the same, but I think this says something not so nice about our children and the values we haven’t managed to instill in them.
What do you think? Are my expectations for our children unreasonable?
Anonymous: For the final outcome, no, your expectations of them are totally reasonable. Well, considering it’s an emotional thing, “goals” is a better word.
But your little cupcakes aren’t fully baked yet, so it’s okay and perfectly normal for the intermediate outcome — year by year, before they’re fully grown — to include some less-than-evolved opinions and preferences.
Your job is to (hm, how can we overwork this metaphor) keep applying even heat as they mature.
I.e., they go to sucky Thanksgiving this year and like it. And chip in, and make conversation.
It’s also good for kids to learn to process their parents’ values and rules in very different settings. If you want something different from your kids on these holidays, then you and your husband both need to agree on some lines to hold in the free-for-all house — low-key, I’d say, to avoid stepping on his parents’ hostly toes.
· I was one of those kids. My aunt finally started turning on dance music, and although it was cringeworthy to watch her and my mom dance while we meal-prepped, it was pretty funny, and I have great memories of it now. What I haven’t gotten over, however, is the rampant sexism of the women cooking and the men doing jack squat. They are the cupcakes who never baked.
· Keep at it. That was my family, and I’m sure my brother and I didn’t always appreciate those long family get-togethers. Now we do. My brother and I have a language and history all our own. Those rare times we can all be together? We laugh until our sides hurt. The dishes get done. We take long walks and laugh some more. And when we lost Dad unexpectedly, it was all hands on deck to get Mom what she needed. Because of those bonds. Your kids are lucky, and what you are giving them is a gift.
· You’re going to have to figure out what you want to do when your daughter is old enough to help out and your son can still sit back. | 2022-11-10T05:28:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carolyn Hax: Kids prefer Thanksgiving where they don’t have to help - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/10/carolyn-hax-kids-thanksgiving-prefer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/10/carolyn-hax-kids-thanksgiving-prefer/ |
Is the world ready for President DeSantis and a Floridian foreign policy?
A disappointing night for most Republicans turned into a very good night for one Floridian. Gov. Ron DeSantis not only won a second term in Tuesday’s midterm elections but also did so by a sizable margin — even winning Miami-Dade County, marking the first time a Republican has taken that largely urban electorate in two decades.
The results cemented many expectations that DeSantis would run for president in 2024 — a situation that’s already sparking tension with another Floridian Republican, former president Donald Trump. And to some Democrats, the double-digit wins seen by not only DeSantis but Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Tuesday have firmly ended the chapter where the state could be seen as a swing state.
The midterm vote was closely watched overseas, with European allies, in particular, breathing a sigh of relief that the more incendiary Trump-aligned Republicans had a relatively poor showing. In a statement reported by my colleagues, German politician Reinhard Bütikofer wrote approvingly that “the pessimistic assumption that Donald Trump would become U.S. president again in 2024 has become a bit more unrealistic.”
But the results on Tuesday opened up another possibility: President DeSantis. What would that mean for the world? In some ways, that may seem more palatable to many than Trump or another Trumpian alternative. But DeSantis would also be the United States’ first Florida-born president — and if the Democrats give up the Sunshine State to the Republicans, the wider impact on U.S. foreign policy could be significant.
DeSantis is not Trump. He may not always act like it, but DeSantis’s résumé is more of a run-of-the-mill Republican civil servant than the bombastic-businessman-turned-political-arsonist Trump.
In some ways, DeSantis’s background makes him look closer to former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, whose more interventionist leanings were sometimes at odds with Trump.
Despite a relatively humble upbringing, DeSantis went from Jacksonville to Yale, before going on to Harvard Law School. He went on to work as a lawyer for the U.S. Navy, serving at the base in Guantánamo Bay and deploying to Iraq. When he returned, he served as a federal prosecutor before winning two terms in the House.
It’s a fairly typical career path for an American politician. Reflecting that, DeSantis has largely focused on domestic policy in the House and later as governor, but most of what he has said about foreign policy fits well within preexisting norms, rather than Trump’s often ad hoc style.
He is, however, a Florida man. Unlike Trump, born wealthy in New York City and only belatedly becoming a resident, DeSantis is a real Florida man. And to some extent, he lives up to the reputation, notably paying extra attention to foreign issues close to many Floridians: Including Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and Haiti.
He claims to not be a fan of rules and big government. The Florida governor first came to real national attention when he pushed a controversial laissez-faire approach to covid-19. That approach put DeSantis at odds with World Health Organization guidance, even if it wasn’t quite as combative as Trump’s move to pull the United States out of that body. (Most accounts of Florida’s time during the pandemic suggest DeSantis’s policies were neither the success he portrayed them as nor the disaster his critics feared).
Unlike Trump — who still has his reputation as a dealmaker at heart — DeSantis may be more rigid and less open to persuasion. Profiles have repeatedly suggested that he has little of the personal charm or interest in social functions that many politicians have. Any world leaders who would seek a bromance with this man may end up with a cold shoulder.
As one critic recently put it, his plan has been “Hand out big contracts for patching up the impacts on pricey waterfront property while ignoring essentially everything, and everyone, else.” If the United States goes all in with that approach, it could impact everywhere in the world.
What midterm results mean for Trump, DeSantis and the 2024 election
What happens if Democrats give up on Florida voters? If DeSantis is on the ballot in the presidential race in 2024, he is likely to carry the state — long considered a toss-up — easily. Democrats, already skeptical about their chances in the state, may consider it a lost cause.
That could have major implications. Many in Florida’s large Latino population have fled extreme or socialist regimes in places like Cuba and Venezuela, which has influenced the policies of both Republicans and Democrats vying for votes in the state.
But some believe Democrats have already begun to move on. Certainly, it looks like Biden’s foreign policy is far from beholden to Florida’s Latino voters. His administration has eased sanctions on Venezuela, loosened restrictions on Cuba and removed Colombian rebel group FARC from a list of foreign terrorist organizations.
On Tuesday, the same day that voting was underway in the United States, climate envoy John F. Kerry had a brief meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Egypt. Though U.S. officials downplayed the interaction, it comes at an interesting time: The Biden administration has been easing sanctions related to Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves, as energy prices rose amid the war in Ukraine and tensions with Saudi Arabia, the oil market giant, further roiled the market. | 2022-11-10T05:43:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Is the world ready for ‘President DeSantis’ and a Floridian foreign policy? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/desanntis-foreign-policy-florida/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/desanntis-foreign-policy-florida/ |
Like many people, chief executive officers in the UK had a tough pandemic. Unlike many people, they’re coming out of it strongly. A series of surveys have shown pay for corporate leaders rebounding to match or surpass pre-Covid levels. The latest, from PwC this week, pegged average total annual compensation for CEOs in the FTSE 100 at £3.9 million ($4.5 million), an increase of more than 20% driven mostly by bonus payouts. That strikes a dissonant note in a recession-bound economy where nurses are planning to walk out over a below-inflation offer.
CEOs might say that they have earned their windfalls. After collapsing during the initial lockdown phase of the pandemic, when many executives took pay cuts as millions of workers were furloughed, corporate earnings have more than recovered to be comfortably higher than at the end of 2019. In the private economy, it is for owners to decide what they think their managers are worth. If shareholders are happy with the performance of their hired agents, then who is to argue? The data suggest they are indeed satisfied. Boards of directors have achieved 95% votes in favor of remuneration reports, according to the PwC study, which is based on the 97 published by FTSE 100 constituents and presented for approval during the 2022 annual general meeting season.(1)
Quite why they are so content is a little harder to explain. Some 15% of CEOs were still subject to salary freezes this year, down from 43% in 2021. Moreover, 38% received a percentage increase that was below that of the wider workforce, with 56% getting a raise in line with employees. It’s the bonuses that merit closer scrutiny. These paid out at higher percentages than before the pandemic, according to PwC (which didn’t name individual companies). While this was driven by a post-Covid boom in some sectors, in others it reflected “performance targets which were conservatively set in 2021 to reflect greater market uncertainty.”
In other words, everything went pear-shaped when Covid hit, so companies dropped the bar for their CEOs. When things returned to something approaching normal, those reduced targets were easily hit. The asymmetry is clear. Executives weren’t responsible for the devastation of a once-in-a-century global pandemic, so didn’t deserve to be penalized unduly for something that was beyond their control. But neither were they responsible for the end of the pandemic, so did they deserve to be rewarded so handsomely for the recovery? Heads I win, tails I don’t lose.
What makes the acquiescence of shareholders harder to fathom is the FTSE 100’s persistent failure to break out of its rut of relative underperformance. Earnings may have recovered, but market performance hasn’t. The S&P 500 has provided a total return including reinvested dividends of almost 30% since November 2019 even after this year’s correction, while the MSCI World Index has returned about 20%. Anyone who invested in the FTSE three years ago has seen no gain at all, at least in US dollar terms.
Under the liberal market orthodoxy that has prevailed for the best part of half a century in the UK and US, excessive executive compensation shouldn’t be a cause for concern. Companies theoretically compete in a free market for the best talent available, and the rewards of their leadership will justify what is paid. (Conversely, companies that make bad hiring decisions will suffer the consequences; in any case, the market can be trusted to decide.)
In truth, that theory has been wearing thin for decades, eroded by a growing body of academic literature and amid increased attention to the widening gap between the top 1% (or 0.1%, or 0.01%) of earners and everyone else. In the US, the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker ballooned to 399-to-1 in 2021 from 20 in the mid-1960s, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a union-affiliated think tank. In the UK, the ratio by one measure was a far more modest 109-to-1 last year. Either way, it’s hard to believe that CEOs have really grown so much more valuable relative to the average worker.
One theory for why CEO pay keeps rising in defiance of apparent economic and market logic is known as the “Lake Wobegon effect,” named after radio host Garrison Keillor’s mythical home town in Minnesota, where “all the children are above average.” No company wants to acknowledge having a below-average CEO, giving each an incentive to pay more than or at least match the median at comparable businesses. That fuels a perpetual upward spiral of wages.
The free-market approach to CEO pay is linked to the concept of shareholder value — the idea that the a company’s only objective should be to maximize the wealth ofits investors. But this ethos is losing influence after decades of increasing inequality. More UK companies are including environmental, social and governance, or ESG, targets in their incentive plans for chief executives. That in itself is an acknowledgment that businesses have wider societal obligations beyond strict legal requirements.
The zeitgeist is changing. Since 2019, all listed companies with more than 250 UK employees have been required to publish the ratio of the CEO’s remuneration to the wages of its local workers at three different points across the salary spectrum. “We will improve incentives to attack the problem of excessive executive pay and rewards for failure,” read the 2019 election manifesto — not of the socialist-leaning Labour Party but the ruling Conservative Party, for which free enterprise is a guiding principle. Inequality is seen less these days as an issue solely of social justice, but also as a problem for the functioning of capitalism. Contrary to the free-markets and deregulation doctrine that helped drive income disparities from the 1980s onward, a more even spread of wealth may be good for economic growth.
UK pay packets are, admittedly, puny relative to those in the US, where you’d need more than $250 million even to get into the top 10 (Tesla Inc. founder Elon Musk topped the lot last year after exercising $23.5 billion of stock options. The Economic Policy Institute excluded him from its 2021 survey because he would have skewed the data too much). But then the US has produced world-leading technology giants, and steadily superior stock-market returns.
The UK has no such consolation, only a cost-of-living crisis and fiscal crunch to worry about. In these conditions, the CEO pay bonanza looks increasingly out of sync with the times.
• Have the UK’s Keystone Cops Hit Peak Chaos Yet?: John Authers
• Wall Street Bonuses Contain an Inherent Risk: Jared Dillian
(1) Investment trusts were excluded. | 2022-11-10T07:13:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | British CEOs Snared Big Bonuses. For What? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/british-ceos-snared-big-bonuses-for-what/2022/11/10/bb6368ac-60bd-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/british-ceos-snared-big-bonuses-for-what/2022/11/10/bb6368ac-60bd-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The Banking Market Where Profits Are Guaranteed
At the heart of banking regulation sits a tradeoff between competition and financial stability. Competition allows consumers access to better prices and better products. But it can also encourage banks to do wayward things, often at the expense of soundness. Faced with the choice, regulators typically come down on the side of safety.
Regulators in Ireland have adopted this thinking with zeal since the implosion of their banking system amid the global financial crisis almost 15 years ago. In 2008, Irish banks collapsed under intense funding pressures, which persisted through to 2010 as initial support proved inadequate against the worldwide forces at play. The cost of the international bailout to Irish taxpayers was about 45.7 billion euros ($46 billion).
While there were a host of reasons for the 2008 collapse — macroeconomic developments, risky bank practices and unsustainable fiscal policies — fighting over a relatively small pool of customers loomed large.
“Witness after witness came before the banking inquiry,” one member of a parliamentary committee set up to investigate the crisis reported. “They spoke of the cutthroat competition that developed among themselves. This, in turn, drove the reckless lending practices that inflated the property banking bubble and led to the economic crash.”
In response, authorities went about shrinking the system. In January 2009, they nationalized Anglo Irish Bank, one of the most reckless lenders. For a while, they contemplated building a new business around its remains, but in mid-2010 they abandoned the idea and began to wind it down. Another domestic bank, EBS, was nationalized shortly after, before being forcibly merged into Allied Irish Banks Plc in 2011. Some foreign banks simply walked away. Bank of Scotland handed its license back to the authorities, followed by Danske Bank a few years later.
That left five banks operating in Ireland – three of them domestically owned (Bank of Ireland Group Plc, Allied Irish and Permanent TSB Group Holdings Plc) and two foreign-owned (Ulster Bank, owned by the UK’s NatWest Group Plc, and Belgium’s KBC Group NV). In mortgages, the five had the market sewn up. In deposits, they controlled around 90%, with credit unions and online banks taking the rest. Five was considered an optimal number to foster competition while at the same time maintaining financial stability. Canada, whose banking market escaped the worst of the crisis, has long been home to five major banks.
But the foreign-owned banks didn’t count on years of low interest rates stifling their profitability and, in the past few years, they too have pulled out. KBC is selling most of its loans and deposits to Bank of Ireland, and Ulster is dividing its loans between Permanent TSB and Allied Irish. This week, Permanent TSB finalized its acquisition of Ulster’s performing non-tracker residential mortgage business.
So now we’re down to three. Among them, they have almost all the mortgages and commercial loans in the market and, assuming that Ulster’s deposits ultimately migrate to them, 90% of the country’s deposits.
The result is a system that looks a lot more resilient than it once did, yet lacks a competitive dynamic. The three banks are so flush with deposits that they have little incentive to pay for them. Irish deposit costs are some of the lowest in Europe, having barely risen against the trend of rising policy rates. Irish banks pay an average of 3 basis points on deposits, compared with 28 basis points across the euro zone, according to European Central Bank data.
The impact is beginning to show up in earnings. This week, Bank of Ireland management upgraded its expectations for 2022 net interest income to 6%-7% growth. They followed Allied Irish, which has lifted its guidance for net interest income several times already this year, raising its forecast from “high single digit” to 10% growth to over 15% growth. It plans to update the target again on Dec. 2.
In its latest Financial Stability Report, the Irish central bank indicated no regrets over the benefits on bank profitability of a concentrated market: “Profitability in the banking sector has recovered and is set to be bolstered by the prospect of improved lending margins under tighter monetary policy and increased scale economies resulting from ongoing consolidation in the market.”
As recession looms again in Europe, Irish bank customers can feel confident their banks are safe. But if the price they pay for banking exceeds that in other countries, authorities may wonder if they prioritized stability too much at the expense of competition.
• Protecting Big Banks Won’t Enhance Competition: Hoenig and Bair | 2022-11-10T07:13:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Banking Market Where Profits Are Guaranteed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-banking-market-where-profits-are-guaranteed/2022/11/10/bb130fec-60bd-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-banking-market-where-profits-are-guaranteed/2022/11/10/bb130fec-60bd-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Iranian doctors in London take part in an Oct. 29 rally in support of physicians who are risking their lives treating protesters in Iran. (Alberto Pezzali/AP)
Hundreds of doctors gathered outside Iran’s Medical Council in Tehran on Oct. 26 to take a stand — protesting the presence of security forces in hospitals and the arrest and intimidation of their colleagues during two months of nationwide unrest.
The protesters formed small groups. Some chanted “Death to the dictator,” a common rallying cry against Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader.
Security forces, mostly plainclothes agents, had set up positions around the building and vans were parked nearby to transport detainees. Then, without warning, riot police on motorcycles began shooting metal pellets at the crowd, two witnesses told The Washington Post.
“They were shooting with guns, nonstop, everyone started running,” said a doctor who provided a written account of the attack.
“They used shotguns [with pellets], batons and tear gas without any limitation,” another doctor recalled. “They beat a young woman dentist and an old physician about 70 [years old] on their heads and they fell on the ground.”
The Post could not independently verify their accounts, which were shared on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. But they were corroborated by activists and other media reports. A shaky video of the attack posted online shows people screaming and trying to flee as shots ring out.
Iranian doctors were among the first to question the official explanation for the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the “morality police” in mid-September, and are now the target of a broadening crackdown. As the uprising marks its eighth week — the most sustained challenge to the Islamic republic in decades — the government is punishing medical personnel for providing care to injured protesters.
What happened on Oct. 26 was the most direct clash yet between authorities and Iran’s medical community. The deputy chief of Tehran’s medical council said that he was pushed while trying to help a female doctor and that the head of the council was punched in the face during the chaos. Both resigned the same day amid reports that doctors had been arrested. Others posted pictures on social media of bruises and bloody cuts they sustained in the crackdown.
“It’s really the interference of the security agents inside the medical establishments that has made the medical community up in arms, and now they themselves are a target,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, a New York-based advocacy group.
Since the early days of the protests, security forces have positioned themselves inside hospitals to identify and arrest protesters, and have pressured medical personnel to inform on them. As the arrests increased, many protesters began avoiding hospitals, leading sympathetic doctors to offer care inside homes, often at great personal risk.
“Doctors are not different than the rest of Iranian society — they’re part of the community,” said Shahram Kordasti, a hemato-oncologist based in London who has been in touch with doctors in Iran during the protests. “They suffer the same way as others.”
Few hospitals now provide care without first recording the patient’s national identification number, an easy way for security forces to track injured protesters, according to doctors and activists. Some protesters have even gone to veterinarians to avoid detection and arrest.
Plainclothes forces have also been staking out pharmacies, said doctors and activists. If someone comes in to buy a sterile gauze pad for an injured friend or relative, the agents may confront them on the spot or, more likely, follow them to make an arrest when they identify the person in need of medical attention.
The ever-present threat of surveillance has led to the creation of an informal online network where protesters can identify their injuries and reach out to a handler, who then connects them to a doctor in their area, if one is available. A code system is used to minimize the chance of security agents infiltrating the network, according to a doctor who is involved in the effort.
These networks also distribute medicine, but getting the supplies from local pharmacies has become tricky; plans are being discussed to source medicine from outside Iran to reduce the chances of detection, the doctor told The Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
A Twitter account set up two weeks ago called “Emdadgaran Enghelab,” or “Aid Workers of the Revolution,” offers protesters detailed help in Farsi. The account already has more than 18,000 followers.
A recent post included an animated step-by-step graphic showing how to remove the metal pellets commonly fired by security forces, and how to properly clean and dress the wounds. Other posts advise protesters on how to deal with head injuries and pepper spray.
— امدادگران انقلاب (@emdadgarane401) November 2, 2022
“We teach people how to take care of themselves,” a member of the group told The Post, citing “gunshot wounds, blunt trauma caused by batons, penetrating trauma like stab wounds and also effects of riot-control gases” as the most common injuries suffered by protesters.
Government forces have tried to mask their presence in and around protests by using ambulances both for transporting security personnel and for holding detained demonstrators, according to doctors and activists.
“A responsible government uses an ambulance to treat the wounded,” said Sahar Motallebi, an Iranian doctor and former U.N. employee based in Sweden. “This government uses ambulances for detaining people.”
It is the misuse of medical equipment and the infiltration of hospitals, doctors say, that has driven them to join the uprising. Three days after the crackdown in Tehran, the head of the medical council in the northeastern city of Mashhad and his wife, who is also a member of the council, were arrested for allegedly organizing a protest held by medical personnel the previous week, along with a third doctor who spoke at the event.
On the day the doctors were arrested in Mashhad, medical students at Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, hundreds of miles away in the western city of Sanandaj, held their own demonstration. A video shows students in white lab coats running for cover as shots ring out and security personnel storm the campus.
“The biggest supporters of the protesters are medical personnel,” said Motallebi, but “the situation is getting more dangerous for [them].” | 2022-11-10T07:14:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Iran’s doctors have joined the Mahsa Amini protests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-hijab/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-hijab/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Over 100,000 Russian troops killed or injured, U.S. says; Kherson retreat could take weeks
Whitney Juckno
Ukrainian servicemen in the Kherson region fire a 2S7 Pion self-propelled cannon at a Russian position on Wednesday. (Reuters)
There have been well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded in Ukraine, and Kyiv’s forces have probably suffered a similar number of casualties, said Gen. Mark A. Milley, the top U.S. military official. The Pentagon in August estimated that Russia had suffered between 60,000 and 70,000 casualties. There is currently no credible estimate of how many civilians have been killed in the fighting.
Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said Wednesday that the full withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian city of Kherson could take weeks, and that the winter months could bring an opportunity for negotiation between Kyiv and Moscow.
Russia on Wednesday announced it would evacuate its forces from the west bank of the Dnieper River, a major setback that the Russian commander in charge of the war said would “save the lives of our military and the combat capability of our troops.” The Pentagon had observed “initial indicators” that Russia was following through with the withdrawal from Kherson, Milley said. Asked whether this was the right time for negotiations between the two sides, he said there had to be mutual recognition that a full military victory is not achievable “in the true sense of the word.”
President Biden said his administration “knew for some time” that Russia would withdraw its forces from Kherson. “It’s evidence of the fact that they have some real problems,” Biden said Wednesday of the Russian military. He said the evacuation would allow Russia and Ukraine to “recalibrate their positions over the winter period” and “decide whether or not they’re going to compromise,” but he added that the United States was not going to force Kyiv to negotiate.
When asked about imprisoned WNBA star Brittney Griner — who was transferred this week to a Russian penal colony — Biden said he hoped, with the U.S. elections now over, that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “be willing to talk more seriously about a prisoner exchange.” Griner was detained in Russia in February and later sentenced to more than nine years in prison on drug possession charges. Biden said Russia had responded to his administration’s offer for a prisoner exchange but declined to discuss further details.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signaled that his forces were treading carefully in Kherson, despite Russia’s announcement that it would evacuate its troops from the regional capital. “Our emotions must be restrained — always during war,” he said Wednesday in his nightly address. “I will definitely not feed the enemy with all the details of our operations. … Therefore, we move very carefully, without emotions, without unnecessary risk.”
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Nov. 9 that he's withdrawing his troops from the west bank of the Dnieper River near the city of Kherson. (Video: Reuters)
Britain said Wednesday that it has sent about 1,000 additional surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine. The delivery “comes in response to Ukrainian requests for more air defence capabilities,” according to a statement from the British Defense Ministry. It said the missiles would help Ukrainian forces protect critical infrastructure targeted by Russia.
Some Russian hard-liners cheered the decision to withdraw from Kherson. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Telegram that Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the commander of Russia’s war in Ukraine, made the “difficult but right choice between senseless sacrifices for the sake of loud statements and saving the priceless lives of soldiers.” Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, also told Russian outlet RIA Novosti that Surovikin “acted like a man who is not afraid of responsibility” by withdrawing with minimal losses.
Putin will not be attending the Group of 20 nations leader summit scheduled next week in Bali, a top Indonesian minister confirmed on Thursday. The Russian president will instead be represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, an Indonesian government spokesman told The Washington Post. News of Lavrov’s attendance was first reported by CNBC Indonesia. Host country Indonesia has stood firm against calls from Western powers and Kyiv to withdraw its invitation to Putin over the war. Biden and other world leaders are slated to attend the two-day gathering of the world’s largest economies, which starts Nov. 15.
The State Department approved a possible sale to Lithuania of $495 million in weapons and other equipment, including HIMARS rocket launchers. The Baltic nation requested the rocket systems to modernize its military, strengthen its homeland defense and deter regional threats, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement on Wednesday.
A senior Russian security official and close Putin ally, Nikolai Patrushev, met with Iranian leaders in Tehran on Wednesday. The visit comes as Russian forces have deployed Iranian-made drones on the battlefield in Ukraine. Patrushev, who serves as secretary of Russia’s Security Council, met with his Iranian counterpart, Ali Shamkhani, as well as President Ebrahim Raisi.
Ukraine war, Russian energy attacks loom over COP27 climate conference: At the first U.N. climate conference since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Ukrainian delegates hope their presence will serve as a stark reminder of the human costs of the war, as well as the consequences of the world’s reliance on fossil fuel producers like Russia, Siobhán O’Grady reports from the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The war in Ukraine is a common theme at the conference in discussions on a range of global topics — from migration and food insecurity to climate finance. “If the world goes into a recession, largely linked with the war in Ukraine, that is an issue for everybody, because the resources available to deal with climate change can be squeezed,” said António Vitorino, head of the U.N. migration agency.
Dan Lamothe and Rebecca Tan contributed to this report. | 2022-11-10T07:14:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Over 100,000 Russian troops killed or injured, U.S. ...
Russia’s Putin will not attend G-20 in Bali, says Indonesian minister
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of Federal Medical-Biological Agency, in Moscow, Tuesday. (Sputnik/via REUTERS)
SINGAPORE — Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia next week, an Indonesian minister said Thursday. Russia will be represented at the summit instead by its foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who walked out of G-20 foreign ministers meeting in July following criticism of Russia.
“Putin will not attend because he has already said that he’ll be sending his foreign minister,” Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime and investment affairs, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, told reporters in Bali. “I think that is the highest [Russian official who will attend].”
The news, first reported by CNBC Indonesia, was confirmed to The Washington Post by Pandjaitan’s deputy, and ends months of speculation over whether the G-20 meeting would bring Putin and President Biden together for their first face-to-face meeting since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Western leaders, including Biden, have since the start of the year called for Putin to be excluded from the summit, which gathers the world’s 20 biggest economies to discuss pressing issues.
Putin’s representatives said in March that he planned to attend the meetings and Indonesian President Joko Widodo affirmed this in August. These assertions were thrown into doubt in recent weeks as Biden confirmed his participation and Russia suffered major losses in Ukraine. In a significant setback Wednesday, Russia withdrew troops from the southern city of Kherson. | 2022-11-10T07:43:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Putin will not attend G-20 in Bali, Indonesian minister says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/g20-putin-biden-indonesia-bali/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/g20-putin-biden-indonesia-bali/ |
On Tuesday, Jody Greene won reelection as sheriff of Columbus County, N.C. (Screenshot via WECT)
Two weeks ago, Sheriff Jody Greene of Columbus County, N.C., resigned following the release of a tape featuring his profanity-laced tirade about Black deputies. But he could be back in office soon — on Tuesday, he won his reelection bid by more than 1,500 votes, according to preliminary results from the State Board of Elections.
“I am so honored for your vote of confidence in me and the staff at the Sheriff’s Office. I promise we will not let you down, I am the Sheriff for everyone no matter race, color, religion, sex orientation, or national origin,” Greene, a Republican, posted Wednesday night on Facebook.
His victory follows a wave of criticism from advocacy groups and the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, all of which called his comments offensive and unacceptable. Greene resigned late last month before a hearing seeking his removal from office.
In the tape, which was recorded in February 2019 but leaked more than three years later, Greene — who was the sheriff-elect of Columbus County at the time — can be heard disparaging Black sheriff’s office employees, saying he was “sick” of them.
“Every Black that I know, you need to fire him to start with, he’s a snake!” Greene said, according to court documents filed by Jon David, the district attorney for the area.
On the other end of the line was Jason Soles, who was acting as interim sheriff while election officials verified Greene’s narrow 2018 victory. Soles was recording the conversation without Greene’s knowledge.
Soles provided a 6½-minute recording of the call to WECT-TV in late September, about a year after announcing he would run as a Democrat against Greene in the November 2022 sheriff’s election. Soles said he had previously brought the matter to local and state departments but “everybody had deaf ears.”
After the recording was made public, the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association deemed Greene’s remarks “inflammatory, racially derogatory, insulting, and offensive,” and the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union released a joint statement calling for Greene to resign.
“Columbus County, and in particular its Black residents, deserve better,” the groups said. “To restore dignity and confidence in the office of the Columbus County Sheriff, we demand a thorough investigation of all the activities conducted by his officers since the beginning of Sheriff Greene’s tenure — by all relevant authorities — including the State Board of investigation and the federal government.”
On Oct. 3, District Attorney Jon David (R) sent a letter to Greene, asking him to “recognize the harm that your statements have caused” and to “make the honorable decision to resign.” Greene denied having any racial animosity or bias and said he would not be resigning — prompting David to file a petition seeking his removal from office.
Three weeks later, David was scheduled to present his arguments about Greene’s alleged “willful misconduct and maladministration in office.” However, the proceedings effectively ended before they could begin, as Greene’s attorney, Michael Mills, announced just minutes into the trial that the sheriff had resigned.
Hours after his resignation, Greene took to Facebook to clarify that he was still running for office, apologizing for the recorded comments and adding that he had eschewed a trial because “I cannot afford to spend the next week fighting in a courtroom while we are in the middle of an election to preserve our freedom.”
“It is appropriate, and necessary, to file a petition based on the current allegations, as well as any new allegations that may come to light,” David said in a statement.
In the following weeks, Greene touted his 34 years of experience in law enforcement and track record as reasons to elect him. He appealed to voters with promises of “less politics, more service” and “a sheriff you can look in the eyes.”
Though he seems set to be sworn-in in December, the probe by the State Bureau of Investigation is still ongoing, an agency spokesperson told The Washington Post. David was not available Wednesday to comment on Greene’s reelection, according to an assistant.
Mills, Greene’s attorney, told The Post that the sheriff regrets his comments from 2019.
“Jody is sorry for the disrespectful and insensitive words that have offended friends, colleagues and fellow citizens, and he has asked for their forgiveness,” Mills told The Post.
However, Mills maintained that the allegations in the district attorney’s petition “did not constitute willful misconduct and maladministration in office” — one of the statutes under which a sheriff could be removed from office, according to the state’s constitution. Greene has broadly denied the allegations of misconduct and racism.
While it’s rare for elected officials to be removed under that premise in North Carolina, it’s not unheard of. There have been at least three such cases in the state’s history, according to the Asheville Citizen Times. | 2022-11-10T08:44:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | N.C. sheriff reelected two weeks after resigning over racist comments - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/10/jody-greene-reelected-sheriff-nc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/10/jody-greene-reelected-sheriff-nc/ |
By Drew Costley and Teresa de Miguel | AP
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Last year, climate activists who focus on disability rights scored a major victory at the United Nations climate change conference known as COP. They gained official status as a caucus recognized by the U.N. Secretariat, the conference organizer. They say it was the culmination of years of effort to be officially included in the proceedings. Here’s what that means for this week and beyond. | 2022-11-10T08:52:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | People with disabilities raise voices at climate talks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/people-with-disabilities-raise-voices-at-climate-talks/2022/11/10/54ad1814-60d2-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/people-with-disabilities-raise-voices-at-climate-talks/2022/11/10/54ad1814-60d2-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
CMA Awards 2022: Complete list of winners, best and worst moments
Carrie Underwood, Reba McEntire and Miranda Lambert open the Country Music Association Awards in Nashville. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
NASHVILLE — Country music superstar Luke Combs has broken many records over his astonishingly fast ascent in Nashville, but this summer, he proved he can sell out stadiums — and voters awarded him accordingly. For the second consecutive year, Combs won entertainer of the year at the Country Music Association Awards, the most prestigious prize at the genre’s biggest awards show.
“I never know what to say,” said Combs, who also took home the trophy for album of the year for his most recent record, “Growin’ Up.” “I want to thank country music for making my dreams come true. … There is nobody in this category that doesn’t deserve to be standing up here.”
Combs triumphed over Chris Stapleton, Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Morgan Wallen — saving the industry from headlines about how Wallen, known to the mainstream audience as the singer who was caught on TMZ video saying the n-word in February 2020, had once again been rewarded on his redemption tour.
Any other potential controversies were also avoided; not a word was uttered about the recent, widely covered social media incident involving Jason Aldean and Maren Morris, after Aldean’s wife, the influencer Brittany, posted an Instagram video that Morris criticized as transphobic. Though Morris said earlier she might skip the show, they were all in attendance. (Both Aldean and Morris were nominated for one award and did not win in their respective categories.)
And although co-host Luke Bryan released a defensive statement last week after he received criticism for inviting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) onstage at a recent concert, no one touched on politics or current events — save for Bryan and his co-host, Peyton Manning, joking that if Bryan ran for president his slogan could be “A candidate who will never plead the Fifth, but he will drink the fifth.”
Newcomers Cody Johnson and Lainey Wilson tied Combs with two wins; Johnson triumphed with his impossibly catchy hit “’Til You Can’t” in the single and music video categories, while Wilson won new artist and female vocalist. Old Dominion and Brothers Osborne continued their march as industry favorites as group and duo, respectively, and Jordan Davis’s recent smash “Buy Dirt” (featuring Bryan, his labelmate) won song of the year.
A full list of winners and nominees are below — here are some of the highlights from the night.
The Loretta Lynn tributes
The death of 90-year-old Loretta Lynn shook many members of the country music world last month, as they mourned the groundbreaking legend who broke down doors for countless women. The show kicked off with footage of Lynn accepting CMA’s entertainer of the year in 1972, the first time a woman ever won the prize, followed by a tribute from Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Reba McEntire.
The trio sang a sparkling medley of some of Lynn’s greatest hits, including “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” from Underwood, “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” from Lambert, “You’re Looking at Country” from McEntire and, of course, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” sung by all three. While it would have been fitting for a woman to finally win entertainer of the year for the first time since Taylor Swift landed the trophy in 2011, alas, Underwood and Lambert went home empty-handed.
Cole Swindell and Jo Dee Messina and ’90s country
It was the moment ’90s country obsessives have been waiting for: The audience started screaming as Jo Dee Messina joined Cole Swindell onstage for an invigorating version of Swindell’s “She Had Me At Heads Carolina,” a reimagining of Messina’s 1996 smash, “Heads Carolina, Tails California.”
It’s hard to overstate how enormous this hit has been for Swindell, who has had several big singles in his career but saw this song explode over the summer and fall, sitting for five weeks at No. 1 on the radio charts — as Nashville knows, ’90s nostalgia is real and overwhelming. Swindell and Messina finally released a remix of the song together this week, timed perfectly to their CMAs performance.
Chris Stapleton and Patty Loveless, together again
The two Kentucky natives performed together at a recent Kentucky benefit concert for flood relief and thrilled the CMAs audience when they joined again for Loveless’s “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.” Stapleton’s booming voice always sends country fans into a frenzy, and aided by Loveless’s stellar vocals, the crowd was practically on its feet before the song was even over.
The Alan Jackson tribute
There is nothing country award shows love more than showing how much contemporary stars adore the hits from legendary artists, and the camera showcased Kelsea Ballerini, Breland, Ashley McBryde, Combs and many more singing along to Alan Jackson’s classics during his tribute.
Jackson, the recipient of this year’s Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, took the stage for “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” but a slew of others performed their own versions of Jackson’s hits, including Underwood (“Remember When”) and Dierks Bentley, Jon Pardi and Wilson all together for “Chattahoochee,” “Drive (For Daddy Gene)” and “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow.”
Brothers Osborne and the War and Treaty
Brothers Osborne continued the tradition of electrifying award show performances with a cover of “It’s Only Rock n’ Roll (But I Like It)” by the Rolling Stones — a track on an upcoming country music tribute album called “Stoned Cold Country” — along with the War and Treaty, husband and wife duo Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter, whose powerful vocals added to the riveting spectacle. The Trotters shimmied around the stage as the brothers stayed anchored on guitars, and the camera panned to crowd members dancing like they were having the time of their lives, from T.J. Osborne’s boyfriend to Morgane Stapleton.
Hardy and Wilson’s murder ballad
Country music award shows these days are known more for glitter than chilling murder ballads, but Hardy and Wilson were determined to change that during a captivating performance of a track that makes you go, “Wait, did he just say what I think he said?” In this case, yes, Hardy sings from the perspective of a man who kills Wilson’s abuser and then goes to jail. And to make sure no one missed the meaning, Hardy — standing in front of a truck — drew his finger across his throat after he sang the line about being in jail: “It ain’t paradise, that’s true / But it’s a whole hell of a lot better than the place I sent him to.”
“I want the people who have been abused to hear the song,” Wilson told the Associated Press. “I want them to feel like they are not alone. But I want the abusers to hear it. I want them to be haunted.”
Kelsea Ballerini’s drinking anthem with a twist
Ballerini has weathered criticism her whole career that she’s “too pop,” but her latest album has some of the most classic country songs of the year — including the upbeat anthem “You’re Drunk, Go Home,” her collaboration with Carly Pearce and Kelly “always seems like she’s on the verge of crossing over to country music” Clarkson. All three singers scornfully informed the drunk man in the song that they were not interested in his pickup lines, and as they belted out the lyrics, for some reason, a brief shower of fire rained down behind them.
Thomas Rhett and Katy Perry’s surprise chemistry
A duet between Thomas Rhett and pop star Katy Perry — decked out in a fringe dress and cowboy hat for the ultimate country authenticity — seems like it should not work … at all. And yet? They were both on their A-game for the collaboration of the wistful “Where We Started,” about a couple’s younger days. Rhett has admitted he was highly doubtful Perry would ever agree to be on the song, and Perry has confessed she had no idea who he was and had to ask Bryan, her fellow “American Idol” judge. But this time, their vocals sounded even stronger than they did when they sang the track together on the “Idol” finale in the spring.
The monologue jokes
Once again, the CMAs continue to struggle to find a hosting combination that can match the presence of Brad Paisley and Underwood, who sharpened their comedic skills over a decade-plus of helming the show. Bryan hosted solo last year and this time was joined by former NFL superstar Manning, who is not only pals with country stars thanks to his University of Tennessee days, but also hosts his own show with his brother Eli on ESPN, owned by ABC’s parent company, Disney.
The monologue jokes mainly consisted of the two making fun of each other (Bryan: “I walked around Nashville trying to find a cowboy hat to fit your head”; Manning: “I thought you really needed a co-host”). But for those who like dragging Eli, there were plenty of digs throughout the night: Manning said he keeps telling Bryan he’s like a brother to him but “he doesn’t realize that’s not a compliment” and later asked the Brothers Osborne if they, like him, only work together because their mom makes them.
The lack of a Naomi Judd tribute
There have been so many country legends who have died in the past year it would have been hard to fit all the tributes in, but the lack of attention given to the iconic Naomi Judd, who died in August, was puzzling. Brothers Osborne took on the task themselves when Wynonna, Naomi’s daughter and duo partner, arrived to announce duo of the year. The brothers insisted she stay onstage with them during their speech. “We’ve learned so much from you and your family,” T.J. Osborne said.
Jeff Cook, co-founder of the band Alabama who died this week, got a shout-out from Bryan, and Old Dominion briefly elaborated on Alabama’s influence during their win for group of the year. “There’s nothing like being in a band,” lead singer Matthew Ramsey said. “I can’t imagine losing one of you guys.”
The uneven balance of televised female winners, again
The country industry has publicly struggled with correcting its gender imbalance, and, once again, it took nearly two hours into the three-hour show before a female singer gave an acceptance speech. Eight out of the 11 prizes went to male acts — Wilson won female vocalist of the year and new artist of the year, while Pearce and McBryde’s win for musical event (for their duet “Never Wanted to Be That Girl”) was awarded earlier off-camera.
Winners and nominees
“Growin’ Up” Luke Combs — winner
“Humble Quest” Maren Morris
“Time, Tequila and Therapy” Old Dominion
“Buy Dirt” Jordan Davis feat. Luke Bryan
“Never Wanted to Be That Girl” Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde
“You Should Probably Leave” Chris Stapleton
“Half of My Hometown” Kelsea Ballerini feat. Kenny Chesney
“‘Til You Can’t” Cody Johnson — winner
“Buy Dirt” Jordan Davis feat. Luke Bryan (written by Jacob Davis, Jordan Davis, Josh Jenkins, Matt Jenkins) — winner
“Never Wanted to Be That Girl” Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde (written by Pearce, McBryde, Shane McAnally)
“You Should Probably Leave” Chris Stapleton (written by Stapleton, Chris DuBois, Ashley Gorley)
“Sand in My Boots” Morgan Wallen (written by Ashley Gorley, Michael Hardy, Josh Osborne)
“Things a Man Oughta Know” (written by Lainey Wilson, Jason Nix, Jonathan Singleton)
“Longneck Way to Go” Midland feat. Jon Pardi
“Never Say Never” Cole Swindell with Lainey Wilson
“Never Wanted to Be That Girl” Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde — winner
“Beers On Me” Dierks Bentley with Breland and Michael Hardy
“If I Didn’t Love You” Jason Aldean and Carrie Underwood
“I Bet You Think About Me” Taylor Swift feat. Chris Stapleton
“’Til You Can’t” Cody Johnson — winner | 2022-11-10T10:16:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | CMA Awards: 11 moments, from Loretta Lynn tribute to Luke Combs's win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/10/cma-awards-recap-best-worst-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/10/cma-awards-recap-best-worst-2022/ |
Private equity firm bets on Washington
The U.S. Capitol is seen along the National Mall on Oct. 19. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Private equity is pouring more money into Washington, investing in a group of polling, public relations, lobbying and political consulting firms.
“We’ve got 10 firms now,” Lauterbach said in an interview. “We will have probably 16 in fairly short order.”
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K Street is highly fragmented, with hundreds of lobbying, law, communications and political consulting firms — many with only a handful of staffers — competing with each other for business.
The recent private equity deals are a departure from previous attempts to consolidate, in which massive media conglomerates such as WPP simply snapped them up. Such acquisitions have often struggled after the firms’ founders departed, though: WPP bought Quinn Gillespie & Associates, a top George W. Bush-era lobbying firm, only to lay off most of its staff in 2017.
GP3 declined to disclose the size of Seidler’s investment. But Lauterbach described it as a way to invest in Washington while avoiding the pitfalls of buying consulting firms outright.
The partners at Public Opinion Strategies, GuidePost and the other firms are “still running the shop,” Lauterbach said. “It’s not like it’s been co-opted by a private equity firms that’s now controlling the shots.”
The other firms in the conglomerate are 50 State, 76 Group, Ascent Media, FLS Connect, IMGE, Red Maverick Media and Strategic Partners & Media.
The firms’ political clients this cycle included the Republican National Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the campaigns of lawmakers including Sens. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), according to campaign finance records. Their corporate clients have included Ford Motor Company, Comcast, ExxonMobil and Darden Restaurants, the company behind Olive Garden and the Capital Grille, according to lobbying disclosures and the firms’ websites. | 2022-11-10T10:46:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Private equity firm bets on Washington lobbying, K Street - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/lobbying-washington-private-equity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/lobbying-washington-private-equity/ |
(Digital Vision/Photodisc/Getty Images)
“When a third person comes in, it’s an opportunity for someone to hear you. In a conflict, the other person isn’t understanding your perspective. The third party is going to at least understand your perspective,” she said in a telephone interview. “The third party contains the conflict and the emotions associated with it. … We automatically regulate and behave better when someone else is there.” | 2022-11-10T10:55:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After two pigs fight, a third can calm conflict, Italian study finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/10/pigs-study-conflict-fight/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/11/10/pigs-study-conflict-fight/ |
Why Political Prisoner Day matters around the world — and in my Moscow prison
Global Opinions contributor |
Detained protesters walk escorted by police in St. Petersburg, on Jan. 31, 2021. (Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)
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The problem has not only reached global proportions. It also clearly violates international law — including OSCE statutes that prohibit politically motivated and otherwise arbitrary imprisonment. Recognizing this growing crisis, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Margareta Cederfelt this year named Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) the special representative on political prisoners, the first international officeholder specifically devoted to this issue. Along with Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), Cohen was the lead sponsor of the resolution designating the International Day of Political Prisoners.
And it’s not only about moral support (although the significance of that is difficult to overstate). Sustained high-level advocacy from democratic nations has helped secure the release of prisoners of conscience all over the world, including many in the Soviet Union and Russia. Few political accomplishments can compare in importance to returning freedom to those unjustly deprived of it. The International Day of Political Prisoners is a timely reminder that much work still remains. | 2022-11-10T11:30:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why Political Prisoner Day matters around the world — and in my Moscow prison - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/vladimir-karamurza-russia-commemorrating-political-prisoners/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/vladimir-karamurza-russia-commemorrating-political-prisoners/ |
When the world was at its worse, Matisse was at his best
The Philadelphia Museum of Art presents ‘Matisse in the 1930s,’ the most important American exhibition of the French artist in years
Review by Sebastian Smee
Henri Matisse's "Large Reclining Nude," 1935, oil on canvas, is among the works on view in the Philadelphia Museum of Art Matisse show. (Baltimore Museum of Art/Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)
PHILADELPHIA — Civilization had a total breakdown in the 1930s, which also happened to be the decade when Henri Matisse became most himself. “Matisse in the 1930s,” a groundbreaking exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, presents this miraculous, joyous phenomenon — a great artist, having just turned age 60, fully coming into his own. But the spectacle is haunted by history.
If you want to try to reconcile Matisse’s stream of gorgeous, life-enhancing inventions in those years with the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, civil war in Spain, the Nazis’ demonization of modern art (including Matisse’s) as “degenerate,” the state-sponsored persecution of Jews and the terrifying buildup to the Holocaust, you might as well fold your cards. It is not possible.
You can only remind yourself that Matisse was not in control of world events. In fact, he was barely in control of himself. His intense susceptibility to visual beauty and his acute artistic intelligence had made him, in the eyes of many, a radical. He had spent most of his career out on a ledge, blasted by the high winds of public mockery. But he was a father, a family man, a good citizen, and he yearned for sympathy and respect.
Ledges are lonely places. So for more than a decade, beginning in late 1917, Matisse stepped back from the precipice. He moved from Paris to Nice. He painted smaller canvases — nudes and interiors influenced by Impressionism and Orientalism — modeling spaces and volumes with perspective lines and shifts in tone. I personally adore the work that emerged from Matisse’s “Nice period.” But there is no denying that, by the end of the 1920s, Matisse was becoming repetitive. He was creatively blocked. “In front of the canvas,” he wrote to his daughter, “I have no ideas whatever.”
He needed to up the ante.
“Matisse in the 1930s,” which was organized by Matthew Affron, Cécile Debray and Claudine Grammont, shows us exactly how he did that. It is the most important Matisse exhibition in America for many years.
Matisse was extraordinary in every phase of his career. But it was not until the 1930s that he successfully integrated all the aspects of his originality — in conception, drawing, color, treatment of space, emotional register. In the process he achieved a kind of mastery. The struggle was unrelenting. But everything that followed, right up to the late paper cutouts and the chapel in Vence, would be a kind of playing out of that mastery.
The decade began with three key developments. The first was a series of Matisse retrospectives, all staged consecutively in 1930-31 in Berlin; Paris; Basel, Switzerland; and New York. Retrospectives were rare in those days. Four in two years was unprecedented and a clear sign that the world was catching up with the French artist. He was, as art historian Éric de Chassey writes in the catalogue, “incontestably one of the best-selling and most respected artists of his time.”
“Retrospection” means looking back, thinking about the past. But what Matisse drew from these four retrospectives was that he wanted to look forward. “He wanted to be an artist who opened a path rather than closed it,” writes de Chassey, “a pioneer rather than an inheritor.” The Impressionist space and atmosphere of his Nice period pictures was the past. He needed to leave it behind.
The second key development was travel. In February 1930, Matisse traveled to New York, then proceeded by deluxe train to Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, before crossing the Pacific Ocean by ship to Tahiti. He made almost no art during this trip. But he absorbed everything. His mind and heart were refreshed.
The third was a commission from Albert Barnes, the American collector and evangelist for modern art. Barnes wanted Matisse to adorn the arched walls of the main gallery in his foundation in Merion, a suburb of Philadelphia. So on a second trip to America that same year, Matisse went there. Relations with Barnes would later become fraught. But the commission, the results of which you can see for yourself if you walk 10 minutes down the road to the relocated Barnes Foundation, allowed him to advance and deepen his conception of the “decorative.”
Matisse was focused on distillation in these years. He wanted to marry a sense of voluptuous sensuality with order and elegance — the Dionysian with the Apollonian. The first step was to flatten out the space in his pictures. Flattening the picture (as he had done in his pre-Nice paintings) implied giving negative and positive space equal weight. Negative space could now take on a more active role. More specifically, Matisse understood that if he wanted to combine a sense of living, breathing expansion with harmonious order, he would need to distort the contours and proportions of his figures until they were in just the right relationship with the space around them.
I have not mentioned color. But of course, it was all about color. One basic thing Matisse had realized was that color intensity was a function of size. A large area of blue was not just a larger area of blue, it was more intensely blue. That put it in a different relationship with the areas of color around it.
You can think of Matisse’s sophisticated, intuitive approach to color in terms of barometric pressure: He orchestrated areas of high pressure (smaller color areas, more visible brushstrokes and contour lines, more frequent alternations) with low pressure (larger, airier expanses of pure, unmodulated color) until he had balanced calm and turbulence, order and sensuality in just the right way.
The Philadelphia show kicks off with a prologue — a smattering of Nice period works, including the busily patterned “Odalisque With Grey Trousers” and the ravishing “Woman With a Veil.” Both accentuate background colors and shapes over the central subject, offering a preview of what was to come. The next section examines the Barnes mural and a commission to illustrate a book of Stéphane Mallarmé’s poems.
Subsequent galleries focus on Matisse’s easel paintings; his painted tapestry cartoons; pictures of his assistant and model, Lydia Delectorskaya; his collaboration with Léonide Massine and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo; and the suites of drawings he made, in theme-and-variation mode, after an operation for abdominal cancer in January 1941.
The individual paintings, drawings and sculptures — it goes without saying — are insanely, almost unconscionably beautiful. But what makes the unfurling phenomenon of Matisse’s career so compelling is the struggle — or what the Greeks called “agon.”
In Greek theater, the “agon” describes the tension between the protagonist and the antagonist which, never reconciled, leads ineluctably to tragedy. (Ineluctable means “not to be escaped by struggling.”) You can find analogies for this “agon” in the tension in Matisse’s paintings between positive and negative space (with neither getting the upper hand) or, more broadly, in Matisse’s attempts to balance the Apollonian with the Dionysian.
But there was also — as there is today — a contest between Matisse’s harmonious, beautiful vision and the political sphere, with its ever-deepening rancor, ugliness and strife. The two things could not be reconciled. Nor could they be kept apart: Matisse’s beloved daughter, Marguerite, was tortured and interrogated by the Gestapo for her work with the French Resistance. She narrowly escaped death, unlike millions of others.
Matisse is profound. This show is sensationally beautiful. But just as Matisse worked hard to activate the negative space in his 1930s works, something about our present-day politics activates the historical background to this exhibition. I barely thought about it while I was in the exhibition, but in retrospect, there is something truly tragic about the apotheosis of so great an artist coinciding with baseness and barbarity on such a vast scale.
Matisse in the 1930s Through Jan. 29 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. philamuseum.org. | 2022-11-10T11:47:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Matisse show at Philadelphia Museum of Art is most important in years - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/10/matisse-1930s-philadelphia-museum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/10/matisse-1930s-philadelphia-museum/ |
Prices probably stayed high in October despite Fed’s inflation fight
The Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates at the most forceful pace in decades but has seen limited progress so far
Prices of consumer goods have been rising all year. (Nitashia Johnson/For The Washington Post)
Inflation is likely to have stayed high in October, as families and businesses continued to face rising costs for basics like food and rent — and as the Federal Reserve ramped up its efforts to lower consumer prices, even at the risk of forcing a recession.
Voters in Tuesday’s elections told exit pollsters that inflation was among the most important issues swaying their choice, and nearly half of voters said jobs and the economy were the most pressing issue facing the country.
In a desperate bid to get prices down to normal levels, the Fed is raising interest rates at its most forceful pace in decades. But progress has largely been limited to the housing market, and officials have made clear they have a long way to go before letting up. A growing number of economists and Democratic lawmakers say they’re concerned that the Fed will end up slowing the economy so much that it causes a downturn next year.
“We’re already seeing it hit in housing, and now the spillover effects are going through,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, pointing to discounts on furniture and appliance manufacturers pulling back on production. “But that doesn’t mean the Fed stops.”
In the past year, inflation emerged as a fraught political issue in the run-up to the midterm elections. Republicans were hoping to seize major gains in Congress by attacking Democrats’ sprawling spending measures from earlier in the pandemic, arguing that trillions of dollars in government funds helped push the economy into overdrive. But although control of Congress is still undecided, the issue appears not to have driven anything like the backlash the GOP was seeking.
President Biden on Wednesday pointed to Democrats’ moves to lower prescription drug costs and a steady fall in gas prices since their summer peak. “I can’t guarantee that we’re going to be able to get rid of inflation,” he told reporters. “But I do think we can.”
“I am optimistic — because we continue to grow, and at a rational pace — we are not anywhere near a recession right now,” he said at a news conference to discuss the election results. “I’m convinced that we’re going to be able to gradually bring down prices so that they, in fact, end up with us not having to move into a recession to be able to get control of inflation.”
So far, the labor market remains hot and has proved remarkably resilient to the highest inflation levels in 40 years. But that could change if employers start nixing their plans to hire new workers — or lay people off altogether. Already, Silicon Valley is taking a hit, with major companies shedding workers in recent weeks. Facebook parent company Meta announced plans on Wednesday to cut more than 11,000 jobs, or 13 percent of its workforce, and is extending its hiring freeze through March.
What does it cost to raise a child?
Getting control of inflation is the Fed’s job, and the central bank’s power lies in interest rates. Higher rates cool off demand in the economy by making all kinds of borrowing — from mortgages to business loans — more expensive. Last week, the Fed hiked rates for the sixth time this year, announcing a fourth consecutive hike of 0.75 percentage points. Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell emphasized that his colleagues were a long way from finished, saying, “We have a ways to go.”
With that commitment comes the growing likelihood that the economy could enter a recession in 2023 once the full weight of the Fed’s rate hikes wash over the economy.
“Has it narrowed? Yes. Is it still possible? Yes,” Powell said last week of the prospect of achieving what’s known as a “soft landing.” “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.”
There are few signs that the Fed’s all-out effort is working yet. Prices in September rose 8.2 percent compared with the year before, and 0.4 percent compared with August, more than analysts’ expectations. Core inflation, a measure closely watched by the Fed that strips out more volatile categories such as food and energy, also came in hot.
A major question is whether prices can be tamed with rate hikes alone. The Fed’s decisions can’t fix certain sources of inflation, like bungled supply chains, worker shortages or Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In Lansing, Mich., Jerry’s Automotive is still having issues getting enough engines and transmissions in stock. Owner Chris Luoma said he can only absorb so many costs, and he tries to be honest with customers about the supply chain issues that have long dogged the car market, saying that “you’ve got to stay open, stay in business and pay the bills.”
Luoma said his shop made it through the pandemic in part because people had a cushion of savings they could use to pay for repairs and they often didn’t want to hunt for a new car. The shop has been around for over 50 years, and Luoma hopes it’ll make it through the uncertainty ahead. People always need their cars fixed, after all.
“While a recession might make us step back and think, ‘We’ve been in business 56 years. We’ve seen peaks and valleys with the economy,’ ” Luoma said. “And we’ve always managed to be okay.”
With the latest batch of inflation data, analysts and Fed officials are likely to pay special attention to rental costs, which make up a large portion of what economists refer to as the “basket of goods” used to calculate what’s known as the consumer price index. So far, rents are showing little improvement. Rent costs rose 0.8 percent in September, up slightly from the previous two months. It was also up 7.2 percent in the past year, marking the largest increase since 1982.
But the hope is that, eventually, a major slowing in the housing market will pull rental costs down, too. The housing market is the main part of the economy that has responded to the Fed’s rate hikes, since mortgage rates are especially sensitive to the central bank’s decisions. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage, the most popular home-loan product, reached 7.08 percent in late October, causing more prospective buyers to bow out of the market. As a result, home prices are falling, demand for mortgages is plummeting and, in October, builder confidence fell for the 10th month in a row. On Wednesday, the real estate firm Redfin said it would lay off more than 860 workers, or about 13 percent of its staff, as business fell off. | 2022-11-10T11:47:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inflation high in October as Fed rate hikes continue - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/10/inflation-october-economy-fed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/10/inflation-october-economy-fed/ |
Federal suppliers would also have to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and the climate change risks they face under the proposed rule
John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, during the COP27 climate conference in Egypt on Nov. 9. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)
The Biden administration on Thursday will propose requiring all major federal contractors to set targets for reducing their emissions in line with the 2015 Paris climate accord, a significant step toward greening the government’s sprawling operations and one that could ripple across the U.S. supply chain.
The proposed rule covers roughly 85 percent of the emissions associated with the federal supply chain, which are more than double the emissions stemming from operating the government’s 300,000 buildings and 600,000 vehicles combined, the White House said. Once enacted, officials said, the rule would make the United States the first national government to require major suppliers to set climate goals aligned with the Paris agreement.
Even without the rule in place, the government has taken steps to reduce this risk. For example, the Defense Department installed a solar-powered microgrid at the Miramar base in San Diego, allowing the base to disconnect from California’s electricity system during the heat wave that scorched the state this summer.
“We see financial risk without those kinds of investments,” the senior administration official said. | 2022-11-10T11:48:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden: Federal suppliers must work to meet Paris climate goals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/10/biden-climate-federal-suppliers-cop27/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/10/biden-climate-federal-suppliers-cop27/ |
The ‘Black Panther’ sequel was originally slated to be a clash of kings, but the star’s passing turned it into a film about mourning and succession
A celebration of life takes place at the funeral for King T'Challa in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” (Marvel Studios)
After Chadwick Boseman died in 2020 of Stage 4 colon cancer, the future of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” was suddenly up in the air.
A script for the highly anticipated sequel to “Black Panther,” the billion-dollar-grossing cultural phenomenon, had already been written. The story was set to be a clash between two kings, Boseman’s T’Challa the Black Panther and Namor the Sub-Mariner, the superpowered mutant king of Marvel’s seas. The two superheroes are intense rivals within the pages of Marvel Comics, and their movie showdown was going to be an event just as big as any “Avengers” movie. Writer-director Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole were left with the difficult task of finding a new story after the death of its titular star.
Recasting Boseman was never considered. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige told Empire magazine that “it just felt like it was much too soon to recast,” a sentiment that was shared by Coogler and many of the cast members. A CGI version of Boseman’s King T’Challa was also not on the table, leaving Coogler and Cole with the only option that felt like it could properly pay respect to the friend everyone had just lost: incorporating Boseman’s death into the story itself.
As a result, “Wakanda Forever” is a film about death, the grief that comes with it and succession of power in the most difficult of circumstances.
“It was very therapeutic, very cathartic, to be able to use what was going on in our lives in the work … the vulnerability, the strength, the grief of that moment,” star Angela Bassett told The Washington Post in an interview at a premiere of the film at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Appreciation: Chadwick Boseman embodied the Black heroes of our past and gave us one for the future
As the movie begins, King T’Challa of Wakanda has died, and the women of Wakanda — Queen Ramonda (Bassett), Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright), Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Okoye (Danai Gurira), leader of the elite all-female Wakandan warriors the Dora Milaje — are left to mourn while they must continue to lead the most powerful nation in the world.
The Black Panther’s death is not a spoiler. It has long been known since Coogler and Cole began their rewrite that the character’s death would be a part of the story. Both trailers for the film have featured a Wakandan funeral procession with all involved wearing white. Wright’s Shuri is seen holding on to her brother’s Black Panther mask during the memorial.
It’s also not a spoiler to say “Wakanda Forever” will also see a new female Black Panther rise. In the world of the Black Panther, both in the comics and on screen, the mantle is passed down from generation to generation, so such a change should not come as a shock to those who are familiar with the lore. The first “Wakanda Forever” trailer hinted at the new Black Panther with a quick glance of a black gloved hand unsheathing its claws. The second trailer ended with a full head-to-toe look at the new leader of Wakanda. Marvel Studios has not released any footage of this new Black Panther unmasked, but her identity is out there in comic books and on toy boxes for those that must know.
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ review: A eulogy to Chadwick Boseman
The film’s gaze toward the future would not happen without its acknowledgment of the past. At the museum screening, Nyong’o said that when Coogler walked her through “Wakanda Forever’s” script she wept tears of relief knowing that the story would not ignore the very real loss everyone in the cast was feeling before coming on set.
“It meant that I could bring my grief to work and put it to good use. That my grief could be very much a part of the creative process. And that meant a lot,” Nyong’o said. “This film is art imitating life like nothing I’ve ever seen. The loss that we feel is the loss that the fan base feels. And so, the fact that [Ryan] chose to explore grief and how we move forward when we’ve experienced tragedy like this, I think is just testament to how truthful Ryan is as a filmmaker. He’s loves human beings and is really interested in exploring the human condition, and he uses this platform to do that without compromising the spectacle and the fun and the adventure of it all.”
Winston Duke, who plays the powerful M’Baku of the Jabari tribe (rivals to Wakanda in “Black Panther” and allies in the sequel) says “Wakanda Forever” is a fitting tribute to Boseman.
“There was a lot of conversation always about why not recast. Well, we’re dealing with real people,” Duke said. “Everyone involved was close to Chadwick because that’s the nature of our business. He was already a hero before his death. He already meant something to so many people before his death. He was already people’s prince, someone’s king, before his death.
“This was just an opportunity for us to honor who we knew, who represented [the Black Panther] so well,” he added. “… We’ll get another T’Challa one day. But now’s not the time. Let it be what it is.” | 2022-11-10T11:48:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Chadwick Boseman’s death changed ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/comics/2022/11/10/chadwick-boseman-black-panther-wakanda-forever/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/comics/2022/11/10/chadwick-boseman-black-panther-wakanda-forever/ |
‘Sometimes, I pinch myself,’ Angela Alvarez said of her nomination for best new artist
Carlos José Alvarez, left, with his grandmother, Angela Alvarez, and actor Andy Garcia. (Family photo)
Growing up in Cuba, Angela Alvarez wanted to be a singer. But after coming to the United States as a young woman, she found herself cleaning a bank in Colorado to make a living.
It now almost seems impossible that her long-held dream has become a reality: Alvarez was nominated for a Latin Grammy for best new artist. She is 95.
“Sometimes, I pinch myself,” Alvarez said from her home in Baton Rouge.
Alvarez composed her first song at age 14, then already proficient on piano and guitar. She also loved to sing.
When she graduated from high school, Alvarez told her father she wanted nothing more than to become a professional musician. He rejected the idea.
She put her professional pursuits aside and moved through life, getting married at age 19 and having four children — three boys and a girl.
Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, upending life as they knew it in their home country. Alvarez and her husband, Orlando — who was a sugar engineer — decided they would flee to the United States.
Given his profession, Orlando was initially forced to stay in Cuba. Alvarez took her children — the youngest was 4 and the eldest 15 — to the airport in May 1962, but officials also forbade her from leaving the country, saying she had missing paperwork. Alvarez made the impossible decision to let her children go alone to the United States.
“It was very hard for me,” she recalled.
It took several months before she was granted permission to leave Cuba, and once she arrived in Miami, she wasn’t financially eligible to reclaim her children — who were living at an orphanage in Pueblo, Colo. — through the welfare program they were assigned to.
Finally, after not seeing her children for nearly two years, she secured a job cleaning a bank in Pueblo and was able to spend time with her kids on weekends. She lived in a small basement apartment.
Amid her family’s difficult situation, Alvarez strived to fill her children’s lives with happiness, which she did through music. She invited other Cuban children living in the orphanage to join her family, and sang songs to remind them of home.
Alvarez’s husband made it to the United States in July 1966, and they eventually settled in Baton Rouge as a family. Life was good for a while, until Orlando died of lung cancer in 1977 at age 53. Alvarez also lost her daughter to cancer in 1999.
Throughout the many challenges Alvarez faced, she said, she leaned on music to cope with the pain. Over the course of her life, she composed a collection of about 50 songs, reflecting both the deep sadness and joy in her life.
But her music was only enjoyed by her family and friends, as her father had instructed her.
That changed about eight years ago, when her grandson, Carlos José Alvarez, decided to record her songs. Carlos, who is a composer, grew up listening to his grandmother sing at family functions. His career, he said, was heavily influenced by her.
Every time he would visit his grandmother as a child, “she would grab a guitar and she would sing,” said Carlos, 42, who calls Alvarez “Nana.”
As his grandmother was getting older, Carlos wanted to preserve her songs so her future great-grandchildren could marvel at her voice, which he described as “angelic and soulful.”
He brought a microphone to her house and asked her to go through her personal trove of tunes.
“I just did it for my family,” said Carlos.
In the process, though, he unexpectedly learned a lot of information about his grandmother’s history — including her undying hope of becoming a singer.
“I didn’t realize that these songs were like a diary of her life. It all made sense,” he said. “You can hear the life she has lived in her singing.”
“I got so inspired in that moment,” Carlos said, adding that he decided he would one day bring his grandmother to a recording studio, and produce a proper album of her work.
He knew what it would mean to her.
“I told him one day I would like to make a CD, because I would like that people know my music,” Alvarez said.
In the years that followed, Carlos was focused on growing his own career. He put his grandmother’s prospective album on the back burner until 2016, when his friend Misha’al Al-Omar asked him: “Are you waiting for her to die?”
The question “knocked me over,” Carlos said. He arranged to fly his grandmother to Los Angeles, where he lives, to record her songs in a professional studio.
“She was getting super lit up by it,” Carlos said.
“It was beautiful for me,” echoed Alvarez.
In addition to producing his grandmother’s 15-track album titled Angela Alvarez, Carlos decided Alvarez’s story should also be the subject of a documentary film. A crew of musicians he had gathered to work on the album wholeheartedly agreed.
“This is too big to just keep it within the family,” he remembered thinking.
Cuban American actor Andy Garcia, who is a friend of Carlos’, heard about the story and was moved. He offered to executive produce and narrate the documentary, titled “Miss Angela.” The film chronicles Alvarez’s life, her love of music and her path to pursuing a singing career as a nonagenarian.
Both the documentary and the album were released in 2021, and Alvarez was delighted with the outcome. Her dream of becoming a professional musician had been realized.
“I feel very happy, and very proud,” said Alvarez, who performed her first public concert on her 91st birthday. The audience was captivated.
In the past year, Alvarez’s career has taken off more than she thought possible. Garcia encouraged her to audition for the role of Tia Pili in the 2022 “Father of the Bride” remake — which he stars in — and she got the part.
“I thought it wasn’t true,” she said.
Alvarez is attending the 2022 Latin Grammy Awards on Nov. 17 in Las Vegas with her grandson, and she is scheduled to perform.
She said she hopes her story teaches people to “never say, ‘I can’t do it.’ You can do it. Always try.”
For Carlos, the nomination was also momentous.
“As a musician, we need to always celebrate the music that came before us,” he said. “The fact that she was nominated for best new artist, for music that she started writing in the 1940s, is just unbelievable.” | 2022-11-10T11:48:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Angela Alvarez, 95, is nominated for Latin Grammy Best New Artist - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/10/angela-alvarez-grammy-cuba-musician/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/10/angela-alvarez-grammy-cuba-musician/ |
Miami once provided a model for diversity. Now DeSantis won it big.
The county once championed a divisive, but productive, method of training professionals to deal with diversity
Perspective by Catherine Mas
Catherine Mas is assistant professor of history at Florida International University and author of the new book, "Culture in the Clinic Miami and the Making of Modern Medicine" (UNC Press).
Incumbent Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis waves with his wife, Casey, as he arrives to speak to supporters at an election night party in Tampa after winning his race for reelection on Tuesday. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)
Earlier this year, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed House Bill 7 into law, calling it the Stop WOKE Act, or “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees.” The law seeks to restrict diversity trainings by forbidding the teaching of certain concepts, such as unconscious bias. One might expect this to have hurt DeSantis in diverse Miami-Dade County. Instead, he stunningly won the county by 11 percent — the first Republican to do so since Jeb Bush in 2002 and a reversal of 40 points from Hillary Clinton’s almost 30-point win over Donald Trump in 2016.
Miami-Dade has always been a battleground over diversity and inclusion. Even in the case of the “Stop WOKE” Act, the bill provoked strong reactions in both directions. Many scrambled to figure out how to comply with the new law. Others resisted through legal action, from students and professors in the public university system to private companies that wish to continue the workplace trainings they consider crucial to their businesses’ success. Meanwhile, the law’s supporters celebrated a victory for “individual freedom” — freedom from institutional policies designed to build awareness and competency around issues of race and inequality, which they condemn as “woke indoctrination.”
Decades ago, however, Florida produced a nationwide model for such trainings. Many called it the “Miami model” in the 1970s and ’80s: an approach derived from South Florida’s notably diverse population. This included training all kinds of health and human service professionals on how to be sensitive to the racial, ethnic, class and cultural differences among the populations they served. In other words, it encouraged people to become what diversity training critics now demean as being “woke.”
Looking to the history of the “Miami model” — an innovator in what was then called “cross-cultural training” — can help us understand why diversity trainings were created in the first place. It also sheds light on how and why diversity trainings have long since elicited strong opposition — way before “wokeness” became a pejorative term and a favored target for culture warriors.
The period of the 1970s in Miami was a “multicultural moment.” The previous decade had seen a dramatic uptick of Cuban refugees fleeing Fidel Castro’s communist revolution. Although many thought of their exile as temporary, it soon became clear that Cubans were there to stay, enhancing the city’s ethnic diversity. There were, for instance, Black and Afro-Caribbean communities that had a long-established presence in Miami. So too had Puerto Ricans who had arrived in large numbers after World War II, many to work in the garment industry. And by the late 1960s, thousands of Haitian refugees fleeing political turmoil also came to Miami. All the while, the number of “Anglos” was decreasing not just proportionately but in absolute numbers. Miami was and remains, conspicuously, a majority-minority city.
From mainstream media to local politics, Miami was on the leading edge of not just recognizing but officially embracing non-White and immigrant cultures. Take, for instance, the hit television series, “¿Qué Pasa, U.S.A?,” which follows the life of the Peña family in 1970s Miami and the wholesome, humorous collisions of Cuban and American culture as they adapt to life in a new country.
It’s not surprising that the country’s first bilingual sitcom was set in Miami. In 1973, county commissioners had voted on a resolution to make Miami-Dade County “officially bilingual and bicultural.” Leading the effort was a Spanish-speaking task force that included Cuban bankers such as Bernardo Benes and Luis Botifoll, who felt the county was finally waking up to a “fact of life”: Miami, home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants and Spanish speakers, was already a bicultural county.
When critics complained of the costs of building a bilingual infrastructure, such as hiring translators and interpreters and printing new signage, Benes insisted that such measures would ultimately serve the city financially — especially appealing to multinational companies moving their headquarters to Miami as well as a Latin American market.
In an age of globalization, Benes and others on the Spanish-speaking task force associated cultural sensitivity with business savvy. Bilingualism and biculturalism went hand in hand with terms like “innovation,” “competition” and an entrepreneurial, “pioneering spirit.” Failing to embrace multiculturalism was bad business.
It was also dangerous to health. In the early 1970s, Jackson Memorial Hospital, the area’s major public hospital, employed a nominal number of bilingual personnel. The emergency room operated with no bilingual staff at all. This led to the neglect of the many Cuban refugees, Puerto Ricans and migrant workers who spoke little to no English. An investigation of the hospital’s bilingual capacity revealed that “From the moment of their arrival at the front desk and the signing of forms to the actual visit to the doctor, the person in need finds no way to express his illness, feelings and concerns. […] many times he leaves Jackson Memorial Hospital with far more despair and anxiety than when he went in.”
Hospital administrators responded by hiring bilingual staff and training employees on how to better accommodate patients’ linguistic and culturally specific needs.
Some drew on the expertise and experience of a small group of social scientists and clinicians based at the University of Miami School of Medicine. They had launched a project to make health care inclusive and accessible to the African Americans, Bahamians, Cubans, Haitians and Puerto Ricans surrounding the academic medical center. The model involved training health providers to understand social barriers and to become “culture brokers” — bridging a medical establishment dominated by White, U.S.-born providers and a multiethnic patient population.
Their success led to the model’s expansion to local institutions beyond the health arena — like schools, churches and the police department — as well as beyond Miami and Florida. This is how it became known as the “Miami model.” Participants underwent an intensive training, which included lectures from social scientists, religious leaders and alternative healers as well as role-playing exercises and immersive experiences in Miami’s ethnic neighborhoods. Activities were designed to encourage participants to develop self-awareness, especially of the unconscious biases they might have. Trainees reported leaving the training with a new perspective as well as practical skills for intervening with clients and achieving better patient outcomes back home.
Despite the many practical benefits of this training, by the early 1980s there was a backlash against official multiculturalism. In local news media, some reacted negatively to what they had read about cross-cultural trainings. One Miami News reader decided to withdraw her alumni donations to the University of Miami for encouraging a stance of tolerance toward certain cultural practices, especially healing rituals involving animal sacrifice.
Such criticisms soon became public policy. A local group called Citizens of Dade United succeeded in passing an anti-bilingual ordinance in 1980, reversing the bilingual-bicultural resolution that had passed nearly a decade prior. It prohibited the county from spending any funds “for the purpose of utilizing any language other than English or promoting any culture other than that of the United States.”
Like critics of contemporary “wokeness,” Citizens of Dade United argued that the bilingual-bicultural resolution had been discriminatory and divisive, even favoring those who spoke a foreign language.
Even when their English-only ordinance passed, members of Citizens of Dade United felt their job wasn’t done. In 1981, they held a march against what they called “language injustice, crime, and illegal invasion of our shores,” blaming the turmoil of the previous year on the city’s newcomers. Large numbers of Haitian migrants were entering the country as the Mariel Boatlift brought a dramatic number of Cubans. In response, Citizens of Dade United then demanded the government take action to restrict immigration. Perceiving a threat to some purer version of American culture, the group passed out fliers asking, “Is Miami in the U.S.A.?” and “Do you feel that your language and culture are being changed?”
The promise of the Miami model faded as the politics of nativism took hold, along with sweeping budget cuts to public services. The city’s decision to slash its publicly funded multicultural policy was propped up by fears conservative activists stirred about the changes that might result from sharing power with non-White Americans.
Today, as we see new attacks on diversity and inclusion, we stand to learn a lot from the political and economic context that once embraced a multicultural vision of American society. When the Miami model reigned, the civil rights struggle of previous decades had expanded the boundaries of American citizenship and showed how being self-aware and sensitive to racial and ethnic diversity might give an individual, a business or an entire city an edge in a globalizing economy.
Then and today, Americans have struggled with the problem of how to achieve social cohesion in a plural society. Diversity trainings have presented one particular solution for institutions and businesses that necessarily interface with diverse patients, clientele, customers or recipients of public goods. The goal of training is to leave the trainee changed — with new perspectives, information and skills — thereby changing the institutions in which the trainee works.
While it may be unclear how effective those trainings are, their very existence is a reminder that the process of integration is incomplete. This process requires more than just opening the door to those formerly excluded. It requires changing structures and cultures. Making “wokeness” the object of debate obscures deeper anxieties about a multiracial and multiethnic democratic project that remains unfinished. | 2022-11-10T11:49:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miami once provided a model for diversity. Now DeSantis won it big. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/10/desantis-woke-miami-dade/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/10/desantis-woke-miami-dade/ |
Date Lab: He guessed that she’s ‘totally an introvert’
Keith is 52 and an investment adviser. He is looking for a “genuine, supportive” partner who “has my back.” Amanda is 45 and a tech writer. She is seeking “someone with a good heart, quick wit, smart and kind.” (Daniele Seiss/The Washington Post)
As a self-described “more mature person,” Amanda, 45, doesn’t feel like she needs somebody. “I’m not looking for somebody to complete me.” Still, she wants a companion to share her life with. She separated from her husband in the fall of 2020; her divorce was finalized this spring. “I’m relearning what the new dating rules are, and … who I am in my 40s versus when I was in my 20s.”
This summer, after a “sort of failed romance,” she decided to apply for Date Lab, which she has read on and off for years. “As an introvert in the pandemic, I’m finding it really hard to meet new people,” said Amanda, adding that the idea of being matched by the magazine was “actually kind of appealing.”
A tech writer, she is interested in someone who is “generous and genuine and funny. [That] is more important than a six-pack.” As for her type: “I want the geek.” She dresses up to go to Renaissance fairs and watches Marvel movies and would like a partner who shares her interests.
We matched her with Keith, a 52-year-old investment adviser, whose neighbor sent him a link to the Date Lab application and encouraged him to apply. Keith, who is divorced and lives in the Baltimore suburbs, hadn’t even been aware of the column, but he figured, What’s there to lose?
When it comes to dating, he is somewhere between wanting “to have fun and getting into a relationship.” He would like a travel companion. “Most of my friends are married, and I’m tired of being the third wheel.” He’s seeking “someone outgoing, witty, funny, attractive, petite” and “career-minded” who “can keep up with my humor and banter back-and-forth.”
On the day of the date, Keith “wasn’t nervous at all” because he had no expectations. He didn’t do any date-specific prep (“I’m pretty well-kept!”). He wore a golf shirt and a vest and arrived at the Manor Hill Tavern in Ellicott City, Md., five minutes before the start time of 6 p.m.
Amanda was already there; she’d arrived 10 minutes earlier. She was “a little trepidatious but also a little excited” to be matched. The experience reminded her of skydiving in her early 20s: “I had the same [feeling]: This could be cool, this could be terrifying.” She’d texted a friend for an outfit consult and picked out “jeans, a top I really like, some low-heeled boots” and a fleece to protect her from the autumn chill. She drove to the date from Wheaton and was happy Keith arrived on time.
“I was pleased,” she said. “He’s a good-looking guy [with] beautiful blue eyes, nice haircut, casually but smartly dressed. It was a good first impression.” Keith didn’t feel that same instant attraction. His attempts at breaking the ice with a few jokes, he said, didn’t thaw things. “She was reserved.”
They sat down to dinner. Keith found Amanda to be a “smart … sweet, kind woman.” But it didn’t take long for him to ask her, “You’re totally an introvert, aren’t you?” He says that she responded yes, and that he said, “I think by now you can tell I’m clearly an extrovert.” He also didn’t share what he called Amanda’s “nerdy” interests. “I’m social and like to go to sporting events with friends, and she said she’s uncomfortable in social situations,” he said. His assessment of the match: “We’re complete opposites.”
“I’m not an antisocial introvert,” Amanda clarified. “I really enjoyed getting to know somebody one-on-one. That’s the kind of interaction I like.” She welcomed their discussion about food and travel — they’d visited some of the same places: Maine, Boston, Dollywood. But she felt the energy “was more friendly than flirty” and sensed they weren’t compatible. “I think he is a bit more of a spontaneous person than I am,” she said. The geographic distance between them, too, wasn’t a great sign for her.
Keith’s recollection is that “I asked most of the questions. … It was mostly her talking. An hour into the date, she didn’t even know what I did." Amanda figured they stayed at the restaurant until about 8:30. When dinner was over, Keith walked her to her car, which she appreciated. She told him she thought the distance between them “is going to be a problem,” and her sense was “we both kind of felt the same way.”
They amicably parted — great meeting you, a handshake — but did not exchange numbers. “I did not even ask for her last name,” said Keith. Amanda’s take: “We had a good night, let’s end it here, and we went our separate ways.”
Keith: 2.5 [out of 5].
Amanda: 4.
No further contact.
Jessica M. Goldstein is a regular contributor to Post’s Style section. | 2022-11-10T11:49:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Date Lab: He guessed that she’s ‘totally an introvert’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/10/date-lab-he-guessed-that-shes-totally-an-introvert/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/11/10/date-lab-he-guessed-that-shes-totally-an-introvert/ |
Qwanqwa brings its improvisational Ethiopian music to D.C.
The ensemble, founded by violinist Kaethe Hostetter, will perform at the Hill Center on Nov. 14
Qwanqwa is, from left, Anteneh “Bubu” Teklemariam, Endris Hassen, Selamnesh Zemene, Misale Legesse and Kaethe Hostetter. (Kenny Allen)
At 17, California native Kaethe Hostetter moved east to begin her musical career. She went only as far as Boston, but that turned out to be just the first stop on her journey. Eventually, the violinist arrived in Addis Ababa, where she founded Qwanqwa, an improvisational group in which she’s joined by a shifting lineup of Ethiopian musicians. The quintet performs Nov. 14 at the Hill Center, six weeks after a mesmerizing show across town at Bossa.
Hostetter grew up with many kinds of music, including that of Madagascar (where her father recorded several albums of local sounds) and Morocco (the longtime home of American composer and novelist Paul Bowles, whose musical estate was handled by her mother). Yet Ethiopian music was a revelation to her when she joined Boston’s Ethiojazz-rooted Debo Band around 2006.
The East African style grabbed her because of “the really unique groove, and then the virtuosity of the lead instruments,” Hostetter said in a recent phone interview.
The violinist moved to Ethiopia in 2009 and founded Qwanqwa (whose name is Amharic for “language”) a few years later. The group has recorded three albums that weave the sound of Hostetter’s five-string violin with such traditional string instruments as the masinko (played by Endris Hassen) and the bass krar (Anteneh “Bubu” Teklemariam), as well as a hand drum, the kebero (Misale Legesse). But the current lineup showcases Selamnesh Zemene, a dynamic female vocalist.
“I was consciously not going to have a singer, for a while,” noted Hostetter of her original plan. “I was really focusing on highlighting the instrumentalists. A lot of times in Ethiopia, the focus is on singers, and everything else is just accompaniment.”
“But eventually, we wanted to add a singer,” she added.
Partly underwritten by a MacArthur Foundation grant, Qwanqwa’s U.S. tour marks the band’s first shows on this side of the Atlantic. The other musicians have been surprised by the country’s size, Hostetter said, but haven’t struggled to connect with American listeners. Because they’ve played previously in Europe, “they know how to export their music.”
This tour was originally scheduled to happen in 2020, and Hostetter traveled to the U.S. in preparation just as covid quarantines were interrupting international travel. The trek was postponed, and Hostetter settled back in Santa Cruz, her hometown, where she's involved in multiple musical projects.
Ultimately, the violinist decided not to return to Addis Ababa permanently. But she intends to continue with Qwanqwa, for which she’s already planning a 2024 U.S. tour. And she will probably always be inspired by Ethiopia: “It’s a place where music is always happening.”
Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Hill Center, 921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. hillcenterdc.org. $18. | 2022-11-10T11:49:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Qwanqwa brings its improvisational Ethiopian music back to D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/11/10/qwanqwa-us-tour/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/11/10/qwanqwa-us-tour/ |
China’s top leadership excludes women for the first time in two decades
Is Xi Jinping’s new all-male Politburo backing away from the communist party’s commitment to advancing women?
Analysis by Shan-Jan Sarah Liu
The new members of the Standing Committee of China's Politburo in Beijing last month. (Wu Hao/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Last month’s Chinese Communist Party Congress, as expected, cemented Xi Jinping’s leadership for another five years and elevated Xi loyalists to key positions. But for the first time in 25 years, the new Politburo — the 24 party leaders who will guide China’s governance for the next five years — excludes women.
What does this signal about gender equality in China? The Communist Party has never had the strongest record on appointing women to powerful positions. Past Politburos, for instance, typically included one or two women.
My research explores China’s significant gender gap in political representation and participation, compared with several neighboring countries. Although women accounted for 30 percent of the 2,300 or so party elites at October’s Party Congress — an increase from 21 percent in 2009 — it is important to remember that China’s Congress is not democratically elected and delegates do not represent constituents the way that democracies usually do.
Taiwan’s first female president easily won reelection. Are Asian women taking note?
Taiwan and South Korea have already elected female presidents — while few women in China even get to lead locally. The Communist Party has implemented gender quotas for county-level people’s congresses, but China has never implemented these types of requirements strictly. Taiwan, in contrast, has had far more success with its reserved seats system, and women now make up 40 percent of the legislature. And when women take on political roles in China, they are assigned more “feminine posts” that focus on issues like education and health. These are generally low-prestige roles, commanding few resources and little political power.
Where does Xi stand on gender equality?
In an October 2020 address celebrating the 25th anniversary of the U.N. Fourth World Conference on Women, Xi noted that “women are creators of human civilization and drivers of social progress” and promised to improve women’s status by striving for gender equality and ensuring that women’s rights are protected.
However, China’s #MeToo movement in recent years, along with incidents of gender-based violence, suggest that hopes and goals for the enhancement of women’s status in China have a long way to go. But gender activism makes Beijing nervous as it serves as a direct challenge to the state — prompting some analysts to worry that the status of women in China may decline under Xi’s leadership.
A woman won a landmark #MeToo case in China. Why is winning so hard?
What is the status of the feminist movement in China?
The gender gaps in China’s government demonstrate broader patriarchal issues in society, which are also regulated and facilitated by the government. In the last few years, China witnessed a feminist awakening, starting with the Feminist Five. This group planned to protest sexual harassment on public transportation. Arrested on the eve of the International Women’s Day in 2015, the women were later imprisoned for 37 days. The #FreetheFive hashtag inundated China’s social media and Hillary Clinton spoke out on behalf of the activists. Since then, China has only toughened up on controls over the feminist movement.
Government censors have targeted #MeToo comments on Chinese social media platforms. What started off as movement to raise awareness about sexual harassment on campus quickly boosted public attention on other gender-based violence and unequal power relations in Chinese society, including large corporations and the Chinese government.
Women wrote about mistresses that Chinese government officials kept, in violation of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. In 2021, globally ranked tennis player Peng Shuai spoke out about being sexually assaulted by a retired Chinese official named Zhang Gaoli, then disappeared from public view. Although there was no proof that it was a forced disappearance, her emails and interviews with Chinese state media weeks later — and her denials about the sexual assault accusation — elicited an international response over her safety and freedom.
In August, officials arrested 28 people in relation to an attack of a group of women outside a Hebei restaurant. As the story went viral, the Chinese government cracked down on reporting about the incident.
Framing gender-based violence as “incidents” has been the official response — but this approach may be risky for the Chinese government. Downplaying violence against women challenges Beijing’s ability to maintain a harmonious society and poses a threat to its authoritarian regime. Many feminist activists have either disappeared or been under surveillance. Others face criminal accusations for their intention to gather a crowd and disturb public order.
What’s the future of gender progress in China?
Women’s movements are important for enhancing gender equality as they lead to gender egalitarian attitudes among young people. Like #MeToo movements elsewhere, China’s movement seemed to open the door for women looking to support women’s rights, as well as campaign for labor rights, safe working conditions and other issues. Under Xi’s rule, many of these campaigns face pressured by authorities to shut down.
Harsh punishments of feminist activists and censorship of #MeToo, along with gender-based violence, have prompted use of emoji, homophones, similar characters and puns — and other digital activism designed to escape the attention of government censors.
But a future without feminism among China’s younger generations would look very grim. The birthrate continues to decline, despite the official rollback of China’s one-child policy and government incentives to encourage Chinese citizens to have children.
China’s Gen Z struggles to find affordable housing, for example, and find a work-life balance and other support to help young families raise children. Although the government has promised to reduce school fees and improve maternity leave policies, the structural resources aren’t in place to encourage families to have children.
China’s zero-covid lockdowns, in particular, have prompted young Chinese to rethink their life plans — and question government control over citizens’ lives. And the “lying flat” movement, with the younger generation rejecting high-pressure work cultures, brings further challenges for China’s leaders.
Under Xi’s leadership, it has become increasingly difficult for China’s younger generation to see a clear future, one where their voices could be heard. The lack of representation of women in the new Politburo conveys a message that Xi appears less serious about advancing women’s status than past claims.
With the tight control Xi has maintained over China, there’s little indication that barriers to gender equality will erode. Phrases like “Liberating Women” and “Women Hold up Half the Sky” have long been part of the Communist Party’s promises — but these have only remained slogans and will continue to be so under Xi’s leadership.
Shan-Jan Sarah Liu is Associate Professor in politics and international relations at the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. She tweets from @DrSarahLiu. | 2022-11-10T11:49:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What happened to China’s #MeToo movement? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/china-xi-party-gender-gap/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/china-xi-party-gender-gap/ |
Midterm elections live updates Republicans expected to narrowly take House; Senate in limbo
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) makes calls Wednesday from his office in Washington to Republican House members seeking support for his bid to be the next House speaker. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Control of the House and Senate remained uncertain Thursday, with counting continuing in key races. Anticipating victory in his chamber of Congress, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has started making calls asking for support in his bid to be the next speaker. As for the Senate, two critical races in Arizona and Nevada remain too close to call, and a third in Georgia is headed for a Dec. 6 runoff after neither Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) nor Republican Herschel Walker won more than 50 percent of the vote.
At a news conference Wednesday, President Biden touted a midterm performance by Democrats that exceeded expectations and defied predictions of “a giant red wave.” He plans to appear Thursday at a political event in Washington with Vice President Harris.
Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.) made a plea to about 35 of his colleagues during lunch at the National Republican Senatorial Committee offices in early August: Send money to the NRSC from your personal campaign accounts. GOP candidates were in need.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), one of the loudest and most controversial voices on the American right, was separated from her opponent in her reelection bid by just dozens of votes overnight Wednesday.
The tight finish was thought to have been highly improbable in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers almost all of the state’s western half and favored then-President Donald Trump by eight points in 2020.
But on Colorado’s Western Slope, a largely rural region where working-class towns like Boebert’s home, Rifle, share congressional representation with ritzy ski towns such as Aspen, it appeared that her brand of controversy was less popular than Trump’s.
Republican Anthony D’Esposito, a retired New York Police Department detective, is projected to win the House race in New York’s 4th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press and Edison Research.
This Long Island district has not sent a Republican candidate to Washington in 26 years. The retirement of Rep. Kathleen Rice, a Democrat, opened up the district as a target for a Republican pickup.
The front page of the New York Post chided former president Donald Trump after Republican candidates that he supported failed to deliver huge wins at the ballot box.
Referring to Trump as “Trumpty Dumpty,” with a shape like an egg, the tabloid said the former president had “a great fall” in light of the midterm results, riffing off the children’s nursery rhyme. Owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the paper endorsed Trump for president in 2020 and 2016.
A day earlier, it also signaled its support for Trump’s rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who claimed a sweeping reelection victory, dubbing him “DeFuture.” Other right-leaning media including Fox News also forecast a bright political future for DeSantis, after his landslide victory over Democrat Charlie Crist. All eyes are on whether the two will clash for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Leaders had prepared scores of news releases outlining their Day 1 priorities, set to deploy around the same time Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would declare victory, standing against a “Take Back the House” backdrop before the clock struck midnight at a D.C. hotel. | 2022-11-10T11:49:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Midterm elections news: Tracking uncalled House, Senate races - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/elections-news-house-senate-races/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/elections-news-house-senate-races/ |
Josh Allen hurt his elbow in the Bills' loss to the Jets. (Noah K. Murray/Associated Press)
The last thing the Buffalo Bills needed in a season in which they look like a Super Bowl favorite is an injury to quarterback Josh Allen.
But that’s what they got this week when Allen suffered a right elbow injury that left him limited in practice. Concerning though it may be, there is room for optimism. His final attempt in an upset loss to the New York Jets (an incompletion) on Sunday was the longest pass thrown in the NFL in the past six seasons, according to Next Gen Stats, traveling 69.3 yards. He is day-to-day and could still play Sunday in one of the biggest matchups of Week 10 against the Minnesota Vikings.
At the season’s halfway point, Buffalo remains atop the AFC and Philadelphia leads the NFC. Here’s how the rest of the postseason field shakes out, with nine weeks down and nine to go:
Where things stand now pic.twitter.com/MDAWGRgkcX
And here is a quick look at the Week 10 slate:
Falcons (4-5) at Panthers (2-7), 8:15 p.m., Amazon Prime: These teams played one another 11 days ago, with Atlanta winning, 37-34, in overtime. In a subsequent loss to Cincinnati, Carolina showed that its problems are many. The Bengals had more first-half points (35) than the Panthers had first-half yards (32). Carolina allowed 311 yards in the first 30 minutes and was thoroughly dissected by running back Joe Mixon (211 total yards, five touchdowns).
Seahawks (6-3) vs. Buccaneers (4-5) in Munich, 9:30 a.m., NFL Network: Can Geno Smith and a smart, young Seattle team keep going against Tom Brady, who recaptured some magic late in a comeback win against the Rams on Sunday? Improbably, Tampa Bay is now atop the NFC South (holding the tiebreaker advantage over the Falcons), and the Seahawks lead the NFC West. A beleaguered Bucs defense will have to devise a way to stop Kenneth Walker III, who has rushed for 512 yards and seven touchdowns in his past five games.
Vikings (7-1) at Bills (6-2), 1 p.m.: Minnesota has won six in a row by an average of 5.6 points per win. Opponents often have more rushing and passing yards, and the opposing quarterback often has a higher rating than Kirk “You Like That” Cousins. But the Vikings show up in the fourth quarter, outscoring opponents 70-37.
Lions (2-6) at Bears (3-6), 1 p.m.: It was an attention-getting performance, although it probably doesn’t bode well for Justin Fields’s health in the long run. Chicago’s quarterback had 178 yards rushing Sunday against Miami, the most by a quarterback in a single game in the Super Bowl era, breaking the record of 173 set by Michael Vick in 2002. Fields also was the first player since at least 1950 with 150-plus rushing yards and three-plus passing touchdowns in a single game. Quarterbacks rushed for 801 yards combined in Week 9, according to NFL Research, breaking the record of 787 set in Week 15 of the 2020 season.
Jaguars (3-6) at Chiefs (6-2), 1 p.m.: Imagine ... 68 passes. That’s how many Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes attempted against Tennessee on Sunday night, coming within two of the all-time single-game mark set by New England’s Drew Bledsoe in 1994. Mahomes completed 43 of those attempts, two shy of Bledsoe’s mark (which was tied by Jared Goff in 2019). In another entry for the Mahomes scrapbook, according to NFL Research he became the first player in the Super Bowl era with at least 400 yards and a touchdown passing and 60 yards and a touchdown rushing in the same game.
Browns (3-5) at Dolphins (6-3), 1 p.m.: Tyreek Hill hasn’t lost a step in his transition from Mahomes and the Chiefs to Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins. He has 76 receptions for 1,104 yards — the most ever by a player in his first nine games with a team.
Texans (1-6-1) at Giants (6-2), 1 p.m.: New York headed into its bye week with a loss in which the offense sputtered against Seattle. Saquon Barkley had only 53 yards rushing, with one touchdown, on 20 carries. Barkley has a good chance to get back on track against a Houston defense that is allowing a league-worst 180.6 rushing yards per game.
Saints (3-6) at Steelers (2-6), 1 p.m.: In the battle of sputtering offenses, New Orleans may consider whether it’s time to switch from Andy Dalton back to Jameis Winston. Pittsburgh managed to convert just 1 of 12 third-down attempts during its shellacking by Philadelphia before its bye week.
Broncos (3-5) at Titans (5-3), 1 p.m.: Beware Derrick Henry in the Wildcat formation. His four-yard touchdown run Sunday against Kansas City came off a direct snap out of the formation, and he leads the league in touchdown runs (five) and touchdown passes (two) out of the Wildcat (including playoff appearances) since he entered the league in 2016.
Colts (3-5-1) at Raiders (2-6), 4:05 p.m.: The Raiders have lost after coughing up a lead of 17 or more points three times this season, tying the NFL record also held by the 2020 Chargers and 2003 Falcons. Now they get a bit of a break in that they face a team suddenly coached by Jeff Saturday, the Colts’ former center who has zero experience coaching at the NFL or college level. He is expected to have 30-year-old passing game specialist/assistant quarterbacks coach Parks Frazier calling the plays on offense.
Colts offensive ranks
Sacks Allowed 32nd
Pass TD-INT 30th
Yards per play 30th
Rush TD 31st
Yards per Rush 30th
4th Down Conv % 30th
Red Zone Efficiency 31st pic.twitter.com/eF6kr9bbjB
Cowboys (6-2) at Packers (3-6), 4:25 p.m.: ESPN reported that Green Bay unsuccessfully pursued trades for Chase Claypool and Darren Waller in an effort to provide more targets for Aaron Rodgers, who could use some. Some of the fault for throwing three interceptions inside the 25 in Sunday’s loss to Detroit rests with him, though. Now, facing a Dallas defense coming off a bye week and led by former Packers coach Mike McCarthy is a tall order for this Packers team, even at Lambeau Field.
Cardinals (3-6) at Rams (3-5), 4:25 p.m.: There are Super Bowl hangovers and then there’s what Los Angeles is experiencing. The Rams couldn’t generate enough first downs in a three-point loss to Tampa Bay this past week, and for the seventh time this season, Los Angeles was held to 24 or fewer points. It marked the fifth time the team couldn’t even score 15 points.
Chargers (5-3) at 49ers (4-4), 8:20 p.m., NBC: When last seen before their bye week, the 49ers put their new Swiss Army knife, Christian McCaffrey, on full display against the Rams. He joined LaDainian Tomlinson (in 2005) and Walter Payton (in 1979) as the only running backs with a passing, rushing and receiving touchdown in a single game since the 1970 merger. Not that Los Angeles running back Austin Ekeler is any slouch — he has 10 career games with one-plus rushing and one-plus receiving touchdown. That ties him with the Saints’ Alvin Kamara and McCaffrey for the most in a player’s first six seasons since 1950.
Commanders (4-5) at Eagles (8-0), 8:15 p.m., ESPN, ESPN2: Taylor Heinicke gives (bringing the excitement on a spinning run during Washington’s 10-play touchdown drive in the second half against Minnesota on Sunday) and he takes (throwing at least one interception in eight of his past nine games and completing only 15 of 28 passes against the Vikings). This week, he faces an undefeated Eagles team that takes (a league-leading 18 takeaways) but doesn’t give much (a league-low three turnovers). | 2022-11-10T11:50:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL Week 10 schedule, matchups and five-minute guide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/nfl-week-10-schedule/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/nfl-week-10-schedule/ |
Research suggests that people with mild cognitive impairment may be helped, but the findings are far from conclusive
Richard Sima will return next week.
The research, which was funded by the National Institute on Aging, recruited 107 adults ages 55 to 95 with mild cognitive impairment. For 12 weeks, they were all asked to play one of two types of games, four times a week — spending either 30 minutes on Lumosity, a popular cognitive training platform, or 30 minutes attempting a digital crossword. After 12 weeks, the participants were reevaluated and given “booster” doses of game play six more times during the 78-week experiment.
Play The Post's daily crossword puzzle for free
Most researchers agree that keeping both your body and your mind active as you age probably benefits your brain. Ronald C. Petersen, the director of the Mayo Clinic’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, said that in addition to regular exercise, he recommends that patients spend time on challenging intellectual tasks such as watching a documentary or attending a lecture. | 2022-11-10T11:51:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Crossword puzzles may benefit people with mild cognitive impairment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/10/crossword-memory-loss-brain-games/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/10/crossword-memory-loss-brain-games/ |
The Australian health insurer Medibank experienced a hack of customers' private information, including data on procedures such as abortion. (Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg News)
Details identifying abortion patients in Australia, stolen as part of a private health insurer’s major data breach, were released Thursday on a dark web forum that appears linked to Russian hackers.
The insurer, Medibank, said in a statement that the data included names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and email addresses. Chief Executive David Koczkar said the information’s release — after a demand for ransom money was rejected — was “an attack on the most vulnerable members of our community.”
“The weaponization of people’s private information in an effort to extort payment is malicious,” he said.
Medibank acknowledged on Oct. 13 that it had been hacked. It later said the personal information of 9.7 million customers and 480,000 health claims was accessed.
The insurer announced Monday that it would not pay a ransom to keep the data private. On Wednesday, identifying information of customers who had accessed medical care, including for addiction recovery and mental health care, was released. That was followed on Thursday by information on patients who had sought and undergone abortions.
Details of medical procedures involving about 500 people were part of the two online file drops, according to the Conversation, a nonprofit news site.
Josh Roose, a political sociologist at Deakin University, said health-care organizations are common targets of ransomware attacks. But they usually find their IT systems locked, with a ransom demand in exchange for regaining access.
On occasion, cybercriminals have accessed personal health information — including a security breach this summer involving more than 235,000 patients of Keystone Health in Pennsylvania. Seldom do the cases escalate to the public release of sensitive health information, Roose said.
“It’s obviously a pretty disgusting line of attack to take,” he added. “And we know that there are hackers who deliberately target health services for precisely that reason. It tells you a little bit about how bad things are getting, and how, effectively, hardcore, this particular group is.”
According to Roose, the Medibank ransomware attack appeared to be connected to a Russian hacking group. The data was posted on a dark web forum linked to the collective REvil, the Guardian reported, adding that the hackers posted a demand for $10 million in ransom.
Daile Kelleher, chief executive of the reproductive rights organization Children by Choice, said there are many reasons — beyond the sheer violation of privacy — that patients would not want others to know they had terminated a pregnancy.
While abortion is legal in Australia, it remains “quite a stigmatized form of health care,” and the data release could put some women at risk, Kelleher said. “Our biggest concern was the impact that this could have on people who have reproductive coercion and abuse, or domestic and family violence, in their lives.”
The Medibank hack was the second high-profile attack of its kind in the country in recent months. Telecommunications company Optus was the victim of an attack in September, with the data of 10 million customers accessed illegally. Some of that included driver’s license and passport numbers.
The Australian Federal Police is working with the FBI and other foreign intelligence partners to investigate the release of the “distressing and very personal information,” the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.
A few hours later, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was a Medibank customer but was not affected by the hack. Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil called the hacking “morally reprehensible” and labeled those responsible “scumbags” when addressing Parliament on Thursday. | 2022-11-10T11:52:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Major Australia health data hack exposes abortion patients - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/australia-health-data-hack-abortion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/australia-health-data-hack-abortion/ |
An appreciation of works by Peter Nicholls, John Clute, R.B. Russell and G. Thomas Tanselle
Science fiction has long been a moral literature, using extrapolation to probe the impact on humankind of technology, politics, religion, gender, race and the environment. That it has come to be seen as a genre worthy of respect — indeed as a major current in the mainstream of modern fiction — can be attributed to several causes, and one of them is 1979’s “The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,” edited and largely written by Peter Nicholls and John Clute.
Nicholls’s literary journalism is often hilarious, with Hunter S. Thompson-like reports about drunken weekends at science fiction conventions, but it also features meticulous analyses of Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Farthest Shore” and Gene Wolfe’s “The Urth of the New Sun.” Befitting an admirer of the ultraserious F.R. Leavis, he holds the genre to high standards. At an exhibition of science fiction art, Nicholls observes “serried ranks of fantasy pictures, nearly unbelievably imaginative in exactly the same kitschy way as each other.” Criticizing Larry Niven’s “Ringworld,” he rightly insists that “if a technical concept is not given meaning in a human context it simply does not matter.” Literature, after all, is about why it matters to be alive.
That cetaceous simile deliberately mirrors Clute’s own baroque style and might also be the best description of his critical persona that anyone has ever given. As evidence, consider “Sticking to the End” (Beccon), the seventh and most recent collection of Clute’s reviews and essays. Throughout, the syntax is punchy and slangy, while the diction often grows brazenly recondite. To paraphrase a line from “Jaws”: When you start reading Clute, you’re going to need a bigger dictionary. In just one review I had to look up the words “aliquot,” “sophont” and “prelusive.” That said, some of the critical terms he draws on, such as “Godgame,” “Mysterious Stranger” and “Slingshot Ending,” have passed into wide use and are crisply defined in the “Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,” where, it should also be noted, his entries — hundreds, perhaps thousands of them — are not only authoritative but plainly written.
Let me briefly mention two additional collections of essays. I won’t say a lot about R.B. Russell’s “Fifty Forgotten Books” (And Other Stories) because I liked it so much I contributed a blurb to its back cover. But when this novelist, short-story writer and publisher (of Tartarus Press) discusses Roland Topor’s “The Tenant,” Denton Welch’s “In Youth Is Pleasure,” Pamela Hansford Johnson’s “The Unspeakable Skipton” or Rachel Ferguson’s “The Brontës Went to Woolworth’s,” he recalls where each title was bought and what it meant to him at the time and what he thinks of it now. As a result, these engaging, personal essays form a partial autobiography, reminding us that a bookish life can be an enviably fulfilling one.
That’s certainly a sentiment G. Thomas Tanselle would agree with. As our leading authority on all aspects of bibliography and textual criticism, he often writes highly specialized articles, but that’s not true in the case of “Books in My Life” (Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia). Its centerpiece is “The Living Room: A Memoir,” in which the novels, scholarly nonfiction and journals in Tanselle’s Manhattan apartment, as well as various decorative objects, elicit memories of a happy childhood in Indiana, years as a teacher at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, his long tenure as vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and, above all, the many friends he has made during his career as a “scholar-collector.” Much of his library, he tells us, is kept in handsome, glass-faced barrister bookcases, totaling more than 100 stackable shelf units. May I express my quite serious envy?
Two of this volume’s other essays consider the value of inscribed books and the principles that guide a bibliographer. Perhaps the most exhilarating article, however, argues for the vital importance of “non-firsts” in the study of any book’s history and influence. Because first editions are so prized, not to say fetishized, few dealers bother to catalogue or even note a publisher’s subsequent reprintings of a popular title. As Tanselle recalls, “When I once purchased a copy of the twenty-first printing of ‘Main Street’ from a Chicago dealer (having checked my list to see that I did not own it), he remarked that I was probably the only person who would have bought it because it was the twenty-first printing.”
As excellent as they are, none of the four books noted here are likely to go into a 21st printing. Still, that only means their lucky readers will just need to be content, as they doubtless will be, with a nice, crisp first edition. | 2022-11-10T12:48:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michael Dirda on books on the glory of bookish life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/10/dirda-books/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/10/dirda-books/ |
Egyptian authorities medically intervene on hunger striking dissident
Sanaa Seif, center left, sister of Egypt's jailed leading pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, walks past a demonstration in support of political prisoners at the COP27 Thursday. (Nariman El-Mofty/AP)
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, EGYPT — The family of Alaa Abdel Fattah, the British-Egyptian political prisoner on a hunger and water strike in prison, was informed by Egyptian officials on Thursday that he has undergone “a medical intervention with the knowledge of a judicial authority,” they said.
The family is now demanding immediate access to him, whether in prison or a hospital, expressing concerns he could die under the care of Egyptian authorities due to the seriousness of his health condition after more than 200 days on hunger strike.
The escalation comes one day before President Biden is set to land in Egypt to visit COP27, the U.N. Climate Conference currently taking place in the coastal town of Sharm el-Sheikh. The United States is a close ally of Egypt and provides more than $1 billion in military aid to the country each year, but has repeatedly criticized its human rights record.
Abdel Fattah, a once-prominent activist in the 2011 revolution, has been in and out of prison for the last decade on charges human rights group decry as an attempt to silence dissent. His case has become a central topic at COP27 — especially after an Egyptian lawmaker confronted his younger sister, Sanaa Seif, at a news conference discussing his case.
Ahead of the conference, Seif camped outside the British Foreign Office to demand a meeting with top officials and pledges they would ensure her brother, who claimed his British citizenship from prison last year and was issued a British passport, be released. The siblings’ mother, a math professor at Cairo University, was born in London.
Seif flew from London to Sharm el-Sheikh early this week, where she has repeatedly raised her brother’s case as part of discussions on human rights. The family, who last heard from him in a letter last week that he would stop drinking water on Sunday, has repeatedly warned that he could die before the conference ends next week.
Several world leaders, including British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, raised his case directly with President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. Under the terms of his sentencing, the presidency is the only office with the authority to pardon him. But despite days of demands, his family has still not had proof of life or seen any indication he may be released.
Seif said Wednesday that she does not know if he is still alive. On Thursday, after the siblings’ mother — who has waited outside each day this week for a letter from her son — was asked to leave the area outside of Wadi el-Natroun prison complex outside Cairo where he is being held.
The family’s lawyer, Khaled Ali, then announced on social media that he has been approved to visit Abdel Fattah and is on his way to the facility. | 2022-11-10T12:53:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alaa Abdel Fattah undergoes medical intervention by Egyptian authorities amid hunger strike - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/egypt-alaa-abdel-fattah-hunger-strike-medical-intervention/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/egypt-alaa-abdel-fattah-hunger-strike-medical-intervention/ |
Coach Lane Kiffin and Mississippi will look to drive the final stake into Alabama’s season Saturday. (Rogelio V. Solis/AP)
Tennessee and Syracuse couldn’t keep up as underdogs this past weekend, but Fresno State bulldozed Hawaii and Northwestern stayed under its team total as predicted, making it another 2-2 week for this column. I’ve been treading water for a few weeks but still stand at 21-18-1 for the season.
No. 11 Mississippi (+11.5) vs. No. 9 Alabama, 3:30 p.m., CBS
As Rebels Coach Lane Kiffin noted this week, the Crimson Tide is a missed field goal (against Tennessee) and a stopped two-point conversion attempt (against LSU) away from being undefeated and probably the No. 1 or No. 2 team in the country. But it lost both of those games, and now we’re left in the awkward position of trying to handicap an Alabama team that has two losses before the Iron Bowl for the first time since 2010.
The Crimson Tide’s sloppy performances on the road this season do not leave me optimistic that they can cover the number against a pretty good Mississippi team. In four trips away from home, Alabama got outplayed by a Texas team playing with a backup quarterback but won on a last-minute field goal, needed 21 fourth-quarter points to pull away from Arkansas and was nipped at the wire by Tennessee and LSU. And the unfriendly crowds seem to be getting to a program that once relished quieting visiting stadiums: The Crimson Tide has averaged 12.8 penalties for 105.8 yards in four road games, up from 8.7 and 74.6 in all games (in all, Alabama has been flagged 78 times, which is the most in the Football Bowl Subdivision).
The Rebels’ bugaboo of late is a pass defense that has surrendered 8.3 yards per attempt in SEC play, and that includes games against teams such as Vanderbilt, Auburn and Kentucky that aren’t exactly known for their passing prowess. But Alabama’s wide receivers have dropped 21 passes this season, fifth most among Power Five programs, another sign of sloppiness that has let opponents hang around.
Mississippi can certainly do that. Running backs Quinshon Judkins and Zach Evans and quarterback Jaxson Dart all are averaging at least 5.8 yards per carry, and LSU’s running backs averaged 6.1 yards per attempt this past weekend. The Rebels’ defense has sacked opposing quarterbacks on 8 percent of their drop-backs, good for 23rd nationally, and LSU harassed Alabama quarterback Bryce Young all game, pressuring him on 38.2 percent of his drop-backs to force numerous throwaways.
Nick Saban’s Alabama dynasty might not be dead, but it isn’t fully operational, either, and I wonder about motivation for a program that has played in seven of the eight College Football Playoffs but almost certainly has no shot this season. Of the five Associated Press preseason top 10 teams that have lost at least twice this season, four failed to cover in the game that followed the hope-killing second loss. Alabama, the preseason No. 1 team, will make it five.
No. 21 Illinois (-6.5) vs. Purdue, noon, ESPN2
Considering the Fighting Illini’s surprising loss to reeling Michigan State this past weekend, you may be thinking about taking the points and the Boilermakers here. Don’t.
Illinois did everything but win against the Spartans, advancing past Michigan State’s 30-yard line seven times but coming away with only 15 points. The Illini turned it over on downs on three such drives and fumbled on another one of them. Illinois outgained the Spartans in terms of yards per play but simply sputtered as it approached the goal line. I’m thinking that doesn’t happen again.
Purdue, meanwhile, was last seen giving up 6.5 yards per play to Iowa. “Punting is winning” Iowa. “No. 129 in total offense” Iowa. Illinois’s offense is nothing exciting, and in seven games against Power Five opponents, the Illini has exceeded 26 points only once. But Illinois does have running back Chase Brown, who is second nationally at 149.3 rushing yards per game, and Purdue just gave up 200 rushing yards and 9.1 yards per carry to Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson.
The Boilermakers could only manage a terrible 3.4 yards per play against the Hawkeyes, and Illinois’s defense rivals Iowa’s: The Hawkeyes are No. 1 nationally in yards per play allowed (3.9), while the Illini are right behind them at 4.1. Plus, opposing quarterbacks have compiled a 84.1 rating against Illinois, the worst mark in the nation by a fairly wide margin, and Purdue quarterback Aidan O’Connell is coming off his poorest game of the season (20 for 43, 168 yards, two interceptions vs. Iowa). The Illini bounce back here to set up a big game with Michigan next weekend.
New Mexico (+21.5) at Air Force, 3:30 p.m., CBS Sports Network
The 2-7 Lobos have lost five straight, have no hope of a bowl game and are just playing out the string at this point. Only Massachusetts averages fewer yards per play than New Mexico’s 4.1. But we’re going to hold our nose and take a swing at the big, ugly dog here.
For starters, New Mexico and Air Force run similar offenses, so the Lobos defense will not be surprised by what the Falcons give them. Think of it as an unofficial service-academy game, and Air Force failed to cover as a favorite in its games this year against Army and Navy, neither of which have hugely better defenses than New Mexico’s. The Black Knights actually are much worse on defense than New Mexico, yet Air Force managed only 13 points and 4.9 yards per play in this past weekend’s win, with both either being season lows or very close to it.
New Mexico has led at halftime three times during its five-game losing streak, only to falter as those games wore on. In fact, it had the ball late in the fourth quarter with a chance to win or at least cover in all three of those games but has gotten its fill of bad turnover luck:
The Lobos trailed Utah State 20-10 late in the fourth quarter this past weekend and were near midfield when Justin Holaday’s fumble in horrid weather was returned by the Aggies for a touchdown. Final score: Utah State 27, New Mexico 10, the Aggies failing to cover as 14.5-point underdogs.
On Oct. 8, Lobos quarterback Miles Kendrick threw a pick-six with 1:09 left in the game, sealing Wyoming’s 27-14 win.
The week before at UNLV, New Mexico led 17-9 at halftime but lost, 31-20, after the Rebels returned another Kendrick interception for a score with 28 seconds left.
The total for this one is set at just 37.5 points, and one has to think the Lobos will need just 10 points to cover. I think that’s a good bet.
No. 12 UCLA (-19.5) vs. Arizona, 10:30 p.m., Fox
The Wildcats put up seven yards per play in this past weekend’s 45-20 loss to Utah. That’s good! Problem is, they gained 242 of their 387 total yards on only six plays. The other 49 plays gained just 145 yards (2.96 per play), and four of them were turnovers.
UCLA’s defense is set up nicely to stop a boom-or-bust offense such as Arizona’s. The Bruins rank 10th nationally in passing-play explosiveness allowed and have given up only 21 passing plays of at least 20 yards (No. 13 in the nation). Plus, the Wildcats offense could be missing wide receiver Jacob Cowing, who left the Utah game in the fourth quarter with an apparent knee injury. Cowing leads the Pac-12 with 65 receptions and is tied for first with seven touchdown catches, and he ranks second in receiving yards (858).
Erratic Arizona quarterback Jayden de Laura will probably be throwing a bunch because it’s near-certain that the Wildcats will be playing from behind. Arizona’s defense is simply a horror show, ranking 127th in yards allowed per carry (5.9) and dead last in rushing success rate allowed. UCLA running back Zach Charbonnet is averaging 7.6 yards per carry and must be salivating at the prospect of facing this defense.
The only thing that probably could stop the Bruins here is if they are looking ahead to next weekend’s massive rivalry game with USC, but I don’t think it’ll be a huge factor. I’ll take the big favorite. | 2022-11-10T13:10:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | College football best bets, locks, picks, underdogs and favorites - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/college-football-best-bets/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/college-football-best-bets/ |
Stephen Strasburg looks to still be a ways away from returning to the mound. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
LAS VEGAS — It’s been a month since the Washington Nationals’ season came to a close, and five since Stephen Strasburg last pitched in a major league game, his only start before returning to the injured list.
Yet when Mike Rizzo spoke to reporters Wednesday afternoon at this week’s general managers’ meetings, he didn’t have any definitive, detailed updates on when Strasburg might be back.
What Rizzo did say is that Strasburg is still doing the flexibility and strengthening programs that he was doing during the season and that he’s been performing well. The hope is that those programs will allow him to eventually start a throwing program before preparations for Spring Training begin.
“We’re not ruling out that [he could pitch for the Nationals again],” Rizzo said. “So we’re hoping that he progresses to a point where he starts throwing and then builds up in a throwing program and starts pitching for us.”
Strasburg reached the pinnacle of his career when a dominant postseason earned him World Series MVP honors in 2019. He signed a seven-year, $245 million contract that December, but three seasons — in the prime years of his deal — have come and gone without much action from the now 34-year old pitcher.
He logged 36⅓ innings during that World Series run, but injuries have limited him to just 31⅓ innings since, leaving doubts about how much more Strasburg has left in the tank with a contract that won’t expire until after the 2026 season.
Strasburg underwent surgery for carpal tunnel neuritis in 2020, then thoracic outlet syndrome in 2021. The Nationals tried to ease him back into the rotation by having him work out at their Spring Training facility in West Palm Beach before making a handful of rehab starts. Then, in his lone start of the year at the Major League level, he allowed seven runs in 4⅔ innings against the Miami Marlins before returning to the injured list a few days later.
But Strasburg’s injury history is more extensive than the last few years. He had Tommy John surgery in 2010 and has made a total of 15 trips to the injured list in his career, including for lingering neck tightness in 2018 that he believes was the first sign of thoracic outlet syndrome. Strasburg admitted that the carpal tunnel surgery in 2020 was a quicker path to return and was likely a misdiagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome.
Even in his rehab start in Fredericksburg this year, Strasburg admitted to feeling tightness between his wrist and thumb. Strasburg’s arm also went numb after standing for long periods of time earlier in the season, his only relief coming when he laid down.
Strasburg has visited with a specialist this offseason, according to Rizzo, in an attempt to get back on the mound.. His presence typically leads to team success: since 2012, the Nationals have made the playoffs in four of the five seasons when Strasburg made at least 28 starts.
But beyond the outings, Rizzo took pride in what Strasburg had meant to the organization as he stood in front of reporters Wednesday. Rizzo said Strasburg had more fanfare than any other prospect he’d seen, including Bryce Harper. He laughed while recounting the need for security when Strasburg started Class AA games. Then he spoke about his historic 14-strikeout debut before turning to his historic postseason run in 2019 that ended with his performance in Game 6 of the World Series.
An oral history of Stephen Strasburg’s unforgettable MLB debut
Rizzo reiterated his view that starting pitching is still the most important thing for any team trying to contend for a championship. The Nationals are starting to build a young core (Cade Cavalli, Josiah Gray and MacKenzie Gore) that they believe can help get them back there, with reinforcements to come in the future.
Strasburg is the one remaining Nationals player linking the future with the past. Rizzo said the team’s young pitchers have gone to Strasburg for advice, and many view him as a “legendary figure” because of what he’s accomplished in his career.
That presence, valuable in the locker room, could be greater on the field, even if he’s not the same pitcher that he once was.
“[Strasburg] has had a lot of physical ailments,” Rizzo said. “And it’s not a good feeling for him. He wants to be out there. He wants to pitch. When he is out there pitching, he’s as good as anybody in the game. So it’s frustrating to him. And same for us. He was a big part of our franchise, big part of our championships.
“I’d just like to see him get healthy enough where he can go out there and throw again and end on his terms. Not because he wasn’t healthy.” | 2022-11-10T13:10:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals' Mike Rizzo provides a Stephen Strasburg progress report - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/nationals-mike-rizzo-stephen-strasburg/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/nationals-mike-rizzo-stephen-strasburg/ |
‘The Varieties of Spiritual Experience’ aims to update a classic
Two scientists use a century’s worth of study into transcendent experience to continue a project started by William James
Review by Daniel Burke
Whether you call such experiences religious, spiritual, self-transcendent or mystical, stories of souls shaken by intense encounters with the supernatural occur in almost every religion, from Saint Paul seeing the light to the Buddha’s awakening under a fig tree. Despite that history, copping to such an experience is more likely to get you labeled mentally ill than a mystic.
While witnessing strange signs and wonders can indeed be a symptom of psychosis, new studies suggest that for many people these experiences are deeply meaningful and transformative, with the power to positively reshape their moods, beliefs and behavior. They’re also surprisingly common, with close to a third of Americans saying they’ve had a “profound religious experience or awakening that changed the direction” of their life. As psychedelic therapy becomes more accessible, that number will probably rise.
The scholars frame their work as a successor to William James’s masterpiece, “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (1902), which pioneered the scientific study of religion. James, a Harvard-trained psychologist and philosopher who also studied medicine, still looms over the field. (The Mystical Experience Questionnaire is based on his thinking.) It’s a stretch to say that updating his “Varieties” is like writing a Third Testament, but it’s in that vein.
Yaden and Newberg are well-suited to risk the heresy. Yaden is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he works at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. Newberg, a leader in the emerging field of neurotheology, is research director at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University and the author of several books, including “How God Changes Your Brain.”
But psychedelics form a small fraction of the book’s wide scope, which includes an investigation of the science behind altered states, a proposal for new ways to classify spiritual experiences and philosophical reflections on the metaphysical reality — or not — of these supernatural events.
The scholars model their approach after James, who rescued religious experiences from both metaphysicians, who saw them as threats to orthodoxy, and materialists, who dismissed them as madness. Like James, Yaden and Newberg aren’t selling a particular idea but offer multifaceted analyses of dozens of spiritual testimonials, drawing insights from cross-cultural studies, psychology, psychiatry, biology, pharmacology and neuroscience. If the book sometimes speeds through subjects, providing overviews rather than deep analysis, the writing is careful and accessible.
Yaden and Newberg don’t display James’s profound insights into human nature (this is no slight; James was a genuine genius), but they do benefit from more than a century of scientific progress.
It can be hard to talk about the moments that interest James, Yaden and Newberg, much less make sense of them. I’m still not sure I had a spiritual experience. (In such cases, Yaden and Newberg suggest the “orgasm test”: If you’re not sure you had one, you probably didn’t.)
As psychedelics move further into the psychiatric mainstream, the long-term integration of spiritual experiences will prove as important as the moments of the heady trips themselves. To borrow a line from the religion scholar Huston Smith, the goal of spiritual life is not altered states but altered traits. Yaden and Newberg demystify these enigmatic events, providing a “field guide for identifying the various types of spiritual experiences one might spot in the wild.” Their sensible and sensitive work should sit comfortably on the shelf next to James’s.
As for the question about whether I encountered ultimate reality, who can really say? It felt real to me. I rated it 2 out of 5, a cautious yes.
Daniel Burke is a writer in Maryland. He was formerly CNN’s religion editor.
The Varieties of Spiritual Experience
21st Century Research and Perspectives
By David B. Yaden and Andrew B. Newberg
Oxford University Press. 430 pp. $34.95 | 2022-11-10T13:10:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'The Varieties of Spiritual Experience' Updates a Classic Study - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/10/varieties-spiritual-experience-psychedelics-david-yaden-andrew-newberg-review/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/10/varieties-spiritual-experience-psychedelics-david-yaden-andrew-newberg-review/ |
George Mason University launches College of Public Health
The university said it is the first to be offered in Virginia
By Corinne Dorsey
George Mason University announced recently that it has established a College of Public Health. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
George Mason University has officially renamed the former College of Health and Human Services to the College of Public Health, refocusing its efforts on public health education, research and practice.
It will be the first college of public health in Virginia, the university said. The college will implement new programs at the undergraduate master’s and doctoral levels that include a focus in epidemiology, biostatistics, nutrition and population health, social behavior and health policy.
“It’s predicted in the next 10 to 15 years that the opportunities for health care and health-related professions will grow at least 16 percent. And that means that students interested in health, health care, health delivery, public health, population health, health inequalities, will have access to great education in the DMV area,” said George Mason Provost and Executive Vice President Mark Ginsberg.
The announcement on Nov. 1 came after the formal approval of the renaming by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. The university set its sights on becoming a College of Public Health more than nine years ago with the intention of making a major contribution to the public health workforce in the commonwealth and the larger D.C. area, according to Melissa J. Perry, dean of the new college.
A document for the state council about the proposed renaming cited a 2021 Virginia Department of Health report that said “to lead the nation in healthy outcomes, Virginia must establish a school dedicated to education, research, and community service in public health. Schools and Colleges of Public Health provide a concentrated forum for thought leaders, community partners, and impassioned students to understand and address critical health challenges.”
The document also said the coronavirus pandemic put public health at the “forefront of American consciousness.”
Virginia is now the 36th state in the country to have a college of public health, the university said.
“There’s probably never been a time where public health has been more important to think about population health and to think about the health of our nation,” said Ginsberg. “Think about the health of our region, the health of our state, and certainly think of the health of our local community here in Northern Virginia and the DMV more generally. This is a real opportunity, we think, for the university to have a focus and an emphasis on public health issues.”
The revamped college at George Mason includes the School of Nursing and the departments of health administration and policy, nutrition and food studies, and social work. The new key initiatives of the programs will meet public health infrastructure, research, and workforce needs.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) praised the university for establishing the new college.
"The College’s work on important issues such as mental health, suicide prevention, opioid misuse, and providing health services to the underserved, is vital to our region’s future health,” Kaine said in a university press release. “As someone dealing with minor long COVID symptoms, I also believe the College’s research on this and other infectious diseases is critical in mitigating future pandemics,” said Kaine. | 2022-11-10T13:10:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | George Mason University launches College of Public Health - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/10/george-mason-college-public-health/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/10/george-mason-college-public-health/ |
A “Building A Better America” sign at Los Angeles Metro’s Purple (D Line) Extension Transit Project in Los Angeles, California, US, on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. The $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill that was signed into law last year includes billions in investments for roads, rail, and ports, as President Biden has touted the bill as a measure that will ease bottlenecks driving inflation over the long term. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
In 2010, the economy was weak and Republicans believed that they had a mandate to cut spending, which then held back the economic recovery. This year’s economy has been affected by a lot of fiscal drags from policies enacted in 2021, but those are unlikely to be a restraint in 2023. On the contrary, there are fiscal boosts already in the pipeline that a Republican Congress won’t be able to undo. This is good news if you’re worried about Republicans using their levers of power to slow down the economy. It’s not such good news if you’re worried about inflation.
The thing to recall about the economy in the years following the 2008 recession is that state and local government finances were in tatters. There wasn’t much political appetite for raising taxes to balance budgets when unemployment was high. When Republicans swept to power in 2010 that became even less possible as spending cuts paved the way for state and local governments to balance their budgets. At a time when the economy could have used a boost, state and local governments cut 278,000 jobs in 2011, and Republicans in Washington worked to cut more than $1 trillion in federal spending that same year.
Heading into 2023, the economic situation couldn’t be more different. At the end of 2010 the unemployment rate was above 9%. Today, it’s below 4%. And because the economic story of 2022 has been a mix of strong job growth and elevated inflation, it’s been easy to forget that there have been drags on economic growth in 2022 due to the absence of some of the fiscal boons from 2021. There were no $1,400 stimulus checks or enhanced unemployment insurance payments this year, and the additional child tax credit included in the American Rescue Plan wasn’t renewed this summer.
Because financial markets are having a terrible year in 2022, that fiscal drag from capital gains taxes won’t exist next year. And unlike in 2011, state and local governments are currently flush with money due to a mix of pandemic stimulus and strong economic growth, and are finally getting around to spending it.
If you’re worried about the prospects of recession with a Congress unable or unwilling to support the economy in a downturn, this is reassuring. State and local governments and the federal government are set to spend more, not less, next year because of a mix of their budgetary outlook and already-implemented legislation.
But if you’re more worried about inflation staying elevated, this is, perhaps, cause for concern. In hindsight we can say that what the economy needed in 2011 was more government spending rather than the budget cuts we got. So it’s possible that the increase in spending that’s going to happen next year is bad timing for the economy, and could cause the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates even higher. It’s that possibility — too much government spending at a time of high inflation and rising interest rates, rather than the fears of repeating 2011 — that people should focus on.
Don’t Count on Usual Post-Midterm Stock Rally: Jonathan Levin
Please, No Recounts. They’re Bad for Democracy: Stephen Carter
Biden’s a Better Economic Manager Than You Think: Opinion Wrap | 2022-11-10T13:19:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republicans Can’t Stop a New Wave of Government Spending - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/republicans-cant-stop-a-new-wave-of-government-spending/2022/11/10/34e518ac-60f4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/republicans-cant-stop-a-new-wave-of-government-spending/2022/11/10/34e518ac-60f4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Ivydel Natachu works with 3-year-olds at a preschool in Albuquerque. (Marie-Pier Frigon)
On Tuesday, New Mexico became the first state in the nation to create a permanent fund for child care. More than 70 percent of New Mexicans agreed to amend the state constitution and spend about $150 million a year on early learning. The next morning, providers from across the country gathered on a Zoom call to celebrate.
Many wiped away tears as an advocate relayed the news: The fund would make child care more affordable for hundreds of thousands of families, and workers would finally win the wage increases they’d long needed.
“I’m emotional right now,” Ivydel Natachu said. She works with 3-year-olds at a preschool in Albuquerque, and she’d spent years advocating with the nonprofit organization Olé to create the fund. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the 52-year-old earned only $10 an hour. But the state’s leaders had funneled federal relief into temporary raises, and Natachu’s pay had risen to $15 an hour.
“And now I’m starting to save money,” she told the group of about 50 providers on the Zoom call. “I’m saving money to buy a house. That’s my personal goal. With the constitutional amendment passing, I think my dream’s going to come true.”
Only some of the providers who’d logged on that morning were from New Mexico, but nearly everyone cheered. Tuesday’s victory wasn’t just a win for New Mexico, many said. It was a road map.
Historically, the United States has invested fewer public dollars in early-childhood care relative to gross domestic product than almost any developed country, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That has left child-care workers with some of the country’s lowest wages. As Natachu finished speaking, providers from Minnesota, Ohio and California said they felt energized. New Mexico had long been ranked one of the country’s worst for child well-being, and activists there had faced a decade of opposition. If they could turn it around, couldn’t anyone?
Lorella Praeli, a New Yorker who co-runs the nonprofit organization Community Change in Action, also spoke on the Zoom call.
“Now,” she said, “the question in these moments is, how does this happen?”
Child-care advocates in New Mexico have tried for more than a decade to secure this money. The fight began in 2011, when a group called New Mexico Voices for Children proposed tapping into the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund to pay for early child care and education programs. The state already uses the century-old reserve to help pay for its public school programs, but that initial proposition didn’t make it onto the ballot.
In fact, one advocate explained on the Zoom call, activists tried every year to tap into the reserve, but a group of state lawmakers kept blocking the proposed constitutional amendment from making it out of a state rules committee. Finally, a coalition of nonprofit groups decided to focus its energy on electing new, child-care-friendly candidates. In 2020, those candidates defeated four of the five lawmakers who’d blocked the amendment. The next year, the amendment made it out of committee. The votes were far from unanimous, but both the House and Senate agreed to put the amendment on the ballot so voters could decide.
The legislative win was just the first step, advocates explained during the Zoom call. After the session ended last year, a group of working-class Latinas, most of them parents or providers who volunteer for Olé, spent their free time contacting voters. They knocked on 30,853 doors, made 83,400 phone calls and texted an additional 70,972 people. Most of those voters were, like the activists themselves, Latino, Indigenous or first-time voters.
Merline Gallegos, a Las Cruces-based family child-care provider who traveled the state to talk to voters, said she’d found that many understood why it needed to pass. The median income in New Mexico is just $51,243, and many parents could not afford child care before Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) used pandemic relief to offer free child care for a year to most families.
“But we had many negative things,” Gallegos said in Spanish. “Many people are against early childhood.”
Before the election, at least one long-term senator had said child care is “way overfunded,” and Mark Ronchetti, the Republican candidate for governor, opposed the constitutional amendment. But Lujan Grisham won reelection Tuesday night, and in her acceptance speech she vowed to make child care free for every New Mexican.
In Texas, child-care providers are returning to a broken system
“I can go back to those families and tell them they’re not going to have to worry anymore,” Gallegos told the Zoom participants. “It’s going to make history around the country because child care is a worldwide issue. Everyone is going through this crisis.”
As Gallegos spoke, providers nodded and raised their fists in victory. Advocates from California vowed to charter buses to their capitol next session. Karin Swenson, a child-care center director from Minnesota, said she was celebrating as if she herself had won.
“We’ve been living in a state where our Senate has not let us move forward with anything in terms of early childhood, so it’s really cool to see what you’ve been doing,” Swenson said. “We’ve been following you in New Mexico and we can see now that it’s possible for us to do that also.” | 2022-11-10T13:19:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In N.M. child-care funding win, providers nationwide see road map - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/new-mexico-child-care-fund/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/new-mexico-child-care-fund/ |
The young Brazilian and players such as Maradona, Messi and Ronaldo turned the tournament into one of the most-watched sports events.
France scores against Brazil with a header at the 1998 FIFA World Cup final. The tournament, among the most-watched sporting events on earth, begins this month in Qatar. (Sven Simon/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP)
The FIFA World Cup, one of the most-watched sporting event on earth, begins next week in Qatar. To understand some of why it’s so popular, let’s look at World Cup history.
The first World Cup was played in 1930 in the small South American country of Uruguay. Only 13 countries competed in the first tournament.
There were no intercontinental airplane flights back then. Teams from Europe, for example, had to travel for up to three weeks, including 10 days by ship, to get to Uruguay. So most European teams stayed home. Fans listened to updates on the radio. (People didn’t have TVs then.)
Uruguay won the tournament by beating Argentina in the final match, 4-2. The United States played in the first World Cup and made the semifinals. No U.S. men’s team has done as well since.
Interest in the World Cup grew over the years even though the tournament could not be played in 1942 and 1946 because of World War II. An Italian soccer official hid the World Cup trophy under his bed during the war years to make sure soldiers from Nazi Germany didn’t take it.
The greatest upset in the history of the World Cup happened when the tournament resumed in 1950. The United States shocked the powerhouse squad from England, 1-0, in an early game. That upset was like a small college football team beating the Super Bowl champions.
One player who attracted fans from around the world to the World Cup was Edson Arantes do Nascimento of Brazil, known as Pelé. The fabulous forward burst onto the World Cup scene in 1958 as a 17-year-old sensation.
The talented teenager scored three goals in the semifinal and two in the final to lead Brazil to its first World Cup.
Brazil won again in 1962 although Pelé missed most of the tournament because of injuries. He bounced back in 1970 by scoring one goal and assisting with two more in the final against Italy to lead Brazil to its third World Cup.
Brazil was allowed to keep the World Cup trophy because it had won the tournament for a third time (FIFA made a new trophy that is used now). The original trophy, however, was stolen in 1983 and has never been recovered.
Other players became famous for less-than-perfect World Cup moments. Maradona, a superstar scorer, punched a ball into the goal with his fist (even though that’s against the rules) to help Argentina beat England in a crucial quarterfinal match and lead Argentina to the 1986 title.
Zinedine Zidane of France lost his temper and smacked his head against an Italian opponent and was thrown out of the 2006 final. The incident may have cost France the title as it lost to Italy in a penalty shootout.
Qualifying for this year's World Cup was no easy feat for U.S. Men's National Team
Who will be the star of the 2022 tournament, which features 32 teams from around the world? Veterans such as Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal or Lionel Messi of Argentina? Kylian Mbappé of defending champion France? A new, young sensation?
Watch the tournament and see World Cup history in the making. | 2022-11-10T13:20:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World Cup grew in popularity with an assist from Pelé, other stars - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/10/world-cup-history-highlights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/10/world-cup-history-highlights/ |
Biden has been granted a new lease on life
President Biden delivers remarks at the White House on Wednesday. (Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
President Biden, perhaps the most underrated politician in decades, took a victory lap on Wednesday following the Democrats’ remarkably strong showing in the midterm elections. And he certainly deserved to do so: He now joins a small group of modern presidents who emerged from their first midterm cycle relatively unscathed.
Biden seemed relaxed during his Wednesday afternoon news conference, enjoying a less contentious interchange with the media than some previous encounters. “While the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn’t happen,” he said. After being written off by many as a failed president, blamed for inflation, mocked for his speeches warning of a threat to democracy and jabbed for not appearing in some swing states, Biden was entitled to say, “I told you so.”
Nevertheless, his remarks were remarkably humble. He reiterated that he understands that Americans continue to suffer from inflation. And he declared: “Regardless of what the final tally in these elections show, and there’s still some counting going on, I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues. And the American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me, as well.”
It appears the president understands more than any Democrat how utterly off-base and irrelevant much of the media coverage can be. Scores of polls, regardless of their quality, drove a media narrative that not only did nothing to enlighten voters but also turned out to be flat wrong. Biden, both in his presidential campaign and his presidency, has seemed uniquely able to tune out the noise, ignore the Twitter claptrap and deliver results that his party can show to the voters.
Biden reiterated his economic vision of building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out. That agenda has certainly provided the foundation for the Democrats’ better-than-expected showing on Tuesday. In a series of interviews with Democrats in swing districts, incumbents often stressed to me the importance of the bipartisan infrastructure plan and the other legislative successes that followed. This series of victories — including measures to reduce prescription drug prices; expanded health care for veterans exposed to burn pits; the Chips and Science Act; the first gun-safety bill in decades; an historic investment in green energy — helped change the dynamic in their races. (These Democrats also heavily leaned into the abortion issue, which Biden highlighted in the weeks leading up to the midterms.)
Biden will almost certainly run for a second term — regardless of whether it is a good idea. He might do so even if former president Donald Trump, weighed down by the midterm disaster he helped bring about, decides not to run. On Wednesday, Biden reiterated his intention to run but added that it would be a family decision and that he didn’t feel a rush to decide.
In any case, Biden’s party held its ground this year, despite raging inflation and a mobilized MAGA base. The president might therefore figure that if he can tame inflation, he could rack up even more wins for himself and his party before 2024.
Republicans will be on defense for the next two years. They will have to deal with the craziest elements in their base, and they will struggle to throw Trump off their backs. Any majority they gain in Congress will likely be tiny, allowing Biden to try to pick off nervous Republicans to support popular measures. The rest of the GOP will be left standing in the breach as it engages in extreme, chaotic and unpopular stunts to keep its base engaged.
Biden has been granted a new lease on life. Expect him to make the most of it. | 2022-11-10T13:20:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Biden has been granted a new lease on life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/biden-midterm-election-victory-lap/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/biden-midterm-election-victory-lap/ |
Aaron Schaffer
President Biden said that aspects of Elon Musk’s business dealings deserve scrutiny, in response to questions about the involvement of foreign governments in acquiring the social media company Twitter.
“I think that Elon Musk’s cooperation and or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at,” Biden told reporters Wednesday while speaking about the midterm election results.
“Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I am not suggesting that,” he said. “I am suggesting that it’s worth being looked at, and that’s all I’ll say.”
Biden did not give details of how this scrutiny could take place, but added: “There’s a lot of ways.”
His comments follow reporting by The Washington Post last week that Musk had struck confidential agreements with investors that entitled them to confidential information rights in the company if they poured $250 million or more into his bid to buy it. That threshold would appear to qualify investors including a Saudi Prince’s holding company, a subsidiary of Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and crypto exchange Binance — which was founded in China — for information rights in the company.
Authority to review the purchase deal could come from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), experts on the subject told The Post.
Musk bought Twitter last month for about $44 billion and has instigated an overhaul in the site’s function and laid off thousands of workers.
After his purchase, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal tweeted that his company was now the second-largest investor in Twitter after Musk — holding shares worth almost $2 billion. Twitter is extremely popular among young Saudis despite a crackdown in recent years under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler.
“Together all the way,” Talal tweeted with a handshake emoji in late October. Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Company is 16.9 percent owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which is chaired by Mohammed, according to Reuters.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said last month that following Musk’s purchase, he had asked the CFIUS, which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign investors, to “conduct an investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia’s purchase of Twitter.”
“We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting U.S. politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform,” he tweeted. “There is a clear national security issue at stake and CFIUS should do a review.” Murphy also cited Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, calling foreign-owned tech a “dangerous trend.”
The U.S. government previously said Saudi officials sought information about Twitter users, and a former Twitter manager was convicted in August of concealing payments from Saudi agents in exchange for accessing confidential user data.
Musk, who was born in South Africa but is a U.S. citizen, is no stranger to the political fray. His attempts to influence foreign policy in 280 characters or less before purchasing Twitter raised fears in Washington about how he will wield the platform’s influence and his own now that the deal is done.
Musk also has extensive ties to China through his publicly traded electric vehicle company, Tesla.
Tesla’s “Gigafactory” in Shanghai has been its busiest production plant and serves as a vital export hub. It is also reliant on China for production needs — the country dominates the global supply of lithium, the key component in electric vehicle batteries — through its vast processing and refining apparatus.
On Wednesday, Musk laid out more of his plans for Twitter in a publicly broadcast meeting, watched by more than 100,000 people. He assured advertisers he had noted their concerns about hate speech and misinformation on the site while saying that the platform would continue changing rapidly. | 2022-11-10T13:20:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden suggests scrutiny of Musk’s foreign ties after Twitter purchase - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/biden-elon-musk-twitter-foreign-ties/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/biden-elon-musk-twitter-foreign-ties/ |
What has changed between China and Taiwan?
Even before the latest surge in tensions, the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait was on the rise
Analysis by Scott L. Kastner
Models of military equipment and a large screen displaying Chinese President Xi Jinping are seen at an exhibition at the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in Beijing on Oct. 8. (Florence Lo/Reuters)
How worried should we be about Taiwan-China relations? Some U.S. officials — including Secretary of State Antony Blinken — have recently suggested that the risk of military conflict in the Taiwan Strait is increasing.
These warnings come after months of turbulence in the Taiwan Strait. In August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) traveled to Taiwan and met with Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen. Beijing criticized the visit as a “major political provocation” and responded with large-scale military exercises near Taiwan.
Taiwanese people will be reassured by Pelosi’s visit, research says
In September, President Biden emphasized that the United States would intervene in the event of a Chinese attack against Taiwan, repeating warnings that he had issued in the past. And recent statements by Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping reiterate China’s resolve to achieve political unification with Taiwan. In his party congress speech last month, Xi stressed that China would “never promise to renounce the use of force” to accomplish its goals.
What’s behind this decades-long dispute — and what has changed? My new book on China-Taiwan relations helps explain the prospects for cross-strait military conflict.
China and Taiwan disagree on Taiwan’s sovereign status
The dispute over Taiwan dates to the end of China’s civil war in 1949. As the victorious Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, the defeated Nationalist Party (along with its government, the Republic of China) retreated 110 miles offshore to the island of Taiwan. In the decades that followed, both governments claimed to be the rightful government of all of China, and both viewed Taiwan as an integral part of their country.
Xi and Putin have declared a united front against the United States
In China, that view has remained largely unchanged: Beijing still views Taiwan as rightfully a part of China, and Chinese leaders view unification with the island as an important national objective. However, as Taiwan democratized in the 1990s, Taiwan’s approach to the cross-strait sovereignty dispute changed dramatically.
In democratic Taiwan, whether the island should be considered a part of China is openly debated. Today, most of the island’s 24 million citizens self-identify as Taiwanese — rather than Chinese — and there is virtually no support for near-term unification with China. Opinion polls in Taiwan show that most people would opt for formal independence if it could be achieved peacefully. In other words, the dispute today is less about which government is the rightful government of China. It’s more about whether Taiwan should be considered Chinese at all.
Experts have differing views on the likelihood of conflict
Even before the latest surge in tensions, some analysts argued that the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait was increasing. In 2021, high-ranking U.S. military officials testified before Congress that China could invade Taiwan in the next six years. Other analysts emphasize, however, that the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait should not be exaggerated, and that a war is unlikely, at least in the near term.
Experts arrive at different assessments in part because cross-strait relations are characterized by a complex mix of stabilizing and destabilizing factors. Those pessimistic about a cross-strait conflict tend to point first and foremost to a rapidly shifting balance of military power in the Taiwan Strait. They worry that China has the capability and will to use its growing military might to force unification.
Yet an attempt to resolve Taiwan’s status with military coercion remains risky for Beijing, and could undermine China’s extensive links to the global economy. And some analysts conclude that China lacks key capabilities needed to launch a successful invasion.
Others note that Xi appears less patient on Taiwan than his predecessors. He has stated on multiple occasions that the Taiwan issue should not be passed down generation after generation, for instance. Yet Xi’s China faces a range of extremely serious economic challenges.
Would economic or political pressures push Xi to act on Taiwan as a way of rallying public support around his rule? That’s not clear — these pressures also might dampen incentives to attack, since a cross-strait war would probably make China’s domestic economic challenges worse.
There are multiple pathways to conflict in the Taiwan Strait
Where do Taiwan and China stand? Both Taiwan and China have a range of goals in the Taiwan Strait. At the most basic level, Taiwan seeks to preserve the status quo, and avoid forced unification with China. But Taiwan has broader aims as well.
For example, surveys suggest there is wide agreement on the island that Taiwan should seek greater participation in international organizations. And many Taiwanese hold more ambitious goals, such as formalization of the island’s de facto independence.
Meanwhile, China clearly seeks progress on unification with Taiwan. But Beijing’s rhetoric about use of force is often framed around preventing moves by Taiwan toward greater independence.
These goals create a number of pathways to military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. China might turn to military force to achieve its goal of unification — but it could also use force reactively if Taiwan were to move sharply toward formal independence.
Beijing might also resort to force to stem what it sees as unfavorable trends in Taiwan. These might include political and social trends — including a growing Taiwan-centric identity — as well as deepening U.S.-Taiwan security ties. Such ties, from Beijing’s perspective, could effectively preclude unification as a viable future option.
The possibility that war could arise through these multiple pathways leads some analysts to highlight the continued need for a balanced U.S. policy. These experts argue that, to avoid conflict, the United States needs to deter China from using force, but also must provide Beijing with assurances that the U.S. does not seek Taiwan’s permanent separation from China.
The complexity of cross-strait relations is nothing new. The recent turbulence suggests that U.S. policy toward Taiwan has always been a balancing act, and is likely to remain so.
Scott L. Kastner is professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland at College Park and author of “War and Peace in the Taiwan Strait” (Columbia University Press, 2022).
Biden to appear at Democratic National Committee event this afternoon | 2022-11-10T13:20:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Xi Jinping appears less patient about Taiwan reunification - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/china-taiwan-strait-xi-reunification/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/china-taiwan-strait-xi-reunification/ |
Scoop — Biden pushes to require big federal contractors to cut climate pollution
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! If you’re attending the COP27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, a tipster tells us that Brazil’s pavilion has the best free coffee. ☕️ But first:
The Biden administration will propose a rule requiring all major federal contractors to set climate targets
The Biden administration on Thursday will propose requiring all major federal contractors to set targets for reducing their emissions in line with the 2015 Paris climate accord, Maxine scoops this morning.
The proposed rule, which comes as leaders from nearly 200 nations converge at the United Nations climate conference in Egypt, marks a significant step toward greening the government’s sprawling operations and one that could ripple across the U.S. supply chain.
The proposal, set to be formally released Wednesday morning, would also mandate that federal contractors publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and the risks they face from climate change.
The administration plans to highlight the proposal when Biden attends the U.N. climate conference on Friday, as well as during a Saturday event at the summit featuring Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Ali Zaidi, the White House national climate adviser.
The proposed rule covers roughly 85 percent of the emissions associated with the federal supply chain, which are more than twice as large as the emissions from operating the government’s 300,000 buildings and 600,000 vehicles combined, the White House said.
Once enacted, officials said, the rule would make the United States the first national government to require major suppliers to set climate goals aligned with the Paris agreement.
Scoping out risks
A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the rule would protect the federal supply chain from increasingly common disruptions tied to climate change, such as heat waves that can strain the electricity grid.
Even without the rule in place, the government has taken steps to mitigate this risk. For example, the Defense Department has installed a solar-powered microgrid at the Miramar base in San Diego, allowing the base to disconnect from California’s electricity system during the heat wave that scorched the state this summer.
“We see financial risk,” the senior administration official said, “without those kinds of investments.”
Exclusive: Biden administration announces first ‘America the Beautiful’ grants
The Biden administration and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) on Thursday will announce the recipients of nearly $91 million worth of grants for conservation projects under the “America the Beautiful Challenge,” according to details shared first with The Climate 202.
The 55 new grants, which were authorized by last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, will support conservation projects across 42 states, three U.S. territories and 14 tribes, leveraging $50.7 million in matching contributions to generate a total impact of about $141.7 million.
The challenge — a partnership between NFWF and the departments of Interior, Agriculture and Defense — seeks to deliver on President Biden’s ambitious goal of protecting 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030.
“Nature is essential to the health, well-being and prosperity of every family and every community in America,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. “This work will create jobs, strengthen our economy, address equitable access to the outdoors, and help tackle the climate crisis.”
Specific details of the projects will be announced later today. Overall, the projects are expected to manage more than 130,000 acres of fire-dependent habitat; reconnect more than 1,300 miles of stream or river; and restore more than 1,900 acres of wetlands, among other things.
California voters reject ballot initiative to fund electric cars by taxing the rich
California voters on Tuesday rejected a ballot measure that would have taxed residents who make more than $2 million per year an additional 1.75 percent through January 2043 to help fund electric vehicles, charging stations and wildfire prevention.
The initiative, known as Proposition 30, was backed by big green groups who said it would be crucial in the state’s fight against climate change. But California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) staunchly opposed the proposal, even as he moves to ban gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035 and approves $54 billion from the state’s budget for climate action broadly, The Climate 202 previously reported.
Newsom alleged that Lyft, which gave about $45 million to the “Yes on 30 campaign,” was seeking to use taxpayer money instead of its own to comply with a new regulation from the California Air Resources Board requiring 90 percent of ride-share vehicles to be electric by 2030.
By Wednesday afternoon, 59 percent of voters in California rejected the proposal, and 41 percent supported it. Dan Newman, a Newsom adviser to the campaign supporting the ballot initiative, told The Climate 202 that the result shows that Newsom can “do big things” on climate “without raising taxes.”
U.S. lawmakers head to COP27 as Ukraine war looms over talks
This year’s United Nations climate conference in Egypt, known as COP27, is the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. It comes as Moscow continues to target Ukraine’s energy grid with missiles and drones and as the world grapples with an energy crisis caused by reliance on Russian fossil fuels, The Washington Post’s Siobhán O'Grady reports.
At the summit, dozens of world leaders have devoted time in their speeches to condemn the war, linking it to climate migration, food insecurity and climate finance. António Vitorino, head of the U.N. migration agency, also warned that “if the world goes into a recession, largely linked with the war in Ukraine, that is an issue for everybody, because the resources available to deal with climate change can be squeezed.”
Meanwhile, several members of Congress are expected to arrive in Egypt later this week. Here’s what we know:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is leading a Democratic delegation that includes House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis Chair Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.).
Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who was expected to travel to Egypt on Thursday, will no longer attend COP27 after testing positive for covid-19. Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) are still expected to attend the summit.
Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) is leading a group of five House Republicans, The Climate 202 previously reported.
Welcome back to the section of the newsletter we’re calling “COP27 reporter’s notebook.” Today we’re sharing this reflection from our colleague Sarah Kaplan, who has been covering the United Nations climate summit on the ground in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt:
So far, the most fraught topic of conversation at COP27 is not directly related to climate. Instead, tensions are rising over Egypt’s tight restrictions on protest, which is normally a key part of any United Nations climate conference.
I’ve only seen a couple of small demonstrations inside the “Blue Zone” — the official conference venue overseen by the U.N. — and absolutely nothing happening outside its walls. Civil society representatives have told me they feel surveilled and intimidated by the government. People have warned each other not to download the official COP app, which requires users to give access to their location and contacts — something security experts say could be used to track activists. There are whispers about rooms being bugged and plainclothes security officers roaming the venue.
I’ve only covered one other COP, so I don’t have a lot to compare it to, but one climate conference veteran told me the meeting in Sharm is the “most repressive … probably in the history of COP.” It seems inevitable that the repressive atmosphere will affect the negotiations, though the exact impact will be hard to quantify. Massive, raucous public demonstrations are a fixture at COP, a way for ordinary people to put pressure on negotiators even if they don’t have access to the Blue Zone.
“This year,” said American youth activist Sophia Kianni, “we just don’t have that pressure.”
Latest U.S. weather satellite, set to scan storms like Nicole, launches Thursday — Scott Dance for The Post
Nicole strengthens to hurricane on approach to Florida — Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow report for The Post
COP27: Sharp rise in fossil fuel industry delegates at climate summit — Matt McGrath for the BBC
Who’s driving climate change? New data catalogs 72,000 polluters and counting — Raymond Zhong for the New York Times
Us clinging onto our sleep schedules this week:
A three-toed sloth clings to a large tree branch in Panama pic.twitter.com/pP4GI6si0r
— National Geographic (@NatGeo) November 9, 2022
Analysis: The finger pointing has begun | 2022-11-10T13:21:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Scoop — Biden pushes to require big federal contractors to cut climate pollution - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/scoop-biden-pushes-require-big-federal-contractors-cut-climate-pollution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/scoop-biden-pushes-require-big-federal-contractors-cut-climate-pollution/ |
PEMBROKE PINES, FLORIDA - JULY 07: In this photo illustration, Pfizer’s Paxlovid is displayed on July 07, 2022 in Pembroke Pines, Florida. The US Food and Drug Administration revised the emergency use authorization for Paxlovid, Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral treatment, to allow state-licensed pharmacists to prescribe the treatment to people. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images North America)
A new study that mined health records from the Department of Veterans Affairs hints that the drug Paxlovid might be useful in preventing long Covid.
Scientists have been urging the government and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, to study the idea that lingering virus could be the culprit behind some people’s long-term symptoms, and finally having data is a welcome advance.
But these results, which have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, merely suggest Paxlovid’s effectiveness rather than prove it. What the study truly points to is the desperate need to look more carefully at existing drugs that have the potential to prevent and treat long Covid, which has pulled an estimated 3.5 million people out of the workforce.
The VA study reviewed electronic health records of tens of thousands of veterans who had at least one risk factor for severe Covid and asked whether the use of Paxlovid reduced the number of people who ended up with long Covid. They found that taking the five-day antiviral regimen in the early days of an infection could indeed lower the risk of some symptoms by 26%. It helped lessen the burden of issues like blood-clotting, heart problems, muscle pain, brain fog, fatigue and shortness of breath. That result translated across people who were vaccinated, vaccinated and boosted, or who had never received a Covid shot.
But the patients in the database skewed heavily male, White and older (the average age was 65), which means the positive indications might not translate into the population that is most likely to present with long-term symptoms. A recent survey by the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics found, for example, that women and younger adults were disproportionately affected by long Covid.
Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System in Missouri, who led the study, stressed that the findings do not address whether Paxlovid can prevent long Covid in lower-risk individuals, namely people who are young and healthy. That’s a study that needs to be done, he said.
And even in the group captured in the data, that 26% reduction in long Covid should be viewed as more of a signal of an effect rather than concrete evidence.
The results are “very interesting, but more hypothesis-generating” than definitive, said Paul Sax, clinical director of the Infectious Disease Clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. When digging into data captured from the real world rather than a formal study, results can be complicated by differences in the people who did and did not take the drug — factors such as lifestyle and health-care choices that might influence their outcomes regardless of the drug. Those differences can foster or magnify a signal that might not be seen in a trial where people are chosen randomly to receive the drug or not.
Sax suggests better, more reliable data could come from reviewing the people who took part in Pfizer’s clinical trials and ask whether those who received Paxlovid instead of a placebo had lower rates of long Covid. Unfortunately, no one seems to be pursuing that question.
Add it to the long list of questions that should be explored through careful study, yet, frustratingly, might never be answered. For example, could a longer course of Paxlovid confirm or even improve upon the signal of efficacy found in this study? Would younger people who don’t have risk factors benefit from taking the drug? Could any of the other antivirals that have received emergency authorization or even those that are still in development help prevent long Covid? And how often, if at all, is persistent virus the cause of people’s lingering symptoms?
One question that is finally being studied is whether Paxlovid can treat long Covid. The National Institutes of Health said last month that it would begin a study that will test whether a 15-day course can help patients who have a cluster of long-Covid symptoms.
The trial doesn’t start until January, and according to data on the government’s clinical trials registry, won’t deliver results until early 2024. That’s an awfully long time to ask people who have been suffering with symptoms to wait.
Moreover, the NIH study might not even provide clear answers. Only 1,700 people will be enrolled, a size some infectious disease specialists say isn’t sufficient to draw real conclusions. Al-Aly points out that to find that signal in the VA study, researchers had to look at data from nearly 60,000 people, with about 10,000 who received the drug. That’s because people’s symptoms are so varied and persistent virus is unlikely to be the only driver of long Covid. “You can’t get what we got here with a 2,000-person trial,” he said.
Running a huge trial is expensive, and Pfizer, which expects to bring in $22 billion in sales of Paxlovid this year, has so far shown little interest in pursuing one.
Since December 2021, more than 5.5 million doses have been prescribed in the US. So many opportunities have been missed to capture data on Paxlovid and long Covid. It’s past time to do the kind of studies that might not be perfect but could still yield enough data to conclude whether an existing treatment can help people get back to their normal lives.
• The Pandemic Has Hurt Americans’ Faith in Experts: Faye Flam
• Don’t Write Off the Retooled Covid Boosters: Lisa Jarvis
• The Pandemic Isn’t Over for People With Long Covid: Lisa Jarvis | 2022-11-10T14:51:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | We Finally Have Some Paxlovid Covid Data. Now We Need More. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/we-finally-have-some-paxlovid-covid-data-now-we-need-more/2022/11/10/45c1b85a-6104-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/we-finally-have-some-paxlovid-covid-data-now-we-need-more/2022/11/10/45c1b85a-6104-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The National Native American Veterans Memorial, located on the grounds of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, will be dedicated on Friday, followed by a weekend of cultural activities, film screenings and events. (Alan Karchmer/National Museum of the American Indian)
Museum Shop Holiday Market at Strathmore: Museum gift shops are the perfect place to find only-in-D.C. holiday gifts, and Strathmore will conveniently bring together items from eight cultural institutions under one roof during its annual holiday market. In addition to gifts from Strathmore, you’ll find wares from the shops at the Phillips Collection, the Supreme Court Historical Society, Hillwood Estate and Museum, President Lincoln’s Cottage, and the Textile Museum, to name a few. Additionally, this year’s market features original stained glass, paintings and other works from five local artists. Through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free; $10 donation suggested at the door. Online RSVP requested.
Collective Design Studio Holiday Pop-Up Opening Party: The holidays will be here faster than you think, and all sorts of markets are popping up to allow planners — and the rest of us — to begin finding gifts for friends and loved ones. In Georgetown, Collective Design Studio has taken over the former Karen Millen shop on Wisconsin Avenue, offering a collaborative space for close to two dozen local makers and artists to sell vintage leather, homewares, linens and plants. The market’s official debut includes spirit-free cocktails and beverages from Umbrella Dry Drinks. 5 to 9 p.m. Free.
Film Neu Festival: For three decades, the Film Neu festival has presented new German-language films to Washington audiences at embassies and the Goethe-Institut. This year’s 30th anniversary edition, with films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, continues the tradition: The program includes “Unrest,” a film about anarchy and 19th-century Swiss watchmakers that won Cyril Schäublin a best director award at this year’s Berlinale festival, and “Love, Deutschmarks and Death,” a documentary about the music scene created by Turkish workers who moved to Germany after 1961, and how the culture has evolved. Through Sunday. Times and locations vary. Free-$5.
Courtney Marie Andrews at Songbyrd: Courtney Marie Andrews is eight albums in and continues to find a way to evolve. “Old Flowers,” released in 2020, was nominated for best Americana album at the 63rd Grammy Awards. Yet her 2022 project, “Loose Future,” wouldn’t necessarily fit that category. A new producer, Sam Evian, and a more optimistic lyrical style take her music to corners it hasn’t been before. Whereas on “Flowers,” Andrews muddles through darker emotional tunnels, her latest album is the metaphorical light at the end. In the aftermath of delving that deep, Andrews’s new songs feel free to be happy, a joy that’s been earned in some way. On “Satellite,” she sings, “But I, I, I like you all the time / A constellation I always find / And I, I, I like to see you shine / My favorite piece of the sky.” She is telling us about an all-consuming love alongside relaxed, acoustic strumming and echoing, spacelike synths. Although the song “Thinkin’ On You” finds Andrews in a place of yearning, the dynamic full band sound is anything but sad. It has a cheery country feel thanks to the steel guitar. Andrews sings, “The heart in you is the heart in me.” She’s sad, but it’s beautiful. 7 p.m. $20.
Tiesto at Echostage: Echostage, D.C.’s premier EDM venue, celebrates its 10th anniversary this fall with a lineup of some of the world’s best DJs. This includes Zedd, Kaskade and, of course, the “Godfather of EDM” Tiesto. The Dutch DJ has been in the game for more than two decades, defining and pushing the boundaries of what electronic dance music can be, and helping to bring it to the main stage of popular music. Earlier in his career, Tiesto was best known for his trance music — a high-tempo, hypnotic sound made for club nights that end with a sunrise. His remix of the song “Silence” by Delerium featuring Sarah McLachlan was his big introduction. It could’ve been seen as an odd choice of song at the time, yet McLachlan’s ethereal voice and delivery were a perfect fit for the transcendental remix and a testament to Tiesto’s vision. By the end of the first decade of the 2000s, pop music and EDM were interacting in newer ways with both genres taking influences from each other. Tiesto moved with those shifts, leaning into pop music sensibilities. Twenty years in, he’s still making club music that meets the times. 9 p.m. at Echostage, 2135 Queens Chapel Rd. NE. echostage.com. $70.
Veterans Day events: Washington’s most prominent Veterans Day observance takes place at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, but the wreath-laying ceremony is closed to the public. Visitors can instead pay their respects during an observance program at the cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater, which features performances by the United States Navy Band and Sea Chanters, beginning at 10:30 a.m. Admission is free; more information about parking and security is available on the cemetery’s website.
More ceremonies are held at memorials across D.C. on Friday. They include a wreath laying with veterans at the National World War II Memorial (9 a.m., registration requested), a ceremony at the World War I Memorial featuring retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey (10:30 a.m., streamed live), a ceremony at the African American Civil War Memorial (11 a.m.), a wreath laying at the U.S. Navy Memorial (1 p.m., streamed live) and a ceremony at the Korean War Veterans Memorial (3 p.m.). Registration is full for the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, featuring a keynote from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, but it can be streamed online through vvmf.org beginning at 1 p.m.
Dedication of the National Native American Veterans Memorial: The National Native American Veterans Memorial opened on the grounds of the National Museum of the American Indian on Veterans Day 2020, but the memorial finally marks its official dedication at a weekend of events. A procession of Native veterans on the National Mall at 2 p.m. leads to the dedication ceremony, beginning at 4 p.m. The celebration continues at the museum on Saturday and Sunday with live music and cultural performances, free screenings of veteran-related documentaries and feature films, and hands-on craft activities and story time for families. Visitors can also stop in the exhibition “Why We Serve: Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces.” Through Sunday; full schedule of events at americanindian.si.edu.
Veterans Day Concert at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library: The U.S. Navy Band’s country-bluegrass ensemble Country Current performs a musical program in honor of the nation’s veterans. Presented by the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, this concert at D.C.'s flagship library can host almost 300 guests for a program that continues the group’s mission of “preserving the nation’s musical heritage.” Masks are required inside the library. 1 p.m. Free.
‘Black Panther’ party with live band karaoke at Metrobar: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” has received mixed reviews, but Metrobar and the neighboring Alamo Drafthouse are throwing a party to mark its release — and it’s one you can enjoy even without seeing the film. Try beers from three local Black-owned brands — Sankofa, Soul Mega and Urban Garden — and take the stage to perform ’80s hits and modern pop tunes during live band karaoke with Northeast Corridor. The first 50 people to buy one of the highlighted beers receive a free movie pass from Alamo. 7 to 11 p.m. Free.
Ron Trent at Flash: No matter where he’s been based — Chicago, Detroit, Brooklyn or Berlin — Ron Trent has been at the epicenter of house music for decades, crafting countless tracks that keep dance floors moving until the sun begins to rise. Despite his years as a key part of the global house music scene, however, his latest album, “What Do the Stars Say to You,” owes more to David Mancuso’s iconic party the Loft than the formulas of house music. Just as soulful but more expansive in palette, the album is designed for deeper listening at the point where dance becomes meditation. 10 p.m. $10-$20.
Pottery on the Hill at Hill Center: Pottery fans, rejoice: This weekend-long festival focused on the craft is back in person at the Old Naval Hospital’s Hill Center for the first time in two years. A ticketed reception Friday includes small bites, wine and beer along with a first chance to see and purchase works by artists from across the country. Free shows and sales will take place Saturday and Sunday and include art from 18 ceramic creators. Themed events include a family-friendly session in raku firing from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday and potter demonstrations Sunday. A virtual silent auction is open until the end of the festival. Friday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $35 in advance, $40 day of; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free.
Art on the Avenue: Del Ray’s annual street festival usually takes place the first weekend of October, but Hurricane Ian knocked it back into November. Even with the delay, it remains one of the area’s most dynamic fall gatherings. The artists’ market includes more than 300 vendors selling everything from pottery and paintings to jewelry and clothing for children and pets. The sounds of Irish, swing and jazz music fill the air from four stages, including one just for up-and-coming talents. Kids can stuff scarecrows, paint pumpkins, race balloon-powered cars and create their own art. Pick up snacks at the pop-up food court, or duck into one of the restaurants and beer gardens along the 10-block party. If there’s one bright spot about hosting Art on the Avenue now, it’s that Metro’s Braddock Road station has reopened. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free.
DC Dance Festival: The DC (District Choreographers) Dance Festival is a three-part event: Performances will take place along Eighth Street in Brookland starting at the Edgewood Arts Center, moving to the Brookland Artspace Lofts and ending at the Cafritz Theater inside Dance Place. Pick and choose which part of the program you attend — the site-specific works at the first two stops, or the main event at the theater — or stay the entire evening to see all the works from more than 10 local choreographers. 5 to 9:30 p.m. $15-$35.
The Fuchsia Ball at Echostage: Capital Pride’s newest event, a fundraiser for the Pride 365 Fund, takes over Echostage with performances by the divine Shea Couleé, winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” Season 5; a ballroom exhibition by the House of Comme des Garcons; hip-hop and house vocalist Bang; and DJs Joe Gauthreaux and Eletrox. A VIP reception, which begins at 8, includes performances by Eva Mystique, Vagenesis and DJ Tracy Young, as well as hors d’oeuvres and two drinks. 9:30 p.m. to 3 a.m. $25-$50. VIP $100-$150.
Holiday markets: It’s a big weekend for fans of Scandinavian gifts and goodies. The Icelandic Association of Washington D.C. holds its annual Christmas Bazaar at American Legion Post 177 in Fairfax, teaming up with the Swedish Drott Lodge. Vendors sell woolen items, glassware, food and candy, while a cafe offers Icelandic hot dogs and other traditional treats. (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; free.) The Royal Danish Embassy sponsors the Danish Club of Washington’s 57th Christmas Bazaar at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Rockville, where highlights include Danish china, embroidery and holiday decorations, as well as a cafe with open-face sandwiches. Children can play at the Lego table. (11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; free.)
See You at the Circle concert in Dupont Circle: Pack a picnic and bring a blanket for Dupont Circle’s final “See You at the Circle” concert of the year. Leonardo Garcia y Son Horizonte, a 10-year-old group that blends salsa and jazz, headlines, while a DJ opens the show. Concert attendees receive specials at local restaurants, such a pizza and two drinks for $30 at Boogy & Peel or a $15 picnic kit with a blanket, Frisbee, two reusable cups and napkins at Compliments Only sub shop. 4 to 7 p.m. Free.
Nerd Nite at DC9: If you’d rather spend a Saturday night observing a semi-academic talk with a drink in hand than fighting your way through a crowded bar, check out DC9’s long-running monthly lecture series. November’s lectures include deep dives into what makes cake a celebratory dessert and what artificial intelligence can tell us about romance novels. A third talk is called “Rats. That’s it, that’s the title.” 6:30 p.m. $10.
All Hat and No Cattle at the Public Option: A self-proclaimed monthly “night of country music for city people” upstairs at Langdon’s neighborhood brewpub makes its debut with live music by Heaven Forbid, a twangy D.C. quintet featuring steel guitar and a ’70s country-rock vibe. Discounts are offered for urban cowboys and cowgirls wearing boots, hats and bolo ties — but drink specials are available for everyone else, too. 7 p.m. Free.
Alexandria Symphony celebration of Afghan music: When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, it banned secular music, threatening artists who failed to comply. Two of those musicians, who fled the country last fall, take the stage this weekend with the Alexandria Symphony in two performances of “Scheherazade — Afghan Days, Arabian Nights,” a musical epic derived from four ancient Middle Eastern narratives. Hamid Habib Zada is featured on tabla, a pair of hand drums derived from the Indian subcontinent, which he has played throughout Afghanistan as well as at a recent performance at Lincoln Center. Negin Khpalwak, who will conduct two songs by Afghan star singer Ahmad Zahir, was the first Afghan female conductor of the first all-women orchestra in the country. The orchestra will also perform John Williams’s “Adventures on Earth” from “E.T. the Extraterrestrial.” A Saturday performance will take place at Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center followed by a Sunday performance at George Washington Masonic National Memorial. 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday. $5-$89.
‘Diary of an R&B Songwriter and Producer: Pharrell’ at Songbyrd: Before Verzuz and Club Quarantine, four local music lovers were curating their own discussions about the legacy of a genre whose relevance has been called into question in recent years. Since February 2018, Marcus K. Dowling, Julian Kimble, Ashley-Dior Thomas and Justin Tinsley have hosted the R&B Club — a monthly, book-club-style meetup for fellow soul music enthusiasts at Songbyrd Music House. At the R&B Club, the “language we all understand” that Stevie Wonder sang about in “Sir Duke” isn’t dismissed as “niche” or “passe.” When a recording of Tevin Campbell’s “Can We Talk” is paused too soon, a singalong erupts to finish it. When the panel asks which version of Diddy’s “I Need a Girl” is better, a full-blown discussion is guaranteed. Noon. $15-$20.
National Pupusa Day at El Tamarindo: Pupusas have become a staple of the D.C. area’s food scene, and an acknowledgment of the key role that immigrants from El Salvador have played in Washington’s culinary world. This weekend brings National Pupusa Day, honoring El Salvador’s national dish, and Adams Morgan’s El Tamarindo is at the center of the celebrations. Six varieties of pupusa are on the menu, including a special birria version made in collaboration with Taqueria Xochi, but attractions also include live music, DJs, a market with local makers and a pupusa-making workshop, which runs from noon to 2 p.m. No reservations are accepted, but food and drink specials run all day. Noon to 4 p.m. Free.
Jru Anthony at Union Stage: Romantic relationships are tricky, no matter your age, a difficulty that is more outsize during the teenage years. That “will they, won’t they” energy animates the debut album by 19-year-old singer-songwriter Jru Anthony, “Life for Now.” Anthony turns that gray area into a Technicolor soundscape that spans the funk-soul spectrum. From the shimmering four-on-the-floor groove of “Move On” to the country twang and slide on acoustic closer “Fouram,” the album is full of Anthony’s slick vocals, elastic bass lines, synth flourishes and undeniable rhythms. Born and raised in D.C., Anthony began his musical exploits by making songs on his phone and by mimicking his favorite rappers over beats mined from YouTube. But unlike most DIY songsmiths, he had the benefit of having a working musician as a father: Anthony is the son of Frank “Scooby” Sirius, a go-go legend who played with Chuck Brown and has been described as the “godson of go-go.” While go-go isn’t in the sonic mix on “Life for Now,” the scene’s approach to live music brings Anthony’s take on contemporary soul music to life. 8 p.m. $20.
Interview: Jru Anthony, son of a go-go legend, finds his groove in the gray areas
Ron Pattinson at ChurchKey: Ron Pattinson is probably one of your favorite beer writers’ favorite beer writers. A prolific beer historian, author and Twitter curmudgeon, Pattinson has written more than 60 books on historical beers and spent untold amounts of time sifting through brewers’ logs and notebooks to unearth recipes for vintage British ales or Berliner weisse, or sorting through archives to tell the story of brewing during World War I. On this visit to ChurchKey, Pattinson reads and discusses four of his books, including “Armistice! Brewing in WWI” and “The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer: Rediscovered Recipes for Classic Brews Dating from 1800 to 1965,” with a panel moderated by local beer historian Mike Stein. Cask beers are $5 during the event. 7 p.m. Free.
Pizzeria Paradiso 31st Anniversary: Thirty-one years after it began in Dupont Circle, Pizzeria Paradiso has spread the pizza and craft beer gospel as far as Spring Valley and Hyattsville. Through Nov. 23, the local chain offers a special anniversary deal, pairing any “personal” 9-inch pizza and a draft beer for a symbolic $19.91. Times and locations vary.
Good Neighbor Holiday Pop-Up at Maketto: Maketto hosts hip Baltimore home and design store Good Neighbor for a holiday pop-up shop beginning Wednesday, giving Washingtonians a chance to browse stylish ceramics, home decor and kitchen goods without making the drive up the B-W Parkway. Open Wednesday through Saturday, through Dec. 31; free admission. | 2022-11-10T14:51:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Festivals, Veterans Day events and other things to do in the D.C. area - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/best-things-do-dc-area-week-nov-10-16/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/best-things-do-dc-area-week-nov-10-16/ |
FILE - Nicole Fosse, daughter of Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon, arrives at the FYC Event for “Fosse/Verdon” in Beverly Hills, Calif. on May 30, 2019. Bob Fosse’s all-singing, all-dancing 1978 revue “Dancin’” is heading back to Broadway. Performances begin March 2, 2023, at the Music Box Theatre, with an opening night set for March 19. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK — Bob Fosse’s all-singing, all-dancing 1978 revue “Dancin’” is headin’ back to Broadway and the late choreographer’s daughter calls “a magic carpet ride.” | 2022-11-10T14:51:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bob Fosse's 'Dancin'" confirms Broadway return this spring - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/bob-fosses-dancin-confirms-broadway-return-this-spring/2022/11/10/4b3f20a6-60ff-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/bob-fosses-dancin-confirms-broadway-return-this-spring/2022/11/10/4b3f20a6-60ff-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
LeBron James’s groin strain plunges Lakers deeper into nightmare start
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James suffered a left groin strain in the fourth quarter of a loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday. (Mark J. Terrill/AP)
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers lost to their crosstown rivals for the second time this season on Wednesday, and LeBron James limped off well before the final buzzer with a groin injury.
In an unsettling scene that recalled James’s groin strain on Christmas Day in 2018, the all-star forward walked gingerly off the court midway through the fourth quarter with what Lakers Coach Darvin Ham initially called “leg discomfort.” James, who has dealt with an illness and a sore left foot in the past week, said he felt something in his groin after backing down on Clippers forward Paul George to draw a foul with a little more than five minutes remaining in regulation. After missing his two free throws, James headed to the locker room and did not return.
“I didn’t do anything strenuous on the play,” said James, who finished with 30 points, eight rebounds and five assists in 32 minutes. “When I landed, I felt a little spasm or strain in my groin, so I immediately asked to come out the next play down when I went to the free throw line.”
The Lakers, who were trailing 101-89 at the time of the injury, went on to lose 114-101, falling to 2-9 on the season. James said that this injury was “not as bad” as the 2018 groin strain, which sidelined him for more than a month, but his status for Friday’s game against the Sacramento Kings won’t be determined until he undergoes further medical evaluation on Thursday.
“On one of his moves, he may have tweaked something,” Ham said. “I don’t want to speculate. … He’s the face of our ballclub. That’s human nature to be worried and concerned.”
For the 37-year-old James, the injury was the latest setback in what has been the worst start to a season of his 20-year career. Lakers guard Patrick Beverley announced the team’s plans to get back into the playoffs at their home opener last month, yet Los Angeles enters Thursday’s action with the second-worst record in the league. While James is averaging 24.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game as he closes in on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record, his game has shown noticeable signs of age-related decline.
The four-time MVP is shooting a career-low 23.9 percent on three-pointers, and his 45.7 field goal percentage is his lowest since his rookie year. James’s 20.1 Player Efficiency Rating is down considerably from last season, and it is also at its lowest point since his 2004 Rookie of the Year campaign. But even during his rookie year, when James was only 18 years old, his Cleveland Cavaliers were 4-7 through 11 games.
Crucially, James’s presence on the court is no longer enough to guarantee that his team boasts an elite offense. From 2008-09 to 2017-18, James led a top-10 offense for 10 straight seasons while playing for the Cavaliers and Miami Heat. This season, the Lakers rank dead last in offensive efficiency.
Opponents seem comfortable with allowing James to attempt deep jump shots, and the Clippers applied full-court pressure at various points in the second half in an apparent attempt to wear him down. In addition to struggling with his outside shot, James is averaging a career-low 4.8 free throw attempts per game and just eight drives per game, down dramatically from 14.1 in 2019-20, when he led the Lakers to the title.
“I would like for the whistle to be blown once I get hit,” James said. “Four free throws once again. I looked at a lot of guys tonight, shooting a lot of jump shots, and they’re going 9 [or] 13 times to the free throw line. I’ve got to learn how to flop or something, seriously. I need to learn how to do that, swipe my head back or do something to get to the free throw line. It’s getting too repetitive. It’s three games straight.”
Though James said that he would “hopefully be in the lineup” against Sacramento on Friday, a possible absence would weigh heavily and come at an inopportune time for the Lakers, who are set to play four straight home games against teams with losing records over the next 11 days. The Lakers were blown out by the Utah Jazz earlier this week when James did not play on the second night of a back-to-back, and they went 8-18 when he was sidelined last season.
The Lakers’ upcoming stretch includes Sunday’s game against Kevin Durant’s Brooklyn Nets. Due to injuries and other absences, James and Durant have not faced off head-to-head since Dec. 25, 2018.
“If [James] has to sit a game or a few games, guys have got to be ready to play and compete and hoop,” Ham said. “Can’t feel sorry for yourself. These games are coming at a rapid pace. For us to hang our heads, that could spill over into more games being lost.”
The sting of the Lakers’ poor start has been made worse by the knowledge that they must swap 2023 first-round draft picks with the New Orleans Pelicans, per their 2019 blockbuster trade for Anthony Davis. With few trade assets and with their salary cap flexibility limited by major financial commitments to James, Davis and Russell Westbrook, the Lakers don’t appear to have any quick-fix solutions at their disposal. Now, they must brace for the possibility that James’s groin injury could make their bad start significantly worse.
“I’m never worried about myself getting into a rhythm,” James said. “Because I put the work in. I’m never worried about that. I’m actually not worried about my body, either, because I put the work in. The body will let me know when it’s time to go, and I’ll be ready to go.” | 2022-11-10T14:52:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | LeBron James’s injury plunges Lakers deeper into nightmare start - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/lebron-james-groin-injury-lakers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/lebron-james-groin-injury-lakers/ |
Quarterback Marcus Mariota and the Falcons might find some smooth sailing against a Panthers defense that has all sorts of issues. (John Amis/AP)
Carolina will keep quarterback P.J. Walker under center for at least one more start when the Panthers take on the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night, leaving Baker Mayfield as the primary backup. Walker’s four starts this season have been underwhelming — he has completed 48 of 84 passes for 563 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions — and he was benched last week against Cincinnati after completing just 3 of 10 passes for nine yards and two interceptions.
Yet Atlanta is only a 2½-point road favorite (down from -3) even though it ranks 16th in overall defense-adjusted value over average — a metric that measures a team’s efficiency by comparing success on every play to a league average based on situation and opponent — while the Panthers rank dead last. I wouldn’t wager money past that number unless it was jumping all the way to Falcons -6½ for +170 or better. The total opened at 41 and rose steadily to 43 or 43½, depending on the oddsmaker, before settling at 42½ at most books because of weather concerns.
Neil Greenberg’s pick
Marcus Mariota, over 157½ passing yards, playable to 159½
Carolina’s pass defense is the fifth worst in the league after adjusting for strength of schedule, per Football Outsiders, and the game charters at Pro Football Focus rank the Panthers’ pass coverage 21st, giving us two measures illustrating this is a below-average defense against opposing quarterbacks. In addition, Mariota completed 20 of 28 passes for 253 yards against Carolina in Week 8, making him one of eight passers (out of nine) to throw for 158 yards or more against the Panthers this season.
Weather will be a factor — winds and rain are expected — but I still think the total is low enough for a green light.
Falcons team total over 21.5 points
Even though the Panthers knew they would have a short week to prepare for a Falcons team that put up 37 points on them only 11 days earlier, the team fired two more defensive assistants — cornerbacks coach Evan Cooper and defensive line coach Paul Pasqualoni — after Sunday’s dismal loss to the Bengals, when Cincinnati scored 35 points and averaged 6.9 yards per play in the first half alone before taking its foot off the gas in the second. Carolina already had fired defensive coordinator Phil Snow and assistant special teams coach Ed Foley alongside coach Matt Rhule earlier this season.
All of these coaching moves are having a cascading effect, to the detriment of Carolina’s defense. Steve Wilks previously was the team’s defensive passing game coordinator and secondary coach, and those roles were assumed by Cooper when Wilks was elevated to head coach. But now Cooper is out along with Pasqualoni, giving more responsibilities to defensive assistant Bobby Maffei (in his first season as an NFL assistant), pass rush specialist Don Johnson (who didn’t work in the NFL from 2019 to 2021) and assistant defensive line coach Terrance Knighton (in his second season as an NFL assistant), not to mention defensive coordinator Al Holcomb, who was pulled out of the linebackers room when he was promoted after Snow’s firing.
None of this shuffling is ideal for game-planning when facing an accelerated Sunday-to-Thursday turnaround, as the Panthers are here. Neither are the injuries to cornerback Donte Jackson and defensive linemen Derrick Brown, Brian Burns and Matthew Ioannidis that limited them in this week’s abbreviated practice sessions.
The Falcons averaged 6.2 yards per play in the teams’ first meeting, even though they didn’t have do-everything running back Cordarrelle Patterson. He’s back from injury, adding another worry to a Panthers defense that’s in complete disarray. | 2022-11-10T14:52:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Panthers-Falcons picks and predictions for 'Thursday Night Football' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/panthers-falcons-betting-preview/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/panthers-falcons-betting-preview/ |
Maryland Democratic Governor-Elect Wes Moore speaks during an election night party for Maryland Democrats at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront in Baltimore on Nov. 8. Americans who voted in midterm elections cited concerns around inflation, crime, abortion and the future of democracy itself. (Eric Lee for The Washington Post)
For many Baltimoreans, Democrat Wes Moore’s historic victory in the governor’s race on Tuesday couldn’t come soon enough.
It wasn’t just that Moore lives in Baltimore — though that was a big plus. It also meant they were that much closer to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s departure from office and the end of an acrimonious eight years between the residents of Maryland’s largest city and a leader many felt often worked against them.
With Moore in charge, leaders here said, the relationship between the city and the governor’s mansion can begin to recover. And they are counting the days until Hogan leaves.
“Many of us have felt that our governor has held our city with contempt and has not always seen us as a part of the whole picture of Maryland,” said Del. Stephanie M. Smith (D-Baltimore), a Moore supporter who represents East Baltimore and chairs the city’s delegation in the Maryland House of Delegates. “This is a city that’s been looking for a governor that’s simply a friend. But it would be preferable, at minimum, to have a governor that believes in you, knows you, embraces you and sees you as a full part of our state.”
The city’s frustrations with Hogan go back to 2015 during his first year in office when he pulled the plug on the Red Line, a $2.9 billion proposed light rail system that had been in planning for years and would have connected residents of some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods to downtown.
Proponents said the east-west rail system would have brought the city together, made more jobs accessible to more people and furthered economic development. Approximately $288 million had already been spent on the planning process which began in 2001. Hogan rejected the plans and called the project a “wasteful boondoggle.” His decision meant Baltimore would lose out on $900 million in federal funding that had already been earmarked for the project.
Adding salt to the wound was Hogan’s decision, announced that same day, to divert some of the state funding earmarked for the Red Line to the Purple Line in the Washington suburbs. He also announced $2 billion in highway spending across the state. Baltimore felt left in the lurch.
When Hogan’s Twitter account posted plans for the transportation projects it included a map of Maryland that had a blank space where Baltimore should have been. The tweet was later deleted.
Moore, whose victory made him the nation’s only current Black governor and just the third elected in its history, has said that the Red Line is a “core priority.”
“If you want to get economic momentum going you need to be able to move people to employment,” he told the Baltimore Sun in September. “We cannot think that we’re going to move as a state when every time we talk about Baltimore it’s with disdain. We cannot have a thriving Maryland if Baltimore is unhealthy.”
Hogan also regularly blasted city leaders for how they handled crime and their failure, he said, to prosecute violent criminals. Baltimore has had more than 300 homicides per year for the past seven years and is on pace to exceed 300 again this year. In 2021 it had the highest homicide rate of any of the country’s 50 largest cities. Earlier this year Hogan and Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott engaged in a sharp back and forth with each side accusing the other of not doing enough to address crime and its root causes.
“In February, you assured us there was a comprehensive plan in place, but at this point, I do not believe anyone — including you — believes it is working,” Hogan wrote in a public letter to Scott in May. “It is time to see a real plan and real action now.”
“If the Governor wanted to ask me about the crime fight, he could have asked me in person … but he chose not to and instead played publicity games with public safety,” Scott fired back. “Moreover, since he’s taken office, two things are true: he has refused to offer Baltimore any meaningful help, and crime has gone up every year … The Governor knows how to help, but he refuses to do so.”
Hogan also criticized Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby for her approach to pursuing criminal convictions in the city. A year ago he called for a funding review of her office and demanded data on prosecution rates. What Baltimore needed, Hogan said, was “a prosecutor who will actually prosecute violent criminals.”
Mosby struck back at Hogan, accusing him of failing to work with four Baltimore mayors and its police chiefs.
“Quite candidly, he’s been more concerned with pointing the finger at everyone else as opposed to actually leading and delivering for a city that is the heartbeat for this state,” said Mosby at a news conference.
In January Mosby was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts each of perjury and making false loan applications. She ran for a third term but was defeated in the Democratic primary by Ivan Bates, a defense attorney.
Hogan’s critics in Baltimore say his administration underfunded and understaffed the state’s probation and parole system leading to little oversight and assistance for people released from prison. Moore on his campaign website pledged to fill every vacant position, “ensuring strong supervision of high-risk individuals, and leveraging local offices to connect people to behavioral health treatment, housing and employment.”
Moore has also said will work to rebuild relationships between Baltimore communities and law enforcement by increasing accountability and transparency and funding community policing programs.
Baltimore had the air knocked out of it by Hogan’s Red Line decision, and the city’s relationship with him never recovered, said Baltimore City Council member Zeke Cohen (D). If anything, he said, Hogan’s criticism of the city and the disdain he showed to city leaders made it worse.
“Gov. Hogan has treated Baltimore City like a rhetorical punching bag,” Cohen said. “Every time he hits it in the media, he seems to think his poll ratings go up. And that may be true. But what has been unfortunate is that he has defunded our public transportation and at times our schools, while selling the narrative of local dysfunction.”
In its editorial endorsing Wes Moore last month over Republican candidate Dan Cox, the Baltimore Sun took a parting shot at Hogan for how he has treated the city, writing “Our current governor has too often sought to distance himself from Baltimore and its problems, including a legacy of systemic racism that has resulted in ongoing issues of crime and poverty.”
Asked to respond to criticisms made by city leaders, Hogan spokesperson Michael Ricci defended Hogan’s efforts on behalf of Baltimore.
“The governor has always believed that a strong Maryland depends on a strong Baltimore, and has made unprecedented investments in revitalization, infrastructure, school construction, and public safety for the city,” Ricci wrote in an email Wednesday. “He has done this collaboratively, funding every request made by the mayor to address violent crime, and working with legislative leaders to provide the single largest infusion of jobs to the central business district. There is important and hard-fought progress for the next administration to build on.”
And not all Baltimoreans agree that the governor has been uniformly hostile to the city.
Projects like the redevelopment of the Pimlico Race Course and surrounding neighborhood and Project C.O.R.E, a $75 million investment by the state to tear down abandoned buildings to create green space and develop affordable and mixed-use housing have made a real difference, said Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council who once served as communications chief for former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
“Those are going to be an important positive legacy for his work in Baltimore,” he said.
And others in Baltimore did not mind Hogan’s aggressive approach to the city.
“I liked the accountability he provided for Baltimore City because he did come off a little more vocal about what was going on here especially with crime and how Marilyn Mosby was handling her office,” said Kyna McKenzie, the vice chair of the Baltimore City Republican Party. “I don’t believe that’s going to happen with Wes Moore.”
McKenzie knows Baltimore Republicans are vastly outnumbered in the city. Democrats occupy every seat on the City Council, and no Republican has been mayor since Theodore McKeldin left office in 1967.
“It’s awful, honestly,” she said. “We are totally blocked out here.”
Natalie McCabe, a 41-year-old therapist who voted for Moore on Tuesday, is happy to see Hogan go.
She said Hogan has neglected Maryland’s most populous city. “It’s easy to look out for the affluent side of Maryland,” she said. “Baltimore needs people who are going to line up and do what they say they’re going to do. I want a better Baltimore that looks like the potential it has.”
McCabe thought about nearby Columbia, Md., which has benefited from recent construction — from supermarkets to new homes. Swaths of Baltimore, however, remain blighted. Blocks from the elementary school where she cast her vote, the Mondawmin neighborhood — the site of a violent clash between teens and police after Freddie Gray’s funeral in 2015, a focal point in the city’s days-long uprising triggered by the 25-year-old’s death in police custody — could benefit from such investments, she said.
“They’re building up that community,” McCabe said about Columbia. “Where is that in the Mondawmin community?”
Lauren Lumpkin and Erin Cox contributed to this report | 2022-11-10T15:12:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Baltimore leaders see a fresh start with Md. Gov-elect Wes Moore's win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/baltimore-larry-hogan-wes-moore/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/baltimore-larry-hogan-wes-moore/ |
Dear Sahaj: I am a 37-year-old single woman, and I am afraid that I am going to miss out on the opportunity to have a family. I try online dating on and off as I don’t often meet single men. I’ve had some success with online dating in the past, but I haven’t been on a second date in five years. The rejection is hard, but I usually move on after a day or two.
I am active, have hobbies and moved to a midsize town earlier in the year for work. I’m honestly at a loss for what to do or how to change to be more attractive to men (online and in person). It’s hard being late 30s and single because most people my age have families. How can I be more at peace with a life alone and the prospect of missing out on having a family of my own?
— Still Single
Still Single: It seems like life has not been going according to a timeline you had in mind, and that sucks. Two assumptions you made stick out to me in your question: First, that you are doing something wrong, and second, that there’s a certain order that your life is meant to take.
You are convinced that you are the problem. It’s easy to feel like you are not deserving or you did something wrong when things don’t work out the way you want. It is even more difficult when you feel like you are the only person in a group who is an outlier. But more than one-third of Americans between 25 and 54 are not married.
The more time we long for something, the more likely we are to idealize it. It's time to take this vision of the life and timeline you wanted off the pedestal and reimagine a new way of living. It’s not that you won’t wonder about if and when you’ll meet a partner; instead, it’s a matter of how much it preoccupies and takes away from other things that are in your life right now.
Unfortunately, and no matter how much you want it or how hard you work, you can’t control when you’ll meet someone. Peace comes from acceptance — an acceptance of what you cannot control and an acceptance of what is right now. The hard part is moving through this pain without letting it keep you stuck in a state of unhappiness.
You may need to grieve that your life isn’t abiding by a timeline, and you also may want to examine the way you define concepts for yourself. Particularly, I’m fascinated by what “family” means to you, how tied it is to a partner and a child, and what this looked like for you growing up. You want a family, but I wonder what part of that feels unquestionable and what part of it feels negotiable. Is having a kid the part that is nonnegotiable? If so, would you consider pursuing parenthood on your own with the possibility of a partner being incorporated later?
Reflect on why finding a partner is so important to you. Is it for companionship? Is it because your parents modeled a healthy partnership? Is it because you are expected to want it? Wanting a partner isn’t a bad thing, but thinking about why you want one may help you shape your intentions.
As for dating and not having a second date in several years, it may be helpful to reflect on why that is. Don’t lower your standards, but rather consider if you are dating the same type of man or if you have unrealistic expectations for what a first date should be or feel like.
Finally, take some time to think about your existing relationships and ways you can expand this community so there are connections with others who share in your personal experiences. It’s imperative that we build community and relationships where we feel supported at any age and at any phase of life. Focusing on other goals and hobbies can help you integrate meaning and cultivate hope into your life. Continue to consider what it looks like for you to still want a partner and family while also enjoying and investing in your life as it exists today.
This can be incredibly hard in a culture that encourages hyper-independence or interdependence in traditional and romantic relationships. However, investing in other variations of love and family — albeit not in the ways you imagined it — can still give you connection as you continue to build a life of joy and fulfillment. | 2022-11-10T15:47:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Sahaj: I'm 37, single, and worried I'll never have a family - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/11/ask-sahaj-single-family-worried/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/11/ask-sahaj-single-family-worried/ |
Critic Elvis Mitchell is the writer, director and narrator of “Is That Black Enough For You?” (Hannah Kozak/Netflix)
“Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm” is a feature-length animated comedy based on the now-canceled Adult Swim series “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” centering on a group of anthropomorphic food items: Frylock (voice of Carey Means), a box of french fries; Master Shake (Dana Snyder), a milkshake; and Meatwad (Dave Willis), a ball of ground meat. R. Available on demand. Contains coarse language, crude sexual material and some violence. 76 minutes.
If “The Good Nurse,” Netflix’s true-crime thriller starring Eddie Redmayne as serial killer Charlie Cullen, only whetted your appetite for more killer-nurse content, then allow me to suggest “Capturing the Killer Nurse.” The new Netflix documentary about Cullen, a New Jersey R.N. whose killings, committed while on duty at several hospitals, may have numbered in the hundreds, includes interviews with the nurses who helped alert detectives to his crimes, as well as audio from Cullen himself. TV-14. Available on Netflix. 95 minutes.
“Pulp Fiction” co-stars John Travolta and Bruce Willis reunite in “Paradise City,” a thriller about bounty hunter Ian Swan (Willis) in pursuit of a Maui mob boss known as el Gringo Narco (Travolta). When Ian is shot and presumed dead, his son (Blake Jenner), his ex-partner (Stephen Dorff) and a local detective (Praya Lundberg) set out to find Ian’s killers. Slant magazine calls it an “inept schlockfest.” R. Available on demand. Contains violence and strong language. 94 minutes.
Baltimore-born actress, comedian, writer and activist Sarah Jones, who won a special Tony Award in 2006 for her performance in the one-woman show “Bridge & Tunnel,” is the writer, director and star of “Sell/Buy/Date,” a hybrid narrative and documentary film (executive-produced by Meryl Streep) exploring the theme of sex work. “On her quest, Jones checks in with some friends — Rosario Dawson, Ilana Glazer and Bryan Cranston, among them,” the New York Times writes. “She also brings along four of her characters, which she plays herself: bubbe Lorraine; Bella, a sex-work studies major; Rashid, an Uber driver; and Nereida, a women’s rights advocate. The quartet provide comic relief, and more.” Unrated. Available on demand. 97 minutes. | 2022-11-10T15:52:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New movies to stream from home this week - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/10/november-11-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/10/november-11-new-streaming-movie-roundup/ |
Basketball recruit seriously hurt in crash signs letter of intent with Iowa
Ava Jones will take a step toward her college basketball dream at Iowa after she and her family were seriously injured when a motorist struck them as they walked in Louisville. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Ava Jones, a star high school basketball player in Kansas, signed a national letter of intent to play for the University of Iowa Wednesday, four months after she suffered severe injuries and her father was killed when struck by a car as they walked on a sidewalk in Louisville.
“The support I’ve gotten from everyone has given me even more momentum to get better. I feel like my dad was with me today, because this was his dream, too,” Jones said (via ESPNW’s M.A. Voepel). “This was our goal together.”
The family was struck July 5 by an impaired driver while in Kentucky for an AAU tournament in which Ava was competing. The 17-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury, torn ligaments in both knees and a shoulder injury. Her father, Trey Jones, died from his injuries and her mother suffered 21 broken bones and a brain injury. Her younger brother, Creek, was not seriously injured.
Jones, a 6-foot-2 forward at Nickerson High School in central Kansas, originally committed to Arizona State, but decommitted in March when Charli Turner Thorne retired as coach. Recruiting began again and Jones tweeted her commitment to the Hawkeyes two days before the crash. The school made the signing official Wednesday.
Jones returned for her senior year at Nickerson last month after a lengthy hospitalization, but she hasn’t been able to play volleyball this fall and her basketball season starts next week. Signing was a welcome moment, a step toward a return to her life before the accident.
The driver of the car that struck the family was indicted by a grand jury in August and charged with one count of murder, two counts of first-degree assault, one count of assault in the fourth degree and one count of operating a motor vehicle under the influence. According to WDRB, Michael Hurley, 33, said he had taken hydrocodone, an opioid, and was so “tired that he could not make the turn,” according to police.
Hurley was on probation in Indiana for drug-related charges at the time of the crash, according to court documents. He pleaded guilty in the summer of 2021 to two drug-related charges: possession or use of a legend drug and possession of a syringe. He was sentenced to 455 days of probation and was serving that sentence at the time of the crash. He also has several traffic offenses on his record.
What an awesome day. After an accident four months ago, Ava Jones’ road to recovery is off to a remarkable start. Today she saw her dream of being a Division I basketball player come true, as she signed her NLI to @IowaWBB. 💛
“Even when I wasn’t awake, they were still there.” pic.twitter.com/y8KRSIHvNX
— Tejay Cleland (@KWCHTejay) November 10, 2022
Jones faces surgery on both knees and her shoulder over the next few months and is working with a speech therapist. “It felt really good to have signed; it actually feels more real,” Jones said. “I want to play basketball again. Hopefully, I’ll be able to, but I don’t know. But even if I’m not able to, I will still be around the team. I love the Iowa team and the coaches.”
Her mother, who has had multiple surgeries and uses a walker, has returned to work remotely as assistant superintendent in Nickerson’s school district.
“The amount of people who came out to support Ava is so special, as is everything the community has done for us,” Amy Jones said. “It’s nice to see her happy and fulfilling a dream. She’s been there for me, because when I start getting down, she will say, ‘Okay, Mom, we can do this. We’re gonna keep going.’ She is just so determined and driven.” | 2022-11-10T15:56:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ava Jones signs letter of intent to play basketball for Iowa - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/ava-jones-iowa-basketball/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/ava-jones-iowa-basketball/ |
South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley is making sure her players like guard Zia Cooke share in business deals she's making. (Nell Redmond/AP)
Dawn Staley doesn’t mince words and she has a message for all listening — if you want to be in business with her, you have to be in business with the Gamecocks. The South Carolina coach is one of the most popular, influential and recognizable figures in women’s basketball after winning a second national championship and coaching the gold medal-winning Team USA in Tokyo. Her Gamecocks went wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team last season and will travel to face No. 17 Maryland on Friday as the top team, still, and the favorite to repeat.
Staley flat out stated her goal to The Washington Post — she wants the program to be No. 1 on the floor and No. 1 in the NIL space that allows players profit off their name, image and likeness.
“Honestly, I make a lot of money,” Staley said. “I want our players to make a lot of money. I want them to feel like, I’m able to make the money that I make off of their backs and [should] be able to help to create some wealth [for them]. No matter how big or small. I am an active participant in wanting them to benefit in this space.”
Who’s making the most from NIL? Women’s basketball is near the top.
The program, through Staley, recently reached an agreement with upstart company Rewind, which designs plans to defeat Type 2 diabetes. Co-founder and CEO Pete Thulson jumped at Staley’s request to involve every player as an early-stage venture without the resources of a huge established company.
Group and team-wide deals aren’t exactly novel, explained Thilo Kunkel, Temple associate professor at the School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management and director of the Sport Industry Research Center. United Wholesale Mortgage announced deals with the Michigan State women’s basketball and volleyball teams for 2022-23 after previously having deals with the football and men’s basketball teams. SmartyStreets, a location data intelligence company, struck a deal with BYU to include every woman athlete. The Maryland women’s basketball team has an initiative with Fanatics for players to profit off jerseys and T-shirts with individual names and numbers. The list goes on.
The South Carolina-Rewind partnership, however, provides each player with equity in the company through stock options, in addition to some NIL money.
Corey Staniscia, president of AIM (Athlete Image Management) Sports, called those deals that include equity in companies “the future.” He believes many companies haven’t gotten the return on investment from straight cash NIL deals that they expected and may be looking for a better way.
“I think a lot of these companies are saying, well,” Staniscia said, “instead of giving $25,000 cash, I think I’d rather give them a little bit of skin in the game. And say, hey, if you’re going to do this and you really believe in this company, if you believe in me, I believe in you. And we can do this together. And if I make money, then you’re going to make money. I think that’s where a lot of these businesses are now starting to go.”
These types of deals are multifaceted with benefits for all parties. The team-wide aspect, according to Staley, helps with camaraderie with each player benefiting. Having Staley actively seeking these arrangements has a positive impact on recruiting. Companies get a motivated ambassador and an association with the university.
“We’re talking about Rewind basically getting the association with South Carolina without actually paying the University of South Carolina,” Kunkel said. “So it’s a nice form of ambush marketing. This is definitely a much stronger integration of the student-athlete in the company, and by default it requires those student-athletes to upskill on their business knowledge.”
Having stock options and equity in a company is not the norm for college students, let alone student-athletes. So the deal also incentivizes financial literacy. Former Florida State quarterback McKenzie Milton, who has equity in NIL engagement platform Dreamfield, tweeted that he didn’t know the difference between a 1099 and W-2 tax forms until this summer.
“It’s almost like a mini MBA that they’re acquiring, if they do it well,” Kunkel said.
Staniscia called it on-the-job training in how to create wealth by getting thrown in the deep end and learning how to make good financial decisions. And every player can decide how best to utilize the opportunity.
“Equity goes a long way,” said Aliyah Boston, the reigning national player of the year and defensive player of the year. “This brand, it can get be worth so much money and for you to have a part of it all for as long as you want it, it’s really great. And I think it kind of helps us mature a little bit as a team.
“For me personally, the goal is to make money. … Build my brand and make sure I’m surrounding myself with good people that want to see me succeed.”
Boston’s situation is much different from many of her peers as the best player on the defending national champs and the expected No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft. She recently signed a deal with Orangetheory Fitness and had relationships with Bose and Under Armour, to name a few. She and teammate Zia Cooke, another top WNBA prospect, want to benefit financially, but also take a long-term approach to business and the impact that the relationship can have.
“I don’t try to just do deals for the money,” Cooke said. “I really do want to do deals that are going to be long term and is going to be an impact for me and the community. I like to do deals that have a message behind it and not just for the money. I think this is something that is going to keep continuing to grow and it’s going to definitely open doors for other companies to want to do deals that are the same.”
That’s exactly what Staley envisions. Opening doors of financial wealth and literacy for her players. Opening doors for elite recruits to join a program that aggressively works within the NIL space. Opening doors for all players to participate regardless of national popularity.
Staley has grown into a household name as a Hall of Famer with four gold medals as a player or coach, two NCAA coach of the year awards and as the first African American basketball coach to win multiple Division I national championships in basketball. She carries a lot of clout right now and is being intentional in how she wields it.
“Any company that is interested in me and pushing a product or helping our community in any kind of way,” Staley said, “and there is a monetary figure on the line, I want our players to benefit from it. And all of them.” | 2022-11-10T15:56:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dawn Staley spreading NIL wealth among South Carolina players - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/dawn-staley-name-image-likeness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/dawn-staley-name-image-likeness/ |
The right once again decides to come at the king
Former president Donald Trump during a 'Save America' rally in Vandalia, Ohio, on Monday. (Joshua A. Bickel/Bloomberg)
Donald Trump was asked on Election Day how much the Republican midterm results should be considered a function of his own efforts.
“I think if they win, I should get all the credit,” he replied, “and if they lose, I should not get blamed at all. But it will probably be just the opposite.” His picks had “turned out to be very good candidates,” he added, but “if they do badly, they will blame everything on me.”
The first part of that quote got a lot of attention, being from the “heads, I win; tails, you lose” school of blame-acceptance. But the latter part, it turns out, was prophetic. Not only has the surprising Republican underperformance been blamed on Trump, but the moment has expanded into something broader: an insistence in some quarters that Trump should be excised from Republican politics entirely.
This was most obvious in the parallel excoriations coming from outlets connected to the right’s media kingmaker, Rupert Murdoch. The front page of the New York Post, largely focused on boosting Rep. Lee Zeldin’s (R-N.Y.) failed gubernatorial bid in the weeks prior to the election, pivoted to a celebration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) reelection victory on Wednesday morning and, on Thursday, to mocking the man who leads DeSantis in most 2024 presidential polling: Trump.
That … evocative image was tied to an essay from conservative writer John Podhoretz.
“Trump is perhaps the most profound vote repellent in modern American history,” Podhoretz wrote. “The surest way to lose in these midterms was to be a politician endorsed by Trump.”
For those traveling to work not on the subway but in the back of a sedan, the Wall Street Journal offered a similar assessment, albeit sans cartoon.
“Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser,” an editorial from the paper was headlined.
“Since his unlikely victory in 2016 against the widely disliked Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump has a perfect record of electoral defeat,” it read. “The GOP was pounded in the 2018 midterms owing to his low approval rating. Mr. Trump himself lost in 2020. He then sabotaged Georgia’s 2021 runoffs by blaming party leaders for not somehow overturning his defeat.”
This left out Trump’s failed endorsement in Alabama’s special Senate election in 2017 and the backlash in Virginia’s legislative races that year, but we digress.
Even at Fox News, the network deeply intertwined with Trump’s political rise, reviews were mixed. The network elevated the Post’s celebration of DeSantis’s victory, for example, though primetime host Tucker Carlson was careful to point a finger of blame at his eternal target: the elites (here meaning the GOP establishment). The party lost races unrelated to Trump, he accurately noted. But this was just a variation on Trump’s rhetoric from the top of this article: If Republicans win, it’s despite the elites; if they lose, it’s because of them.
The static traveled outside the Murdochverse. Various Republican officials and allies gave quotes to The Washington Post and the New York Times — even, occasionally, on the record! — pinning the disappointing results on the former president. Criticism even came from more exotic quarters.
There’s little question that some of this is deserved, of course; research published after the 2018 midterms found that Trump rallies for candidates often had the effect of boosting Democrats by energizing anti-Trump voters. But it has very post-2012 vibes: backlash at the moment when there was the least opportunity to do anything about it.
In that election 10 years ago, you’ll remember, Republicans expected to defy polling and see Mitt Romney easily beat President Barack Obama. But he didn’t. That triggered, first, an energetic round of finger-pointing and, then, a structural effort to reshape the party for success. It was a moment that cleared Trump’s 2016 path: isolating the establishment Republican approach from the angry, fringe, conservative-media-driven one, with both moving forward in different directions for several years. In 2015, Trump proved that the latter path held more political power and used it to seize control of the GOP. He has retained that control since, which is why he earns outsized criticism for the midterm results.
Part of the reason he could, though, was that there wasn’t really leverage that the establishment could exert, especially immediately after the election. The party put together a group that aimed to figure out a better path forward, but that was like carefully drawing out a route on a paper map as the party’s base was going 100 miles an hour in the other direction, radio tuned to Rush Limbaugh.
What does it mean to challenge Trump right now? Challenge him how? When the Journal replies to Trump’s promise that his party would get tired of winning by suggesting that Republicans should instead be “sick and tired of losing,” it’s an unsubtle reminder of DeSantis’s success. But even if the party did decide to circle the wagons around DeSantis right now, what does that mean?
Let’s set aside for the moment that DeSantis’s victory will itself evoke some scrutiny. That Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) won by a similar margin against a stronger opponent has generally been brushed aside by silver-lining-seeking Republicans, for now. Let’s just assess the field of play at the moment.
Trump’s party has long been the group of kids on the playground who could overpower the bully if enough of them worked together — but each of whom individually is wary of being the first to step forward. But even if they were all to step forward together, they have to do so at the right moment, not (to extend the metaphor here) after he’s already gone back inside from recess. If a number of them challenged him now, there’s no vehicle to wrench power away from him anyway. And if only a few step forward, even more will use it as an opportunity to curry favor with Trump. To shift the metaphor in a new direction: Since 2016, the GOP has been a party of remoras, not competitive, man-eating sharks.
Everyone knows that Donald Trump is not the kingmaker he has long pretended to be and that he never has been. But Republicans went along with it through 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021, because they were worried about 1) his base of support and 2) invoking his wrath. Those points of leverage exist today as they did on Sunday.
Besides, if DeSantis were to use this moment to take on Trump directly, then what? Trump’s been champing at the bit to throw everything he can at DeSantis — and he is no more bound than he ever was to only offer valid criticisms. Perhaps a challenge to Trump now from the party’s most popular non-Trump official would weaken the former president, disinclining him from running at all. It’s more likely, though, that DeSantis would begin his second term in office fending off incessant attacks from his right flank.
Establishing Trump as an electoral disaster in the post-election heat may benefit DeSantis or another Republican in 2024. But Trump has more than a year to reframe that position and to convince his base that elections are suspect and that the candidates who lost were ones who rejected his philosophy and to batter straying Republicans back into line.
This is admittedly fatalistic, assuming that challenging Trump won’t go anywhere. But it is not uninformed fatalism. Trump attempted to subvert the results of a presidential election to seize power in a legal coup and Republicans expressed frustration for about a week. They still need him to help win primaries — maybe not today, but someday. So even as the bully tried to burn down the school, they stood on the playground and agreed amongst themselves that someone should do something.
Trump knows this is how it works. He’s seen these small rebellions in the past. He’s pretty obviously angry that Tuesday went badly and mad that DeSantis is getting good press. But he’s seen this before. And he’s still around, hands on at least some of the controls. | 2022-11-10T16:09:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The right once again decides to come at Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/trump-desantis-republicans-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/trump-desantis-republicans-midterms/ |
By Donna St. George
The study, which followed schools in the Boston region during the 2021-22 academic year, found that the end of mask requirements was associated with an additional 45 cases of covid-19 per 1,000 students and staff — or nearly 12,000 cases during a 15-week period from March to June.
Before that split, covid trends were similar across the school districts. Afterward, they diverged, with a “substantially higher incidence in observed in school districts that lifted masking requirements,” according to the research.
“Our results support universal masking as an important strategy for reducing covid-19 incidence in schools and loss of in-person school days,” wrote the authors, who included researchers from Harvard University, Boston University and the Boston Public Health Commission.
Which masks are safest? Schools around the country struggle to answer.
“The difference in COVID risk between districts with and without masking is striking,” she wrote in an email. If anything, she said, the study underestimates how well masks control disease, since even in schools with no mandate, some students and staff probably continued to wear masks.
The findings support on-ramps and off-ramps for mask mandates, she said, which “makes sense, since masking does the most good when there is disease to be prevented.”
Jennifer Kates, a senior vice president at KFF, a nonprofit focused on health issues, who has been helping to lead its covid work, said the study demonstrated a “sizable” effect of universal masking — a finding that could be useful to efforts to control a future covid variant or other infectious disease. “This is a very low-cost, highly effective intervention,” she said.
Fitzpatrick said that the finding is important to the current crisis in child health, given that many hospitals are overwhelmed by children with respiratory infections including RSV, influenza and covid. “Masking is one of the rare tools that can combat all of these,” she said. | 2022-11-10T16:22:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Universal masking linked to fewer covid cases in schools, study finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/10/school-mask-mandate-covid-study/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/10/school-mask-mandate-covid-study/ |
The findings apply to unvaccinated, vaccinated and boosted people alike
Nearly three years into the coronavirus pandemic, mobile sites still provide testing, including in New York. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Ziyad Al-Aly, one of the study’s authors and chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, said a second, third or further infections can lead to health complications just as the first can.
“Getting it a second time is almost like you’re trying your chance again with Russian roulette,” Al-Aly, who is also a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, said. “You may have dodged a bullet the first time, but each time you get the infection you are trying your luck again.”
The paper, published Thursday in the journal Nature Medicine, involves an analysis of electronic medical records in the VA’s national health-care database. It found that patients with reinfections tended to have more complications in various organ systems both during their initial illness and longer term, and they were more likely to be diagnosed with long covid than people who did not get another infection. The findings applied regardless of people’s vaccination status or whether they were boosted.
When the pandemic began, everyone’s immune system started in a similar place of never having encountered the virus. Nearly three years later, some people have been infected and reinfected with different variants and vaccinated and boosted with different products creating great diversity in our immune systems across the world — meaning there are no simple answers to how previous infection will affect someone’s response to reinfection. More than 80 percent of Americans are estimated to have been infected with the coronavirus at least once.
Monica Gandhi, an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, said it is important to keep in mind that research using electronic medical records “does not reliably predict a causal relationship.”
Gandhi also said there’s research showing that infection, reinfection, vaccination and boosting broaden and diversify components of the immune system that may make people “better able to respond to the newest subvariants as we continue to live with covid-19.”
William Schaffner, an infectious-diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center who was not involved in the study, said the findings are consistent with recent work about the long-term consequences of flu that shows how the virus stimulates an immune response that can “smolder” after the initial illness.
“All these respiratory viruses seem to have long-term effects we have not appreciated in the past,” Schaffner said.
“They had been infected before and vaccinated, and they were talking as if they were invincible,” Al-Aly said. So he and his colleagues began looking into the question of whether reinfection matters.
“The short answer is: Absolutely. It absolutely does,” Al-Aly said. | 2022-11-10T16:22:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Repeat coronavirus infections can be dangerous, study suggests - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/10/covid-reinfection-complications/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/10/covid-reinfection-complications/ |
Secret photos of Kristallnacht show Nazi officers’ role in night of terror
People — most likely in Fürth, Germany — watch a Nazi officer ransack Jewish property on Nov. 10, 1938. This photo is part of a previously unseen album of images captured on Kristallnacht. (Yad Vashem/AP )
Previously unseen photographs that show uniformed Nazi officers actively participating in the bloody Kristallnacht mob attacks have been discovered in the house of a Jewish American serviceman who served in Germany during the Second World War.
The photo album offers a glimpse, through the eyes of two Nazi photographers, of what happened on the night of Nov. 9, 1938, when antisemitic mobs across Germany, Austria and part of Czechoslovakia descended upon Jews and Jewish properties in an unprecedented wave of Nazi-orchestrated violence.
The November pogrom, which became known as Kristallnacht due to the glass shattered over the streets after the attacks, marked an intensification of antisemitic oppression under the Nazi regime and for many historians represents the beginning of the Holocaust itself.
The images show uniformed members of the SS and SA Nazi paramilitary organizations actively participating in the violence — lighting fires, vandalizing homes and humiliating residents.
“Although I think many images of Kristallnacht are upsetting and disturbing, I think these are especially so. Because there’s a cruelty to them,” historian Toby Simpson, director of the Wiener Holocaust Library, told The Washington Post.
“They are unlike other images I’ve seen of Kristallnacht,” he said, adding that other photographs of the night tend to avoid directly showing the complicity of Nazi officials. “In some senses it didn’t suit Nazi propaganda to have people in SA uniform photographed committing crimes. This wasn’t necessarily the images the Nazis wanted to portray.”
It is not known how the photographs, taken throughout that night during the attacks in Nuremberg and nearby Fürth, came into the possession of an American soldier who was serving in the U.S. Army’s counterintelligence department in Germany. He never spoke about what he witnessed, according to his daughter Ann Leifer, who discovered the photo album after his death when clearing his U.S. home, where the collection had remained unseen for decades.
The veteran’s family has donated the collection to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust, making the photos public for the first time.
According to historians, the photographs offer rare visual evidence of the direct complicity of uniformed Nazi officers in the antisemitic pogroms, something rarely captured on film, and denied by Nazis at the time.
The records show a startled woman in her bed, SS soldiers confiscating piles of books, and the shattered remains of Jewish businesses, among other scenes of chaos and violence from that night.
Kristallnacht: The night Nazis killed Jews and destroyed synagogues 80 years before Pittsburgh
Officials at Yad Vashem say the images are rare, and the scenes depicted representative of much of the attacks happening across Germany and Austria during the riots.
“We can see from the extreme close-up nature of these photos that the photographers were an integral part of the event depicted. The angles and proximity to the perpetrators seem to indicate a clear goal, to document the events that took place,” Jonathan Matthews, head of Yad Vashem’s photographic archives, said in a news release. “All this serves as further proof that this was dictated from above and was not a spontaneous event of an enraged public, as they tried to make these pogroms appear.”
Other historical images exist of SA men participating in Kristallnacht by putting up anti-Jewish posters or watching on as the violence unfolds — but it is rare to see images of uniformed Nazis themselves holding piles of looted books and terrorizing women.
According to Yad Vashem, some of the images show wounded Jewish victims. In one, German SS soldiers can be seen confiscating piles of secular and religious books — presumably, according to the memorial’s archivists, to be burnt.
In addition to the houses that were ransacked, in some cases by the neighbors and acquaintances of the victims, thousands of Jewish businesses were torched, 267 synagogues destroyed, and scores of people killed. Some 30,000 Jews were rounded up on that night and sent to concentration camps.
The violence, which was unleashed amid a rising tide of antisemitism gripping Nazi Germany at the time, was incited by Nov. 9 instructions delivered by Hitler’s chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. “The Führer has decided that … demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the Party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered,” Goebbels told Nazi officials.
Despite their intended appearance of spontaneity, the riots were planned in advance by officials. They were carefully timed to coincide across three countries. Non-Jewish properties were protected and local police officials were instructed to arrest as many Jews as the local jails could hold — suggesting advanced coordination.
“These photographs clearly show the true intention of the Nazis and the systematic and deliberate lengths they would go to in order to accomplish their murderous agenda,” Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan said. “These photographs constitute important documentary evidence of the atrocities that were inflicted on the Jews of Europe.”
The fact that the unseen photo album was discovered in a family home is also a reminder that there is still historical evidence surviving from the Holocaust that has not before been examined by historians.
“Sometimes people assume that there isn’t any more historically significant material out there to be found – but there is. And that’s one of the crucial things that this shows us,” Simpson said. | 2022-11-10T16:22:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Secret Kristallnacht photos show Nazi officers' role attacking Jewish property - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/10/kristallnacht-nazi-photos-yad-vashem/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/10/kristallnacht-nazi-photos-yad-vashem/ |
This undated photo provided by The Strong Museum shows the three toys inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame on Nov. 10, 2022, in Rochester, N.Y. Masters of the Universe, Lite-Brite and the top were chosen from among 12 finalists for the annual honor, which recognizes toys that have inspired creative play and lasting popularity. (Courtesy of The Strong Museum via AP) (Uncredited/The Strong Museum) | 2022-11-10T16:23:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Top, Lite-Brite, Masters of the Universe in toy hall of fame - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/top-lite-brite-masters-of-the-universe-in-toy-hall-of-fame/2022/11/10/c073ab5a-610c-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/top-lite-brite-masters-of-the-universe-in-toy-hall-of-fame/2022/11/10/c073ab5a-610c-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
By Marco Rubio
The TikTok app on a smartphone screen. (Kiichiro Sato/AP)
Marco Rubio, a Republican, is a U.S. senator from Florida. Mike Gallagher, a Republican, represents Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District in the House.
The United States is locked in a new Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party, one that senior military advisers warn could turn hot over Taiwan at any time. Yet millions of Americans increasingly rely on TikTok, a Chinese social media app exposed to the influence of the CCP, to consume the news, share content and communicate with friends.
Already among the most popular media companies in the United States, TikTok offers the CCP a unique ability to monitor more than 1 billion users worldwide, including nearly two-thirds of American teenagers. We must ban this potential spyware before it is too late — not encourage its use in the United States, as President Biden is doing.
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. This is not a state-owned enterprise, but in China, no company is truly private. Under the country’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, all citizens and businesses are required to assist in intelligence work, which includes sharing data.
That’s not all. According to Forbes, LinkedIn profiles reveal that 23 of ByteDance’s directors previously worked for CCP propaganda outlets, and at least 15 ByteDance employees work for them now. Moreover, the company’s editor in chief, who also happens to be the secretary of its internal CCP committee, stressed that the committee would “take the lead” in “all product lines and business lines” to ensure that ByteDance’s products have “correct political direction.”
The company’s ownership of TikTok is problematic for two reasons. First, the app can track cellphone users’ locations and collect internet-browsing data — even when users are visiting unrelated websites.
That TikTok, and by extension the CCP, has the ability to survey every keystroke teenagers enter on their phones is disturbing. With this app, Beijing could also collect sensitive national security information from U.S. government employees and develop profiles on millions of Americans to use for blackmail or espionage.
Of course, TikTok denies that it would ever do such a thing. That’s hard to believe, however, in light of recent reporting in Forbes that ByteDance planned to use the app to monitor the locations of American citizens for undisclosed purposes unrelated to advertising.
TikTok did not answer Forbes’s questions about whether it has targeted U.S. government officials, activists, public figures or journalists. The company’s refusal to be transparent invites suspicion that the CCP may already be gathering data from the app.
Even more alarming than that possibility, however, are the potential abuses of TikTok’s algorithm.
TikTok supplies open content from people across the globe. Its algorithm is a black box, in that its designers can alter its operation at any time without informing users. Presumably, it is designed to identify and promote content with a high chance of going viral — catchy music, dances, jokes and the like. But in the hands of ByteDance, it could also be used to subtly indoctrinate American citizens.
TikTok has already censored references to politically sensitive topics, including the treatment of workers in Xinjiang, China, and the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square. It has temporarily blocked an American teenager who criticized the treatment of Uyghurs in China. In German videos about Chinese conduct toward Uyghurs, TikTok has modified subtitles for terms such as “reeducation camp” and “labor camp,” replacing words with asterisks.
The CCP could also use TikTok to propagate videos that support party-friendly politicians or exacerbate discord in American society. Such videos need not originate from CCP proxies — they could be created by anyone. With essentially unlimited data on user-made content at its disposal, Beijing can leverage it to fan the flames of domestic division.
And thanks to the rising number of adults who get their news from TikTok, the platform has the ability to influence which issues Americans learn about, what information they consider accurate, and what conclusions they draw from world events. This places extraordinary power in the hands of company employees who could any day be overruled by the CCP.
These are unacceptable outcomes. This is why we’re introducing legislation which would ban TikTok and other social media companies that are effectively controlled by the CCP from operating in the United States. Congress needs to act against the TikTok threat before it’s too late.
Opinion|The German chancellor’s China trip is about lessons learned — and not
Opinion|Taiwan is on the frontlines of China’s worldwide cyberwar | 2022-11-10T16:23:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Marco Rubio, Mike Gallagher: Ban TikTok in America - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/marco-rubio-ban-tiktok-america-china-mike-gallagher/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/marco-rubio-ban-tiktok-america-china-mike-gallagher/ |
Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield, right, argues with a referee during the second half of an NCAA college football game in Louisville, Ky., Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022. Louisville won 48-21. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
CLEMSON, S.C. — Louisville (6-3, 3-3 ACC) at No. 12 Clemson (8-1, 6-0), Saturday, 3:30 p.m. EST (ESPN) | 2022-11-10T16:24:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 12 Clemson looks to win ACC Atlantic outright vs. Cards - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-12-clemson-looks-to-win-acc-atlantic-outright-vs-cards/2022/11/10/80b7dc8e-6111-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-12-clemson-looks-to-win-acc-atlantic-outright-vs-cards/2022/11/10/80b7dc8e-6111-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Christian Davenport
Barbara Liston
Waves crash into a beachfront house after Hurricane Nicole made landfall on Florida's east coast, in Daytona Beach Shores on Thursday. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Hurricane Nicole pounded Florida’s eastern beaches overnight and drenched areas still recovering from Ian as it weakened into a sprawling tropical storm Thursday, flooding streets and tumbling at least one building.
The cyclone made landfall as a Category 1 storm near Vero Beach, clobbering the state’s central Atlantic coast with 75 mph winds overnight and dropping upward of a half foot of rain over inland areas that experienced devastating floods a month ago.
Dozens of buildings along Daytona Beach were evacuated as strong waves hit the shore, eroding beaches from Jupiter to Jacksonville. Wind gusts forced the temporary closure of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in the Tampa Bay area. And NASA teams were on standby to assess the 322-foot-fall Space Launch System rocket that weathered the storm from its launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center and is expected to takeoff next week.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) declared all of the Sunshine State under a state of emergency Thursday in what he called “an abundance of caution” as officials assess the impacts.
“This is obviously not as significant a storm as Hurricane Ian was, but coming on the heels of that, you’re seeing communities, particularly in the Volusia County area, where you had a lot of that erosion on the coastline,” DeSantis said. “This has put some of those structures in jeopardy, and they’ve been working very hard to make sure everybody is safe.”
“There are dozens upon dozens of buildings that have been declared structurally unsafe here along the beach in Volusia County,” said Mike Chitwood, the sheriff of the county located along the coast northeast of Orlando, ahead of the storm.
At Cape Canaveral, NASA officials were assessing how soon workers can check in on the rocket expected to launch next Wednesday, a spokesman said. The rocket’s inaugural takeoff is slated to send the Orion spacecraft to orbit the moon. Teams will need to inspect the rocket for damage before it can proceed. It is designed to withstand gusts of up to 85 mph, but meteorologists recorded wind speeds in the area that exceeded that threshold.
As the storm moves inland, concern is shifting to central Florida communities where the ground is still saturated from Hurricane Ian’s massive downpours. Rivers and lakes were swollen from the catastrophic storm that hit in late September.
Alan Harris, emergency manager of Seminole County, said neighborhoods still drying out from Ian were likely to be flooded again. After Ian, about 100 homes were unreachable except by boat. The water has been slowly receding, and the county expected that by this weekend, the last 40 homeowners would be able to walk down the street and into their homes without waders, “so we could go back to normalcy such as garbage collection.”
“Now, it’s back to parking at the end of the roadway and canoeing in,” Harris said. “So basically it puts us back where we were.” | 2022-11-10T17:10:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nicole lashes Florida with flooding in areas still recovering from Ian - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/10/nicole-lashes-florida-with-flooding-areas-still-recovering-ian/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/10/nicole-lashes-florida-with-flooding-areas-still-recovering-ian/ |
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) walks off the stage after speaking during a House Republicans' party at the Westin Hotel in Washington, D.C., early Wednesday morning. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Oregon’s largest newspaper has declared that Democrat Tina Kotek is the winner of that state’s governor’s race. And while the race hasn’t been called by others, Kotek’s victory would be significant nationally: It would assure that Democrats would actually gain ground in the 2022 governor’s races.
And that’s hardly the only evidence of a historic Republican underperformance in the 2022 midterms.
As we’ve emphasized many times, midterms are almost always good for the party that doesn’t control the White House. But this one has clearly not been — in multiple ways.
Republicans will still likely grab a narrow majority in the House, but it now seems likely they will also fail to gain seats at every major other level. They’ll apparently lose modest ground at both the gubernatorial and state legislative levels. And while it’s still possible they’ll win the Senate by gaining the requisite one seat, their odds appear to be decreasing — and they could even wind up losing a seat there as well. (For all the latest on that, see here.)
As things stand, Democrats have lost one Senate seat, two governor’s mansions and four state legislative chambers.
Here’s how that compares historically:
The opposition party has lost Senate seats in just 6 of the 25 midterm elections held over the past century. It averages a gain of four seats. Republicans have currently lost one seat. (The GOP could ultimately gain one seat or even two if the final three races break for them in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. But Democrats appear well-situated to make this at least an even split and keep their majority.)
The opposition party has gained an average of nearly 30 House seats over that same span — including an average of 25 seats since 1994. As things stand, Republicans have gained around a half-dozen seats, according to race calls from the Associated Press. (Pegging the precise number is difficult with incomplete results, since many congressional maps were significantly redrawn and we’re not able to directly compare districts). The opposition party has failed to gain double-digit House seats just 7 times in the past 25 midterms.
The opposition party has gained an average of 4.5 governor’s seats over the last 100 years. Republicans are currently down two, and if they have lost Oregon, their only remaining pickup would be in Nevada.
It would be the first time since 1986 — and only the second time since 1934 — that the opposition party has lost governor’s seats.
Only once in the past 100 years has the opposition party lost both Senate seats and governor’s mansions: 1934. Republicans could feasibly do that.
The opposition party has gained state legislative chambers in every midterm election held since 2002, flipping an average of more than 12 chambers. Republicans have currently lost at least three chambers — both chambers in Michigan, and the Minnesota state Senate — and appear as though they’ll lose the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives as well.
Those state legislative elections actually provide some of the most subtly interesting numbers, given how vast the data set is. As the National Conference of State Legislatures notes, that number of chambers the GOP lost could soon grow in Arizona and New Hampshire.
What’s more, the GOP is also likely to lose ground in terms of the raw number of state legislative seats — something that has happened only twice in the last 100 years.
Here’s how the shifts in House, Senate and governor’s seats have unfolded over the past century:
There are many caveats here. Most notable among them is that we’re dealing with incomplete results, and the 2022 numbers will continue to shift somewhat.
It’s also worth emphasizing that, regardless of the final numbers, we’re looking at an election that may leave us somewhere close to the status quo. That’s happened on several occasions: 1962, 1990, 1998 and 2002 — the last election in which the opposition party hasn’t made major gains, which was held shortly after 9/11. Perhaps the best midterm for the president’s party in the last 100 years was 1934, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Democrats gained major ground in the Senate but little elsewhere.
The 2022 election wasn’t that good for today’s Democrats. But it’s clearly the exception to the rule that the opposition party benefits quite a bit in the midterms the vast majority of the time. And that’s even more striking considering how many on the right assured just a few days ago that we were headed toward a “red wave.”
Midterm elections live updates: Republicans expected to narrowly take House; Senate in limbo
Race call: Democratic incumbent wins House race in Connecticut | 2022-11-10T17:27:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How bad the 2022 election was for the GOP, historically speaking - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/republican-losses-2022-midterms/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/republican-losses-2022-midterms/ |
The storm has produced gusts over 80 mph, an ocean surge over 3 feet and half a foot of rain. Next, it will bring heavy rain and a tornado risk to the eastern U.S.
Nicole made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in North Hutchinson Island, Fla., on Nov. 10. (Video: Reuters, Photo: AP/Reuters)
Nicole made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at 3 a.m. Eastern time near Vero Beach, Fla., bringing 75 mph winds and a dangerous ocean surge as it lashed the coastline. It marked just the fourth hurricane on record to strike the United States during November.
It is now a weakening tropical storm as it crosses the Florida Peninsula, but its impacts are far from over. Its second act, which is just beginning, will bring heavy rain along and to the west of its path, and the risk of severe storms and tornadoes to the east.
As the storm blasted ashore in the predawn hours Thursday, it unleashed peak gusts of 84 and 80 mph near Daytona Beach and in Melbourne. Other notable gusts in the Sunshine State included: Cocoa Beach, 78 mph; Orlando, 70 mph; and Juno Beach, 62 mph. An elevated weather station at Cape Canaveral, 120 feet off the ground, clocked a gust to 100 mph.
On Thursday morning, tropical-storm-force winds — which extended as far as 345 miles from the storm center — were affecting Florida’s east and west coasts simultaneously. St. Augustine clocked a gust of 70 mph, while Clearwater Beach posted a gust to 59 mph. PowerOutage.US reported nearly 350,000 customers without power across the state.
Photos: Nicole makes landfall in Florida
The storm was also generating considerable storm surge, or rise in water above normally dry land. Port Canaveral registered a 3-foot surge, with some of the worst flooding ongoing at the time of Thursday morning’s high tide. In Palm Beach, a 2-foot storm surge was recorded, and water levels were running about 2.1 feet higher than usual at the mouth of the St. Johns River east of Jacksonville. Some places probably saw a surge closer to 4 feet.
Streets were flooded on Hutchinson Island, forcing officials to call in high-water rescue vehicles, with structural damage reported in Melbourne Beach off Sandy Shores Drive. Entire neighborhoods were inaccessible at St. Augustine Beach, and some flooding occurred as far south as Fort Lauderdale. The Lauderdale-by-the-Sea pier partially collapsed.
In the coastal community of Wilbur-by-the-Sea in Volusia County, several homes were in danger of collapsing.
Around Daytona Beach, video emerged of sea walls destroyed and a beach safety building collapsed into the ocean. A condo building in Daytona Beach Shores was evacuated amid fears of collapse due to erosion.
Rainfall totals from the storm in Florida generally were in the 2- to 4-inch range, but localized totals neared 6 inches. Select totals include: 4.07 inches in Titusville; 3.67 inches in Orlando; 2.89 inches in Fort Lauderdale; 2.49 inches in Jacksonville; 2.02 inches Daytona Beach; and 1.83 inches in Miami.
Tropical storm warnings remain in effect from Sebastian Inlet, Fla., to just north of Charleston, S.C., with storm surge warnings from Sebastian Inlet to midway between Jacksonville and Savannah, Ga.
Additional tropical storm and storm surge warnings are posted from north of Tampa through Florida’s Big Bend, where Nicole’s circulation will buffet the coastline with onshore winds for much of Thursday.
In addition to a lingering risk of strong winds and pockets of surge, the risk for tornadoes is increasing across parts of coastal Georgia and the Carolinas. That risk will expand to cover much of the Mid-Atlantic in the coming days, the threat inching as far north as Washington, D.C.
Nicole will also drench the Appalachians, dropping a widespread 2 to 4 inches of rain and soaking areas that, just days before, had been struggling with drought.
“Isolated flash, urban, and small stream flooding will also be possible on Friday in the Southeast through the central Appalachians, including the Blue Ridge Mountains, and extending northward through eastern Ohio, west central Pennsylvania, into western New York by Friday night into Saturday,” the National Hurricane Center wrote.
As of 10 a.m. Eastern time, Nicole had weakened into a tropical storm with maximum winds around 50 mph. It was about 30 miles northeast of Tampa, and was drifting west-northwest at 16 mph. The storm is projected to move over the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon but it is not forecast to gain strength.
10 am Thu...Tropical Storm Nicole was located 30 mi NE of Tampa, FL. Nicole has max sustained winds of 50 mph and is moving to the WNW at 16 mph. Saint Augustine, FL has reported winds of 52 mph & a gust to 70 mph. Clearwater Beach, FL reported winds of 51 mph & a gust to 59 mph. pic.twitter.com/WL54QukQmj
Nicole is ingesting dry air — a meteorological blessing and a curse. That’s eroded its structure and cut back on heavy rainfall, helping to weaken it, but is amplifying tornado risk. That’s because the influx of dry air is kicking up a band of thunderstorms as it cuts beneath warm, humid air streaming in from the Atlantic.
A change of wind speed and/or direction with height, known as wind shear, is causing individual thunderstorms within that band to rotate as they pivot ashore. That will result in a tornado risk. The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center has hoisted a tornado watch that covers northeast Florida and extreme southeastern Georgia until 1 p.m.
A tornado watch has been issued for parts of Florida and Georgia until 1 PM EST pic.twitter.com/K0LJWEOfJf
On the opposite side of Florida, tornado risk will be nonexistent, but heavy rain was lashing much of the Interstate 75 corridor. Tampa was seeing rainfall rates exceeding an inch per hour at the start of the work day, with onshore winds causing some minor to locally moderate coastal flooding in Tampa Bay.
Up next for Nicole
Nicole will continue to lose steam from a wind standpoint, but the rainfall and tornado risks will remain. It will begin to curve more north and eventually northeast as it rounds the backside of a high pressure force field exiting the Southeast coast.
Along the way, it will make a second Florida landfall along the Panhandle on Thursday night before passing close to Atlanta on Friday. By that time, it is forecast to be a tropical depression. The heaviest rain will fall west of the center as an approaching cold front focuses Nicole’s remnant moisture, with the greatest tornado risk to the east.
Through Saturday, Nicole’s trek up the Appalachians will dump a general 2 to 4 inches of rain, with the heaviest likely falling in the high terrain of western North Carolina. There, an isolated six-inch total can’t be ruled out. The westward shift of Nicole’s precipitation shield in recent forecasts will limit rainfall in places like Raleigh, Richmond and Washington, D.C., as well as the Acela corridor of the Northeast.
That stretch of Interstate 95 in the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic will have to deal with a tornado threat. A Level 2 out of 5 “slight” risk for a few tornadoes covers Charlotte, Virginia Beach, Raleigh, N.C., and Richmond on Friday, with a Level 1 out of 5 marginal risk for tornadoes reaching all the way into New Jersey and encompassing Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the nation’s capital.
1:00am CST #SPC Day2 Outlook Slight Risk: across parts of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia https://t.co/Y1WiOcQKCI pic.twitter.com/d8zcHqWFU5
Nicole in perspective
Nicole’s landfall in the Sunshine State represents the first November hurricane to strike Florida since 1935, and marks the latest in the calendar year that Florida’s east coast has seen a hurricane. It’s also the first to hit anywhere in the United States in November since 1985.
Nicole became the third hurricane to form so far this month in the Atlantic, meaning 2022 is now tied with 2001 for most November Atlantic hurricanes on record, according to Phil Klotzbach, a tropical weather expert at Colorado State University.
The overall hurricane season as a whole is still running about 21 percent behind average in terms of total energy expended by storms, but beleaguered residents of the Gulf Coast hit hard by Ian and now Nicole know that it only takes one storm. By the books, the Atlantic hurricane season ends Nov. 30. | 2022-11-10T17:54:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tropical Storm Nicole lashing Florida, set to drench eastern U.S. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/10/tropical-storm-nicole-florida-eastcoast/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/10/tropical-storm-nicole-florida-eastcoast/ |
Raising Cane’s serves chicken tenders and not a lot else, so its sandwich is just a bun with a few tenders tossed on. (Nick Kindelsperger/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)
Raising Cane’s is known for its chicken fingers.
And so one can image that the fast-food chain was none too pleased to learn that there was an unusual covenant attached to a property in Hobart, Ind., on which it had signed a long-term lease, where it planned to open a location complete with a double drive-through and patio seating: It couldn’t sell any boneless chicken products. Which would make it difficult for a chain that offers virtually nothing else. (Technically it sells drinks, fries, sauce, coleslaw and Texas toast, but chicken fingers are unquestionably the main event.)
Raising Cane’s filed a lawsuit against the shopping center, the Crossings of Hobart, and its owner, Ohio-based Schottenstein Property Group, alleging fraud and saying that its would-be landlord failed to disclose the existence of the chicken ban, which surely would have been a dealbreaker. The provision barring it from selling chicken had been imposed, the fast-food chain said in court documents cited in a report by the Times of Northwest Indiana, by an noncompete agreement that the previous property owners had reached with a nearby McDonald’s in 1984.
“This case is about the defendants’ scheme to induce Raising Cane’s to enter a 15-year lease with rent payments to Crossings totaling millions of dollars, in exchange for a Raising Cane’s restaurant that the defendants knew would never actually exist,” Raising Cane’s claimed in the lawsuit, per the Times.
But a lawyer for the defendants suggested that Raising Cane’s should have read the lease more carefully — and done a title search. “The terms of the lease addressed the existence of potential restrictions,” attorney Mario Little said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Raising Cane’s apparently failed to identify such restriction (which is accessible in the publicly-recorded title records associated with the subject shopping center) via a title search the Lease expressly authorized Raising Cane’s to undertake.”
In the lawsuit, Raising Cane’s alleges that the issue came to light only when Crossings of Hobart asked McDonald’s for a waiver to allow a Chipotle to open there. McDonald’s refused and noted that a Raising Cane’s also would violate the terms of its lease, which gave the Golden Arches the exclusive right in the shopping center to sell deboned chicken products.
“Despite knowing that the entire business model of Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers is premised on the sale of chicken fingers, the defendants did not disclose this issue before the lease was executed. In fact, the defendants specifically represented to Raising Cane’s that there was no exclusivity right that would conflict with Raising Cane’s ability to operate its restaurant,” the lawsuit alleges, according to the report. “Incredibly, the defendants did not tell Raising Cane’s it would be unable to sell its chicken fingers at the shopping center until nearly eight months later, after watching Raising Cane’s spend nearly a year of time and over a million dollars to develop its new restaurant.”
The chicken chain is reportedly asking for the 15-year lease to be voided and to be repaid what it has spent developing the site. “As a result of defendants’ wrongful conduct, Raising Cane’s suffered injury and is entitled to rescission of the lease and/or the recovery of monetary damages, including but not limited to recovery of over a million dollars it has spent in development costs, as well as its lost profits,” the company wrote.
I tried McDonald’s Happy Meal for adults, and it didn’t make me happy
But Little said in the statement to The Post and in a court filing that the fast-food company is responsible because it signed the lease. “Raising Cane’s claims lack merit because they are contrary to the lease Raising Cane’s negotiated and signed,” he said in the statement. And he suggested that the chain could still open its location — presumably if it switched up its menu: “Raising Cane’s contracted for the construction and use of a free-standing quick-service restaurant — a use that remains available to Raising Cane’s.” | 2022-11-10T17:54:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Raising Cane's sues mall over lease that bans chicken fingers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/10/raising-canes-chicken-fingers-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/10/raising-canes-chicken-fingers-lawsuit/ |
Howard forward Steve Settle III is the top returning scorer for the Bison. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
As a national champion while playing at Duke in the early 90s, it’s not lost on Howard men’s basketball coach Kenny Blakeney that the rafters of Burr Gymnasium hold more retired jerseys (12) than NCAA tournament banners (two). Nor does he ignore the perception that Howard is incapable of becoming a hotbed for athletics.
But since joining the program in May of 2019, Blakeney has made it a priority to change that.
From sauntering the sidelines in Balenciaga sweaters and fresh out-of-the-box Jordans to embracing a fast brand of basketball, the shift has been undeniable. Three years in, the Bison has already signed a five-star recruit, raised enough money to build practice courts, signed a lucrative deal with Jordan Brand and finished with a winning record for the first time since 2002.
“It’s all about creating an image and identity, something you can hang your hat on,” Blakeney said. “The idea that Howard can’t have great facilities or win championships or become a household brand has been accepted for too long. We can do it here and we will do it here.”
Entering year four, the Bison has real expectations.
Last season, Howard earned the 2-seed in the MEAC Tournament but failed to reach the postseason after being upset by Coppin State in the first round.
“Last year was a good first step for us, but obviously it didn’t end the way that we hoped it would with us losing to a Coppin team that we felt we were better than,” junior Steve Settle III said. “When you finish like that it kind of takes some of the joy of all that we accomplished away, but we feel like it can still be a good foundation for us to continue to build off of this season.”
Settle III (13.8 points per game) projects as the leading scorer of a team that returns two of its top four scorers from a season ago and could add a third, Randall Brumant, pending NCAA appeal, but sans leading scorer and sharpshooter Kyle Foster (15.8 points per game).
The Bison will look to sophomore Elijah Hawkins (13 points per game) along with transfers Kobe Dickson (Cornell) and Sidwell Friends alum Jelani Williams (Penn) to help replace Foster’s scoring.
“Losing a special player like Kyle is so tough because he did so much for us last season,” Blakeney said. “But I think that we have a few guys capable of stepping up to fill in the gap in our offense that he left behind.”
Through two games, Howard (1-1) has been a bit of a mixed bag. After pushing Power Five programs like Villanova and Notre Dame last season, the Bison was trounced by a Kentucky team missing three projected starters, including 2022 Naismith player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe, in Monday’s opener, 95-63.
Minus Hawkins, the 2022 MEAC freshman of the year, Howard used a second-half surge from Settle (19 points, seven rebounds) and junior Jordan Wood (19 points, nine rebounds) to slip by the University of D.C. (Division II) 87-74 on Wednesday — after trailing 37-36 at the half.
For Wood, a player the team views as its X-factor, Wednesday’s performance was a nice bounce back after he went 1-12 from the field at Kentucky. As a freshman, Wood averaged just under 10 points per game before the season was shut down due to a coronavirus outbreak within the team. But last year, he scored just 2.7 points a game as his confidence wavered throughout the year.
This summer, Blakeney challenged Wood to run a marathon in hopes that accomplishing something hard outside of basketball would restore his confidence on the court.
“J-Wood has all the tools man,” Settle III said. “When he’s on, he unlocks [another] dimension for our team. We all believe that his breakthrough is coming. We see it every day in practice.”
If the Bison is to end its 30-year NCAA tournament drought, it will need to protect the ball. Howard finished the season with a negative assist-to-turnover ratio, 14.3 assists per game to 14.7 turnovers per game. Its 14.7 turnovers per game ranked 28th in the nation.
The Bisons’ turnover struggles played a key role in the team’s 2-7 record in one-possession games.
“We just got to keep it simple,” Settle said. “I think that sometimes we all can get caught up in making the home run play and that can be a good thing and a bad thing. Like yes, you always want to make the right play, but adding that little extra spice to it and going for the big play can be helpful too. We just have to find the right balance and learn to pick our spots instead of making it a habit because to get where we want to go, we have to start valuing the ball.” | 2022-11-10T17:55:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Howard men's basketball aims to end 30-year NCAA tournament drought - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/howard-basketball-expectations-ncaa-tournament/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/howard-basketball-expectations-ncaa-tournament/ |
Willie Mays was one of America’s first Black sports superstars whose career paved the way for a new generation of Black players in baseball. Join Washington Post sports columnist Jerry Brewer for a conversation with filmmaker Nelson George about his new documentary exploring the life and legacy of the Major League Baseball Hall of Famer.
Director, “Say Hey, Willie Mays!” | 2022-11-10T17:56:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Filmmaker Nelson George on the legacy of Willie Mays - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/10/filmmaker-nelson-george-legacy-willie-mays/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/10/filmmaker-nelson-george-legacy-willie-mays/ |
Derrick Williams, right, seems likely to partner with captain Steven Birnbaum in central defense. (Rick Bowmer/AP Photo)
D.C. United on Thursday began to address its defensive deficiencies by acquiring Derrick Williams from the Los Angeles Galaxy for $180,000 in 2024 general allocation money.
Williams, 29, is a left-footed center back who can also provide cover at left back. He will join a defensive corps that conceded an MLS-worst 71 goals in 34 matches last season.
“He’s a well-seasoned professional with experience at the highest levels of our sport and understands Major League Soccer,” Dave Kasper, United’s president of soccer operations, said in a statement. “He’s an exciting addition for us and we look forward to welcoming him into the fold and into Wayne Rooney’s system.”
United is quite familiar with Williams: In 2020, the club sought to acquire him from England’s Blackburn Rovers before trading his MLS rights to the Galaxy for $125,000 in general allocation money. He started 20 of 34 regular season matches in 2021 and 24 this year, plus two substitute appearances in the playoffs this fall.
His 2022 base salary was $750,000, according to the MLS Players Association, and United was expected to sign him to a one-year guaranteed deal at an undisclosed figure.
Williams was born in Germany to an Irish American mother and German American father who served in the U.S. military. He spent much of his youth in Ireland and has represented the Irish national team three times. As a U.S. passport holder, he does not occupy an international roster slot.
Williams began his pro career in 2011 with Aston Villa, an English Premier League club, before spending three English seasons with Bristol City and 4½ with Blackburn. Five of his last six years in England were spent in the second-flight Championship and one in third-tier League One.
In Washington, Williams seems likely to partner with captain Steven Birnbaum in central defense. Donovan Pines and Brendan Hines-Ike, who is recovering from a significant foot injury, are also in the mix.
Meantime, United is pursuing a right back in the international market, said two people familiar with the plans, who didn’t want to be identified, citing the sensitivity of negotiations. The club is also seeking attacking help after scoring a league-low 36 goals, those people said.
The Williams acquisition was the first major move made since United fired general manager Lucy Rushton. The club is in the process of interviewing candidates. Kasper, Rooney and others on the technical staff are handling roster matters. | 2022-11-10T18:20:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. United acquires Derrick Williams - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/derrick-williams-dc-united/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/derrick-williams-dc-united/ |
Daniel Snyder is one of the subjects of a civil lawsuit filed by the D.C. attorney general's office. (Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports)
The office of D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) said Thursday it is filing a consumer protection lawsuit against the Washington Commanders, Daniel Snyder, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell, accusing them of colluding to deceive and mislead customers about an investigation of the team’s workplace to maintain the franchise’s fan base in pursuit of revenue.
“Faced with public outrage over detailed and widespread allegations of sexual misconduct and a persistently hostile work environment at the Team, Defendants made a series of public statements to convince District consumers that this dysfunctional and misogynistic conduct was limited and that they were fully cooperating with an independent investigation,” the lawsuit says. “These statements were false and calculated to mislead consumers so they would continue to support the Team financially without thinking that they were supporting such misconduct.”
The lawsuit is being filed in the civil division of the D.C. Superior Court. It alleges the team and league violated the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act with “public misrepresentations, omissions, and ambiguities of material fact.” Racine’s office said it is seeking “financial penalties under the CPPA for every incident in which the Commanders, Mr. Snyder, the NFL, and Commissioner Goodell lied to District residents dating back to July 2020,” adding that the defendants “could face millions of dollars in penalties.”
Racine’s office said it also will seek a court order to force the NFL to release the findings of a previous investigation, conducted by attorney Beth Wilkinson, into the team’s workplace.
The Commanders said Wednesday in a statement that Racine “appears more interested in making splashy headlines, based on offbeat legal theories, rather than doing the hard work of making the streets safe” and cited the August shooting in Washington of Brian Robinson Jr., a rookie running back for the team. Later in the evening, Commanders President Jason Wright said in a statement that the team should have kept the two issues separate.
D.C. attorney general plans to take action on Daniel Snyder, Commanders
The action comes as Racine prepares to leave office, and it results from an investigation started in the fall of 2021. Snyder and the Commanders are also being investigated by the NFL, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the office of Jason S. Miyares (R), Virginia’s attorney general.
In addition, investigators for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia have interviewed witnesses about allegations of financial improprieties involving the team, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. The team has denied committing financial improprieties.
Racine’s office does not have criminal enforcement authority in the matter.
Racine said his office “interviewed numerous witnesses, including former Commanders employees who experienced and witnessed harassment” and “reviewed thousands of internal documents produced by the Commanders and the NFL, including emails.”
The lawsuit says it “seeks accountability from the Washington Commanders, Snyder, the NFL, and Commissioner Goodell for public statements, ambiguities, and omissions that tended to mislead District consumers in the form of injunctive relief, civil penalties, and restitution.”
Goodell and the league have said they did not release Wilkinson’s findings because of promises of confidentiality made to witnesses. The NFL said in July 2021 that, based on those findings, the team was being fined $10 million, and Snyder’s wife, Tanya Snyder, the franchise’s co-CEO, would oversee the Commanders’ daily operations for an unspecified period.
The NFL and Goodell have said the findings of a current investigation being conducted by attorney Mary Jo White will be released publicly.
The statement Wednesday from the Commanders spokesperson said: “Less than three months ago, a 23-year-old player on our team was shot multiple times, in broad daylight. Despite the out-of-control violent crime in D.C., today the Washington Commanders learned for the first time on Twitter that the D.C. Attorney General will be holding a press conference to 'make a major announcement’ related to the organization tomorrow.”
That statement caught the attention of Robinson’s agent, Ryan Williams of Athletes First, who wrote Wednesday evening on Twitter: “Up until an hour ago, the Commanders handled the Brian Robinson situation with so much care, sincerity and class. And I was so grateful for all of it. Although I know that there are some great humans in that building, whoever is hiding behind this statement is not one of them.”
The Commanders responded with a statement from Wright in which he said the team’s attorneys had “legitimate frustrations” with Racine that “should have been separate and apart from referencing” the shooting.
D.C. police arrested two teen suspects — a 17-year-old and later a 15-year-old — in connection to the Aug. 28 shooting during an attempted robbery along the H Street commercial strip in Northeast Washington. The 17-year-old was charged as a juvenile with assault with intent to rob while armed. The 15-year-old, who was 14 at the time of the incident, is facing armed robbery charges. Police said Friday they were still searching for a third suspect who drove the two teens from the attack.
“The Commanders have fully cooperated with the AG’s investigation for nearly a year,” the team spokesperson said in Wednesday’s earlier statement. “As recently as Monday, a lawyer for the team met with the attorney general who did not suggest at that time that he intended to take any action and, in fact, revealed fundamental misunderstandings of the underlying facts. It is unfortunate that, in his final days in office, Mr. Racine appears more interested in making splashy headlines, based on offbeat legal theories, rather than doing the hard work of making the streets safe for our citizens, including bringing to justice the people who shot one of our players.”
Because D.C. is not a state, adult felony prosecutions in the city are handled by the U.S. attorney’s office rather than by the attorney general’s office.
Racine announced last year that he would not seek a third term. D.C. attorney Brian Schwalb was elected Tuesday to succeed him. Schwalb won a three-way race in June, with Racine’s endorsement, for the Democratic nomination and was unopposed in Tuesday’s election. The office includes more than 700 attorneys and staff members and is responsible for enforcing D.C. law through criminal and civil means.
As the District’s first elected attorney general, Racine’s tenure has been marked by lawsuits and actions, large and small, that lie within the confines of his office’s limited scope. Locally, Racine has gone after negligent landlords and unscrupulous businesses, with a focus on tenant and consumer protection.
But he’s taken bigger swings, too. In recent years, he has pursued cases against Facebook, Amazon, the Roman Catholic clergy in D.C. and President Donald Trump. He filed a federal lawsuit against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers following the Jan. 6 insurrection and recently partnered with attorneys general in California and Illinois to block the grocery store chain Albertsons, which owns Safeway, from paying out $4 billion to shareholders ahead of a proposed merger with the grocer Kroger.
Attorneys Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, who represent more than 40 former team employees, said in a statement Wednesday: “Today’s civil complaint … is further evidence of what we’ve long known: that both the Commanders and the NFL have engaged in deception and lies designed to conceal the team’s decades of sexual harassment and abuse, which has impacted not only the victims of that abuse, but also consumers in the District of Columbia. The filing of this complaint also marks an important step in validating the experiences of the brave women and men who came forward to share their experiences and in achieving, for the first time, a level of transparency into the scope of the misconduct.”
The Commanders announced last week that Daniel and Tanya Snyder had hired an investment bank to “consider potential transactions” related to the franchise. The Commanders did not specify whether the Snyders are considering the sale of the entire franchise or a minority share. A team spokesperson said then, “We are exploring all options.”
Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of communications, public affairs and policy, said Wednesday that the league is not involved in the Commanders’ sale process at this point and has no expectation as to whether Snyder will sell all or part of the franchise.
“I’d refer you to the club for information regarding any potential transaction,” Miller said during a conference call with reporters. “It’s, of course, their decision.”
Among those who have been mentioned as prospective buyers of the team are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post; music mogul Jay-Z, a potential partner with Bezos in a bid; Mat Ishbia, the president and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage who previously attempted to purchase the Denver Broncos; and media entrepreneur Byron Allen, another Broncos bidder. Actor Matthew McConaughey is exploring the possibility of joining or forming an investment group to bid, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.
Michael Brice-Saddler and Liz Clarke contributed to this report. | 2022-11-10T18:24:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. attorney general sues Daniel Snyder, Commanders, NFL - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/snyder-attorney-general-lawsuit-commanders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/snyder-attorney-general-lawsuit-commanders/ |
The next Congress could cause Ukraine to lose the war
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) at a news conference on Oct. 18 in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/AP)
President Biden expressed confidence Wednesday that next year’s Congress — likely with at least one chamber under Republican control – will maintain robust U.S. support for Ukraine. But his certainty is not shared by many on Capitol Hill and in Kyiv. The struggle inside the GOP could have a massive impact on Ukraine’s fight for survival against Russia.
At his post-election news conference, Biden defended his administration’s support for Kyiv, maintaining that he had not given Ukraine a “blank check” and bragging that “there’s a lot of things that Ukraine wants we didn’t do.” He also said that he expects Republicans in the House, likely to be led next year by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), to come out in favor of continued aid to Ukraine.
“I would be surprised if Leader McCarthy even has a majority of his Republican colleagues who say they’re not going to fund the legitimate defensive needs of Ukraine,” he said.
Biden either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to acknowledge that there’s no agreement in Congress on what the words “legitimate” or “defensive” mean in this context. What’s clear is that the congressional path to approving new Ukraine aid next year will be rocky.
But cutting the economic aid now, most of which is direct support to the Ukrainian government, would be ill-timed and dangerous, Ukrainian officials told me. The Ukrainian economy could break down without continued support from the United States, Europe and the International Monetary Fund. If that happens, their military can’t fight, they said.
“The financial support for our public finances in our eyes … is a part of security and military support,” Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s deputy minister of economy, told me. “Without this financial support, our public finances would collapse. And it means that this is immediate victory for Russia.”
Ukraine needs $38 billion in direct economic support next year, Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s minister of economy and first vice prime minister, told me. Ukraine’s economy shrank by 35 percent this year and taxes cover only about half of the government’s budget, she said. Ukraine is also facing attacks on its energy grid and infrastructure even as it tries to launch “early recovery” efforts such as building houses for returning refugees and financing new businesses.
“We really appreciate the help you provided, but for us it’s very important to keep our economic system running, and that is the most essential thing for us right now,” she said.
The United States has pledged about $12 billion in direct economic aid to Ukraine for 2022, out of $54 billion in total aid so far. Congressional sources said that a temporary spending bill in December will likely keep the economic aid going at the rate of $1.5 billion per month until the spring. That’s when the congressional showdown over the money will come to a head.
Republicans have legitimate concerns about how this aid has been handled. Conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation argue, with some merit, that U.S. aid to Ukraine has lacked sufficient debate, oversight and accountability. Many point out (rightly) that the European Union has failed to pull its weight. The E.U. has promised robust financial support for Ukraine in 2023, but its past pledges have gone largely unfulfilled.
While there are many GOP leaders who internally defend economic assistance, there’s much less support for a separate bucket of humanitarian aid, which is largely administered by the State Department and USAID, aides said.
Several GOP officials told me that they were confident, like Biden, that in the end both military and economic aid will continue. Others aren’t so sure. Attacks on the assistance program by allies of former president Donald Trump are continuing to erode GOP support, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told me. And with a slim majority, whoever becomes House speaker will face an internal GOP revolt if they don’t cut Ukraine aid, he said.
“Putin has a backup plan if he can’t defeat Ukraine militarily,” Murphy said. “He is going to keep the war going long enough to bankrupt Ukraine and force them to sue for a humiliating peace. That means U.S. support for Ukraine is half-baked if it doesn’t address both the military and economic threats Russia presents.”
The costs of supporting Kyiv financially are small compared to the costs for the United States and the world if Ukraine falls. If Ukraine collapses economically, that would exacerbate the energy crisis, the food crisis, the refugee crisis and the global economic slowdown. Let’s hope that the new Congress doesn’t succumb to this penny-wise, pound-foolish approach. | 2022-11-10T18:37:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The next Congress could thwart U.S. aid efforts to Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/republican-congress-us-aid-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/republican-congress-us-aid-ukraine/ |
Four years ago, Anthony Padilla decided to try something different.
Online platforms are craggy cliffsides whose foundations can give way at any moment. YouTube is the OG in that regard: Its ever-shifting algorithmic landscape has forced creators to adapt and re-adapt. Padilla’s star first rose as part of comedy mega-channel Smosh. But in 2018, a year after leaving Smosh, he chose to shift away from videos that centered his personality and decided to get inside other people’s heads instead.
Beginning with a video titled “I spent a day with Flat Earthers,” he kicked off an “I spent a day with …” interview series that would eventually catapult his channel to nearly 7 million subscribers, gaining platform-wide ubiquity in the process.
We spoke with Padilla about his meteoric (second) rise and why he decided to turn the camera out, rather than in.
Nowadays, many on YouTube, Twitch and other platforms consider it a badge of honor to be interviewed by Padilla.
“What YouTube was rewarding, what was rising to the top was, like, telling the world every single detail about you and having them weigh in and be part of your life,” Padilla told The Washington Post. “It really wasn’t helping me to have the internet, from all these different angles, telling me what they thought, trying to push me in certain ways — trying to say, ‘Oh, but you’re naive in this area.’ … I realized that just wasn’t for me.”
“I spent a day with Flat Earthers” birthed the format, but it wouldn’t become the blueprint. When speaking with people who believed the Earth was flat, Padilla messed with them to see if they’d buy into other easily debunkable theories he’d made up on the spot.
“It kind of fell into what was trendy at the time on YouTube, which was, ‘Let’s poke fun at people. Let’s see what kind of laughs we can get because they’re saying the most outlandish things,’ ” said Padilla. “But something about it didn’t feel right to me.”
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In making other “I spent a day with” videos — including one focused on “furries,” people who dress up as anthropomorphized animals to express an idealized version of themselves — Padilla started approaching subjects on their own terms.
“When I sat down with furries,” Padilla said, “I realized there was this deep humanity in wanting to change their appearance to match how they felt and be able to represent themselves behind a costume.”
This approach, he explained, resonated with the people and groups he chose to spotlight, as well as viewers who were tired of YouTube inundating them with gimmicks and mean-spirited pranks.
“[Furries who watched the video] said, ‘People now understand me better by watching you, an outsider, go into the situation and meet these people with genuine curiosity and respect,’ ” Padilla said.
In turn, Padilla found a mission statement.
“I said, ‘If I’m going to do more of these videos, I need to lean away from things that are trendy right now on YouTube: poking fun at people, cringe reaction humor-type stuff,’” Padilla explained. “I needed to lean into what actually excited me about having conversations with people.”
Padilla didn’t invent a totally new format: Journalists have conducted interviews for years, as have television hosts and many others. But new mediums have a way of reverse-engineering old ideas. Padilla’s series came out of a particularly cynical era of YouTube’s relatively short history: Just one month before “I spent a day with Flat Earthers,” YouTube megastar Logan Paul found himself in hot water after he uploaded footage of an apparent suicide while vacationing in Japan. On a platform that encouraged and, to an extent, rewarded that level of crassness, viewers desired something that not only avoided punching down, but depicted an outsider coming in and respecting others’ humanity.
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These days, Padilla interviews everyone from kidnapping survivors to popular content creators. In all cases, he tries to meet them where they’re at.
“For me my goal when I’m bringing humor into these videos is never, ‘I’m in on a secret joke, but the audience or guest isn’t part of it,’ ” Padilla said. “I want it to feel like people are watching me connecting with a friend.”
Padilla does not actually spend an entire day with all his subjects, though the amount of time that goes into videos sometimes exceeds one. Interviews often last a few hours before being edited down to a 30-minute-or-so video, but he also does plentiful prep work and offers subjects pre-calls to discuss potential lines of questioning and topics that might be off-limits. Additionally, subjects are allowed to ask to have portions stricken from the final video if they’re not comfortable with something they said. Interviewers cut from a more old-school cloth might rankle at this approach, but given the sensitivity of topics Padilla covers in his conversations, he thinks these safety nets help people open up.
“Because of that, the conversations I have with them are so much deeper,” Padilla said. “It’s surprising that the more comfortable you make people knowing that anything they don’t want to make it in they can remove, they actually want so much more of them — their vulnerability — to [stay in].”
Bringing that vulnerability out is a challenge, though, one that was at its peak when covid forced the country into lockdown. Padilla continued his series, but like the rest of us, he had to rely on video calls and wobbly internet connections.
“Some guests’ internet quality was so bad that I could hear every three or four words,” said Padilla. “There were some times when I was just like, ‘I pray that you’re saying what you said in the pre-call, because I’m just going to react as if you are.’ ”
On the upside, distance facilitated interviews with subjects who did not want to reveal their true identities out of concern for their privacy — massive names like YouTuber and musician Corpse Husband and “Minecraft” celebrity Dream, the latter of whom finally revealed his face last month but neither of whom have divulged their full names. These videos, which give a peek behind the curtain of notoriously mysterious figures, are some of Padilla’s most popular to date. But in his mind, nothing beats talking to people face to face.
“We were losing a lot of the body language, which I think is extremely important for these kinds of conversations,” said Padilla. “Now all those little details, the body language and the nuance, feels so much more impactful because I know what it’s like to do these interviews without them.” | 2022-11-10T19:03:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Former Smosh YouTuber Anthony Padilla wants conversations, not cringe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/11/10/anthony-padilla-youtube-interview-smosh/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/11/10/anthony-padilla-youtube-interview-smosh/ |
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