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Don’t misunderstand the generational shift in politics
College students line up to vote on the campus of Arizona State University Tuesday in Tempe, Ariz. (John Moore/Getty Images)
One of the first election stories that broke through the vote-counting chatter on Tuesday night centered on Maxwell Alejandro Frost, who won election to Florida’s 10th Congressional District.
Frost’s victory wasn’t noteworthy because it was unexpected, necessarily. The district is heavily Democratic and Frost was the Democratic nominee. Instead, it was newsworthy because of Frost’s unique status: He will be the first member of Generation Z elected to Congress.
This helped set a tone that carried through the night’s coverage. Young people had, at long last, arrived! The midterms were being shaped by young voters showing up in force! The surprisingly poor Republican performance was a function of young voters!
This is hard to defend on the merits. But it, like the focus on Frost’s generation, also operates at a tangent from the real question about how generational changes are likely to affect American politics.
Let’s start with Frost. He was born in January 1997, just inside the boundary of what constitutes Gen Z. He is, in fact, among the oldest members of the generation.
There’s an important caveat: This title is applied based on a generational definition established by Pew Research Center — one established by Pew along lines defined less by demography than by cultural cohesion. The baby boom was a generation defined by clear changes in birthrates. Other generations are more nebulous, which is one reason why it’s often hard to determine what generation you belong to. So Frost’s status is a function of where Pew and others drew the line, not necessarily anything inherent to him.
What made Frost noteworthy, then, was really just his age. He’s only 25, the minimum age for election to the House. This is generally what happens when the first members of a generation arrive in Washington; they just happen to be the youngest people elected in a particular year. For example, the first millennial to join the House was former Illinois congressman Aaron Schock (R), elected at age 27. The first member of Gen X was former Massachusetts congressman Patrick Kennedy (D), elected at the same age. When Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) was elected in 2020, he was only 25 — but since he was born in late 1995, he didn’t get the generational flag Frost will carry.
Here we get to the point, the other reason that Frost and people like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) (elected in 2018 at 29) actually portend a shift in American politics. Frost and Ocasio-Cortez are more representative of younger Americans than Cawthorn in that they are not White and they are very much not Republicans.
Before we dig into that further, let’s dispatch with the idea that there is robust evidence that this was an unusual election for younger voters. There isn’t.
Consider this tweet, from activist David Hogg.
D +28 18-29
Millennials and Gen Z made the red wave a red ripple. You’re welcome.
In it, Hogg uses exit polling reported by CNN (actually Edison Research data) to show that young Americans were much more likely to vote Democratic than older Americans.
But what’s missing here is the density of younger voters in the electorate. If voters under the age of 30 were only 2 percent of the voter pool, then their preferring Democrats by 28 points wouldn’t make much of a difference. Other commentary has pointed to meta-analysis of the exit polls to suggest that young voters turned out more than usual — a claim that may be true but is hard to assert definitively just based on exit poll data. (This is in part because those exit polls have historically tended to overstate participation by young voters.)
If we look at the composition of the electorate according to the Associated Press’s VoteCast system (which The Washington Post uses) and compare it to Pew’s own analysis of the 2016 through 2020 elections (validating polling against the voter file), we see that the portion of the electorate under age 30 (about 13 percent this year, according to the AP) is in line with the past three elections (13, 11 and 15 percent, respectively, per Pew). Data expert David Shor, looking at county-level data, found much the same thing.
We also see that the gap in vote preference between younger and older voters is narrower than in Edison’s numbers, but that’s less important here. What is important is that younger voters have consistently been more supportive of Democrats than older voters.
This has markedly been the case since at least 2008. That year, the divide in presidential support between the oldest and youngest voters cracked open wide, in part because more young, left-leaning voters were motivated to come out and vote for Barack Obama. It has remained wide since.
Let’s now bring in Fox News’s Jesse Watters. On Wednesday morning, he offered up a bizarre strategy for the Republican Party moving forward: have single women get married.
“Single women are breaking for Democrats by 30 points. And this makes sense when you think about how Democrat policies are designed to keep women single. But once women get married, they vote Republican,” Watters said. Since “single women and voters under 40 have been captured by Democrats,” he added, “ … we need these ladies to get married.” He encouraged guys to “go put a ring on it.”
Of course, this is entirely backward. In 2021, the median age at which women first got married was almost 29. In other words, most young women are single — and since most young people including women are also heavily Democratic, it is much safer to assume that it is age or cohort that overlaps with politics than whether a woman has a husband.
Again, this is confounded by other factors. I have written a book that, among other things, delineates the wide social differences between younger and older Americans, from confidence in institutions to partisan identity to education. But a big gap is on race: Younger Americans are less likely to be White and non-White Americans are less likely to be Republican. That, too, has nothing to do with marital status.
What’s interesting about the focus on young turnout in 2022 and on Frost is that it is a recreation of a debate that emerged in 2008. Then, Republicans worried about a new supermajority of young, diverse voters that would vote more and more heavily and more and more Democratic. But voters under the age of 30 who backed Obama by 34 points (per exit polls) that year are now voters aged 32 to 43 — members of an age bracket that preferred Democrats this year by a much, much more narrow margin.
That’s the generational question at play here. Will this diverse, younger political generation — an amalgam of millennials, Gen Z and even younger — reshape American politics as it ages? Will Republicans moderate (as they largely did on same-sex marriage and other issues post-2008) to retain some appeal to them? Or will the GOP’s Donald Trump-era focus on amplifying White grievance further turn them away?
We can’t answer that question definitively yet. But we can say that there’s nothing about what happened this year — from that first Gen Z representative to the demonstrable composition of the electorate — to suggest that some new era has only just dawned. | 2022-11-10T19:08:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Don’t misunderstand the generational shift in politics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/midterm-elections-young-voters-gen-z/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/midterm-elections-young-voters-gen-z/ |
Christopher Viehbacher, chief executive officer of Sanofi, speaks during an interview on Monday, Feb. 10, 2014. Sanofi last month agreed to pay $700 million for a 12 percent stake in Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Alnylam and access to rare-disease treatments being developed there. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
After searching for a new chief executive officer since May, Biogen Inc. has selected industry veteran Christopher Viehbacher, who previously led Sanofi and later worked in venture capital. It’s a solid choice. Viehbacher helped steer Sanofi through turbulent times and has the experience to do the same for Biogen.
Viehbacher will succeed Michel Vounatsos, who has led the company for the last five years and said he would step down after the implosion of the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm. When the treatment received a surprise approval from the Food and Drug Administration despite scant evidence of its benefits, Biogen unwisely slapped a high price tag on the drug. That attracted the attention of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Congress; Aduhelm was ultimately sunk when CMS decided not to cover the drug until it saw data that proved its effectiveness.
But the company’s fortunes changed swiftly in September when late-stage data on another Alzheimer’s drug, lecanemab, turned out to be positive. The sudden potential of a multibillion-dollar blockbuster therapy surely changed the dynamics of its leadership search.
Viehbacher will need to work with Biogen’s development partner, Eisai, to clear a series of hurdles to bring lecanemab to the market, ensure insurers will cover it and then make sure patients line up for it. He will also need to help the biotech firm look outward, moving swiftly and decisively on attractive assets and technologies.
Viehbacher is up to the task.
Investors, who lifted the company’s shares more than 2.5% on Thursday, have been pushing Biogen to do substantive dealmaking, a wish that has a better chance of being realized now with Viehbacher at the helm. When he took over at Sanofi, the company was facing a series of patent losses that were unlikely to be solved by its drug pipeline, which was lackluster at the time.
In 2011, Viehbacher engineered Sanofi’s $20 billion purchase of Genzyme, adding a portfolio of rare-disease drugs and establishing the French firm’s presence in the US. He also wisely expanded Sanofi’s relationship with Regeneron, which yielded perhaps the most critical drug in the company’s portfolio, Dupixent. The medicine, which treats asthma, eczema, and more, is expected to reach peak sales of more than $13 billion.
Then in 2014, six years into his tenure as CEO, he was ousted by Sanofi’s board. At the time, the board chair publicly blamed Viehbacher’s management style, in particular criticizing his communication, which sometimes involved telling the media about big moves before sharing those plans with the board. But investors and analysts disagreed, with many arguing the staid company needed a manager with the swagger to make bold changes.
Now Viehbacher will face another difficult board — one that over the years has been notoriously divided between members pushing for transformative deals and those urging conservatism. The situation has left Biogen constantly on its back foot, moving too slowly on acquisition targets or partnerships.
The challenge ahead is well known. BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said Thursday morning in a note that Viehbacher is “well-equipped to move the company towards a new paradigm of growth, but we want independence as a new chapter emerges.”
Viehbacher’s track record suggests he’ll be able to wrest some freedom from the board. Let’s hope that leads to some intriguing additions to the Biogen pipeline. | 2022-11-10T19:25:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biogen Lands a CEO Who Can Navigate Turbulence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/biogen-lands-a-ceo-who-can-navigate-turbulence/2022/11/10/4f35f900-6122-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/biogen-lands-a-ceo-who-can-navigate-turbulence/2022/11/10/4f35f900-6122-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
MENDON, IL - JUNE 25: Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) gives remarks during a Save America Rally with former US President Donald Trump at the Adams County Fairgrounds on June 25, 2022 in Mendon, Illinois. Trump will be stumping for Rep. Mary Miller in an Illinois congressional primary and it will be Trump’s first rally since the United States Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday. (Photo by Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images) (Photographer: Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images North America)
Adam Frisch doesn’t want to “get ahead of our skis,” but as a ski racer, he’s still making plans to go to Washington. That’s because he’s come closer than anyone expected to pulling off the biggest upset of the 2022 election: unseating one of the most extreme members of Congress, MAGA flamethrower Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
We spoke the morning after Election Day, as he awaited the final votes to be counted in the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which national Democrats and election trackers wrote off as solidly Republican. As of this writing, he is leading by a few dozen votes out of more than 300,000 cast. With the race appearing to be headed toward an automatic recount, Frisch told me that he was able to defy the odds largely because of one issue: abortion.
The issue “got quieter, but it didn’t get any less important,” the former Aspen City Council member told me.
His campaign’s probability for success got “a big boost” over the summer, he said, when Kansas voters rejected a referendum that would have banned abortions. The 3rd district is demographically similar to Kansas, Frisch said, noting the libertarian streak on Colorado’s Western slope, with its rural counties, small-business owners, ranchers and farmers. They value “self-reliance and freedom and accountability,” he said.
And Boebert wasn’t “one of the Republicans who scrubbed their extreme views off their website,” he said. She opposes abortion without allowing exemptions for rape, incest or the life and health of a mother.
In Colorado, as elsewhere, Democratic fortunes were improved by the Supreme Court’s decision striking down Roe v. Wade. The state has historically supported a woman’s right to choose. In 2020, a ballot initiative that would have banned abortions after 22 weeks was defeated 59% to 41%.
Still, when I wrote about the race in August, conventional wisdom was that Frisch had little to no chance. A closer look at the referendum vote shows why Boebert was vulnerable on this issue: Many Trump voters opposed the measure.
In 2016, Donald Trump won the swing county of Pueblo, about two hours south of Denver, by less than 400 votes. In 2020, he lost the county by 1,500 — and Boebert lost it by 200 votes. That same year, 52% of voters in the county opposed the late-term abortion proposal. On Wednesday, Frisch told me he expected the remaining votes in Pueblo to give him a margin that would tip the election in his favor.
Similarly, in 2020, 52% of voters in Huerfano County opposed banning late-term abortions, even as Boebert narrowly won the county (as did Trump). This year, Frisch is beating Boebert there by 6 points. And in Alamosa County, voters opposed the ballot measure 50.4% to 47.9%, but Trump and Boebert both won. This year, Frisch flipped the county to blue.
Colorado “has always had high Second Amendment support and high pro-choice support, wrapped into a libertarian conversation,” Frisch said.
Frisch didn’t receive any support for his campaign from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and said he contacted the committee a few times but didn’t get much of a response. He said he understands national Democrats were focused on keeping seats, not flipping them, but he was “a candidate who cried wolf in reverse.”
There have been a lot of candidates in recent years, he said, who can raise a lot of money “without any type of mathematical way” to show they can win. He was not one of those candidates. He faced a weak incumbent, came across as authentic and moderate, and ran a nearly flawless campaign.
Which raises the question: Does he have the playbook for defeating MAGA Republicans?
It’s mostly advice: “Don’t listen to the noise, listen to the numbers.”
Too many donors and consultants assume that if you’re loud, you must also be strong politically. That’s not always the case, he said, noting that Boebert lost her own county in 2020. Boebert sought national attention, campaigning with other MAGA Republicans and visiting Mar-a-Lago while Frisch was campaigning in the district. “It was pretty obvious to me that she had no appreciation for how electorally weak she was,” he said.
As a candidate, Frisch is a pro-business, self-described “pragmatic Democrat” who was unaffiliated until recently. He advises making sure that a challenger “can authentically chart a path to peel off 10% to 15% of an incumbent’s prior voters.”
“I wish there were more opportunities to see these extremists be defeated,” he said. “But when I crunch the numbers, it’s only here.”
For now, anyway. Democrats still have a lot of soul-searching to do — they are, after all, almost certain to lose their majority in the House. It’s safe to say that, whether or not Frisch ends up going to Washington, he will probably be getting his calls returned. | 2022-11-10T19:25:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | If Lauren Boebert Loses, Abortion Will Be the Main Reason - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/if-lauren-boebert-loses-abortion-will-be-the-main-reason/2022/11/10/7f34056c-6126-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/if-lauren-boebert-loses-abortion-will-be-the-main-reason/2022/11/10/7f34056c-6126-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
This American is a political prisoner in Cambodia. How is that okay?
By Kerry Kennedy
Jared Genser
Theary Seng, center, a Cambodian American lawyer, dressed in a traditional Apsara dance costume, holds lotus flowers as she speaks with the media in front of the municipal court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in December 2021. (Heng Sinith/AP)
Kerry Kennedy is a human rights lawyer and president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. Jared Genser is also a human rights lawyer. Both serve as pro bono counsel to imprisoned Cambodian American Theary Seng.
This weekend, President Biden will visit Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the U.S.-ASEAN Summit, where he will emphasize the importance to the United States of the 10 countries and 600 million people of Southeast Asia. Yet just outside the luxury hotel hosting the summit, the Cambodian people are facing the most severe repression they have experienced in decades. It is critical for Biden to press Prime Minister Hun Sen both publicly and privately on this issue. He must also demand the immediate and unconditional release of the country’s more than 50 political prisoners, including Cambodian American human rights lawyer Theary Seng.
Hun Sen is one of the most long-standing authoritarian rulers in the world, having been in power since 1985. According to Human Rights Watch, he has lasted this long through “politically motivated violence, control of the security forces, manipulated elections, massive corruption, and the tacit support of foreign powers.” In 2017, he banned the main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, which enabled his Cambodia People’s Party to win all 125 National Assembly seats in the 2018 national election.
But Hun Sen has dramatically ramped up his repression of real and imagined opponents as he has accelerated plans to transfer power to his son Hun Manet. In March 2022, 20 opposition party members were convicted in a mass trial and sentenced to five to 10 years in prison. (Those convicted included leaders Sam Rainsy and Mu Sochua, who were already in exile.) And in June, 51 other civil society and opposition party leaders were convicted on fabricated conspiracy and incitement charges, including Theary Seng, who was given six years in prison. Beyond imprisoning or forcing its opponents into exile, the regime also uses lawsuits, massive tax bills and violence to shut down or otherwise threaten, intimidate, and harass independent media and civil society organizations.
Theary Seng’s case is a high-profile symbol of the regime’s impunity. Both her parents were murdered in the Khmer Rouge genocide and she came to the United States as a child. After graduating from Georgetown University and the University of Michigan Law School, she returned to Cambodia to advocate for human rights, including running Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights’ Speak Truth to Power education program, which aims to train the next generation of human rights advocates. She also became an outspoken critic of Hun Sen.
Today, she is being held in terrible conditions in Cambodia’s notorious Preah Vihear Prison, in a 16-by-16-foot cell with 19 other women, where she launched a hunger strike on Nov. 7. She has been blocked from attending church services and making phone calls. One of us was even banned “forever” from returning to Cambodia after speaking out in Phnom Penh after one of the hearings in her case. Despite Secretary of State Antony Blinken having personally urged Hun Sen to release Theary Seng because her conviction was politically motivated, the State Department has inexplicably contradicted him and refused to classify her as wrongfully detained. We have submitted Theary Seng’s case to the United Nations, asking for it to declare her arbitrarily detained in violation of international law.
As a result of Hun Sen’s policies, the U.S.-Cambodia relationship has deteriorated rapidly. In September 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted the Cambodia Democracy Act, which would require sanctioning individual and entities that have substantially undermined democracy in Cambodia or committed or directed serious human rights abuses. Since then, the Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on two senior Cambodian military officials for corruption. And the State Department announced an arms embargo on Cambodia, citing its corruption, the human rights abuses of its government and military, and deepening Chinese military influence. But by his actions, Hun Sen has shown he believes he can act with total impunity. For that reason, so much more needs to be done beyond Biden engaging him at the summit.
First, the Biden administration should immediately impose sanctions on key government officials responsible for gross human rights abuses — beginning with Sar Kheng, minister of interior and deputy prime minister, who oversees police and prisons, and Chea Leang, Cambodia’s prosecutor general. Second, the United States should review the provision of foreign assistance to Cambodia, which totaled $326 million from 2019 to 2021, to ensure that it substantially focuses on advancing democracy and human rights. And third, a version of the Cambodia Democracy Act, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed, should be passed by the full Senate so that it can then be signed by Biden into law.
While the United States has repeatedly spoken out against Cambodia’s descent into autocracy, neither diplomatic engagement nor public condemnations have had any discernible effect on the behavior of Hun Sen or his regime. As a result, further specific actions that dramatically increase the consequences for these abuses are necessary to convey the strength of our country’s resolve. Hun Sen must understand that the United States stands in solidarity with the Cambodian people in their desire for freedom, democracy and human rights. | 2022-11-10T19:26:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | This American is a political prisoner in Cambodia. How is that okay? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/biden-cambodia-theary-seng-prisoner/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/biden-cambodia-theary-seng-prisoner/ |
The damaging effects of Twitter’s mass layoff
A Twitter headquarters sign on Nov. 4 in San Francisco. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
The informative Nov. 5 news article “What Twitter layoffs will mean for the platform, advertising and workers” addressed several questions concerning the recent outsize layoffs at Twitter. One of the issues of major interest is why Elon Musk chose to act in such a precipitous manner. Having been on both sides of the layoff process, I know that one of the primary reasons any large organization has for haste in downsizing is the potential for employee sabotage. Although not familiar with the workings of the tech industry, I can only imagine the damage a disgruntled employee could effect in the areas of both computer programming and hardware.
The Twitter layoff is extreme, disregards the impact on employees (both those let go and those who remain) and is plausibly damaging to the company. However, it is not different from business practices in use in the United States today.
Charles G. Sarau, Riva | 2022-11-10T19:26:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The damaging effects of Twitter’s mass layoff - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/damaging-effects-twitters-mass-layoff/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/damaging-effects-twitters-mass-layoff/ |
Election workers are the unsung heroes of democracy
Reginald Griffin and Azyon Williams, 11, are directed to a voting booth Tuesday at a precinct in First Mount Zion Baptist Church in Dumfries, Va. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Election workers, whether volunteer or paid, conduct painstaking and time-consuming work to ensure the integrity, transparency and efficiency of all elections. They are unsung heroes of democracy and an undervalued resource in our communities.
Over more than 20 years of service as an election officer in Alexandria, I’ve been privileged to be part of the consistent excellence of conducting elections, despite changes in leadership, laws, methods and resources used to conduct elections.
Over the years, I’ve seen movement from paper everything to electronic everything. The primary benefit has been efficiency and reporting with speed and accuracy. I’ve also witnessed this change drive suspicions of negligence, fraud or error in our democratic process. Mechanical issues will arise — systems will slow, printers will break, scanners will be finicky — but the system requires dedicated, thinking humans to oversee and administer free and fair elections.
On Tuesday, I was pleased to see high turnout for a midterm, not-high-profile congressional election, because often over the years that hasn’t been the case. Progress! But I continue to mourn that we celebrate less than half of registered voters turning out. I urge those who didn’t bother to vote to do better. If you pay taxes, have kids in school, use roads and social services, care about police and emergency services or health care, then you have a stake in our democracy. That demands participation. Every time.
Civil discourse about issues and the processes that govern our democracy is under assault. I’m a voice from the front lines to remind everyone that our system works. It works because of millions of dedicated poll workers and election administrative teams across the country.
Jennifer Bright, Alexandria
As a first-time election judge on Tuesday, I was heartened and moved by what I saw. For 13 hours, in the small dining room of a rent-subsidized apartment building in Silver Spring, I checked in voters. It was a parade of diversity, I checked in voters. It was a parade of diversity, in all dimensions, not just skin tone. There were many older adults and young voters, including a 20-something woman who proudly informed me she had just become an American citizen. Languages spoken and shared personal details revealed many voters were originally from other parts of the world. All Americans, and all entitled to vote.
A range of accommodations ensured this promise was kept. There was over-the-phone translation for voters who did not read or speak English. Electronic ballot-marking devices with Braille and audio transcription allowed the visually impaired to cast their votes. Not a single person was turned away. Even those not registered to vote in Maryland were entered into the system and given a ballot to mark. Many of these ballots were provisional and not counted until their eligibility could be confirmed by the Board of Elections. But everyone voted.
When the polls closed at 8 p.m., I was exhausted. But I also felt exhilarated by witnessing our democracy at its most fundamental level. It has been so easy to be disheartened by the state of political discourse in our nation. How wonderful to know that, at least in this microcosm of the 2022 midterms, the system is delivering on its core promise.
Greg Pearson, Silver Spring
Matt Bai’s Nov. 8 op-ed, “Messaging isn’t Democrats’ problem with the midterms. Reality is.,” made some good points. The Democrats didn’t message well and must do better; 2024 is just around the corner. But his assertion that losing is all the fault of Democratic messaging missed the elephant in the room.
When more than 70 percent of Republicans believe the lies Republicans tell about 2020, when Republicans don’t care that Russia is bragging about “influencing” them, when Republicans think cutting taxes for the rich will lower inflation, then what will messaging do? Willful ignorance and purposeful disregard for facts beat a truthful message every time.
If lies, insurrection and voter suppression don’t matter, what should the Democrats do?
Rich O’Bryant, Alexandria
Alas, the question of the Democratic Party’s messaging has been an issue for several years but has been, in fact, irrelevant. The deeper, unnerving reality is that roughly half of voters do not care that a recent president made no attempts to stop the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, and that he thought it might not be a bad idea if the mob were to hang his vice president.
Because this former president still has strong political influence and indeed is considered to be the head of his party, it is clear that all of us who support our political system must find ways to persuade as many of those who back him and his political allies as possible of the dangers that this represents for our democracy and the opportunities it offers to everyone.
Peter Raudenbush, Falls Church | 2022-11-10T19:26:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Election workers are the unsung heroes of democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/election-workers-are-unsung-heroes-democracy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/election-workers-are-unsung-heroes-democracy/ |
Russia should suffer for wanton attacks on civilians
Nadia Melmuchuk sits on a makeshift bed in a shelter in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Oct. 24. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
I note with approval how the United States and most of the West have come together in their rejection of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in their supply of defensive weaponry. But I do not approve of how we are allowing the Russians to target civilians and basic infrastructure away from the battle zone without an appropriate response, other than meaningless “condemnation.”
I presume many of these attacks are launched from Russian territory so that their sources are currently immune from direct retaliation, because of fear of Russian escalation. How absurd! I therefore suggest that the West give an ultimatum to Russia: Further wanton attacks on civilian and infrastructure targets away from the immediate battle zone will lead to Ukrainian retaliation against infrastructure in Russia itself. Such an ultimatum should not be issued, of course, unless we mean it. Restrictions on the use of Western-supplied armaments should be lifted and some offensive weapons supplied. We are, after all, at war with Russia, albeit undeclared and with no intention of invasion. But, otherwise, we should act more appropriately to the situation.
Stephen Eccles, Annandale
The writer was a British Foreign Office official in the Disarmament Department at the time of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. | 2022-11-10T19:26:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Russia should suffer for wanton attacks on civilians - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/russia-should-suffer-wanton-attacks-civilians/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/russia-should-suffer-wanton-attacks-civilians/ |
Jason Wright (left) issued a statement on Wednesday night, the Commanders' second statement of the evening. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Follow along here. One arm of the Washington Commanders this week felt compelled to release a statement distancing the team from a statement released by another arm of the Commanders, which felt comfortable using an innocent player as a pawn in a typically scorched-earth reaction to an event that hadn’t even happened yet. It may take you four readings of that sentence to even have a vague sense of what transpired. In Ashburn, they call that “Wednesday.”
For the Commanders and all the iterations that have preceded them, self-inflicted wounds are mandatory, chaos baked-in. The news Thursday should have been contained: Karl A. Racine, the D.C. attorney general, announced that his office was filing a consumer protection lawsuit against the Commanders, owner Daniel Snyder, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell, alleging past deceptions. When there are investigations ongoing into Snyder’s alleged personal and financial misdeeds by the NFL, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the Commonwealth of Virginia and the District of Columbia, the cows have to come home at some point. This was merely opening the barn door.
But because, until further notice, Snyder still owns this team, there are no blips. Every move registers on the Richter scale. Someone with the Commanders thought, after Racine’s office said the attorney general would have a “major announcement” about his Snyder investigation, that it would be a good idea to link the August shooting of rookie running back Brian Robinson, a blameless victim, to Racine’s impending announcement.
The fangs were out. Buckle up.
“Less than three months ago, a 23-year-old player on our team was shot multiple times, in broad daylight,” the statement, issued through a team spokesperson, began. “Despite the out-of-control violent crime in DC, today the Washington Commanders learned for the first time on Twitter that the D.C. Attorney General will be holding a news conference to ‘make a major announcement’ related to the organization tomorrow. …
That’s breathtaking. It’s hard not to feel Snyder directly behind it, imploring his pit bulls to lunge for the jugular. Failing to anticipate inevitable public backlash is one thing. Not giving a millisecond’s thought to what the impact on Robinson might be is another.
Never mind, too, that D.C. police have arrested two teenagers, and are still searching for a third suspect, in what has been described as an attempted robbery. Robinson feels fortunate to be alive. He was a victim in what could easily have been a tragedy. He is a 23-year-old trying to establish himself in the NFL. His own team drags him into this?
“Although I know that there are some great humans in that building,” his agent, Ryan Williams, tweeted Wednesday night, “whoever is hiding behind this statement is not one of them.”
That’s true. But while acknowledging that there are currently and have been and will be good people who occupy offices in Ashburn, it’s fair to say that the whole lot of them is stained by the rot that defines the franchise. It’s not just that accepting a job there is unlikely to enhance someone’s reputation. The goal has to be to get out before permanent damage is done.
What must it be like to work for the Commanders, even at a time when Snyder argues — over and over — that the culture of the team has been transformed? All those employees who come and go certainly work for Snyder; he signs the checks. But there has to be a feeling, not infrequently, that they work against him. Or, maybe more accurately and more often, he works against them.
That’s the only conclusion to draw. Within hours of the issuance of the first statement — which some in the building actively considered a disaster — came the next, attributable to Jason Wright, the team president installed by Snyder to clean up the owner’s messes. On his first day, Wright must have been issued an endless supply of mops and a bottomless bucket.
In the statement, Wright said he had spoken to D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III in addition to other leaders working to reduce gun violence. He pinned the initial statement on team lawyers who have been frustrated by Racine’s investigation.
“The lawyers’ legitimate frustrations with the AG should have been separate and apart from referencing the terrible crime that affected out player,” Wright’s statement concluded.
So who issued the first statement? The transformed organization that is setting an industry standard or the old one that expresses remorse only after it has been exposed? Either way, it’s astonishing that the people who issued what amount to dueling statements all work for the same person. They’re clearly not working for the same cause.
Think about what Ron Rivera, the head coach, said in the days after Robinson was shot.
“I think it’s about the community being aware, and the community really just saying enough is enough, coming together, supporting our elected officials, helping them,” Rivera said then. “There’s too much infighting as far as that’s concerned. The real truth of the matter is people are dying unnecessarily, and it’s crazy how we. as one of the most advanced societies in the world, continue to have this issue.”
That such an issue is wholly and completely separate from one of several investigations into the culture of an NFL team’s workplace should be left unsaid. Except in Ashburn, one branch of the organization tries to stitch those together while the other grabs the thread in an attempt to tug it apart.
Whether the workplace environment is actively toxic anymore is important, and if real strides have been made in that area then kudos to those responsible. But the stain and the stench remains at the top, and anyone who takes a job and a paycheck does so at his or her own peril. Daniel Snyder may finally sell his team. But until he does, assume an avoidable catastrophe will be served with breakfast, as reliable as morning coffee. The owner under siege knows no other way. | 2022-11-10T19:27:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Daniel Snyder's Commanders keep hurting themselves - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/dan-snyder-statement-washington-commanders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/10/dan-snyder-statement-washington-commanders/ |
A taxi drives past towers of flowers on Thursday outside the COP27 climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
At least 636 representatives of the fossil fuel industry registered to attend the ongoing COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, a sharp increase over the industry’s already massive presence last year, according to an analysis released Wednesday by three advocacy groups.
That number means the industry presence once again tops the number of representatives from any single national delegation, except that of the United Arab Emirates — a major fossil fuel-producing nation that is set to host next year’s COP conference. The UAE has registered 1,070 delegates, 70 of whom were classified as industry representatives in the report.
The groups behind the report — Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness — said in a joint statement that their analysis showed that industry influence at the top climate summit was growing, even as global policymakers tried to mitigate the impact of the industry. Many fossil fuel companies argue that they must be part of the solution to climate change, setting net-zero emissions targets and publicizing emissions-reducing programs. Activists say the industry only gets in the way of necessary policy changes.
Who has the most delegates at the COP26 summit? The fossil fuel industry.
“Tobacco lobbyists wouldn’t be welcome at health conferences, arms dealers can’t promote their trade at peace conventions,” the statement said. “Those perpetuating the world’s fossil fuel addiction should not be allowed through the doors of a climate conference.”
Rachel Rose Jackson, director of climate research and policy at Corporate Accountability, told the BBC it made the event look like a “fossil fuel industry trade show” and that the industry’s motivation was “profit and greed.”
The COP summits, at which major global agreements including the Kyoto Protocol have been hashed out, are often enormous in scale. It’s been estimated that almost 35,000 people will have attended this year’s, at Sharm el-Sheikh, a Red Sea resort city. The groups that tracked the fossil fuel industry presence at the event looked at an official list of delegates, which includes attendees from governments, U.N. bodies, intergovernmental organizations and the media.
Any attendees who had self-declared ties to either a fossil fuel company, an organization with fossil fuel interests, or any foundation directly associated by ownership or control with a fossil fuel company was considered an industry representative for the purpose of the count, according to a description of the methodology used by the groups.
Last year, an analysis from Global Witness found that 503 people linked to the fossil fuel industry had been listed as delegates for COP26, held in Glasgow, Scotland. In response, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted that she was “not comfortable with having some of the world’s biggest villains influencing & dictating the fate of the world.”
The number of delegates from the industry has increased by some 25 percent year on year, according to the new analysis.
This year’s event had been dubbed the “African COP” by organizers and participants. But some activists said that the large presence of industry figures could only undermine that aim.
“How are you going to address the dire climate impacts on the continent, when the fossil fuel delegation is larger than that of any African country?” said Philip Jakpor, director of programs at Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa. | 2022-11-10T19:29:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | COP27 awash with fossil fuel representatives, research shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/cop27-egypt-fossil-fuel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/10/cop27-egypt-fossil-fuel/ |
(Adrienne Surprenant/MYOP/FTWP)
The twilight of Africa’s glaciers
They’ve been a source of wonder for generations. A hike up Mount Kenya shows what’s being lost.
Adrienne Surprenant
Dendrosenecio Keniodendron grow by a river stream on Mount Kenya on Aug. 18.
What is left of the Lewis glacier in a valley that it used to fill, where there is now a small pond, in Kenya, on August 19, 2022. (Photo by Adrienne Surprenant/MYOP/For The Washington Post) (Adrienne Surprenant/MYOP/FTWP)
Africa is home to three glacier-capped mountains. Within decades, scientists say, the glaciers will be gone. Mount Kenya’s will be the first to go, with researchers predicting their disappearance as soon as 2030. The mountain would be among the first in the world to entirely lose its glaciers because of human-induced climate change.
The peaks of Mount Kenya — once covered in blinding white ice and now an arid brown — are a testament to losses already suffered in this part of Africa and a harbinger of what is to come.
Very little snow is left on the peaks of the mountain that was once covered in white.
Climbers take photos in front of what remains of the Lewis glacier on Aug. 19.
The 17,000-foot mountain straddling the equator about 85 miles north of Nairobi is Africa’s second highest. For generations, Mount Kenya has been a source of tourism, of scientific study, of wonder and of lore. Its verdant slopes have also become a refuge for Kenyans battered by years-long drought linked to climate change. But even here, rain is more sporadic than it used to be.
Nehemia Karmushu, a 17-year-old herder, cuts wood for his fire to prepare milk tea on Aug. 16.
When there is not enough grass to graze their livestock in their hometowns, herders come to the base of the mountain. “We are chasing the rain,” said Elijah Kakilan, who had walked five days from his village of Chumvi. “The mountain is our only option.”
A goat, who died from the cold, was placed next to the herders' camp in the mountain. The herders say in their village the animal would have died from the drought.
On once fertile farms around the mountain’s base, harvests have failed in recent years as rain has become scarce. Farmers have tried pumping in water from Mount Kenya’s streams and rivers, but these are already depleted because of overuse and reduced rainfall.
Nchevere poses for a portrait in his field in the lower parts of Mount Kenya on Aug. 20.
One of Nchevere's cows on Mount Kenya.
As he stood in a dusty field, Musa Ole Kirobi, 71, pointed to the carcasses of his dead cows. Of the 40 he once owned, 28 had died of starvation in the past two years. Fields once filled with maize, beans and potatoes were empty. His children and grandchildren were hungry.
The Maasai elder said he still looks to the mountain’s peaks for guidance. When they are covered in white, he believes it means luck. In recent years, they’ve been bare.
Kirobi stands in front of the carcass of one of the 28 cattle of his herd that died due to the drought in his village.
Santiwuan Nangunye and her husband have lost 48 cows because of the lack of rain. “All our livestock are finished,” Maripet Ole Nangunye and his wife, who have been married for more than 50 years, said at the same time.
Santiwuan Nangunye, 72-years-old, poses for a portrait in Kenya's Borana Conservancy on Aug. 15.
Maripet Ole Nangunye poses for a portrait in Kenya's Borana Conservancy on Aug. 15.
As temperatures have increased and rain has gotten less predictable in Kenya, every part of Mount Kenya’s environment — from its mixed forests to its boggy heathlands and grasslands — has been touched. Some plant species have migrated up the mountain. Entire ecosystems, such as the bamboo forest, are at risk of being crowded out.
A baboon hides in the bushes as people pass by on Mount Kenya's first hike day of Aug. 16.
The bamboo forest on Mount Kenya is expected to disappear because the warming climate is causing other plant life to take over.
Many of the once famous ice-climbing routes, including the storied Diamond Couloir, pioneered by the founder of Patagonia in 1975, are now virtually impossible because of how little ice remains. Mick James, a climber from Scotland, shook his head as he began his ascent. “We only have ourselves to blame,” he said, “Don’t we?”
Describing the fate of the glacier, Farrin Savage, a 7-year-old whose father and grandfather run a wilderness exploration company, put it like this: “It’s going to be extinct, because Kenya is boiling in these times.”
Researchers who have studied the retreating glaciers on Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania say their shrinkage is largely caused by changes in ocean weather patterns linked to global warming. Those changes mean that across East Africa, there has been less-predictable rain and longer periods of drought. And in the mountains, there’s been less snow.
The meteorological station on Mount Kenya measures the weather on the equator.
“The glaciers starve without snowfall,” said Douglas Hardy, a glacier scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. “They are suffering for the same reason people are: a lack of precipitation.”
Masses of white ice covered vast swaths of this mountain during the most recent ice age. As the glaciers withdrew, they left behind the sloping valleys and rocky moraines through which hikers now trek.
Celia Baumhoer, a glaciologist, and her partner Hannes Maier-Flaig, warm up in the sun above the camp, on Mount Kenya on the morning of Aug. 18.
Dendrosenecio Keniodendron, a plant that grows higher and bigger because of climate change, in Kenya, on August 18, 2022. (Adrienne Surprenant/MYOP/FTWP)
Today, the moraines are everywhere. The number of glaciers on the mountain has dropped from 18 in 1899 to 10 in 2004. Since then, scientists believe the loss has only accelerated.
Three generation of the Savage family hike up Mount Kenya on Aug. 18.
Lawrence Gitonga, 67, who has hiked the mountain for 35 years, slowly goes up to point Lenana, on Mount Kenya on Aug. 19.
Lawrence Gitonga, 67, has been hiking Mount Kenya for more than 35 years as a professional guide, and when he first saw the Lewis Glacier — which is Mount Kenya’s largest and one of the best-studied tropical glaciers in the world — he was terrified of the hulking white mass. He had learned about Mount Kenya’s glaciers in school but said he never expected something so big. Crossing without slipping seemed impossible. Terrified, he froze.
When Gitonga looks at what remains of the Lewis today, listening to the popping of ice melting, he said he mourns.
“This,” he said, “has been destroyed by man.”
Gitonga takes a break on the way to point Lenana on Aug. 19.
On a valley that used to be covered by the Lewis glacier, dry mud is now visible.
“It’s so small and sad,” said Leonardo Bravin, a 32-year-old Italian trekker, after seeing the Lewis Glacier, which scientists estimate lost 90 percent of its volume between 1934 and 2010.
A fraction of the Lewis glacier remains in the valley it used to fill.
As glaciers get smaller, they have less snowfall to absorb solar radiation. So the smaller a glacier becomes, the more quickly it melts, said glaciologist Rainer Prinz, who has led studies of the Lewis Glacier by researchers at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.
The ice melts faster as the glacier gets smaller and becomes more sensitive to heat.
The melting side of the Lewis glacier on Aug. 19.
How long it remains, Prinz said, depends in part on a bleak question: How small does a glacier have to get before it’s no longer considered a glacier at all?
His team ran tests to determine if altering the environment — for instance, making it slightly colder or slightly wetter or snowier — would allow Mount Kenya’s glaciers to survive.
But they found that it’s already too late.
Editing by Olivier Laurent, Alan Sipress and Reem Akkad. Photography by Adrienne Surprenant/MYOP. Design by Andrew Braford. Copy editing by Vanessa Larson.
Rachel Chason is The Washington Post's West Africa bureau chief. Before becoming a foreign correspondent in 2022, she was a reporter on the Local desk, focusing on politics and government in Prince George's County, Md. Twitter Twitter | 2022-11-10T19:51:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kenya’s rapidly vanishing glaciers are a harbinger of what is to come - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/kenya-glaciers-africa-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/kenya-glaciers-africa-climate-change/ |
Director Christopher A. Wray spoke at a conference hosted by the Anti-Defamation League
FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke Thursday at the Anti-Defamation League's "Never Is Now" summit at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan. (Jeenah Moon/Reuters)
As the Justice Department announced the arrest, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray was at a conference in New York, denouncing a recent surge of antisemitic acts across the country and saying that the federal law enforcement agency is “hitting back at full force” against domestic and foreign threats targeting American Jews.
'Something is different': Overt antisemitism has returned to U.S., leaders say
Wray addressed more than 1,000 people at the “Never Is Now” summit hosted by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization created to fight antisemitism and extremism that has tracked antisemitic incidents since 1979. The group says antisemitic acts in the country have tripled over the past six years.
Sixty-three percent of religious hate crimes in the country target Jewish people, who make up 2.4 percent of the American population, Wray said.
“There are too many grim examples to choose from,” he said, citing a shooting at a synagogue near San Diego that killed one congregant and wounded three others in 2019. Earlier this year, Wray noted, a man took congregants hostage at a Texas synagogue, apparently motivated by his anger over the U.S. imprisonment of a Pakistani woman held in federal prison in Fort Worth for trying to kill U.S. soldiers.
Wray’s speech kicked off a day-long summit on antisemitism at the Javits Center in New York. Other speakers included actor David Schwimmer and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). | 2022-11-10T20:17:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | FBI director Chris Wray vows action on antisemitism at ADL conference - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/10/new-jersey-synagogue-arrest-antisemitism-wray/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/10/new-jersey-synagogue-arrest-antisemitism-wray/ |
Elon Musk can’t run Twitter if he’s still trying to win Twitter
Elon Musk in Boca Chica, Tex., on Feb. 10. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Elon Musk has always loved to tweet. This passion for posting might well have moved him to pay $44 billion to own his favorite platform — and it might be what dooms him to failure as he tries to control it.
The inventor-entrepreneur’s initial days at the helm of Twitter have been a lesson in how not to run a global technology company — which is ironic, because Musk is supposed to be a master of running global technology companies. But what distinguishes Tesla and SpaceX from Twitter for the man now juggling so many juggernauts is that Twitter is personal for him.
Musk can’t run Twitter when he’s still trying to win Twitter.
Perhaps it’s best to go back to the beginning, with what put the bug — or bird — in Musk’s ear to stage a takeover of the site. New York Times reporter Kevin Roose identifies the moment as when the platform suspended the Babylon Bee, a conservative (and worse) version of the Onion. The thing was, Musk likes the Babylon Bee. He thinks the Babylon Bee is funny. (It’s not!)
A teensy event in the vast timeline of the internet inspired him to action — because, to him and his very particular tastes, it mattered. What’s more, while this episode might have had something to do with the larger cause of free expression, it also had to do, more specifically, with comedy.
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“Comedy is now legal on Twitter.” This was one of Musk’s earliest declarations after entering headquarters somewhat inexplicably carrying a sink. (The punchline here was “let that sink in”; depressingly, there was nothing else to the quip.) Why? Because he believes, despite all available evidence, that he’s a comedian.
Of course, many of the rest of us on the site see ourselves the same way, workshopping riffs on the drama of the day or iterating on the latest joke formats. The difference is (1) The rest of us don’t own Twitter and (2) Musk isn’t very funny. Before he took over, he reveled in regurgitating sloppily constructed culture-war memes. Now that he’s in charge, he’s trying out some of his own humorless material.
Musk has awarded himself, at ludicrous cost, an unprecedented opportunity to troll. On Twitter, all the world really is a stage, and he has become the starring player. No wonder he’s on track to tweet more than 750 times this month, or more than 25 times a day — a degree of posting that generally signals to a person’s family and friends that they might benefit from touching some grass. Suddenly, everything he says on the platform matters more than anything anyone else says, because he is the platform.
“Chief Twit.” “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator.” He’d never simply describe himself in his profile as CEO, because he sees himself, just like us, as a performer.
Why else make masturbation jokes about rival site Mastodon (again, there is very little to this bit — the point is the two words start the same way), instead of devising a strategy to stay ahead of the competition? Why suspend the accounts of Kathy Griffin and former NFL punter Chris Kluwe after they changed their account names to his own, instead of hewing to sitewide policies on impersonation? Why lash out against advertisers with the threat of a “thermonuclear name & shame,” as if beefing with them the way users spend their days beefing with each other for likes and retweets is an intelligent business strategy, instead of trying to coax them to return?
The to-do over verification, similarly, is all about status on the site. The blue check marks used to designate who was, supposedly, “important” — and for Musk, that couldn’t be the dour media figures who spend their time writing nasty columns like this one. Instead, it had to be people who like him — and his jokes — enough to pay him $8 a month for a new imprimatur of his creation.
Musk declared recently that he didn’t purchase Twitter to make money. This is believable. He then claimed he purchased Twitter to “help humanity.” This is bull. Musk purchased Twitter to help Musk post on Twitter the way he wants to, and be adored for doing it.
What this means for the company as a whole is unmitigated disaster. After all, decree-by-tweet isn’t exactly an effective policy development process. More generally, what’s good for Elon Musk isn’t what’s good for the rest of us, and what’s fun for Elon Musk doesn’t appeal to marketers concerned above all with brand safety. Facemash, the girl-rating site Mark Zuckerberg created in college, was never going to become a global juggernaut; Facebook was.
We all know that Elon Musk loves Twitter. But if he wants to hold on to it, he’s also going to have to let it go.
Opinion|Users can leave before Twitter degenerates further | 2022-11-10T20:48:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Elon Musk can’t run Twitter if he’s still trying to win Twitter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/elon-musk-twitter-failure/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/elon-musk-twitter-failure/ |
Louisiana prisoners picking cotton at Angola, the plantation turned state penitentiary, circa 1900. (Andrew David Lytle Sr./State Library of Louisiana)
When Isaac Franklin died in 1846, he owned a swath of plantations in central Louisiana — and at least 600 enslaved people. As king of the domestic slave trade, he got rich trafficking people before marrying late and retiring to the life of a so-called gentleman planter. His wife, Adelicia, nearly 30 years his junior, inherited everything upon his death.
More than 170 years later, the historic mansions are gone and the properties merged, but much has remained the same. Cotton is still grown and picked by mostly Black hands, even though mechanical pickers have existed for decades. Overseers, all White and referred to as “freemen,” still keep watch on horseback. If the laborers refuse to work, they are punished. Well-behaved laborers work in the homes of the overseers, cooking and cleaning. They sleep in small dorms and are paid 2 to 20 cents an hour, which they can only spend on-site. Most of them will die there and will be buried in a cemetery on the north side of the property.
It even goes by the same name the slave trader gave one of the plantations nearly 200 years ago: Angola.*
On Tuesday, voters considered a ballot measure to amend the state constitution to say, “Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited,” which would have ended forced labor at the infamous prison, officially called the Louisiana State Penitentiary but commonly known as Angola or “the Farm.” The measure failed. Similar measures on the ballot in four other states — Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont — all passed on Tuesday.
A slaveholding senator, an 1879 wedding and a Black family’s mystery
Most Americans think of slavery as the inherited chattel form that existed in the United States from 1619 to 1865. But it is not hyperbole to call forced prison labor “slavery” — that’s the term lawmakers used in 1865 when they passed the 13th Amendment. The amendment ended chattel slavery but made an exception allowing “slavery [and] involuntary servitude” as “a punishment for crime.”
No sooner did the amendment pass than White Southerners began using that exception to reconstruct their slave power, passing strict “Black Codes” to capture and imprison newly freed African Americans. Once imprisoned, they were “leased” to business owners to work on plantations, in mines and constructing railroads without pay.
In 1870, former Confederate major Samuel Lawrence James won the right to lease out all of Louisiana’s prisoners. By 1880, he had purchased Angola from Adelicia Franklin and moved prisoners there to work his new plantation.
The convict leasing system was brutal and, by the 1890s, deadlier than chattel slavery had been. Annual convict death rates ranged from 16 to 25 percent, according to PBS NewsHour. Because enslavers didn’t have to worry about return on investment, there was no incentive to care for the prisoners. “One dies, get another,” a Southern man said in an 1883 report quoted by PBS.
Concerns about human rights abuses grew, and in 1898, Louisiana banned convict leasing; a federal ban was instituted in 1941. The state purchased Angola from James in 1900, and while conditions improved somewhat, forced labor continued. In 1951, things were so bad that 31 prisoners cut their Achilles tendons so they couldn’t be forced to work.
Today, prison labor is a multibillion-dollar industry. Prisoners construct furniture for government facilities, make road signs and police officer gear, tend cattle (for the market, not for inmate consumption), and, according to Mother Jones, even do work for private companies such as Victoria’s Secret, Microsoft and Starbucks. They are paid fractions of normal wages for this work, and in a handful of former slave states, they are not paid at all. Prisoners can lose calls and visits with their families or be sent to solitary confinement if they refuse to work.
In 2018, a prisoner strike demanding fair wages and improved working conditions spread nationally, though it made few headlines outside the prison industry. That same year, Colorado became the first state to remove the slavery exception for prisoners from its state constitution, but because of arguably vague wording in the measure, incarcerated people there who are punished for refusing to work have had trouble arguing their cases in court.
The joy of Juneteenth: America’s long and uneven march from slavery to freedom
Wording appears to have torpedoed the ballot measure in Louisiana, too. It was drafted by Democratic state Rep. Edmond Jordan, who, after becoming concerned it might not be unequivocal enough, told voters to vote against it — though many prisoner-rights groups, such as the Abolish Slavery National Network, still urged a “yes” vote. Jordan has promised to reintroduce a measure with clearer wording next year.
* There’s a popular idea that the Angola plantation was named after the region in Africa from which most of its enslaved workers were kidnapped, but historian and Franklin biographer Joshua Rothman told The Washington Post this is a myth that appears to have originated in the 1980s. The international slave trade was banned in 1807, so it’s unlikely that decades later, most of the plantation’s workers would have been born in Africa, he said. It’s also unlikely an enslaver would have named a plantation “honoring” the homeland of its enslaved workforce. What’s more likely, according to Rothman, is that Franklin named it Angola to sentimentally associate himself with the “heyday” of the trans-Atlantic slave trade — Angola being a major source of enslaved people for European slave traders. Franklin named another nearby plantation Loango, after another popular site for European slave traders.
More on the history of slavery
The painful, cutting and brilliant letters Black people wrote to their former enslavers
She sued her enslaver for reparations and won. Her descendants never knew. | 2022-11-10T20:57:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | End slave labor at Angola prison? Louisiana voters say no. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/10/angola-prison-louisiana-slave-labor/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/10/angola-prison-louisiana-slave-labor/ |
Lite-Brite, the top and Masters of the Universe join Toy Hall of Fame
The 3 toys were chosen for their long-lasting appeal and ability to inspire creativity.
Masters of the Universe, Lite-Brite and the top were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame on Thursday in Rochester, New York. The three join other toys and games that have inspired creative play and lasting popularity. (AP)
The National Toy Hall of Fame’s new honorees include an object dating to ancient times, a line of muscle-bound action figures and an art set whose medium is colorful pegs. The hall on Thursday announced the top, Masters of the Universe and Lite-Brite as this year’s inductees.
The Toy Hall of Fame inducts a new class of toys each year in a ceremony at The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, where the hall is located.
The top earned a place by being a childhood staple of cultures in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Australia, according to the hall, which noted that ancient Greek pottery shows people playing with the twirling objects.
“The team at Mattel understood that kids spend lots of time in fantasy play and like the opportunity to project themselves into the role of the hero,” curator Michelle Parnett-Dwyer said. “Masters of the Universe characters had the strength, weapons and power to defeat the villain — and give kids confidence.”
The new inductees will be displayed alongside past honorees that include everyday objects such as the stick and cardboard box, and technologic entries such as Nintendo’s Game Boy. American Girl Dolls, Risk and sand were inducted last year.
Anyone can nominate a toy. A panel of experts selects the winners. | 2022-11-10T20:57:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Toy Hall of Fame adds the top, Lite-Brite and Masters of the Universe - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/10/toy-hall-of-fame-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/kidspost/2022/11/10/toy-hall-of-fame-2022/ |
St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, as seen in 2020. (Andrew Medichini/AP)
VATICAN CITY — A former Vatican financial auditor has filed suit against the Vatican Secretariat of State, demanding the Catholic Church pay for damage to his reputation that he alleges followed his unceremonious firing in 2017.
Libero Milone was hired in 2015 by Pope Francis to look into the notoriously convoluted and troubled finances of Vatican departments, as part of continuing financial reforms begun by Pope Benedict XVI. Only two years later, the Vatican announced that Milone had resigned in the face of accusations of embezzlement and of spying.
As Milone was ushered out, Cardinal Angelo Becciu told reporters that the auditor “went against all rules and was spying on the private lives of his superiors and staff, myself included.” Milone called the cardinal “a liar.” At a meeting Tuesday arranged by his lawyer, Milone told reporters that Becciu, once the third-highest-ranking official at the Vatican, was “the mastermind” of an “operation” to oust him.
Now, Milone says, he is ready to share proof of the financial mismanagement he said he witnessed at Vatican-owned hospitals and in the church bureaucracy. He and his former deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, are asking the Secretariat to pay nearly 10 million euros for reputational and mental damages.
8 former French bishops accused of sexual abuse, church says
Milone has been called for questioning at the Vatican on Monday. The Vatican did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
According to Milone, prosecutors have relaunched an investigation into his tenure at the Vatican, as well as that of Panicco. Panicco, who was fired at the same time as Milone, claims the Vatican withheld his personal data after his firing as it investigated him, causing him to lose precious time in his fight against prostate cancer.
“I think they are guilty of sentencing me to death for no reason, after slow and significant suffering,” Panicco told reporters Tuesday, reading from a written statement.
U.S. rabbi who worked on Jewish-Catholic relations to be knighted by pope
Milone framed his firing as a battle between “the Middle Ages and modernity” and called out “the small mafia at the Vatican” that was offended by his findings of lapses in the Catholic institution’s finances, including “many cases of rule violations, improper predisposition of accounting records, incorrect registrations.” He said he has proof that several other Vatican offices concealed transactions or obstructed auditors’ attempts to see real estate and investment portfolios. He also pointed to significant anomalies in the management of funds at the troubled Catholic pediatric hospital Bambino Gesù.
Vatican documents show that Vatican police claimed to have investigated the auditor and his deputy for seven months and found evidence of “illicit conduct,” which led to a judicial proceeding against them for espionage and embezzlement. But in a letter dated May 19, 2018, the Vatican’s top prosecutor wrote that there were no criminal charges against Milone.
Milone said he had sent seven letters to the pope and received no reply. He said he had maintained a dialogue with Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, but church officials have refused to settle his case.
Prosecutors at the Vatican are grappling with a massive financial trial of 10 Vatican employees and curial members, including Becciu, who are charged with, among other things, abuse of power, embezzlement and witness tampering in connection with the controversial 2014 purchase of London real estate made using a papal fund earmarked for charity. In September 2020, Francis stripped Becciu of his Vatican positions and cardinal rights, except for his titles, amid media reports that Becciu had funneled funds belonging to the Holy See to relatives and friends.
In a statement Thursday, Becciu’s legal representatives said they intended to answer what they called Milone’s “completely unfounded reconstructions” with legal action of their own.
“The cardinal clarified that he only carried out an order by the Holy Father, who informed him that Dr. Milone no longer enjoyed his trust, and therefore invited him to hand in his resignation,” the statement read. | 2022-11-10T20:57:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ex-Vatican auditor sues, threatens to expose financial mismanagement - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/10/vatican-finances-lawsuit-milone-becciu/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/10/vatican-finances-lawsuit-milone-becciu/ |
Transcript: Race in America: History Matters with Nelson George
MR. BREWER: Hello. I’m Jerry Brewer, a sports columnist here at The Post, and thanks for joining us on Washington Post Live for another in our Race in America series.
Joining me today to talk about his HBO documentary, "Say Hey, Willie Mays!" is filmmaker Nelson George. Nelson, welcome to Washington Post Live.
MR. GEORGE: Yeah. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
MR. BREWER: Oh, man, I cannot wait to talk about this. You got me in trouble. I was‑‑I had some things that my wife wanted me to do, and I had to delay that for almost two hours.
MR. GEORGE: Well, hopefully, she forgave you.
MR. BREWER: Yeah. The honey‑do got done a little bit later, but this was just wonderful. I couldn't help thinking about this film from the fact that we lost Hank Aaron and Bill Russell over the past year, and I was just thinking what wonderful timing that we were able to do this while we still have Willie Mays. Why was the moment right for you to do this film?
MR. GEORGE: Well, I mean, we've been trying to get this done. The producers have been trying to get this done at least since 2015. As you know, Willie is historically not very open to the press. I think we're probably the first film crew to be in his house in years. So it was a long process. I think that the timing was just a matter of‑‑you know, it would have happened a lot sooner if it wasn't for covid. Let's put it that way. That definitely put a damper and made us have to wait.
But I think that your point about Hank and your point about Bill Russell is very on point. I mean, Willie is a product of a world that crossed over and started happening in athletics. While Jackie Robinson was the first Black player in the major leagues, it was Willie and then people like Ernie Banks and Hank Aaron, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, and Elston Howard who were the next‑‑that wave of Black talent that came in and particularly transformed a national league into a league of a more exciting, more aggressive brand of baseball.
But it was Willie as probably the most exemplar of that aesthetic. Willie excelled at what they call the "five tools in baseball": hit, hit with power, run, field, throw. And he did all of those at a high level, but not only‑‑it's not just in numbers. He had 660 home runs, which is amazing, but he was also a joyous player to watch.
He introduced a basket catch, which no one else did before or since, in which you catch the ball at your waist, violating every rule of baseball. He was known for his hat flying off when he ran around the bases. He just was a charismatic character.
In the 1960s, the San Francisco Giants were the number one draw in Major League Baseball. Now, they only won one. They only went to the World Series in '62, but Willie, along with the great teammates‑‑Juan Marichal, Cepeda, Willie McCovey‑‑were probably the most entertaining team of the era.
MR. BREWER: So how did you get Willie to open up? We talked about how he was notorious about not wanting to do interviews, and he was feeling you out. I mean, you even saw a little bit of that in the documentary. How did you get him to open up?
MR. GEORGE: Well, it's funny. So we get there. We did two days back-to-back the first time we met with Willie, and the first hour or so, he's feeling me out. He's not giving me great answers.
Now you got to remember that Willie, his eyes are very bad, and his hearing is very bad. But, at some point during the conversation, I realized that I'm talking to him like an icon. I need to talk to him like my uncle or like, you know, any older black man from the South, and I started sort of picking at him a little bit. And he responded to that because he one of the greatest jocks of all time. You know, he's a lot‑‑he loves the clubhouse. He loves the banter, and if you stick around to see the very end of the film, in the closing credits, there's all this kind of back‑and‑forth with me and Willie. And he loved it, and I think that really opened him up, and he felt more comfortable.
Willie Mays has the biggest hands I've ever seen on any human being. They are‑‑they're immense, okay? So one of Willie's favorite things is for you to shake his hand. Now, even‑‑at that point, that was 89. Even at 89, 90, 91, he'll crush your hand, and so you see a little bit of me, like, sparring with him and trying to hang in there with him.
You know, it's funny you said that about that, that we took about the era of Black athletes. There was a comment that was made, I think, with ESPN last year about athletes from the '60s. They were part‑time plumbers; they were firemen. They weren't athletes like, you know, we are now.
Well, I'll tell you what. One of the things we really emphasized in the film was Willie's body. His hands, we really focus on these immense hands. We also show him in‑‑it must be 1949 or '50, this picture in a locker room as a young man, and the brother has an eight‑pack. And this is the era way before all the training and all the kind of weightlifting we do now. He was‑‑he was an athletic specimen who could compete on the athletic level with anybody playing today. So I wanted to establish that physicality in the film and then also his baseball intellect, from Barry Bonds to all of the players who played with him, his understanding of the game, looking at pictures, looking at alignment of how we should play certain players.
Willie, while he with Giants, was their on‑field defensive captain in the era when there weren't coaches like they have now. They have computer printouts to tell you where to play guys. Willie would do it from center field, and he would use his glove. And he would tell guys, go left, go right, go left, go right, and if they didn't, they didn't play the next day. So, even though he was never a formal manager, Willie ran the field defensively for his entire tenure in San Francisco.
MR. BREWER: Just move a little to the left or the right, stay out of my way, and I'll go get it. [Laughs]
MR. GEORGE: Exactly.
MR. BREWER: Nelson, we have a clip of Willie reflecting on his career. Let's take a look.
MR. BREWER: Nelson, so this is a simple question but a big question: What does baseball mean to Willie Mays?
MR. GEORGE: It's everything. I mean, it took him from‑‑I'll tell you, from Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1940s. I mean, he went to a school, a high school that was one of those technical high schools where they‑‑you know, they didn't really emphasize academics, right? So I think his major was learning how to be a cleaner and to work in the cleaners. I mean, that's the kind of training he was getting. So he knew he needed to figure out a way to get out of that.
His father, Cat Mays, was a hardworking dude. He was a steelworker. He also did Pullman porter work sometimes on the weekends, and he was a minor league baseball player. And back in that era, you know, all of the‑‑all the steel mills and teams had baseball teams and athletic teams for the workers, and he was apparently a very good player.
At around four or five years old, he saw something in his son and really steered him toward sports, and it's interesting because Willie could have pursued a basketball career and tried to be a Trotter. He was a star player on his high school basketball team. Apparently, he was a quarterback on his high school football team, but he knew back in that era, there was no athletic scholarships to major colleges. If you didn't play for the Trotters in terms of basketball, there wasn't much money to be made.
So baseball was a sport where he could play, as he said himself, and play a long time, and Willie played from‑‑in the majors from '51 to '73, 22 years, played into his 40s which, again, back then, if you were an outfielder, I mean, it was very, very rare for you to get that far in the game.
So he's chose baseball because he knew it was something he could play for a long time, and then he learned the nuances of it. He was trained by starting in the Negro leagues, really, with a guy named Piper Davis, who managed the Birmingham Black Barons. Willie had several mentors who really looked after him or, as Willie likes to say, "take care of." It's a big phrase for Willie, the idea of people taking care of him when he was young and him taking care of people later. And part of his love for baseball is that comradery and that sense of community, that sense of we're all in this together.
And, to this day, until covid hit, he would go, you know, on a weekly basis to the Giants Club. When the Giants were home in San Francisco, they have a room where they set up Willie at a desk. The young Giant players came in. So he's part of the tradition of the Giants, and players from other teams came in. You know, "Willie Mays is in the house. I'm going to meet him."
So the game, the nuances. and the camaraderie are what made him love the game.
MR. BREWER: So Willie got to live in three very different areas, obviously in Birmingham, being from Alabama with the Black Barons, then going to the New York Giants who become the San Francisco Giants, and then, obviously, at the very end coming back to New York to play for the Mets in addition to just traveling the country. What do you think Willie's experiences playing in these different cities across the country‑‑how do you think that kind of informed his Blackness? What do you think it meant to him as a Black man being in these very, very different parts of the country? What did he learn?
MR. GEORGE: Well, you know, Willie is not someone who's going to tell you about‑‑he's not going to bring up racism. He's not going to bring up things, things that‑‑bad things that happened to him. He's a guy who's going to always talk about‑‑you bring up something, you know, an historical incident that you know happened to him, he's going to go, "Well, yes, but these people helped me and these people helped me." So he tends to look on the positive side.
So, if you ask him about growing up in Birmingham, he's not going to tell you about the limitations. He's going to tell you about the community and the people that he was with who helped him and bonded with him. He's not going to dwell on the stuff that we usually dwell on.
Coming to New York was a profound thing because you go from Birmingham, Alabama, where you're living in an all‑Black community, predominantly, but one that's kind of constricted by where you can go and what you can do, he loved being in Harlem.
One of my favorite parts of the film is the description of his life in Harlem. Initially, he lived only two blocks away from the Polo Grounds where they played with a Black family. Famously, these kids would come out in the neighborhood and play stickball with him.
He would play stickball with them, local kids. He was very much connected to the young people and kids. He always was.
Seventh Avenue back in the '50s was a fantastic sort of boulevard of fun. The great Sugar Ray had a spot on Seventh Avenue. It was a place called the Smalls Paradise that Wilt Chamberlain ended up buying at some point. And there was the Red Rooster, which was a spot that became Willie's hangout. A guy named George Woods owned it, and they reserved a table in the back for Willie.
So, back then, you mostly played day games. So he would come after a game, have a meal, hang out, meet, you know, folks. So that Harlem world was really, really supportive of him.
And then, you know, he met his first wife in Harlem. So that was a maturing experience of being in a different kind of Black community, one where there's a lot more possibilities, a lot more glamor, a lot more money. And then San Francisco was a change because it wasn't‑‑unlike Birmingham and also like New York and Harlem, it didn't have as big a Black community, especially in the '50s, and it certainly didn't have that level of the many different variety of places you go, restaurants, in life. So he became a little bit more‑‑"reclusive" may be one word or definitely more protective. He‑‑when he divorced his first wife in '62, he got a really beautiful kind of bachelor house that had like a‑‑his son described it as the "Bat Cave" because he had a‑‑he had the‑‑a ladder‑‑excuse me‑‑a spiral staircase built in the middle. So he could go, really literally, from his bedroom to his living room, down to his car, and drive to the ballpark. And so he spent a lot of time‑‑instead of him being out as he was in New York in the '50s, he was more likely to invite Hank Aaron, to invite Bob Gibson, to invite Joe Morgan over to his house for dinner after game and bond, play pool. He's a big pool player. So each city‑‑Birmingham, New York, Harlem, San Francisco was a slightly different experience for him.
MR. BREWER: You had such a great‑‑and often it's subtle‑‑appreciation of the way that Willie played, and I think you presented him not just as an athlete but as an artist in a certain way.
MR. GEORGE: Right. Yeah.
MR. BREWER: But just tell me what set him apart as a player from the other greats of his time.
MR. GEORGE: Well, you know, there's a skill level. I mean, I think the way to describe Willie and think about him is in the early '60s, particularly, when he‑‑you know, those peak years from when he got to San Francisco in '58, you know, through '66, '67, he's equivalent figure to like a Sammy Davis Jr. or Sidney Poitier. He's a star, not just a player, but he's a star who people like, they're attracted to, and he had a kind of light around him.
So, when he played the game, he's someone that people stop to watch, and not just watch at bat, which happens with sluggers. You watched him in the field because he was flamboyant in a way that was‑‑I mean, I go back to the basket catch. I mean, we talk about Black excellence, and we talk about Black innovation. In almost every sport that Black people are moving into in significant numbers, they bring an attitude, they bring a spirit, they bring a style that wasn't there before. I like to call it "BAA," the Black Athletic Aesthetic, which is kind of like, "I'm here, but I'm going to put a little something on the game." And the basket catch was such a signature thing. It seemed like a simple thing. The ball is coming in the air, and you catch it like this at your waist. But a moving baseball hit by powerful men at big speeds is not nothing to joke with, and most people who try to basket catch either miss the ball completely or get hit upside the head. You know, so he had an ability to bring that to the game.
The other thing we tried to show in the film that speaks to his celebrity was that Willie was on "The Ed Sullivan Show" regularly, which was the number one show in America every Sunday night. He was on sitcoms like "Bewitched," like "The Donna Reed Show." So he was accepted and celebrated by White fans and White media in a way that was quite unique and that sort of sets up and sort of predates the crossover athlete world of the Jordans and the Magic Johnsons later. You know, he was that guy. And I always like to say that before Ali became the dominant figure in terms of Black sports and American sports, it was Willie. Baseball was the biggest sport in America, well into the '60s, and Willie was the most charismatic player in the game at that time.
And I think one other thing for people to understand, because there have been so many home run records broken in the last few decades, when Willie broke Mel Ott's National League home run record‑‑I think it was 514‑‑the only person who hit more home runs than Willie at that point in time‑‑and this is mid‑'60s‑‑was Babe Ruth. So we've had the record, but at that time, he was unprecedented, and that 714 number loomed ahead of him as the only‑‑you know, the next goal.
But, again, Willie wasn't just a home run hitter. He was a base stealer, and he was a captain, and he was a charismatic guy who could‑‑who was actually a pretty good actor when you watch these sitcoms. So I think in terms of the entire package, Willie is a dominant player because of not just how he played, per se, his numbers, but the style, the energy, the charisma.
MR. BREWER: Jackie Robinson, who Willie Mays modeled himself after, criticized him for not doing enough during the Civil Rights movement. How did Willie contribute to the Civil Rights movement, and how did you kind of deal with handling all of the nuances of that situation and understanding it?
MR. GEORGE: Well, I think, number, one, Willie‑‑ I think one of the things to understand about Jackie and Willie, Willie‑‑when Jackie came to the majors, he's already been in the Army. He's been to UCLA. He's a very worldly, sophisticated guy, one reason that Branch Rickey sought him out. Willie was 20 years old when he got to New York, just‑‑you know, just a year or two out of high school in Alabama. So he never‑‑he never felt totally comfortable as a spokesperson. He never felt‑‑he always felt like Jackie or, you know, Dr. King, or whoever else were more qualified to lead that discussion. So part of it was, I think, a little bit of self‑consciousness.
I think that what we look at Willie, we look at two levels. We look at his ability to penetrate White America, and I mean that as a celebrity. I mean that as TV appearances. I mean that as a figure of‑‑to be emulated by a generation of White fans who‑‑for whom Jackie was the pioneer breakthrough, but Willie was the one who became the star at that next level, right?
And then two is Willie as a mentor. One of the main threads of the documentary for me is his idea of mentorship, and it starts with Willie's father with Willie, Piper Davis of the Birmingham Black Barons, and then later, you know, Leo Durocher taking him in and mentoring him in the early days of New York.
And then Willie becoming a mentor himself to the wave of Latino players who came in, the Giants were one of the teams who really embraced Latin ballplayers and brought in in big numbers‑‑excuse me‑‑Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Tito Fuentes and more, and then Willie becoming a mentor for Bobby Bonds, who is fantastic player, the father of Barry Bonds. So that thread is a big part of it.
And, ultimately, Willie as a person who did behind‑the‑scenes stuff, Willie helping‑‑you know, we had Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, also at one point one of the most powerful people in the California state legislature, and how he helped him raise money and did that for many, many other people. So Willie wasn't an outside agitator guy. He was an inside person.
I think something else to be pointed out‑‑because we deal with Jackie criticism and we deal with Willie's reply and the point of view of Barry Bonds and other people, I really wanted to make sure that we had that dialogue from a number points of view. What is Black activism, and what are the ways in which it can manifest?
And certainly Harry‑‑Professor Harry Evans‑‑excuse me‑‑Professor Harry Edwards, who was a fantastic thinker and activist and Black activism, criticizes Willie along with Jackie. At the same time, you have Willie Brown and other people who‑‑and Todd Boyd from USC talking about Willie and his context and how he viewed the world. So I think what I tried to do was to definitely address the criticism, and I think that's important part of the historical record of Willie, but also to really honor Willie's point of view.
And I think‑‑I think one of the things to think about now is in this era of, you know, Black Lives Matter and activism, there are people who are really up front, and there are others who are not up front, but who‑‑doesn't mean they're not doing things to help the community. So I do think that you need‑‑what I used to say, you need the tree shakers and you need the jelly makers. When that tree falls from the trees‑‑when that fruit falls from the tree, someone has to be the one who turns it into something edible, and those are‑‑and that's kind of, I think, how Willie was. Willie was a person who took the fruit and shared it with others.
MR. BREWER: We have a question from‑‑an audience question from Gerard from Texas who asks, "Willie Mays often played himself into chronic exhaustion, especially at the end of regular seasons and pennant races. Can you please comment on his regular season hospitalizations or treatment for exhaustion?"
MR. GEORGE: Yeah. You know, so I don't have the exact number in front of me, but from, like, 1958 to, like, the '60s, Willie probably missed‑‑and they played like‑‑at that that day, they played, I think, 154, 155 games, not the 162, most of that time. He missed only, like, 20. There's, like, a 10‑year span when he missed maybe only 21 games, and of those 21 games, I think the Giants only won seven. So he believed‑‑and this was the way it was in that era. You played every day. You didn't‑‑there were no‑‑there were very few off days for playing. They played all day games, so they played in the sun. And he just believed that the team had the best chance of winning when he was there.
So he played himself into exhaustion, I think, at least three times in his career, and he collapsed straight out and was put in a hospital. It's both a reflection of his dedication to the game, right, and to the Giants, but also a reflection of the values at the time. It wasn't‑‑you know, we live in an era where athletes are‑‑and everyone, you know, we have mental health breaks and we have days off. You know, pitchers don't pitch nine innings anymore. This is not that era. This is the era where you were a star, you were expected to be on the field every day, no matter what your condition, and try and make it work. And so Willie was a product of that, and he believed that was the only way to be a leader, and then you lead by being on the field. If you have a headache, if you have a sore back, if you have a sore knee, he played through all of that, and eventually, his body gave out, you know, several times. Yeah. It was a‑‑it's a reflection of both his mentality, but also of the values of the era.
MR. BREWER: Nelson, Barry Bonds, Willie's godson, brings a whole nother level of emotion and humanity to the project. Just what was the process like? When did you‑‑when during the making of this, did you interview Barry Bonds? Were you expecting him to elevate it as much as he did?
MR. GEORGE: So we were shooting on the‑‑at the birthday party for Willie, 90th birthday. You see it in the film. And I met‑‑you know, I met Barry that day, and he said he was obviously interested in supporting a doc that his godfather was in. It took a while for him to really sit down, but I feel like, you know, we can go‑‑that's a whole nother discussion. But, ultimately, Barry's relationship with the press was very bad. You know, he's been accused of using steroids and some things, and he's always been in denial about that. So it's been a fight, you know, and so he doesn't trust the media. I think he's probably had people‑‑a couple of got‑you interviews where people said they were going to interview him about it and then tried to get him on. So it took a while to gain his trust.
But when we sat down, as you'll see in the doc and as you've seen, he was as vulnerable and open, as loving as I think he's ever been on camera. Talking about Willie really brought out some nuance and some deep love that yet people hadn't seen, and I was so pleasantly surprised. I knew that talking about Willie, it would be easy, but I didn't know it would be so emotional.
And the other thing I could just add is that, you know‑‑so we sat with Barry maybe for‑‑we did about the first hour, and we got a lot of the things I needed for the doc. But then he went on for another half hour or so just talking about baseball and his understanding of the game, his understanding of hitting, and I'm talking about scientific level, talking about velocity versus back speed. And, I mean, whatever people can say, he didn't hit those baseballs by accident. He was mentored, as he talks about in the film, by two excellent‑‑he was mentored by Willie Mays, his godfather, one of the greatest, if not the greatest player of all time, and his father, Bobby, who people don't forget. Bobby was a 300‑home‑run, 300‑stolen‑base guy, an excellent player, an all‑star‑caliber player at several teams. So he had these two different mentor figures driving him, and he took in those lessons and intellectualized those into building a historic career.
MR. BREWER: One last question for you real quick, Nelson. I hear you‑‑Barry Bonds was able to share with you Willie Mays's reaction to the film, that he's watched it over and over. How much does that mean to you?
MR. GEORGE: Well, like, I think when you opened, you talked about the loss of Hank and of Bill Russell, and the fact is that‑‑especially when you make something that you're trying to sum up or celebrate someone's life, it's great when they can see it. And I think it's great. Willie is the oldest living baseball hall of famer, and he's had a hell of a life. So I think when he watches a film‑‑I'm sure what the film is doing is triggering his memories. So him seeing the catch in '54, him seeing him with Orlando Cepeda or hanging out or the year he played with‑‑two years he play with the Mets, these are bringing back memories that are deep. So he's seeing things that we're not. I'm sure he is seeing the film, but he is also seeing deeper into the film. And that makes me very happy.
MR. BREWER: Oh, man. Nelson, unfortunately, we're out time. I got more honey‑dos to do. So I'm going to leave it there. Nelson George, thank you for joining us today.
MR. GEORGE: Oh, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
MR. BREWER: And thanks to all of you for watching. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head over to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find out more information about upcoming programs.
I'm Jerry Brewer, and thank you for joining us at Washington Post Live. | 2022-11-10T20:59:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Race in America: History Matters with Nelson George - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/10/transcript-race-america-history-matters-with-nelson-george/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/10/transcript-race-america-history-matters-with-nelson-george/ |
Winsome Earle-Sears in October 2021, while she was running for Virginia lieutenant governor, campaigns at a Parents Matter Rally in Winchester, Va. (Pete Marovich for The Washington Post)
RICHMOND — Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a conservative Republican who traveled the country in 2020 to promote President Donald Trump’s reelection, said in the aftermath of this week’s midterm elections that it’s time for the former president to leave the political stage.
“What we saw was, even though he wasn’t on the ballot, he was,” Earle-Sears told The Washington Post on Thursday. “Because he stepped in and endorsed candidates. And yet, it turns out that those he did not endorse on the same ticket did better than the ones he did endorse. That gives you a clue that the voters want to move on, and a true leaders knows when they have become a liability to the mission.”
Sears is the most prominent Republican officeholder in Virginia to break with Trump, who was deeply unpopular in the state overall but has maintained a firm grip on the Republican Party base.
She first made her stance known in an interview on Fox News earlier Thursday. A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
A former state delegate and Marine, Sears, a Jamaican immigrant, served as chairwoman of Black Americans to Re-elect the President two years ago and won the lieutenant governorship last year on a ticket led by now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R). Youngkin appears to be weighing a potential 2024 presidential bid. If he won the White House, Sears would complete his gubernatorial term.
Youngkin has walked a tightrope with Trump as he’s sought to appeal to the former president’s fans and foes alike. Asked if Youngkin knew ahead of time that she would publicly split with Trump, Earle-Sears declined to say. | 2022-11-10T21:36:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Virginia’s GOP lieutenant governor calls Trump ‘liability to the mission’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/virginia-winsome-sears-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/virginia-winsome-sears-trump/ |
A voter drops off a ballot in a drop box in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday. (Claire Rush/AP)
Ballot initiatives, the most direct form of democracy, provide a window into how the people really feel about specific issues. So one of the highlights of Tuesday’s midterm elections was the good sense voters exhibited when they were given the chance to have their say on some big policy questions.
Suggesting that voters are more complicated than many political observers often assume, South Dakota voters approved Medicaid expansion in their state, even as they reelected conservative firebrand Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R). This means about 45,000 South Dakotans making less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level, about $18,000 for an individual or $36,900 for a family of four, will now qualify for government-sponsored health-care coverage.
This is the seventh time Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been put directly to voters. It has passed, handily, every time. Successful initiatives in Idaho, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Utah have made more than 800,000 more people eligible for coverage.
This means only 11 states continue to reject vital assistance for their poorest residents, who are mostly people of color. Among the holdouts, only Florida, Mississippi and Wyoming allow ballot initiatives. Legislatures would have to act in the other eight: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, North Carolina and Wisconsin. GOP leaders in those places should stop rejecting billions of federal Medicaid dollars out of political spite. The past few elections have proved the ACA is not going anywhere.
In a more symbolic development, the people of Tennessee, Oregon and Vermont passed ballot measures to remove from their state constitutions language allowing slavery. (The U.S. Constitution’s 13th Amendment permits the practice when used as a form of criminal punishment.) Alabama voters also endorsed changing their constitution to remove explicitly racist language, including in relation to slavery.
Meanwhile, Ohioans and Oregonians voted to ban noncitizens from casting ballots. The radical idea of noncitizen voting has become fashionable on the left, and it has been tried in some small Maryland cities, but it dilutes the power of Americans to determine their own future.
A statewide measure in Ohio, which passed by a more than 3-to-1 margin, bars local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote. This came in response to a 2019 move by Yellow Springs, Ohio, home to Antioch College, to give noncitizen residents the same say over local leaders that lifelong citizens have. In Multnomah County, Oregon’s most populous and the home of Portland, voters rejected a measure that would have allowed noncitizens to cast ballots in county elections.
In Oakland, Calif., voters supported allowing noncitizens, including undocumented immigrants, to vote in school board elections if they have children. We understand the desire to allow people to have a say over their children’s education. But citizenship should mean something, and this disincentivizes people from pursuing the naturalization process, which involves learning about and pledging allegiance to the nation’s foundational values.
Elected leaders often respond to the loudest, not the most representative, voices in their constituencies. Conservative lawmakers should give up their anti-Medicaid crusade. Progressives should refrain from cheapening the value of citizenship. That includes in the District, where the D.C. Council recently passed a bill that would allow noncitizens — even staffers at the Russian and Chinese embassies, or students studying here for a semester — to vote in city elections. Luckily, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) still has the chance to veto the bill. Like other leaders, the mayor should govern for the sensible mainstream. | 2022-11-10T22:06:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Midterm voters expanded Medicaid and rejected noncitizen voting. Good. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/midterm-elections-medicaid-noncitizen-voting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/midterm-elections-medicaid-noncitizen-voting/ |
What ticket-splitting in the midterms looked like
Voting stickers are ready to be handed out Tuesday at a church gym in Atlanta. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
If Georgia voters had voted for the same party straight down the ballot, there would be no runoff in the state’s Senate race. Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate, would have beaten Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) by nearly 8 points — the margin by which Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) won reelection.
But that’s not how they voted. Walker received 200,000 fewer votes than Kemp. Control of that seat, and potentially the Senate overall, will be settled early next month.
Of course, if voters in Wisconsin had similarly voted on party lines, control of the Senate would probably already be determined by the time of the runoff. There, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) narrowly beat Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (D). Had Barnes received as many votes as Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Democrats would have picked up that seat.
It’s not uncommon for voters to either split their votes between parties or vote for a candidate in one race but not another. This year, though, with control of the Senate at stake and many close races making the difference, the distinction between gubernatorial and Senate votes is particularly interesting.
The situation in Georgia was predictable months ago. Polling repeatedly showed that a chunk of the electorate planned to back both Kemp and Warnock — splitting their vote between the Republican and Democratic incumbents. Polling also showed that voters in Georgia were less excited about voting for Walker than Kemp, suggesting that some might vote for the top of the ticket but not further down.
With (incomplete, in some cases) results in hand, we can now visualize the gap between Senate and gubernatorial candidates in a number of closely watched states. What’s more, we can see how the gap varied within the state.
Here, for example, is a comparison of the gap between the Republican candidates with education levels by county. (The vertical axis on these charts is the two-party margin in the governor’s race minus the two-party margin in the Senate race. Since Johnson outperformed Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels in Wisconsin, these figures are negative numbers for Wisconsin.) You can see a clear correlation in Georgia: as the percentage of residents in a county that has a college degree increases (from left to right) Kemp’s margin was increasingly larger than Walker’s.
In other states, it’s not as clearly correlated. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t as strongly correlated to the county’s 2020 presidential vote, meaning that this isn’t simply capturing big Democratic cities.
We can see a similar pattern when we look at income, which itself correlates to education. Counties with higher median incomes gave bigger margins to Kemp than Walker.
Income also often correlates to race, but we don’t see a strong correlation between the percentage of residents in a Georgia who are White with an advantage for Kemp. We do see a correlation in Arizona, where gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake outperformed Senate candidate Blake Masters by a much wider margin in counties with a lower density of White residents. That there are not many counties in Arizona, though, offers an important caveat.
The charts for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin show something different: Neither of those states has many counties with high percentages of non-White residents.
The divide on education in Georgia is interesting. We saw similar divides in the Republican primaries, where places with more college-educated voters were less likely to support candidates viewed as aligning with former president Donald Trump. That Kemp (Trump target) would fare better than Walker (Trump endorsee) isn’t as surprising in that context. But it also suggests that there weren’t similar divides between the two candidates in the other states.
Another central takeaway here is that there isn’t necessarily a clear explanation beyond that some candidates were more broadly preferable to voters than others. That, say, Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano was far worse at campaigning and faced a much tougher opponent that the Republican Senate candidate in that state, Mehmet Oz.
Or, in that case, that Trump’s endorsement didn’t do either of them many favors. | 2022-11-10T22:28:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What ticket-splitting in the midterms looked like - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/georgia-wisconsin-midterms-walker-kemp/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/georgia-wisconsin-midterms-walker-kemp/ |
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Caif.) speaks during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill on Sept. 22. (Shuran Huang for The Washington Post)
Control of the Senate could be slipping away from Republicans, as results from the 2022 election continue to roll in. What about the House?
The assumption has long been that it would go red. But this election has certainly tested plenty of assumptions.
Thus far, Democrats have been declared the winners in 188 House districts, while 208 have gone for Republicans. The magic number for a majority is 218, so Republicans are obviously much closer, just in terms of raw numbers.
But those raw numbers are misleading. Most of those uncalled races are out west — read: Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — where the vote counting is slower, and most of them lean blue. There are around seven clearly blue-leaning districts in California alone that don’t have enough votes in to be called, but are very unlikely to flip.
That leaves around 30 potentially competitive but uncalled races. Republicans would only need to win 10 of them to get their House majority. As things stand, the latest election results show them leading in 12 districts. But many of the races feature substantial numbers of uncounted votes, meaning there could be significant shifts — in either direction — depending on where the uncounted votes are coming from.
What seems clear is that it’s going to be much tighter than Republicans had hoped, and it seems less of a foregone conclusion than it did even 24 hours ago. They remain favorites — and indeed, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced his majority transition team on Thursday — but not huge ones.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post’s election model suggested Republicans were on course for around 225 seats — enough for a majority with some room to spare. But the latest data put that number closer to 220, right on the edge of the 218 seats required. That’s similar to NBC’s model, which says Republicans are favored to get a similar number — 221 seats — plus or minus seven seats. (The plus or minus essentially operates as a margin of error — and the magic number of 218 is within that margin.)
The reason things have gotten tighter? In the model, Democrats have gained since early Wednesday in most of the uncalled races — in about three-fourths of them, in fact. So it’s not just a handful of races suddenly tilting the other way; it means things appear better for Democrats across much of the country.
Key races have broken for Democrats in a way that makes their path to a majority more feasible. They are on the verge of an upset in Colorado’s newly created 8th district (where the Republican has conceded, though most news media have not called the race) and of unseating Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) in one of the most competitive races in the country, for instance. They also managed to reelect Reps. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) and Matthew Cartwright (D-Pa.) in two key races in neighboring districts in Pennsylvania. And three Democratic seats in Nevada are looking more secure in light of how many votes remain outstanding and where they’re coming from.
So, what are the other districts to watch?
While there are some races left out east that could be pivotal (such as New York’s slightly blue-leaning 22nd district) most of the ones that’ll decide the majority are out west — and especially in California. Keep an eye in particular on pretty swing districts like Rep. Ken Calvert’s (R-Calif.) 41st district and the open 6th district in Arizona.
There are also a couple of wild cards. One is Washington’s GOP-leaning, open 3rd district, where Trump-endorsed candidate Joe Kent eliminated Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) in the primary but carried baggage into the general election. He currently trails by five points with about two-thirds of the vote in.
And the other is perhaps the most surprising nail-biter of Election Day, and the House race most people are talking about: the reelection campaign of conservative provocateur Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-Colo.). Despite coming from a district that favored Trump by eight points in 2020, she only took a small lead over her Democratic opponent on Thursday morning, and thousands of ballots remain to be counted in Pueblo County, which has favored the Democrat.
If Democrats can pull off an upset like that, it would make things significantly more interesting. And if they can win these types of districts, it’s possible that learning who won the House majority could take a while. | 2022-11-10T22:28:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Breaking down undecided House races that could determine control - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/undecided-house-races-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/undecided-house-races-2022/ |
Paul Haggis, director of ‘Crash,’ ordered to pay $7.5 million in rape case
Paul Haggis arrives at court in early November. (Julia Nikhinson/AP)
A New York jury found filmmaker Paul Haggis liable in a sexual assault case brought forward by a publicist who alleged he raped her at his Manhattan apartment in 2013, according to the Associated Press.
The jury ordered Haggis, 69, to pay Haleigh Breest, 36, at least $7.5 million in damages, the AP reported, noting that the jury also decided he would be responsible for paying additional punitive damages later on.
Ilann Maazel, an attorney representing Breest, said in a statement, “We are thankful and grateful for the jury’s verdict. Justice was done today. This is a great victory for Haleigh and for the entire #MeToo movement.”
The Washington Post has reached out to Haggis’s representatives for comment.
Haggis is known for having written the films “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” the latter of which won him two Academy Awards in 2006 for best picture and best original screenplay. (He also directed “Crash,” and shares a writing credit on the film with Bobby Moresco.)
Breest filed the civil lawsuit against Haggis in December 2017 under New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act. According to the complaint, Breest was working at a New York film premiere in January 2013 and accepted a ride home from Haggis. The document alleges that he pressured her to have a drink with him at his SoHo apartment, instead of at a public bar as she said she suggested.
“Recognizing that Mr. Haggis was a powerful member of the Hollywood elite who could influence her career, and faced with his persistence, Ms. Breest ultimately relented and went with Mr. Haggis to his Mercer Street residence,” reads an amended complaint filed in New York County Supreme Court in July 2018.
The complaint alleges that Breest was “shocked, confused, and extremely fearful” as Haggis forcibly kissed her at his residence and forced her to perform oral sex. According to Breest, he raped her afterward. | 2022-11-10T22:28:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Paul Haggis, director of ‘Crash,’ ordered to pay $7.5 million in rape case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/10/paul-haggis-liable-rape-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/10/paul-haggis-liable-rape-lawsuit/ |
2022’s hurricanes Nicole and Ian hit in same respective locations as 2004’s Jeanne and Charley; in both years, the storms struck 43 days apart
Separated by 18 years, both pairs hit in almost the same place and followed nearly identical paths. In both instances, the storms’ landfalls were 43 days apart.
On social media, meteorologists described the coincidences as “wild,” “amazing” and “crazy.”
After socking Florida, Nicole to bring heavy rain, tornado risk to eastern U.S.
Eighteen years earlier and less than 15 miles away, Hurricane Jeanne made landfall at the southern end of Hutchinson Island the night of Sept. 25.
Jeanne lashed the island as a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph before weakening to a tropical storm over central Florida, according to the National Weather Service. Along a boomerang-shaped path, Jeanne then turned sharply toward central Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.
Florida’s 2004 hurricane season was marked by extremely high activity featuring four major storms, rated Category 3 or higher. That year, Charley started off Florida’s season in mid-August. This year, Ian kicked off Florida’s hurricane season in late September. | 2022-11-10T22:29:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hurricane Nicole had path like Jeanne in 2004; Ian shared Charley's path - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/10/hurricane-coincidence-florida-2022-2004/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/10/hurricane-coincidence-florida-2022-2004/ |
D.C. Board of Education races show split views among voters
Votes are still being tallied, but unofficial results show a mix of progressive and moderate candidates leading
A voter casts their ballot at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center for the D.C. primary elections on June 21. (Julia Nikhinson/For The Washington Post)
D.C. voters revealed mixed opinions over public education Tuesday, splitting their support between school board candidates backed by the Washington Teachers’ Union and a powerful charter advocacy organization, according to unofficial results updated Wednesday.
Unlike a traditional school board, the District’s State Board of Education wields little actual power over schools. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) governs the city’s public schools and most policy changes come through the 13-member D.C. Council.
But as the only elected representatives focused on education, the nine members of the state board can use their platforms to advocate on behalf of their respective wards, and their views often reflect the pulse of education trends in the city. This year’s elections — for the board of education and throughout the District — pitted more liberal candidates against moderates.
The board of education contests included eight candidates across four races, who collectively generated roughly $200,000 in campaign contributions. Brandon Best, who is leading his Ward 6 opponent, earned an endorsement from Democrats for Education Reform. The national education group — which has a local chapter known as DFER D.C. — has poured money into local elections across the country. Often at odds with teachers’ unions, the group has historically backed moderate candidates who support the mayor’s control of schools and those who would advocate for robust charter sectors.
The education group putting big money into this D.C. election cycle
“We were consistently one of the worst school districts in the country,” Best said about D.C. schools before Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) wrested control of the system in 2007. “We’re not that anymore. Do we have flaws? Yeah, but we’re far from where we were. I don’t think going back to the old system is what we need.”
Ward 3′s Eric Goulet also appears to be cinching a close victory for one of the four board seats on the ballot Tuesday. He did not get a DFER endorsement during his board of education race, but was backed by the group during an unsuccessful primary campaign for the Ward 3 council seat. Goulet — who has spent about two decades in D.C. government and had a hand in school funding and universal prekindergarten legislation — lost to Matthew Frumin, whom other candidates rallied around after Goulet was supported by the advocacy group. Contenders for the State Board of Education do not compete in primaries, and Goulet joined the education race in July.
Meanwhile, Ben Williams, who ran uncontested in Ward 1, and Robert Henderson, who is leading the Ward 5 race, both secured endorsements from the teachers union, which represents more than 4,000 teachers in the city’s traditional public school system. The union has typically thrown its support behind liberal candidates seen as proponents of traditional schools, who say the mayor’s grip on schools should be loosened and the state superintendent’s office operate independently.
“I am supportive of the traditional public schools,” Henderson said. “What we want for families is to have a school option that works for their kids, and that they feel good about. But the way that our system works, too many families either have to win a lottery or travel across town.”
Survey shows low morale, frustration among D.C. teachers
While their stances on broad issues like mayoral control may offer a glimpse at how they’ll lead, candidates warned against forcing the District’s vast education landscape into rigid factions, saying the reality is more complicated. Goulet is a supporter of mayoral control. He also plans to enroll his children — who go to private school in Maryland — in D.C.'s traditional school system. Williams called the current governance system one that lacks “checks and balances.” He also wants more collaboration between officials across school sectors.
“I think teachers in the charter school sector and teachers in the traditional public school sector have similar needs, and too often some forces that be pits the interest of teachers against each other,” said Williams, a teacher at Capital City Public Charter School. “That’s not good for any community members in D.C.”
Each of the candidates have also committed to representing students and families at all schools equally. While their main responsibility is to set broad policies governing graduation requirements, academic standards and teacher qualifications, candidates have vowed to stand behind issues including improving mental health care in schools, reversing school overcrowding, increasing resources for children living in poverty and bolstering dual-language programs.
“I have a good working relationship with our new council member, and hopefully that will help in resolving issues when it comes to city agencies. In particular, to just get a little extra coordination and leverage to get schools and students what they need,” said Henderson, who serves as vice chair of the Ward 5 Education Equity Committee. He added that facilities issues are among the most pressing problems in Ward 5 schools.
In Ward 6, Best wants to create parent and teacher councils (one already exists for students). “Genuine engagement is one of the top things,” said Best, a former educator and administrator and current KIPP Foundation official. “If we’re making decisions or polices, I think that we need to make sure we have a group of people who we can bounce these ideas off of.” | 2022-11-10T22:29:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Board of Education races show split views among voters - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/10/dc-school-board-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/10/dc-school-board-election/ |
He failed to become a MAGA conqueror. And his image as a friendly TV doctor might be shaded by his affiliation with Trump.
Mehmet Oz speaks at a Pennsylvania rally Nov. 7. The Republican candidate was defeated in his Donald Trump-backed bid for a Senate seat. (Tracie Van Auken/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
PHILADELPHIA — No such thing as second acts? Mehmet Oz has pulled off several: After starting out as a cardiothoracic surgeon, he enjoyed success as a teacher, inventor, author, television celebrity, questionable-product pitchman — and, most recently, as the Donald Trump-backed victor in a Republican primary for an open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
And then he lost. Only by four percentage points, but a loss nonetheless.
It was a rare and very public failure for a man whose life has been marked by success in many arenas. Oz had left a lucrative television career, renowned medical practice and his North Jersey manse, and invested $27 million of his own wealth in the campaign, only to be relentlessly mocked online as an interloper with a dubious recipe for crudites — and, in Pennsylvania, for using that word.
At age 62, what will Oz do next? The campaign did not respond to requests for comment. In his concession statement, Oz offered little inkling other than, “I hope we begin the healing process as a nation soon.”
So, let us ponder.
A return to surgery and teaching medicine seems unlikely. In the spring, Oz ended his long-standing ties to Columbia University, where he is now emeritus professor and special lecturer at the medical center, titles used for retired faculty members. Columbia officials declined to comment further.
Money may not be the prime motivator, though he is extremely adept at accumulating wealth. According to his campaign financial disclosure report, Oz is worth between $100 million and $422 million.
Dr. Oz’s Trump-infused Senate run is coming down to the wire
Political insiders note that Oz’s candidacy was hobbled by running on the same ticket as gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a 2020 election denier who supported abortion bans and who lost by 14 points. And there is Oz’s embrace of Trump, whose candidates performed poorly in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Does Oz’s second act in politics have a second act? If so, where and how will he stage it? “There are certainly chances for him to be a leader in Pennsylvania if he chooses that,” said Republican media strategist Charlie Gerow.
“Oz could spend the next few years here, volunteering and becoming a part of the community to overcome that outsider identity, which more than any other factor was his biggest weakness,” said Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.
Even then, it might be difficult for Oz to overcome the preference of Pennsylvania voters for politicians whose first acts occurred in the commonwealth — no matter how much flesh-pressing, Wawa-and-Sheetz photo ops and chicken/cheesesteak/pierogi dinners the celebrity doctor is willing to stomach. The outsider status is “just hard for him to overcome,” Borick said. “If there was nobody else in line, maybe.”
But there are somebody elses in line. If Oz decides to make another Senate run in Pennsylvania in 2024, when three-term incumbent Democrat Robert P. Casey Jr.’s seat is up, he may well face a costly, lengthy rematch of this year’s GOP primary against hedge fund CEO David McCormick, whom Oz barely beat and who remains popular with Republican leadership. Here’s a thought: Could Oz try to keep his political career afloat in … New Jersey?
“It’s not impossible,” Borick said. “But you can only imagine the Democratic ads targeting him for the move.”
He could return to talk show television, which made Oz famous enough to run for office in the first place. Yet he may find the environment a bit chillier than when he decamped.
Daytime television is about mass appeal, and Oz now “has a big problem because he went all-in MAGA,” said Matthew Baum, a communications professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
“Physicians have a higher trust among Americans. He kind of threw in the towel in a big way when he became a strong partisan politician,” Baum said. “It’s kind of a fundamental violation of that trust. He crossed that line decisively.”
Oz’s views on abortion, a prime issue in the midterms among Democratic voters, may be especially alienating to would-be consumers of Oz content. “His health brand is dead,” said Red Seat Ventures partner Christopher Balfe, a media consultant who specializes in conservative outlets. “You don’t think of Mehmet Oz as a doctor. You think of him as a Republican.”
“Once you’ve outed yourself as a Republican, there’s no going back. The mainstream of daytime television is closed to him,” Balfe said. “He needs to choose a different path.”
There are, of course, precincts of American television where celebrities can lean into their politics. “One component of conservative media is older Americans,” Balfe said. “There could be some interest.”
Oz could try to become a fixture on conservative channels such as Fox News, where he has made frequent appearances on Sean Hannity’s show. “He’s obviously a compelling television personality,” Balfe said. “He could do well with a podcast.”
“I could even imagine some new venture for Oz,” Baum said. “It would not be easy to regain the trust of nonconservatives, but in the massive ecosystem of television, he could have a very lucrative career with one foot in politics, one foot in entertainment.”
For a man with Oz’s prowess at courting advertisers and audiences, there are many possible next acts. Even if they’re not set in Washington.
Once again, Oz could be everywhere. | 2022-11-10T22:29:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Where does Dr. Oz — and his reputation — go from here? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/10/where-does-dr-oz-his-reputation-go-here/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/10/where-does-dr-oz-his-reputation-go-here/ |
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. — With the nation awaiting results of tightly contested U.S. Senate, House and governor’s races elections Nevada, the elections chief in Las Vegas on Thursday defended the pace of vote-counting in the city and surrounding county of 1.3 million registered voters, saying the state legislature had laid out a methodical process that takes time. | 2022-11-10T22:31:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Vegas elections chief: Counting going 'as quickly as we can' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/vegas-elections-chief-counting-going-as-quickly-as-we-can/2022/11/10/dc488964-6142-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/vegas-elections-chief-counting-going-as-quickly-as-we-can/2022/11/10/dc488964-6142-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Acting 911 director faces D.C. Council scrutiny over dispatch failures
The emergency center has been criticized for bungled calls, some of which involved fatalities.
Dispatchers for 911 and 311 answer calls at the Office of Unified Communications building in Southeast Washington. (Jared Soares/For The Washington Post)
The acting director of the District’s 911 emergency center defended her agency on Thursday as D.C. lawmakers questioned her over failures in dispatching first responders to emergencies, including several in which people died.
“Under no uncertain terms and despite claims to the contrary, D.C. 911 is not in a crisis,” Karima Holmes said, adding that operators field 1.4 million emergency calls each year, with 99 percent of them handled appropriately.
But D.C. Council Member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who chairs the public safety committee, said in his opening remarks at a virtual roundtable discussion focused on the agency that “Consistently, we’ve seen instances of blown addresses, failure to relay updated information to responding personnel, and delayed dispatches.”
Allen told Holmes, appointed by the mayor in March and awaiting confirmation from the Council, that “Only sometimes do I feel that the agency’s response has been forthright even in a confidential setting to me — whether or not the issue was actually due to the agency’s conduct or misconduct.”
Holmes, who runs the agency formally called the Office of Unified Communications, said about 150 mistakes are made each year in dispatching calls, attributed to a wide range of factors including human error, faulty technology and protocols that need updating. But she noted that each call is from a person in distress or in or witnessing a life-threatening situation, and people “rely on us to get it right every time we get a call.” She said “blown addresses have been a particular concern.”
Lawmakers, residents blast D.C.’s 911 call center at council hearing
Thursday’s roundtable was a continuation from a September discussion with council members that included testimony from family members who said they lost loved-ones after missteps in getting help. Holmes had to leave that hearing for a family emergency, delaying her testimony. She and members of her senior staff were the only witnesses at Thursday’s session.
No date has been set for Holmes’s confirmation hearing, though these issues with dispatching and her responses to them probably will be raised the next time she appears before lawmakers. Allen is pushing for comprehensive changes in the agency that amounts to a “fundamental cultural shift” in procedures and workplace operations.
Problems with the 911 center have surfaced in recent months following several deaths that followed delays in dispatching, erroneous addresses entered into systems and miscommunication on the severity or type of calls. They include cases in which firefighters were sent to the wrong address for a newborn in cardiac arrest in July and the delayed arrival of paramedics trying to reach a 3-month-old boy who had been left in a car in August. Both of the children died.
A report issued by D.C. Auditor Kathleen Patterson in September said the agency had failed to fully implement most of the auditing office’s year-old recommendations to make improvements. And Dave Statter, a public safety advocate and former journalist, has kept the issue alive on Twitter, detailing what he describes as repeated failures.
Holmes said each case in which problems occurred are under scrutiny, and safeguards have been put in place “to reduce the likelihood of them happening again.” She added: “Every time there is a blown address, every time there is a mistake, it does not mean that our call taker acted inappropriately.”
Allen told Holmes the roundtable wasn’t “about playing gotcha,” but rather to evaluate systemic issues in the 911 center. He said a top concern is that it appeared dispatchers had difficulty updating calls as circumstances became more dire.
In one case from March, Allen recalled a man acting erratically and running in and out of traffic near the waterfront. As paramedics arrived, he became “increasingly violent” and ran to a different location. But dispatchers didn’t upgrade the urgency of the call. They also did not update responding police to alert them that the man was no longer at the original location, delaying the response. The man was later found dead in water.
Allen described “multiple failures” in how the call was handled.
Holmes said changes have been made to ensure that when police and fire officials “are requesting each other” for help that the calls always get a “high priority.”
Audit finds minimal progress made in improving D.C.'s 911 system
Allen also pressed Holmes on delays reaching the 3-month-old reported trapped in a vehicle for up to an hour. As first responders headed to the location, the caller told the 911 operator that the baby had been taken out of the car. That prompted the operator to cancel the emergency response before realizing the caller had added that the baby was not breathing. The baby died after a 13-minute delay in getting help.
Holmes said new protocols are in place to prevent such a call from being cleared before first-responders arrive at the scene. But she also described the call as more complicated, with information about the child being in danger not offered until after the 911 operator had asked additional questions while terminating the emergency response.
Allen said that regardless, the case illustrates “the heart of what I’m trying to get at” — difficulties getting help to people in “evolving situations with new information.”
D.C. Council takes shape as longtime member Silverman ousted | 2022-11-10T22:50:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Acting 911 director faces D.C. Council scrutiny over dispatch failures - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/dc-dispatch-911/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/dc-dispatch-911/ |
New section of 66 Express Lanes outside the Beltway to open Nov. 19
The entire 22.5-mile system from the Beltway to Gainesville is expected to be open at the end of November
MANASSAS, VA — SEPTEMBER 12: Motorists use both regular and express lanes of I-66 outside Manassas on Sept. 12. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Another section of the 66 Express Lanes outside the Beltway will open to traffic as early as next week, the Virginia Department of Transportation announced Thursday, and the entire 22.5-mile system will be fully open by the end of the month.
The westbound lanes between the Capital Beltway and Route 28 will open about Nov. 19, VDOT said. The eastbound lanes of that same stretch — roughly 13 miles — will open later in November, officials said. By then, the entire high-occupancy toll system will be operational.
The westernmost section, about nine miles from Route 29 in Gainesville to Route 28 in Centreville, opened in September. Officials said they hoped the phased opening would give drivers traveling through the busy commuter route a taste of the new tolling system, and time to adjust to new traffic patterns in the corridor.
New I-66 toll lanes begin commuting shift in Northern Virginia
The new lanes stretch from the Beltway interchange in Fairfax to Gainesville in Prince William County. The $3.7 billion widening project has been under construction for five years, and officials said work will continue through next year on some interchange improvements and a bike and pedestrian path.
High-occupancy vehicle rules will change along the corridor when the entire system of toll lanes opens. Vehicles will need to have three occupants to qualify for the free ride starting Dec. 5, VDOT said. That rule will apply across the I-66 corridor from the D.C. line to Gainesville. Currently, vehicles are required to have two or more occupants to qualify as HOV on I-66.
New I-66 toll lanes are open. Here’s what you need to know.
The project keeps three general-purpose lanes eastbound and westbound, adding two HOT lanes in each direction. Those lanes will connect with 10 miles of rush-hour, peak-direction toll lanes that opened in December 2017 between the Beltway and the District.
The toll system is a 24-hour operation, and has a dynamic pricing system, with tolls that rise and fall based on traffic conditions. It is the latest addition to Virginia’s growing network of express lanes, which after next week will have more than 80 miles. | 2022-11-10T22:50:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tolling will begin this month on new section of 66 Express Lanes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/10/66-express-lanes-opening-beltway/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/10/66-express-lanes-opening-beltway/ |
KFC Germany apologizes for its ‘unacceptable’ Kristallnacht promotion
The exterior of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Düsseldorf, Germany. (Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images)
More than 80 years ago, on Nov. 9, 1938, mobs took to the streets across Nazi Germany, laying waste to Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues in riots that police and firefighters did nothing to stop. Over the course of two days, sometimes in broad daylight, rioters looted and ransacked thousands of Jewish homes and business, and killed at least 91 Jews. Another 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
The riots became known as “Kristallnacht,” a reference to the shattered glass in the streets afterward. Kristallnacht is widely considered the “turning point in the history of the Third Reich, marking the shift from antisemitic rhetoric and legislation to the violent, aggressive anti-Jewish measures that would culminate with the Holocaust,” according to a history from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
“No, I don’t want tender cheese with my crispy chicken on #9november,” noted a DJ from Berlin on Twitter.
“KFC in germany remembering the national socialist november pogroms against jews, the prelude to the shoah, with some tender cheese and crispy chicken,” noted one Berlin-based journalist, his words dripping with sarcasm.
“Is this some disgusting joke? Meat and Dairy on Kristallnacht? This is definitely not acceptable they are making jokes out of one of the most painful events for Jews. The beginning of the Holocaust,” another journalist wrote.
“Sorry, we made an error,” according to a Google translate of the notification. “Due to an error in our system, we sent an incorrect and inappropriate message through our app. We are very sorry, we will check our internal processes immediately so that this does not happen again. Please excuse this error. Team KFC.”
Contacted by The Washington Post on Thursday, the chain’s media relations team relayed a more detailed explanation from KFC Germany. The statement reads:
“On November 9, an automated push notification was accidently [sic] issued to KFC app users in Germany that contained an obviously unplanned, insensitive and unacceptable message and for this we sincerely apologise. We use a semi-automated content creation process linked to calendars that include national observances. In this instance, our internal review process was not properly followed, resulting in a non-approved notification being shared. We have suspended app communications while we examine our current process to ensure such an issue does not occur again. We understand and respect the gravity and history of this day, and remain committed to equity, inclusion and belonging for all.”
KFC’s accidental promotion comes at a time when right-wing and antisemitic groups have increased their influence across Europe. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right populist party that some have branded an extremist group, had captured 94 seats in Germany’s federal parliament in 2017, but lost 11 of them during last year’s elections. Members of the AfD have downplayed the crimes committed during the Holocaust.
“In November 1938, Nazi leaders and members of the Hitler Youth used Kristallnacht as a violent tool to instill fear among Jewish families and communities in Germany. More than 90 Jews were killed, thousands of businesses looted, and hundreds of synagogues and homes destroyed, intensifying persecution in order to exclude Jews from public life and force emigration,” Diane Saltzman, director of Survivor Affairs at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, said in a statement to The Post.
“Today, recent incidents misusing Holocaust history have been increasing in frequency and intensity,” Saltzman continued. “Holocaust survivors, and everyone — especially in Germany — concerned about historical truth, should never have to see such a blatant attempt to minimize and capitalize on their pain. We hope people remember, learn from and study this history, and refrain from its misuse.” | 2022-11-10T22:54:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | KFC Germany apologizes for its ‘unacceptable’ Kristallnacht promotion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/10/kfc-germany-kristallnacht-promotion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/10/kfc-germany-kristallnacht-promotion/ |
Michael A. Peroutka, the Republican nominee for Maryland attorney general, stands in front of a live projection of Gordana Schifanelli, Republican nominee for lieutenant governor during an event at Towson University last month. (Sarah L. Voisin /The Washington Post)
The Republican nominee for Maryland attorney general said he will not concede the race despite trailing his Democratic opponent by more than 300,000 votes.
Peroutka did not offer evidence or examples for his claims and did not respond to requests for an interview.
In his email, Peroutka said he planned to “investigate these strange occurrences and I do not plan to concede the race.”
Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.), who was projected as the winner in the race by the Associated Press, will become the state’s first Black attorney general. Brown’s spokesperson declined to comment on Peroutka’s allegations.
It was not clear why Peroutka raised questions about voting improprieties in an election that was seen by others, including state Republican leaders, to have been conducted without incident.
The Maryland State Board of Elections issued a statement saying it was aware of Peroutka’s assertions and that it took all such reports seriously.
It said it “works with the local boards of elections to determine whether referral of reported activities to the Office of the State Prosecutor is warranted. At this time, SBE is not aware of any such incidents. Marylanders can be confident in the integrity of the state’s election processes and that any potentially inappropriate activity will be thoroughly investigated.”
Maryland Republican Party Chairman Dirk Haire said in an interview that he hadn’t seen any unusual election activity. Haire said the party has a team available to take complaints about voting and if serious issues arise he brings those to the State Board of Elections. There was no need for that this year, he said.
“There’s a variety of things that can happen on Election Day, but that’s no different than any other year,” Haire said. “If you’re asking me if I’ve seen anything different than past years the answer is no.”
Asked whether Peroutka should concede, Haire said it was up to individual candidates to decide.
“I would say if it was me I would concede on those numbers,” he added. “But I’m not going to claim to ever be able to speak for Mr. Peroutka.”
As of late Thursday afternoon Brown had 908,961 votes, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections results website. Peroutka had 601,992.
Peroutka’s extreme positions on a number of issues would have made it difficult for him to win in a state where Democrats hold a 2-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans. He opposed abortion without exceptions, was against same-sex marriage, said that public schools were part of a socialist plan to indoctrinate children against their parents, and would not disavow his association with the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has categorized as a hate group.
Peroutka also once shared debunked conspiracy theories about who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. When Peroutka’s false claims surfaced again earlier this year, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) blasted him, saying, “These disgusting lies don’t belong in our party.”
In his email message to supporters, first reported on Twitter by Derek Wills, a data journalism lecturer at the University of Maryland, Peroutka also questioned why Brown and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Wes Moore “claimed victory before any results were posted on the official website. The local media obligingly concurred even though the first tallies were not yet reported.”
Brown and Moore, who trounced Republican Dan Cox to become Maryland’s first Black governor, waited until after polls closed to claim victory. Tracking polls had shown both candidates with commanding leads in their races — Moore led Cox by more than 30 points six weeks before Election Day — and exit polling and turnout indicated they would win easily. The Washington Post did not call the race for Brown until the Associated Press projected him as the winner after 11 p.m.
Cox called Moore on Wednesday to congratulate him on his win and to concede. | 2022-11-10T23:03:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Officials said they have no evidence supporting Peroutka's claims - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/maryland-attorney-general-peroutka-concede/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/maryland-attorney-general-peroutka-concede/ |
These U.S. military veterans are still helping one another survive
Cole Lyle, a combat veteran who suffered from PTSD, poses with his service dog, Kaya. (Cole Lyle)
The day she took her life six years ago, her pockets stuffed with inspirational sayings on pieces of paper, combat veteran Deana Martorella Orellana went to a Veterans Affairs center and asked for help.
One year ago, on the day he stood before the Lincoln Memorial and shot himself in the head, Airman Kenneth Omar Santiago tried to get a counseling appointment on base.
And for months before he ripped off his helmet and ran into the massive rotors of a Seahawk helicopter to end his life, Brandon Caserta begged for mental health help.
These are three people I profiled in stories about military suicide in the past year, and they all had something in common. Each of them did exactly what the campaigns and counselors and public service announcements tell people in crisis to do: They asked for help.
The U.S. military is clearly not answering their pleas.
He killed himself on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. His suicide note is heartbreaking.
“You have a task that is almost insurmountable,” said Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Tex.), during a congressional hearing in September on preventing veteran suicides.
There were 6,146 veteran suicide deaths in 2020, which was 343 fewer than in 2019, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The deaths decreased that year after two decades of steep increases.
During that hearing, members of Congress repeated horror stories they had heard from veterans trying to access mental health care. Like the veteran living in Maine who was told to go to New York for his counseling appointments, or a pregnant veteran in Illinois facing a $50, out-of-pocket, upfront charge for mental health screening at her VA, something even private insurers don’t ask.
The military and veterans affairs departments are struggling to manage a nationwide, escalating mental health crisis that is paired with a pronounced shortage of mental health professionals. That September congressional hearing went into scheduling procedures and staffing and paperwork that goes into getting help.
But it’s a much broader issue. Just ask veterans.
“In my opinion, it is because we’re trying to address it reactively, primarily through the lens of mental health,” wrote combat veteran Cole Lyle, who tried to take his life not long after leaving the Marine Corps.
He sees prevention counseling before crisis counseling as more effective. “Dealing with regular civilian things like unemployment, relationship stress, lack of purpose, acute financial concern, substance abuse, etc., are all a part of the human condition that can be exacerbated by service-related issues,” he wrote on his organization’s blog.
So veterans are doing what they were trained to do: standing in the gap.
“How do we challenge this? It’s through community-based healing,” said Scott Hyder, the founder and president of the nonprofit Hidden Battles Foundation, which is based in the Massachusetts hometown of Santiago, the Air Force service member who killed himself at the Lincoln Memorial on Nov. 11 last year.
Santiago posted a long, despondent message on social media explaining his depression and desperation. What followed was a heartbreaking, time-stamped string of pleas from friends who read the posts and didn’t know he was suffering, begging him to call them. As they were posting, it was too late.
Veterans’ suicides decline but remain ‘unfathomable and unacceptable’
“A lot has happened since Kenny’s passing,” Hyder said. “988 [the nationwide suicide hotline that got 100,000 calls the first week it went live in September] has been introduced, a lot of organizations have been focusing more on mental health, which is great.”
But what really needs to change is the approach. The military can’t possibly succeed by parachuting into mental health crises with government-issued counseling to act like tourniquets for suicidal ideation. Some have suggested that mental health be treated like physical health — ongoing testing and training, just like PT qualifications. By making counseling sessions mandatory, any stigma is dropped.
Someone may be “too proud and too strong and afraid to reach out and ask for help,” Hyder said. “And then when they get to the point where people like Kenny, they do reach out … but it’s hard to get somebody help in a couple hours. And then it’s too late.”
Hyder’s group thrives on peer support and group therapy.
They have a Tuesday night meeting at the local YMCA — sort of like an Alcoholics Anonymous group — where vets can gather and talk about their feelings, understand they aren’t alone, and lean on each other because who else will understand where they’re coming from?
They organize veteran hikes, coffees, even painting classes. It’s a safe place were their dark humor and demons are understood. And Hyder said he is always hearing from folks across the nation who want to organize a similar group.
Combat veteran Danny Mayberry is in touch with Hyder. Mayberry is in Hawaii, and he hosts support groups weekly through his podcast, “1 Mile, 1 Veteran.” Each podcast is 22 minutes long, about the time it takes to walk a mile. That’s what he is hoping veterans in crisis are doing when they listen to his stories of hope, struggle and resilience.
“If suicide can spread fast, so can awareness — it can spread faster,” Mayberry said in the opening of his latest installment. “Comfort can spread faster, worth can spread faster, and hope, that can spread faster as well.”
Let’s go back to Lyle, who found his salvation from his PTSD outside of the usual military and VA channels.
After he tried to kill himself, after the pills, the talk therapy that wasn’t working, a 70-pound girl saved him.
“She gave me a small sense of purpose,” he said of Kaya, a German shepherd trained as a service dog who cost $10,000. Lyle has since helped write and pass the PAWS Act (Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers), which helps veterans struggling with PTSD train and own Kayas of their own without the cost.
There is no single answer to the problems people encounter after service. As a starting point, Lyle wants to ensure that their voices are heard by people in a position to help.
Lyle is now executive director of Mission Roll Call, an advocacy group that works on having veteran’s voices heard in shaping policy on Capitol Hill. And a lot of those voices — 53 percent in their most recent survey — say the federal government “has not been very effective” in addressing the suicide crisis.
They are following one of the best lessons in the Battle School from Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game,” which summarizes centuries of military experience: “Soldiers can sometimes make decisions that are smarter than the orders they’ve been given.” | 2022-11-10T23:03:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Veterans deserve more support than they're getting. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/veterans-need-help-mental-health/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/veterans-need-help-mental-health/ |
Newly-elected Maryland Democrats prepare to take power in Annapolis
Democrats elected to a rare set of open top jobs spell out plans for a transition of power
Maryland Gov.-elect Wes Moore speaks at a news conference with Gov. Larry Hogan on Nov. 10 in Annapolis. (Graeme Sloan for The Washington Post)
After what he described as “the world’s longest job interview with over 6 million hiring managers,” Maryland Gov.-elect Wes Moore (D) got the first glimpse of his new office Thursday, receiving a one-on-one tour from outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan (R).
Hogan invited Moore to the Statehouse as one of the initial steps in the transfer of power, as Maryland Democrats prepare to reclaim unilateral control of both the executive and legislative branches for the first time in eight years.
“This is a place that for the past year and a half we’ve been talking about the work that we hope to do,” said Moore, alongside Hogan at a news conference at the base of the marble steps inside the Statehouse. “And we’re thankful that on Tuesday, the people of Maryland gave me the honor of saying, ‘You’re hired.’ ”
Maryland faces a rare upheaval in governance with the governor, attorney general and comptroller’s office changing hands in the same year. Moore is a political newcomer who has never held elected office.
The group he announced Thursday to oversee the change in leadership and help launch Moore’s term was selected with racial, geographic and ideological diversity in mind, he has said.
Lt. Gov.-elect Aruna Miller, who serves as chair of the transition team, is joined by Prince George’s County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks, former Howard County executive Ken Ulman, the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore President Shelonda Stokes, and Mary Tydings, his former campaign treasurer, who is from the Eastern Shore.
Twenty-six members of a bipartisan group will make up the steering committee. They include: Del. Stephanie M. Smith (D-Baltimore City), former governor Parris Glendening, Cheryl Bost, president of the state’s teachers union, and Sen. Adelaide C. Eckardt (R-Dorchester).
“This is the actualization of something we’ve talked about for a long time,” Moore said at his first official news conference since his election. “We’re going to move fast, and we’re going to be bold. We’re going to be fearless.”
Hogan named Lt. Gov. Boyd K. Rutherford (R) last month to lead the transition and he in turn instructed Cabinet secretaries to provide detailed briefing books about their agencies. Those documents were turned over to Moore and his team on Thursday.
“I told him that our entire administration is going to do everything we possibly can to not only ensure the peaceful transition of power but to make sure that we can help them get up to speed with whatever information they want,” Hogan said, adding that he provided Moore with his personal cellphone number. “I know what it’s like drinking from a fire hose on his end to try to get up to speed. Because I’ve been there.”
Over the next two months, Moore will need to make Cabinet appointments, and prepare for his first budget and legislative session while also planning the inaugural festivities.
The nearly 20-minute news conference was filled with banter. Hogan joked that Moore would now be the one listening to construction outside of the governor’s mansion.
When the governor-elect said that politics “is like an open book test … the people are going to give you the answers, you just have to listen,” Hogan chuckled.
“First of all, I wish I had known about the open book test. I studied,” Hogan said.
Moore, who will be sworn in on Jan. 18, said that Hogan has invited his family to visit the governor’s mansion during the holidays and they plan to move in when he’s inaugurated. His children, Mia, 11, and James, 9, have been promised a puppy.
Moore defeated Republican Dan Cox, a Trump-endorsed state delegate from Frederick, in a lopsided battle on Tuesday night to become the state’s 63rd governor and the first Black person to hold the seat.
The race was a contest of stark contrasts, pitting a far-right conservative state lawmaker who campaigned on constitutional rights and government overreach against a political newcomer with an agenda centered on poverty and inequity.
Cox, who has denied President Biden’s 2020 victory, conceded defeat on Wednesday with a congratulatory call to Moore.
Moore campaigned as an uniter and built a broad coalition of supporters that ranged from Progressive Maryland to the state Fraternal Order of Police.
His path forward is expected to involve a delicate balancing act as he works to meet the expectations of his diverse supporters and deliver on his promises to end child poverty, close the racial wealth gap, and make big investments in education, the environment and job training.
In other transition moves, Del. Brooke E. Lierman (D-Baltimore City), who will become the first woman to serve as the state’s comptroller, has named an all-female team of Democrats to lead her transition. They include retired treasurer Nancy Kopp and Alsobrooks, who helped deliver Democratic votes to help lead to top-of-the-ticket victories and affectionately called Lierman a “super-bad lady.”
“Someone asked me the other day, ‘Why are you appointing all women?’ And I said, ‘Why not?’ ” Lierman said at a Thursday news conference held outside the Annapolis comptroller’s office. Among many campaign promises, Lierman has proposed expanding the scope of the comptroller’s reach to ensure the poor benefit from tax credits and scrutinizing the state pension investments’ relationship with climate change.
Outgoing Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) ends a 16-year run in January and is assisting with the transition. Standing beside Lierman, he said, “This is probably the most powerful office in Maryland that no one has ever heard about. She’s going to make it heard.”
U.S. Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-Md.), who was elected attorney general on Tuesday announced that Donna Hill Staton and Donald B. Tobin will lead his transition.
Staton, a former deputy attorney general who also served as a circuit court judge, runs a consulting firm. Tobin, a former dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, specializes in tax law and election law.
Brown said in a statement that Staton and Tobin bring a wealth of experience and are highly respected in Maryland’s legal community. He plans to look to them to help as he creates an office to “break down barriers for everyday Marylanders — in health care and housing, in opportunity and education, and in policing and our criminal justice system.” | 2022-11-10T23:03:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Newly-elected Md. leaders announce plans for transition of power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/wes-moore-transition-team/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/wes-moore-transition-team/ |
Paul Schrade, union leader wounded in Robert Kennedy slaying, dies at 97
Paul Schrade stands for a portrait in the library named in his honor at the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools in Los Angeles on May 16, 2018. (Patrick T. Fallon for The Washington Post)
Paul Schrade, an autoworker union leader who aided Robert Kennedy’s presidential run in 1968 and was wounded when an assassin opened fire on Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, then spent more than five decades seeking to prove gunman Sirhan Sirhan did not act alone, died Nov. 9 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97.
Mr. Schrade’s brother-in-law, Martin Weil, confirmed the death. No specific cause was given.
Los Angeles police and other official investigators have repeatedly rejected assertions about an alleged second shooter and other theories about the June 1968 slaying as Kennedy celebrated a win in California’s Democratic primary.
Sirhan, a Jordanian immigrant, was captured on the spot and later convicted of being the lone gunman in the killing — which stunned the world just two months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot in Memphis. (Robert Kennedy’s older brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.)
Mr. Schrade — who was struck in the head by a bullet — said he did not believe Sirhan was guilty and became an outspoken contrarian in the case, claiming that evidence was destroyed or overlooked that showed critical discrepancies in the official account of the killing of Kennedy, then a senator from New York. Among his allegations was that audio clips and on-scene accounts suggest more shots were fired than the eight in Shiran’s .22-caliber revolver.
“I sympathize very clearly with the way Sirhan’s been treated,” Mr. Schrade said in 2021 at the inmate’s hearing with a parole panel, which recommended Sirhan’s release but was denied by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).
“After decades in prison, [Sirhan] has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy,” Newsom wrote in his decision in January 2022. “Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same types of dangerous decisions he made in the past.”
Mr. Schrade stood by his contentions. “This guy is not guilty,” he said.
Many scholars and historians disagree, citing follow-up probes and the release of documents that offered no new evidence. “There is no accurate element that we have missed” in the Robert Kennedy assassination, said Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Conspiracy theories, she noted, often take root in the desire to “bring a more complicated explanation” to major events with uncomplicated narratives.
“This is the case here,” Perry said. “Bobby Kennedy seemed on the cusp of a public career with such promise. It’s hard for some people to accept that one man with a gun ended it all.”
Late on June 4, 1968, Kennedy watched the primary returns from his campaign headquarters at the Ambassador Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. It was a big win: 46 percent over runner-up Sen. Eugene McCarthy (Minn.) at 42 percent.
Mr. Schrade was basking in the moment, too. As a union leader, he had introduced Kennedy to influential farmworker organizers such as Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez, both of whom became campaign allies. Chavez suspended a grape pickers’ strike so picketers could take the day to vote for Kennedy.
“Chavez proved invaluable after unleashing his small army of organizers, canvassers, and get-out-the-vote activists for Kennedy,” political historian Joseph Palmero said in 2008.
Mr. Schrade recalled watching the votes for Kennedy “come in from the barrio in East L.A.”
“I knew we had won,” he said in a 2018 interview with the Detroit Bureau, a news site focused on the auto industry.
Kennedy left his fifth-floor suite and went to the hotel’s Embassy Ballroom to address more than 1,800 supporters. “On to Chicago,” he said minutes after midnight on June 5, looking ahead to that summer’s Democratic National Convention.
As Kennedy exited the ballroom, Mr. Schrade was a few paces behind. The entourage entered the hotel pantry. Kennedy stopped to greet members of the kitchen staff and others. Sirhan stepped out from behind trays and an ice machine.
“I never saw Sirhan,” Mr. Schrade recounted in 1993. “Robert Kennedy had just talked to me and shaken my hand, and he turned to shake [hands] with kitchen workers when the shots came.”
The wounded Mr. Schrade collapsed into the arms of Vincent DiPierro, a student and part-time waiter. Four other people were hit: two journalists, a Democratic Party activist and a campaign volunteer.
Crowds rushed at Sirhan, including writer George Plimpton and Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson. “People were trying to grab him,” DiPierro recounted in 1969. “People were trying to hit him. It was completely pandemonium.”
Kennedy, mortally wounded, was cradled by a young busboy, Juan Romero. Kennedy died the next day, June 6.
“It’s something you never get over,” said Mr. Schrade.
Mr. Schrade spent 10 days in a hospital, speaking to reporters from his bed with his head in a turban-like wrap. Meanwhile, a funeral train with Kennedy’s body headed cross-country, with people lining the tracks and some singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” as the cars rolled past.
Mr. Schrade’s recovered from the injury, but the ordeal left other scars. He couldn’t shake the anguish. He lost his director role at the United Auto Workers in California. That sent him back to the assembly line at North American Rockwell (later Rockwell International), which had built the command and service modules for Apollo missions and was working on the upcoming space shuttle. Because of seniority, he was moved into a supervisory role. Mr. Schrade retired in the 1980s.
Mr. Schrade kept up his activism, joining marches against the Vietnam War and working with union leaders on political campaigns and community outreach in Southern California. Increasingly, he became a public spokesman for the loose network of authors, researchers and self-styled forensic historians who insisted the full story of the RFK assassination was still buried by authorities.
“It was horrible, horrible,” Mr. Schrade said in 2018. “[Kennedy] was a great friend.”
A ‘bright young radical’
Paul Hermann Schrade was born Dec. 17, 1924, in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and briefly attended Yale University before heading taking a job at North American Aviation, a forerunner of North American Rockwell, in Southern California’s booming aerospace industry.
Mr. Schrade moved up the union ranks of the United Automobile Workers, shifting to Detroit as a top aide to UAW president Walter Reuther. Mr. Schrade was seen as a “bright young radical” in union activism, Reuther biographer Nelson Lichtenstein wrote in “The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit” (1995).
During the 1956 Democratic National Convention, Mr. Schrade met John Kennedy’s brother Robert and struck up a friendship — which was rekindled more than a decade later as RFK made his presidential run. Mr. Schrade had returned to California as the UAW’s liaison with farmworkers and other groups, including the antiwar movement.
After the RFK assassination, Mr. Schrade clashed with top UAW officials over his strong opposition to the Vietnam War. Reuther’s successor, Leonard Woodcock, pushed Mr. Schrade from the union’s executive board in 1972.
The biographer Lichtenstein said Mr. Schrade’s contributions to building union ties with labor activists and others beyond the Rust Belt are often overlooked.
“I’ve never been invited to a UAW convention,” Mr. Schrade said in 2018.
His wife of 46 years, Monica Weil, died in 2019. Survivors include a sister.
At the site of the Ambassador Hotel, which closed in 1989, a company owned by Donald Trump sought to build a luxury hotel and commercial complex — with some plans describing a gold-hued tower reaching more than 120 stories. The Los Angeles Unified School District also sought the bulk of the nearly 24-acre site.
Mr. Schrade threw his support behind the schools in a long legal fight in the 1990s that ended with Trump Wilshire Associates bowing out.
The Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools was built. The library is named in Mr. Schrade’s honor. It stands on the site of the hotel pantry, where the shots were fired in 1968. | 2022-11-10T23:07:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Paul Shrade, union ally wounded in 1968 Robert Kennedy slaying, dies at 97 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/10/paul-schrade-kennedy-rfk-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/10/paul-schrade-kennedy-rfk-dies/ |
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, addresses members of the General Assembly before a vote on a resolution condemning Russia's annexation of parts of Ukraine on Oct. 12. (David Dee Delgado/Reuters)
Russia’s isolation will be dramatized next week by President Vladimir Putin’s absence from the Group of 20 summit, historically a favorite forum for Russia. Putin’s troubles with international organizations come as Russia’s army has been forced to retreat in Ukraine, most recently in this week’s withdrawal from the territory it occupied in Kherson.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said during a visit to Kyiv this week: “Is it realistic to hold Russia accountable? Yes, it is. … Russia has heard loudly and clearly from the world that what they’re doing is unacceptable, and while they have the veto power, that veto power is not shielding them from condemnation.” | 2022-11-10T23:16:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Russia is in retreat in every major international forum - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/russia-putin-ukraine-un-united-nations/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/russia-putin-ukraine-un-united-nations/ |
Killer sentenced to life in prison for 1998 slaying of Andrea Cincotta
Bobby Joe Leonard admitted strangling Andrea Cincotta in her Arlington apartment, but the man he said hired him to do it was found not guilty.
Andrea Cincotta in a family photo from 1997. Bobby Joe Leonard was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for killing her in 1998. (Family photo)
Kevin Cincotta’s 24-year search for justice in the murder of his mother ended quietly in an Arlington courtroom Thursday morning, when the man who committed the deed, calling himself “a very evil, sadistic person,” was sentenced to life in prison.
But after Bobby Joe Leonard’s sentencing, Cincotta left the courtroom unsatisfied. He said afterward he still felt the Arlington police and prosecutors had bungled the case because a second man — his mother’s fiance — was acquitted last month of recruiting the killer in a murder-for-hire scheme.
“I don’t think it’ll ever be over in my mind,” Cincotta said, “because there was a miscarriage of justice here.”
Andrea Cincotta, 52, was found strangled on the floor of her bedroom closet on Aug. 22, 1998. Her fiance, James Christopher Johnson, immediately became the focus of intense investigation by Arlington homicide detectives, who interrogated him for 28 hours in the first three days after he found Andrea Cincotta’s body in the apartment they shared.
But Johnson and Kevin Cincotta, then 24, told police there was another possibility: “The computer guy,” a man to whom Andrea Cincotta had given the couple’s unwanted personal computer several weeks earlier. That man was Leonard, recently released from prison after convictions for assault and forcible sodomy.
Her fiance said he found her body 23 years ago. Now police say he hired another man to kill her.
Leonard had worked around the Colonial Village complex where the couple lived on North Rhodes Street, but denied having anything to do with Andrea Cincotta’s death. By the time detectives identified him, several days after the killing, he was again in jail for beating his wife. But the police soon cleared him.
Kevin Cincotta said Thursday he had received a phone call in December 1998 from an Arlington detective “to tell me ‘the computer guy’ had been officially eliminated as a suspect … The only person the police ever officially eliminated in the case was the actual killer. This was a breathtaking lack of competence.” Cincotta said the detective laughed at him when he suggested Leonard was involved.
A year later, Leonard abducted, raped and choked a 13-year-old girl in Fairfax County. When police interviewed Leonard, he was surprised to learn the girl had survived. He was convicted in 2000, in a trial that Kevin Cincotta attended, and sentenced to life in prison. But even when Arlington police visited Leonard in prison repeatedly over the years, he denied killing Andrea Cincotta.
Then, in 2018, during a visit by Arlington cold case Detective Rosa Ortiz, he had a change of heart. He said he found religion. He confessed to killing Andrea Cincotta, provided details of the crime scene, and added a new twist: He said a white man who sounded like Cincotta’s fiance had called him and offered him $5,000 to kill her. He said the man provided details of Cincotta’s schedule, and that the $5,000 would be in the bedroom closet. It wasn’t, but Leonard never took steps to collect it before he was locked up for the Fairfax attack.
Last year, Arlington prosecutors indicted both Leonard and Johnson in Cincotta’s murder. Leonard soon pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. But Johnson denied calling Leonard or having anything to do with her death. After a three-week trial and with only one hour of deliberation, an Arlington jury found Johnson not guilty and questioned why Johnson was even charged.
Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti said after the verdict the case was difficult to prove, but “serving victims means that you don’t run away from hard cases.”
In one hour, Arlington jury acquits man accused of murder-for-hire
Kevin Cincotta said prosecutors failed to present key evidence against Johnson, in a trial he was largely excluded from watching after pressing for it for more than two decades. Because he was a prosecution witness at three different stages of the trial, defense lawyers did not want him seeing evidence and then testifying about it, and Arlington Circuit Court Judge Judith L. Wheat reluctantly agreed Cincotta could not be in the courtroom.
At his sentencing Thursday, Leonard, 54, again said Johnson had hired him to commit the murder. For 15 minutes, he stood and addressed Wheat, and Kevin Cincotta, without any notes or pauses, expressing remorse and asking for forgiveness.
“Forgiveness is not where I am now,” Kevin Cincotta said after the hearing.
Leonard said that he had provided his true name and phone number to Andrea Cincotta in 1998, which Kevin Cincotta said were not the actions of someone planning to kill that person. Leonard said that Andrea Cincotta had called him to make sure the computer she had given him was working. She then handed the phone to her fiance for specifics about the computer, which Johnson had built.
“After that day when I had that conversation,” Leonard said, “I never really thought about them again. I never had any intentions of seeing them again.”
A murderer describes his crime, then claims it was for a man he never met
But Leonard said that two weeks later, “I received a call from that address.” At trial, he said his caller ID showed the same number as Cincotta’s, but Leonard’s then-wife testified the couple did not have caller ID in 1998. Leonard said the caller had “the voice of the live-in boyfriend … he told me he wanted to kill her. I was willing because I am a very bad person. I am a very evil, sadistic person.”
He said the plan proposed by the caller, whom he never met in person and never contacted after the killing, “was more of a plan than any crime I’ve committed. The majority of crime I’ve done was absolutely stupid. I just made the absolute worst decisions. In this case, your honor, I did the same thing.”
When Ortiz, the detective, visited him in prison in 2018, Leonard said he planned to deny the murder again. Then, “I confessed because a voice inside of me told me I needed to tell the truth … I wanted to be able to say I hurt someone that was kind to me, and I feel terrible about it. I took her away from her family and friends, and that was terrible. I’m very very sorry that I did this.”
After Leonard’s comments, Wheat addressed Kevin Cincotta first.
“I’m a mother of a single son,” she said, “so I feel for you and my heart breaks for you. Nothing I do today is going to make that any better.” She said the end of the legal proceedings at least “gives you some ability to live your life and get some semblance of a life back.”
Wheat then turned to Leonard.
“I’m not going to judge you as a person; you’ve already done that,” the judge said. “I can only judge your acts. I think you have heard the impact these acts had on so many people … I do not see that any sentence other than life in prison is appropriate.”
Under Virginia law, the sentence will run consecutively to Leonard’s first life sentence.
“The crime didn’t just alter my life,” Kevin Cincotta testified Thursday. “It destroyed it. I lost relationships. I lost my emotional support system. I lost my entire family. I lost my life as I knew it. I didn’t want to go on living, but one thing kept me going — I wanted to know what happened to my mom. So that I could grieve. You can’t grieve about what happened if you don’t know what happened.”
Cincotta thanked Ortiz and Arlington Police Chief Andy Penn, who worked on the investigation in 1998, for reviving the cold case and obtaining Leonard’s conviction.
“But make no mistake,” Cincotta told the court, “justice delayed is justice denied. And it’s too bad this court can’t hold those who delayed justice needlessly, accountable.”
Penn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | 2022-11-10T23:42:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bobby Joe Leonard sentenced to life in Arlington slaying of Andrea Cincotta - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/leonard-sentenced-cincotta-cold-case/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/leonard-sentenced-cincotta-cold-case/ |
Standing 6-foot-4, Mr. Rothschild saw himself as a keeper of his family’s legacy
Evelyn de Rothschild arrives at the Earth Awards on Sept. 16, 2010, in London. (Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images)
The Rothschild Archive, a family-operated depository of historical records, announced Mr. Rothschild’s death but did not provide a cause.
Mr. Rothschild took control of N.M. Rothschild & Sons, the family’s London bank, in 1976, and operated it — both in strategy and tone — in the spirit of his forefathers. As global banking conglomerates emerged with faceless bankers engaging in risky hedging strategies, Mr. Rothschild took a more cautious route, executing corporate finance deals forged through personal relationships.
“The humanistic side of banking has gone out,” Mr. Rothschild told the Financial Times in 2017. “You know the name of your doctor but not the name of your bank manager. There are certain things in life where you have to have a human relationship.”
Though his control of N.M. Rothschild placed him at the center of power on two continents — the queen knighted him in 1989 and he spent one of his three honeymoons in President Bill Clinton’s White House — Mr. Rothschild was somewhat exasperated by modern banking.
“Maybe we should go back to the days of semaphore,” he once said, referring to a system of sending codes by flags. “Think how lovely a time it was, with horse and cart.”
Mr. Rothschild was speaking wistfully, in a way, about the legacy of his ancestors. The Rothschild banking dynasty dates to back to the mid-18th century in Frankfurt, Germany, where Mayer Amschel Rothschild turned a rare coin business into a financial services firm. He sent his five sons to major cities throughout Europe to lay the framework for a multinational empire.
Mr. Rothschild’s great-great-grandfather Nathan Mayer Rothschild arrived in England in 1798, working as a textile merchant and eventually founding a bank. The family’s role in English life was immense. The Rothschilds financed the British Army in the Napoleonic Wars and later the purchase of the Suez Canal.
“Strictly in terms of their combined capital, the Rothschilds were in a league of their own,” wrote historian Niall Ferguson in his book “The House of Rothschild.” “The twentieth century has no equivalent: not even the biggest of today’s international banking corporations enjoys the relative supremacy enjoyed by the Rothschilds in their heyday.”
Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild was born in London on Aug. 29, 1931. His father was, of course, a banker, and his mother was a socialite who tooled around in the family’s stable of fancy cars, which included a Rolls-Royce and a Bugatti.
Mr. Rothschild initially went to boarding school. To escape the German bombing of England during World War II, he was evacuated to live with family in New York, where he worked at a drugstore that allowed him unlimited consumption of chocolate, giving him a permanent sweet tooth that led him to open a luxury chocolatier later in life.
After the war, Mr. Rothschild attended the University of Cambridge but didn’t graduate. His ambition was not to change the family business. Mr. Rothschild played polo, dated an abundant assortment of women and raced horses.
In 1961, after his father became ill and couldn’t run the family bank anymore, Mr. Rothschild joined the family business and rose to chairman in 1976. Competing against much bigger banks, Mr. Rothschild managed to grow the firm’s assets from 40 million to 4.6 billion pounds, according to the Financial Times.
Standing 6-foot-4, Mr. Rothschild was an imposing figure known for holding a firm grasp on both the business and his family’s legacy. Working closely with the Conservative Party, including Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Mr. Rothschild and his firm organized the government sale of British Gas and the privatization of oil, gas and electric companies.
In addition to its government work, N.M. Rothschild was a significant player in mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Rothschild insisted on a personal touch in the bank’s dealings.
“What I care about is strategy,” Mr. Rothschild told the Financial Times in 1996. “The Rothschild family feels that if its name is on the door, it has a responsibility to see that it is properly managed.”
Mr. Rothschild’s 1966 marriage to Jeannette Bishop, a fashion model, ended in divorce in 1971. Two years later, he married Victoria Lou Schott, a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. They had three children, before divorcing in 2000. That same year, he married Lynn Forester, a New York businesswoman who was introduced to him by Henry Kissinger, their mutual friend. The couple spent one of their honeymoon nights in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.
Throughout his life, Mr. Rothschild served on numerous boards, including the Economist, and he supported philanthropic causes in the arts, health care and the environment. He was particularly passionate about elephants, setting up a charity for their preservation with Mark Shane, the late travel writer and brother of Camilla, Queen Consort.
Mr. Rothschild, whose iPhone wallpaper was a photo of an elephant, declined many interview requests, but he was almost always available to talk about his childhood love of chocolate, which sweetened his war years away from home. | 2022-11-10T23:56:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Evelyn de Rothschild, banking heir and adviser to the queen, dies at 91 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/10/evelyn-de-rothschild-advisor-to-the-queen-dies-at-91/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/10/evelyn-de-rothschild-advisor-to-the-queen-dies-at-91/ |
Judge rejects U.S. suggestion that Navarro’s trial before Congress potentially changes hands could prompt his cooperation with the committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack
Former Trump White House official Peter Navarro speaks to reporters on June 3 outside a federal court in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
That date is no longer available, said U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, because of the long-running Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trial now before him involving Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four others. Now in its sixth week, Rhodes’s trial in federal court in Washington has been delayed by his recent bout with covid-19 and witness availability issues.
In an unusually blunt argument against delay, prosecutor Raymond N. Hulser said it was the “strong preference” of the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. “to try this case while the committee is in existence,” meaning before the current Congress under Democratic control adjourns Jan. 3, and a new Congress might be led by Republicans in connection with this week’s midterm elections.
Hulser said the U.S. attorney’s office took seriously its jurisdiction to prosecute the historically rare charge of contempt of Congress, including “to bring and resolve these as promptly as possible.”
“If there is any possibility that a person can be convinced by the pressing nature of a criminal trial to say, ‘Okay, I will go and I will answer questions. I will provide documents. We would like to be a catalyst in that,” Hulser said.
Mehta objected to the suggestion that a trial might be used to compel cooperation, and Hulser had made clear that Navarro’s criminal case would go forward regardless.
“I understand the U.S. attorney’s desire, but I don’t want these proceedings to be a lever in a way the U.S. attorney’s office has suggested,” the judge said, noting that Navarro “remains free to provide documents or testimony.” | 2022-11-11T00:00:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pete Navarro's contempt of Congress trial postponed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/navarro-contempt-trial-postponed/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/navarro-contempt-trial-postponed/ |
Has the Republican fever broken?
Donald Trump mingles with supporters during an election-night event at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
That brings us to Trump. Though some of his favored candidates won, most lost. The most egregious MAGA zealots seem to have turned voters off. In fact, it’s hard not to see the midterm elections as one more verdict by the public against Donald Trump. They turned out in higher than usual numbers in 2018, 2020 and 2022. As David Frum writes in the Atlantic, “Trump led his party from loss to loss. He lost the popular vote in 2016. He lost the House in 2018. He lost the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2020. He lost the Senate in 2021.” And yet, the Republican Party has so far remained in thrall to him.
Many of the critiques of the GOP and its leaders get it somewhat wrong. The party is not filled with authoritarians (though many do exist). It’s filled with cowards. Despite the pose of machismo, the swaggering strut and the tough talk, in fact the party is pervaded by fear and weakness, a terror of confronting the big bully in the room. Consider what happened with Jan. 6. Most Republican leaders, including the two senior-most congressional leaders, saw it for what it was, an unprecedented assault on democracy. They privately and even sometimes publicly spoke out against it. And then they worried that Trump still had the base with him, tucked in their tails and either quickly reversed course and became lapdogs (Kevin McCarthy) or quietly dropped the subject altogether (Mitch McConnell).
It’s always hard for politicians to break with an activist and energetic base. It took the Republican Party years to speak out against Joseph McCarthy. It took a while before Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were willing to distance themselves from the John Birch Society. In both cases it did happen in the end. It was easier in those days when the party was more hierarchical.
But it took the voice of the most influential conservative intellectual, William F. Buckley Jr., with his persistent attacks on the Birchers, to provide cover for a politician like Reagan. Today, Fox News does the opposite, persistently trying to stir up the anger, the hate and the conspiracy theories. Unlike Buckley, Fox News is not motivated by the national interest but by profit.
Will the fever break this time? Obama predicted that after his 2012 election, the GOP would free itself of its increasingly extreme elements (such as the tea party). But it never happened. While there have been opportunities to course correct, the party remains utterly enamored of and captive to its most extreme members and the media outlets that sing their praises. Remember that even as Fox News dominates cable news, its biggest show has 3.4 million viewers out of about 170 million registered voters, just under half of whom are or lean Republican. It is an extreme minority that has cowed the majority into silence.
There have been important Republican leaders who have spoken out against Donald Trump, most prominently Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney. Now is the time for them and others who want to save the party to come out and purge it of its extremism. The fever has broken, but if the Republican Party’s doctors willingly continue to behave like cowardly quacks, the patient could easily relapse once again. | 2022-11-11T00:01:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Midterms show how Republicans might rid themselves of Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/republican-midterms-undermine-trump-dominance/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/republican-midterms-undermine-trump-dominance/ |
Transcript: “Tulsa King” A Conversation with Terence Winter
MR. JORGENSON: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Dave Jorgenson, senior video producer and TikTok guy here at The Post.
Today we're talking about the new drama series, "Tulsa King." Joining me now is the show's executive, producer and writer, Terence Winter. Terence, welcome to Washington Post Live.
MR. WINTER: Thank you. Happy to be here.
MR. JORGENSON: I'm very excited, and I understand that Sylvester Stallone had to schedule because of a conflict, but the good news is I have about a hundred questions for you, so we're going to fill that space nicely.
MR. WINTER: Great. I'm ready and very excited to talk about the show.
MR. JORGENSON: Awesome.
A quick note to our audience, we want to hear from you as well. So, if you have any questions for Terence, please tweet us using the handle @PostLive. That's at‑P‑o‑s‑t‑L‑i‑v‑e.
Okay. Let's get started. So a lot of mob stories are set in New York and New Jersey, as you well know, and "Tulsa King" does start off there, but very quickly, Sylvester Stallone's character, Dwight Manfredi, is told in the pilot episode, "There's nothing left for you here. You're going to Tulsa."
So I have to ask you, Terence, why Tulsa?
MR. WINTER: Well, that was the appeal of the show. You know, the challenge of doing a mob show is trying to find a fresh way in. So in the original incarnation of the pilot, written by Taylor Sheridan, had the action in Kansas City. You know, the idea was to try to put the character in a place that had absolutely no connection to the Italian American mafia, and Kansas City actually had a long and storied history with the Italian American mob. So I thought let's try to find a place that's even more obscure, the last place on earth you'd think you'd find a mafioso, and for me, that felt like Oklahoma and more specifically Tulsa.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. So I'm weirdly in a good position to say I think you made a good call, because I grew up in Kansas City, but I also lived in Tulsa for a year. And I feel like Tulsa is the right spot. Have you‑‑had you visited Tulsa before, or what was your relationship to that city?
MR. WINTER: I hadn't. You know, Tulsa was a mystery to me, much like it is to our character. You know, it was only a place I knew from movies and the map and looking‑‑you know, looking at pictures. So, when I started writing my version of the pilot, I booked a trip to Tulsa, and I ended up spending three days there. I lived in The Mayo Hotel where Dwight lives on the show and just started wandering around and talking to people.
You know, I kind of had the same experience. You may be able to tell, I have a New York accent, I'm told.
So I was curious to see how people would react to me. But they couldn't have been nicer. It was actually, you know, really lovely. But, yeah, just wandered around and soaked it in and open skies and, you know, blue skies and, you know, horses and kind of stumbled on some local attractions.
One of the things featured in the second episode is something called the "Center of the Universe," which is this acoustical anomaly, this circle of bricks, where if you stand inside it and speak out loud, you can't hear yourself‑‑or rather your voice echoes back to you louder than you spoke, which kind of fun. And I thought, wow, I could maybe use this in the show and work on it, and I ended up employing it.
But, yeah, it was really‑‑I really liked it immediately as soon as I got there.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah, I was really excited when that showed up in the second episode. I kind of thought to myself, I don't know if it's appeared in film or TV before, but I'm really glad it finally is because‑‑
MR. WINTER: I kind of tell people that don't know. Yeah.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah.
MR. WINTER: Yeah, happy to put it on the map.
MR. JORGENSON: For sure.
So I think your accent is kind of New Yorker, but it's not‑‑you know, it's not Sylvester Stallone's East Coast accent.
MR. WINTER: Right.
MR. JORGENSON: But, as a New Yorker, Dwight is like a fish out of water in Tulsa, and we have a clip that alludes to that. So let's take a look.
MR. JORGENSON: I was so glad to see Martin Starr have a pretty prominent role in the show as well.
But, you know, on top of a new location here, this is right‑‑moments after he's arrived in Tulsa. What else is Dwight adjusting to?
MR. WINTER: Well, you know, he's just gotten out of prison after 25 years, too. So he's kind of a guy who just got out of the time capsule. So not only is he in a different place, that place is completely befuddling because there are things in it that he just doesn't even understand. He doesn't know what Uber is. He can't believe coffee costs $5 a cup. Virtual reality. There's no end of things that are making him scratch his head, and he's really trying to adjust and fit in. And he's also completely an alien in this place. So there's a lot of‑‑a lot of things coming at this guy at the same time, and he is also still required to earn a living, and he's got a very limited skill set in which to do that. He is still a gangster. He's a kinder, gentler gangster than he was 25 years ago but a gangster nonetheless in a place where‑‑that has never seen anybody like him.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. Those adjustments are‑‑there's a lot of kind of comedy, you know, just inserted this in moments, and there's one part where he's trying to get a glass cup at the coffee shop, and they said, well‑‑you know, they appreciate him going green. So there's really funny sort of moments like that where--
MR. WINTER: Yeah, a whole lot of things. This really is a dark comedy more than it is a drama, but it's a comedy born of circumstance and the reality of taking people who are very unlike each other and dropping them in‑‑into a melting pot together. You know, it's not like the traditional sitcom, set up a joke and pay it off. It's really more about behavior and taking people who in a million years would never spend time with each other and having them occupy their worlds. And seeing how a guy like Dwight negotiates his way through the day is sort of where the comedy is.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. And I believe I read in an interview that it was your idea to have him have been in jail for 25 years. Is that a big part of that decision of just the contrast of 25 years ago in New York and to current, present‑day in Tulsa?
MR. WINTER: Yeah. You know, I felt having him in jail for the last 25 years set up an inherent conflict with his mob family, where he gets out expecting fully to be rewarded for his time in prison, and the fact that he kept his mouth shut and he adhered to that, that code of omertà and didn't say anything. And instead, he gets, you know, unceremoniously sent by the boss's son, who's now a grown man, to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
So he considers this a huge slap in the face and a step backwards, and he's really annoyed and rightfully so. Not only is he getting rewarded, he's getting banished, but he still has to be a good soldier. He still has to earn and still has to make his way in the world.
So I think the prison element also enabled us to present a guy who spent the last 25 years reading and working out every day. So he is incredibly formidable, and he's really well read and smart and thoughtful and a much more thinking gangster than he was 25 years earlier. So it just makes for a more interesting, in‑depth persona.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. There's a line, and I'm blanking on it, but I just remember him saying to Martin Starr about for his edification, he's basically giving him a lesson. And I wish I remembered what, but I love that he's really informed gangster that's‑‑
MR. WINTER: Yeah.
MR. JORGENSON: ‑‑also dropping knowledge on them.
MR. WINTER: To my surprise, you know, you don't expect, you know, quotes, you know, like, you know, "I'm happy to be your Rubicon." You know, to come out of a guy, that guy's mouth, you know, or he references Arthur Miller in the second episode of "View from the Bridge." You know, it's a little jarring at first, that you're like, oh, wow, this guy is actually very well read.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. And you brought a lot to what is really a creative partnership with Taylor Sheridan who created "Yellowstone," "Tulsa King," and pretty much everything else that I've seen on Paramount+. Can you talk a little bit about how he approached you to basically be the showrunner for this show?
MR. WINTER: Yeah. I mean, this‑‑I inherited this, which was my great good fortune. Taylor and I share representatives, and I got a call one day that Taylor had written a pilot literally over the course of a weekend. Originally, it was set in Kansas City. It was originally called "Kansas City King," about an aging mobster who gets sent to Kansas City, and Taylor, you know, being Taylor with his nine other shows going on couldn't possibly run this. And he said, "Well, what about Terry Winter? He might be a great choice to take this over."
So, as soon as I heard Taylor Sheridan and Sylvester Stallone, I said, "Where do I sign?" They said, "Do you want to read the pilot first?" I said, "Okay, all right. But I'm pretty sure I'm doing this."
I read the pilot, thought it was great, real fun, had some ideas, you know, putting the character in jail for 25 years, maybe giving him a family and having him really at odds with his mob family. So Taylor and I had a quick Zoom call. I pitched him what I wanted to do. He said, "Great. This is your baby. I just have visitation rights. Go do your thing," and that's what I did. And I literally only met Taylor in person one time.
MR. JORGENSON: Wow.
MR. WINTER: Right before we started filming, I met him, and we had a dinner together. And I went off to Kansas‑‑to Tulsa, and he provided access, and we did our things, and here we are.
MR. WINTER: Well, I think it's really great too because obviously it's present‑day. It's different from, you know, like, "1883," for instance, or even "Yellowstone," or different location. But it does feel like there is something behind it that seems to connect it with those shows, which I really liked. We have an audience question from Joel Davison in Virginia, and he wants to know, "What is the lesson behind the story you want viewers to understand?"
MR. WINTER: I think the lesson, if there is one, is that, you know, people are all the same, no matter where you are and what city you're in. I mean, I think we all want and care about the same things. We all have the same foibles, and I think there are more‑‑we have more in common than we have differences. And I think especially in today's climate, I think it's interesting to point that out to people.
You know, even, again, like as a New Yorker going to Oklahoma, I thought, you know, if you believe everything you see on the news and in newspapers, you think you're going to be chased out to town with pitchforks because you're from New York, and it was not at all. I mean, people could not have been nicer, could not have been more welcoming and lovely, and again, we all presumably love our kids and trying to get through the day and all want the same things. And a guy like Dwight is no different, you know, aside from the fact that he's a gangster, of course. You know, we have a lot more in common than we think‑‑
MR. WINTER: ‑‑and I think that having these two worlds collide kind of shows that.
MR. JORGENSON: Right. And I'm not trying to spoil everything, but there's a great scene with where he is showing that they had the same boots in the bar. They, you know‑‑the Italian boots in the first‑‑
MR. WINTER: Which is the perfect example. You go, "Oh, you know, more in common than we thought."
MR. JORGENSON: Right. So I really liked‑‑I really like that comparison a lot. I'm curious too. You just kind of said, obviously, he's different from us because he's a gangster. He's clearly the protagonist of this. He is the Tulsa King, all that kind of‑‑how do you feel about‑‑what is your relationship to this character, if he's a good or a bad guy?
MR. WINTER: Well, I think, you know‑‑I don't think anybody is any one thing. You know, we all have very‑‑a lot of different colors, you know, and even with a gangster, you're going to‑‑if you paint them in their full capacity, you're going to find moments where you relate to them, even though, of course, you know, I've never been a mobster and never broken anybody's kneecaps. I mean, I've thought about it but have never done anything like that.
But, you know, when you meet a guy like that, you realize, oh, he loves his family, and he has opinions about things, and he's got, you know, the same troubles that you have, and eventually, you're going to find moments where‑‑you know, it's not empathy but like relatability at least. You go like, "All right. I understand why he's doing what he does or how he feels, and I feel that way too." So, you know, it's very hard to just, you know, depict somebody as like all good or all bad. Even the worst of us has moments if you go, "Well, you know what? I understand that he‑‑you know, he cares about his kids," and you'll find moments where you relate. And when that kind of character is portrayed by somebody as naturally charming and likable as Sylvester Stallone, you get on board really quickly, even, you know, if you forgive him for a lot of bad behavior, especially when you realize what he's been through. He's been to jail, and he sacrificed so much, and the mob family that he thought had his back actually don't really care about him that much. And he misses his daughter, and he's trying to rectify his sins of the past. He's trying to be a better person, and it's a lot easier to get behind somebody like that than it is just a one note thug.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. And, as you kind of just alluded to, Stallone is‑‑he brings a lot of humanity to the role, even though he's just this giant, intimidating, somehow 75‑year‑old, which we even reference in the show.
MR. WINTER: Yes.
MR. JORGENSON: I can't believe he's 75 and reference that he doesn't look it.
MR. WINTER: I think he's more‑‑
MR. JORGENSON: What's that?
MR. WINTER: I think he's more surprised about being 75 than anybody because I don't think he feels it, and he certainly doesn't look it, and he certainly doesn't present like it.
You know, I was sitting with somebody the other day saying he could beat the both of us up with one hand.
He's 75 years old. Like easily. I mean, he's‑‑he looks like he's an in‑shape 40‑year‑old.
MR. WINTER: And it's‑‑really, it's astounding to see it.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. I'm ready for "Rocky VII" at this point.
MR. JORGENSON: But, yeah, he‑‑you even have that in the show too, where he basically knocks someone out with one punch, and I was like, yeah, that's totally believable for people to see that.
MR. WINTER: Yeah. No problem believing that at all.
MR. JORGENSON: Right. So part of, you know, the sort of‑‑I don't know‑‑history of Stallone here is that he's very‑‑mostly well known for playing Rocky Balboa. He's kind of the ultimate underdog in those movies. Even in the last few ones, he's always kind of, sort of put up as the underdog in those films. Do you consider Dwight to be an underdog in "Tulsa King"?
MR. WINTER: Well, I don't think he was when he started out, when he went to jail. You know, he was a very formidable mob captain, and he went to jail, and he did the right thing. But when he gets out, circumstances being what they are, make him an underdog. He gets out thinking he's going to get rewarded for his time in jail, and the fact that he adhered to that code of omertà and he's going to now go back on top, and right away, you realize, oh, no, it's actually the opposite. You're actually being banished to somewhere you've never been before. In effect, you're being put back in jail. You're in a place where you don't know anybody, and you're‑‑you've got very limited conflict resolution skills and very limited amount of time left in your life to sort of make something of the choices you've made. And you're estranged from your family, your actual family, and your daughter. So he, right out of the gate, gets set up to be an underdog, and you're rooting for the guy because he has gotten screwed over. And you really want to see him succeed, even though he's‑‑you know, he doesn't always do the right thing. But he is trying to be a better person, and I think that's at least an easier way to get on board with him.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. And you said‑‑you mentioned earlier you were given the show basically with Stallone already attached. So what was it like writing it to an actor that you already are probably quite well aware of at this point? What was it like writing the script to him?
MR. WINTER: Well, that made it much easier for me, the idea that I knew it was going to be Sly Stallone and I had his voice in my head was‑‑made it easier. But, also, the idea that I knew a little more about him. I knew how smart he is in real life, how well read, how worldly, how funny, sarcastic. So that's who this character was.
So he himself said‑‑you know, when he read my version of the pilot said, "This fits me like a tailor‑made suit. This is me. Aside from the gangster stuff, this is who I am. I am this 75‑year‑old man who has read a lot of books and has a lot of opinions and still trying to figure out the world and, you know, trying to make up for mistakes I've made in the past. So this is really me." And that was the best compliment I could get.
And then we took it from there and collaborated moving forward with the character. And, you know, of course, as I said, you don't just get a great actor with Sly Stallone. You get a writer, a director, a producer, an editor, a guy who's been doing this at the highest level for decades, who's now your partner creatively, and it was just such a gift to be able to go to work every day and bat ideas around with him, and what you see is on screen.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. And what a segue because I wanted to ask you. You know, he's been doing film for, I think, at least six decades, and this is his first TV role in that time. What was that transition like for him, for you watching him? Do you think that‑‑how does that‑‑how does that come off on screen? Is there anything that he's bringing from the film world to TV?
MR. WINTER: Well, he certainly brings that incredible magnetism. I mean, you watch him on a monitor, and you go, oh, yeah, there's a reason this guy is an international superstar. You can't take your eyes off him. He's just‑‑he dominates every scene he comes into, and immediately, he's just magnetic.
I think he has said, you know, it was challenging. We were out in the middle of Oklahoma for five and a half months in‑‑it was over a hundred degrees every day, and it was like 106 degrees 80 percent of the time. And much like the song from the show "Oklahoma" where they say the wind comes whipping down the plain, I can tell you it really does. And it's hot and, it's long days.
MR. JORGENSON: Me too.
MR. WINTER: It was challenging. It's a lot. But, you know, for Sly, it's like this is a guy who‑‑you know, he's in almost every scene, and he's working long hours, but he is always prepared, ready to go, happy to be there. But it's a marathon. And he‑‑I think he understood that and obviously a guy who's done this many, many times, but he said it was like shooting a bunch of movies back-to-back, straight through. So, by the end, we all needed a break, and we got it, thank God. And, hopefully, we'll get back there and do it again.
MR. JORGENSON: Hopefully, like the musical too, you got to see some of those beautiful mornings as well in Oklahoma.
MR. WINTER: I did. What I didn't‑‑I wasn't prepared for the sunset. Somebody, when I first got there, said, "Wait until you see an Oklahoma sunset," and I thought you've seen one sunset, you seen them all. You go, actually, no, you haven't. It's absolutely stunning, the colors.
And, actually, at the end of our second episode, you get to see a little bit of that sunset. Sly is standing at this place called the "Center of the Universe," right around dusk, and you get to see that incredible sky. It's really beautiful.
MR. JORGENSON: It's perfect.
Well, not to take away from Oklahoma, but kind of back to New York, you're known for work on "The Sopranos" and "Boardwalk Empire." What continues to intrigue you about these mobsters, and what sets "Tulsa King" apart from your past work?
MR. WINTER: You know, I'm always intrigued with people who live outside the lines of the law. They're just more interesting, not to say they're good or bad, but, you know, they're just‑‑I always wonder like how do you get up in the morning and do this and behave this way and continue your life. So that's always something I'm interested in exploring.
The difference here again is the stroke of genius on Taylor's part of taking two beloved tried‑and‑true genres of cinema, the gangster film and the western, and mashing them up. That to me was the thing that I was like, oh, this is a really interesting way in. So I can take that New York guy and drop him into a circumstance that you've never really seen before and then just let people interact with each other. And that was, for me, the big difference and what made it so much fun to write.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. And it's cool. I can't think of a comparison. Maybe there isn't, but the way he starts to build a crew is really fun, sort of taking all these different characters that you've probably never seen together in any context.
MR. WINTER: Right. Yeah. I mean, a lot of‑‑a lot of guys are very intuitive. They're very‑‑they're like they‑‑they're just masters of human nature, and they size people up really quickly. And it's pretty interesting.
You know, I've met a lot of mob guys over the years, and they just have a handle on people that a lot of us don't have. They just‑‑they just can sort of smell who's got a little larceny in their soul and who might be a kindred spirit, and I think Dwight is one of those guys.
MR. JORGENSON: I love it. So you've also written, speaking of real people you've met, biographical films everywhere from 50 Cent, "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" to "The Wolf of Wall Street." How does the writing process differ when you're working on those versus the "Tulsa King"?
MR. WINTER: Well, when you're starting with a real person and a real story, you've got a lot of material already there. In some ways it can be a hindrance, though. You know, you try to stay true to the actual story and the actual circumstances, and sometimes that doesn't comport with what you want to do. So, when you're writing a fictional character, you sort of treat them as if they're real people and they really exist.
Yeah, you can go to places that you're not handcuffed to by the actual circumstance of their reality. So this was fun. I just made believe Dwight was a real guy and just let him be who he would be and act how he would act. So it was great.
MR. JORGENSON: So, you know, Dwight obviously kind of maintains his profession, even though he tells people otherwise. When he is in Tulsa, he's like, "I don't know what you're talking about." But you at one point were a lawyer. So what inspired that change from lawyer to screenwriter, I think, several years ago now?
MR. WINTER: Well, I was the worst lawyer ever, which helped.
MR. JORGENSON: That's a good reason.
MR. WINTER: You know, I became a lawyer for all the wrong reasons. I did everything in my power not to be a writer, because being a writer in Hollywood, growing up in Brooklyn, it just sounded like the goofiest possible thing I could say. I wouldn't even say it out loud. I was embarrassed to admit that I wanted to move to Hollywood and be a writer. My friends would have thrown me in the creek. So I did everything I could to not do that. I wanted to be successful, and, you know, law school seemed like a good idea. And I did it and didn't like it and didn't like being a lawyer, and then I think that showed in my, you know, poor performance. And I finally got to a crisis point in my mid to late 20s where I just finally said, "All right. What is it you actually want to do when you wake up in the morning?" and my deep dark secret was I wanted to move to Hollywood and be a sitcom writer, which is where I started. And once I was able to say that out loud, everything changed.
I mean, I think my friends and family thought I lost my mind. I had never been west of Chicago. I'd never written a script before, but I knew in my heart this was my destiny and my calling. And I did the legal profession a favor and got on a plane and never looked back.
MR. JORGENSON: You did us a favor too because now we have "Tulsa King" and all the other stuff.
MR. WINTER: Well, thank you.
MR. JORGENSON: But I have to ask, what was that first sitcom? What was the first sitcom you were staffed on?
MR. WINTER: The first sitcom I ever wrote on was a show called "Sister, Sister" with, of course, Tia and Tamera Mowry.
MR. JORGENSON: Of course.
MR. WINTER: It was important. If you look at me, yeah, of course, obviously this guy didn't write that. So I did that and a show called "The PJs" with Eddie Murphy. It was a foam-ation animated series where he played a superintendent of a housing project. But I bounced back and forth between dark comedies and drama with comedies and sitcom work.
MR. JORGENSON: Well, I said of course not because, of course, you know, tongue in cheek, whatever. Of course, because I know "Sister, Sister."
MR. JORGENSON: In my house, my wife and I, that's one of our, like, sort of comfort shows from the '90s that we just put on.
MR. WINTER: Yeah. I get more props from kids of friends. They don't care that I wrote on "The Sopranos." When they found out I wrote on "Sister, Sister," they go now I'm cool. Now I'm suddenly cool.
MR. JORGENSON: [Laughs]
MR. WINTER: And "Xena: Warrior Princess." I get a lot of‑‑a lot of love for that.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. That's amazing. I think you're kind of cool for all‑‑the very eclectic combination of these different shows.
So, looking back on all these shows, but I guess more specifically ones like "The Sopranos," who has been your favorite gangster to write?
MR. WINTER: Uncle Junior, probably, you know, just, you know, such an interesting‑‑you know, first of all, the fact that he was older allowed me to put words in his mouth that you couldn't get from the other younger characters, so, you know, old expressions, old idioms, just things that, you know, looking at the world through the lens of a 75‑year‑old man, you know, in the year 2000. You know, it was really fun. And, also, he was just so devious and selfish and petty and funny, you know, just‑‑it was such a joy to write for him, and then to hear Dominic Chianese say those lines just‑‑you know, just always made me laugh. So, I mean, I loved writing for all of them, but he was probably my favorite one.
MR. JORGENSON: Okay. And I'm really getting into the weeds here, but this is a question I actually want the answer to. Besides Sylvester Stallone, who‑‑what character intrigued you the most that you brought to the table with "Tula King"?
MR. WINTER: That's a good question. I think Max Casella's character, Armand. You get to meet him as the series progresses, but he's a guy you see in the pilot who's in Tulsa and is kind of acting a little squirrely, but as you get to know this character, he's a guy who's sort of on the run from his true self and on the run from his life. And he slowly, you know, kind of accepts who he is as the course of the series goes on. I can't give a lot, much more than that, for fear of spoiling anything, but it was an interesting psychological study for a character.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. I think you do a good job too of‑‑I mean, obviously, but of populating the world around. You know, when they go to the bar, at first you kind of just see this bartender, but it turns out we're going to see a lot more of him, at least in the first episodes I saw‑‑
MR. JORGENSON: ‑‑and his father. When you're doing this world building, is that, you know, the beginning part of the process? Does that come naturally, or is that something‑‑you know, when do you start incorporating these characters as you're sort of sketching out the show?
MR. WINTER: Well, it comes, you know, organically through the writing. You know, he starts encountering people, and you try to create characters who are‑‑you haven't seen before, who are‑‑you know, feel like real people and then just sort of let them behave with each other. But then you start thinking about, all right, who is this person? What is his backstory?
You know, for example, Garrett Hedlund's character is a great example in many ways. He's the‑‑you know, the Tulsa version of Dwight. He's a guy who's been to jail. He's trying to, you know, make amends for the sins of his own past. He's sort of trying to be a better person. He takes care of his elderly father, who he brings to work with him because he needs to babysit him, and he can't leave him home alone. So, you know, there's a decent streak in this guy, you know, much like Dwight. They couldn't be more opposite. Garrett's character is a former bull rider, rides horses. The closest Stallone's character's ever gotten to horse is Belmont Racetrack. So they're very different people, and yet in some ways, they're very same. They're kindred spirits. And that partnership continues throughout the series. So it's kind of fun, and you start to do that with every character. It's like who is this guy, where are they coming from, how did they end up there, what do they think of Dwight, and, you know, before you know it‑‑and this is the great gift of doing a series. You know, you've got hours and hours in which to explore these characters and create these worlds and universes and backstories, and by the time you end it, you go, "Oh, my God. We created a whole universe of people." None of them are real but who all inhabit each other's worlds and all know each other, and their lives crisscross in really interesting ways. And it's really, really fun.
MR. JORGENSON: Well, they're real to me now.
But I also have a very real tweet question from someone, Stanley Koz.
MR. WINTER: Okay.
MR. JORGENSON: He says, "Terry, I'm so excited for 'Tulsa King.' Did you use any of your personal experience to influence any part of 'Tulsa King'? Can you tell us any of your famous stories about working in the butcher shop or some of the hijinks from grade school?"
MR. WINTER: Thank you for that question. Well, my personal experience, you know, in "Tulsa King" was really just‑‑you know, again, I'm this New York‑y guy, not a mobster obviously but, you know, just dropped myself into Tulsa and go, "Okay. What do I think? What do people think about me?" So I just sort of took it from there.
You know, working in a mom‑owned butcher shop as a kid was sort of my graduate school for what I did later.
I also worked in a card game run by a pretty prominent gangster in Brooklyn when I was a teenager. It was very similar to the job Henry Hill had in "Goodfellas," where I was the kid who gave out the coffee and the cake. So I don't know. Just by osmosis, I just listened and learned and observed how these guys would talk.
The butcher shop was funny. Every once in a while, guys at suits would show up, and they would go into the big walk‑in refrigerator to have meetings. And I was told to take a walk, and I'd have to go across the street and sit in a candy store. As I'm saying this, it sounds like a bad movie from the '40s, but I literally had to sit at the counter in the candy store until they came out‑‑
MR. JORGENSON: I like the movie.
MR. WINTER: ‑‑and then, you know, move on and, you know, of course, I just, you know, learn how to keep my mouth shut and, you know, mind my own business at a very early age.
MR. JORGENSON: I love it, and I'm glad that you didn't end up quite like Henry Hill, at all like Henry Hill.
MR. WINTER: You and me both.
MR. JORGENSON: And I'm grateful that we got "Tulsa King" out of that eventually.
MR. JORGENSON: But, unfortunately, we are out of time. So we will have to leave it right there. Terence Winter, thank you so much for joining us today.
MR. WINTER: Absolutely. My pleasure. Great talking to you.
MR. JORGENSON: You too.
And thanks to all of you for watching. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find out more information about our upcoming programs.
I'm Dave Jorgenson, and thank you for joining Washington Post Live.
[End recorded segment] | 2022-11-11T00:02:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: “Tulsa King” A Conversation with Terence Winter - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/10/transcript-tulsa-king-conversation-with-terence-winter/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/10/transcript-tulsa-king-conversation-with-terence-winter/ |
Democrat Maura Healey celebrates her win as Massachusetts governor at the Copley Plaza hotel in Boston on Tuesday night. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images)
BOSTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) bounded up to the stage in a high-ceilinged ballroom in Copley Square on Tuesday to the loud cheers of an ebullient crowd.
“Wow, what a night,” she said. Results were still being tallied across the country, but in Massachusetts, Democrats had cause to rejoice. “We can see our future,” Warren said. “It is bright, and it is blue.”
Heading into Tuesday’s midterms, New England was considered a region where Republicans might make crucial inroads, potentially picking up key seats in a Democratic stronghold on the road to a broader nationwide victory.
Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University, was among those who believed that Fung’s strong local reputation and his views in favor of abortion rights could propel him to victory, even in a state where Republicans are outnumbered.
Instead, she said, the takeaway from his loss is that the “national Republican Party has become literally unpalatable to independent voters in New England.”
In the general election, Diehl was crushed by Democrat Maura Healey, who will become the first woman and the first openly gay person elected as the state’s governor. Healey received 64 percent of the vote to Diehl’s 35 percent.
In Massachusetts, the “one beacon of hope for Republicans was continually being really competitive” in the race for governor, said Erin O’Brien, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Their current predicament is akin to “losing the queen” in a game of chess.
Jane Swift, a Republican who was appointed governor of Massachusetts in 2001, said that the state’s relatively small GOP couldn’t afford the internecine fight that broke out between its moderate and Trump-backing factions.
“There was a battle in the lifeboat,” Swift said. “Frankly, when you’re in the lifeboat, you shouldn’t be shooting each other.”
But Swift wasn’t ready to write the epitaph for Republicans in her state or in New England. Her hope was that Tuesday’s results would help turn the national party away from what she called a “personality-driven mania.”
For now, the lone Republican member of Congress from New England remains Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). In these states, being a Republican is “just such an anchor to drag,” said former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee. That became even more true after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, he said. The ruling was “a shock to so many, even those who might be ambivalent” about abortion. “A lot of people just felt, ‘leave it alone.’ ” | 2022-11-11T01:22:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | GOP hoped to pick up House seats in New England. A blue wave hit instead. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/10/new-england-democrats-blue-wave/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/10/new-england-democrats-blue-wave/ |
Man dies in Springfield, Va., after being detained by police
A man who was running after cars in Springfield, Va., died of a medical emergency after being detained by officers, Fairfax County police said on Twitter.
Police responded to the 6500 block of Amherst Avenue about 6:15 p.m. Thursday to reports of a man running in the road and yelling at cars. Officers, who have not identified the man, took him into custody and requested help from Fairfax Fire and Rescue.
Fairfax County Police Sgt. Tara Gerhard said preliminary reports indicate minimal force was used to detain the man, although she did not specify what type of force.
The man suffered a medical emergency in an ambulance while being transported to the hospital, police said. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Police continue to investigate the case. | 2022-11-11T01:31:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man dies Springfield after being detained by police - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/man-dies-police-custody-springfield/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/10/man-dies-police-custody-springfield/ |
NEW YORK — Some 250 copy editors, marketing assistants and other employees at HarperCollins Publishers went on strike Thursday, with the two sides differing over wages and benefits, diversity policy and union protection. It was a rare work stoppage in book publishing, where HarperCollins is the only company among the industry’s so-called “Big Five” to have a labor union. | 2022-11-11T01:31:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | HarperCollins union begins strike, citing wages, diversity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/harpercollins-union-begins-strike-citing-wages-diversity/2022/11/10/2feec098-613d-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/harpercollins-union-begins-strike-citing-wages-diversity/2022/11/10/2feec098-613d-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
A new $400 million package of U.S. security assistance includes four Avenger air defense systems and the Stinger missiles they fire
U.S. Army personnel train with an Avenger air defense system in Germany earlier this year. (Sgt. 1st Class Terrance D. Rhodes/U.S. Army)
The Biden administration is ratcheting up air defense for Ukraine with an influx of surface-to-air missile systems and other ammunition designed to give Kyiv what Pentagon officials are calling a “net” of interlacing capabilities to protect against Russian bombardment on civilian areas.
The administration announced Thursday that it would send Ukraine more security assistance valued at up to $400 million, a package that contains four mobile short-range systems known as Avengers and the Stinger missiles they fire, plus missiles for use in medium-range HAWK air defense systems. The fresh infusion of arms also includes ammunition for the HIMARS long-range artillery systems that Ukrainian forces have used to destroy Russian command nodes, tens of thousands of howitzer artillery rounds and a staggering 20 million small-arms rounds.
Ukraine has clamored for the United States and its other Western allies to help protect its skies. Those pleas have gained urgency as Russian missiles and drones have pummeled cities and the energy infrastructure that keeps them heated and powered through winter. Many fear that trend may worsen in the aftermath of Russia’s apparent retreat from the Kherson region in Ukraine’s south.
The newly announced transfer of air defenses follows the delivery in recent days of two advanced midrange systems known as NASAMS. The Pentagon has said that six more NASAMS would be produced and sent to Ukraine in coming years.
Sabrina Singh, the Defense Department’s deputy press secretary, told reporters that the Avenger system can protect against cruise missiles, helicopters and drones, saying it “will fit in well with some of the capabilities that they’re already using on the battlefield.”
Avengers fire Stinger missiles, long a part of Ukraine military assistance packages. Defense acquisition specialists have expressed some concern about the United States’ diminishing supplies of those weapons due to the constant provision of them to Ukraine. Singh said Thursday that, “We wouldn’t have provided these Stinger missiles if we didn’t feel that we could.”
She declined to say why the administration decided to dramatically increase the amount of small-arms ammunition it was sending to Ukraine and whether it was an indication Ukrainian forces are burning through what they have at a high rate.
“This is a changing war, it’s a changing battlefield, it’s dynamic,” Singh said. “And of course these rounds are being used. I wouldn’t be able to get into how quickly.”
Because the new package is under the president’s drawdown authority, it is likely that most systems will be sent to the Ukrainians quickly, allowing them to be introduced on the battlefield soon.
The missiles being furnished to be used in HAWK air defense systems, though, first must be refurbished, Singh explained. Contracts for that work have yet to be awarded. It is unclear how many are being readied for transfer to Ukraine. | 2022-11-11T01:32:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pentagon sending Ukraine Avenger air defenses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/10/ukraine-avenger-air-defenses/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/10/ukraine-avenger-air-defenses/ |
Homeowners aren’t ready to face how much less their houses are worth
A Redfin "for sale" sign stands in front of a Seattle house in October 2020. (Elaine Thompson/AP)
Over the years, I have encountered a lot of weird statements from company chief executives announcing layoffs or business setbacks. But possibly the strangest one came on Wednesday from Redfin chief executive Glenn Kelman, who said his firm was letting go of 13 percent of its workforce, and shuttering its “iBuying” division, which bought homes directly from consumers, did light renovations and put them back on the market.
Anyone who has watched a house-flipping show knows how hard it can be to make money that way. Around this time last year, Zillow closed its own iBuying division after losing buckets of money. Yet this is not how Kelman explained his move. “We’re closing our iBuying business, RedfinNow,” he said in a statement, “because maintaining a profit with rising interest rates would make our offers on homes insultingly low.”
Insultingly! What is insulting about offering people the market price for their house? Homeowners are presumably aware that mortgage rates have spiked, thanks to the Federal Reserve Board’s aggressive policy, topping 7 percent in the latest report from Freddie Mac. And because owners already have homes and mortgages, they are also aware that when rates are higher, people cannot afford to pay as much for houses.
And yet I don’t think Kelman is crazy; he’s probably right. Many homeowners would be insulted by what Redfin could rationally offer. His statement is strange because the housing market is in a very strange place — and finding a new normal will require some ugly adjustments, psychological as well as financial.
As I noted in June, most American homeowners have known only a world of steadily falling interest rates. Mortgage rates hit their all-time high in the early 1980s, as the Fed under Paul Volcker aggressively tightened monetary policy to fight record inflation. Since then, rates have followed a long downward trend. Prices responded with a corresponding upward trend — albeit with some brutal interruptions, most notably, the collapse of the housing bubble after 2006.
During the financial crisis, however, the Fed stepped in with more easy money, and by 2022 most homeowners were sitting on a nice chunk of equity. This made homeowners feel prosperous and secure. It probably also boosted consumer demand, because people who feel richer are willing to spend more. And despite the memories of the crash, most people still take it for granted that housing is a great investment as well as a way to keep the rain off their heads.
These trends could not go on forever. During the pandemic, my credit union was offering 15-year fixed-rate mortgages for less than 2 percent annual interest, and they weren’t going to keep lowering that rate until they were paying me money to buy a house. Now, we are in the midst of a sharp reversal and prices will have to adjust accordingly. Someone who could have gotten a mortgage at 3 to 4 percent a few years ago now has to pay more than twice that. To keep their mortgage payment the same, the cost of the house would have to fall by almost half.
Now, not everyone has to worry so much about their monthly payment; older home buyers who have built up some equity aren’t as sensitive to mortgage rates. But unless prices drop significantly, the market will be starved of new entrants — which means falling demand and, ultimately, lower prices.
Home buyers aren’t yet ready to recognize the extent of that loss, so they won’t sell their homes unless they really, really have to. Especially because moving would mean giving up the absurdly low mortgage rates that prevailed before the Fed got serious about fighting inflation.
Many of the real estate listings in my neighborhood now have an eerie quality, like looking at the twinkling light of some long-dead star. Houses sit on the market or prices drift downward in tiny increments that are wholly inadequate to the magnitude of the interest-rate shift. Though supply remains quite low by historical standards, inventories are rising, and sales have fallen by almost a quarter. Homeowners seem to be sitting out the market, waiting for the return of the good times. This helps explain why median sales prices have fallen by only about 7 percent, from a June high of $413,800 to $384,800 in September — and were still up year-over-year.
Of course, that 7 percent decline might be a good deal if interest rates fall back to where they were fairly quickly. Home buyers could suffer a high payment for a couple of years, and then refinance into something more affordable — and sellers could avoid taking a hit to their personal wealth. That’s one way we could get out of this strange market.
But it’s hard to imagine that interest rates are going back to where they were during the pandemic. The public health crisis is over, and the Fed is now in inflation-fighting mode. We homeowners might never again be as rich as we felt in 2020 and 2021 — which would mean that the only way the market can go back to normal is for us to eventually, painfully admit that we’re poorer, and move on. | 2022-11-11T01:32:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Homeowners aren't ready to face how much less their houses are worth - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/housing-market-decline-mortgage-rates-united-states/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/10/housing-market-decline-mortgage-rates-united-states/ |
Election officials, who long expected the vote count to take as many as 12 days, say ballot printer issues are not slowing results
Maricopy County election workers sort mail-in ballots in Phoenix on Election Day. (Eric Thayer for The Washington Post)
Lake has yet to say that the election results can’t be trusted, as she did in 2020 when President Biden won the state, but her assertion that the system needs immediate change came as officials continued to count votes, a process they have warned could take up to 12 days. The results released so far show Lake, a former television news anchor, locked in a close contest with her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state.
Hobbs, meanwhile, wrote on Twitter: “This election will be determined by the voters, not by the volume at which an unhinged former television reporter can shout conspiracy theories.”
The officials said they had yet to determine the cause of the printer problems; they said the printers passed required logic and accuracy tests ahead of Tuesday and had been used during the August primary election and the 2020 elections with the same settings, with no problems.
Voters had the options of waiting for the problems to be fixed, going to different polling locations, or dropping their ballots into secure boxes that were transferred to downtown Phoenix and counted there. Voters placed about 17,000 ballots in the secure boxes, a higher number than in previous elections, county officials said. They said all votes will be counted, that all voters who wanted to cast a ballot were allowed to do so and that the printer problems will not affect the counting of votes.
Maricopa’s problems remained a mystery Thursday to officials in Washington, who have been disappointed since Election Day by the lack of a clear explanation communicated to both voters and the agencies charged with election oversight, said two people tracking the developments. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
In a state central to widespread conspiracy theories after President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020, some Republicans leveraged the problems in Maricopa County to call for elimination of early voting and machines that count votes. Though early voting has long been popular in Arizona, ballots returned in the days leading up to Election Day and on Election Day, always take time to process, and ballots are processed in the order they are received. To post results more quickly, county leaders for weeks urged voters to return their ballots — which had more races than ever before — as quickly as possible.
Election workers were working through about 400,000 ballots in Maricopa County as of Thursday night. Officials here said they always expected the count to take as many as 12 days, though they had expected to report at least 95 percent of results by Friday. On Thursday, county officials said that it would take longer to meet that goal and that they are working through the Veterans Day federal holiday and the weekend.
Voters dropped off about 290,000 ballots on Election Day, the highest number ever released. The high volume of late drop-offs suggests many voters may have acted on instructions from Republican leaders and candidates who urged people to either vote in person or hand-deliver early ballots at polling locations.
Some Republicans claimed, without evidence, that the drip-drip release of results — which happens during every election here — suggested county officials wanted to delay what they asserted would be a win by Lake, and perhaps other Republican candidates.
Officials in Pima County, home to Tucson, swatted away such allegations. Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, the county recorder, said it was taking time to process the high volume of early ballots that didn’t arrive until Election Day. “We are following the law,” she said.
Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates (R) noted that it routinely takes days to complete tabulation in the county, a pattern that has recently drawn national attention because of Arizona’s swing-state status and the tight margins in statewide contests. Gates, who twice ran the state GOP’s Election Day integrity efforts, said Lake might not be familiar with the county’s tabulation process.
“Quite frankly, it is offensive for Kari Lake to say these people behind me are slow rolling when they’re working 14 to 18 hours,” he said, gripping a lectern at times during a 45-minute news conference. “I really hope this is the end of that now. We can be patient and respect the results.”
Gates said it is important that Arizonans don’t think “that we’re picking and choosing which ballots to tabulate. We use an accounting concept: first in, first out.”
Researchers examining attempts on social media to delegitimize election results said fraud narratives had gotten less traction in the immediate aftermath of the vote. But others warned that a prolonged count in Arizona could create an opportunity for misleading narratives to take hold or for rogue actors to try to disrupt the process.
Most immediately, Republican candidates and their allies in Arizona seized on the mechanical issues to prime the public for sweeping legislative changes. Lake ran on a platform during the primary election to count millions of votes not by machines, but by hand, a method that election experts say is less accurate. She favors “one-day voting,” where ballots are cast in assigned precincts. Arizona allows people to vote by mail, and in Maricopa County, they can vote at any voting location.
Lake was notably vaguer in the final days of campaigning about her plans for electoral reform.
At a stop southeast of Phoenix on the Sunday before Election Day, she told reporters simply that she planned to “work with our wonderful lawmakers, and we’ll come up with great laws that secure the vote.”
Her most hard-line allies also seemed to be equivocating. Wendy Rogers, a far-right state senator who has pushed for “decertification” of the 2020 election, a process that experts say is not possible under state or federal law, refused to commit to a system that would only allow voting on a single day — an idea that has been pushed by far-right activists here. When asked at the same event whether she favored such a proposal, she replied, “Essentially.”
But the problems in Maricopa County gave Lake and her supporters a fresh target for their ire. In an appearance on a radio show hosted by Charlie Kirk, the founder and president of Phoenix-based Turning Point USA, Lake called for a “task force to investigate what went wrong, how these anomalies happened.”
“That’s either maladministration, incompetency, we don’t know what it is,” she added.
Kirk went further, arguing without evidence, “I believe it was a traffic jam by design.”
But that belief wasn’t echoed by Lake, who had a delicate dance to pull off — railing against the administration of an election that, she told her supporters, will place her in the governor’s office.
“It’s a messed-up election system,” she said. “We knew we had to trudge through it to get to victory.”
That message left fellow Republican candidates in a difficult position. Other campaigns took their cues from Lake about how to respond to the uncertainty in the days after the election, according to a Republican familiar with the discussions. Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Arizona, suggested on Tuesday that something nefarious was occurring, but he fell mostly silent on social media as Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) gained an edge over him in incomplete results.
A fundraising appeal from Masters’s campaign on Thursday did not allege impropriety but argued that “some of the issues we’ve see occur during this election are troubling.” It added, “We’re expecting a contested road forward and legal battles to come.”
Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican nominee for attorney general, attacked Maricopa County but did not argue that the vote, which was showing him neck-and-neck with Democrat Kris Mayes, was fraudulent.
The exception was Mark Finchem, the GOP candidate for secretary of state, who was trailing Democrat Adrian Fontes in preliminary results. Finchem speculated on Twitter that Fontes and other Democrats could be “in the back room with ballots.” Fontes fired back that he was “having coffee with an old friend,” adding, “Stop with this conspiracy garbage.”
More broadly, the state’s top Democratic candidates urged patience, with Hobbs writing on Twitter, “Accurate election results take time.” Kelly thanked his supporters on social media, writing, “I’m confident we’re going to win. But we don’t have the final results yet.”
Lake was holed up Wednesday in meetings with advisers, outside allies and people who may ultimately serve in her administration. Among them was Floyd Brown, a longtime conservative operative and founder of the news and opinion website the Western Journal, according to two people familiar with the discussions, one of whom said it was an advisory meeting. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about private discussions. Brown, who did not respond to a request for comment, suggested on social media that the mechanical issues in Maricopa County were an “effort to stop” Lake.
Lake also met with Eileen Klein, the former chief of staff for former Arizona governor Jan Brewer, a Republican; Danny Seiden, who heads the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and previously worked for Gov. Doug Ducey (R); and Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of the political arm of Kirk’s Turning Point USA. None commented on the meetings.
Maricopa officials said that while they did not yet know the underlying cause of the faint printing on some ballots, the problem appeared to be fixed by late Tuesday afternoon when technicians changed a setting to allow for a heavier kind of paper.
Printers like those used by the county contain “fusers” — heated rollers that melt toner and make it stick to paper. Different weights of paper require different temperatures for the toner to adhere properly.
The county has about 760 printers for printing ballots on demand, according to Megan Gilbertson, communications director for the county’s elections department. About 600 of those were made by Oki, a corporation headquartered in Japan, which discontinued all sales of its printers in the United States in March 2021. Oki has said it continues to supply parts, software updates and other services. Gilbertson said those printers are the ones that had problems.
“It is standard practice to continue to use equipment if an organization can continue to maintain it,” Gilbertson said. An Oki spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Maricopa’s 2022 elections plan said each of the county’s 223 polling places would have two or three printers and that this would provide enough capacity in case some malfunctioned.
Gilbertson said each ballot printer was linked only to a laptop and that they were not connected to one another or to the internet. The printers’ settings could only be changed manually and changes require a password, she said.
Swaine and Davis reported from Washington. Cat Zakrzewski in Washington contributed to this report.
Midterm elections live updates: Senate control hinges on unresolved races in Nevada, Arizona | 2022-11-11T01:40:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As Arizona counts votes, Republicans seize on Election Day glitches - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/kari-lake-arizona-maricopa-county/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/kari-lake-arizona-maricopa-county/ |
Michael Maccoby, authority on leadership and the workplace, dies at 89
He coined the term ‘productive narcissist’ to describe a new breed of disruptive CEOs, including Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jack Welch of General Electric
Psychologist and leadership consultant Michael Maccoby in 2021, at his home in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Washington. (Izette Maccoby Folger)
Michael Maccoby, a psychologist and consultant who became a global authority on leadership and the workplace, writing best-selling books about corporate dynamics and personality types in business — including “the productive narcissist,” a term that he used to describe disruptive executives including Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Jack Welch — died Nov. 5 at a hospital in Washington. He was 89.
He had a heart attack, said his daughter Annie Maccoby-Berglof.
A Harvard-educated scholar with a PhD in social relations, Dr. Maccoby launched his academic career in Mexico in the 1960s, studying life in a rural village with German psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. He went on to explore the psyche of America’s workplaces and executive suites, writing more than a dozen books that examined the nature of work, the motivations of workers and their bosses, and his own attempts to make corporate life not just tolerable but personally fulfilling.
His work drew on social psychology, cultural anthropology and Freudian psychoanalysis, and bridged the worlds of business and academia. Dr. Maccoby ran a Washington consulting firm; served as the longtime director of a technology, public policy and human development program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; and was a consultant to scores of companies, schools, government agencies and labor groups, including AT&T, Volvo, the Communications Workers of America and the Departments of State and Commerce.
“My father’s life was really about how to create a more humane workplace,” said Maccoby-Berglof, a contributor to the Financial Times. “And that didn’t necessarily mean working at home or getting a better vacation. It meant getting a chance to develop your talents at work as a human being.”
Dr. Maccoby (pronounced MACK-uh-bee) was perhaps best known for coining the term “productive narcissist” in a 2000 article for the Harvard Business Review, which argued that a new breed of visionary executives had replaced the sedate, prim-and-proper managers who dominated corporate life during the mid-20th century.
These new leaders had a creative approach to business and an ability to persuade people to follow them, he said. They were also overly sensitive to criticism and struggled to empathize and listen — negative traits that were encapsulated by an encounter Dr. Maccoby had with a CEO who brusquely rejected his counsel by saying, “I didn’t get here by listening to people.”
“Productive narcissists are not only risk takers willing to get the job done but also charmers who can convert the masses with their rhetoric,” Dr. Maccoby wrote. “The danger is that narcissism can turn unproductive when, lacking self-knowledge and restraining anchors, narcissists become unrealistic dreamers. They nurture grand schemes and harbor the illusion that only circumstances or enemies block their success. … Even brilliant narcissists can come under suspicion for self-involvement, unpredictability, and — in extreme cases — paranoia.”
Some business scholars criticized the article, saying that Dr. Maccoby had done little more than coin an exciting new term. But the piece won the McKinsey Award for best Harvard Business Review article of the year, and he adapted it into a popular book, “The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership” (2003).
The term was also championed by many in the business world. According to his daughter, a half-dozen prominent CEOs called Dr. Maccoby to complain that he had not cited them as “productive narcissists.” Dr. Maccoby himself said that he had coached 33 “successful narcissistic leaders” during his career, telling the Boston Globe in 2017, “They’re all liars.”
And yet, he added, “as one CEO said to me, ‘Yes, I lie about our products and results, but I work very hard to make my lies come true.’ ”
Dr. Maccoby was first widely known for coining another corporate label, “the gamesman.” The term served as the title for his second book, a 1977 bestseller that sorted business leaders into four basic types: jungle fighters (hard-driving executives motivated by power and money), craftsmen (driven by their own high standards of quality), company men (loyal, unselfish but not exactly creative) and the titular gamesmen, emotionally detached risk-takers who embrace change and are fueled by a desire for fame and winning.
Critics said “The Gamesman” was engrossing, if perhaps too sweeping in its generalizations. Dr. Maccoby based his findings on interviews with 250 managers and executives at a dozen companies, and extended his framework to other arenas outside business. Among presidents, he said, John F. Kennedy was a gamesman, Gerald Ford and Dwight D. Eisenhower were company men, and Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon were jungle fighters.
Charles Heckscher, a Rutgers University labor expert who worked with Dr. Maccoby as a graduate student, said that unlike many other scholars, Dr. Maccoby brought to his work “a very deep psychoanalytic understanding of people’s motivations,” helping to show how organizations develop and respond to social change.
“He was a brilliant consultant in large part because of his psychoanalytic understanding,” Heckscher added in a phone interview. “He tells a story where a CEO said to him, ‘Okay, you want to be a consultant? Tell me something I don’t know.’ Michael said, ‘Well, I can’t just make it up. Let’s do a Rorschach test.’ He did it and interpreted it, and the guy took him on [as a consultant].
“I never saw him do a Rorschach test, but I did see him understand how people were responding at a level they were not aware of, and to build trust as a result.”
The older of two children, Michael Maccoby was born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on March 4, 1933. His mother was a homemaker from Oregon who later worked as a schoolteacher, and his father was a Reform rabbi from London, the last in a line of seven consecutive generations of Maccoby rabbis. One of his aunts, Eleanor Emmons Maccoby, was a distinguished psychologist and helped inspire him to go into the field.
At Harvard College, Dr. Maccoby was president of the student newspaper, the Crimson, and roommates with Anthony Beilenson, who later served 10 terms in Congress as a California Democrat. Dr. Maccoby was also a classmate of author John Updike, who led the rival Lampoon humor magazine.
Along with several other Crimson journalists, Dr. Maccoby stole the Lampoon’s mascot, a bronze figure of an ibis, and presented it to Soviet diplomats in New York as a “peace dove,” in an elaborate school prank that made national news. A deputy ambassador from Moscow “asked me about Harvard and whether they taught Marx and Engels,” Dr. Maccoby later told the Crimson. (He also said that he was briefly “kidnapped” by Updike and other Lampoon writers in retaliation for the theft.)
Dr. Maccoby received a bachelor’s degree in 1954 and studied at the University of Oxford and the University of Chicago before returning to Harvard, where he earned his doctorate in 1960.
By then he had married Sandylee Weille, a portrait painter and champion figure skater. Together they drove south to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where they started a family while Dr. Maccoby studied psychoanalysis and collaborated with Fromm, conducting research for their book “Social Character in a Mexican Village,” published in 1970. That same year, Dr. Maccoby and his family settled in Washington, where he got a fellowship at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank.
Deciding that there was more to learn from high-tech companies than rural villages, Dr. Maccoby visited corporations including Hewlett-Packard and IBM. For one of his first workplace experiments, he helped overhaul an auto-parts factory in Bolivar, Tenn., in an effort to “humanize” the workplace while improving communication and productivity. Workers were separated into teams and given new freedoms on the job, including the opportunity to go home early when they reached their daily quotas.
Dr. Maccoby came to believe that he and other organizers “were too idealistic” in the project. Yet his work at the Harman Automotive plant attracted national attention, and he was soon consulting with companies including AT&T, working to build trust between management and workers. He was also consulting overseas, including in Sweden, where in 2007 he was named a commander of the Order of the Polar Star by King Carl XVI Gustaf.
Dr. Maccoby’s wife died in 2019. In addition to his daughter Maccoby-Berglof, of London and Stockholm, survivors include three other children, Nora Maccoby-Hathaway of Mérida, Mexico, and Izette Maccoby Folger and Max Maccoby, both of Washington; and seven grandchildren.
While Dr. Maccoby continued to write about leadership in books such as “Strategic Intelligence” (2015), he continued to field questions about narcissistic bosses, especially after Donald Trump ran for president in 2016. Trump had cited Dr. Maccoby’s work in his 2004 book “Think Like a Billionaire,” writing that Dr. Maccoby made “a convincing argument that narcissism can be a useful quality if you’re trying to start a business. A narcissist does not hear the naysayers.”
“At the Trump Organization,” he continued, “I listen to people, but my vision is my vision.”
It was true, Dr. Maccoby said, that narcissists could make extraordinary leaders. But he worried that Trump embodied the worst aspects of the character type, especially the tendency to “make organizations into tribes.”
“If you look at Trump, he really is not leading the party. He is creating a tribe of people who share a sense of both resentment and being better than other people,” Dr. Maccoby told The Washington Post in 2016. “History shows this kind of personality, when they are given power and they are puffed up, can become totally abusive and dangerous.” | 2022-11-11T01:53:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michael Maccoby, authority on leadership and the workplace, dies at 89 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/10/leadership-expert-michael-maccoby-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/10/leadership-expert-michael-maccoby-dead/ |
According to investigators, 13- and 14-year-olds allegedly suffered severe chemical burns while working for a food safety company
One of the country’s largest providers of food safety sanitation illegally employed dozens of children at several Midwestern meatpacking facilities, the Labor Department says.
Packer Sanitation Services interfered with the Labor Department’s investigation by intimidating the children from cooperating with investigators, the agency alleged in a complaint filed Wednesday. The company also deleted and manipulated employment records, the Department said.
A federal judge on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction ordering the company to immediately stop using “oppressive child labor” and comply with the Labor Department’s demands for information.
Gina Swenson, a spokesperson for Packer Sanitation Services, said the company prohibits the employment of anyone under the age of 18 and does not tolerate any violation of that policy, noting that the company has “industry-leaning” procedures for confirming the identities of its employees, including the government’s E-Verify system.
“While rogue individuals could of course seek to engage in fraud or identity theft, we are confident in our company’s strict compliance policies and will defend ourselves vigorously against these claims,” Swenson said.
The children employed by Packer Sanitation Services worked at meatpacking plants owned JBS USA, a subsidiary of JBS Foods, the world’s largest meat processor, in Grand Island, Nebraska and Worthington, Minnesota, and Marshall, Minnesota, according to court records. Packer Sanitation Services has sanitation contracts with JBS USA in each of those facilities.
Michael Koenig, the chief ethics and compliance officer at JBS, said the meat processor is “taking seriously the allegations” against its contractor, which if true, are a clear violation of its ethics policies. “We are immediately launching an independent, third-party audit at all of our facilities to thoroughly evaluate this situation.”
The Labor Department’s wage and hour division began its investigation on Aug. 24, when the division received “credible information” alleging that the company employed children in hazardous occupations.
In Grand Island, Nebraska, a 17-year-old who said they had worked for several weeks on the cleaning floor told investigators that “many other” students worked for Packer at the JBS facility.
Packer made numerous attempts to block the investigation, the complaint alleges. Managers repeatedly told Labor Department investigators not to take photos or video. An interviewee said “someone” had instructed them to only stay for five minutes during the interview, and spent the interview texting on their phone. An investigator also witnessed a supervisor who said they used their work phone to delete and archive WhatsApp messages on their phone. | 2022-11-11T03:03:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dozens of youths illegally employed to clean meat plants, Labor Dept. says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/10/youth-workers-meat-packing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/10/youth-workers-meat-packing/ |
Former president Barack Obama points to a rendering for his lakefront presidential center at a community event in 2017. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
Lakeside Alliance, a partnership of at least five Black-owned construction firms, said in an email that it was informed of the noose earlier that morning and reported it to the police. The group has suspended operations to provide more anti-bias training to workers and is offering a $100,000 reward aimed at finding the “individual or individuals responsible for this shameful act,” it said.
The project will be built in Jackson Park, a public space named after the former president Andrew Jackson, who was a enslaver. Ownership will ultimately transfer to the city. | 2022-11-11T03:16:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Noose found at Obama Presidential Center construction site in Chicago - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/obama-presidential-center-noose-chicago/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/10/obama-presidential-center-noose-chicago/ |
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark (22) shoots a 3-point basket as Evansville guard A’Niah Griffin (21) defends during an NCAA college basketball game Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022, in Iowa City, Iowa. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen via AP)
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Caitlin Clark had 26 points and 12 assists, Monika Czinano added 23 points and No. 4 Iowa set a program record for scoring in a 115-62 win over Evansville on Thursday night.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Rickea Jackson had 24 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Lady Volunteers.
STORRS, Conn. — Azzi Fudd overcame a poor shooting start to score 26 points and led UConn to a season-opening win over Northeastern.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Chrislyn Carr scored 15 points to lead Louisville.
AMES, Iowa — Lexi Donarski scored 22 points in Iowa State’s rout of Southern.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Diamond Johnson scored 18 points and N.C. State routed in-state rival Elon.
WACO, Texas — Aijha Blackwell scored 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead Baylor.
TUCSON, Ariz. — Esmery Martinez had 20 points and 15 rebounds, Shaina Pellington scored 20 points and five teammates scored in double figures as Arizona opened its season with a rout.
Sophie Glancey scored 11 points to lead Northern Arizona (0-2).
VERMILLION, S.D. — Morgan Maly had her second career double-double, matching her career-high with 21 points and adding 10 rebounds in the win for Creighton.
Grace Larkins scored 20 points for the Coyotes (1-1), who lost all five starters and their coach from last year’s NCAA Tournament team. South Dakota, which made a record 19 3-pointers in its season opener, went 2 of 17 from the arc and shot 30%. | 2022-11-11T04:36:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 4 Iowa sets scoring record in 115-62 win over Evansville - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-4-iowa-sets-scoring-record-in-115-62-win-over-evansville/2022/11/10/1db237d0-6173-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-4-iowa-sets-scoring-record-in-115-62-win-over-evansville/2022/11/10/1db237d0-6173-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
New Jersey Devils center Nico Hischier (13) and fans celebrate after defenseman Dougie Hamilton scored in overtime of an NHL hockey game against the Ottawa Senators, Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022, in Newark, N.J. The Devils won 4-3. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
NEWARK, N.J. — Nico Hischier scored his second goal of the game at 4:27 of overtime and lifted New Jersey past the Ottawa Senators 4-3 on Thursday night, extending the Devils’ winning streak to eight games. | 2022-11-11T04:38:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hischier's overtime goal lifts Devils past Senators 4-3 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/hischiers-overtime-goal-lifts-devils-past-senators-4-3/2022/11/10/d8825fae-616e-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/hischiers-overtime-goal-lifts-devils-past-senators-4-3/2022/11/10/d8825fae-616e-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The space shuttle Challenger hangs at a NASA building in 1985. (Phil Sandlin/AP)
A History Channel documentary crew has discovered a piece of the space shuttle Challenger — which broke apart after takeoff in 1986 — on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, NASA announced Thursday.
It marks the first discovery of Challenger debris in more than 25 years, according to the History Channel, which will air footage of the find when it premieres a series about the Bermuda Triangle on Nov. 22.
In a preview posted to Twitter, two divers explore a large panel covered in orange tiles, partially covered by sand on the seafloor.
“Definitely an aircraft, I think we need to talk to NASA,” one of the divers says.
Agency officials viewed the footage and confirmed that the piece belonged to Challenger, NASA said in a news release Thursday. The agency did not say when the film crew discovered the fragment, which was submerged off Florida’s eastern coast near Cape Canaveral and remains on the seafloor.
By law, remnants of the space shuttles belong to the federal government, and NASA is considering what to do with the newly discovered piece “that will properly honor the legacy of Challenger’s fallen astronauts and the families who loved them,” it said.
Seven astronauts died when the spacecraft broke up 73 seconds after takeoff on Jan. 28, 1986.
An investigation later revealed that cold temperatures the morning of launch compromised the seal of O-rings in one of the rocket boosters. Several employees had raised concerns after seeing ice on the launch tower, but managers overruled them and cleared the Challenger to launch.
A Challenger engineer blamed himself for 30 years. Then this ‘miracle’ happened.
The newly discovered piece is one of the largest discovered since the explosion and the first since 1996, NASA program manager Michael Ciannilli told the Associated Press.
“My heart skipped a beat, I must say, and it brought me right back to 1986 … and what we all went through as a nation,” Ciannilli, who oversees the agency’s Apollo, Challenger, Columbia Lessons Learned Program, told the Associated Press.
President Reagan was supposed to give his State of the Union address that night, but instead spoke about about the Challenger explosion. (Video: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)
NASA estimates that it has recovered just under half the debris of Challenger, roughly 118 tons. Most of that sits in closed silos at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, according to the AP. Several fragments are on permanent display in an exhibit at Kennedy Space Center.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a news release Thursday that the Challenger accident “still feels like yesterday” and will be always be a reminder for the agency to put safety first.
‘We’ve lost ’em, God bless ’em’: What it was like to witness the Challenger disaster
“This discovery gives us an opportunity to pause once again, to uplift the legacies of the seven pioneers we lost, and to reflect on how this tragedy changed us,” Nelson said. “At NASA, the core value of safety is — and must forever remain — our top priority, especially as our missions explore more of the cosmos than ever before.” | 2022-11-11T04:38:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | History Channel crew finds piece of space shuttle Challenger off Florida coast - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/filmmakers-discover-challenger-piece/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/filmmakers-discover-challenger-piece/ |
The crime was for financial gain, and I had planned it in advance. My wife knew and begged me not to do it, but I felt I had no other choice. My wife benefited from the proceeds of the crime and willingly spent the proceeds. I was never caught. For 30 years we never spoke of this incident, as the memory was too painful for us both.
I have considered telling my children as truthfully and factually as I can, and have written and rewritten my confession many times to share with them. I have not sent that confession. It sits, password protected, on my hard drive. I think my adult children would understand and forgive. I cringe at the thought of my grandchildren knowing this.
Reformed: I think you should meet with a lawyer, deliver a full and accurate account of what you did, and discuss your options, including admitting this crime and making restitution to the victims or institution you harmed. (The statute of limitations for you to be prosecuted possibly ran out decades ago.)
Dear Amy: I’m a 48-year-old woman who’s been dating a 52-year-old man for four years. He’s a man of few words. He doesn’t always say how he feels, but typically expresses how he feels with gestures.
However, I’m ready to settle down. I’m ready to be married. I’m ready to see where this relationship is really going, so do you think that it is okay to ask my boyfriend to marry me?
Wondering: One quick way to see where your relationship is going is to ask your longtime guy to marry you.
Dear Amy: Regarding the issue of post-pandemic hugging, I recently attended a professional conference in person.
We all had a name tag and lanyard, but what was novel was that we could choose the color of our lanyard (red, yellow, or green) depending on how we felt about shaking hands or other touching. Green meant go for it (high-fives or handshakes), yellow meant “I’m still cautious,” and red meant “I really want to social distance — no touching.”
Yellow: I like it. | 2022-11-11T06:06:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: Wife threatens to tell our kids my secret crime of years ago - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/11/ask-amy-crime-past-kids/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/11/ask-amy-crime-past-kids/ |
How ‘Chip War’ Puts Nations In Technology Arms Race
Analysis by Ian King and Debby Wu | Bloomberg
The incredibly complex, high-stakes business of making semiconductors has always been a battle between global giants. Now it’s also a race among governments. These critical bits of technology -- also known as integrated circuits or, more commonly, just chips -- may be the tiniest yet most exacting products ever manufactured. And because they’re so difficult and costly to produce, there’s a worldwide reliance on just a handful of companies -- a dependence that was brought into stark relief by shortages during the pandemic. At the same time, the US has been ratcheting up curbs on chip companies’ exports to China to contain the rise of a geopolitical and economic rival. Tens of billions of dollars have been committed in a dash to expand production in the coming years -- just as a looming recession began to drastically curb global demand.
1. Why the war over chips?
Chipmaking has become an increasingly precarious business. New plants have a price tag of up to $20 billion, take years to build and need to be run flat-out for 24 hours a day to turn a profit. The scale required has reduced the number of companies with leading-edge technology to just three -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. and Intel Corp. of the US. Chipmakers are under increasing scrutiny over what they sell to China, the largest market for chips. Shifts in the global supply chain and recent shortages has governments rushing to subsidize new factories and equipment, from the US and Europe to China and Japan.
2. Why are chips so critical?
They’re the thing that makes electronic items smart. Made from materials deposited on disks of silicon, chips can perform a variety of functions. Memory chips, which store data, are relatively simple and are traded like commodities. Logic chips, which run programs and act as the brains of a device, are more complex and expensive. And as the technology running devices -- from space hardware to refrigerators -- is getting smarter and more connected, semiconductors are more pervasive in the modern world. That explosion has some analysts forecasting that the industry will double in value to become a trillion-dollar market this decade.
3. Is the world short of computer chips?
Pandemic lockdowns and supply-chain shortages made many types of chips scarce for a period of about two years. That event helped usher in this new era, with an increasing realization of their strategic importance. Now that PC and phone demand is cooling off post-pandemic -- and much of the world is falling into a recession -- the cycle has turned. Chipmakers are warning of a glut in certain areas, though some customers including carmakers are still struggling to get enough. Yet for political reasons chipmakers were still poised to add capacity at a time of shaky demand – which could further upend the industry.
4. How’s the competition going?
• In October, the US imposed tighter controls on exports of some chips and chipmaking equipment to China to stop it from developing capabilities that could become a military threat, such as supercomputers and artificial intelligence.
• China is pushing hard to catch up but is facing more US moves to restrict access. Notably, China’s Huawei Technologies Co., which once led the market for mobile phone infrastructure and rivaled Samsung as one of the biggest smartphone makers, was cut off from its primary suppliers. In any case, China has a long way to go and its task is getting harder.
• TSMC had been unveiling bigger budgets, while Samsung was introducing cutting-edge technology ahead of its rivals. TSMC’s revenue is expected to surge 40% this year. In 2021, Samsung overtook Intel to become the world’s largest chipmaker; this year, TSMC is on course to overtake Intel.
• US politicians have decided that they need to do more than just hold back China. The Chips and Science Act, signed into law Aug. 9, will provide $50 billion of federal money to support US production of semiconductors and foster a skilled workforce needed by the industry.
• European Union officials are exploring ways to build an advanced semiconductor factory in Europe, with assistance from Intel and possibly TSMC, as part of its goal to double chip production to 20% of the global market by 2030.
5. How does Taiwan fit into all this?
The island democracy emerged as the dominant player in outsourced chipmaking partly because of a government decision in the 1970s to promote the electronics industry. TSMC almost single-handedly created the business of building chips for others, one that was embraced as the cost of building plants skyrocketed. Large-scale customers like Apple Inc. gave it the massive volume to build industry-leading expertise and now the world now relies on it. Matching its scale and skills would take years and cost a fortune. Politics have made the race about more than money, though, with the US signaling that it will continue efforts to restrict China’s access to American technology used in Taiwan’s foundries. China has long claimed the island, just 100 miles off its coast, as a renegade province and threatened to invade to prevent its independence. Recent military exercises by China have reignited concerns about the world’s dependence on Taiwan for chips. | 2022-11-11T06:06:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How ‘Chip War’ Puts Nations In Technology Arms Race - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-chip-war-puts-nations-in-technology-arms-race/2022/11/11/e3d3bd4c-617f-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-chip-war-puts-nations-in-technology-arms-race/2022/11/11/e3d3bd4c-617f-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
What Is the Metaverse, and Will It Be Worth the Wait?
Analysis by Nate Lanxon | Bloomberg
An attendee wears a Oculus VR Inc. virtual reality (VR) headset during a demonstration of the Metaverse on the Accenture Plc stand on day two of the MWC Barcelona at the Fira de Barcelona venue in Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Over 1,800 exhibitors and attendees from 183 countries will attend the annual event, which runs from Feb. 28 to March 3. Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
Imagine a three-dimensional online world where you teleport from your London office to a meeting room in Singapore, shop at a digital replica of your favorite clothing store then join a friend for a round of virtual golf. To some, this aspirational version of the internet known as the metaverse is the future of human interaction. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg changed the company’s name to Meta Platforms Inc. and is pouring billions of dollars a year into efforts to dominate this “next frontier.” But it’s unclear what a unified virtual universe would look like, or whether people really want it.
1. How would the metaverse work?
It would combine technologies including video-conferencing, games like Minecraft and Roblox, crypto tokens, email, virtual reality, social media and live-streaming. Just as you might create a document in Microsoft Word and send it via Google’s Gmail to a colleague to read on an Apple iPad, items in the metaverse would be able to move across an ecosystem of competing products, holding their value and function. A digital work of art bought as a non-fungible token, or NFT, from Company A, say, would be displayable on the virtual wall of a house in a game made by Company B.
2. What would you do there?
Work and play. An example: “Jane” creates a 3D avatar — a digital representation of herself — within Facebook or Microsoft Teams and uses it in virtual office meetings. After work, Jane has tickets to a virtual concert with friends and all their avatars appear among the hundreds of heads in the audience. The music finishes and the band says, “Don’t forget to buy a T-shirt!” Through her avatar, Jane browses the designs at a stall just as she would on Amazon, Asos or Taobao today, pays for one with cryptocurrency and wears it at the virtual office the next day. A colleague asks to borrow it for his daughter to use that evening in a Roblox game, and Jane lends it to him. This scenario involves corporate communication tools, live-event streaming, e-commerce and sharing something of value. It only works if each provider builds its system in a way that makes assets such as avatars and shirts compatible and transferable.
3. When can I enter the metaverse?
Not for several years, if ever. You can already use crypto tokens to buy “land” in browser-based virtual worlds like Decentraland, attend conferences in VR using vFairs or use Sizebay’s 3D dressing room to try on clothes. But these products are far from being the cohesive, interoperable world envisioned by Zuckerberg and others. While there’s no shortage of investors betting the metaverse will come into being, the biggest checks are being written for chipmakers, video game studios and other companies whose products can thrive whether or not it happens. Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella said in January the company’s planned $69 billion takeover of game maker Activision Blizzard Inc. will help to build “the next internet.” But, he added, there “won’t be a single centralized metaverse and there shouldn’t be.” The metaverse would also need ultrafast internet that can handle hundreds of concurrent streams of data, and most of today’s wireless connections can barely support multiplayer games like Fortnite.
4. Is there demand for it?
It’s proving hard to persuade people to hook a VR headset to their face and hang out with cartoonish versions of their colleagues and best friends. Zuckerberg was widely mocked in August when he posted a primitive “selfie” from the metaverse to promote Meta’s VR platform, Horizon Worlds. There’s not a great deal of evidence that people working from home want to switch from regular Zoom calls to meetings in VR. For some, the benefit of feeling “in the room” is offset by sensations of dizziness and nausea that can come with the constant motion. When social media platform Snap Inc. announced layoffs in September, people working on technologies that could play a role in a future metaverse were first to go. Meta’s VR division has been making headsets since 2014 and has reported heavy losses, and revenue that’s only a fraction of Meta’s core ad-funded business. Many exchange-traded funds and mutual funds specializing in metaverse-related businesses have plunged in 2022 as rising interest rates sent investors in search of firms with more predictable revenue and tangible profits.
5. What if the metaverse succeeds?
It could be a technological leap forward similar to the web’s transformation in the 1990s from static text and images on a page to a place to buy a book or watch a movie, and then into a way to attend college lectures and collaboratively design products. It might change how people congregate, interact and spend money, creating a distinct virtual life experience. It’s the kind of future imagined in science-fiction novels such as Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” and movies like “The Matrix” and “Ready Player One.” Each of those, it should be noted, depicted a form of dystopia.
(Adds detail on metaverse-related funds in fourth section. A previous version of this article corrected the spelling of author Neal Stephenson’s name in Reference Shelf section) | 2022-11-11T06:06:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What Is the Metaverse, and Will It Be Worth the Wait? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-is-the-metaverse-and-will-it-be-worth-the-wait/2022/11/11/951ed4d8-6180-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-is-the-metaverse-and-will-it-be-worth-the-wait/2022/11/11/951ed4d8-6180-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
BOSTON — Charlie McAvoy scored the go-ahead goal in his season debut and Boston remained perfect on home ice by beating skidding Calgary.
ST. LOUIS — Calle Rosen had a goal and an assist as St. Louis ended its eight-game losing streak — the longest in franchise history — with a win over San Jose.
NEWARK, N.J. — Nico Hischier scored his second goal of the game at 4:27 of overtime as New Jersey beat Ottawa and extended its winning streak to eight games.
DENVER — Logan O’Connor and Mikko Rantanen each scored twice and Colorado beat Nashville on a night when the team paid tribute to longtime color analyst Peter McNab following his death earlier this week.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Andrei Svechnikov scored three goals and Carolina beat high-powered Edmonton.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Boone Jenner scored twice, Johnny Gaudreau had a goal and two assists, and Columbus snapped a five-game skid. | 2022-11-11T06:09:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eichel nets 3 back in Buffalo as Vegas wins 9th straight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/eichel-nets-3-back-in-buffalo-as-vegas-wins-9th-straight/2022/11/11/c949123c-6180-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/eichel-nets-3-back-in-buffalo-as-vegas-wins-9th-straight/2022/11/11/c949123c-6180-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
A group of demonstrators protest the use of fossil fuels at the U.N. Climate Change Conference on Nov. 9, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Peter Dejong/AP)
To have a chance of keeping global temperature rise within 1.5 degrees Celsius, humanity can release no more than 380 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent over the coming decades — an amount equal to about nine years of current emissions, the report says. To meet reduced emissions goals, the world will need to curb emissions by about 1.4 billion tons per year, comparable to how much emissions shrank in 2020, during pandemic stay-at-home orders.
Yet even as scientists warn of the world’s dangerous trajectory, leaders here at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, have advocated for natural gas as a “transition fuel” that would ease the world’s switch from fossil energy to renewables. At least four new gas projects have been reported or announced in the past 10 days, with several African countries pledging to expand export capacity and supply more fuel to Europe. Representatives from both Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, the host of next year’s climate conference, have made clear they view COP27 as an opportunity to promote gas.
“Gas is not a low carbon energy source,” said Julia Pongratz, a climate scientist at the University of Munich and an author of the Global Carbon Budget report released Friday.
Pongratz said it is still technically possible for the world to avoid temperature rise beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius — which scientists say is needed to avoid disastrous extreme weather, rampant hunger and disease and the collapse of ecosystems on which humanity depends.
But if fossil fuel use does not dramatically decline, “in a few years we will no longer be able to say it’s possible,” Pongraz said. “And then we would need to look back and say we could have done it and we didn’t. How do we explain that to our kids?”
The planned expansion goes beyond what is needed to replace interrupted Russian fuel supplies, the study said. And it runs counter to findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency that there can be no new gas, oil and coal development if humanity wants to prevent dangerous warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.
This week United Arab Emirates president and upcoming COP host Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan told leaders that the UAE would continue providing oil and gas “for as long as the world is in need.” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for a brief increase in fossil fuel production, saying “without energy security there is no energy transition.” Tanzanian energy minister January Makamba announced a $40 billion new LNG export project. And although German Chancellor Olaf Scholz publicly said “there must not be a worldwide renaissance of fossil fuels,” his country has also encouraged nations like Algeria and Senegal to expand their gas production.
African nations are among the most vulnerable to climate change, and can’t afford to build out new fossil fuel infrastructure that will continue to heat the planet, she said. Local communities have also suffered as gas projects displace residents and generate air pollution.
European leaders’ justification that new gas projects are a short term solution to an energy crisis rings hollow, Chiponda added, given that some 600 million people in Africa have no access to electricity.
“Is that not a crisis?” she asked.
Catherine Abreu, director of the nonprofit Destination Zero, which calls for an end to fossil fuel use, said the push for gas was intertwined with the other issue dominating discussions in Sharm el-Sheikh: developing countries’ demand for more financial support from wealthier nations as they cope with the consequences of climate change.
Developing nations’ push for a loss and damage fund, through which large emitters would pay for irreversible climate harms like Pakistan’s recent floods, faces an uphill battle amid skepticism from the United States and other industrialized countries.
“There’s such an imperative on investment in this region, and the only kind of investment that is available is for oil and gas,” Abreu said.
That tension was evident at a meeting of African leaders Tuesday, where African Development Bank president Akinwumi Adesina declared that “Africa needs gas” to develop.
“We want to make sure we have access to electricity,” he said, as the room broke out in applause. “We don’t want to become the museum of poverty in the world.”
Pongratz, one of the Global Carbon Budget report authors, hoped the findings would inform negotiators as the high-stakes, highly technical portion of the climate conference begins.
“We have depicted the urgency of the problem,” she said. “No one has the excuse of not knowing these numbers.” | 2022-11-11T07:33:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | World has nine years to avert catastrophic global warming, study shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/11/cop27-egypt-carbon-budget-gas-projects/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/11/cop27-egypt-carbon-budget-gas-projects/ |
Cape Diamond
SINGAPORE — Myanmar’s military has been stepping up aerial attacks in its campaign against resistance fighters, relying more heavily on Russian-supplied aircraft, watchdog groups and resistance leaders say.
Recent airstrikes have been among the deadliest since the military seized control in February, Myanmar experts say. The campaign is prompting louder calls from human rights groups for foreign governments to stop the supply of aircraft equipment and aviation fuel to the Southeast Asian country. The airstrikes also have heightened concern over Myanmar’s deepening relationship with Russia, one of its remaining allies in the face of tighter Western sanctions.
As world leaders travel to Southeast Asia this week for a summit, Myanmar activists say they’re hopeful that progress will be made toward a sweeping arms embargo.
“Some of the very types of weapons that are being used to kill people in Ukraine are being used to kill the people of Myanmar,” Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar, said in October. “And they come from the very same source — they come from Russia.”
Over the past month, Myanmar’s military has deployed Russia-made Yak-130 jets and MI-35 helicopters across the country, dropping unguided, imprecise munitions that have killed dozens of people, say rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In September, two military helicopters opened fire at a school in the central Sagaing region, where fighting has been intense, killing at least 11 children, according to the United Nations children’s agency. Weeks later, military jets targeted an outdoor concert in the northern Kachin state, which is controlled by an ethnic separatist group. The attack killed as many as 80 people, according to local officials, and elicited international condemnation, including from the United States. Scores of civilians were among the dead, said Col. Naw Bu, a spokesman for the Kachin Independence Organization.
The junta denied that the airstrike killed civilians, saying instead that it had targeted known “enemies and terrorists,” including soldiers from the Kachin Independence Organization, which has long sought independence from Myanmar.
As the world moves on, Myanmar confronts a mounting, hidden toll
But Human Rights Watch Asia researcher Manny Maung said there’s mounting evidence the airstrikes are “indiscriminate, disproportionate uses of violence” that are likely to have violated laws of war.
The attacks are “not just a physical threat,” she added, “but a psychologically terrifying threat.”
In Sagaing, a resistance stronghold where conflict has been fierce, villagers have been building makeshift bunkers or relocating to temporary jungle camps to protect themselves from the airstrikes, said Lwan Thu, an activist in the region. Because the junta, also known as the Tatmadaw, has blocked internet access in parts of Sagaing, community leaders have not been able to share information about the movement of military aircraft or send out warnings when attacks seem imminent, said Lwan Thu, 33.
“We have no weapon or defense system to protect us,” he added. “We have no alternative except to flee.”
While the Kachin and Sagaing airstrikes were the most significant, smaller attacks are occurring almost daily, said U Yee Mon, the defense minister for the opposition National Unity Government, which has been operating in exile since the coup. After months of fundraising, the NUG recently bought some antiaircraft weapons, U Yee Mon said. “But I’ll have to admit that both our reach and capacity are insufficient to counter the [junta’s] aerial attacks at this time,” he added.
After the rainy season, it's a "airstrike" season in #Myanmar now.
People of #Kale #SagaingRegion demand #NoFlyZone in Myanmar. #HearTheVoiceOfMyanmar #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar #Nov28Coup pic.twitter.com/7oCPUKds0V
— Thinzar Shunlei Yi (@thinzashunleiyi) November 28, 2021
To arm its military, Myanmar relies on imports, traditionally from Russia, China and India. The latter two countries, which border Myanmar, have cooled toward the junta as the civil war has dragged on, analysts say. But the junta has sought to tighten its alliance with the Kremlin this past year, including by expressing support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Myanmar’s military leader, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has visited Russia three times since assuming power in a coup, reportedly telling Russia’s defense minister in June 2021 that “thanks to Russia, our army has become one of the strongest in the region.” During his most recent visit, in September, the general met with President Vladimir Putin and toured a plant producing fighter jets.
In return, Russia has backed the junta’s bid to be recognized as Myanmar’s legitimate government, referring to Min Aung Hlaing as “prime minister.” Despite its losses in Ukraine, Russia has promised to follow through on arms deals signed before the coup in Myanmar, including for missile defense systems and fighter jets. It also has signed new agreements to provide Myanmar with oil and military training.
A love story, forged in Myanmar’s political strife, ends in execution
Many of the junta’s airstrikes have been carried out by Yak-130 jets, two-seater planes originally designed to train pilots but used in Myanmar and elsewhere for counterinsurgency operations. Myanmar has at least 20 Yak-130 jets, including six that it received last December from Russia, said Myanmar Witness, a nonprofit organization that investigates rights abuses.
Starting this year, Russia also began delivery of six Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets, said Myanmar Witness. Matt Freear, a spokesman for the organization, said researchers recently verified evidence, including satellite imagery, showing that at least one of these jets is already in Myanmar. These machines have twice the payload and twice the “potential lethality” of the Yak-130, Freear added.
Faced with multiple insurgencies, the Tatmadaw’s ground forces have been “spread thin” over the past year, leaving air power as one of its only remaining advantages, said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who studies security issues in Southeast Asia. Despite the advantage the junta has in the air, its airstrikes haven’t appeared to be part of a clear military strategy, Abuza said. Aircraft have operated in isolation rather than in tandem with ground forces, often targeting civilian buildings such as churches, schools and hospitals.
“When I look at a helicopter gunship shooting 30 millimeter canons into an elementary school … it’s hard to discern any military strategy other than to terrorize the civilian population,” Abuza said. The military “is signaling to people that ‘we’re willing to do anything.’ But in terms of a military strategy, there’s none that I can see.”
Russia buying weapons from North Korea for Ukraine war, U.S. intelligence says
Human rights groups are calling on the U.N. Security Council to impose a global arms embargo on Myanmar. But grounding the aircraft it already has would require reducing the supply of aviation fuel, and that would involve countries far beyond Russia, said Montse Ferrer, a researcher at Amnesty International.
In a report released last week, Amnesty identified companies in Singapore, Thailand and elsewhere that have helped provide aviation fuel to the Myanmar military. After being presented with Amnesty’s findings, one of these companies, the Singapore-based Puma Energy, announced that it would start to withdraw its investments from Myanmar. Others must follow suit, Ferrer said. | 2022-11-11T07:39:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Myanmar military airstrikes pound resistance fighters with Russian-suppled aircraft - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/myanmar-military-airstrikes-russian-jets/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/myanmar-military-airstrikes-russian-jets/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Russian forces destroying infrastructure in Kherson retreat, Kyiv says; U.S. to send Stinger missiles
Civilians evacuated from the Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region of Ukraine sit inside a bus as they arrive at a local railway station in the town of Dzhankoi, Crimea on Nov. 10. (Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters)
Russian forces retreating from the west bank of the Dnieper River, including the city of Kherson, damaged and destroyed communications and other infrastructure and looted some of the region’s museums, Ukrainian officials said Thursday. President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested in his nightly address that Russian troops were also laying mines as they depart.
But even amid reports that some Russian troops were leaving, Ukrainian officials said a complete withdrawal from the region would take much longer. “It’s not that easy to withdraw these troops from Kherson in one day or two days. As a minimum, [it will take] one week,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told Reuters. He said the retreat would free up troops on both sides to fight on other fronts — but that the winter would likely slow the tempo on the battlefield.
What to know about Russia's withdrawal from the city of Kherson
The United States on Thursday pledged an additional $400 million in security assistance for Ukraine, including Avengers air defense systems that come equipped with Stinger missiles. “This increased air defense will be critical for Ukraine as Russia continues to use cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones to attack critical civilian infrastructure,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters in Washington.
Russia’s expected retreat from Kherson could open the door to more battlefield advances for Ukrainian forces, U.S. officials and military analysts said, but significant gains beyond that are unlikely to come soon as winter approaches and both sides prepare to bolster combat units with weapons, ammunition, and personnel.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, warned Nov. 10 that Russian troops planned to lay mines as they leave Kherson. (Video: Reuters)
About 40 settlements have been liberated in the south of Ukraine, Zelensky said in his speech discussing Thursday’s accomplishments. He did not specify when all those settlements had been retaken. “The occupiers leave behind thousands of unexploded mines and munitions,” he said, noting that the next step is to demine these settlements. That process, he said, normally takes decades, but Ukraine with the help of Western allies could do in years.
The Institute for the Study of War said that the war in Ukraine will not slow with the arrival of colder weather. “Winter weather could disproportionately harm poorly-equipped Russian forces in Ukraine, but well-supplied Ukrainian forces are unlikely to halt their counteroffensives due to the arrival of winter weather,” the Washington-based think tank said Thursday. Ukrainian forces may move more easily than in the autumn — when mud can slow or halt military advances, as it can in the spring — by taking advantage of frozen terrain, it said.
Ukraine will seek assistance from allies and other partners to help fund its Starlink satellite internet systems if SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk, stops providing them for free, the country’s defense minister told Reuters on Thursday. Ukraine’s armed forces rely on the Starlink devices on the battlefield, where cellular service is sporadic. Musk has complained that SpaceX is incurring heavy financial losses by operating the systems free of charge. “We will try to find the funds,” Defense Minister Reznikov said.
The United States will no longer treat Russia as a market economy in its anti-dumping proceedings, the Department of Commerce said in a statement. “This decision gives the United States the ability to apply the full force of the U.S. AD [anti-dumping] law to address the market distortions caused by increasing interference from the Russian government in their economy,” it said.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen plans to tell India on Friday that ending Russia’s war is a “moral imperative” and “the single best thing” that can help the global economy, in an apparent bid to push India closer to Ukraine. “Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi was correct when he said that this ‘is not an era of war,’” she will say, according to excerpts of her prepared remarks that Reuters reviewed.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry denied reports Friday that it planned to sell artillery shells to the United States, which would then provide the ammunition to Ukraine. The ministry said in a statement that the government’s position of not providing lethal aid to Ukraine is unchanged and that negotiations included a potential sale of 155mm howitzer shells “to make up for the shortage of 155mm ammunition inventories” in the United States.
Howitzers aid Ukraine’s push on southern front: Ukraine has used U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS launchers, to cut off Russian troops from their supply lines in the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. It has also used U.S.-provided howitzers to hammer the Russian front line, enabling Ukrainian infantry to liberate a string of occupied towns as they pushed toward Kherson, report Michael E. Miller and Anastacia Galouchka from Ukraine.
Even when the front line hasn’t moved, the U.S.-provided howitzers have helped the Ukrainians by keeping the Russians from having their own, shorter-range artillery at the front. “I can’t say they have changed the course of the fight,” said Lt. Col. Maksym Bohachuk, 29, a history teacher who is now a battalion commander, “but they [the howitzers] are speeding up our victory.” | 2022-11-11T07:39:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
What really happened to Royal Yacht Britannia from ‘The Crown’ Season 5?
The Royal Yacht Britannia enters Hong Kong harbor on its last overseas voyage in 1997. (Dan Groshong/AFP/Getty Images)
LONDON — The much-hyped fifth season of “The Crown” opens with a heavy-handed metaphor weighing approximately 4,000 tons.
It’s 1953, and a young Queen Elizabeth II, a month before her coronation, is in Scotland to launch the new royal yacht, Britannia. “I hope this brand new vessel, like your brand new queen, will prove to be dependable and constant, capable of weathering any storm,” she declares to great applause.
And so the queen and her ship are inextricably linked as the Netflix TV show fast-forwards to 1991, when questions about costly repairs for Britannia are presented in parallel to questions about whether the 65-year-old queen is too old for her role.
There is no missing that this is a narrative device in a series now labeled a “fictional dramatization.” But the episode’s release this week has renewed interest in the history of the royal yacht and ignited a debate about how the British monarch interacted with her government. It also happened to coincide with a modern-day echo of 1991, as new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, facing a recession, sunk plans for a replacement royal yacht.
What to know about Britannia, ‘the floating palace’
There is a real Royal Yacht Britannia, and, as in the show, the young queen really did announce its name and christen it with a bottle of Empire wine. (Though not with a self-referential speech.)
Britannia was the latest in a series of royal yachts dating back to 1660 and King Charles II. In 44 years of service, the ship sailed more than 1 million nautical miles — equivalent to more than 40 circumnavigations of the Earth — calling at more than 600 ports in 135 countries and projecting British influence around the world.
Britannia was used for state visits and receptions, royal family holidays and honeymoons. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all spent time on board, as did Boris Yeltsin and Nelson Mandela. When civil war broke out in South Yemen in 1986, Britannia was rerouted to help evacuate civilians.
“The Crown” suggests the yacht was the queen’s favorite “home,” cherished even more than Balmoral in the Scottish highlands. Biographers don’t dispute that this could have been true. In his book “Queen of Our Times,” Robert Hardman writes, “There were few places where the Queen would be happier.”
Although served by a crew of 220, the ship was a place where the royal family could relax and escape the watchful eye of the public. Hugh Casson, who designed the interior, once recounted, “the overall idea was to give the impression of a country house at sea.” Prince Philip, the queen’s husband, was fascinated with the birds he saw during voyages in the 1950s and even published a book titled, “Birds from Britannia.”
Did the queen lobby for repairs?
The controversial part of “The Crown” portrayal centers on whether the queen actively lobbied Prime Minister John Major for the government to pay for extensive repairs — which could have amounted to inappropriate interference in politics by a constitutional monarch.
She says in the show: “Here I am, coming to you, prime minister, on bended knee, for the sign off, but I’m hoping that will be a formality.”
The character of Major, who was prime minister during a tough recession, responds by suggesting the royal yacht is “something of a luxury” and that spending public money on it while the economy is in the tank would not be good for the government or the royal family.
The queen persists, arguing that the yacht is “a central and indispensable part of the way the crown serves the nation” and “a floating, seagoing expression of me.”
The queen-ship metaphor is dragged out in a later conversation, when the character of Prince Charles — impatient to be king — tells Major about Britannia: “Sometimes these old things are too costly to keep repairing.”
So did any of that actually take place?
The real-life Major has called the show’s imagined conversations: “a barrel-load of nonsense.”
Robert Lacey, a historical consultant on “The Crown,” defended the depiction. He told The Washington Post that the subject of the yacht would have inevitably come up between the queen and the prime minister, who met once a week to discuss matters of state.
“She certainly spoke about it to the prime minister,” Lacey said. “Obviously, the royal family would have lobbied for it. The queen did want another royal yacht.”
Hardman, the royal biographer, insisted that while the queen no doubt would have been interested in repairs or a replacement, she would not have “leaned on her prime ministers for money.”
In a letter written in 1994, later stored in the National Archives, the queen’s deputy private secretary Kenneth Scott wrote to the cabinet office that “the Queen would naturally very much welcome it if a way could be found of making available for the nation in the 21st century the kind of service which Britannia has provided for the last 43 years.”
Scott noted, however, that “the question of whether there should be a replacement yacht is very much one for the government” and “the last thing I should like to see is a newspaper headline saying ‘Queen Demands New Yacht.’”
The Times of London headline when the letter was uncovered in 2018: “I want a new yacht, Queen told Whitehall in secret letter.”
What happened to Britannia?
Major’s government wasn’t swayed by arguments to repair or renew the ship. Even with a retrofit costing an estimated 17 million pounds, Britannia would be expensive to run and hard to maintain. It was hard to justify when air travel was a readily available alternative for royal trips and trade missions.
The yacht’s final voyage abroad was to Hong Kong, when the territory was handed back to China in 1997. A few months later, Britannia undertook a farewell tour of Britain, calling at six major ports and blasting her sirens as she passed the shipyard that built her, before returning for a decommissioning ceremony in Portsmouth, England on Dec. 11, 1997. The ship’s clocks were stopped. The Royal Marines band played. Lacey noted: “The only time the queen was seen to cry was when the royal yacht was de-commissioned.”
The ship is now a visitor attraction site in Edinburgh, Scotland. On the day of the queen’s state funeral in September, a lone piper played a lament on the deck.
What about plans for a replacement royal yacht?
The possibility of a replacement yacht gained some traction during the 1997 general election, but the incoming Labour government nixed the idea.
More than two decades later, as part of a campaign to promote a reinvigorated “Global Britain” in the aftermath of Brexit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposed a new royal yacht. There was a push to name the ship after the late Prince Philip, though it would be more for the government than for the royal family. In Johnson’s vision, the ship would tour the world as a “floating embassy,” where officials would host summits and cement trade deals. It would cost an estimated 250 million pounds to build, plus 30 million pounds a year to run.
But once again, the economic climate is not favorable for big yacht projects. The new Sunak administration announced this week that it was terminating the royal yacht plan and would instead procure a surveillance ship that could protect energy cables and other infrastructure. The prime minister’s spokesman said it was “right to prioritize at a time when difficult spending decisions need to be made.” | 2022-11-11T09:48:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What happened to the Royal Yacht Britannia mentioned in The Crown Season 5? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/11/crown-yacht-britannia-queen-elizabeth/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/11/crown-yacht-britannia-queen-elizabeth/ |
Commanders Coach Ron Rivera preached focus and discipline to his players Thursday as the team faces yet another controversy. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
“It's difficult, but personally, I got to be stronger than what I'm up against,” he said, adding, “I wish it would die down.”
Brian Robinson Jr. spoke on his name being used in the team’s statement last night.
Does this make it harder to move on from the shooting?
“It’s difficult. But personally, I got to be stronger than what I’m up against.” pic.twitter.com/LTumN4ODWz
“Everybody wants to be [politically correct], but of course it's upsetting,” he said. “[Robinson] never should've been part of that situation. … His feelings and what he's gone through should be a completely separate deal.”
“I don't have the answers, but I'm talking about it,” he said. “Can we talk about how we balling on defense?”
“But at the end of the day, he's one of us, so … we're going to have his back,” McLaurin added. | 2022-11-11T10:14:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders players face a familiar challenge: Focusing on football - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/commanders-robinson-statement-attorney-general/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/commanders-robinson-statement-attorney-general/ |
Some critics say Biden administration lawyers are using antitrust law inappropriately to tackle labor and social issues
A book published by Simon & Schuster. On Oct. 31, a federal judge blocked Penguin Random House's proposed purchase of Simon & Schuster. (Jenny Kane/AP)
A federal judge’s decision to block the merger this month of two powerhouse book publishers — Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House — marks a significant win for the Biden administration, legal experts say, as the federal government attempts to more aggressively crackdown on corporate monopolies and alleged collusion by big companies.
It was one of a string of antitrust victories over the last month for the Justice Department — a notable turn after several high-profile losses in cases involving mergers in the sugar and health care industries. Under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the department has hired big-name antitrust lawyers to run the division. Officials say they want to bring more cases to fight corporate consolidation than previous administrations, even as some critics argue that the department is attempting to use antitrust law inappropriately to tackle labor and social issues.
The antitrust division also secured its first-ever criminal “no-poach” guilty plea last month, with a judge ordering a health-care staffing company to pay a $134,000 fine for an agreement with a competitor that ultimately fixed wages. Earlier in October, the Justice Department announced seven directors had resigned from corporate boards over concerns that they were in violation of the federal Clayton Act, which prohibits people from simultaneously serving on boards of competing companies. And the president of a paving and asphalt contractor pleaded guilty to trying to monopolize highway crack-sealing services market in Montana and Wyoming, the Justice Department announced last week.
“It demonstrates that we have the litigation chops to go up anywhere that matters,” Jonathan Kanter, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said in an interview.
Abortion rights advocates score major victories in U.S. midterm elections
In the publishing case, the department argued that acquiring Simon & Schuster would give Penguin Random House “outsized influence” in the publishing industry and weaken competition.
Antitrust advocates and officials say the case is notable not only for the outcome, but for the legal strategies the government employed in court. Typically, lawyers fighting monopolies have argued that concentrating industry power in the hands of just a few companies could drive prices up and harm consumers. But in this case, Justice Department lawyers argued that the merging of the two companies would be bad for workers — the writers, in this instance — who may get paid less if the companies consolidate.
The opinion from Judge Florence Y. Pan, however, which opened with a quote from literary great John Steinbeck, focused on the more traditional antitrust rationale of how mergers could hurt competition in the publishing industry.
Regardless, Kanter said, the approach the government took was significant. “We said that workers matter, this kind of harm matters,” he said.
The last time the Justice Department had successfully blocked a merger in court was in 2017, when a judge ruled that a radioactive waste disposal provider could not join forces with its competitor. The department has thwarted other mergers since then, but those cases did not make it to trial.
German media group Bertelsmann, which owns Penguin Random House, wrote in a statement after Pan’s ruling that it plans to appeal.
“We do not share the court’s assessment any more than we previously shared the Department of Justice’s position,” the statement said. “Both are based on incorrect basic assumptions, including an inaccurate definition of the market. A merger would be good for competition.”
Barry C. Lynn, executive director of the left-leaning Open Markets Institute, called the publishing case “a huge reversal.”
“It is a foundation on which we can build cases,” he said.
The Justice Department is suing Google — but it’s the government’s power to police Big Tech that’s on trial
To some critics, the Biden administration’s priorities go beyond what traditional antitrust law has encompassed, with lawyers attempting to use antitrust law to battle labor, privacy and other social issues. Tad Lipsky — a former Justice Department official who is now the director of the Competition Advocacy Program at George Mason University’s Global Antitrust Institute — said the administration’s rhetoric delves into arguments about workers’ rights and fairness that, in his view, should be not be intertwined with antitrust law.
“The thing that I object to in Biden’s antitrust is that it is not based on sound legal analysis or sound economics,” Lipsky said. “It is based on the idea that we should address all kinds of social concerns when we think about antitrust, and it is based on this hostility toward businesses.”
The Justice Department has not notched any big antitrust wins against technology giants, despite growing bipartisan momentum for expanding such enforcement. But experts say the antitrust division has been laying the groundwork to make those cases. The department has an ongoing case against Google, set to go to trial next year, that alleges that the company’s search and advertising functions violate antitrust laws.
The clock is ticking for the Biden administration to bring forth groundbreaking tech cases, however, since they often take years to build. And Democrats in Congress have not yet passed proposed antitrust legislation that would make it easier for enforcers to bring cases against large tech platforms, such as one that would prevent big companies like Amazon and Facebook from boosting their own products and services on their platforms over their rivals.
It is unlikely that these bills would pass with a Republican-controlled House or Senate.
After months of deadlock, FTC's Lina Kahn is unleashed
Biden’s appointee to head the Federal Trade Commission, attorney Lina Khan, shares a similar focus to Kanter and his deputies. She made her name in part by writing an academic article that used Amazon as an example to show what happens when the government does not enforce antitrust laws.
Khan has said she wants to usher in a new era of accountability for tech companies. But her agency has been beset with internal partisan stalemates and low morale, a situation she has said will change now that a new, Democratic majority is on board.
In the first half of the 20th century, the government regularly went after companies that they felt had grown too big. But in the 1970s, Robert Bork — a law professor who later became famous for his failed Supreme Court nomination — popularized a backlash to antitrust law, arguing that it no longer took economics into account and that it stymied business innovation and free market principles.
By the time of Ronald Reagan’s administration, the opinion around corporate consolidation had shifted. The Justice Department did not aggressively enforce antitrust laws for decades. What’s occurring now in the Biden administration, legal experts said, reflects yet another shift, with government lawyers more aggressively cracking down on what they view as corporate malfeasance.
William Baer, who headed the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Obama administration, said the change didn’t happen overnight. During his tenure, for example, he helped issue guidelines that allowed people who engage in non-poaching contracts to receive civil as well as criminal charges. Such contracts generally prohibit striking agreements with other companies not to hire each other’s employees.
“For a long time, there has been less enforcement than would be ideal,” Baer said. “While the government hasn’t won all the recent cases, they are showing that they are moving the law in the direction that the Biden administration has said it wants to go.”
Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report. | 2022-11-11T10:14:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Blocked merger of Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House shows Biden's antitrust strength - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/11/antitrust-biden-random-house-schuster/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/11/antitrust-biden-random-house-schuster/ |
The seven-bedroom, nine-bathroom house includes accents gathered from the Old World.
A stone veranda overlooks the landscaped backyard. (Adam Albright)
There’s little not to love about the rolling vineyards and charming country estates of Western Europe. Returning from a trip to Italy and France in the early 200s, Maria and Kirk Galiani were so enchanted by their travels that they decided to build this tribute to the European tradition in McLean, Va.
The couple bought the land in 2005, but a year and a half passed before construction began. During that time, they worked on their vision with the Galileo Group, a custom home builder, and architect Steve Busch.
“I gave him [Busch] my ideas and some plans, and he literally went back to his hotel room and just drew it in one night,” Maria Galiani said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s my house.’ He was such a true artist.”
Construction took three and a half years, giving Maria Galiani, an interior decorator, ample time to source antiques for the new estate. She said she prefers to decorate with “unusual, unique and one-of-a-kind” objects. She collected cast-iron registers and doorknobs from the 1800s, now in use throughout the house. The exterior was built with 300 tons of fieldstone sourced from century-old structures around the 50-mile mark of the Oregon Trail in Missouri. A fireplace in the living room, built in 1900 and signed by its designer, was created for a French castle.
Despite her meticulous attention to detail during the planning process, Galiani was surprised to discover which rooms she liked most once she moved into the house with her husband and their three children in 2010. One popular space, a big room with walls of wood and stone, has a basketball hoop — though no court lines on its antique-oak, suspended-spring floor — and it leads to an outdoor terrace.
“I wanted it to double as an entertaining pavilion for parties,” Galiani said. “But every time I had a lot of people over, whether it was for Thanksgiving or birthday parties, a lot of times people of all ages would end up in the basketball court, playing cornhole or basketball or lacrosse.”
The hearth room, dubbed the “conversation pit” by the residents, is the smallest room in the 16,000-square-foot house and Maria Galiani’s favorite. It has a round, built-in couch and a fireplace that bears the face of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus — a fitting presence in a room where Galiani said she gathered small groups of guests to chat over libations.
The primary bedroom suite — on the second floor, or main level — is connected to a private office and has two walk-in closets and a bathroom with a free-standing tub and a walk-in shower. There are high arches in warm-hued hallways that lead to a modern kitchen with an old-fashioned look, a double-height dining room and a two-story library with a spiral staircase. This floor also has a living room — dubbed the “great room” by the Galianis — with exposed wood beams in the ceiling. The great room opens to a stone veranda that overlooks the property’s one and a quarter acres, designed by landscape architect Charles Owens.
Garage parking is available at both ends of the house. The property was designed to accommodate as many as 160 guests, although the Galianis never hosted such a large event there.
On the lower level, the house has a bedroom suite and kitchenette, a sunlit entertainment room, a professional-quality gym and a circular wine cellar. An additional room could be used for seating or other purposes, and two large, connected areas provide ample storage space.
The top floor has five bedrooms, three of which have private bathrooms. The other two share a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, with direct access from both sides. A bar and game alcove adjoins the second floor of the library, where a ledge overlooks the main level.
While the Galianis are downsizing with their move, they’re not going far. They like the area so much that they bought a house down the street.
“Being so close to Tysons and the CIA and Langley High School, it seems like a busy area,” Maria Galiani said. “But you drive into our neighborhood, and it’s quiet and private.”
1113 Langley Lane, McLean, Va.
Features: The mansion was built in 2010 by Galileo Group. Inspired by Italian and French architecture, it has a distinctly Old World feel and is decorated with antique finds. Unusual features include an indoor sport court/entertainment pavilion, a two-story library and a stone veranda. There are two garages, each with two doors, on either side of the house.
Listing agent: Will Thomas and Mark Lowham, TTR Sotheby’s International Realty. | 2022-11-11T10:40:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A $13.5 million home for sale in McLean, Va., is a Europhile’s dream - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/135-million-home-sale-mclean-va-is-europhiles-dream/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/135-million-home-sale-mclean-va-is-europhiles-dream/ |
Dino Grandoni
A flare burns off methane and other hydrocarbons as oil pumpjacks operate in the Permian Basin in Midland, Texas, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021. (David Goldman/AP)
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — In a bid to show U.S. commitment to tackling climate change, the Biden administration outlined in Egypt a renewed effort to curb emissions from domestic oil and gas producers.
At the United Nations COP27 climate conference on Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled an updated proposal to regulate methane seeping from pipes and other equipment maintained by the U.S. oil and gas industry, the country’s biggest industrial source of the potent greenhouse gas.
Responsible for roughly a third of greenhouse gas warming today, methane traps about 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Experts say curbing methane emissions is critical to prevent near-term warming.
Climate-warming methane emissions rising faster than ever, study says
The proposal, which was partially released during last year’s climate conference in Glasgow, would be the first time the federal government requires existing facilities to find and fix methane leaks.
Under the proposal, the agency is seeking to compel oil and gas operators to use remote sensors to quickly address leaks and to require states to develop plans to curb methane from older wells. Gathering feedback from the industry over the past year, the EPA plans to offer companies more flexibility in how they monitor for leaks.
Federal regulators will also establish a program to respond to blowouts and other “super-emitter” events, allowing third-party groups to help quickly identify major leaks.
Officials say the rule will help the country fulfill the “Global Methane Pledge” — a U.S.-backed effort to curb emissions of the potent greenhouse gas 30 percent by 2030. Although more than 100 nations have signed on to the pledge since it was launched in 2021, a recent World Meteorological Organization report found that methane emissions this year are rising faster than ever before.
The new regulations come on the same day President Biden is set to speak at the Egypt climate conference, an apparent bid to highlight U.S. climate efforts and convince more nations to join the methane pledge. Three of the world’s top five methane emitters — China, India and Russia — have not joined the initiative.
The conference theme for the day was “decarbonization," and the morning started off with an announcement of a new “Breakthrough Agenda” from dozens of countries representing more than half of the world’s GDP. The nations committed to achieve 25 emissions-cutting actions within the next year; among them are ramping up the deployment of zero-carbon industrial plants, upgrading electricity grids and setting a common target to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles.
The U.N. today also announced the launch of a public satellite system to detect major methane releases from the power, waste and agricultural sectors.
Nord Stream spill could be biggest methane leak ever but not catastrophic
Lauren Pagel, policy director at Earthworks, an environmental group that uses infrared cameras to spot leaks, praised the EPA’s expanded super-emitter monitoring as “essential to enforce the rules.”
“Everywhere our certified thermographers go, they find oil and gas pollution — even in states with the strongest protections,” she said.
But other researchers cautioned that preventing leaks alone was not be sufficient to meet the world’s methane targets, or to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) — the threshold at which scientist say humanity can avert the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. According to data from Climate Watch and the World Resources Institute, “fugitive emissions” from the oil and gas production process account for only 3.9 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas pollution.
Mia Moisio, who leads the Climate Action Tracker project for the Germany-based New Climate Institute, said research shows methane emissions from the energy sector need to fall 64 percent by 2030 for the world to meet the 1.5 degree Celsius target. Achieving that reduction will require overall natural gas use to fall 26 percent by 2030.
“Talking about emissions from venting and flaring misses the larger point: that oil and gas production needs to decline rapidly,” she said. “There should already be no new investments in oil and gas production as of today. The U.S., as the world’s largest oil and gas producer, has a clear responsibility to lead the way.” | 2022-11-11T10:40:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | EPA to regulate methane leaks from oil and gas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environmnet/2022/11/11/methane-regulation-epa-cop27-egypt/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environmnet/2022/11/11/methane-regulation-epa-cop27-egypt/ |
As America’s oldest president heads toward a possible reelection run, aides try to demonstrate his vigor.
President Biden on Marine One at Andrews Air Force Base en route to Pennsylvania. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
In internal polls, voters kept bringing up a specific concern: the president’s age. And word clouds created by outside pollsters were showing terms like “age” and “Is he with it?” in large letters, an indication that such worries were among the most commonly voiced by Americans.
The previous oldest president, Ronald Reagan, left office at age 77, and he was widely considered at the time to be pushing the boundaries of age for a chief executive. If Biden runs for and wins a second term, he would be 82 years old at his inauguration in 2025 and 86 at the end of a second term.
The Democrats’ better-than-expected performance in the midterms has eased Biden’s path to a reelection run, though aides say no final decision has been made. That has left White House officials searching urgently, if quietly, for the best ways to fend off attacks and neutralize the age issue in voters’ minds, according to people inside and outside the White House.
Republicans often circulate videos of Biden looking confused or seeming to stumble over his words or his feet; while the videos are sometimes taken out of context, aides in the West Wing immediately share them among themselves to keep tabs on the attacks and consider responses, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal operations.
Aside from minor physical changes, Biden has shown few, if any, signs of decline, according to medical records and interviews with more than a dozen people who regularly interact with him. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician, observed last year that the president’s gait had become “stiffer and less fluid” since the 2020 election, highlighting a case of spinal arthritis and the lingering effects of a foot fracture.
In medical examination records released almost a year ago, O’Connor said Biden was “fit for duty” and capable of executing his responsibilities without complication. The report noted that Biden has a history of atrial fibrillation, takes blood thinners, and is on medication for cholesterol, seasonal allergies and reflux that has caused persistent coughing and throat-clearing.
“President Biden remains a healthy, vigorous, 78-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief,” O’Connor wrote in a November 2021 letter.
Former president Donald Trump, who was 70 when he took office, also faced regular questions about his age and mental fitness, particularly because he was prone to erratic statements and diatribes. Trump also maintained an unhealthy diet and seldom exercised. Trump has strongly hinted at another run for president, and if he is elected in 2024 he would be 78 years old at his 2025 inauguration and 82 years old when he completes his second term.
Biden is attuned to — and at times irritated by — the issue, according to several aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. He has said it is fair for people to ask about his age, but he also seeks to downplay the concerns by pointing to his record of legislative wins and encouraging voters to “watch me.”
Biden takes steps to protect his fitness, exercising daily and maintaining a healthy weight. His schedule is noticeably lighter after a stretch of foreign travel, and he spends most weekends at his family home in Delaware, though aides say that is unrelated to age. Other presidents also had lighter schedules after foreign trips, they say, to catch up on domestic matters.
Broad statistics shed little light on particular individuals, but in general, health risks increase sharply after 80. Aging individuals are less resilient to accidents, falls and other unexpected events. Recovering from an episode that requires hospitalization takes longer for a person in their 80s than someone in their 60s, doctors say.
The odds of acquiring three diseases simultaneously rise tenfold between 70 and 80, then tenfold again during the following decade, said Nir Barzilai, thedirector of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The risk of Alzheimer’s disease doubles every five years after 65, said Steven Austad, senior scientific director at the American Federation for Aging Research (and 32 percent of those 85 or older have Alzheimer’s dementia).
“Aging makes us more vulnerable to pretty much everything,” said Austad, who chairs the biology department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Someone at that age would need to be monitored very carefully.” Still, he added, “I don’t see that age by itself would disqualify him.”
Stuart Jay Olshansky, a professor of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said Biden’s staffers need to ensure that he does not fall and must protect him from even minor physical risks. “The fact is that once you get out to those ages, things go wrong,” said Olshansky, who studies the longevity of presidents. “And when they go wrong, they can go wrong very rapidly.”
For Biden, the challenge is political as well as medical. As he nears his ninth decade, he faces the uncomfortable reality that a growing number of younger Democrats and independents are calling for “generational change,” in addition to the Republicans portraying him, far less politely, as too weak or addled to lead.
Some Democrats concede the critiques may be effective.
“Republicans should be congratulated for continuing to raise an issue that I think has no grounding in reality but may have political advantage for Republicans,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who has encouraged the White House to confront the aging issue by letting voters see how the president operates behind the scenes.
Since taking office, Biden has provided a steady supply of missteps that his opponents call “senior moments,” though his self-described penchant for gaffes stretches back decades.
In the most striking example, Biden at a White House conference in September called out for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), appearing to forget that she had died the previous month in a car accident. “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?” Biden said, peering into the crowd.
Almost immediately, video clips of Biden asking “Where’s Jackie?” began to circulate on right-wing media channels. Conservative outlets such as National Review sent push alerts, and conservative commentators suggested invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office.
White House staffers struggled to respond; press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre kept repeating that Walorski had been “top of mind” for the president. Biden later apologized to the congresswoman’s family at a closed-door ceremony, according to people familiar with the episode who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting. Aides contend that the sensitive apology was a better reflection of the president’s mental and emotional state than the on-camera gaffe.
But surveys suggest the age issue is breaking through.
A February 2022 Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 54 percent of Americans said Biden does not have the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president, up from 43 percent in May 2020. While 83 percent of Democrats said Biden was mentally sharp, that dropped to 34 percent among independents and 7 percent among Republicans.
Voters, meanwhile, are drawing their own conclusions. “Sometimes he’s there, sometimes he’s not,” said Howard Walker, a 54-year-old Democrat from New York who voted for Biden in 2020. “Sometimes he tells long grandma stories that go nowhere, which is what old people do. And that’s okay, but that’s not what we need in a president.”
When Biden began a speech this past month by saying, “Let me start with two words: ‘Made in America,’ ” it set off a cycle of derisive Republican responses. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) took to Twitter to quip, “Two words: ‘dementia.’ ”
Biden’s aides are operating without an established game plan, and they are under pressure to develop one. Some allies suggest ignoring the attacks, describing them as a retread of a strategy that failed in 2020. Others urge Biden to address the issue head-on, using humor or highlighting the experience that comes with years.
Reagan, then 73, famously joked during a 1984 debate against Democrat Walter Mondale, 56, that he would not “exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The quip carried the moment, but it did not dispel questions about Reagan’s age that persisted into his second term.
While Biden has said his health will be a key consideration as he decides on reelection, he has told advisers that he feels great and is energized by a job he sought for decades.
Biden understands that as the oldest president he will face scrutiny, but he feels equipped to do the job, a senior White House official said. The official is one of more than a dozen aides, lawmakers, strategists, medical professionals and others familiar with the president’s health interviewed for this story, many speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the highly sensitive topic.
At the deepest level, the White House argument is stark: Trump, Biden’s potential opponent, is 76 himself, exercises less and eats worse than Biden, and is given to public bouts of rage and incoherence. Biden’s allies also say that Trump is an overwhelming threat to democracy and that Biden has the best chance of beating him, making Biden the indispensable candidate whatever his age.
“I think generational power shifts are really important, but to me, this is an existential moment for our democracy,” said Murphy, 49, adding that his interactions with Biden have shown the president to be sharp. “We’re literally fighting for democracy’s survival.”
Trump, for his part, started attacking Biden’s physical and mental capacity in 2020 with the epithet “Sleepy Joe” and has continued to do so. “You’d blow on him and he’d fall over,” he said in a recent interview with Salem News Channel.
Lifestyle and environmental factors play a far larger role than genetics in how people age, said Eric Verdin, the president and chief executive of the Buck Institute for Research and Aging. “It seems [Biden] is doing all of the things one would expect him to do to maximize his health span and life span,” Verdin said. “Being very active mentally is a protective factor against Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative conditions. Obviously he has access to the very best medical care.”
Austad, of the American Federation for Aging Research, added that medical advances in recent years have significantly reduced the vulnerabilities of older people. “An 80-year-old today is not the same as an 80-year-old in the 1950s or 1960s,” he said.
In a 2020 paper reviewing Biden’s medical and family history, Olshansky described Biden as a “super ager,” noting that his parents both lived past 85 and that he had fewer medical issues and took fewer medications than the majority of his cohort.
Biden had his closest brush with death more than three decades ago, when he suffered from two brain aneurysms and had to undergo surgery to fix the balloon-shaped bulges on an artery wall.
Neal Kassell, one of two doctors who operated on Biden in 1988, said he had been “cured” and faces lower prospects of a recurrence than the average person. There have been no lingering complications, said Kassell, who has kept in touch with Biden since the operation.
“He’s not gotten any younger in the last two years, but one thing I can say is that he’s become more knowledgeable and informed and wiser than he was two years ago,” Kassell said. “I don’t see him particularly slipping.”
Still, for many Americans, the signs of Biden’s aging are evident. The president speaks with a fainter, more gravelly voice than he did earlier in his career, and his hair has gone white and sparse.
White House aides insist they never lighten Biden’s schedule on account of his age. “There isn’t any risk-averseness,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff. “He just doesn’t live his life that way.”
Biden has not suffered serious injury, despite a few tumbles in recent years. He fell and broke his foot playing with his dog Major at his home in November 2020, an injury that required him to wear a medical boot. He also tripped last year while walking up the stairs of Air Force One on a windy day. In June, Biden toppled off his bike near his Delaware vacation home after his shoe got caught in the toe cage as he was coming to a stop.
He had no visible scrapes, and such mishaps are not uncommon among cyclists using toe cages. But Biden was notably frustrated as video of the spill sparked a wave of media coverage of his fitness, two White House aides said.
Biden later made light of the incident; he rode his bike again a couple of weeks later and joked with reporters that he had taken the toe cages off. Still, he knew the image made him look old, the aides said.
But those close to Biden say he sees no health obstacles to pursuing a second term.
When Jim Messina, the campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s reelection, recently tried to congratulate Biden on a string of legislative victories, the president immediately mentioned the other things he wants to accomplish before leaving office. The exchange left Messina convinced that Biden is determined to seek reelection.
“There’s just no chance he’s not going to run unless there’s some health issue,” Messina said. “If you’re not fully with it, or you don’t know if you’re going to run, you start to think about burnishing your own legacy. And that’s just not where he was.”
At times, Biden has grown prickly over the regular scrutiny of his age, but he has taken to responding with a combination of light humor and an emphasis on his accomplishments. “How’d an old guy do that?” he joked on CBS’s “60 Minutes” after outlining his legislative record.
“They’ve been saying this about my age since I began to run,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper this past month. “You can come work out with me in the morning.”
Aides generally echo that sentiment, saying that even on days with few official events and weekends spent in Wilmington, Biden is working long hours speaking to lawmakers and reading briefing books. With his 80th birthday approaching, Biden has set off on a week-long trip to Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia.
But the prospect of a reelection bid continues to be a source of angst for some Democratic lawmakers. Several — including Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.) — have called for a fresher, younger standard-bearer to lead the Democratic ticket in 2024, using phrases like “new blood” and “generational change.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who supports Biden’s reelection, disagreed, saying a grandfatherly figure who conveys that “I’m here to tell you things are going to be okay” is a political asset because so many people are worried about the future. Khanna said he has urged the White House to let Biden be himself, even if that occasionally leads to uncomfortable moments on camera.
Biden’s aides believe that being president is significantly more demanding than running for it, said one senior White House official who was intimately involved in Biden’s campaign, and that showing him as an active, engaged president is the best way to push back on age concerns.
So when Republicans shared a clip of Biden saying, “No one f---s with a Biden,” during a trip to Florida after Hurricane Ian, apparently unaware he was being recorded, Democrats were happy to share it as well, believing it showed Biden as an animated, caring figure.
“By and large the American people are pretty fair, and they understand that someone at the age of 80 is not going to be the same as someone at the age of 60,” Khanna said. “People get it. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t also realize a lot of the benefits — of wisdom, of life experience — that come with that.”
Scott Clement and Tyler Pager contributed to this report. | 2022-11-11T10:41:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden, turning 80, faces renewed age questions as he weighs 2024 run - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/biden-age-2024-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/biden-age-2024-election/ |
WASHINGTON — Commanders owner Dan Snyder and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell were sued by the District of Columbia, accused of colluding to deceive fans by lying about an inquiry into “sexual misconduct and a persistently hostile work environment” within the team.
COSTA MESA, Calif. — The Los Angeles Chargers waived defensive lineman Jerry Tillery, the team’s first-round draft pick in 2019.
HENDERSON, Nev. — The Las Vegas Raiders placed tight end Darren Waller and wide receiver Hunter Renfrow on injured reserve, leaving Derek Carr and the struggling offense without two of their biggest playmakers.
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — LeBron James will miss at least the Lakers’ next game after straining a muscle in his leg during Los Angeles’ fourth straight loss on Wednesday night.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The United States women lost again, falling 2-1 to Germany for their first three-game skid since 1993 and first home defeat in more than five years.
NEW YORK — Justin Verlander declined a $25 million option with the Houston Astros to become a free agent, five days after helping the team win its second World Series title.
NEW YORK — Aaron Judge, Jacob deGrom and Xander Bogaerts were among 14 free agents who were given $19.65 million qualifying offers by their former teams.
GLASGOW, Scotland — Britain pulled off an unlikely 3-0 victory over Spain in the Billie Jean King Cup to reach the semifinals of the top team event in women’s tennis for the first time in 41 years.
HOUSTON — Tony Finau delivered late birdies for a 5-under 65 that gave him a share of the lead in the Houston Open. | 2022-11-11T10:42:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thursday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/11/fe7b243c-61a7-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/11/11/fe7b243c-61a7-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Rock band X Japan drummer Yoshiki poses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on Jan. 17, 2019, at an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Short Shorts Film Festival. Four of Japan’s biggest rock stars, Yoshiki, Miyavi, Sugizo and Hyde, are getting together to form a band called The Last Rockstars. “We’ve come together to start this challenge for the world out of Japan,” Yoshiki of X Japan told reporters Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. (Kyodo News via AP) (Uncredited/Kyodo News)
TOKYO — Four of Japan’s biggest rock stars formed a new band, The Last Rockstars, in a race against time to preserve the spirit of rock music. | 2022-11-11T10:42:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Japanese music stars form band 'to make the world rock' - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japanese-music-stars-form-band-to-make-the-world-rock/2022/11/11/319d647e-61a8-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/japanese-music-stars-form-band-to-make-the-world-rock/2022/11/11/319d647e-61a8-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Mourners at the funeral of Palestinian Raafat Issa on Thursday in the West Bank city of Jenin. The Israeli military said Issa, 29, was shot after being caught trying to damage the security barrier between Israel and the West Bank. (Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)
JERUSALEM — Rania Elias, a Palestinian mother of four, hasn’t had time to worry about Israel’s recent election, which is likely to produce the most right-wing government in the country’s history. Instead, she has been frantically seeking updates on her son, who was detained by Israeli police last month.
After seeing her teenage child beaten by officers and hauled away while bleeding, Elias said she doesn’t see much difference between Israeli politicians.
“The situation,” she said, “is becoming worse, day after day.”
In response to a spate of Palestinian attacks that began in the spring, Israeli forces have been carrying out near-nightly raids in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel’s government says it is targeting newly formed militias. Palestinian authorities have decried the crackdown as collective punishment, and say children are increasingly caught in the dragnet.
Nearly 130 Palestinian minors were in prison on security grounds at the end of September, according to Israel Prison Service statistics. The annual total to date — including minors detained for at least several hours — no doubt is much higher. Seventy-three percent of Palestinian children in Israeli custody last year reported being subject to physical violence, an all-time high, according to Military Court Watch, a watchdog group based in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
As former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to return to power with the help of Israel’s far right, Palestinian families say that well-rehearsed warnings to their children about dealing with Israeli security forces have taken on new urgency.
Isa Kussba, 46, lives with his wife, 14-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son in the Qalandia refugee camp, near Ramallah. The camp is adjacent to Israel’s busiest military checkpoint, where thousands of West Bank day laborers cross into Israel and night raids by Israeli forces have been increasing.
Kussba tells his teenagers to be careful around Israeli soldiers, especially if stopped at a checkpoint. “I tell them, stay calm, don’t move. Because any kind of movement, and they will shoot them,” he said.
But there is little Palestinian parents can do to prepare for Israeli incursions in the middle of the night.
On Oct. 18, Elias’s youngest child, Shadi, 16, was arrested by Israeli police in an early-morning raid of their home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina. Plainclothes officers presented Elias and her husband, composer Suhail Khoury, with a Hebrew arrest warrant they couldn’t read, she said, then beat Shadi in his bedroom and dragged him from the house, leaving a trail of blood on the floor.
The officers didn’t tell Shadi’s parents what he was charged with or where they were taking him, Elias said. Only after six court hearings did she learn that her son was accused of being part of a group that was throwing stones at an Israeli family’s car during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot — no injuries were reported in the incident.
Shadi was indicted on charges of stone-throwing and attacking police officers based on “evidence against him,” a spokesman for the Jerusalem division of the Israeli police told The Washington Post. He did not specify what the evidence was. Elias says that her son did not throw stones, and that it was the officers who were attacking Shadi, not the other way around.
“We are traumatized from the situation, from when we saw our kid being beaten like this and felt helpless to do anything to support him or to save him,” said Elias, who directs a prominent Palestinian cultural center in Jerusalem.
In the West Bank, meanwhile, 2022 is on course to be the deadliest year for Palestinians since the United Nations began tracking fatalities in 2005. At least 28 Palestinians younger than 18 have been killed so far this year, compared with 17 in all of 2021, according to U.N. data. More than 800 minors have been injured. The United Nations voiced concerns last month that Israel is using excessive force against children.
Rights groups say Israel routinely violates international law in its treatment of Palestinian minors in detention, including by physically and verbally abusing them and failing to inform them of their rights.
“The detention and arrest of those involved in the commission of crimes is carried out in accordance with the law, while safeguarding the rights and health of the detainees,” the Israeli military told The Post.
But Palestinian parents live in fear that their children will be swept up in an Israeli raid, detained at a checkpoint or shot by Israeli forces, said Maysam Jahajha, executive director of the Child Center for Culture and Development at the Qalandia camp.
Jahajha doesn’t let her children, 5 and 8, walk to school for fear they’ll be targeted on the way. When the family visits Jerusalem, she explains to her son, who is scared of Israeli soldiers, that they must pass through checkpoints because they live under occupation, in a refugee camp that “is not our home.”
She and her husband have considered leaving the country to protect their kids.
“A mother spends her life raising her children to become a student at the university,” she said. “But in the end, in the blink of an eye, she loses them.”
After last week’s election, many Palestinian parents worry the situation will grow more volatile. Netanyahu scored a decisive victory, thanks in large part to the growing popularity of his far-right Religious Zionist allies, and one man in particular — Itamar Ben Gvir.
Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party is the political descendant of the far-right Kach party, which was banned from the Knesset for being racist and undemocratic. Ben Gvir has been convicted multiple times for inciting hatred against Arabs and was exempted from mandatory military service as a young man after he threatened Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for trying to make peace with the Palestinians. Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli ultranationalist three weeks later.
Now, Ben Gvir is likely to become Israel’s next public security minister, in charge of the police, prisons and security around Jerusalem religious sites, which have long been flash points in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He has called for giving police and soldiers wider latitude to use live ammunition and shielding them from criminal prosecution for killing or injuring Palestinians.
“Israel is tending toward radicalism, so I expected him to win,” said Ibrahim Khalif, 53, a plumber in Ramallah with four children ages 10 to 23. “With Ben Gvir, things will get worse.”
Ben Gvir’s rise was fueled by Israeli settlers, who today, half a million strong and growing, are central to Israel’s political establishment. The fortification of the 55-year-old occupation — considered illegal by much of the international community — is critical to making Israel “the landlords of this country” again, in the words of Ben Gvir’s campaign motto.
Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director for Defense for Children International in the Palestinian territories said that, among his neighbors, there is a fear that Netanyahu’s embrace of the far right will “put the whole area on the brink of more explosions.”
Sufian Taha in Ramallah contributed to this report. | 2022-11-11T11:06:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Palestinian parents fear for their children as Ben Gvir rises in Israel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/israel-west-bank-ben-gvir/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/11/israel-west-bank-ben-gvir/ |
Arlington could adopt ranked-choice voting for primary elections
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA — NOVEMBER 08: Voters cast their ballots at a polling location inside the Walter Reed Recreation Center on November 8, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia. After months of candidates campaigning, Americans are voting in the midterm elections to decide close races across the nation. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
Arlington lawmakers are considering whether to allow ranked-choice voting in local primaries next year — a move that would make this D.C. suburb the first locality in Virginia to adopt the increasingly popular system as it heads into a busy spring for local politics.
Ranked-choice voting — which lets voters pick multiple candidates and rank them in the order of their preference — has swept into a growing number of states and localities in recent years, pushed by proponents who say it can broaden the diversity of candidates, better represent the will of the electorate and moderate political discourse.
The system has been used in congressional races in Alaska and Maine and the mayoral primary in New York City. Just this week, voters approved the measure during elections in a handful of places including Portland, Ore., and Fort Collins, Colo.
In Arlington, which is filled with policy wonks and federal employees who geek out over government structure and elections, County Board Chair Katie Cristol (D) said it’s common sense to try it.
“So many of us are feeling a little powerless at a time when our democracy is starting to feel really fragile,” she said. “The idea that we can do something locally ... is really heartening. There’s a real sense of good government aspiration.”
But while Cristol said written comments on the proposal have been overwhelmingly positive, similar efforts have faced pushback elsewhere in the region.
In D.C., the local Democratic Party has opposed the measure on the grounds that it might confuse some voters. And in Richmond, local lawmakers rejected it in September, saying it could hurt poor and Black voters in a city with a long history of trying to limit Black political power.
D.C. debates whether to switch to a ranked-choice voting system
Ranked-choice voting generally works like this: Instead of choosing just one candidate, voters can rank as many as they want in their order of preference. In the first tally, all the first-choice votes are counted, and any candidate with more than half of those votes wins the election.
But if there’s no majority, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Those votes are reexamined and redistributed to the candidates listed as the second choice. That process repeats until one candidate has received a majority of votes.
Virginia state Del. Sally Hudson (D-Charlottesville), who has been pushing the measure, said proposals are also in the works in Albemarle County and in Charlottesville and Norfolk.
“All things considered, we’re in a good place in American democracy because more people are running for office than ever before,” she said. “We need a practical way of identifying unifying candidates when we have wide, diverse fields. Ranked-choice voting solves that problem.”
She and other proponents have noted that ranked-choice voting is not necessarily a foreign concept in Arlington and Virginia. The Arlington Democrats have used it to choose candidates in a few party-run processes, such as endorsing school board candidates. The state GOP used it in its 2021 convention for governor and other statewide candidates.
Arlington is set to hold a public hearing Saturday to allow lawmakers to vote on a proposal during their December board meeting. If a proposal passes, ranked-choice voting would apply only to primaries for county board elections.
This voting system would debut in what could be an unusually crowded race for this county of about 240,000 residents. Next year’s election is the rare one when two seats on the board are on the ballot, instead of just one — and in deep-blue Arlington, the Democratic primary is often akin to the general election.
At least one of those seats will go to a new candidate. Cristol, who holds one of the seats up for election next year, has already announced that she is not running for reelection. Vice Chair Christian Dorsey (D) said in an interview that he has not decided whether or not he will run again.
Cristol said that next year’s “pick-two” primary would serve as a strong test for the concept in Arlington before possibly rolling it out to the general election.
“In many ways it’s the ideal year to do it,” she said. “Voters are already thinking in some ways about ranking their choices, and they are going to be most able to see the ways in which ranked-choice voting potentially influences the race.”
The implementation of ranked-choice voting was cheered by a small group of civic advocates who for years have pushed Arlington to rethink its government structure, including by changing how elections are run.
Ranked-choice voting “loosens up the structures around how people get elected, even if it’s only inside the primary,” said Allan Gajadhar, past president of the Civic Federation and chair of its Task Force in Governance and Election Reform (TiGER). “You’ll have more opportunity for people to run and broaden the base of people who are running.”
Because Arlington is so dominated by Democrats — just one board member since 2000 has won without the party’s backing — TiGER members say ranked-choice could also give greater voice to smaller but organized clusters of opinions within the county.
Gajadhar’s group is pushing a number of changes to the county’s government structure, which its members say would seek to address its growing population, limited political and racial diversity on the board, and an overreliance on primaries.
Under a unique system known as the “county-manager plan” of government, all five seats on Arlington’s board are elected at-large — a rarity in the D.C. region and for counties across Virginia. There is no consistent figure such as a mayor overseeing the board; instead, its members pick a new chair among themselves at the start of every calendar year.
TiGER is set to present a plan to the Civic Federation next week with other changes in addition to ranked-choice voting: adding two members to the county board; raising salaries for elected officials; and giving longer terms for members to serve as chair. | 2022-11-11T11:15:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arlington could adopt ranked-choice voting for primary elections - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/arlington-ranked-choice-voting-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/arlington-ranked-choice-voting-election/ |
Eighth-grader Jayz Agnew was outside his home when he was struck by gunfire
Jayz Agnew has always wanted to be an emergency room doctor when he grows up. But on Tuesday, the 13-year-old arrived at the hospital with a bullet through his head, shot in his front yard while raking leaves for his family.
Jayz was on life support two days later, his mom said, preparing to undergo two separate tests that would determine if he was brain dead. The doctors thought he was, Juanita Agnew said. All Agnew, a nurse herself, could think to do was pray.
The shooting happened around 5:20 p.m. in the Hillcrest Heights area of Prince George’s County. Police have not said if Jayz was targeted, nor have they made an arrest in his shooting. Agnew said she has always felt safe in her neighborhood, and cannot imagine why anyone would want to hurt her son.
“Knowing who he is, I don’t think he would be able to cause anyone to be angry at him to the point of wanting to take his life,” Agnew, 36, said. “He was just being obedient. I asked him to rake the leaves.”
Agnew described Jayz, an eighth grader, as a shy boy who keeps his circle of friends small. He tried out for the middle school basketball team, but, despite his height, didn’t quite make the cut. Instead, he spends most of his time playing video games or hanging out with his 6-year-old sister, Aaliyah. The siblings found stray cats in their shed last year and decided to raise them together. Jayz named his Dawn, and Aaliyah named hers Lily. The four like to cuddle together on the couch.
Jayz is known around the house for his distinct tastes. He loves Takis, a specific brand of tortilla chips, but only the purple and blue bags. He definitely does not want the red ones because those are too spicy. The 13-year-old also always prefers to be barefoot. Whenever the family ventures out of the house, he runs to their car without shoes on, clutching his sneakers in his hand.
He is playful, too. Agnew said her son often hides her belongings around the house and watches gleefully as she hunts for her phone or wallet. Then, with a big smile, he brings her the item and says: “There you go! I’m just kidding.”
Agnew sometimes gets annoyed with his antics. To that, Jayz retorts: “It’s not a big deal, mom.”
Jayz had just started studying for the PSAT.
On Monday, the boy stayed home from school for a countywide day of “asynchronous learning.” He did homework and helped out around the house, said his mom, which included raking the leaves in the backyard. Agnew said she was “fussing with him” because he did not bag the piles of leaves. He claimed they had run out of bags, but she found plenty of supplies in the shed.
They sat down for family dinner that night, eating turkey wings, rice and green beans. Then, Agnew went to sleep. She left for work on Tuesday before Jayz woke up. She thought she would see her son the next night.
Instead, she got a phone call from her husband.
“Oh my god,” he said, Agnew recalled. “Our son just got shot.”
The family met at the hospital, three bags of leaves still sitting on their yard.
Two days later, his little sister hovered by Jayz’s hospital bed, standing on her tippy toes.
“I love you,” she said to her brother, Agnew recalled.
The little girl turned to her mom.
“Can he hear me when I say that?” | 2022-11-11T11:15:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Eighth-grader Jayz Agnew was raking leaves when he was shot outside his home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/child-shot-raking-leaves-maryland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/child-shot-raking-leaves-maryland/ |
Two decades after a family was tortured, police knocked: ‘I know who did it’
Jazmin and Adalberto, outside their home in Northern Virginia, where few people know about the long-ago terror they experienced. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post)
The family rarely spoke about the night 20 years ago when armed strangers burst into their Maryland apartment.
“Where’s the money?!” the men demanded.
Unable to get the answer they wanted, they bound and gagged the dad in duct tape, beat him, pressed a flame-heated knife to his neck and poured bleach over the wounds. His wife and children — 4 and 6 — were forced at gunpoint into a back closet, where the older child was told to translate a message into Spanish to his mom: “If you scream, if you do anything loud, I will kill your husband.”
The terror lasted three hours, as the three intruders rifled through dresser drawers, cut through sofa cushions and popped open a ceiling vent — looking for cash that wasn’t there. Then, just like that, the men slipped away.
The family, to some extent, moved on as well.
The children excelled in school. Mom cleaned homes and cared for older relatives. Dad built a word-of-mouth business repairing backhoes, excavators and other heavy trucks. But they also lived in fear, worried that the men or their associates would return.
“I know you,” one of them had told the dad in 2003, warning him to have money next time. “This was your lucky day.”
The family rarely told anyone what they’d been through. And they moved to a new apartment or townhouse every few years — always in the D.C. area — thinking that doing so would make them harder to find.
Then came last spring and a knock on the door. It was two Montgomery County investigators who had picked up the long-unsolved case. They had new DNA evidence. And they needed the family’s help.
“I know who did it,” Detective Rob Cassels said. “At least one of them.”
‘Where’s the money?!’
Over several interviews, the family spoke about the break-in and its effect on their lives. For safety reasons, they spoke on the condition that only their first names be used. The Washington Post generally does not name victims of violent crime without their permission. Interviews with law enforcement, court filings and court hearings confirm the family’s accounts of the break-in and how they still quietly and privately deal with its effects.
“If you meet us now, you’d see us as the happiest people,” says Jazmin, the daughter who had been forced at gunpoint into the closet and is now 24. “You’d never know what we’d been through or think anything was ever wrong.”
Her father, Adalberto, is now 47. He grew up outside Guadalajara, Mexico, where he was always around tractors and trucks and learned how to fix them. He immigrated to the United States when he was 14, settled in Maryland, and eventually married another Mexican native, Monica. By 2003, their young family lived in a garden-style apartment building off Piney Branch Road in Silver Spring. The four shared one of the bedrooms. Adalberto’s brother, a plumber, slept in the other.
Adalberto got a job repairing cars inside an Amoco station in College Park and was trusted enough by the owner to lock up at night. He did so on a chilly Wednesday evening and drove to his apartment building, arriving just after 6 p.m.
“Stop, I’m the police!” came a voice from behind.
Adalberto fell for the ruse, turned and was forced into his apartment.
Monica had been in the kitchen, bringing dinner to their two children. Now they were staring at strangers pointing guns at them.
“What’s going on!?” she asked in Spanish.
“Shut up! Shut up!” one of the men responded, according to police records.
They punched Adalberto in the stomach and threw him to the floor.
His youngest child, 4-year-old Jazmin, ran into her bedroom, followed by one of the intruders who held a gun to her head and carried her back to the living room. She was ordered with her brother and mom to crawl under a rug, where from the darkness they could hear Adalberto being stomped and beaten.
“Where’s the money?! Where’s the bag of money?!” the men asked.
They tied him up and escalated the threats and pain. The tip of a knife dug into his fingers. Kicks, fists, and gun handles pounded at his body. A flame-heated knife seared into his neck.
The intruders — detectives would come to believe — had followed Adalberto home from the service station under the mistaken belief he was the owner and would have cash proceeds. At least two of them, having arrived without gloves, pulled socks out of a dresser and put them over their hands to guard against leaving fingerprints as they ransacked the family’s home.
Lying on the floor, as Adalberto later told detectives, he heard one of the men place a call over a Nextel direct-connect phone.
“He says he doesn’t have the money,” the man said.
“He’s lying,” the other voice responded. “Kill his wife or his son. He has the money!”
A short time later, Adalberto heard footsteps out in the hall and someone unlocking the door. So did the intruders, who immediately yanked Adalberto’s brother into the apartment. They threw him to the floor and beat, bound and gagged him.
By then, Adalberto’s wife, daughter and son had been moved to the back closet. Monica wrapped her arms around her children and squeezed them.
“Proteger a mi familia,” she whispered in prayer, “Proteger a mi familia.”
‘Your family isn’t safe’
Only when it became clear they wouldn’t find any service station cash did the invaders finally leave.
At the hospital, nurses and doctors counted 124 separate scrapes, cuts, burns and bruises on Adalberto. But he had largely withstood the attack, physically at least, and within hours was released.
His boss at the Amoco station said he shouldn’t return to work or his apartment. “You have to go,” he said. “Your family isn’t safe.”
They moved in with Monica’s sister and brother in Northern Virginia. Walking through their new home, the children constantly wanted to stay together.
“Can you go with me to the bedroom?” Jazmin would ask Cristian.
The children marshaled through school. Cristian joined a scout troop.
“Thoughtful, reserved,” his scoutmaster, Michael Todd, recalls of Cristian. “Sometimes he was the only kid paying attention.”
Todd became close with the family, and Adalberto eventually confided in him. Todd was stunned. “I would have never guessed,” he says, “They have been determined not to let it get in the way of having the family they wanted to have.”
Naturally gregarious and outgoing, Adalberto was hired as a fleet mechanic for a construction company. And he carried out a daily ritual of something he never did before the home invasion: Telling his kids and wife he loved them.
Rarely did Adalberto bring up what happened — and it generally took prompting, like when they drove to Maryland to see family and passed the old apartment building.
“That’s where it happened,” he’d say.
A DNA match
In 2020, the Montgomery County Police Department’s crime lab started working through DNA "profiles” collected at crime scenes over the years that for various reasons had never been analyzed against law enforcement DNA databases. Such databases contain DNA profiles of offenders convicted of crimes around the country.
The hope: With updated search requirements, and with ever-more DNA profiles in the databases, they might get a match.
That’s just what happened, authorities say, in the home-invasion case. A DNA profile obtained two decades earlier from the inside of a sock matched a profile of someone who had been convicted in a different crime.
Police suddenly had a suspect: Stacy Howard Moore, 48.
He lived in the Hyattsville area six miles from the break-in, and his criminal record included a 1994 incident with details that echoed the Silver Spring home invasion.
At the time, Moore, 22, and two others were accused of approaching a man outside his home in Forrestville, Md., and forcing him at gunpoint to go inside, according to court records. Moore pleaded guilty to attempted robbery with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to five years in prison — part of which he spent seeking transfers to a facility that offered more programs.
“All I do all day is sit in my cell and do nothing,” Moore wrote in a letter to a judge, according to court records. “With the right help anybody can change.”
After his release, Moore picked up more arrests, including one for illegally carrying a handgun in what he later explained was done to protect himself from being shot again. “The gun just made me feel safe,” he told a judge.
By his late 30s, though, Moore was staying out of trouble, according to court records and Bill Hale, his longtime attorney. He held a series of jobs — cook at a retirement home and auto detailer among them — and was helping to raise his children.
“Stacy turned right,” Hale says, “and went straight.”
A knock on the door
Police commanders assigned the resurrected case to Cassels, 48, a former college baseball player and longtime investigator who had been working robberies since 2014. He drove to the department’s archives building, and pulled out two oversized case files stuffed with yellowed papers, floppy disks, sticky notes and Polaroids — all telling a story of false leads, dead ends and a case long since gone cold.
The original investigators had looked into Adalberto’s background and if he had reason to keep large amounts of cash at home, and found none — making it clear to Cassels that Adalberto was surveilled at the service station and mistakenly labeled as someone who took proceeds home.
But DNA alone couldn’t make his case. Cassels had to find the family to see if they would testify — a challenge in robbery work. Victims fear retaliation, if not from the suspects, then from the suspect’s family and friends.
Working from old family addresses, Cassels tracked them, possibly, to a townhouse in Northern Virginia. He and a partner dressed casually, hoping to come across as everyday people to a family that, for all they knew, wanted nothing to do with the long-ago horror.
A woman in her 20s opened the door.
Cassels introduced himself, and showed her a report with a victim’s name written across the top.
“That’s my dad,” Jazmin said. “He almost died from that.”
Monica then appeared from within the house. Jazmin spoke to her in Spanish.
Monica fell to her knees, started to shake and cry, and spoke to her daughter.
“She wants you to come in,” Jazmin told them.
Opportunities seized
There was no guarantee Moore would be convicted or that either of his accomplices would ever be identified, let alone charged. But when Cassels broached the subject of new interviews and testifying in court, Jazmin spoke of a two-decade desire for justice.
The family had long repeated a motto among themselves: Nunca te quedes con las ganas, which loosely translated, means to never hold back from acting on important opportunities.
“We definitely want to help,” Jazmin told Cassels.
Adalberto, who wasn’t home at the time, swelled with pride when he learned of his daughter’s answer to the detective.
She had seized the opportunity for all of them.
Waiting to testify
This summer, inside a 6th-floor courtroom in Rockville, Md., prosecutors Donna Fenton and Kimberly Cissel began their trial. The two had earlier interviewed the five victims, coming away stunned not just by their vivid recall of what happened, but the emotional scars left behind.
“They were terrorized and tortured within their own home,” Fenton told jurors during opening statements.
Hale urged jurors to keep an open mind.
“A lot of times on TV, you say, ‘Well Geez, it’s DNA, the guy must be guilty,’” he said. “That’s not really true in real life. A lot of things go into DNA analysis and how the specimen was collected and how it has been stored, where it’s been for the last 20 years.”
About 50 feet away, in a lobby outside, the five victims waited to testify. Cristian, who had earned an automotive engineering degree, sat next to his wife and infant child. He and Jazmin, who was wrapping up a degree in international studies, knew that whatever courtroom win might be ahead, it would be limited. No additional DNA had surfaced. Even if Moore would somehow reveal the names of possible accomplices — which so far he hadn’t — convicting someone based merely on the testimony of an accomplice is very difficult.
Adalberto was called first to the witness stand. He glanced over Moore: Now 50, bald, and a hulking 300 pounds. To Adalberto, who’d always remembered his large, dark eyes, he looked sad.
Adalberto walked jurors through what happened and pointed to the scar left behind by the hot knife. “I could not feel the pain because I was so afraid that my adrenaline was high,” he testified. “But I could smell it, the burning.”
He described a final threat issued by the men, when they told him to stand up and say goodbye to his wife. Instead, he prayed.
“I said, ‘God, if today is my day, go ahead,’” Adalberto testified.
Circuit Judge Christopher Fogleman soon called for a lunch break. The jurors filed out.
Then Moore turned to Hale. He quietly said he wanted to stop the trial and plead guilty. “What can you do?” Hale recalled Moore asking.
By 2:30 p.m., the terms were settled.
Moore pleaded guilty to five counts, including felony assault and false imprisonment. Three months later, while sentencing him to 18 years in prison, Fogleman acknowledged strides Moore had made to improve his life. But the judge described his crimes as completely terrifying and cited a letter written to him by Jazmin.
Through years of counseling, she had learned how much memories from that night shaped her: The distrust of strangers, the anxiety, the post-traumatic stress disorder. She’d explained efforts to shield off her past while celebrating her present.
“Many kids my age can look back at your childhood and recall happy days,” she had written. “I’ve learned to block mine off, and to live everyday as if it’s the last.” | 2022-11-11T11:15:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Stacy Howard Moore was finally caught in home invasion cold case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/stacy-howard-moore-cold-case-silver-spring/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/stacy-howard-moore-cold-case-silver-spring/ |
Pet stores and breeders still fighting Maryland ‘puppy mill’ ban
The Maryland General Assembly passed a bill to shut down retail stores that sell puppies in the state. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
A ban on most sales of dogs and cats in Maryland is back in court as part of a years-long battle over how to address inhumane treatment of potential pets.
Under the law, cats and dogs can only be sold by their original breeders, not by pet stores and middlemen. Pet stores in the state along with breeders and brokers from out of state have sued, saying Maryland is unfairly shutting them out of the market.
In an earlier version of the law, passed in 2018, animals could be sold by businesses that were not “open to the public.” But a loophole allowed pet stores to keep operating by appointment. To tighten restrictions further, an updated version of the law was signed last year making clear that any for-profit store cannot sell animals unless they were born there.
Maryland is one of several states that have taken steps to prevent sales from “puppy mills,” where dogs are bred in large numbers and with minimal care. Critics say that in addition to being cruel to the animals, these breeders are taking advantage of customers by selling them expensive dogs with potential health problems. California, Illinois, Maine and Washington have similar laws; a New York ban is awaiting the governor’s signature.
But pet stores, brokers and breeders argue Maryland’s law goes further, unconstitutionally interfering with interstate commerce by giving preferential treatment to local businesses.
“This is the primary distinction from any other local ordinances or the other four statewide bans that have gone into effect across the country,” attorney Meagan C. Borgerson said in an oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit recently. “There is now no avenue for an out-of-state breeder to sell their dogs in the state of Maryland face-to-face with the Maryland consumer.”
The businesses also contend the ban is counterproductive, because Maryland residents can still buy dogs online from any seller and have them shipped into the state.
“There is a high likelihood that Marylanders will instead turn to less regulated sources, such as online marketplaces which are known to have a high incidence of fraud,” Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council President Michael Bober said in a testimonial.
“There was certainly no intent to corner the market in dogs,” Assistant Attorney General Ryan Dietrich said at oral argument. “Breeders in Maryland are limited in the same way that breeders out of state are limited.” For some residents, he noted, it might be easier to go to a breeder in Pennsylvania or Delaware than in Maryland.
The law’s supporters said they hope Marylanders will turn to shelters or breeders they can visit in person. Simply knowing a dog came from a breeder that is licensed by the U.S. Agriculture Department or even one with a clean inspection record is not enough, they argue, because of lax enforcement.
Inspections and citations under the Animal Welfare Act are on the rise after falling sharply during the Trump administration. But inspections resulting in citations are still half what they were in 2015, according to statistics from the Animal Welfare Institute.
“We’re not feeling any better today than we felt last year or two years ago,” about the USDA, said Nancy Blaney, Animal Welfare Institute’s government affairs director. “The best way to ensure that you’re not getting animals from terrible situations is just to not have them in the store.”
Blaney pointed to the case of Envigo, a facility breeding beagles for research in Virginia that was inspected five times and issued 74 citations over 10 months but allowed to continue operating until the Justice Department intervened. A subsequent civil settlement does not bar the company from breeding dogs in the future.
“That kind of tells you all you need to know about how seriously they take these things,” she said.
The earlier version of the law was upheld by the 4th Circuit, and a judge in a district court deemed this version constitutional.
“Plaintiffs appear to be exemplary breeders, brokers, and pet stores owners. They work hard to ensure that their puppies are raised and transported in humane, caring environments and purchased by responsible owners,” she wrote. “But, it is not the Court’s place to judge the wisdom or fairness of the State’s decision to pass the Act.” | 2022-11-11T11:19:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4th Circuit hears 'Just Puppies' challenge to Maryland dog sale law - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/maryland-puppy-mill-ban/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/maryland-puppy-mill-ban/ |
Shakespeare meets ‘Broadcast News’ in a very D.C. staging of ‘Much Ado’
It’s been double duty for Simon Godwin, artistic director of Shakespeare Theatre Company, who created versions of the Bard’s comedy in two styles on two continents
Rick Holmes as Benedick and Kate Jennings Grant as Beatrice in Shakespeare Theatre Company's production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” set in a D.C. TV newsroom. (Shakespeare Theatre Company)
Double acts are nothing new to the stage. But how about the wild, transatlantic one-two punch that Simon Godwin, artistic director of Washington’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, is attempting to deliver?
In August, Godwin was at London’s National Theatre, where he unveiled a production of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” with a British cast. He set it in the 1930s, at a hotel on the Italian Riviera.
Two months later, Godwin was in Washington, working on the same play, this time with an American cast. Only now, “Much Ado” takes place in a contemporary television newsroom in the nation’s capital — where it has its official opening at Sidney Harman Hall on Nov. 15.
It takes a moment for this rare and improbable turn of events to sink in: one director for two distinct “Much Ados,” one after the other. Shifting geography and epoch has become the norm for Shakespearean productions. Still, facing the limits of time and career opportunity, directors can find it hard to whip up even one inspired version of a canonical play. But to try to create two?
No one is more cognizant of this unusual happenstance than Godwin, who with “Much Ado” gets his first chance to originate a Shakespeare production in Washington since his arrival in 2020. (He directed a “Timon of Athens” that year, but it ran at Brooklyn’s Theater for a New Audience before moving to STC’s Klein Theatre.) The pandemic shutdown upended Godwin’s original plan — to produce the D.C.-newsroom-based “Much Ado” in the Harman in spring 2020.
In fact, the Washington “Much Ado” was on Godwin’s drawing board long before the National Theatre also asked him to direct the play.
“I mean, it’s such a funny, topsy-turvy journey, because I’d been working on the Washington version for so long,” Godwin said. “So then, before doing that, to come up with a second production in a very different way? And to do that one first? It was a kind of, yeah, unusual.”
The challenge offered a director a remarkable experiment in the malleability of Shakespeare’s art — and an exploration of his own imaginative skills. The assignment required him to lead each cast through rehearsals with a commitment to a distinct vision of the play. And it would call on Godwin to respond as freshly and inventively to actors in Washington as in London.
“I said to him the other day,” recalled Kate Jennings Grant, who plays Beatrice in D.C., “ ‘Simon, I just have to say that, and I mean it as a compliment, I would never know that you directed this play before.’ And then we both burst out laughing.”
“Much Ado About Nothing” is of course about something — the bittersweet battle of wits between two prideful, headstrong combatants, Beatrice and Benedick, who are desperately in love and are the only ones who don’t know it. It’s a piquant romantic comedy that takes a disturbing turn: a subplot unfolding around another couple, Hero and her fiance, Claudio, in which an accusation of sexual betrayal is maliciously drummed up.
The British-born Godwin could have saved himself time and energy by producing the same version twice. Instead, the less possessive attitude about Shakespeare he’s encountered on these shores bolstered his instinct to try something different.
“Like all of those comedies, it comes freighted with such an expectation of history,” he said, of “Much Ado.” “But one thing I found in Washington very strongly is this release from history. The fact that people in Washington, they haven’t seen it three times in the last 12 months.” (His London “Much Ado,” which ended a month-long engagement in September, was running there at the same time as another “Much Ado,” at Shakespeare’s Globe.)
“I’ve really experienced what I’d hope to find in America,” Godwin added, “which is an open space to re-meet plays afresh.”
In a recent rehearsal at Shakespeare Theatre’s offices on Capitol Hill, the actors in his American “Much Ado” were putting the play on its feet for the first time. In this 21st-century version, Beatrice and Benedick (played by Rick Holmes) are co-anchors on SNN — the Shakespeare News Network, of course. Hero (Nicole King) is the sportscaster and Claudio (Paul Deo Jr.) is the weatherman, and they have their own flirty studio thing going on. Emily Burns, the show’s dramaturge, has written Bard-centric news items for the SNN team to read, such as this “Macbeth” riff: “Climate change activists have responded with protests and blockades after Birnam Wood had been completely uprooted overnight.”
If Godwin’s stylish London version had the continental look and feel of a movie like “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” the Washington production seemed to be headed in the direction of “Broadcast News.”
“He’s got an incredibly infectious, energetic temperament, which is wonderful to have on a play like ‘Much Ado,’ ” said John Heffernan, who played Benedick in the National Theatre production. “It’s quite frightening at times because he’s very bold in his decision-making. To say, ‘Right, we’re going to sit in a ‘Grand Budapest’-style hotel. We’re going to a newsroom.’ You know, he commits and he’s fearless.”
For the actors in the Washington “Much Ado” — some of whom were cast more than two years ago — there was a possibility that Godwin would no longer have the head space for novel approaches to the play.
“I don’t feel from him this sense of ‘Let me just tell you what works here,’ ” Holmes said in a joint interview with the SNN news team: Grant, King and Deo. “I think he’s studiously trying to avoid that. Nevertheless, there are little nuggets from him that have you thinking, ‘Well, he probably knows what he’s talking about.’ ”
Godwin envisioned the newscast as “a context that creates chemistry.” And chemistry is the essence of “Much Ado.” In the London production, Heffernan and Katherine Parkinson, as Beatrice, could not avoid each other amid the posh exclusivity of a Jazz Age European resort; a tense Washington newsroom might raise the comic temperature even higher.
“The idea of the deadline of a broadcast, something the characters have to do, felt very appealing,” the director said. “I think there’s a link between the momentous and the erotic, that if you’ve got these two people doing something on a deadline, rather than just being onstage with somebody, it creates a chemistry which can then bloom into something else.”
In the Washington rehearsal room, Godwin jumped up, jumped in, offered funny asides, rattled off thoughts, listened to suggestions, laughed often — all to encourage the actors to extract the play from their heads and push it into their bodies. “Let’s try to stitch together the moments from where we began yesterday,” he said. A jovial scene unfolded involving Edward Gero, an STC veteran cast as Leonato, the newscast’s executive producer; Carlo Albán’s mischievous Don Pedro; and Deo’s Claudio, as the director coaxed them all into a display of locker-room camaraderie.
Other actors came up with bits of stage business in another scene, detailing the moments before the evening SNN newscast went live. “Oh, a lint roller’s good!” Godwin declared as an actor playing a newsroom assistant fetched one to spruce up the anchor team. “I think the pleasure here is in these quick gear changes.”
For Godwin, the pleasure, too, is in how extra-prepared he feels, working with a text he now knows doubly well.
“As I return now to the world of the media with the play, I discover in fact that it is so robustly bright — not consistently bright, but ultimately optimistic,” he said. “And that the world of the media is far from closing down humor and wit and joy. In fact, it can channel it, in a very immediate way.”
Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare. Directed by Simon Godwin. Nov. 11-Dec. 11 at Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW. shakespearetheatre.org. | 2022-11-11T11:24:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In very D.C. staging of ‘Much Ado,’ Shakespeare meets ‘Broadcast News’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/11/11/much-ado-shakespeare-simon-godwin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/11/11/much-ado-shakespeare-simon-godwin/ |
Oregon demands information about grocer mega-merger
The attorney general of Oregon joins those of California, Illinois, D.C. and Washington state in opposition
The fight over whether two of the nation’s biggest grocery chains should be allowed to merge and create a retail giant has stretched to Oregon, where the state attorney general has issued a civil demand for information from Albertsons about its plan to become one with Kroger.
The Oregon attorney general’s office sent a letter to Albertsons requesting documents regarding the merger proposal and a related move to take $4 billion out of Albertsons and return it to shareholders.
Albertsons operates Safeway, Star Market, Shaw’s and Vons, among others. Kroger operates a family of stores that includes Ralphs, King Soopers and Fred Meyer.
Opponents also have argued that the $4 billion payment or “special dividend” to Albertsons shareholders would enrich the private equity firms that control the company while undermining the company financially.
The attorney general’s office “intends to fully investigate all the conduct of individuals and entities involved in negotiation and determining the “special dividend,” according to the letter to an attorney representing Albertsons, Ted Hassi.
Spokespeople for Albertsons did not respond Thursday evening to requests for comment on the letter. It has previously said there is no legal basis to stop the dividend payment.
While Oregon officials declined to specify what information they are requesting, spokesperson Kristina Edmunson said Thursday that it is “an all-encompassing request for detailed information.”
The move in Oregon follows efforts by other states to block the $4 billion “special dividend” that was announced in connection with the merger. | 2022-11-11T11:50:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oregon Asks Albertsons for Documents - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/albertsons-merger-oregon/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/albertsons-merger-oregon/ |
Why are way more women suddenly working in construction?
President Biden speaks with Yurvina Hernandez at a transit line construction site in Los Angeles. (David Swanson/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
D.C. reader and self-described “data nerd” Claudia Marquez sent a question so perceptive that it begged for its own column.
“I have noticed more and more women working in the construction business, especially Latina women,” Marquez wrote. “Has there been a rise in women working in this industry?”
Our analysis quickly revealed that Marquez the Data Nerd knew what she was talking about. The share of women in construction has hit a record high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women surged into the industry starting around 2016, even as the number of men in construction lagged.
The nation’s capital, where Marquez lives, boasts a greater share of women in construction than any state, according to our analysis. Women in Arizona and Florida also work in construction at unusually high rates.
And as Marquez surmised, Hispanic women account for almost all that growth. Their numbers in construction have soared 117 percent over the past six years, according to our analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And much of that growth happened on work sites, not in the sort of back-office jobs where women have long been common.
“We’ve experienced an enormous growth of women in construction across the board,” said Rafael Villegas, executive director of the Georgia Hispanic Construction Association. “Way back when, you wouldn’t see a woman in the trades, in upper management, or even running the business. Now, women have a strong presence in every field.”
Most charts show the inflection point came around 2016. What the heck changed?
Fans of obvious answers might point to the huge demand for construction workers, as evidenced by an unemployment rate that in 2016 tied its lowest level since at least 2000.
As the construction workforce ages and young people decline to enter the trades, there’s a “chronic shortage of skilled labor for our industry,” said Rose Quint of the National Association of Homebuilders. “And for that reason, we need to reach out to different populations that have traditionally not considered construction.”
When Guiomar Obregón co-founded Precision 2000, or P2K, more than two decades ago, she was one of the only female leaders in the industry. Now she employs about 80 people, not including contractors, and her work can be found in airports, military bases and other government projects throughout Georgia and South Carolina.
Obregón, who holds degrees from Georgia Tech, Georgia State and the Colombian School of Engineering, says that while she initially faced skepticism as a woman in the industry, her business has an advantage because it’s minority-owned. Even during labor shortages, she can find talented workers in populations competitors overlook, and she’s pushing her peers to do the same. She says women, in particular, represent a major untapped resource.
“We’re 50 percent of the population! There’s a huge opportunity to hire all these women. (When) we get to 50-50, then we can say it’s hard to find workers,” Obregón said. “But until then ....”
When we called experts and advocates for women in the trades, they said one painful truth explains why labor shortages benefit women: hiring them takes extra work. Women are less likely to have experience, since men have dominated the trades for eons, and they’re often not plugged into traditional word-of-mouth hiring pipelines.
“Employers maybe have to search a little harder when the labor market gets tighter in the expansionary times,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute, “and then exercise less discretion — perhaps less discrimination — in who they’re hiring.”
But worker shortages can’t be the only explanation. Construction had neared 2016 levels of unemployment before — notably during the housing boom of the mid-2000s — yet there was no similar sustained rise in women on work sites. Why was this time different?
For one thing, the mid-2010s brought new momentum to efforts by labor groups to increase the supply of skilled tradeswomen, remove barriers to hiring them and make it easier for them to stay on the job once hired.
Consider Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT), a key player in a vibrant ecosystem of such organizations. Since 1981, its trainers have given thousands of women the skills, strength and social support needed to succeed in male-dominated apprenticeship programs. But in 2016, the venerable organization took its efforts to the next level, opening a national center devoted to working with state and local governments, local organizations and corporations to better support women on the worksite.
After all, the lack of women in construction wasn’t due to a lack of supply of women willing to take lucrative, secure work as carpenters or welders. It was due to a lack of demand among employers and workplaces, which were often hostile to women workers. For women to really thrive in the trades, the industry had to change.
“Women can certainly do this work,” said Lark Jackson, associate director at CWIT’s National Center for Women’s Equity in Apprenticeship and Employment. “And we just want to make sure that industry stakeholders are aware of that and have the best training to recruit and retain them.”
Jackson and other advocates teach businesses to tweak their job postings so they’re not inadvertently discouraging female applicants. They also push for better child care and parental leave benefits, and they lead anti-discrimination and bystander-intervention training to help work sites become more welcoming.
Sometimes it’s as simple as teaching chivalrous co-workers not to jump in and offer extra help to a female apprentice tackling a heavy lift or an otherwise physically challenging task. While well-intentioned, Jackson said, that kind of assistance prevents women from demonstrating their own talents or learning from their mistakes, which can stunt their professional development.
“Women want to learn. Women can hold their own,” she said.
The turnaround in construction coincided with a surge of women into the workforce — led by Black and Hispanic women — that culminated in most U.S. jobs being held by women for only the second time in history. The first was during the Great Recession, when men were laid off at such high rates that folks tried to make the term “mancession” happen.
Women workers attained that milestone just as the pandemic sent millions back to the sidelines with increased family obligations and health concerns. But construction proved to be the exception. An essential industry that kept hiring during the pandemic, construction provided opportunities to women who, amid lockdowns and the “Great Resignation” that followed, were rethinking their newly dangerous jobs in health care and the service industry.
In about a year, women recovered all their pandemic-era losses in construction. It would take the men more than twice as long to reach the same milestone, at which point women — led by Latinas — had already pushed well past all previous highs and set new records.
Why did Hispanic women lead the charge? Social networks may have helped. More than 1 in every 5 Hispanic men employed in the United States work in construction.
In fact, Hispanic men are more heavily concentrated in construction than any other race or gender in any other industry. Asian men in financial, professional and technical industries come closest, followed by Black men in transportation and warehousing, White women in education and Black women in non-hospital medical care.
Hispanic women might be more likely to grow up in the industry and watch their fathers build a comfortably middle-class life in the trades, Obregón said. And to the extent that Hispanic women are more likely to know Hispanic men, they could have first access to new construction jobs as the industry expands.
“Having someone you know work in the construction industry, having that exposure and access to learn about it through them, definitely makes a difference,” Jackson said.
Federal legislation could further normalize the presence of women on construction sites. The bipartisan infrastructure law President Biden signed last November is a “game changer for women’s inclusion in the trades,” Jackson said.
“It feels like this is the moment where all of the preparation that the tradeswomen movement has been making over the years is finally being met with a huge opportunity,” she said.
There’s plenty of room for continued growth. Despite the recent boom, the share of women in construction sits at just 14 percent. With many women still confined to back-office roles, the rate on job sites is even lower.
“We have a lot more work to do,” Jackson said, “to make sure that tradeswomen aren’t looking around and saying, ‘I’m the only woman.’”
Howdy! The Department of Data delights in your quantifiable queries! Which cities benefit most from air-quality regulations? Which workers lose out when new technology hits the market? Where are the highest share of kids in foster care? Just ask!
To get every question, answer and factoid in your inbox as soon as we publish, sign up here. If your question inspires a column, we’ll send an official Department of Data button and ID card. This week’s buttons go to Claudia Marquez — of course! — but also to Cecilia Braveboy of Northern Virginia, who submitted a similar query. | 2022-11-11T11:50:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why are way more women suddenly working in construction? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/hispanic-women-construction-trades/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/hispanic-women-construction-trades/ |
Midterm elections live updates Counting continues in key states, leaving control of Congress in limbo
Republican candidate says he will not concede Maryland attorney general race
Election workers sort mail-in ballots that were dropped off at polling locations at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix. (Eric Thayer/for The Washington Post)
The counting of mail-in and other ballots is continuing Friday in key states, leaving control of both the House and Senate in limbo three days after Election Day. Republicans remain confident they will narrowly win the House, but many uncalled races, particularly in Western states, are breaking in favor of Democrats, giving the party an outside shot at retaining control. In the Senate, races remain uncalled in Arizona and Nevada, while the contest in Georgia between Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) and Republican Herschel Walker will be decided in a Dec. 6 runoff.
Both Democrats and Republicans need to win two of three uncalled races — in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia — to take control of the Senate. Alaska remains uncalled as well, but the top two candidates there are Republicans, so the race does not affect control of the chamber.
Anticipating victory, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has launched a bid for speaker and announced a transition team.
In Georgia, both Republicans and Democrats are preparing for an expensive runoff even though their donor and activist bases are exhausted from a grueling midterm cycle.
After a hard-fought campaign, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, jumped right back into campaign mode.
Warnock offered remarks Thursday in front of a downtown Atlanta mural honoring the late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D- Ga.), joking to supporters that he had warned them they might be spending Thanksgiving together. Warnock, who won a runoff election to become Georgia’s first Black senator less than two years ago, was welcomed by a large crowd of supporters, who held up signs that read, “One more time Georgia.”
The assumption has long been that the chamber would go red. But this election has certainly tested plenty of assumptions. Democrats have been projected as the winners in 188 House districts, while 208 have gone to the Republicans. The magic number for a majority is 218, so Republicans are obviously much closer.
But those raw numbers are misleading: Most of the yet-to-be-decided districts are out West — read: Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington — where the vote counting is slower, and most lean blue.
In internal polls, voters kept bringing up a specific concern: the president’s age. And word clouds created by outside pollsters were showing terms like “age” and “Is he with it?” in large letters, an indication that such worries were among those most commonly voiced by Americans.
Questions about Biden’s physical and mental fitness have hung over him since he began his presidential run in 2019 and have persisted throughout the first two years of his term. But with Biden turning 80 on Nov. 20 — and potentially announcing a reelection bid shortly thereafter — the United States is entering unmapped territory: an octogenarian in the Oval Office.
Lake has yet to say that the election results can’t be trusted, as she did in 2020 when Joe Biden won the state. Her assertion that the system needs immediate change came as officials continued to count votes, a process they have warned could take up to 12 days. The results released so far show Lake, a former television news anchor, locked in a close contest with her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s secretary of state.
The Republican nominee for Maryland attorney general said he will not concede the race despite trailing his Democratic opponent, Rep. Anthony G. Brown, by more than 300,000 votes.
Peroutka did not offer evidence or examples for his claims and did not respond to requests for an interview. In his email, Peroutka said he planned to “investigate these strange occurrences and I do not plan to concede the race.” | 2022-11-11T11:59:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Midterm elections news: Tracking undecided House, Senate races - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/elections-news-house-senate-races/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/elections-news-house-senate-races/ |
‘Geek Love’ put Katherine Dunn on the map. Was it her sole masterpiece?
Dunn’s 1971 novel “Toad” was rejected by multiple publishers. Six years after her death, the book is finally available. It offers a whole new perspective on her work.
I first read “Geek Love,” Katherine Dunn’s breakout novel, shortly after its publication in 1989. Now seen as a classic, back then reading the novel felt like watching Tod Browning’s 1932 horror film “Freaks” in the backroom of a dubious club, its lights kept low so you wouldn’t see things you’d have a difficult time forgetting.
Dunn wasn’t afraid of staring into the shadows. “Geek Love” puts self-proclaimed freaks and monsters front and center. The novel recounts the history and hardships of the Binewski clan, carnival folk whose pater- and materfamilias, Al and Crystal Lil, create their own freak show. Using a prenatal diet of hallucinogens, speed and radioactive isotopes, the couple produce their mutant progeny: conjoined twins; Aqua Boy; a hunchback; a seemingly typical child with telekinesis; stillborn infants exhibited in jars.
“Geek Love” was Dunn’s third published novel — following “Attic” (1970) and “Truck” (1971) — but there was more. While working in Portland bars and restaurants to support herself and her young son, Dunn wrote a novel called “Toad.” Harper & Row, publishers of “Attic” and “Truck,” bought the book in 1971, but ultimately turned it down. (“Nobody in this book is likable!” she was told.) Despite interest from other publishers and years of revision, the book never found a home. In 1979, a final round of rejections caused Dunn to set aside the novel for good.
In 2016, at age 70, Dunn died of lung cancer. Her legacy, it seemed, would be a single, much beloved cult novel. “Geek Love” was a National Book Awards finalist, sold over a half-million copies and has never gone out of print.
Hawaii comes thrillingly to life in ‘Hokuloa Road’
After her death, Dunn’s son, along with numerous friends and fans, including editor Naomi Huffman, pushed to bring Dunn’s unpublished fiction into print. Huffman had uncovered “Toad” in Dunn’s substantial archive at Lewis & Clark College, along with a related short story, “The Resident Poet,” published in the New Yorker in 2020. Another story, “The Education of Mrs. R.,” has just appeared in the fall issue of the Paris Review.
This month, “Toad” finally made it out into the world.
“Toad” is a subdued, haunting novel. It is exhilarating, often disturbing, and as compelling in its way as Dunn’s best-known work. Its narrator is Sally Gunnar, seemingly a stand-in for the young Katherine Dunn. They share a birthday, an obsession with Reed College (Dunn attended Reed on a full scholarship, but never graduated), a history of poverty and depression. (Though while Sally describes her own “enormous ugliness,” period photos depict Dunn as a wry beauty.) The story drifts back and forth between Sally as a 20-year-old student and her much older, “clean spinsterish” self, who recalls her hapless college friends, “bohemian slobs” like herself.
A 1979 rejection letter commented that “Toad” “seems to be basically autobiographical, by which I mean that things are there not for any reason except that they happened.” Another editor complained that the story was “too minutely interested in things.” Many of these minutely observed things express the inequity of heterosexual relations, along with details of severe depression, a mental breakdown and a suicide attempt. Its focus on the quotidian makes “Toad” feel ahead of its time, reminiscent of the work of Susanna Kaysen, Elena Ferrante and Elizabeth Wurtzel, while its rude energy and language evokes mid-20th-century picaresques: “Sometimes a Great Notion,” “The Ginger Man,” “A Confederacy of Dunces,” “Fear of Flying,” even “On the Road.”
As in “Attic” and “Truck,” you can see Dunn homing in on what would become her central concerns: outsiders; social isolation; women’s survival in a world where the game is both rigged and potentially deadly. Dunn knew that rigged game well. As Molly Crabapple notes in her introduction, Dunn grew up broke. Poverty is omnipresent in her work — in “Toad,” it’s almost a character in itself — and one can sense it hovering over Dunn’s young adult life as well. Like the protagonist of “Attic” — a working-class college dropout named “K Dunn” — she had a felony conviction for passing a bad check. Later, she made ends meet as a pool shark. “Her mother had a history of violence,” her son, Eli Dapalonia, has said. Dunn’s younger brother recalled, “Mom was viciously beating her with the broomstick, and she was walking to the door. She wasn’t running. She had a look, like, ‘I’m not going to let this get to me.’ ” When Dunn was 17, she left home for good.
Bette Howland, nearly forgotten, is now getting the notice she deserves
In “Toad,” Dunn gleefully eviscerates 1960s counterculture: squalid student ghettos where well-off White kids play at being impoverished artists; rampant misogyny masquerading as free love; meals of brown rice and burned horsemeat; lots of bad sex. But she shows compassion for her younger shadow-self, as when the middle-aged Sally reflects on the “delirium of eluding discipline that drives each college freshman to longer, later discussions in the dormitories: past fatigue, past pleasure, even, merely because she was not permitted to stay up so late in her father’s house. The freedom is startling, exhilarating, addictive. It must be used and abused.”
Dunn saves her most scathing characterizations for the golden hippie couple, Sam and Carlotta — especially Sam, one of those charismatic young men who, despite a lack of physical charms, has a devoted following among fellow students. Sam pens papers with titles like “Wittgenstein: The Effect of Swiss Cheese on Rye,” and spouts the kind of back-to-the-land drivel that middle-class kids from Long Island did (and probably still do) when dreaming of an Arcadian life. But then he hooks up with Carlotta, a sweet yet steely California hippie goddess. She becomes pregnant, the two move to a remote homestead, and the gently satirical tone of the novel darkens, building to a horrific scene when Sally goes to visit them and their newborn child.
For all its sly humor and cool detachment, “Toad” is a deeply melancholy story, not an elegy for lost youth, but an exorcism. Reflecting on her time with Sam and Carlotta, Sally says, “These things don’t make me wince anymore; I have the excuse of time, which allows me to despise my youth without being at all responsible for most of it.” And, later in the novel, “So many of the desperate things I did in my youth were to combat belonging to the mass identity … all the pain and hatred — it kept me afloat.”
Finishing Dunn’s beautiful, sad, nearly lost novel, I was grateful that Sally, like her young author, perhaps, was able to find solace in telling her own story.
Introduction by Molly Crabapple
Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 334 pp. $28 | 2022-11-11T12:12:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review: Toad, by Katherine Dunn - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/11/katherine-dunn-toad/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/11/katherine-dunn-toad/ |
Politics can influence investors in unhelpful ways, so don’t let post-election panic drive your decision-making
Election Day voters in D.C. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)
Yes, the stock market doesn’t like uncertainty. The day after this week’s midterm elections, with so many races still not settled, the benchmark S&P 500 index shed 2.1 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average and tech-heavy Nasdaq also fell sharply. And control of both chambers of Congress remained in limbo as the week was ending.
“Whether it’s a presidential election or midterm, politics typically encourage investors to color their views in an unhelpful way,” said Dan Egan, managing director of behavioral finance at Betterment, a digital investment advisory firm. “The more partisan someone is, the more likely they are to believe the election of the opposite party will significantly hurt the stock market.”
“Elections seem to rarely have a big influence on stock markets directly,” he said. “It’s hard to distinguish between normal market ups and downs and attributing any moves directly to election results.”
Where’s the economy headed? To quote the Fed chief: ‘Hard to say.’
How do politics color investors’ actions in an unhelpful way?
“When voters strongly favor one political party over another, it creates a bias toward whatever they do as being right,” Egan said. “If your party has a bad election night and you pull out of the markets because you think things are going to turn for the worse, you’re leaving at a time when market uncertainty is going down, which the market likes.
From 1993 to 2013, the S&P 500 had an annualized return of 9.2 percent, he said. “But if you had missed just the 10 best market days during that time period, your annual returns would have dropped to roughly half, or 5.4 percent.”
Temporary turbulence in the stock market, such as on Election Day, might scare some investors into selling. That would be a mistake, Egan said, pointing to reports from Vanguard and U.S. Bank.
Vanguard’s research, which goes back to 1860, found that the compounded annual return for a portfolio of 60 percent equities and 40 percent fixed income performed roughly the same whether a Republican or Democrat was elected president.
“In the end, long-term investing success does not rely on short-term market developments,” Miller wrote. “Instead, it‘s more important to have a well-balanced, diversified plan that you hold for the long-term.”
Is there anything people should do once the dust settles? | 2022-11-11T12:12:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How midterm elections impact the stock market - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/midterm-elections-impact-investment-portfolio/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/11/midterm-elections-impact-investment-portfolio/ |
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during a Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. The top Democrats and Republicans on the committee last month sent a letter to the CFTC calling for the regulator to take a more active role in overseeing cryptocurrencies. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
I must admit I’ve been rooting for the crypto market to crash and burn. Not because I never invested in it and was resentful to see so many people get rich from it (though there were moments). But because I don’t understand it, what value it serves or what problem it solves.
So I spent the last 12 years assuming — and hoping — that crypto would go away. And now it might. Or at least, it might become a smaller part of the financial market. But now I’m worried. After a decade of drawing in investors, minting new millionaires and billionaires, and inspiring passion for investing among a new tech-savvy generation, I fear the consequences of it crashing and burning. Investors are in danger of learning the wrong lessons about risk.
I’d feel a little guilty for rooting against crypto if its fall was the thing that tips the economy into a bad recession. But it doesn’t seem that FTX.com or even the entire crypto market poses a systematic risk — by design, crypto is supposed to lie outside the traditional financial markets. When there’s a big failure in the bond market it’s bad because it touches everything and the whole market melts down. That’s not the case with crypto. But there are still reasons to worry about what the FTX situation portends for investors.
First of all, the whole crypto market is in trouble and people are losing money. That’s never good. It’s especially worrying that many of the newest investors to crypto, the ones who bought high and watched it fall, tended to be lower-net-worth investors, some new to financial markets. Hopefully, they didn’t invest more than they can afford to lose. The value in crypto was supposed to be that it offered a hedge to the dollar or more conventional parts of the market. Or that it would hold up in value if everything else fell. But an asset that offers that kind of hedge is rare; most assets are somewhat correlated, especially when the market drops.
Rareness normally means an expensive asset that offers a lower return. You pay a big price for that kind of safety and it’s hard to find. The fact that crypto offered such high returns indicated it was never a good hedge, it just added risk to your portfolio. The takeaway here is that anything that seems to deliver very high returns comes with the risk you will lose your shirt at the worst possible time.
My second worry is the blow to the credibility of the financial system. Instead of being more explicit about the true nature of the risk, the system has instead gone along with the idea that it’s possible to get something for nothing. If people want to speculate in risky assets that might crash and burn, that’s their right, so long as they were never mislead or pose a greater systemic risk. But it’s a failure of any fiduciary that allowed crypto assets in a 401(k) plan. Offering that option indicates that the fiduciary believes crypto is a prudent long-term investment for money people will need in the future.
The Department of Labor expressed concern about crypto in retirement plans earlier this year and planned an investigation. But their concern may have been too little, too late. This leads to a loss of trust in the system, and that has consequences. Some investors may reduce their investments or shy away from investing altogether and miss out on returns in the future on more reasonable assets such as index funds. Instead, the lesson people should take from this is not that markets are rigged, but that extremely risky assets probably don’t belong in your retirement portfolio.
The fall in crypto is happening at the same time other tech companies are seeing their valuations tank. They were probably due for a correction, too, but it’s no coincidence. A rise in interest rates and inflation tends to take the air out of all kinds of risky assets. A bigger concern is if investors get too nervous and that spills into other assets, bringing the whole stock market down.
So far that’s not happening. Markets appear to be moving more on macroeconomic news than what’s happening in crypto. But rising rates pose many risks. The crypto crash is a symptom and not a cause of a riskier environment that should serve as a reminder that financial markets don’t offer any guarantees. The ultimate lesson here is not that markets are bad or a rigged game. It’s that you should never speculate more than you can afford to lose in an asset class that has no clear intrinsic value.
SBF Will Need a Crypto Miracle to Rescue FTX: Lionel Laurent
The Drama Is Back in Crypto, and Nobody’s Happy: John Authers
FTX’s Sudden Unraveling May Allow DeFi to Grow: Andy Mukherjee | 2022-11-11T12:12:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Burned by Crypto? Don’t Learn the Wrong Lesson - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/burned-by-crypto-dont-learn-the-wrong-lesson/2022/11/11/fe5ec9a6-61b4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/burned-by-crypto-dont-learn-the-wrong-lesson/2022/11/11/fe5ec9a6-61b4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Is the Treasury Bond Massacre Finally Over?
The nation’s inflation problem is far from solved, and the Federal Reserve remains committed to keeping short-term interest rates elevated. But longer-term government bonds may finally be worth a second look after some 14 months of carnage.
Although the Fed has short rates pinned in the vicinity of 4% to 5%, longer-term yields tend to start falling much sooner as monetary tightening cycles come to an end, especially as markets look ahead to the risk of a looming recession. In fact, during the past five rate-increase cycles, 10-year notes have on average peaked and begun to rally 206 days before the first Fed cut. Here’s the basis-point change in the 10-year Treasury in the 12 months before each rate reduction:
In other words, longer-term yields can probably decline from current levels even as the Fed keeps its target rate elevated, provided inflation continues to moderate. The latest consumer price index report showed that core inflation is running at around 5.8% based on the three-month annualized rate. Although noisy, the latest data may provide some support for that argument, and traders on Thursday were in full-on glass-half-full mode, pushing yields down 24 basis points, the biggest one-day drop since March 2020. Here are a few possible paths to consider for longer-term Treasuries.
One simplistic way to think about the fair-value yield on a 10-year Treasury is as the average of the expected yields on 10 one-year bills bought over the next decade. Assume, for instance, that you think yields on 12-month securities will average 5% in 2023, 4% in 2024 and 3% in 2025 — only a slight simplification of the prevailing thinking in markets. After that, you think rates will converge on the long-run “neutral” level of 2.5% on the federal funds rate, according to the median estimate of the members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee. That scenario yields an implied fair-value yield of around 3% on 10-year notes, 84 basis points below the current 3.84%.
You can come up with countless hypotheticals, but most will lead to a similar place. Maybe you think the world is somewhat more susceptible to inflationary flare-ups than it was before the pandemic, in part because of geopolitical unrest and the threat of climate change. As a result, you pencil in another big inflation spike and restrictive monetary policy from 2029 to 2031. Maybe you think, for a variety of reasons, that the long-run neutral rate has moved up to 3% instead of 2.5%. Even then, it’s still hard to justify a 10-year rate above 4%. To get there, you’d have to integrate pretty extreme inflationary scenarios that almost no one is talking about publicly.
The other thing to remember is that Treasuries benefit from a flight to safety. If the world economy tumbles into a recession in the coming 24 months, Treasuries will be in high demand, and yields could drop precipitously as a result.
Neutral Case
In practice, however, market pricing is usually more complicated than the simplistic analysis above, and it’s rare that longer-term rates become completely untethered from their short-term brethren. Ten-year notes can certainly rally in advance of two-year or 12-month securities, resulting in greater and greater yield-curve inversion. But they almost never become unmoored over longer time horizons. In fact, longer-term bonds usually yield more than short-term ones — they pay a so-called term premium — to compensate for the risk of holding them into an unknowable future.
Extreme yield-curve inversion is rare. The 57-basis-point inversion in the two-year/10-year yield differential on Nov. 3 marked the deepest since February 1982. The closest comparison before then was the April 2000 inversion that coincided with the start of the dot-com bust.
In fairness, it’s possible that the 1970s and early 1980s are the only valid comparison to today’s economy because the US hasn’t faced inflation like this ever since. Notably, there were days in 1980 when the curve inverted as much as 242 basis points. But those periods were vanishingly brief and may have simply reflected liquidity differences at different parts of the curve: Traders used the 10-year part of the curve to reflect a view that couldn’t be expressed elsewhere. Archived notes from the Federal Open Market Committee’s March 1980 meeting described the “very thin, almost nonfunctioning markets” that prevailed at the time of the extreme inversion, raising questions about whether that yield curve could be trusted or replicated in 2022’s market.
If you don’t believe the yield curve can withstand much more inversion, then the bull case for longer-term yields is probably somewhat limited with short-term bonds boxed in at current levels.
The other consideration is the Fed, which wants longer-term rates to remain restrictive to limit demand and depress inflation; it has the tools to bring markets to heel if it decides to use them. As Fed Chair Jerome Powell put it at his press conference on Nov. 2, the central bank is not just narrowly focused on the policy rate but also on bonds at all maturities.
We’ll want to get the policy rate to a level where the real interest rate is positive. We’ll want to do that. I do not think of it as the single and only touchstone though. I think you put some weight on that, you also put some weight on rates across the curve. Very few people borrow at the short end, at the federal funds rate for example ...
Powell didn’t explicitly say what he considers to be appropriate longer-term yields. But suffice it to say, his comments suggest he may not look approvingly on any significant rally in longer-term securities, given his stated objectives. If he comes to that conclusion, he can use future press conferences to jawbone yields back into line. And if it comes to it, he could accelerate the pace of so-called quantitative tightening by actively selling Treasuries from the Fed’s portfolio instead of simply letting them mature.
What’s the Bear Case?
These are the scenarios that are easiest to imagine. But importantly, neither one of them is terrible.You have to get creatively gloomy to envision a future in which long-term bond yields go much higher from here, which is not to say that it’s impossible. You have to believe, for instance, that inflation expectations have become truly unanchored and that the US is heading for a wage-price spiral — that inflation has infected the national mindset and workers will start demanding raises, which employers will reluctantly deliver by raising prices. Not only that, but you have to assume that the Fed lacks the spine or tools to address the problem.That’s not my assumption, but it’s a defensible argument. In the absence of such thinking, the risk-reward teeter-totter that investors care so much about has started to look relatively decent at current longer-term Treasury yields. Given the carnage that the bond market has just been through and the various perils facing other asset classes ahead of a possible recession, traders may be happy just to invest in an asset that they can reasonably predict won’t lead to any more losses.
• The Fed Should Think in Terms of a Trilemma: Mohamed El-Erian | 2022-11-11T12:12:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Is the Treasury Bond Massacre Finally Over? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-the-treasury-bond-massacre-finally-over/2022/11/11/2f53e3b2-61b9-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-the-treasury-bond-massacre-finally-over/2022/11/11/2f53e3b2-61b9-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
COP27 live updates Biden to give an address at U.N. climate talks
Democratic senators say greatest climate fear is threats to democracy
Vehicles wait outside the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Center during the COP27 climate conference on Thursday. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — President Biden will touch down later Friday in Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort city hosting this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference. He’s arriving at the end of the first week of the conference, known as COP27, where talks have heavily focused on wealthy nations’ obligations to reduce their own emissions and help address the consequences of climate change in the developing world. Activists and developing country leaders here say the U.S. has a duty to pay for these climate costs, given its role as the biggest historical source of emissions in the world.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration unveiled a plan that would funnel private money to help developing countries transition from fossil fuels — a plan that quickly met criticism. During Biden’s appearance at the talks, as well as during other events, the administration will tout two separate climate announcements aimed at curbing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Under a new proposed rule, Biden would require all major federal contractors to set goals for curbing emissions in line with the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Another proposal announced Friday targets methane, a powerful warming pollutant, from U.S. oil and gas operations.
Congressional delegations are also in Egypt this week. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic lawmakers will hold a news conference Friday, followed separately by a news conference led by Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah), chair of the conservative climate caucus.
The delegation of House Republicans visiting the climate conference plans to argue that nuclear power and natural gas are essential to meeting global climate goals.
Despite the host nation’s hopes that COP27 would bring positive attention, Egypt is struggling to keep a lid on domestic controversies that continue during the global event.
At the COP27 climate conference in Egypt on Friday, Democratic senators speaking at a panel said their greatest climate fear wasn’t continued emissions or climate tipping points, but global threats to democracy.
“It’s threatened in the United States and around the world,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). Rising corruption, attacks on elections and other efforts to undermine trust in democratic institutions “erodes our confidence in the ability of our political system to resolve this issue.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) pointed to the role that the sale of fossil fuels has paid in financing Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, comparing Russia to “a gas station run by gangsters.”
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — With international climate aid yet to win support in Congress, the Biden administration has orchestrated a new proposal from major philanthropies and companies that would funnel private money to developing countries for clean energy development.
Seeking to tap private funds for a transition that wealthy governments have refused to finance, the group hopes to lure more than $100 billion by the end of the decade, cutting as much as 1.3 billion to 2.3 billion tons of climate pollution, according to the consulting firm Climate Advisers.
Vanessa Montalbano | 2022-11-11T12:12:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | COP27 live updates: Biden to arrive in Egypt for U.N. climate conference - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/11/cop27-live-updates-biden-egypt/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/11/cop27-live-updates-biden-egypt/ |
Suicidal students are pressured to withdraw from Yale, then have to apply to get back into the university
Students experiencing suicidal thoughts and other mental health issues say Yale University has pressed them to withdraw from the school. (Stan Godlewski for The Washington Post; iStock/Washington Post illustration)
For months, she struggled silently with a sense of worthlessness. She had panic attacks that left her trembling. Nightmares that made her cry.
She’d told only a handful of friends about the sexual assault she endured while she was home the summer after her freshman year. Now, as she finished her sophomore year at Yale University, the trauma finally became unbearable.
On a June day after the 2021 spring semester, the 20-year-old college student swallowed a bottle of pills at her off-campus apartment.
As she slowly woke up at the emergency room in New Haven, Conn., one thought overwhelmed her: “What if Yale finds out?”
She’d heard about other students being forced to leave because of depression and suicidal thoughts, and about the lengthy, nerve-racking reapplication process. It was one reason that the student — whom The Post agreed to identify by her first initial, S., to protect her privacy — told only a few people about her problems.
Three months earlier, a Yale freshman named Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum had killed herself on campus after contemplating the consequences of withdrawing from the school, her family said. Her death had renewed fierce debate about campus mental health, the way Yale treated suicidal students and the university’s reinstatement policies. Similar controversies have engulfed other universities as student mental health problems soar across the country.
Confined to a room at Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital, S. asked her nurses and doctors with growing fear, “Do you have to tell them?”
Yes, they replied. Because she was a student, hospital staffers said, they needed to let college officials know, she recalled. They gave her consent papers to sign for the release of her medical information. She remembers how vulnerable she felt in her thin hospital clothes as she signed the release.
The hospital declined to comment on her account, citing patient confidentiality.
Yale officials quickly set up a Zoom call with S. on a hospital laptop in a small, bare room. On the screen, she said, was Paul Hoffman, the psychologist in charge of student mental health at Yale.
Help for those in crisis
To support someone going through a mentally tough time: Offer a safe space to talk and listen. Validate and affirm their feelings. Don’t engage in toxic positivity. Don’t be pushy with advice. Ask how you can help.
Since the pandemic, depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation have reached historic highs, especially among children and teens. Experts say urgent reforms are needed for America’s underfunded, fragmented and difficult-to-access mental health system.
She told him about the rape she’d experienced — but had never reported because she didn’t want her parents to know — and how it had sent her spiraling into suicidal thoughts.
He nodded and took notes. A few days later, he arranged a second Zoom call, with her and her parents.
“We’re going to recommend you take a medical withdrawal,” he told her, she said.
“Do I have to?” S. remembers asking him.
“We’re going to strongly recommend it,” Hoffman replied.
In an interview, Hoffman and other Yale officials declined to discuss Yale’s withdrawal policies or specific student cases. After Shaw-Rosenbaum’s suicide, the university told the Yale Daily News that involuntary withdrawals from Yale are rare and that the majority of students who apply for reinstatement are allowed to return.
For S., leaving Yale meant losing her friends and mentors — people who had kept her afloat during her depression. It meant losing her routine, her lab research, her four-year plan to get into medical school. Losing all the things that gave her purpose, identity and support when she needed them most.
S. had followed the campus debate in the wake of Shaw-Rosenbaum’s suicide. She knew Yale could force her to withdraw if she didn’t leave on her own.
As soon as the Zoom call with Hoffman ended, hospital staffers handed her the cellphone they’d taken when she arrived. She began typing out the email Hoffman had asked her to send. “Good afternoon,” it read. “I am requesting a medical withdrawal.”
In coming months, S. would look back to that moment with anger and regret. It wasn’t what she imagined when she was admitted to Yale, one of the country’s most prestigious universities. She recalled how her family screamed for joy. How special she felt when Yale found out Brown and Northwestern had also accepted her and raised her financial aid to match what they would provide.
“They make you feel like you’re the best of the best, like this bright and shiny thing,” she said. “But as soon as something’s wrong, they want nothing to do with you.”
It had been difficult to get into Yale. She would soon learn how daunting it was for those exiled from the university to return.
‘Getting rid of me’
Five years before the pandemic derailed so many college students’ lives, a 20-year-old math major named Luchang Wang posted this message on Facebook:
“Dear Yale, I loved being here. I only wish I could’ve had some time. I needed time to work things out and to wait for new medication to kick in, but I couldn’t do it in school, and I couldn’t bear the thought of having to leave for a full year, or of leaving and never being readmitted. Love, Luchang.”
Wang had withdrawn from Yale once before and feared that under Yale’s policies, a second readmission could be denied.
Instead, she flew to San Francisco, and, according to authorities, climbed over the railing at the Golden Gate Bridge and jumped to her death.
Her 2015 suicide sparked demands for change at Yale. Administrators convened a committee to evaluate readmission policies, but critics said the reforms they adopted were minor.
They renamed the process “reinstatement” instead of “readmission,” eliminated a $50 reapplication fee and gave students a few more days at the beginning of each semester to take a leave of absence without having to reapply.
Students who withdrew still needed to write an essay, secure letters of recommendation, interview with Yale officials and prove their academic worth by taking two courses at another four-year university. Those who left for mental health reasons also had to demonstrate to Yale that they’d addressed their problems.
In April — nearly 10 months after S. had been pressured to withdraw — Yale officials announced another round of changes to the reinstatement process. They eliminated the requirement that students pass two courses at another university and got rid of a mandatory interview with the reinstatement committee.
The reforms have not satisfied student activists at Yale, where the mental health problems playing out on many American campuses has been especially prominent.
When students are in crisis, their universities often face dueling pressures: the threat of being sued by families if a student dies by suicide, but also accusations of discrimination against those with mental disabilities if that student is forced to leave.
“Sometimes students do need help and do need time off,” said Karen Bower, a lawyer who has represented more than 100 college students forced to take mental health withdrawals. “But colleges are also becoming more aware that they can’t just push students out.”
Yale has been slower than some elite universities to accommodate students who don’t want to leave, critics said.
In recent years, Yale has also faced an “explosion” in demand for mental health counseling, university officials said. Last year, roughly 5,000 Yale students sought treatment — a 90 percent increase compared with 2015.
“It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Hoffman, the director of Yale Mental Health and Counseling. Roughly 34 percent of the 14,500 students at Yale seek mental health help from college counselors, compared with a national average of 11 percent at other universities.
Meeting that need has been challenging, even at a school with a $41.4 billion endowment.
Bluebelle Carroll, 20, a Yale sophomore who sought help in September 2021, said she waited six months to be assigned a therapist. She secured her first appointment only after emailing the counseling staff repeatedly.
“The appointment was 20 minutes long,” she said, “and we spent the last five minutes figuring out when he could see me again.”
Because of staffing constraints, students are often asked to choose between weekly therapy that lasts 30 minutes or 45-minute sessions every two weeks.
“It actually made things worse,” said Shayna Sragovicz, 22, a senior. “Because you’re opening up a can of worms in people’s psyche and then not giving them space to work through them.”
In the past year, Yale officials said, the university has hired six more counselors for a total of more than 50. It now allows students to join group therapy sessions in addition to individual counseling. It also added support staffers and launched a pilot program called YC3, where students can drop in for short-term counseling.
The new hires have reduced wait times, Hoffman said. Most students are now able to get therapy appointments within two weeks, he said, and the university hopes to hire more counselors.
“Yale has made a very significant commitment to resources for mental health,” he said.
But many students and former students tell a different story. In interviews, more than 25 described a university flush with money, yet beset by inadequate services and policies that often fail students in crisis.
Some described never hearing back from Yale counselors after seeking help. Others said they’ve learned to hide mental problems and suicidal thoughts to avoid triggering withdrawal policies that they believe are designed to protect Yale from lawsuits and damage to its reputation.
“It’s the exact opposite of what you’d want to happen,” said Miriam Kopyto, 22, a senior and a leader in the Yale Student Mental Health Association.
Several students recounted being given 72 hours or less to leave campus once they withdrew.
Nicolette Mántica was already seeing a Yale therapist as a junior in 2017 when a residential dean learned she periodically cut her arms to cope with stress. That night, the dean invited her to a meeting without telling her why, she said.
She was transported to Yale’s hospital, where college officials told her she had no choice but to withdrawal. When she was discharged, a campus police officer escorted her to her dorm room and gave her two hours to pack everything and leave, she said.
“It was just me and my parents throwing all my things into any bag we could find. I was running up and down the stairs sobbing while the officer watched us,” she said. “It wasn’t about helping me. It was about getting rid of me.”
Seven months later, in the middle of applying for reinstatement, Mantica tried to kill herself.
As she recovered in a hospital in her home state of Georgia, she asked herself why she was so fixated on a university that had abandoned her. She decided to transfer to Northwestern University.
“Why go through all the work and struggle to get back to a place where they didn’t care about me?” she said. “Where I felt like a criminal for struggling with mental health?”
University officials did not respond to questions about their interactions with Mantica, S. or any of the other students quoted in this story.
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But many Yale students are desperate to remain at the Ivy League college. Rachael Shaw-Rosenbaum was one of them.
“I have attempted suicide 3 times in the past 3 days and have not stopped thinking about it,” she wrote on Reddit on March 16, 2021. “What do I do? If I go to the hospital again this year, I will be academically withdrawn from my university...”
Rachael had grown up in Anchorage and arrived at Yale in the fall of 2020, hoping to study law and follow the footsteps of her hero, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
But as an 18-year-old freshman on a campus largely empty amid the pandemic, she felt isolated. When Yale’s student newspaper published a story on freshmen adjusting to the coronavirus, Rachael described moving into her dorm by herself and breaking down in tears.
During her first semester, she called Yale’s crisis hotline and admitted herself into the psychiatric hospital, said her mother, Pamela Shaw.
Rachael managed to finish her classes. But the next semester, alone again in her dorm room, she began grappling nightly with suicidal thoughts, according to her online posts. One of her biggest fears, she said on Reddit, was that being hospitalized a second time would get her kicked out.
On March 18, 2021, Rachael’s boyfriend called campus police because he was worried for her, said her mother. When authorities got into Rachael’s dorm room, they found her without a pulse.
For three days, she lay comatose in a hospital bed, with her mom sleeping beside her. Her mother bathed her and read to her, hoping for some response. Finally, she agreed to have Rachael taken off the ventilator.
The daughter she knew — who once dazzled in debate club and worked passionately with juveniles in Alaska’s justice system — was gone.
‘I’m really a failure’
S. was discharged from Yale Psychiatric Hospital three months after Shaw-Rosenbaum’s death and eleven days after her own suicide attempt.
Her parents drove up from the family’s home in Philadelphia and helped pack up her apartment. She had asked Yale about staying in New Haven, hoping to lean on her closest friends and continue at her research lab as she worked toward reinstatement. But Yale officials told her she needed to spend that time away.
As a withdrawn student, she was no longer allowed at Yale’s libraries, gyms or extracurricular activities. For her to set foot on campus would now require prior approval of a dean, according to college policy.
She spent her first weeks back in Philadelphia plagued by a sense of defeat.
“I felt so broken,” she said.
Relatives, high school friends and neighbors, who had all celebrated her acceptance to Yale, kept asking what she was doing back at home. On the heels of the sexual assault, she felt like she was hiding yet another shameful secret.
“It’s like I’m lying to everyone. They think I’m this successful student at Yale, but I’m really a failure,” she said one afternoon last spring at a Philadelphia coffee shop near an apartment she was sharing with her brother.
Her life now revolved around the requirements Yale had spelled out for reinstatement.
“As much as I’d like to use this time for renewal and healing, it’s not about that,” S. said as she finished her coffee and began walking home.
Failing to be readmitted was unimaginable. Attending Yale had already been a stretch financially for her immigrant parents and was only possible because of hefty financial aid.
Now — on top of the $10,000 hospital bill and cost of intensive therapy — she was spending $7,200 to take two courses at another four-year university. (Yale had yet to drop that requirement for reinstatement.)
Yale’s administrators had also emphasized to her in emails that she would need to “remain constructively occupied.”
So S. found a lab research job. She signed up for dance classes. She volunteered as a crisis counselor for a domestic violence hotline, drawing on her own experience with sexual assault. She helped out at a nonprofit assisting students from other countries applying to U.S. colleges.
The work and volunteering were meaningful, she said, but they also felt sometimes like a performance. Her relationship with the professors in her two university classes felt similarly calculated, because she knew she’d soon need their letters of recommendation.
Beyond reinstatement, she worried about what future medical schools would think of the withdrawal. Her pre-med adviser at Yale told her that medical schools almost certainly would ask her to explain it.
“I feel so much pressure right now. Like I can’t slip up,” she said. “Like I have to be extraordinary for Yale to remember why they let me in in the first place.”
‘Everything they asked’
For days, the essay sat blank on her laptop. She added her name, then a title, “Application for Reinstatement,” but couldn’t go further.
It had taken her weeks to write her first admission essay to Yale, detailing her passion for dance and volunteer work.
This time, however, the prompt was starker: 500 to 750 words explaining her withdrawal, what she’d done with the year off and why she felt ready to return.
But S. was still angry about being exiled from Yale. She kept replaying the conversation she’d had with the officials who insisted she withdraw.
“They never asked what they could do to help with the sexual assault and PTSD. Not a single question about how Yale can support you. They didn’t take into account who I was and what I needed," she said. "Their only concern was that I leave.
Now the only remaining signs of her connection to the university were a Yale hoodie, a Yale-emblazoned wallet she’d bought as a freshman and a sticker with the university’s “Y” logo on the back of her laptop.
S. knew all the resentment had no place in her reapplication essay. So it sat blank, until one evening in May, when she banged out the whole thing in a few hours.
She wrote in matter-of-fact language about how she’d sought therapy to deal with the PTSD from her sexual assault. She included a line about her work with domestic violence victims and international students.
“I am extremely proud of myself and my progress,” she concluded. “I feel more ready than ever to be a student at Yale, and I sincerely hope to have the opportunity to do so again.”
A few days after she sent it in, she found herself staring at the “Y” sticker on her laptop and ripped it off. She emptied out her Yale wallet and threw it away. She knew she wouldn’t hear back about the reinstatement committee’s decision for another two months.
“I’ve done everything they asked,” she said. “If the objective truth isn’t enough, if they don’t think I’m worthy, then Yale isn’t where I should be.”
‘I needed help’
In 2018, researchers at the Ruderman Foundation, which advocates for the disabled, assessed the mental health withdrawal policies at all eight Ivy League schools. No university received a grade above D+, and Yale received an F.
Since then, several Ivy League colleges have reformed their policies, often in response to high-profile lawsuits or deaths. And every Ivy except Yale and Brown has joined a four-year-long program to improve its mental health policies through the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on suicide prevention and mental health for teens and young adults.
More than 400 colleges have enrolled in the Jed program, said Nance Roy, the foundation’s chief clinical officer, who also works as an assistant psychiatry professor at Yale.
“I’m not sure why Yale hasn’t joined,” Roy said. “I’ve had conversations with them, and even met with the president and others at one point about it. I don’t think they’re ignoring the issue. But they’re doing their own thing.”
In a written statement, Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart said, “The College engages in frequent evaluation of all its policies in an effort to best serve our students.”
Over the past year, Yale has been under increasing pressure to reform its reinstatement process.
“It’s hard to explain what’s so dehumanizing about it that it’s haunted me for two decades,” said Alicia Floyd, who withdrew after a suicide attempt in 2000 and now works as a doctor. “It’s the betrayal you feel, the violation. Realizing how unimportant you are to this institution that you had such high hopes for. The trauma of how they treated me has outlasted any other issues I had.”
After Shaw-Rosenbaum’s death, Floyd and other alumni created a nonprofit group called Elis for Rachael. They’ve held a campus vigil for suicide prevention and given money and guidance to students navigating reapplication.
They’ve also demanded that Yale administrators change their approach to students in mental crisis.
Instead of the all-or-nothing proposition of withdrawal, they say students should be given options such as reducing course loads or attending part-time.
Many schools have stopped forcing students to withdraw and have lowered barriers for them to return. Three years ago, Stanford University settled a class-action lawsuit by agreeing to give students greater say in whether to take a leave of absence for mental health reasons. And if students choose to remain, the university now provides disability accommodations. Last year, Brown University agreed to changes following an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.
At Duke University, students who take time off now have an office dedicated to supporting them while they are away. Boston University’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation created a program and a 48-page guide to help college students navigate leaves of absence.
Yale’s activists note that students forced to withdraw lose their student health insurance and access to counseling when they need those benefits most.
“My big question was how do I get therapy,” said Alicia Abramson, 22, a current student who withdrew in her sophomore year while struggling with depression and an eating disorder. “Once you’re out, they cut you off from everything. I couldn’t afford therapy on my own. My family didn’t believe I had mental problems at first and didn’t want to pay for it. I had to have a breakdown and almost kill myself before I got the help I needed.”
She and other students say that despite increased staffing, Yale’s mental health services still lag behind demand.
Madison Hahamy, the student reporter who’d talked to Shaw-Rosenbaum about her depression for the Yale Daily News, was haunted by her suicide.
“She was so vulnerable and raw with me,” Hahamy said.
Months later, Hahamy found herself struggling as well. In September 2021, she talked to a counselor through the new YC3 program. The counselor asked whether Hahamy ever had suicidal thoughts.
“She was the first person I’d ever told that to,” said Hahamy, now 22 and a junior. “I was crying every single night. I needed help.”
But it took two months and repeated requests for her to get an appointment with a therapist, she said. After a few months of 30-minute sessions every other week, Hahamy stopped going.
“It was so short, it was just making me feel worse,” she said. “Even after everything that happened to Rachael, it’s like nothing changed.”
A stranger on campus
The email from the reinstatement committee arrived on July 8 in the middle of the night.
S. had decided to take a solo trip to Europe while waiting to hear back from Yale. So it was early morning in the Alps when she read the words: “Congratulations! I am delighted to inform you that the Committee on Reinstatement has approved your application.”
Six weeks later, S. was back in New Haven.
She had been 19 years old the last time she sat in a Yale classroom. Now, she was 21 and feeling like a stranger on her own campus.
Her parents helped her move into an apartment with two close friends. As she unpacked, she came across the white Yale hoodie she’d bought as a freshman. She remembered her sense of wonder and pride back then whenever she wore it.
Several weeks ago — as her new classes began — she tried it on again and was surprised to feel nothing.
The hoodie, hanging in her closet, was now just another piece of clothing.
Story editing by Lynda Robinson, photo editing by Mark Miller, copy editing by Gilbert Dunkley, design by Marie Alconada Brooks and Dominic Fisher. Alice Crites contributed research to this report. | 2022-11-11T12:12:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yale forces suicidal students to withdraw. Reapplying is daunting. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/yale-suicides-mental-health-withdrawals/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/11/yale-suicides-mental-health-withdrawals/ |
She decoded Nazi messages and helped win World War II. Now she’s 101.
Julia Parsons looks at a photo of her WAVES unit, which helped break German Enigma codes during World War II for the Washington office known as OP-20-G. (World War II Foundation)
In the dark days of World War II, the secretive staff at a large building on Nebraska Avenue NW in Washington kept a scoreboard of its success. Each time a German U-boat was sunk by the U.S. Navy, cheers would erupt and another mark was added to a list tracking this deadly cat-and-mouse game playing out in the North Atlantic.
The women working in that office had an important though clandestine mission: to decode Nazi Enigma messages so Allied navies could locate enemy submarines and prevent them from sinking ships carrying troops and munitions to the front. They were code breakers in the Navy’s program called Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, or WAVES.
“We got several messages a day and had to figure out what they were saying,” recalled Julia Parsons. She was a WAVES lieutenant in the office known as OP-20-G, short for Office of Chief of Naval Operations, 20th Division of the Office of Naval Communications, G Section/Communications Security. “We knew some of them were dummies and some were personal messages. We usually had an idea that something was up that day, so we would try to figure if any of the orders related to that.”
Now a spry 101 and living in Pittsburgh, Parsons described the vital mission she and other female cryptologists performed 80 years ago in deciphering enemy messages. Her section in OP-20-G focused on German communications while another worked on Japanese codes. Members of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) also worked on breaking the ciphers used by Germany and Japan.
During World War II, women were not allowed to serve in combat roles. However, the military had a desperate need for people to assist with all sorts of work while able-bodied men served on the front lines. In 1942, Congress created the WAVES, Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (which became WAC), Women Airforce Service Pilots, Marine Corps Women’s Reserve and Coast Guard Women’s Reserve. Some 350,000 women served as cryptologists, nurses, pilots, mechanics, office workers, drivers, telephone operators and in other roles to help with the war effort.
The women in Parsons’s office focused on cracking the daily codes sent by the German navy. Using Enigma machines, German sailors would encode critical communications before broadcasting them to the “wolfpacks” — groups of German submarines that attacked American convoys in the Atlantic. The Nazis believed the system that used three (and later four) rotors to encode messages multiple times was too complex to be broken. It wasn’t.
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“We didn’t break it,” said Parsons. “Alan Turing and his staff in England did that. We had one of his computers, the Bombe, at the building where I worked. We tried to figure out what the message was saying, then we drew up what we called a menu showing what we thought the letters were. That was fed into the computer, which then spat out all possible wheel orders for the day. Those changed every day and the settings changed twice a day, so we were constantly working on them.”
Once messages were decoded, the information would be relayed to naval intelligence. When a submarine’s location was discovered, it was added to a large chart showing the movements of Allied and German ships across the Atlantic.
The role of Parsons and other WAVES women and cryptanalysts cannot be understated. In 1942, German submarines sank more than 500 ships in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. By the end of the war, American forces had destroyed nearly 500 U-boats, thanks largely to breaking the Enigma code. Prime Minister Winston Churchill is said to have believed that success was the greatest single contribution to defeating Nazi Germany in World War II. Some historians have suggested that breaking the Enigma code shortened the war by as much as two years and saved millions of lives.
“We continued the work of Turing and the staff at Bletchley Park in England in deciphering the codes,” Parsons said. “When we started doing it, the British were running short of manpower, so they asked the Americans to help.”
This soldier fought for Finland, Nazi Germany and U.S. Special Forces
Once, Parsons helped decode a congratulatory note to a German sailor at sea upon the birth of his son back home. A few days later, she learned the father’s submarine had been sunk, with no survivors. “To think that we all had a hand in killing somebody did not sit well with me,” she said. “I felt really bad. That baby would never see his father.”
During the war years, Parsons lived in D.C. She shared an apartment with another code breaker in a rowhouse at 1633 Q St. NW, which became a crash pad of sorts for members of the military and others without a place to sleep.
“We had several beds and couches,” she recalled. “If somebody needed a place to stay overnight, we put them up. There were so many people traveling through Washington during the war, and hotel rooms were hard to find. Our apartment was like a hostel. When somebody got out of bed, another person took her place.”
Because she was sworn to secrecy, Parsons never spoke of her time as a code breaker. She didn’t even tell her husband, Donald, until she learned that her work had been declassified. Married in 1944, Parsons finally divulged her secret to him about 30 years ago.
“My husband would say we had a marriage based on lies,” she said, laughing. Parsons and her husband, who died 16 years ago, raised three children.
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She is also one of several surviving women featured in “Her War, Her Story: World War II,” a new television documentary on women’s roles in the world’s deadliest conflict. The film was produced by Tim Gray of the World War II Foundation and is narrated by actress Jane Lynch. It opened at the Military Women’s Memorial in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 20 and is airing on public television stations around Veterans Day.
“Julia Parsons and many other women were as important to winning World War II as any general poring over a map or any GI carrying a rifle into combat,” Gray said. “What these women accomplished, witnessed and, in many cases, lived through, is paramount to any telling of the overall story of the war.”
Parsons did not attend the documentary’s premiere. She had visited Washington over Memorial Day and said that at age 101 she was not up to making the trip again, though she was excited to see the documentary on TV and relive that thrilling time eight decades ago.
“It’s been a fascinating trail for me,” she said. “I enjoyed it thoroughly. I loved it.”
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For International Women’s Day, here are 7 of history’s greatest women-led protests | 2022-11-11T12:13:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How one woman helped decode Nazi messages and win World War II - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/11/julia-parsons-woman-codebreaker-wwii/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/11/julia-parsons-woman-codebreaker-wwii/ |
How to correct fading on wood paneling and floors
Q: We recently purchased a home with a beautiful wood-paneled sunroom. Unfortunately, where the previous owners had hung pictures on the walls, the stain has faded. We do not want to strip and re-stain the entire room. Is there a way to match the stain without overstaining the rest of the wall and making it darker?
A: Your situation is similar to what many people experience with wood floors: The wood under area rugs or furniture winds up being a different color than the wood that wasn’t covered. The “faded” areas on your walls are actually closer to how the paneling looked after it was installed; it’s the uncovered areas that have changed.
With both paneling and floors, the uneven color isn’t caused by stain fading; it’s a change in the wood and sometimes a darkening of the finish where light hits the surface. Both finishes and wood react to light, primarily the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. Finishes, especially if they are oil-based, tend to become more amber. Light-colored woods, including the pine or maybe cedar in your sunroom, tend to darken, while dark-colored hardwoods used in flooring tend to lighten where they are in bright light — at least for a time. After many years of bright light, both dark- and light-colored woods become bleached and pale.
Luckily, unless sections of the wood were covered for decades, the color usually evens out once pictures, area rugs or other coverings are removed, so you might want to wait to see whether the problem resolves on its own.
It’s impossible to say, though, how long that might take. Tom Salisbury, owner of Salisbury Woodworking (206-842-9500; salisburywoodworking.com), a company in Poulsbo, Wash., that specializes in wood flooring and timber framing, recalled installing and applying three coats of finish to a vertical-grain fir floor. Because fir is softer than many wood types used in flooring, the main corridors were then covered with thick paper to protect them during the project’s final phases. When the paper was pulled up just two days later, the covered areas were noticeably lighter, because the floor had changed color where light hit. “Just relax,” Salisbury said he told the owners. “The color will catch up in a week or so.” And it did. But wood that has been covered for a much longer period might take more time to adjust, Salisbury said.
If waiting for the color to even out doesn’t work or takes so long that your patience runs out, you’ll need a Plan B — and maybe even a Plan C and D. Plan B is easy: Hang other artwork where the previous owner’s pieces were. But because you’re dealing with a sunroom, you probably shouldn’t purchase expensive paintings or photographs, which could be damaged by bright light. For framing, you might want to use glass or acrylic, which blocks most ultraviolet rays.
Plan C would be to try to even out the color. Because you’re dealing with paneling that has a bead molded into the edges of the boards, completely refinishing the walls wouldn’t be easy, even if you were interested in that solution. “You can’t run a floor sander over walls,” Salisbury said. And even if you were willing to invest the time needed to sand off the finish where pictures once hung, so you could apply stain to those areas, you’d run into one of the challenges of staining pine: The wood absorbs stains unevenly, often resulting in a blotchy look.
Coating pine with a wood conditioner first makes it more evenly absorbent, but even then, stain sinks into the whiter wood, which grew in the spring, more than the darker, denser wood, which grew in the fall or winter. Stained pine has the dark- and light-colored areas reversed, which might be okay when all of the wood is stained. But if you were to stain just the picture-covered patches of the wall, it could look garish.
But it might be possible to slightly tint a new coat of finish and apply that over the existing finish on the areas where the pictures once hung. This way, you’d be changing the color of the finish rather than the wood. Salisbury once had a customer who extended a room where he had installed maple flooring about 20 years earlier. The flooring was still in great shape and did not need refinishing, but because it was exposed to light, it had become more amber. New maple flooring in the addition wouldn’t match. His solution was to use Amberizer, a product then made by Basic Coatings, to tint a clear, water-based finish that he had applied to the new wood.
Start with a clear finish with a sheen similar to what is on your walls. Buy small cans with a couple of gloss levels, and test them on small, out-of-the-way areas of the wall to get the best match for how light reflects. For the tint, you will need to experiment. The Basic Coatings website doesn’t list Amberizer as one of its products, although a product of the same name is made by Loba, a German company, and is $6.98 for a 100-milliliter bottle from Ampro (ampro-online.com).
Or ask a paint store to sell you a small container of a pigment mix that will create an amber color. Salisbury said it’s possible to add up to one ounce of tint to a gallon of clear water-based finish without compromising its durability. Some DIY websites say you can mix oil-based stain with water-based finish and get good results, but be sure to test whether this works and creates a color you want.
There is no way to prepare a test board that will give accurate color results, so try it on a small area of the wall where you wouldn’t mind hanging a picture, and have a damp cloth handy to wipe off the finish if you don’t like the look. Apply the tinted finish with a foam brush. After a minute or two, wipe off any excess with a dry cloth. You might need a small paintbrush to get excess finish out of the recesses along the beads. Aim to create a very thin coat. Let it dry, then evaluate the look in daytime and at night under artificial light. Add additional coats if needed. Feather the edges to help the stained area blend in with the rest of the wall.
The biggest risk with trying to tint sections of the wall is winding up with a patchwork effect that time won’t fix. In that case, it would be time for Plan D: recoating all the walls (without first stripping them), but in a way that doesn’t make the room darker, because you say you don’t want that. You could add white pigment to a clear finish, for example, to get a slightly whitewashed look. Salisbury recommends sealing the knots first with shellac. | 2022-11-11T12:13:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tips for repairing faded wood paneling in your home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/11/11/tips-repairing-faded-wood-paneling/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2022/11/11/tips-repairing-faded-wood-paneling/ |
Harry Truman illuminates why Trump having classified documents is illegal
Presidents used to own their personal papers — but there were real security reasons for changing that.
Perspective by Paul J. Welch Behringer
Paul Behringer is the University of Nebraska-Lincoln DPAA Research Partner fellow and a senior fellow at SMU's Center for Presidential History. He is not an employee of DPAA, he supports DPAA through a partnership. The views presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DPAA, DoD or its components.
A photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was included in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30. (AP)
After the FBI’s seizure of documents from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, many Americans focused for the first time on the rules governing what a former president can do with government documents — especially classified ones. No one knows what Trump’s plans were, but he has tried to argue that he could have declassified information on his way out the door without following any process. “You’re the president of the United States,” he told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “You can declassify just by saying it’s declassified, even by thinking about it.” He’s also attempted to shift the blame by claiming that other presidents took classified documents with them when they left office.
Both theories are demonstrably false. The issue of handling classified information is one that all modern U.S. presidents since Harry S. Truman have grappled with. In Truman’s day, the law was blurry. But he and his successors — working with Congress — refined the law to ensure that handling and preserving government records were not subject to the whims of former presidents. They feared that without an orderly legal process, a president might come along and take classified documents, releasing them to undermine the next administration. The ambiguity that Truman faced gave way to crystal clear laws that Trump has seemingly violated.
In February 1955, Truman and three aides — an academic, his literary agent and a trusted adviser — sat down with his former secretary of state, Dean Acheson, for interviews that would help guide the former president as he wrote his memoirs. Truman and his team went on to interview most of the major figures from his administration.
Their first question threw Acheson for a loop. Rather than asking about a big policy decision, the interviewers wondered: What was “the procedure the president would have to follow in clearing documents, such as State Department documents?” It was so technical that Acheson initially misunderstood the question and launched into a soliloquy on how Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman’s predecessor, “acted on his own” in dealing with heads of state without even consulting the State Department. One of the interviewers quickly interrupted to clarify what they were really asking.
Why start with such an odd question? The reason stemmed from the vast change in the United States during Truman’s administration. The destruction of Europe and Asia during World War II had left the United States as a hegemonic military and economic power. Truman and his Cabinet had to think about rebuilding a devastated world and preventing a third world war. On top of that, they had to manage a spiraling confrontation with the Soviet Union on ideological, political and economic fronts, which soon threatened to erupt into a nuclear holocaust.
All of this power and all of these problems required a sea change in the way the U.S. government conducted its business. To meet these challenges, the administrative apparatus had to grow. That meant adding thousands of new bureaucrats and experts on top of the explosion in the size of the executive branch that had already taken place during Roosevelt’s presidency. All of this created its own issues: How to manage the tidal wave of paper the government created each day? And, more importantly, how to make sure classified information stayed secret?
It was not a simple problem — and no firm answers had emerged in the decade since the war ended, although Truman had signed the Federal Records Act (FRA) into law in 1950. This law gave the new General Services Administration (GSA) the power to initiate “action through the Attorney General for the recovery of such records as shall have been unlawfully removed,” indicating that officials below the president and vice president couldn’t just keep all of their own documents.
Acheson laid this situation out for Truman and his team. Some issues were clearer than others. If Truman wanted to divulge top-secret information — for example, the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile in 1950 — he would have to ask for permission from his successor, the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Whether Truman could declassify material himself, well, that was an easy one: “I think it is clear that Mr. Truman cannot do that,” Acheson answered. “He no longer has any authority of any sort. He’s a private citizen now. Anything that is top secret has to be submitted to whoever has the authority to declassify it.”
There were, however, ways to get around classified documents, such as paraphrasing them or describing memories of particular meetings, which might be based on classified notes or other documents. Yet this could get into murky territory.
And Acheson knew precisely where the legal line began to blur, even if his memory was less than perfect. In 1926, his law firm had successfully represented former president Woodrow Wilson’s estate in a case against one of Wilson’s former advisers, “Colonel” Edward M. House. (Acheson apparently misremembered the lawsuit as involving former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, whose posthumous memoirs came out in 1925, the year before House’s book was published.) House’s book originally contained several letters from Wilson. The court ruled that Wilson’s estate still controlled publication of the letters, and the book had to be reprinted without them. So if Truman had letters from Eisenhower or, say, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he’d have to check with them first.
After this explanation, the discussion meandered to whether a former president could even possess classified information. Here again, Acheson was unequivocal, and his answer might surprise readers in 2022: “The pieces of paper belong to Mr. Truman … That is obscured in law but cleared in practice. All the Presidents, from Washington on down, have taken with them the papers they have had.”
Despite this precedent, Acheson himself had left all of his official papers behind. The Eisenhower administration, amid accusations of communist infiltration against Acheson’s State Department, was looking for any excuse to bring charges against former officials. While Acheson accused Eisenhower’s team of having “very little decency about it,” he understood that, “I am a fellow they would love to prosecute, and I didn’t want to be in a position of having one [expletive] thing.”
The actual law was confusing, and the Eisenhower team’s shift in enforcing it created jeopardy — even for Truman.
While Acheson chalked up the increased enforcement to partisan bad blood, bruised egos and cowing to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s hysteria, he was only partially right. There was also something bigger at stake.
Trusting officials to keep their documents safe depended on the personal integrity of former presidents and their cabinets. Was that enough to safeguard state secrets in a time of espionage and incredibly high stakes? That concern had fueled passage of the FRA.
But if Acheson had to abide by certain rules that his predecessors did not, the same was not true for Truman. He could still argue in 1955 that he owned his presidential papers.
Subsequent events, including the rise of the modern surveillance state and Watergate, prodded Congress into amending the FRA several times, however, and passing the Presidential Records Act in 1977. This law gave authority over presidential records to the National Archives and Records Administration, which became its own independent agency in 1984.
It established, once and for all, that “The United States — not the president — shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records,” and that the national archivist assumed custody of presidential records at the end of each administration. In 2020, perhaps anticipating that Trump might flout convention and the law, NARA released a guide to spell all of this out in plain English.
The situation Truman faced in writing his memoirs was new and, as the conversation with Acheson makes clear, the former president wanted to be careful. Yet his situation illuminates how once again — as has often been the case — it is not that the challenges Trump faces are unprecedented. It’s the extent to which he is willing to break well-established precedent that is itself unprecedented. In this case, however, the law is unambiguous, which is why Trump may now face consequences for violating it. | 2022-11-11T12:13:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Harry Truman illuminates why Trump having classified documents is illegal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/11/truman-trump-classified-documents/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/11/truman-trump-classified-documents/ |
Veterans might be overrepresented among Jan. 6, 2021, participants — but no one activist ideology encompasses all veterans
Perspective by Jessica L. Adler
Jessica L. Adler is an associate professor of history at Florida International University and author of "Burdens of War: Creating the United States Veterans Health System."
Veterans listen as Republican nominee for Arizona governor Kari Lake speaks at the Social Tap sports bar on Nov. 2 in Scottsdale. (John Moore/Getty Images)
In 1980, Korean War veteran Thomas Wynn, coordinator of the National Association of Black Veterans, was invited to testify before a congressional hearing about issues related to postwar readjustment. “The Black veteran in this country,” he said, “has always had enormous problems that were his alone.” Those included “racism and classism in the military,” Wynn told the senators, as well as general challenges facing “poor and minority persons.”
Recent reports indicate that veterans are disproportionately recruited to extremist organizations and that former service members have helped to propel paramilitary violence for decades. While it is crucial to pay heed to those realities, Wynn's statement offers a reminder that people with military records — like any other diverse group — have complex and varied histories and activist identities. Acknowledging the multiplicity of veterans’ advocacy efforts is crucial, in part, because organizations have long sought to grow their power by claiming to be the sole or paramount representatives of people who serve. In fact, no one activist ideology is — or ever has been — the natural envoy of veterans.
In the early 20th century, military service in the United States was generally publicly celebrated as righteous and advocacy organizations prized veterans’ allegiance. After World War I, veterans’ groups and politicians consciously aimed at combating leftist tendencies among former service members. For instance, in the 1920s, the politically powerful American Legion supported the provision of publicly-funded veterans’ benefits, even though the group was avowedly anti-communist. The legion embraced the government programs, in part, because leaders were concerned that so many veterans were drawn to anti-establishment organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World. “When a man wants sympathy and does not get it, he is a good, fit subject for the radical agitator,” a legion leader warned in 1920, suggesting that federal generosity to veterans could undercut the appeal of more threatening ideals such as working-class solidarity.
Many were drawn to local chapters of groups like the American Legion because of the appeal of kinship with neighbors — not mainly because they identified with the political stances or inflammatory rhetoric of organization leaders.
For example, although some high-ranking American Legion officers trumpeted the far-right anticommunism of Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, historian Olivier Burtin reveals, the rank-and-file did not necessarily abide. Hundreds of surveys of members of teachers’ unions and affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union at the time revealed that there were few efforts among legion chapters to undercut academic freedom or civil liberties at the local level.
While acknowledging that some veterans’ organization members, chapters and leaders have acted consequentially and sometimes violently to advance anti-democratic causes, it is also useful to recognize that those actions did not necessarily represent the will of all, or even most, veterans.
That is especially clear when we widen the view of historical veterans’ activism beyond politically sanctioned groups such as the legion and consider organizations and individuals that adopted more radical agendas. Throughout U.S. history, including in recent years, some veterans have embraced antiwar and anti-imperialist ideals. Former service members from marginalized groups, often galvanized by the paradox of being compelled to fight for freedom on behalf of a country that did not offer them equal citizenship, became leaders in American Indian, Black, Latino and immigrant rights struggles.
In the 1970s, inspired by the example of prior generations, Thomas Wynn’s National Association of Black Veterans straddled the worlds of civil and veterans’ rights activism. In 1972, the organization, then known as the Interested Veterans of the Central City, or IVOCC, led a march with fellow community groups to protest a police officer’s slaying of a 19-year-old Black woman named Jacqueline Ford. Though the cause ostensibly had little to do with veterans’ matters, IVOCC representatives helped form a committee consisting of prominent Black citizens that led multiple rallies and demanded a hearing with the police chief about what the Milwaukee Star called “the long-standing threat of police brutality in the inner-city.”
While the era after the Vietnam War saw a rise in leftist activism among veterans, right-wing extremism also escalated. Vietnam veterans joined white power groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, as their counterparts had after previous wars. By the early 1980s, historian Kathleen Belew shows, a network of paramilitary organizations had adopted a sharply anti-government agenda that continues to shape white supremacist extremism to this day. Former service members, Belew notes, “played instrumental roles in leadership,” and brought the groups “particular expertise, training, and culture.”
While it is difficult to quantify the extent of former service members’ involvement in paramilitary groups in the late 20th century, commentary on currently rising extremism focuses on veterans’ disproportionate participation. Political scientist Eric Hodges notes that 10 percent of people arrested for involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection were veterans, an overrepresentation given that former service members constitute slightly more than 6 percent of the U.S. population. Hodges cites a variety of possible factors — for example, the ignition of “nationalist sentiments” by the “heated rhetoric” of Donald Trump “combined with … military training and combat exposure.” Catrina Doxsee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies offers another explanation, which also applies to white power organizations in the 1970s: that extremist groups “tailor recruitment toward military personnel” given their “specialized knowledge and abilities.”
But of course, it is not just veterans’ distinctive skills that militant right-wing groups want. It is their apparent credibility. Indeed, according to recent research, in pre-World War II Italy and Germany, fascist and National Socialist parties “claimed that they represented ‘the veteran’ to gain legitimacy for their cause.” But the groups had not actually earned widespread support among former service members.
A century later, amid necessary efforts to counter a real and dangerous rise in extremism, it is imperative to resist presuming that right-wing paramilitary organizations stand for some sort of unified will of people with military records. The multifaceted history and legacy of veterans’ activism teaches us that such a presumption is both inaccurate and perilous. | 2022-11-11T12:13:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The activism of military veterans spans the political spectrum - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/11/veterans-activism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/11/veterans-activism/ |
What to watch with your kids: ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ and more
A scene from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” (Marvel Studios)
Epic, women-led sequel is part tribute, part intense battle.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is the sequel to Marvel’s massively popular “Black Panther.” After the death of the beloved King T’Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman), the kingdom of Wakanda must regroup to protect itself against those who hope to destabilize the country and steal its vibranium. There’s also a new threat in the form of a superhuman, underwater-dwelling people descended from Mesoamericans. Expect action-packed fight scenes, law enforcement pursuits, hand-to-hand combat, weapons use and potentially disturbing scenes of people throwing themselves into the ocean while hypnotized. People die from fatal injuries during battles and drowning. One death is especially upsetting, as it leaves a character without any family. Language includes just a few uses of “s---”/“bulls---,” and there’s no romance. Viewers looking for applications to the real world can discuss the importance of diplomacy and collaboration, as well as the idea of intergroup understanding among people of color. The movie is dedicated to Boseman, and it fittingly deals with grief and loss even more than the first film. Stars Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira all reprise their roles from the first film. (161 minutes)
My Father’s Dragon (PG)
Runaway finds courage in colorful cartoon fantasy adventure.
“My Father’s Dragon” is an animated feature from the filmmakers behind “Wolfwalkers” and “The Secret of Kells.” Adapted from a children’s book written in 1948, it follows Elmer (voice of Jacob Tremblay), who — hoping to find a way to help his widowed mother financially — goes on a fantasy odyssey. He’s lured by a talking cat and then taken to an island where he’ll be made to work. The entire journey is presented as a fun adventure, but there’s never a warning or takeaway about the dangers of running away from home or talking to strangers. Messages touch on the value of friendship, self-discovery, resourcefulness and believing in yourself — although, in this case, that results in both Elmer and Boris the dragon (Gaten Matarazzo) diving into serious danger that just happens to work out okay. There are several scenes where Elmer is in peril, including being threatened by wild animals, near drowning and high falls. Language is limited to “shut up,” and there’s no substance use or racy content. (103 minutes)
Zootopia Plus (TV-PG)
Fun shorts revisit animal friends; some scares, adult jokes.
“Zootopia Plus” is a fun, action-packed Disney Plus original series. It’s a collection of shorts that expands the story of several characters featured in the Oscar-winning film “Zootopia.” Expect a couple of mild scares, including an animal “going savage” and attacking other creatures. There’s also a bit of insult language (“dumb”) and jokes tailored for adults. Characters kiss, and there’s a reference to seeing an animal nude. Music from the movie’s original soundtrack is embedded in the show. Themes include adventure, teamwork and creativity. (Six roughly 11-minute episodes)
Falling for Christmas (TV-PG)
Lohan’s frothy holiday romance has some mild danger.
“Falling for Christmas” is a predictable but tween-friendly holiday romantic comedy starring Lindsay Lohan and Chord Overstreet of “Glee.” Extremely wealthy characters learn about life’s simpler pleasures following an accident, which involves falling down a mountain. One rams into a tree headfirst and loses her memory. Some characters, including a child, are also grieving loved ones who died. The same child makes a Christmas wish for her father to find new love, and there’s a mysterious Santa-like character. The film underscores the idea that doing good for others has its own rewards and that wealth doesn’t necessarily bring happiness. Expect a bit of drinking, mild flirtation and kissing, as well as one character who goes from a relationship with one person to the appearance of one with another. (95 minutes) | 2022-11-11T12:13:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Common Sense Media’s weekly recommendations. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/11/common-sense-media-november-11/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/11/common-sense-media-november-11/ |
When Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D-Pa.) takes office, he will be one of 10 senators named John or Jon
Pennsylvania Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D). (Gene J. Puskar/AP)
A new powerhouse is emerging in the U.S. Senate — but this one has nothing to do with politics.
In January, exactly 10 percent of all U.S. senators — ahem, 10 out of 100 — will be named John or Jon. Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D-Pa.) will be the latest addition to the John/Jon phenomenon, which was noted on Wednesday by Grace Segers, who covers Congress and politics for the New Republic journal.
When asked by The Washington Post what it feels like to join the cohort of like-named men, Fetterman’s director of communications, Joe Calvello, said: “It’s a name. John is like no other politicians in the country.”
While Calvello insists that Fetterman “is like no one else,” chances are that yelling ‘Hey John!’ inside the Capitol rotunda could still result in several politicians’ heads turning. It doesn’t help that 11 members of the House are also named John.
The Senate’s John/Jon ranks include members of both parties. And even though it is a common name for American men, it is still overrepresented among the senatorial ranks — and underscores the Senate’s demographics, said Sophie Kihm, the editor in chief of Nameberry, a site devoted to baby names.
Come January, the number of Johns and Jons in the Senate will surpass the current number of Hispanic and Black senators. In the last century, fewer than 5 percent of babies have been named John, according to the Social Security Administration. Census data from 2020 shows that Latinos make up nearly 19 percent of the population and Black people about 12 percent.
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The Social Security Administration tracked the most popular names for births in the last 100 years. John was ranked No. 3 with more than 4.4 million babies given the name, behind James and Robert.
Both John and Jon were particularly popular in the 1950s — the decade in which most of the Johns or Jons in the Senate were born — when the names accounted for more than 4 percent of baby boys’ names, Kihm said.
“The average age of U.S. senators is 64.3 years old, making the average birth year roughly 1959,” Kihm said. The 2021 Senate was the oldest in the country’s history, The Post previously reported. When it comes to the John/Jon cohort, their ages range from 35 to 71 — with their median age 68.
This Senate is the oldest in American history. Should we do anything about it?
Since the 1950s, John and Jon have dipped in popularity, Kihm added. Last year, only 0.44 percent of boys were named John, she said.
But even as other names — say Jacob, Joshua or Matthew — gained popularity in the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s, there has been one constant in Congress: There has always been a John.
Even during the 16 sessions in which a John or Jon wasn’t sworn in, there has always been at least one senator named John in office, according to congressional records. It might have to do with the fact that John was also the most popular name in the U.S. until 1923, Kihm said.
However, Jons — mind the missing “H” — didn’t burst onto the Senate scene until 1995, when former senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) was sworn in. Three Democratic Jons followed — Sens. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) — making Kyl the lone GOP Jon. Tester and Ossoff are still in the Senate.
Those with the more traditional spelling that includes the “H” have leaned Republican. Six of the 10 Johns — traditional spelling here — set to serve as senators in the 118th Congress are members of the GOP: Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.), John Boozman (Ark.), John Cornyn (Tex.), John Hoeven (N.D.), John Kennedy (La.) and John Thune (S.D.).
Fetterman and Sen. John W. Hickenlooper (D-Col.) are the outliers, with the other Democrats spelling their name J-O-N.
‘Josh Fight’ began online a year ago. Last weekend, a crowd of people named Josh showed up to duel with pool noodles.
And John isn’t just a popular name in the Senate. Four of the 45 U.S. presidents have been named John.
So, if you’re a John or a Jon, perhaps it’s time to consider a political run. | 2022-11-11T12:13:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | When Fetterman takes office, 10 percent of the Senate will be John or Jon - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/11/john-jon-senate-midterms-percent/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/11/john-jon-senate-midterms-percent/ |
Campus police have also charged Sophia Rosing, 22, with assault in the alleged attacking of a fellow student while calling her racial slurs
Kylah Spring speaks on the University of Kentucky's campus on Monday as officials investigated an incident in which a White woman was seen on video repeatedly calling Spring racist slurs. (Monica Kast/Lexington Herald-Leader/AP)
Rosing and her lawyer, Fred Peters, did not respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post, but Rosing addressed the incident in an Instagram post titled “I AM SORRY.”
“I am going private on all of my social media and seeking therapy. People from all over the world are wishing horrible things upon me,” she wrote. “I have reached out to the [families] of the people I hurt, and will be donating the rest of my school savings to contribute to the pain I caused. I’m starting from zero, I just want life to be normal again.”
In an earlier post, Rosing said she’s not a racist but was under the influence.
“She’s a very, very embarrassed and humiliated young lady,” Peters told NBC News, adding that he planned on “getting her into some kind of treatment program and sensitivity program to help her through this situation.”
“I see you, I feel you and I stand with you. I matter, you matter and we matter. We will be stronger,” she said. “I’d like to leave you with one word of advice. As Michelle Obama once said, when they go low …” | 2022-11-11T12:13:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | University of Kentucky roiled by viral video of racist attack - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/11/university-kentucky-racial-slur-attack/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/11/university-kentucky-racial-slur-attack/ |
But as they have before, lawyers for the former president stop short of saying he declassified documents seized at Mar-a-Lago
A partially redacted image contained in a court filing by the Justice Department on Aug. 30 shows documents seized during the Aug. 8 FBI search of former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. (Justice Department/AP)
Donald Trump’s lawyers provided a more detailed explanation in a court filing Thursday evening as to why they say the former president had the authority to personally declassify sensitive government documents, though they again stopped short of saying Trump actually declassified materials that he kept after leaving the White House.
The legal team’s explanation was included in a 67-page response to the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s decision to appoint an outside arbiter to sift through the thousands of documents seized from Trump’s Florida residence on Aug. 8 to see if any should be shielded from criminal investigators because they are privileged.
Trump’s lawyers acknowledged that there is a process to declassify documents, which they stated includes going to the person who originally classified the document — or to that person’s supervisor — to declassify them.
The president, they said in the filing, would be considered the supervisor of whoever classified any of the documents, some of which deal with the most sensitive government secrets involving countries including Iran and China.
While the argument in the filing is a hypothetical and does not advance what the public knows about the case, it provides a broad window into one possible defense Trump’s legal team may employ if the criminal probe into the presence of the documents at Mar-a-Lago results in criminal charges. The Justice Department is investigating possible mishandling of classified material, obstruction and destruction of government records, and experts say prosecutors have amassed considerable evidence, including witness testimony and video surveillance.
“The Government again presupposes the documents bearing classification markings are, in fact, classified,” Trump’s lawyers said in their appeal response. They later said, “Yet the government contends President Trump, who had unfettered authority to declassify documents, willfully retained classified information in violation of the law.”
The Justice Department asked last month for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to reverse a Florida judge’s decision to appoint the special master to review the documents, arguing that the former president had no right to possess the seized materials after he left office and that there was no legal basis for an outside review.
The review led by Raymond Dearie — the court-appointed special master — is ongoing, though he is only reviewing the documents that were recovered in an FBI search that do not have classified markings. The Justice Department earlier won an appeal that barred Dearie from reviewing the more than 100 documents marked as classified that the FBI seized from Trump’s property.
Trump worker told FBI about moving Mar-a-Lago boxes on former president’s orders
The bulk of the Trump legal team’s response to the broader appeal on Thursday was technical, with the lawyers arguing that the court did not have the proper authority to overturn Dearie’s appointment.
But the lawyers also detailed why they say Trump has a personal claim to the seized materials — despite more than a year of efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration and Justice Department to retrieve them — and subsequently has the right to a special master in this case.
Under the Presidential Records Act — which requires presidents to preserve records and phone calls pertaining to official presidential duties — Trump had the authority to designate materials as personal or presidential, his legal team wrote.
“Trump’s decision to retain certain records as “personal” and to not provide same to the Archives at the end of his presidency constitutes a demonstrable, and effective, exercise of his discretion under the” Presidential Records Act, the filing reads. “Indeed, President Trump was still the President of the United States, when, for example, many of the documents at issue were packed (presumably by the [General Services Administration]), transported, and delivered to his residence in Palm Beach, Florida.”
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Prosecutors have previously tried to rebut in their own court filings any potential claim by Trump that he declassified the documents. They said that even if Trump did provide evidence showing he declassified the documents while in office, the government would still need to understand which documents were declassified, and any risks to national security that declassifying them could pose.
When Judge Aileen M. Cannon first appointed the special master, she said the review would include the classified documents, and she barred the Justice Department from using those documents in its criminal probe until the special master review is complete.
Since the appeals court already overturned that portion of the ruling, there’s less at stake for the Justice Department in the special master review. But prosecutors are blocked from using the 13,000 seized nonclassified documents until the review is complete.
The government said in its appeal that those unclassified documents are critical to the investigation, and could help them conduct witness interviews and corroborate evidence.
“In short, the unclassified records that were stored collectively with records bearing classification markings may identify who was responsible for the unauthorized retention of these records, the relevant time periods in which records were created or accessed, and who may have accessed or seen them,” the government said in its appeal. | 2022-11-11T12:13:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In filing, Trump lawyers again claim he had right to declassify documents - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/11/trumpdeclassify-mar-a-lago-dearie-appeal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/11/trumpdeclassify-mar-a-lago-dearie-appeal/ |
Gloria Steinem of the National Organization for Women attends an Equal Rights Amendment rally outside the White House on July 4, 1981. (Scott Applewhite/AP)
Although the ERA (“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged … on account of sex”) has long been dead as a doornail, it is a useful cadaver. Progressives toiling to resurrect it are expending energy they might otherwise devote to achievable mischief. And they are reminding the nation how aggressively they will traduce constitutional, rule-of-law and democratic norms to achieve their goals, however frivolous.
At Senate confirmation hearings for Colleen Shogan in September, she was asked by Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio): “If confirmed, would you continue to abide by the January 2020 [Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel] opinion, as your predecessor did?” She said yes, and that a court order would be the only circumstance under which she would certify that the ERA has been ratified. If she means this, the amendment’s fate was settled long ago. | 2022-11-11T12:13:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | 50 years later, the zombie Equal Rights Amendment staggers on - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/equal-rights-amendment-resurrectionists-keep-dreaming/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/equal-rights-amendment-resurrectionists-keep-dreaming/ |
Nevadans cast their votes on Election Day at a busy Centennial Center polling place in Las Vegas. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
When it comes to subversion at the ballot box and the vote-counting center, the 2022 midterms were the Y2K of elections.
You might remember how a computer glitch was supposed to cause chaos when dates rolled over to Jan. 1, 2000. News articles predicted everything from crashing home PCs to planes falling from the sky. The nightmare never arrived, precisely because we saw it coming and had time to prepare.
Something similar happened in the midterms. For months, those of us worried about ensuring a fair election warned about the threat of subversion via disruptions at polling places, the intimidation of election workers and efforts to wreak havoc with ballot-counting.
But very little of that happened. While isolated problems popped up here and there, as they always do — most notably in Arizona’s Maricopa County, where a tabulator problem at many polling sites led to temporary delays — on the whole, voting went smoothly.
Why? There were many factors at play. First, election deniers appearing on ballots talked a lot about fraud, but they didn’t do much. The paranoid fantasies they doled out were about getting supporters energized to vote, not organizing them to do anything disruptive.
Second, the folks who make up the hard core of the election subversion movement — both the leaders and the rank-and-file — are, to put it bluntly, not that bright. There are plenty of smart people in the Republican Party, but these are not them. The movement is led by buffoonish celebrities including MyPillow founder Mike Lindell and Rudy Giuliani, and populated on the ground by people foolish enough to believe them. They’re the Four Seasons Total Landscaping crew, and they aren’t going to pull off an “Ocean’s 11”-style heist.
Indeed, many if not most of these people knew almost nothing about the process of elections other than what they had heard from Newsmax and YouTubers on the far right. They expected to arrive at the polls and see election officials setting ballots on fire and loading voting machines into vans marked “Soros Conspirators LLC.”
Instead, they saw the orderly, slow process that is familiar to anyone who has voted. And while we heard a good deal about Republicans recruiting partisans to challenge voters at the polls, that didn’t prove to be a problem, either.
According to Michael Waldman and Larry Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice, which closely monitored election day, no deluge of problematic poll watchers arrived. “It’s one thing to get people to sign up to hear about election fraud,” Norden told me, “and another to get them to show up at a polling place and spend all day there.”
Which brings us to the most important reason the vote went smoothly: Election officials knew what was coming, and spent the past two years preparing. “There were a lot of risks and a lot of threats,” Waldman said, “but the defenses against it were stronger.”
Election officials made doubly sure they had enough pens on hand and contingency plans in place for the kind of technical issues that inevitably crop up on election days, and prepared for unruly voters, as well. “There was a lot of work done in de-escalation training with election officials,” said Norden.
They also coordinated with local police, so everyone knew what to watch out for and how to handle any incidents. “The fact that law enforcement said that intimidation of election workers won’t be tolerated was a very big thing,” said Norden.
A couple of other factors likely played a part in tamping down efforts to disrupt the vote. All the talk of a “red wave” might have made Republicans too confident to worry that the election would be stolen from them. Donald Trump’s claims of fraud have become so repetitive that they might have lost their urgency: Waldman and Noble said that in focus groups they conducted, even some people who thought the 2020 election was flawed weren’t as worried about the midterms; without Trump himself on the ballot, they were less afraid the election would be stolen.
The conspiratorial frenzy might also have peaked before the election. In August, in deeply red Gillespie County, Tex., the chief election official and her staff resigned, citing threats and harassment. But when I recently visited the county and spoke to Lindsey Brown, the new county clerk who had been given the job of administering the election on short notice, she said early voting was going surprisingly well.
Other than one elderly man who got a little worked up over a clerical issue, there had been no disruptions or protests, Brown said. Other people in town told me that the community rallied together to make sure the election proceeded in an orderly fashion and they wouldn’t be seen as a bunch of lunatics.
One well-run election doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll never face this problem again. But we should be encouraged by how many people, including some Republicans, are pushing back against those who would cause chaos at the polls.
“We know there is an election denial movement,” said Waldman. “But there is a democracy movement, too.” | 2022-11-11T12:14:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The midterms was the Y2K of elections: The subversion never happened - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/midterm-election-subversion-y2k/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/midterm-election-subversion-y2k/ |
The GOP’s future lies in Florida — but not in Mar-a-Lago
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis addresses supporters during a rally Monday in Orlando. (Phelan M. Ebenhack for The Washington Post)
Karen Tumulty: The expected red wave looks more like a puddle
Still, there was a red wave Tuesday — in Florida. DeSantis won reelection by almost 20 points, the largest vote margin ever in a Florida gubernatorial election (and 17 points more than Trump won the state by in 2020). DeSantis won by just over 32,000 votes four years ago but by more than 1.5 million votes this time. According to DeSantis’s campaign, he won independent voters by 20 points — a 30-point net increase from 2018. He won female voters by at least seven points, a 16-point net increase from 2018. And he won Hispanic voters by 14 points, a 22-point increase from 2018 and the highest share of the nonwhite vote for a Republican in Florida history. He also won in Democratic strongholds like Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, St. Lucie and Osceola counties, which had rarely voted Republican.
DeSantis is a political counterpuncher who does not hesitate to take on the woke left. But he is also a policy wonk, with a command of the details of the bold conservative reforms (in taxes, education, parental rights and ending pandemic lockdowns) that he has implemented to make life better for his constituents. And when Hurricane Ian hit, he became the model of a chief executive leading in a crisis. Just days after taking a shot at the Biden administration by sending a planeload of illegal migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, he worked with the Democratic president to get power restored and bridges rebuilt — without getting into needless fights with reporters. As a result, DeSantis excited hard-core Republicans without alienating swing voters — and won in a landslide. | 2022-11-11T12:14:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Midterm results show the GOP’s future lies in Florida — with DeSantis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/republican-midterm-losses-lesson-desantis-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/11/republican-midterm-losses-lesson-desantis-trump/ |
A probing look at evangelicalism in Brazil
A woman dances in the middle of Divine Heritage church during a worship service, at Salvador de Bahia. (Ian Cherub) (Ian Cheibub)
For years now, there has been a global resurgence of right-wing leaders, often connected to Christianity and evangelicalism. We are seeing it here in the United States, but you can also see it in other parts of the world, including Viktor Orban’s Hungary or what was, until very recently, Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
Brazilian photographer Ian Cheibub’s project “Golgotha” is a probing look at the rise of evangelicalism in Brazil. In his project statement, Cheibub asks:
“What do a former drug dealer who was converted in jail, an indigenous person from Maranhão who was once addicted to alcohol and drugs, a minister of state who claims to have seen Jesus in a Guava tree, and a millionaire Youtube pastor who owns a conglomerate of churches and officiated the president’s marriage have in common? ”
The answer to Cheibub’s question is faith, and “their dreams, ambition, and desire for life and opportunity both explains and complexifies the understanding of what it means to be Evangelical in contemporary Brazil.”
“Golgotha,” which has various meanings, including the Hebrew “The Place of the Skull” as well as the biblical hill where Jesus was crucified, is Cheibub’s attempt “to understand the different faces of evangelization in the country. … It looks at the place where the people put their faith, sometimes their money and many others their anguishes and ambitions.”
In his project statement, Cheibub notes that at one time, the Catholic Church held more sway than evangelicalism but that at a certain point, the relationship between the Catholic Church and Brazil’s population dwindled. In the vacuum that ensued, Cheibub says:
“Evangelical pastors, with generous funding from American neopentecostal churches, moved in to occupy the role that had been played by the Catholic Church for generations before that. They were able to successfully integrate into the formerly Catholic communities in part because their discourse of prosperity so starkly differed from the Catholic one of guilt.”
Not unlike in the United States, evangelicalism and right-wing ideology sometimes go hand-in-hand, even penetrating the political atmosphere. Until he was ousted in a recent election, this could be seen through former president Jair Bolsonaro.
All of this is of particular interest to me because I grew up the son of Baptist missionaries. And while the term “evangelical” wasn’t really bandied about all that much, I grew up surrounded by people who shared similar ideologies.
Although I no longer go to church or am a part of that world anymore, a lot of what I see happening out there “in the world” reminds me of experiences I had growing up. Intellectualism and curiosity weren’t necessarily emphasized. One adage about Southern Baptists is that they “feel” religion rather than “think” about it.
I have a feeling that this is one of the reasons so much happens that seems illogical to people who did not grow up around “evangelicalism.” There is less of a tendency for critical thinking about the Bible. Rather, in my experience, study guides and, especially, the word of one’s pastor are the favorable avenues for deciding what is right and what is wrong. At least, that is what I remember from my time growing up “in the church.”
But I also grew up with a very strong feeling for the demarcation between church and state. The two, I was taught, should never, ever mingle. Perhaps that is what differentiates my early experience from what is now taking place globally. The two seem to be more and more connected. What happens in the future remains to be fully seen.
You can see more of Cheibub’s work on his website, here. | 2022-11-11T12:14:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Photos of Brazilian evangelicalism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/11/11/probing-look-evangelicalism-brazil/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/11/11/probing-look-evangelicalism-brazil/ |
That’s what some critics argue. Let’s look at the numbers.
Analysis by Bethany Lacina
Nicholas Carnes
Lilly J. Goren
The senior vice president for government relations at Walt Disney, Susan Fox, speaks onstage during the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” screening at the Fox Theater in Atlanta on Wednesday. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
On Thursday, Marvel Studios released “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” the 30th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (a collection of media produced by Marvel Studios that shares a single fictional storyline). This latest MCU installment is likely to be a commercial success; its predecessor, 2018’s “Black Panther,” is the 14th-highest-grossing film of all time.
“Wakanda Forever” also will factor into speculation about whether the MCU has entered an artistic and commercial downturn, especially among critics who claim that the franchise has become too diverse or “woke” for its own good. According to this narrative, attention to diversity in casting and storytelling can drive White audiences away and hurt media companies’ bottom lines.
The MCU and its discontents
Since 2008, Marvel Studios has released more than two dozen movies and television shows set in a shared fictional reality. Each installment takes into account events of the others, and recurring characters are usually portrayed by the same actors. This serialized storytelling has led to record-breaking commercial success, including six of the 20-highest-grossing films of all time.
As the MCU’s popularity has grown, it has come under increasing scrutiny by fans, industry observers and scholars. As we write in our new, edited volume “The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” MCU films and shows are criticized as being formulaic, status-quo affirming, juvenile, not diverse enough, too numerous and — as Martin Scorsese memorably wrote — “not cinema.”
One strand of MCU doomsaying predicts downturns because of increasingly diverse MCU storytelling. White men played every title hero during Phase 1 of the franchise (2008 to 2012). In subsequent phases, however, Marvel Studios increased diversity in its stories and its production teams. In the MCU’s Phase 4 (2021 to 2022), only half the films feature White male leads.
As the franchise has become more diverse, right-wing commentators have speculated that audiences are reacting negatively to the MCU’s “leftist political and moral agenda,” often referred to as “woke.” That term originates in Black social activism but it is also used to deride marketing strategies that associate consumer brands with progressive politics. Opponents have similarly criticized diversity in Marvel’s print comics, in Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” prequel and in the forthcoming live-action film “Little Mermaid.”
Did ‘Black Panther’ drive away White viewers?
One indicator of how “Wakanda Forever” will shape the MCU’s future can be found in how audiences reacted to the 2018 “Black Panther” film, led by the same creative team, writer/director Ryan Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole.
When “Black Panther” debuted in 2018, surveys indicated that many Black Americans who were not MCU fans were planning to see the film in theaters. One Quartz headline after opening weekend argued that “Black Panther” had “dramatically changed the makeup of the superhero movie audience.”
Such conclusions were premature. As one of us (Bethany Lacina) has shown, the MCU has long been more popular among Americans of color than White Americans — although MCU films are more popular than similar blockbusters with every racial demographic group. Before 2018, for instance, an average of 18 percent of Black consumers reported watching MCU films compared to 14 percent of White consumers.
Black viewers were an even larger-than-usual share of the theatrical audience of “Black Panther.” But “Black Panther” was popular with White viewers, too, and across all racial demographics. Non-Hispanic Whites made up 52 percent of the total theatrical audience of “Black Panther,” a proportion comparable to audiences for past MCU films. Far from being racially divisive, the film earned more revenue from White Americans than any prior MCU film except “The Avengers.”
The Academy Awards now has diversity rules to qualify for an Oscar. But there are huge loopholes.
But was it progressive?
“Black Panther” also was the first MCU film to explore structural inequality and the history of systemic racism. T’Challa, the titular Black Panther, came from Wakanda, a fictional African country that succeeded in amassing tremendous wealth and astonishing technology by concealing itself from the outside world. The film’s antagonist, Killmonger, sought to use Wakandan resources in a worldwide revolution of the oppressed; as political scientists Allison Rank and Heather Pool note in our book, “When we first meet Killmonger, he provides a plausible and justified argument for Black revolution.”
Killmonger is ultimately vanquished by T’Challa, and his quest for radical change villainized. Some left-leaning observers criticized this ending as neocolonial or an instance of Black “respectability politics.” However, the movie also criticized status-quo politics more decisively than any prior MCU installment: T’Challa rejects Wakanda’s historical isolationism and begins using Wakandan resources to address global inequalities. If audiences bristle at progressive MCU storylines, they should have rejected “Black Panther.”
‘Captain Marvel’s’ smash success shows us that conservatives are ignoring the alt-right
The wages of “woke” cinema
In the coming weeks, detractors may hunt for evidence that “Wakanda Forever” was a mistake for Marvel Studios. Sequels don’t always live up to their predecessors. We don’t yet know if “Wakanda Forever” will be as transformative or novel as “Black Panther.” But the evidence so far suggests that in MCU films, as the late co-creator of the Black Panther character, Stan Lee, said, “Those stories have room for everyone, regardless of their race.”
Bethany Lacina (@bethanylacina) is an associate professor of political science at the University of Rochester.
Nicholas Carnes (@Nick_Carnes_) is a professor of public policy and sociology at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic University (University Press of Kansas, 2022).
Lilly J. Goren (@gorenlj) is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisc., and co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic University (University Press of Kansas, 2022). | 2022-11-11T12:14:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | With the new Black Panther, Marvel continues promoting diverse heroes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/black-panther-wakanda-mcu-woke/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/black-panther-wakanda-mcu-woke/ |
Analysis by Nikita Lalwani
A woman fills out a ballot to vote at a privacy booth on Tuesday in Baltimore. (Julio Cortez/AP)
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed racial discrimination in voting, is widely understood to have “ushered in a new era of Black voter participation.” But according to a new study from Duke University political scientists Nicholas Eubank and Adriane Fresh, it also had a serious unintended consequence. Section 5 of the law required certain states to “preclear” any voting-related changes with the attorney general or the D.C. District Court. In states covered by Section 5, Eubank and Fresh found that Black prison admissions rates — and the difference between Black and White admissions rates — increased more than they did in other states. That finding, they say, shows “the potentially perverse consequences of enfranchisement when establishment power seeks — and finds — other outlets of social and political control.”
In the following interview, which has been edited and condensed, Eubank and Fresh discuss White backlash to the Voting Rights Act and what lessons their study holds for efforts to increase the franchise more broadly.
NL: What should we take away from your study?
NE: The main takeaway is that while the passage of the Voting Rights Act was a really impressive advancement of civil rights in the United States, it wasn’t without some unintended consequences. What we see clearly in the data is that Section 5 resulted in an increase in Black prison admissions rates. Jurisdictions that were subject to the strongest provisions of the act had the largest increases in Black prison admissions after 1965, a pattern that was more likely the result of changes in the behavior of White elites in response to the Voting Rights Act than to changes in the preferences of newly enfranchised Black voters.
NL: You offer two possible hypotheses to explain why the act led to higher rates of incarceration for Black people. Let’s first discuss the one you dismiss, which you call the “self-policing” argument. What is that argument and why do you ultimately find it unpersuasive?
NE: The Voting Rights Act enfranchised this very large population of Black voters who had previously been functionally excluded from voting, and most political science theory says that when a group becomes enfranchised they are likely to have the opportunity to express their policy preferences in the political system. So one obvious possibility is that the rise in incarceration rates may have resulted from the increased political influence of Black voters. Scholars have shown that in places like the District of Columbia, for example, efforts to address the rise in drug crime were led by Black elites who wanted to defend the gains of the civil rights movement, which may have led to a rise in Black incarceration in those communities. So it’s important to take seriously the possibility that the rise in Black incarceration in the South after the passage of the Voting Rights Act was an unintended consequence of Black citizens saying, “You know, we want some of the benefits of increased policing in our communities since we’ve been underserved by public safety officers in the past.”
In the end, though, we don’t find this possibility particularly persuasive. If adding Black citizens to the electorate was going to result in a shift in policy, it would have to be the case that Black citizens wanted more punitive criminal justice policy than White citizens, and we just don’t see any evidence for that in public opinion polling from this period. In addition, in counties where Black citizens made up a majority of eligible voters, we actually see that the rise in Black incarceration was much smaller than in other places. The same is true of communities that were able to elect Black officials. So it’s unlikely that the “self-policing” argument explains our findings.
NL: You ultimately contend that the rise in Black incarceration was a reaction by the White-dominated Southern political order to the perceived threat of Black enfranchisement. How, exactly, did that work?
AF: One possibility is that White elites viewed Black voters as an electoral threat and therefore used incarceration as an explicit tool to recreate Jim Crow-era voter suppression. Another possibility is that the rise in incarceration was a function of a diffuse reaction among the White electorate and White elected officials who felt that their status was threatened by the end of Jim Crow. This diffuse reaction potentially suffused the criminal justice system at large, which is a bureaucracy that involves a lot of individuals exercising a significant amount of discretion. It may also have led White voters to support candidates with more punitive criminal justice policies.
We can’t tell which of the two mechanisms was at work here, but we think the diffuse mechanism is more likely. One reason we’re skeptical that incarceration was used as a tool of instrumental voter suppression is that the increase in prison admissions, while very significant from a human perspective, would not have offset the increase in effective enfranchisement among Black people in the South. So it would not have been particularly efficient to try to roll back enfranchisement through felony convictions.
NL: How should your study change how we think about the Voting Rights Act and about efforts to increase the franchise more broadly?
AF: Although we identify a perverse consequence of enfranchisement, we want to be very clear that we do not claim that this consequence abrogates the good that the Voting Rights Act did. Limiting the franchise by race is fundamentally undemocratic, and the act was important, meaningful, and good in marching the United States toward the promise of being a full and complete democratic polity. Our study does, however, identify an important limitation to what the franchise can accomplish, and the ways in which a threatened elite can use tools we might not immediately think of to react to the threat they feel.
NE: Our study is also a reminder that the battle for equal rights is never going to be fixed with any type of silver bullet. Every attempt to fix a problem will likely result in a need to address further responses and reactions. | 2022-11-11T12:14:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The South reacted to the VRA with mass Black incarceration - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/vra-section-5-new-jim-crow/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/11/vra-section-5-new-jim-crow/ |
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine announced Thursday that his office filed a consumer protection lawsuit against the Commanders, team owner Daniel Snyder, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell. (Susan Walsh/AP)
While announcing a consumer protection lawsuit against the Washington Commanders, team owner Daniel Snyder, the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell, D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) said Thursday that the suit is only the first item on his agenda.
Next week, Racine’s office plans to disclose more about its findings related to alleged financial improprieties by the Commanders. The team repeatedly has denied committing any financial malfeasance.
“We are going to give Mr. Snyder and his team an opportunity to pay back exactly what we found they owe D.C. residents,” Racine said. “But that’s not going to be a long opportunity, and we’ll prepare a legal document that will be filed in court next week if a deal is not reached.”
Some former season ticket holders recently have received letters from the team regarding refundable deposits, and Racine said that is “of course” connected to his office’s investigation.
“We haven’t accepted security deposits in nearly a decade, and we began returning deposits to ticket holders as early as late 2004,” a team spokesperson said. “We sent a letter a few weeks ago as part of the most recent outreach to return deposits to ticket holders.”
Racine’s office had been investigating the Commanders and Snyder after allegations of workplace misconduct and sexual harassment, as well as for claims made by one former employee of financial irregularities.
“We investigated the team not only in regards to these outrageous and illegal acts against women and [against] their employees, but we also … had a referral made to us from Congress and, acting responsibly, we dug into that,” Racine said.
The Commanders and Snyder also are being investigated by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the NFL and the office of Jason S. Miyares (R), Virginia’s attorney general. Investigators for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia also have interviewed witnesses about allegations of financial improprieties involving the team, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.
Jason Friedman, a former vice president of sales and customer service for the team, told the House Committee this year that the Commanders engaged in a long-running practice of withholding refundable deposits from season ticket holders and hiding money that was supposed to be shared among other NFL owners.
In recent weeks, some former season ticket holders have shared letters they have received from the Commanders saying the team tried to contact them once before to no avail and is reaching out again to return the deposit. The letters say state law “requires the team to report and/or remit the funds” in the season ticket holder’s account if they are not claimed.
One former season ticket holder, Christopher Barnett, told The Post he had tickets for two seats over a five-year term in the 1990s. He didn’t renew after the term expired, and he does not recall hearing from the team about a deposit refund before receiving a letter in October.
“It’s not surprising that when the sheriff is on your heels, conduct begins to comport itself to the law,” Racine said. The team “should hurry up.”
Racine announced the consumer protection lawsuit less than two months before he is scheduled to leave office. He said Thursday he is “quite confident” the case will move forward under the watch of Attorney General-elect Brian Schwalb.
“As soon as Brian clears ethics and ceases his employment at the law firm he’s at, he will get all the information that he wants about any case that we have,” Racine said.
Barry Svrluga: The Commanders’ biggest threat, as always, is coming from inside the house
The lawsuit, filed in the civil division of D.C. Superior Court, alleges the Commanders and the NFL violated the district’s 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 misstatement made by the Commanders, Snyder, the NFL and Goodell to District residents dating from July 2020. It also is seeking a court order to force the NFL to release the findings of a previous investigation of the team’s workplace conducted by attorney Beth Wilkinson.
D.C.’s attorney general, unlike attorneys general of the 50 states, cannot prosecute adult crimes and serious misdemeanors. The U.S. attorney’s office handles such cases.
“The [team] can seek to have our case dismissed,” Racine said. “We will issue subpoenas. We will seek testimony under oath. Depositions. I promise you. Let me just give you a hunch: The depositions are not likely to occur on a yacht but in a conference in the District of Columbia because no one is above the law.”
When asked whether he has had any communication with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Racine declined to provide specifics.
“I think it’s best for us to not go into that,” he said. “I can tell you that we’ve certainly made outreach.” | 2022-11-11T12:15:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. AG: More to come on Commanders’ alleged financial irregularities - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/commanders-attorney-general-financial-irregularities/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/commanders-attorney-general-financial-irregularities/ |
Maryland receiver Rakim Jarrett has three touchdowns and 376 yards receiving through nine games. (Scott Taetsch for The Washington Post)
The Maryland football program entered this season without much fanfare, but in one area, the Terrapins landed on lists surrounded by playoff contenders. Maryland’s receiving corps, packed with talent and bolstered by depth, was pegged as one of the nation’s best. A pair of experienced stars, Rakim Jarrett and Dontay Demus Jr., headlined the group and warranted the praise.
The duo had played together at Maryland for two seasons, but in 2020, Jarrett was only a freshman and the pandemic shortened the season to just five games. The following year, Demus tore his ACL five games into the season, so Jarrett carried the load from then on. This year, with third-year starting quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, the two were supposed to be healthy and shine, using each game as a showcase of their NFL potential.
The overarching prediction that Maryland’s passing game would excel this season has held true, except for the rainy game last week at Wisconsin. Even with that dreary performance — 77 passing yards during the loss in Madison — the Terps have the fourth-best passing offense (260.1 yards per game) in the Big Ten. But production wise, Jarrett and Demus have been less involved than expected.
Jarrett is tied with tight end Corey Dyches to lead the team with 376 receiving yards through nine games. Demus, who started the season less than a year removed from his major knee injury, has amassed just 153 receiving yards.
Coach Michael Locksley isn’t concerned. He said the two have been “doing very well,” while acknowledging that they “statistically, may not be where they’re getting every target.” That’s because the power of Maryland’s passing game has not hinged solely on two stars but has instead relied on depth and versatility.
“We have a lot of talented players on our offense,” Locksley said. “And I think the diversity that we’ve created with our tight ends, our backs [and] our receivers typically makes it a tough deal to defend, because you don’t know where the ball’s going.”
The Terps have eight players with at least 100 receiving yards, including two tight ends and a running back. Maryland’s top receiver might not be as productive this season as the leader was in most recent years, but players further down the list have compensated by contributing more.
Locksley calls his offense a “personnel-driven system” that capitalizes on individual skill sets and exploits matchups. Five players have led the team in receiving yards in at least one game this season — Jarrett, Dyches, Florida transfer Jacob Copeland, redshirt senior Jeshaun Jones and tight end CJ Dippre.
Against No. 14 Penn State this weekend, those players will be tested by an elite group of defensive backs. Jarrett had the best game of his Maryland career at Penn State as a freshman. He has yet to top his 144 receiving yards from that day in a mostly empty stadium because of pandemic protocols. That’s the only time the Terps have beaten Penn State, Ohio State or Michigan since 2015. They’ve lost the other 19 meetings by an average of 34 points. For another breakthrough, Maryland might need more heroics from one of its best players.
Jarrett said earlier in the season that, apart from leading the team to wins, his goal was to “just improve in every statistical category.” To do so, he would need to surge through the final three regular season matchups and in the bowl game.
Jarrett is on pace to finish with 543 receiving yards, which would be considerably lower than his 829 yards last season and lower than most other top Maryland receivers in the past decade. He has three touchdowns so far, still chasing the five scores he had in 2021.
Jarrett has contributed in other ways — Locksley has highlighted the junior’s efforts on special teams — but occasional drops have hurt. Injuries have also hampered his production: The team’s medical staff ruled him out during the Michigan game after he hit his head on the turf. Against Wisconsin, he left with a lower-leg injury. There was no structural damage, Locksley said, adding that Jarrett’s availability at Penn State will be a game-time decision and the receiver wants to play.
Demus’s knee injury has held him back. Locksley said earlier this season the staff has “brought him along somewhat on a pitch count.” Demus has just 14 receptions for 153 yards, and his lone touchdown came at Indiana last month. Even a version of Demus at “85 percent,” Locksley said, is better than many other players at full strength. Locksley called Demus the “heartbeat of the team,” so his value extends off the field. There’s still some time for him to get healthier with the hope that will translate to in-game production.
“It’s not really all about me,” Demus said last month when asked about his slow start. “I feel like I’m going to get to that point, and really, the individual accolades will come, if I play within the scheme, play within the game. I know I’m a big playmaker on this team.”
Tagovailoa missed one game with a knee injury, which could have also hindered his performance in other outings. But the passing game has, for the most part, hummed along, even without Demus and Jarrett surging toward the top of the conference leader board.
The tight end group, following Chigoziem Okonkwo’s departure for the NFL, entered the season with uncertainty, but Dyches and Dippre have quelled concerns. Dyches’s wide receiver-like qualities make him a matchup issue for defenses and have allowed him to rack up receiving yards. Starting running back Roman Hemby has also been involved in the passing game, accumulating 239 yards. The tight ends and running backs have combined for 109 receiving yards per game, the highest mark for those position groups in the last decade.
With these players, along with receivers further down the depth chart, heavily involved, the passing game has survived — just not in a way that has matched the preseason expectations for the two stars. | 2022-11-11T12:15:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland’s star receivers lack flashy stats but Terps have depth - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/rakim-jarrett-dontay-demus-maryland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/rakim-jarrett-dontay-demus-maryland/ |
As leaders gather in Egypt for the U.N. climate summit, several climate change solutions are gaining traction. But is it enough?
The COP27 climate conference in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 7. (Islam Safwat/Bloomberg News)
Homes built out of bamboo shoots. Zero-emission hydrogen fuels for cars and jets. Small nuclear reactors to power Africa. Restoring ocean mangroves to store carbon.
Dozens of world leaders are gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this week for the U.N. climate summit, known as COP27. They’re debating how to minimize the dangers of climate change and looking toward experimental technologies for help, as worries reach new highs.
“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said on Monday. “Our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”
Political solutions look murky. The United States unveiled a contentious plan to raise billions to help developing nations wean off fossil fuels. Developing nations want rich countries to compensate them for having to bear the brunt of the climate crisis — a difficult bid.
Amid that, several scientific solutions are being touted as a way to help world leaders reach their goals of net-zero emissions. And as enthusiasm abounds for climate related technology, experts caution labeling any solution a silver bullet until proven otherwise.
“A lot of it is hype,” said Vijay Modi, a climate expert and mechanical engineering professor at Columbia University. “But then there is stuff that is not hype but needs research to evaluate.”
To learn more, The Washington Post talked with industry experts, entrepreneurs and academics about various climate technology solutions.
Here are a few being discussed.
Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements in the world, and creating it cleanly is increasingly seen as a core way toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, according to climate experts.
Green hydrogen is a zero-emissions hydrogen fuel capable of powering planes, cars and homes. It’s produced using wind and solar power, along with a high-tech electrolysis process. By 2050, cleanly made hydrogen could remove seven gigatons of CO2 emissions annually if scaled successfully, roughly 20 percent of human-caused emissions, according to McKinsey.
Andy Marsh, chief executive of New York-based Plug Power, said the focus on green hydrogen has bolstered his business, which makes green hydrogen fuel cells and power stations for customers such as Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot. His fuel cells and power stations help these companies power their distribution centers and delivery trucks.
But green hydrogen is costly to make, and scaling it to meet ambitious climate goals will require political muscle. Marsh said leaders at the U.N. conference should do what President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act did, and create tax credits to reimburse companies for every kilowatt-hour of energy they produce using green hydrogen.
“It’s a carrot approach,” he said. “It’s not ‘We’re going to penalize you.’ It’s going to be: ‘We’re going to reward you if you generate green hydrogen.’ ”
For years, the idea of large nuclear power plants powering the world has drawn concern. Many worry about the dangers these reactors present to communities they’re near, as well as the radioactive waste they generate and high construction costs. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan turned many countries away from it.
But at this year’s climate conference, the technology is getting another look. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Monday that the energy solution is crucial. “Nuclear energy as a clean energy source has a very important role to play to help us get to net zero faster,” he said in a statement.
Nuclear trade associations are at the conference, saying nuclear power is already the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon power, providing roughly 10 percent of the world’s electricity from roughly 440 reactors. Others, such as House Republicans, say it’s also a matter of national security.
“Twenty years ago, Belgium decided that nuclear was bad and they shut it down,” Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) told The Washington Post. “Today, that energy has been replaced by dirty Russian natural gas.”
Despite that, experts worry about the risks nuclear waste poses to society. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says waste material “can remain radioactive and dangerous to human health for thousands of years.”
Small modular reactors are mini versions of more traditional nuclear power stations that generate roughly one-third the energy. The nuclear industry has been trying to build these machines for years, promising they’ll be smaller, nimbler and safer than their conventional counterparts.
These small-scale, zero-emission nuclear plants produced in factories could be used to power small communities in similar ways to natural gas plants, but absent the pollution, they say. Their size allows them to power more remote places than larger reactors.
In the lead up to the U.N. conference, the United States and Japan announced they’d partner to help deploy small modular reactors in Ghana.
Still, experts from Stanford and the University of British Columbia found that these reactors will generate more radioactive waste than conventional nuclear power plants.
More than 1640 different bamboo species populate the world, U.N. data shows, and it naturally grows in places such as Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The plant is better at capturing and storing carbon from the atmosphere compared with timber, according to research. Since it's the fastest growing woody plant in the world, scientists believe planting more can quickly remove carbon from the air, while replenishing it with oxygen.
In China, where bamboo is abundant, the forests are projected to store 1 billion tons of carbon from the environment, an increase from 727 million tons in 2010, U.N. data said.
Replacing traditional housing materials such as carbon and steel with bamboo helps reduce carbon emissions caused by the global housing sector, which represents a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Blue carbon refers to carbon stored in coastal and marine environments. Oceans and places such as mangroves and sea grass are up to four times better at capturing and storing carbon than forests, scientists said.
Climate advocates at the U.N. conference are urging countries to restore their nations’ oceans and marine ecosystems, which have been plagued by pollution caused from industries such as shrimp farming and palm oil.
Emily Pidgeon, vice president of ocean science and innovation at Conservation International, an environmental nonprofit, said upwards of 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions could be removed from the environment if countries commit to restoration projects and blue carbon strategies. While that’s not a large number, Pidgeon said, these are things countries could do now.
“These are actions we could be taking today,” she said. “Where many technologies, which are very important, are still five decades [away] to come online.” | 2022-11-11T12:16:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bamboo and other climate change solutions in spotlight at COP 27 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/11/cop27-climate-change-solutions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/11/cop27-climate-change-solutions/ |
Having self-compassion and embracing a new normal are among the ways veterans can strengthen the recovery process
Advice by Kerry Brockberg
Dustin Brockberg
Dustin Brockberg, PhD, is a psychologist and adjunct faculty member at Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. He served in the U.S. Army from 2004 to 2008, including a deployment to Iraq.
Kerry Brockberg, PhD, is a psychologist working at the Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute (Allina Health).
The Brockbergs are authors of “End Your Covert Mission: A Veteran’s Guide to Fighting Pain and Addiction.”
Many veterans struggle with addiction and other physical and mental health concerns. Asking for help is often a daunting task for veterans, but many do. They seek individual or group therapy, engage in 12-step programming, use medications and join veteran-specific support groups. Recovery then becomes their new reality.
As psychologists who treat veterans, we think that the road to recovery comes with a better understanding of addiction. Veterans, like many other people, tend to use substances for a variety of reasons — as a way to cope, push down, celebrate, or “heal” wounds. Substance use can ebb and flow between use, misuse and abuse.
Addiction often results when a person cannot refrain from using substances or when substance use causes functional impairment (an inability to complete daily tasks). A 2017 study found that of the veterans who initially sought help at the Department of Veterans Affairs approximately 11 percent met the criteria for a substance use disorder, which include impaired control and risky use.
Experts in medicine and psychology have come to better understand and treat addiction as a disease that affects both body and mind. Addiction can be described as a dysfunction of certain parts of the brain. Some people also may have a genetic predisposition to it.
While dealing with addiction, some veterans may have other mental health problems such as anxiety, mood-related disorders, including depression and bipolar disorder, trauma-related disorders such as PTSD, and issues with self-harm or suicidality. For some, symptoms of these problems are present only when using substances. A veteran may get sad or reminisce about painful memories only when drinking heavily. For others, situations can trigger symptoms when they are sober. A veteran can get anxious when they are around a lot of other people and use substances to feel better in these moments.
The more aware veterans are about co-occurring issues, and when and how symptoms present themselves, the more likely they would be to find a way to better manage addiction. Recovery is a physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual and cultural experience. We want to celebrate and help support ongoing recovery, and here are five ways to strengthen and work within and toward the recovery process.
Have self-compassion
We often say things to ourselves that we would never say to others, such as “I’m an idiot, why did I relapse?” and “You’re never going to be able to do this.” Ask yourself, how do these statements help with recovery? They don’t. We will have better results for our ongoing recovery when we treat ourselves with respect, love and care. We also have to meet ourselves where we are at. It helps with reducing feelings of self-judgment or shame, and increases a sense or feeling of safety and security.
Embracing the new ‘normal’
What does “normal” mean? When we have an idea about what our experience needs to look like, we’re probably trying to recapture a specific feeling, memory, or thought. You may know someone who focuses on the past and says things such as, “I wish it was like it was before all this.” Perhaps that person is you. It is natural to want to relive a previously enjoyed feeling or memory. But how much energy are you putting into trying to restore a past that is just that — the past?
Create a new normal that reflects and embraces who you are now, especially during your recovery journey. If you drew a picture of what your new normal looks and feels like, what would it show? Be realistic. Your recalibrated self may include your current pain, but also the many good things in your life. Recognize the tools, relationships and attitudes that have become part of your new normal.
Let go of stigma
Many veterans worry that having problems with substance use, or having mental health issues means they’ve done something wrong, or they are a bad or worthless person. They know that people with such problems continue to be stigmatized, so they fear what others will think of them. But play it out in your mind the other way. What happens after we ask for help or express how we feel? What happens when a person listens to us, supports us and acknowledges our pain? Does that stigma go away? The answer is simple: It does if we let it.
For many in the addiction recovery community, the moment they realize they are powerless over their drug of choice, they experience a sense of overwhelming relief. There is power in telling the truth and acknowledging a problem exists. There is power in admitting we were wrong or made a mistake. There is power in asking for help. Once we identify and admit we have a problem, we can do something to solve it.
Talk!
Trust that your voice is worth listening to. What you have to say is important. When you open your mouth, you’re also opening up a new kind of future. Whenever you share your recovery with others, you open yourself to the possibility of learning from their experience and perspective. Sharing in this way can help you feel more connected and better respected. It can help make your addiction burden feel less heavy and more bearable because now you’re no longer carrying it alone.
Use your veteran voice to help others
This willingness to offer support and assistance to fellow veterans in recovery is a wonderful characteristic of the veteran community. Your voice as a veteran is important. We want you to be part of the movement that helps veterans end the silent suffering of addiction and join the mission in which sharing experiences and finding relief is a normal part of life. You can start by exploring your own story and sharing it with someone else. | 2022-11-11T12:16:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Addiction recovery can be tough for veterans. Here are five helpful tips. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/11/addiction-recovery-veterans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/11/addiction-recovery-veterans/ |
SoftBank Group Corp. has long stood out for its flamboyant earnings events. As the former telecoms firm morphed into the world’s largest venture capital investor, they’d become must-watch material, a kind of psychedelic version of Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders. Founder Masayoshi Son’s slide decks and comments had it all — golden eggs! Flying unicorns! Comparisons to Jesus Christ! Inexplicable WeWork profit projections!
Even in the bad times, Son would give us a mysterious equation to solve, or a history lesson about an apologetic feudal warlord. By comparison, Friday’s earnings were, frankly, pretty dull.
And they’re going to get duller. Son revealed that he’s going to step away from future events — as well as day-to-day running of the firm itself — to focus on building up Arm Ltd., the chip-design firm it failed to sell to Nvidia Corp. Investors’ only chance to hear from Son will be at the annual shareholders’ meeting in June.
That’s breaking with decades of precedent. Son spoke Friday for a final time for now, giving about 25 minutes on his plans for Arm before handing over to Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto. While no slouch, Goto gave a much more traditional numbers-and-graphs briefing than we’ve been used to.
It’s not unusual in Japan for the CFO to give most earnings presentations. Just last week, Sony Group Corp.’s CFO Hiroki Totoki was the one speaking to the media, not Chief Executive Officer Kenichiro Yoshida. But SoftBank has long been anything but the traditional Japanese company: In addition to those slide decks, Son’s forthrightness, willingness to take all questions and combination of self-deprecation and boastfulness (along with the potential for some truly jaw-dropping figures) made the earnings must-see TV.
If that’s coming to an end, then it’s in keeping with how the company wants to operate right now — low-key and out of the spotlight, at least until market conditions are more favorable to its often-questioned investing business model.
“Inflation isn’t going to be controlled any time soon, and it’s going to be tough even for listed firms, much less unlisted ones,” Son said before handing over the reins to Goto. “We have to tighten our defense.”
SoftBank wasn’t kidding when it pledged earlier this year to go into defensive mode, a shift that former banker Goto will take the lead on. As a result, there was little to talk about this quarter — no new buyback announcement, no new asset sales and no significant update on the initial public offering for Arm, which was pushed out beyond the end of the fiscal year ending March.
Son has seemingly become infatuated with the firm he now says he never really wanted to sell, and which he’s proclaimed will be a new engine of growth for the company — and for his “information revolution.” What might end up occupying most of his time is trying to boost the valuation of the IPO to the levels he expects, which won’t be easy in this market.
A far more traditional figure than Son, Goto emphasized safety and stability, played up the firm’s strong cash position and low loan-to-value ratio, and noted that while market conditions would eventually get better, the firm was going to take a conservative approach.
That’s a mood already seen in the plunge in new Vision Fund investment. The firm spent just $300 million in the three months ended September, down 97% from a year earlier. Future quarters are likely to look even more miserly — it’s going to be a bad time to be a startup seeking investment.
Goto emphasized his skepticism over China (“growing more unstable day by day”) and cryptocurrencies (“not part of the Vision Fund’s vision.”) Even the news on FTX.com wasn’t too exciting, with the $100 million investment SoftBank made in Sam Bankman-Fried’s troubled crypto exchange revealed Friday nowhere near the billions that some had outlandishly predicted. SoftBank’s skepticism over crypto is now looking unexpectedly prescient.
Even before today, the firm had already been moving away from its colorful Powerpoint decks, which were starting to attract a little too much unwanted attention. Presentations had become increasingly mundane even under Son, with increasing emphasis on numbers rather than narratives.
Nonetheless, Son’s speech handing over to Goto had something of an end-of-an-era feeling to it. With the founder planning to focus on Arm for now, it even feels a little like this might be the swan song for the “information era venture capitalist” SoftBank. The company has reincarnated itself numerous times over the years, from broadband supplier to mobile phone magnate to investment giant. Perhaps their next incarnation is simply a little boring.
• SoftBank’s Shogun Has a Rare Moment of Contrition: Gearoid Reidy
• What to Do When SoftBank Says ‘Not for Us!’: Andrea Felsted
• The Eternal Optimism of Masayoshi Son: Culpan and Reidy | 2022-11-11T13:43:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Son Steps Away, and SoftBank’s Days of Drama Are Over - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/son-steps-away-and-softbanks-days-of-drama-are-over/2022/11/11/2bcb80a4-61c0-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/son-steps-away-and-softbanks-days-of-drama-are-over/2022/11/11/2bcb80a4-61c0-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Josh McDaniels’s rocky start with Raiders has echoes of earlier flameout
In eight games under Coach Josh McDaniels, the Raiders have already blown three leads of at least 17 points, just two fewer than in the entire history of the franchise before this season. (Rusty Costanza/AP)
In the wake of a coaching change in Indianapolis, the Las Vegas Raiders’ matchup Sunday with the Colts reverberates with the recent past.
For his part, first-year Las Vegas coach Josh McDaniels might just be hoping that a poor outcome doesn’t hasten a historical parallel he’d rather avoid.
With the Raiders off to a 2-6 start amid some ominous grumbles by prominent players, speculation has already begun about McDaniels’s job security after his previous stint as an NFL head coach quickly went sour. A loss this week to the visiting Colts, who are riding a three-game losing streak marked by turmoil, would only raise more questions about whether the former New England Patriots offensive coordinator has learned how to successfully lead a team.
Given that Indianapolis let go of well-regarded coach Frank Reich on Monday and replaced him with retired ex-Colts standout Jeff Saturday — whose only previous coaching experience has come at the high school level — Las Vegas could feel good about its chances to win. Then again, the Raiders just lost to a pair of teams that came into those games with a cumulative record of 4-11.
For the moment, the 46-year-old McDaniels might be more concerned about his own team than the next one on his schedule. Following last week’s 27-20 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, in which the Raiders squandered a 17-0 lead, quarterback Derek Carr offered cryptic comments that did not appear to reflect well upon his coach.
“There’s a lot I want to say, but if I’m honest, I don’t need to say it here,” Carr told reporters. “There’s things that will be said. There are things that need to be addressed, and all those things. But I think as a whole, the urgency part of it, after 30 minutes of football, we have to learn that the game is not over.
“I feel like I’ve been in this situation a lot, where new coaches or this or that, and you have to teach the new guys, like, this is how we do it and this is the mentality,” continued the 31-year-old Carr, who has played under four head coaches and two interim coaches in his nine years with the Raiders. “That gets tiring, but at the same time, it’s my job.”
At his introductory news conference in January, McDaniels acknowledged he’d had some learning to do, following the debacle that was his first go-round in 2009-10 with the Denver Broncos.
Then the youngest head coach in the NFL, McDaniels quickly alienated players, fans and, before much longer, his bosses in Denver with a perceived combination of arrogance, immaturity and a lack of interpersonal skills, not to mention some questionable personnel moves. After trading away a talented young quarterback in Jay Cutler and replacing him with Kyle Orton, followed by a simmering feud with star wide receiver Brandon Marshall, McDaniels got off to a 6-0 start in his first season before the bottom fell out. He went 5-17 the rest of the way in Denver, with the last straw appearing to be a Spygate-like videotaping scandal that earned McDaniels and the team separate fines from the league. He was fired by the Broncos with four games left in the 2010 season.
“When I went to Denver, I knew a little bit of football,” McDaniels said in January. “I didn’t really know people, and how important that aspect of this process and maintaining the culture and building the team was. And I failed, and I didn’t succeed at it.
“Looking at that experience has been one of the best things in my life, in terms of my overall growth as a person, as a coach. What do I need to do different? How do I need to handle my role if I have another opportunity and do better at it? I feel like that’s really an area that I’ve tried to grow in.”
After parting ways with the Broncos, McDaniels returned to the Patriots, where he remained until accepting another head coaching opportunity with Las Vegas. Actually, it had appeared in 2018 that he accepted a job with Indianapolis, which went so far as to announce his agreement to coach the Colts. But McDaniels backed out later that evening, and after a few days to regroup, Indianapolis hired Reich.
Fast-forward four years, and McDaniels might have learned how to get along better with his players, but he isn’t necessarily on the same page with all of them to judge from remarks made by Las Vegas wide receiver Davante Adams just after the loss to the Jaguars. Adams went off in the first half for 146 yards and two touchdowns on nine catches, helping his team build a big lead, but he was held to just one catch for zero yards in a second half that saw Jacksonville storm back to end a five-game losing streak.
“There’s no reason why we should be losing games like this, and it’s frustrating,” Adams said afterward (via ESPN). “If we played for a [expletive] team, then it’s one thing. But that’s not what it is.”
“The way we were attacking in the first half was working, to a certain extent,” added the five-time Pro Bowl selection. “I feel like we got away from that and started playing the game a little different, and that’s not the way we’ve got to do it. … If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
McDaniels addressed Adams’s comments Tuesday, telling reporters, “I know what he meant when he said that, and I don’t take any of those things personally.”
Remarkably, the loss to the Jaguars represented the third time in eight games under McDaniels that Las Vegas lost after building a lead of at least 17 points. In the entire history of the franchise before this season, that had happened only five times (per CBS Sports).
Josh McDaniels has lost 23 of his last 30 games as an NFL head coach
Whatever the reason, the collapse against the Jaguars inspired sharp criticism from, among others, the man now charged with coaching against Las Vegas this week.
“Raiders look horrible,” Saturday, then an ESPN analyst, tweeted as their loss to Jacksonville wound through the second half.
The Raiders’ most obvious issue lies on defense, which is not McDaniels’s area of expertise. They are allowing 25.1 points per game, sixth worst in the NFL. But the 22.9 points being scored by their offense are good for just a tie for 14th best in the league. That’s not much more than the 2021 squad averaged under disgraced former coach Jon Gruden and interim coach Rich Bisaccia. Those Raiders went 10-7 and made the playoffs.
“I trust our leadership. I trust our captains. I trust our locker room,” McDaniels said Monday. “And they don’t have to feel good about losing. People ask me, ‘Are you concerned with them?’ No, I’m not concerned with them. They should be p----- off. We all are. Losing sucks.”
McDaniels has only just arrived in Las Vegas, but if he doesn’t find a way to reverse the Raiders’ trend — starting with a win over the reeling Colts — he may find history repeating itself in a quick exit. | 2022-11-11T13:45:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Josh McDaniels is struggling with the Raiders in his second chance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/josh-mcdaniels-raiders-struggles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/11/josh-mcdaniels-raiders-struggles/ |
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