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By Kendall Warner, The Virginian-Pilot | AP
Quiara Jackson leads the Spartan “Legion” Marching Band during the homecoming parade in the neighborhood surrounding Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Va. on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. (Kendall Warner /The Virginian-Pilot via AP)
NORFOLK, Va. — At Norfolk State University, those who become drum majors for the Spartan “Legion” Marching Band might be considered royalty on campus.
Founded in 1975, the Legion has become one of the country’s premier bands among historically Black colleges and universities. Band faculty members interview select candidates from the Legion for the Mr. Spartan and Cap ’N Soul roles to lead the team of about 250 musicians.
This year, senior Quiara Jackson is Cap ’N Soul — and Norfolk State’s first female drum major.
“One of my main focuses when I was auditioning to be a drum major, I was telling people not only am I running for myself, I’m running to inspire other women to take on these positions,” she said. “We need more women in these leadership positions.”
She said it’s working — several of the band’s section leaders are women.
Jackson had not picked up a band instrument until her junior year at Freedom High School in Woodbridge. She was more of an orchestra and choir person, she said. But the school’s new band director happened to be an NSU band alumnus. Jackson visited NSU’s campus and felt at home.
She thought of taking a break from the band when she switched her major from nursing to sociology. But friends, including last year’s Mr. Spartan, encouraged her to go for the drum major role.
One of the first times Jackson knew she was making an impact came when she received a call from her mother, Gicanda Suggs. For the family, Suggs had made Cap ’N Soul shirts displaying Jackson’s picture and status as a first at Norfolk State. One day at the grocery, a little girl ran up and pointed to Suggs’ shirt: “I know her! I know her!” The child’s mother read the shirt and commented on Jackson’s being a first.
The little girl then said, “That’s gonna be me one day,” Jackson recalled. “And I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, she really said that?’ This is real.” | 2022-11-12T15:39:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Norfolk State’s first female drum major makes history - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/norfolk-states-first-female-drum-major-makes-history/2022/11/12/8d8aaebe-6292-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/norfolk-states-first-female-drum-major-makes-history/2022/11/12/8d8aaebe-6292-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
By Jasmine Vaughn-Hall, The Baltimore Banner | AP
Colin Williams poses for a photo on Oct. 25, 2022 in Baltimore. Williams lives in Druid Hill Park and creates a sculpture garden out of a variety of tossed objects he finds such as TVs, glass, wood, mannequins and fabric. (Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner via AP)
BALTIMORE — You’ve likely seen his colorful sculpture garden as you enter Druid Hill Park on Swann Drive going toward the Rawlings Conservatory. On the strip of grass next to four brick pillars with lime green moss on their bases, the sculpture garden features anything Colin Williams is in the mood to create: shards of broken glass or old bicycle chains painted with deep oranges and blues in a frame, or a spray-painted bench with a tie-dye-like curtain.
People might dismiss the space as a collection of junk, but Williams is creating a curated corner in the park. He calls himself the “unofficial, official artist-in-residence at Druid Hill Park.”
He lives in the park by his art and is technically homeless, but he doesn’t see it that way. The abstract artist said he is living a “fairy tale” surrounded by his creations, scavenged supplies piled in corners or stacked in shopping carts, and a large tent shrouded by a blue tarp.
Williams chose to make the park his home over a year ago when his youngest sister lived close by. She offered to let him stay with her after he quit his job and had no place to live, but he knew he couldn’t create his art there. He asked her to take him to the park after doing a Google search on “state of Maryland, city of Baltimore, art in the park.” Before then, he lived in a wooden shelter he built or slept in a car in Middle River near his other younger sister’s home. He didn’t want to live in her house as an adult without a job.
When he moved into the park, he didn’t have much. But he had what he needed: a simple life and freedom.
Jacqueline Williams, his youngest sister, said she thinks her brother’s move was sparked by being fed up and tired of working unfulfilling jobs that did not stimulate his creativity and feeling he had for too long put the needs of others before his own.
That desire for autonomy became most clear in 2020. Williams said he slammed on the brakes as he drove up a dark highway between Maryland and New Jersey in a Krispy Kreme truck. He thought he saw a woman on the road, but had actually fallen asleep at the wheel while traveling at least 70 miles per hour.
His job as a delivery driver allowed him to pay his bills, but he was deeply unhappy. One day in particular, he said, was a cycle of torment: delivering doughnuts, crying in the car, praying and driving.
“If I didn’t put myself first, I would always fall last,” Williams said.
He was scared the first few nights in the park. Not only was it incredibly dark, but he worried about intruders or getting thrown out by park officials. (So far, he’s only had to fend off raccoons and rats.)
It was weeks before he showcased his artwork because he was trying not to take up too much space in the 745-acre park. Park rules say that any use “after dusk is prohibited due to safety reasons.”
So far, park officials have left him alone, aside from a conversation about where he can lay out his art and other belongings. Baltimore City Recreation and Parks said in a statement that they’re working with the mayor’s office to help those experiencing homelessness within the city’s public parks. Someone from the mayor’s office talked to Williams about going to a shelter, but he prefers the park where he can come and go, keep his own cabinet of food and sleep beneath the stars.
Williams’ art pieces include spray-painted creations and abstract sculptures using anything he can get his hands on: styrofoam figurines or mannequins, shopping carts, a chandelier, frames, legs to metal or wooden tables and different shapes of glass. He finds his supplies among discarded items in alleyways or dumpsters when he walks around the city. He loves using stencils and enjoys repurposing items people throw away.
Recently, wearing an army green jumpsuit with paint stains and a red and blue NASA patch on the left sleeve, Williams, 35, held up television screens and refrigerator shelves he had recently spray painted. His dark brown locks with honey-colored tips dangled across his face as he looked down at the swirls and splatters of glitter with red, gold and pink paints.
The pieces of art in his “sculpture garden” are always changing.
“If it stays the same, people won’t see it anymore,” Williams said.
Williams has bonded with people at the park who exchange living necessities for his work, and look out for him. He has received a chiminea, ceiling tiles, spray paint, toiletries, clothing, tents, fruit and other food. He’s hesitant to ask for anything, he said, but he’s grateful to receive.
Craig Phillips, a craftsman and frequent visitor of the park, has at least 10 pieces of Williams’ art. A favorite is a piece he commissioned: a light brown wooden square bordered with stenciled swirls and small petal-shaped accents. In the center, a lotus shape colored in shades of pink surrounds the sacred Hindu symbol “om,” painted ocean blue.
“It’s not about a retail motivation, it’s an artistic statement that’s motivation,” Phillips said.
William Minor, who would eat lunch in the park, noticed Colin Williams in the parking lot, sitting in a big papasan chair. The art looked like junk and Minor at first thought the man in the park was “crazy.” Then the men got better acquainted and Minor realized the creations were something that “can’t be taught in art school.”
“People can say what they want about Baltimore, but Baltimore has taken care of Colin,” Minor said.
Janice McKoy of Mount Washington is one of those caretakers. She thinks Williams is an artistic genius. One of the first times they met, she said, they talked for hours and she felt like she had known him her entire life. She brings him food and supplies and wonders how anyone could pass the sculpture garden and not see it belongs in an art gallery.
“I’m just amazed and blown away every time I see him,” McKoy said.
Williams has a hard time figuring out where his inspiration comes from.
One permanent installation in the sculpture garden is dedicated to his mother. In the installation, two large pine branches hang from each side of a tilted pool ladder. A lion-shaped backpack spray-painted gold (his mother’s Zodiac sign was Leo) sits on an elevated chair with a plaid cushion. Sitting front and center is a golden head and torso of a mannequin with a blue and red swirl on the chest and a rectangular sheet of glass painted black, red and light blue. A distinct blotch of black paint looks like an inkblot card. Williams likens the figure to a mother connected to a child.
In March of 1998, when Williams was 11, his mother Lori Sue Wilson and her grandparents, Leana Ferrell and William Ferrell, were brutally attacked by her oldest son after a dispute over money, according to a Baltimore Sun article. Williams’ great-grandparents died in the weeks following the attack. His mother was hospitalized and suffered brain and cosmetic damage. Damon Wilson, Williams’ half brother, was sentenced to 90 years in prison, according to Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services records.
Williams, who says he’s a “mama’s boy,” said his mother was unrecognizable after the attack, her face swollen and smashed. Her head was shaved for surgery, and gone was the patch of hair above her ear where Williams loved to press his nose. The mom, who loved to cook, taught him ceramics and bought him colored pencils, markers and paper, needed daily assistance for the rest of her life.
“It always bothered me because I could not remember my mother’s face before her scars,” Williams said.
His mother moved to Pittsburgh with her uncle after the attack and Williams’ father received full custody of him and his two younger sisters. Unlike his free-spirited mother, his father was more stern. Williams felt uneasy around his father, who wanted his son to be more like him, stifling the creative seeds his mother had planted.
His father taught him how to fix cars, to care for lawns, and woodwork. At Woodlawn High School, he participated in theater and wanted to pursue acting.
Williams wouldn’t become an actor. Instead, he became his mother’s full-time caregiver in his early 20s.
“He had to put himself to the side for a long time,” said his younger sister, Jocelyn Williams, who lives in Middle River and tries to visit her brother often. It’s comforting to know that people watch out for him, she said.
Williams once worked three jobs, but couldn’t always make ends meet. His gas and electric service would get turned off and he would get evicted and move around. After his mother fell and got a concussion, she moved into a nursing home and died in 2016.
Williams said he slowly started to spiral after his mother’s death. At one job, he’d make idle threats to no one under his breath. At another, he’d wish to get in an accident so he could take time off and rest. Certain thoughts about his mother still make him sad, like thinking about the last time he held her hand or not knowing where her urn is because he couldn’t pay for the storage unit it was housed.
“I don’t think we as people ever recover from the loss of someone that we love,” Williams said.
Williams’ latest installation features thrones and sculptures that incorporate chairs. The “throne of good wood” features two large, lopsided wooden spools. Crooked branches shaped like lightning strikes extend from each side and a single wooden chair towers over it all. He started the installation because he had a lot of chairs, but he said his love for the song “Princes of the Universe” by Queen, and the need to be the “king of his own existence,” influenced the exhibit.
Williams has been spending large parts of his day moving, cleaning, creating and reorganizing artwork. He takes as long as he wants. He doesn’t have a watch and he doesn’t make plans. He refuses to be a “puppet or a pawn” in a conventional job.
“It hurts too much,” he said, “to let anyone play with my life.”
Jacqueline Williams said she’s happy for her brother. Though she’s in Houston now, she used to let her older brother display his artwork in her hair salon in Randallstown when she lived in Baltimore.
“I’m just excited for him because I just believe we should follow our passions,” she said.
Williams recently sat down and placed a store-bought Danish bundt cake with a missing piece on his lap. Several squirrels scurried around him, flicking their puffy tales as he threw pieces of the yellow treat.
He didn’t come to the park to be Jane Goodall, “but that’s what’s happening,” he jokes. A bell dinged and an older man and woman on a bike rode by and waved to Williams.
They’re really nice people, he said, but was unsure when he’d see them again. But they know right where to find him. | 2022-11-12T15:39:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unofficial park artist-in-residence finds simple life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/unofficial-park-artist-in-residence-finds-simple-life/2022/11/12/91a01962-6292-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/unofficial-park-artist-in-residence-finds-simple-life/2022/11/12/91a01962-6292-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Musk is wrecking speech moderation on Twitter. There’s an alternative.
Twitter alternative Mastodon moderates speech not through banning, but shunning across a broader ‘Fediverse’ of services.
Sites like Mastodon and Tumblr are emerging as new (or renewed) alternatives to Twitter. (Barbara Ortutay/AP)
Elon Musk doesn’t seem to have any obvious theory of how to moderate speech on Twitter, now that he owns it. His rhetoric about free speech has run into the difficulties of managing a service where many users would prefer not to have to deal with certain kinds of speech, and where big companies and famous people would certainly prefer not to have “verified” Twitter accounts that claim to be them, saying things that mess up their carefully cultivated public images.
The chaos of the past week has led many Twitter users to explore alternative services such as Mastodon, a decentralized platform based on ‘open source’ software (which is freely available and can be modified under reasonable conditions). Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota is one of the few people who have done research on how Mastodon moderates speech (his research paper can be found here). I asked him to explain the differences between how Twitter and Mastodon work.
Q: You argue that “the dominance of closed platforms [like Twitter] is an aberration” in the history of the internet. Why so?
A: The internet was designed to have little centralized, top-down control. This is true both in terms of its fundamental architecture, by which the network self-organizes, and the most popular applications that run on it, from email to web browsing. While closed platforms like AOL were popular in the 1990s, they fell out of favor in the early 2000s and it wasn’t until the rise of Facebook and other social media sites that most internet users came to spend the bulk of their online time in “walled gardens.”
Q: Many people are disappointed with how closed platforms like Twitter and Facebook moderate speech. Why do you believe that this disappointment is nearly inevitable?
Large platforms are faced with what we might call the moderator’s trilemma. They are trying to moderate a, one, large and diverse community with, two, a single moderation policy without, three, having a sizable fraction of users be upset. The problem is that it’s not clear that you can satisfy all three parts of this at the same time. A small community with shared values can have a single moderation policy that is generally accepted. But Facebook and Twitter don’t want to be small; they want to connect the entire world. Nor do they want to have an anything-goes platform, because (as Elon Musk is currently learning) neither users nor, more importantly, the advertisers that pay the platform’s bills will tolerate that. So what they’ve de facto accepted is that they’re going to be the punching bag for lots of people, different groups of which think they’re moderating too much, too little, or just the wrong content.
Q: Mastodon, a Twitter alternative that many people are moving toward, is based on an open platform and the ‘Fediverse.’ What’s the difference?
The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is architectural: Twitter is a closed platform, whereas Mastodon, like all applications built on the ActivityPub protocol that runs the Fediverse, is an open platform. A good analogy to Mastodon is email. There is no single entity that runs email. Rather, email is a system by which different email servers communicate with each other according to a shared protocol. Some of these servers, like Gmail or Outlook, are large and have millions of users, and lots of us choose to use them because they’re convenient. But any organization — indeed any one individual — can set up and run their own email server and participate as part of the email network. And while any given email server can block and refuse to communicate with any other email server, there’s no central authority that can force anyone off the email system entirely.
This is, in essence, how Mastodon works. Mastodon servers are called instances, and, just as one can send emails to users on other email servers, Mastodon users can, using the shared ActivityPub protocol, interact with users on other Mastodon instances. And while a Mastodon instance can choose not to communicate with some other instance (see below for what happened when Gab joined the Mastodon network), there is no central authority that can block a Mastodon user or instance from the network entirely. At the same time, no instance can be forced to host users or content that it doesn’t want to.
An important point is that Mastodon’s decentralization is a matter of technical architecture, rather than policy. We can see this by comparing Mastodon to Reddit, a platform that is often held up as an example of decentralized social media. Reddit operates by setting up a bunch of subreddits, discussion boards that choose their own moderator and moderation policy. But this decentralization is a matter of Reddit choosing to allow it. At any moment, Reddit HQ can reach into a subreddit and moderate content, kick a user off, or even disable an entire subreddit, as occurred when Reddit banned “The_Donald,” a subreddit for Donald Trump fans. Whether you think that Reddit should or should have done that, the point is that Reddit was able to. This is the difference between a platform that is decentralized as a matter of (changeable) policy and one, like Mastodon, that’s decentralized as a matter of (unchangeable) architecture.
Q: How does the balance between ‘voice’ and ‘exit’ in the Fediverse change arguments over the moderation of speech?
With a closed platform like Twitter or Facebook, if you don’t like what the platform is doing, you don’t have a choice other than to threaten to leave the platform. But because being on Twitter and Facebook is valuable for its users, they tend not to leave, and so Twitter and Facebook don’t really have to listen to their users. Mastodon and other Fediverse applications are different. Although you sign up with a particular Mastodon instance, you can move instances and preserve your followers. This puts a check on instances moderating content in a way that their users don’t like, whether that’s moderating too much or too little. It also means that you don’t have to have a single content moderation policy for all instances. Users can sort into instances that better reflect their values and preferences.
Q: What do fights over the relationship between the far-right social media platform Gab and Donald Trump’s Truth Social tell us about how content moderation might work in a more decentralized internet?
Gab, in particular, is an interesting case study, because it shows how the Fediverse can organically self-organize to deal with high-level content moderation disputes. When Gab joined the Mastodon network, this upset a lot of existing Mastodon users, who objected to Gab’s far-right content. But it was immediately clear that Gab could not be removed entirely from Mastodon. As Eugene Rochko, Mastodon’s creator, explained at the time, “You have to understand it’s not actually possible to do anything platform-wide because it’s decentralized. … I don’t have the control.”
But though Rochko didn’t have control, every instance could decide what relationship it wanted to have with Gab. Within days, the major instances had severed ties with Gab, which in turn severed ties with the rest of the network. The outcome was that each community — Gab on the one hand, the rest of the Mastodon on the other — was able to come to equilibrium as to whom it wanted to be associated with. No one was denied their ability to say what they wanted and to whom. And all occurred organically and bottom-up, without centralized control. | 2022-11-12T15:39:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unlike Twitter, Mastodon moderates speech through shunning bad sites - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/musk-is-wrecking-speech-moderation-twitter-theres-an-alternative/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/musk-is-wrecking-speech-moderation-twitter-theres-an-alternative/ |
A disabled vet sat at a bus stop, losing hope. Then his dad drove up.
Before that moment, retired D.C. police officer Rudolph Robinson had spent more than 30 years watching his son, Timothy Robinson, live on the streets
A photo taken of Timothy Robinson after he joined the military. (Courtesy of the Robinson family)
When Rudolph Robinson pulled up to a bus stop on Route 1 in Northern Virginia, he started crying.
The retired D.C. police officer knew his son, Timothy Robinson, a disabled veteran, was homeless. Finding him disheveled at the bus stop wasn’t a surprise. Over the years, the older Robinson had found his son panhandling at a Metro stop and slumped on a sidewalk. Once, he’d even found him at a crack house in an area he patrolled.
“I didn’t raise you like this,” Robinson had once told his son.
“I know it,” he recalled his son telling him. “I’m tired of embarrassing you, mom and the rest of the family. I’m going to kill myself.”
“Please don’t do that,” Robinson had begged him.
So many times, he said, he had tried to help his son. And so many times, his son had refused that help. That’s how one year of homelessness turned into 10 years and 10 years turned into 30 years.
Behind a lawsuit, an excruciating wait for housing for disabled residents
But the day Robinson pulled up to the bus stop was different. He found his son sitting in a broken wheelchair, relieved to see him. His son wanted to go with him. As Robinson, who is in his 70s, struggled to get his son from the busted wheelchair into his vehicle, three people pulled over and got out of their cars to help.
“Dad, thank God you’re here,” Robinson recalled his son saying. “Dad, I just wanted to die.”
Timothy Robinson would later recall feeling increasingly hopeless as he sat at that bus stop. When he saw his dad, he said, “I knew I wasn’t alone.”
A year and a half has passed since that encounter. Since then, the younger Robinson has spent many of his days at a rehabilitation center, and the older Robinson has spent many of his applying his investigative skills to figuring out what happened to his son.
He said it wasn’t until after that bus stop moment that his son, finally, gave him permission to look at his military records. What Robinson found, he said, left him stunned, angry and determined to get his son the help he has long deserved.
“When I saw his records, I cried,” he said. “They failed him all around.”
There are many reasons a veteran might be denied disability benefits. The Robinson family understands that. Rudolph Robinson is a veteran. His father was also one. But the family says that Timothy Robinson was denied benefits because his records falsely say he received a surgery.
On Veterans Day, people across the country celebrated the current and former service members in their lives. But on that same day, in a Maryland rehabilitation center, two veterans spoke about how their lives might have turned out differently if in 1985, when Timothy Robinson was sent home early by the Army after experiencing foot problems, the military had given him the physical and mental help he needed. The maybes they carry are weighty.
Maybe he wouldn’t have fallen into a depression.
Maybe he wouldn’t have neglected his body to the point that he needed to have both of his legs amputated below the knee.
Maybe he wouldn’t have spent decades on the street, self-medicating, believing he failed his family.
Timothy Robinson said he didn’t even know until his dad started looking into his records that he had received an honorable discharge. When he was told that, he initially thought it was a lie. He had spent so long feeling shame about his time in the service that he never associated it with the word “honorable.”
I reached out to Veterans Affair officials about the case, but privacy precautions and timing didn’t allow them to offer a comment specific to Robinson’s situation. That’s understandable. These types of cases can be complicated, and Robinson’s case is complicated even more so by time.
But time also makes telling his story more urgent. The Robinsons said they have taken official steps to appeal the denial of benefits, but they were warned that process could take years, and they have already lost so many of those. Their hope is that officials might hear about their son’s situation and look into his case sooner.
“What happens if he has to leave here?” Rudolph Robinson said of the rehabilitation center. “Once you’re done with your treatment, you have to go back to where you came from. Where did he come from? The streets.”
He served in the Air Force, and now he sleeps on a D.C. park bench
Robinson said after picking his son up from the bus stop, he took him to a VA hospital because he was suicidal. After getting released about a month later, the younger Robinson was not able to go to his parents’ home because it’s not wheelchair accessible, so his parents paid for him to stay at a hotel. While there, he had a stroke, which is how he ended up at the rehabilitation center.
“I feel like I’d like to live,” the 57-year-old said on Veterans Day, confessing that he hadn’t always felt that way. “Live a good life.”
“I told him it’s not too late,” Rudolph Robinson said. “I told him, ‘We never gave up on you. You gave up on yourself.’”
As the younger Robinson tells it, his problems started shortly after he joined the Army. During training, he was given boots that were too tight and his feet started hurting. He then began falling behind on drills, and his fellow service members made it clear they wanted him gone. “At night, they would put a blanket over my head and beat on me,” he said.
Still, he stayed, until officials determined he should be sent home. Records his father shared with me show that he entered into active duty on Oct. 16, 1984, and received an honorable discharge on Feb. 2, 1985.
Rudolph Robinson said his son came home with swollen and bloody feet and in a depressed state that left him not wanting to talk to anyone. He said he and his wife reached out to military officials at the time to get him help but were told he was not eligible. The family only learned decades later that a letter containing an explanation for the denial was sent to their old address.
A letter shared with me dated Oct. 6, 1993, reads: “The Board finds that prior to service the veteran underwent operations on both feet for severe complications associated with pes planus.” (Pes Planus is also known as “flat feet.”)
Both father and son deny that surgery was ever recommended or occurred. Rudolph Robinson said his son would have been a teenager when that surgery supposedly took place, and his consent would have been required. He insists his son had no problems with his feet before joining the army. He also pointed out that his son had worked as a laborer and passed a physical exam before being approved for military duty.
Both father and son said that looking into the case has left them not only thinking about their own family’s situation, but also about others.
Timothy Robinson said one reason he wanted to speak publicly about his experience is because he knows other homeless, disabled vets don’t have anyone fighting for them.
“They got nobody,” he said. “They could be going through the same thing as me, and they don’t have a dad looking into it.” | 2022-11-12T17:06:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A father fights to help his disabled, veteran son escape homelessness - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/disabled-veteran-homeless-help/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/disabled-veteran-homeless-help/ |
Exploring the circular logic of the Foxhall Crescents development
One of the curving streets that make up the Foxhall Crescents development in Northwest D.C. (Arthur Cotton Moore/Associates)
While looking for something else on Google Maps, I noticed a neighborhood in northwest Washington with oddly shaped streets, most of which are named “Foxhall Crescent,” even though they seem to be disconnected. Can you shed any light on the origins of this neighborhood and the strange layout?
— Christopher Davis, Washington, D.C.
On Sept. 22, 1977, Washingtonians awoke to front-page news in The Washington Post: Nelson Rockefeller was selling his 25-acre estate off Foxhall Road NW for $5.5 million.
Some readers may have thought, “Good for old Nelson.” The wealthy grandson of the founder of Standard Oil — and former vice president — had been trying to sell the estate for a while, lowering the price from $8 million. He’d finally found a buyer, with the help of a real estate agent with the singular name Basheyba who ate only raw vegetables and dressed only in yellow. (“It’s the color of the sun. It makes people happy,” she told a reporter.)
Some people weren’t too happy with the news. The buyers were developers Allen Rozansky and Alan Kay, who planned to put up to 130 homes on the sloping, forested site. Living nearby were such figures as former CIA director Richard Helms, David Lloyd Kreeger, chairman of GEICO, and socialite and philanthropist Gwendolyn Cafritz. They were among neighbors who vowed to block the development.
Speaking at a meeting of foes, lawyer Peter B. Work said a coalition had formed to do whatever it took to block construction. “We’ll cost them their profits in legal fees,” Work said.
“This is what I call the hypocrisy of snobbery,” developer Kay told The Washington Post. “What we’re going to build there will be every bit as nice as what’s already there. If I didn’t buy it, then someone else would. Once the decision was made by Rockefeller [to sell], that was it.”
The proposed houses may have been every bit as nice, but there were a lot of them. And they were arranged along streets that meandered a bit but were fairly conventional in their rectilinear layout. But the developers had a secret weapon: an architect named Arthur Cotton Moore.
Moore — who died in September at 87 — was a sixth-generation Washingtonian, a graduate of St. Albans School and Princeton University. He had a pedigree that could calm neighbors and attract buyers. Moore threw away the original site plan and turned for inspiration to an earlier housing project: the Royal Crescent, completed in Bath, England, in 1774.
The Royal Crescent — designed by an architect known as John Wood, the Younger — comprises 30 rowhouses that present a seamless, colonnaded facade of honey-colored stone. As the name implies, the facade is curved.
While the Royal Crescent is one continuous building, Moore’s design is not. It’s made up of detached houses arranged around circular streets. Front yards are nonexistent and backyards are minimal. Critically, there is a 30-foot buffer of trees around the property.
As for the houses, there were originally about nine different designs, all in cast stone and pale brick, with a Palladian front. Some of the houses have facades that are either concave or convex, depending on what side of the street they’re on. Because of the hilly site, homes on one side of the street have three levels in front, two in back; on the other side of the street, it’s two in front, three in back.
“Quiet elegance” is how builder Arden Baker — who with his partner, Bill Crowell, constructed the first homes — described the design. “We wanted to make a statement.”
One statement was clear from the start. The text in a print ad began: “Admittedly only for the very affluent …” The homes — up to 4,700 square feet in size, all with circular staircases, some with elevators — were originally priced from around $400,000 to close to $700,000. (Today, you’d need $2 million to $3 million to move in.)
Moore described the prototypical buyer as “maybe an OB/GYN in McLean who wanted a Foxhall Road address. Someone who probably had no children or ones that are all grown up or off at college.” (Ambassadors seem drawn to the neighborhood today.)
Given how the neighborhood looks on a map, the developers might have called it Foxhall Circles, but they opted for Foxhall Crescents. That’s Crescents, plural. There are four — or a little more than four, depending on how you count them. They comprise about 100 homes, entered through what are called Eastgate, Westgate, Southgate and Battery Kemble Gate.
Even though the circles are noncontiguous — accessed via Foxhall Road, 46th Street, 48th Street or 49th Street — all the homes have Foxhall Crescent NW addresses. That can make getting pizza delivered a bit of a pain, one resident told Answer Man. | 2022-11-12T17:06:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | England's Royal Crescent inspired D.C.'s Foxhall Crescents development - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/foxhall-crescents-dc-neighborhood/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/foxhall-crescents-dc-neighborhood/ |
Trump-era tariffs on Chinese imports are one example of counter-productive policies, says Kristalina Georgieva
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. (Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The global economy is splitting into rival blocs, threatening a Cold War rerun that would leave almost everyone worse off, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Saturday.
U.S. and European efforts to redraw global supply chains make sense if they help eliminate the kind of reliance on a single supplier that proved so disruptive during the pandemic, according to Kristalina Georgieva, the fund’s managing director. But if the two powers erect new trade barriers to gain an edge in their geopolitical contest, they could set off a destructive cycle that would hurt middle-class and poor households while leaving the wealthy unscathed.
“My concern is a deepening fragmentation in the world economy,” Georgieva said in an interview with The Washington Post. “We may be sleepwalking into a world that is poorer and less secure as a result.”
Biden's Asian summit partners hit by U.S. rate hikes, Chinese downturn
A world economy carved into opposing camps would shrink by 1.5 percent, or more than $1.4 trillion in annual terms, according to the IMF. In Asia, the center of global value chains for electronics, apparel and industrial goods, losses in percentage terms would be twice as great, she said.
“I lived through the first Cold War on the other side of the Iron Curtain. And, yeah, it is quite cold out there,” said Georgieva, who was born and raised in Bulgaria. “And to go in a second cold war for another generation is … very irresponsible.”
Annual trade between the U.S. and China is still sizable, topping $600 billion. And the U.S. and Chinese economies are so intertwined that Georgieva sees a complete rupture as impossible.
But since former president Donald Trump began imposing tariffs on imports from China in 2018, talk of the U.S. “decoupling” from the world’s second-largest economy has picked up. Both the United States and China have taken steps to become more self-reliant.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, for example, the government in Beijing has subsidized development of domestic high-tech industries with mixed results. President Biden has emphasized reducing U.S. dependence upon foreign suppliers for an array of products, including medical supplies, computer chips and rare earth materials, which are used to make smartphones, electric vehicles and fighter jets.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen is also making this push. This week she traveled to India, promoting what she calls “friend-shoring,” or relying upon U.S. allies for critical materials rather than potential adversaries like China.
The underlying challenge since 2020 is that the pandemic, extreme weather events and the war in Ukraine have interrupted dozens of assembly lines. Shortages of personal protective equipment, semiconductors and natural gas have convinced U.S. and European officials that they need to pay more for redundant supply links.
This diversification of supply chains after the pandemic made sense up to a point, Georgieva said. But when it goes “beyond economic logic, it would be harmful for the U.S. and the rest of the world,” she added.
As an example, she cited Trump’s tariffs on more than $300 billion in U.S. imports from China, which the Biden administration has maintained. Those measures did nothing to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China, which Trump promised to eliminate, and left American consumers paying higher prices for Chinese products.
“It is important to think through actions and what they may generate as counter actions carefully, because once you let the genie out of the bottle, it’s hard to put it back in,” she said.
While she believes “some re-globalization is necessary,” political support for such efforts will materialize only if more is done to compensate workers who lose out from free-flowing trade, in her eyes.
“If a whole industry moves overseas and there is no attention to the people whose jobs are gone, no effort to provide access to opportunities and new skills, then, of course, there will be popular dissent,” she said.
Yet if countries sever global trade links and turn inward instead, such actions would only boomerang and hurt those same workers by driving up prices, she said.
Georgieva, 69, has held the fund’s top job since 2019. A former economics professor, she also held senior posts at the World Bank and the European Commission.
She spoke to The Post while attending a pair of Asian summits whose guests include President Biden and other world leaders. Along with the U.S. president, she is scheduled to attend the upcoming Group of 20 leaders summit in Bali, Indonesia, which is expected to focus on tackling the economic aftershocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, developing debt-relief plans for poorer countries and addressing the slowing global economy. | 2022-11-12T17:10:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.S.-China rivalry risks splintering global economy, IMF chief warns - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/12/us-china-rivalry-risks-splintering-global-economy-imf-chief-warns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/12/us-china-rivalry-risks-splintering-global-economy-imf-chief-warns/ |
Election workers process ballots at the Maricopa County election center in Phoenix on Thursday. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
PHOENIX — In Arizona, there is no “Election Day.”
Locals know it as “Election Month,” a weeks-long political extravaganza that begins in October and extends through mid-November as election workers slog through hundreds of thousands of early ballots tucked inside green and white envelopes.
In Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, the vote-counting unfolds inside a gargantuan downtown building resembling a warehouse. Security officers monitor who comes and goes, and workers wearing blue latex gloves furiously sort ballot envelopes while ’80s pop and ’90s hip-hop blares. A track recently in rotation: Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It.”
Nearby, through a maze of corridors and walls plastered with maps of the nation’s second-largest voting jurisdiction, a lobby that doesn’t usually see a lot of action is now the nerve center of American politics. Television crews relay news about a complicated vote-counting process from this newly-branded swing state to audiences around the world. So many reporters pack inside that there aren’t enough chairs. Some bring their own, others plop onto the floor.
The attention is unprecedented in this county, which in 2020 was central to attempts by Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn the former president’s loss. Anticipating a maelstrom during this years’ election, the county’s governing board and election officials worked for months to try to set the public’s expectations for how the November results would roll out.
Even under the best scenarios, they repeatedly said, it could take as many as 12 days to finish counting ballots. It’s a time-frame familiar to anyone who has worked in and around politics here, but it’s one that many Republican candidates and party activists have cast as suspicious and unacceptable.
At a time when Maricopa needed to pull off a near-perfect election, some printers used to produce ballots on-demand failed at about a third of polling locations on Election Day. The problems caused delays and fueled a viral spread of misinformation and accusations of malfeasance. Local leaders have noted the county’s vote-counting operation has not changed. But the nature of its politics has. The fast-growing and diversifying county has turned from deep red to purple, making statewide contests more competitive than ever.
“Here’s the issue: we have so many close races that everyone is still paying attention to Maricopa County,” Bill Gates, the Republican chair of the county governing board, told reporters packed into the lobby this week. “Those other states — like Florida — those races were blowouts, no one is paying attention.” It’s not a criticism, he said, but “this is how we do things in Maricopa County. We follow the law. These are the laws that were put in place by the state legislature.”
At a Friday news conference, Gates was direct and occasionally exasperated as he answered repeated questions about the state’s long-standing practices. “For folks who have followed Arizona politics for many years, this is very, very common,” Gates said. “I know people are very anxious to get the results, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary here.”
Why does it take so long to count votes in Maricopa County?
Two words: Early. Voting.
It has been offered for decades, and it’s popular. In Maricopa County, about 80 percent of voters requested early ballots that can be mailed, put in secure drop boxes, or handed in at polling locations on Election Day. Given that this is the fourth-largest county in the nation by population, that adds up to a lot of ballots.
When ballots arrive downtown, the work begins in a process that includes matching signatures on envelopes with signature samples on file. The ballots zip over to bipartisan teams that remove them from envelopes and then send them to tabulation. Video cameras transmit feeds that voters can watch online.
In recent years, Trump, other Republican candidates and activists attacked the early voting system and instructed supporters to vote in-person or to drop off their ballots on Election Day.
Arizona Republicans support early voting after warning against it
Voters listened: this year, 290,000 people returned their early ballots at polling locations on Election Day instead of returning them earlier — a 70 percent increase from the previous record in 2020. Those ballots had to be transported to downtown Phoenix from across the county, and election workers couldn’t begin processing them until after Election Day.
While the holdup is routine, it has provided fodder for those on the right — including Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, who once covered state politics as a local television anchor — to accuse the county of malfeasance or incompetence. Those claims have been fanned by a right-wing media ecosystem eager to seize on anything that seems out of the ordinary.
“To see national networks out there and their hosts not being truthful about why it’s taking this period of time, that’s frustrating to these people back here, who are doing an incredible job working through Veterans Day weekend,” Gates said Friday, gesturing to election workers behind him. “We’re doing things the right way. And I appreciate that you’re all here, but we’re not doing anything wrong at all. And that someone from here would suggest that we are doing something wrong, that’s frustrating.”
How many votes are left to count in Arizona?
Maricopa County residents cast nearly 1.3 million votes in this election, and more than 80 percent had been counted as of Friday night, according to county officials. Of the nearly 300,000 ballots left to count, Gates said most are early ballots that were dropped off on Election Day. Election workers were pulling 14- to 18-hour days through the federal holiday and over the weekend.
When will counting be done in Maricopa County?
Officials said they expect to have 95 percent to 99 percent of votes counted by early next week, perhaps as soon as Tuesday. However, depending on the breakdown of the results released before then, races could be called earlier.
What’s the status of the key races?
U.S. Senate: Sen. Mark Kelly (D) was projected Friday to win reelection over Republican challenger Blake Masters, a venture capitalist. Kelly led by nearly 6 points with more than 80 percent of ballots counted late Friday.
Arizona governor: This race is still tight. With 83 percent of votes counted as of Friday night, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was leading with 51 percent of the vote over Lake, who had 49 percent.
Arizona secretary of state: Democrat Adrian Fontes was projected to win Friday, defeating Republican Mark Finchem, a far-right state lawmaker who sought oversight of Arizona elections while groundlessly pushing to decertify the results from 2020.
Tracking how the 2020 election deniers are faring in the midterms
What other Arizona races were decided after protracted vote counts?
It typically takes 10 to 12 days to finish counting all ballots, said Fields Moseley, the county’s communications director. Here are some recent examples.
2020: 9 days for most outlets to declare Joe Biden the winner.
The last presidential election was the highest-profile race in Arizona history, and the incredibly narrow margins divided election analysts. Late on Election Day in 2020, with about 75 percent of ballots counted, Fox News called the race for Biden. The Associated Press did the same hours later.
But many other major outlets refrained and vote counting continued for over a week until many analysts confirmed the early calls the following Thursday. In Maricopa County, officials didn’t finish counting all 2.1 million ballots cast in the Nov. 3 election until the afternoon of Nov. 13.
2018: 6 days to declare Kyrsten Sinema the winner.
The last midterm election solidified Arizona’s new status as a battleground state, and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema was declared winner the Monday following Election Day, some six days after many voters cast their ballots. By the time the race was called, the Arizona Republic estimated some 170,000 votes, mostly from Maricopa and Pima counties, were still being tallied.
The race was one of the nation’s most-closely watched, and while outside observers agonized over the length of the count, the Republican nominee, Martha McSally, did not question the results and quickly congratulated Sinema on her victory. As Sinema gained on McSally during vote-counting, Trump said that votes had “appeared out of the wilderness” for the Democrat, a sentiment that took hold among his supporters who were flabbergasted by Sinema’s success.
2016: 10 days to formally declare Trump the winner.
The Associated Press projected the state for Trump two days after Election Day, but Trump had already secured the presidency, meaning Arizona’s protracted count was never in the national spotlight. In the end, it took Maricopa County officials 10 days to finish counting ballots.
2014: Over a month to declare McSally won a U.S. House seat.
There is precedent in Arizona for especially close — and contentious — races to drag on for weeks. In 2014, residents of the state’s second district in southeast Arizona had to wait until December to find out who would represent them in the U.S. House. McSally won by the paper-thin margin of 167 votes after a recount and lengthy legal battles.
Did printer problems slow down the count?
On Election Day, dozens of polling places across the county printed ballots for voters that could not be immediately processed by vote-counting machines, causing chaos and confusion. Voters were told they could wait for a fix, cast a ballot at a different location or put their completed ballot in a secure drop box to be counted later.
About 17,000 ballots were submitted this way, higher than usual, although county officials insist the extra counting isn’t slowing them down. Operatives for both political parties say those ballots could decide the winners of tight contests.
What caused those problems?
County officials say they do not know. 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.
Election teams are retrieving the printers from voting locations. A county spokesperson said all of the printers will be investigated after the vote-counting process takes place. It is unclear who will run that investigation and when it will begin.
Arizona Republicans are pushing for reforms. Would those speed up counting?
It depends. Some Republicans could support an earlier deadline for returning early ballots, an idea that could maintain a lengthy early voting system while also giving election workers time on the front end to collect and process ballots.
But other Republicans, including Lake, want “one-day voting,” which would require people to cast their ballots in assigned precincts. The county’s current system lets people vote at any location. Lake has also said ballots should be counted by hand, rather than by tabulation machines.
The proposed changes would “create tremendous logistical challenges,” said Richard Herrera, an emeritus professor of political science at Arizona State University. The overhaul would require expanding the number of polling places and dramatically increasing the number of staffers.
“There was difficulty this election in having enough poll workers,” Herrera said. “Imagine if you had to increase that more than 10-fold. That’s a tremendous number of polling locations to staff.”
Election experts say hand counting ballots is less accurate than the tabulators. “There’s no fatigue involved, no eyestrain involved, it’s just a machine,” Herrera said. Earlier this year, Lake and Finchem — the Republican candidate for secretary of state — failed to convince a federal judge to do away with vote-counting machines.
Testifying as part of that legal fight, Maricopa County election director Scott Jarrett said 25,000 temporary employees would have to be hired and 2 million square feet of space would be needed — possibly as large as a sports stadium. Jarrett noted at the time that the county was struggling to hire 3,000 temporary staff for the August primary election.
Hannah Knowles and Isaac Stanley-Becker contributed to this report. | 2022-11-12T17:11:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why it is taking so long for Arizona to count votes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/arizona-election-vote-count-maricopa-county/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/arizona-election-vote-count-maricopa-county/ |
Former president Donald Trump speaks during a "Save America" rally on Nov. 7 in Vandalia, Ohio. (Joshua A. Bickel/Bloomberg)
Election Day has come and gone, and the counting continues without a definitive answer to the question of what the balance of power will look like in the coming two years. But a clear message has come through from the voters: a desire for stability at a time of unrest, a call for seriousness at a time it is needed.
Whatever the final numbers show, 2022 will be remembered as an election that produced an incremental earthquake, an election of small shifts that added up to big surprises, an election in which the party that could capture the House emerges disappointed and more divided. Election 2022 was a dual referendum: on President Biden and the Democrats but also on former president Donald Trump and the Republicans.
Trump has changed politics in many ways, and Republicans paid a price for it Tuesday. His presence has created an energized electorate. Since he was elected, huge voter turnouts have become the norm: a midterm record in 2018, a presidential year record in 2020 and a near-record again this year. Midterm elections usually mean complacency among voters whose party just won the White House. In the age of Trump, every election is consequential, and both sides come highly motivated.
For all the shouting and anger that has marked politics in recent years, voters were not in a “throw the bums out” mood. So far, only a handful of House members have lost their elections. The shifts have come more in open seats than in incumbent-held seats. No sitting senators have yet to be defeated — but the race in Nevada has not been called and Georgia is headed for a runoff. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D), who conceded to Republican Joe Lombardo on Friday, is an exception to this pattern.
Republicans campaigned against what they described as a radical left-wing agenda by Biden and congressional Democrats. They counted on high inflation, concerns about disorder and Biden’s weak approval ratings to give them a sweeping victory and the chance to dramatically change the course of policy. The message from voters was hardly a mandate for a major course change. Fears of a Trumpian party in charge in Washington caused many voters to stand in the way and say go slow.
For years, Republicans stressed the importance of the Supreme Court as a way to mobilize their base. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court became a liability for Republican candidates, an institution seen by many Democratic voters as able to take away rights for women and a symbol of Republican-controlled government. Abortion rights supporters — women and young voters in particular — turned out in droves.
In August, red-state Kansas delivered the first warning to Republicans of the backlash against the Dobbs decision, with voters by overwhelming numbers saying they wanted to protect abortion rights in the state constitution. Also, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, seen as the party’s most vulnerable governor, won reelection by about 15,000 votes.
Republicans failed to make significant gains in part because they failed to attract the voters who often make the biggest difference in midterm elections. Every time there has been a party shift in the House in recent midterm elections, independent voters played a decisive role in helping the winning side. This year independent voters split their voters almost evenly, 49 percent for Democratic House candidates and 47 percent for Republicans, according to exit polls from Edison Research.
The Republican failure to convert more of those independent voters to their side is a flashing yellow light that the voters who can make the difference between winning and losing aren’t calling for major change. Perhaps they worried about choosing a party in which a majority say they do not think Biden was legitimately elected.
Trump saddled the party with weak candidates. It’s arguable that with better candidates in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, Republicans today might have won control of the Senate. Instead, Democrats gained a seat in Pennsylvania and held one in Arizona. If they win in Nevada, they will have the 50 seats needed to maintain control (with Vice President Harris’s tiebreaking vote); a victory in the Georgia runoff next month would give them 51 seats.
The lack of an anti-incumbent mood brought ticket-splitting results in some states. One example is Wisconsin, which has weathered some of the sharpest partisan warfare in the country for the past decade. On Tuesday, voters reelected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, one of the least charismatic politicians in the country, and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the most controversial. In New Hampshire, voters reelected Republican Gov. Chris Sununu by 15 points and Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan by almost 10.
Everyone has remarked on the huge reelection victory by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R): a 19-point margin over former governor Charlie Crist. That eye-popping number put him in the spotlight as the strongest potential challenger to Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination — if both end up running. But Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who lost to Trump in the 2016 nomination battle, was reelected by almost 17 points. The Florida Republican who had a bad night was Trump.
DeSantis wasn’t the only incumbent governor who rolled up the score. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) won by almost 26 points and probably helped to pull J.D. Vance, the party’s nominee for Senate, across the finish in his race against Tim Ryan. In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, once seen by some Republicans as vulnerable, demolished her challenger by 11 points. Now she is a national figure. In Colorado, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis won reelection by 17 points.
In 2020, as voters were sending Biden to the White House and Trump to exile in Florida, Republicans made gains in the U.S. House of Representatives — an unusual pattern in presidential election years. That left Democrats under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with a slender majority. If Republicans end up in control of the House, they could have a margin as slim as the Democrats have had the past two years. Good luck to current Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — if he manages to win the speakership — in controlling his conference as skillfully as Pelosi has managed hers.
The House results remain the biggest surprise of the election and they have caused much anguish inside the Republican Party. Even after Trump lost the White House in 2020, most GOP leaders concluded that they couldn’t win elections without his voters. That gave Trump power to meddle in elections, while drawing attention to himself as he falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen. The Democrats branded Republicans as the MAGA (Make America Great Again) party. Republicans went along with Trump for the sheer sake of winning power. Now they may conclude they cannot win decisively as long as he is a dominant influence. The calls to move on are growing louder.
In today’s divided country, all presidents are polarizing, but Biden may not be all that frightening to voters. He certainly doesn’t engender the reactions that Trump did. At a time when nearly 3 in 4 voters said they were angry or dissatisfied with the way things are going, Biden’s party managed to deny Republicans overwhelming gains in the House and stand in a position to retain their Senate majority.
One of the numbers in the exit polls that has drawn considerable attention is that of the electorate who said they “somewhat disapprove” of Biden’s job performance (10 percent), they still narrowly backed Democratic House candidates. In 2018, the cohort of voters who said they somewhat disapproved of Trump backed Democratic candidates by 29 points, a much stronger rebuke of the president’s party.
The final chapters from the 2022 election are yet to be written. A Republican-controlled House, if that is the way it ends up, will mean significantly different priorities, investigations of the Biden administration and a changed governing climate in the capital. Legislatively, there could be gridlock along with some bipartisan agreements. Still, the big story of this election is the damage Trump has done and the price Republicans have paid for not standing up to him sooner. | 2022-11-12T17:11:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In election 2022, the GOP pays for being the party of Trump - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/trump-cost-election-sundaytake/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/trump-cost-election-sundaytake/ |
Aaron Rodgers was the Green Bay Packers' leading rusher in a loss to the Detroit Lions. (Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
It once would have sounded ridiculous — and perhaps even blasphemous, at least to Cheesehead Nation — to make a case for why Aaron Rodgers should step aside this season, even temporarily, for understudy Jordan Love, barring an injury.
But now some NFL executives are wondering if that outcome might be logical if not necessary, given the arc of this bleak Packers season and the continued downward spiral of a quarterback mere months removed from capping a second straight MVP campaign. Undoubtedly, the idea will still come off as crazy to many, given Rodgers’s résumé, how much Green Bay just spent to secure his services through at least 2023 and how shaky Love has looked when actually granted an opportunity to play. Still, I would by no means rule it out.
“It doesn’t sound crazy to me at all,” said one NFL general manager this week after watching film of the Packers’ backward loss to the Detroit Lions. (He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not at liberty to discuss other teams’ personnel). “I think that’s where it’s headed. They’re stuck with Rodgers no matter what, but you need to know what you have in Love, too. Especially now. Was he worth the first-round pick? What could you get for him if he does play well? There’s only one way to find out.”
It would have sounded just as preposterous before this season to suggest Green Bay would be 3-6 at this point, especially considering expectations about how shallow the NFC would be. But Green Bay was shut down by the broken Lions defense in Week 9, with Rodgers’s quarterback’s rating falling below 90. And he appears no longer able to even function in the red zone, where his genius has always been beyond reproach. Rodgers has been the 20th-rated passer in the NFL during the team’s 0-5 slide. His immobility is an issue. And he is averaging just 6.15 yards per pass in that stretch, ranking 27th in the league, despite his big arm. He faces a daunting upcoming task: the Cowboys’ vaunted defense on Sunday, a surging Titans teams (on a 5-1 run while playing stifling defense), the undefeated Eagles and then a suddenly improved Bears team before a Week 14 bye. Assume the Packers will still be a realistic playoff squad by then at your own risk.
Few also would have suggested before the season that Green Bay’s offensive line would look this desperate for a reboot, that Rodgers would be absorbing this many big hits, or that a Packers team on cruise control to 13 or more wins in the first three seasons under Matt LaFleur would look so rudderless so deep into this season.
Still, why bench such an accomplished quarterback making more than $50 million in favor of a backup the franchise has been keen to keep on the sidelines for two and a half years since shockingly moving up to select him in the first round when Rodgers was still at the height of his prowess? Well, from a general manager’s perspective, consider how bereft of talent this offense is outside the running back position, how much repair the offensive line merits, the issues on defense and the fact the team will have to decide whether to pick up Love’s fifth-year option, which could have major ramifications on his trade market as well.
This is not a particularly deep roster; the team’s return from the ill-fated trade of elite receiver Davante Adams was already expunged in the 2022 draft, and Rodgers’s megadeal was not the least bit team-friendly. They are stuck with him through at least next season, in the opinion of every general manager and executive with whom I have regularly discussed this situation. And maybe, just maybe, Love’s athleticism could give the Packers a boost — or at least a different voice in the huddle from the one that has been quick to attempt to absolve himself of all blame, despite poor results.
With four games remaining after that bye, wouldn’t it be something for a Packers brass that took such repeated beatings from their quarterback to have him take a seat for the prospect whose selection set off this soap opera in the first place? Far crazier things have happened in the NFL. Just this week, in fact.
The cascading impact of the Colts drama
The biggest winner in the entire Jeff Saturday charade in Indianapolis very well might be someone who isn’t even in the league, let alone on anyone’s coaching staff. In the immediate aftermath of the Colts’ stunning announcement that Saturday would replace Frank Reich as their head coach, many league executives thought of a different team in the AFC South: the Houston Texans.
For two years, the Texans have come close to hiring former quarterback Josh McCown as their head coach; by now it is an open secret how highly owner Cal McNair and General Manager Nick Caserio think of him and how infatuated they have been by his coaching prospects. Several general managers who have had McCown on their rosters have vowed to me for years that he had head coaching stuff and would excel in that job, and McCown has been coaching his sons through their high school careers in Texas. The buzz about him has only grown, and after years of conversations with the Texans, his hiring next year would be far less startling given what Colts owner Jim Irsay just did midseason.
“This makes it much less difficult to sell McCown now,” said one GM, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss another front office.
The Texans are hardly above blowing out a caretaker coach after one year; they just did it with David Culley a year ago. Unlike with Saturday, the Texans could contend that someone else might try to grab McCown. They have punted on actually trying to find their quarterback of the future, rolling with the limited Davis Mills instead, but that will change in this next draft. It’s fair to wonder, given their past pursuits of McCown, if he is now more attractive than ever as a QB-guru-slash-head coach, with the Texans the front-runners to land the first overall pick in next year’s draft.
Houston is the league’s only team without at least two victories heading into Week 10, with the third-worst scoring margin in the NFL. Did the franchise set it up that way as part of a long-term tank? Of course. But you have to bottom out somewhere.
A look at the 2023 quarterback class
The idea that the 2023 draft class will be loaded with potential franchise quarterbacks was seemingly inescapable early in this college football season. It may prove to be hyperbolic.
Certainly, it stacks up better than the 2022 group at this time a year ago, but a longtime executive and scout whose private evaluations of this position have proved astute over the years is pumping the breaks on the optimism. He doesn’t see four or five quarterbacks truly worthy of first-round grades, the way some evaluators would have you think, and believes teams selling their fans that all will be solved come April may be peddling some false hope.
“The hype about this class has gotten out of control,” said the executive, whose team is in the market for a quarterback and who cannot speak freely about them ahead of the draft. “This isn’t the once-in-a-generation class they want you to believe it is. I’ve seen them all, and you can get excited about some of them, but they’re going to need time. They aren’t coming in and saving your franchise from Day One.” | 2022-11-12T17:11:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Should the Packers consider benching Aaron Rodgers? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/aaron-rodgers-green-bay-packers-jordan-love/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/aaron-rodgers-green-bay-packers-jordan-love/ |
Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White celebrates scoring the opening goal during the Premier League match between Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace at City Ground in Nottingham, England, Saturday Nov. 12, 2022. (Isaac Parkin/PA via AP)
NOTTINGHAM, England — Nottingham Forest moved off the bottom of the Premier League standings heading into the break for the World Cup by beating Crystal Palace 1-0 on Saturday. | 2022-11-12T18:43:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nottingham Forest beats Palace 1-0 after Zaha's penalty miss - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/nottingham-forest-beats-palace-1-0-after-zahas-penalty-miss/2022/11/12/70878b62-62af-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/soccer/nottingham-forest-beats-palace-1-0-after-zahas-penalty-miss/2022/11/12/70878b62-62af-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt attends the GOP election watch party at the Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa in Las Vegas. (David Becker for The Washington Post)
In a race that could determine which party controls the Senate, Republican challenger Adam Laxalt’s lead over Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) has shrunk to fewer than 900 votes, with tens of thousands of votes still being counted in Clark County, Nevada’s most populous and a heavily Democratic area, officials there said.
“We’re doing everything in our power to move ballots forward just as quickly as we can,” Joe Gloria, the registrar in Clark County, said during a news conference Friday afternoon. Mail-in ballots were still being collected on Saturday and voters have until 5 p.m. Monday to fix ballots with problems such as a missing signature, he said.
A win in Nevada would give Democrats a 50th Senate seat and allow them to retain control in the chamber, as Vice President Harris is empowered to cast tiebreaking votes.
If Republicans win the Nevada seat, control of the Senate would come down to the results of the runoff election in Georgia on Dec. 6. Democratic control of the Senate would block a full GOP takeover on Capitol Hill, giving Democrats power in the chamber that controls the confirmation of executive branch personnel and federal judges.
According to the Associated Press, only a small number of ballots are left to be counted in rural Nevada, with most of the remaining uncounted ballots in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, and Washoe County, which includes Reno.
The Associated Press estimates that there are up to 38,000 votes left to be counted in Clark County. About 5,000 are provisional ballots, which will be counted. But about 10,000 ballots need to be “cured” — that is, they require voters to take action to fix any errors.
Representatives for the Clark County Department of Elections and the Cortez Masto and Laxalt campaigns did not immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday morning.
Skepticism of ongoing vote-counting efforts has recently emerged from rank-and-file Republicans, some of whom hold lingering doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R) of South Carolina, for example, said without evidence on a National Republican Senatorial Committee call this week that a Laxalt loss could only be the product of rigging. “There is no mathematical way Laxalt loses,” Graham said, Politico reported. “If he does, then it’s a lie.”
Laxalt, who helped lead the Trump campaign effort to overturn the 2020 election, signaled on Saturday that he may lose his race to Cortez Masto for legitimate reasons. In a pair of messages posted on Twitter on Saturday, Laxalt wrote that he led by “only 862 votes” and that if the outstanding votes in Clark County “continue to trend heavy DEM then she will overtake us.”
It is not uncommon for the candidate who was initially behind to catch up and overtake the initial leader, as has been the case in many previous elections.
The count in Nevada comes as Republican leaders are facing a rebellion from their members after failing to pick up as many seats in Tuesday’s midterm as they had predicted in the face of President Biden’s low approval ratings.
Republicans entered the midterms needing to gain one seat to seize control of the Senate. So far, they have fallen short after Democrats flipped a seat in Pennsylvania and held on in several other states seen as vulnerable, running heavily as guardians of abortion rights after the end of Roe v. Wade and casting GOP rivals as extremists. One such state was Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly (D) on Friday night was projected as the winner over Republican challenger Blake Masters.
Masters, who also questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, signaled he might accept his loss too. In a message posted to Twitter, he said he wanted to “make sure that every legal vote is counted” and that “If, at the end, Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, then I will congratulate him on a hard-fought victory.”
In Nevada, Laxalt sought to tie Cortez Masto to Biden while blaming inflation and crime on Democratic policies. He pointed to a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill Cortez Masto helped pass during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cortez Masto, who is the first Latina elected to the Senate, made abortion access central to her campaign.
Laxalt has said he would not support a national abortion ban, but Cortez Masto attacked him over his support for a state abortion ban beginning at 13 weeks, as well as his previous false claims that Trump had won the 2020 election.
Control of the House was still up in the air on Saturday, as counting continued in several close races. | 2022-11-12T18:55:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nevada continues to count votes as control of the Senate hangs in balance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/elections-2022-nevada-senate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/12/elections-2022-nevada-senate/ |
Man fatally stabbed in Northeast Washington, police say
Police identified the stabbing victim as 20-year-old Rashawn Phifer of Northeast Washington. (iStock)
A 20-year-old was fatally stabbed Friday in Northeast Washington, D.C. police said in a news release.
The department on Saturday identified the victim as 20-year-old Rashawn Phifer of Northeast Washington. His family could not be immediately located.
D.C. police responded to a report of a stabbing at about 5:30 p.m. in the 500 block of Riggs Road NE, near LaSalle-Backus Elementary School. Phifer was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police did not comment on the circumstances of the stabbing. Authorities are offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in this case.
As of Thursday, homicides in the District are down 7 percent compared with this time last year. | 2022-11-12T19:51:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man fatally stabbed in Northeast Washington, DC police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/dc-police-fatal-stabbing-riggs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/dc-police-fatal-stabbing-riggs/ |
Elon Musk’s Twitter Deal Is Different Than Most LBOs, Here’s How
Analysis by Paula Seligson | Bloomberg
What’s the easiest way to buy something? With other people’s money. That’s the key to almost all of the leveraged buyouts (LBOs) that have dominated mergers and acquisitions for a generation. Elon Musk’s $44 billion planned takeover of Twitter has had many twists and turns, but after spending months trying to get out of the deal, the billionaire head of Tesla Inc. said he is once again moving forward with the acquisition, which could close as soon as late October. While his take-private of Twitter is an LBO, it differs from most in several important respects.
1. What’s different about Musk’s approach?
Musk is playing the role of the private equity firm in this buyout. He’s on the hook to provide about $33.5 billion in equity, or about 72% of the total $46.5 billion in financing, with the remainder coming from a debt package provided by big Wall Street banks. Included in that equity contribution, Musk already owns more than 73 million shares, which are worth about $4 billion at the $54.20 purchase price. A group of 19 investors including billionaire Larry Ellison agreed to cover another $7.1 billion of Musk’s $33.5 billion share. If Musk’s current stake in Twitter is excluded, his proposed purchase would be the fourth-largest deal in which a public company was bought and taken private.
2. What’s a leveraged buyout?
LBOs are acquisitions where debt plays a crucial role. The basic idea is to buy a company through a combination of equity and new debt. But the key is that the acquirer, most commonly a private equity firm, doesn’t borrow the money -- the target company does. LBOs limit the downside for the buyer: If things go wrong, the company goes bankrupt, not the buyer. LBOs also increase the buyers’ upside because they can acquire bigger companies than they otherwise could afford.
3. How much leverage is there in most LBOs?
Private equity firms typically try to put in as little equity as possible, to increase their potential return. But the limiting factor is usually how much debt the target company can service without debt payments dragging it down. The ratio of equity is typically around 45% to 50% of the deal. The word “leveraged” refers to a special metric that compares the amount of debt to a company’s earnings, and that ratio is typically high in these transactions. The upper bound is roughly 6 times, but that can go higher depending on the deal.
4. Where are the equity commitments coming from?
Of the $7.1 billion being kicked in to help Musk, about $5.2 billion is from 18 equity partners who joined the deal; the other $1.9 billion will be generated by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud rolling over his current Twitter stake, according to a filing on May 5. An increase in the equity component helped replace initial plans to use $12.5 billion in loan commitments backed by Tesla stock pledged by Musk in what’s known as a margin loan. Musk is worth more than $200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, but most of that is not liquid. To raise more cash to fund his equity commitment, he could sell assets, including more Tesla shares. He could find more equity partners. He also could sell preferred equity in Twitter. That’s a special type of stock that essentially gives the holders additional benefits, such as hefty annual dividends. Musk had held discussions to potentially raise more capital from investors such as Apollo Global Management Inc. and Sixth Street Partners earlier this year, but those firms abandoned the talks months ago, around the time Musk backtracked from the deal.
5. How much debt would be added to Twitter’s balance sheet?
About $13 billion, the amount banks have committed to lend Twitter to carry out its side of the deal. Twitter’s credit rating is already below investment grade, so this new debt would come in the form of junk bonds and leveraged loans. As is normal in LBOs, the intention was for the banks to then sell that risk in the form of longer-term debt to outside investors, but the banks are on the hook and would have to cough up the money if anything goes wrong. Based on the structure laid out in public filings, the commitments would likely be replaced by $6.5 billion of leveraged loans, $3 billion of secured junk bonds and $3 billion of unsecured junk bonds. The banks also provided $500 million of a special type of loan called a revolving credit facility that Twitter will be able to borrow from and pay back over the life of the loan.
6. Could the debt financing fall through?
Almost certainly not. The debt financing does present a headache -- but for the banks, not for Musk. Led by Morgan Stanley, seven banks underwrote the debt, meaning they are on the hook to provide the cash, period. If banks do fund the debt, they could potentially syndicate the bonds and loans to investors at a later date. But credit conditions have worsened since banks committed to the debt in April, meaning they are facing losses of more than $500 million on the debt.
7. What debt does Twitter have now?
Twitter has already tapped the junk bond market and has two outstanding bonds for about $1.7 billion total, plus some convertible notes. Twitter is likely to pay off existing debt as part of the transaction. If the LBO happens, Twitter will have billions of dollars more in debt on its balance sheet. CreditSights, a credit research firm, sees total leverage increasing to a ratio of 9 times a measure of earnings, up from 3.7 times previously, according to a report published on April 25.
8. What does this deal mean for Twitter’s finances?
The increased debt load means it will have little margin for error going forward. Private equity firms typically load up a company with debt, slash costs and try to boost revenues. Earnings have to grow rapidly so the company can afford its high interest payments and eventually pay back debt. Some analysts are projecting that the deal will leave Twitter highly indebted compared to its projected earnings, which could mean pain if the company can’t grow fast enough. Annual interest expense could approach $1.2 billion, compared to less than $100 million before Musk’s buyout.
--With assistance from Devon Pendleton and Matthew Monks. | 2022-11-12T20:13:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elon Musk’s Twitter Deal Is Different Than Most LBOs, Here’s How - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elon-musks-twitter-deal-is-different-than-most-lbos-heres-how/2022/11/12/7c671b64-62b9-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/elon-musks-twitter-deal-is-different-than-most-lbos-heres-how/2022/11/12/7c671b64-62b9-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
A 13-year-old who was shot on Tuesday outside his home as he raked leaves has died, his mother said.
Jayz Agnew, 13, died in a hospital Friday evening, Juanita Agnew said. He had been fighting for his life since he was shot through the head as he was doing chores in front of his house in Prince George’s County.
The shooting happened around 5:20 p.m. in the Hillcrest Heights area. Police have not said if Jayz was targeted, nor have they made an arrest in his shooting.
She added that if this can happen to her son, other children need to be careful.
Her family started a GoFundMe for “help with legal and investigative expenses” writing:
“Our son Jayz was senselessly shot in the head while raking leaves in our front yard. Our Jayz is a loving gentle child. His only squabbles are with his little sister Aaliyah over video games … We will not stop until justice is served.”
Agnew, 36, said she 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,” she said. “He was just being obedient. I asked him to rake the leaves.”
Agnew described Jayz as an eighth-grader who spent most of his time playing video games or hanging out with Aaliyah, 6. 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.
“We have to spread more awareness on gun control and better surveillance in the community,” Agnew said. | 2022-11-12T20:13:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jayz Agnew, 13, shot in his yard in Prince George's County has died - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/prince-georges-shooting-8th-grader/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/prince-georges-shooting-8th-grader/ |
Carson Wentz could be back soon but that doesn’t bother Taylor Heinicke
With Carson Wentz eligible to return from injured reserve on Tuesday, Taylor Heinicke may not get many more shots as the Commanders' starting QB. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Commanders quarterback Carson Wentz is fast approaching being eligible to return from injured reserve, but Taylor Heinicke is unfazed. The Washington backup, who has started the past three games in place of Wentz, said this week that the looming possibility of being replaced as the starter doesn’t affect him.
“Honestly, I don’t think about it,” the 29-year-old Heinicke insisted. He has a massive stage for what could be his final appearance atop the Commanders’ QB depth chart at their undefeated, NFC East rivals the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football.
Wentz, who fractured the ring finger on his right hand in a Week 6 win at Chicago, will be eligible to return on Tuesday. Heinicke has faced questions about his standing since the spring, when the team traded for Wentz and drafted Sam Howell, but throughout, has maintained he’ll do whatever it takes to help the Commanders succeed.
“My role this year was to be backup to Carson, and if he went down, be ready to play, and I feel like I've done that,” Heinicke said Thursday, adding, “I'm just going out there and trying to win games for this team. And if they want to put Carson back in, great. I'll be the best backup I can be to him and help him in any way I can. But for me right now, I just go in there and try to do the best I can.”
Commanders Coach Ron Rivera may have to decide on a quarterback as soon as the day after his team’s trip to Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field. This week at practice, Wentz did not wear a brace or splint on his right hand, and on Saturday, Rivera said, he threw passes for the first time. But when a reporter asked Rivera what he’d do when Wentz returns, the coach responded, “You’re most certainly ahead of yourself. I told you guys, we’ll play the game and then I’ll decide when it’s time to.”
On Monday, Heinicke will be looking to bounce back from a poor performance in last week’s loss to the Minnesota Vikings. He completed 15-of-28 passes for 149 yards, two touchdowns and one interception in the 20-17 defeat, though it could have been worse had a referee not knocked down a Vikings defender to aid a 49-yard touchdown pass to Curtis Samuel.
While the Commanders offense has struggled with both quarterbacks, scoring 1.35 points per drive with Wentz and 1.68 with Heinicke per TruMedia, both rates in the bottom quarter of the NFL — Heinicke has given the team a spark with his fiery, mobile play. It’s been apparent to fans in the stands and Eagles players on tape as they’ve studied the Commanders this week.
“The biggest thing is that they are playing with a little more juice,” Eagles linebacker Haason Reddick told NJ.com. “Since Heinicke has been back there, they’ve just been a little bit more energetic.”
Boswell: Think Taylor Heinicke is just a backup? Think again.
The offense can translate energy to production if it stops absorbing negative plays. Heinicke said those setbacks, such as batted passes or sacks, killed good drives last week, and he seemed a little frustrated because “this is kind of a weekly deal.” Since Heinicke took over, Washington has had the second-best average distance to convert third downs in the NFL (5.6 yards), but it has converted them at the fifth-worst rate (31.6 percent).
“We just got to either convert third downs or stop hurting ourselves,” Heinicke said. “It's one of those two things. So, I think if we just keep working on that, really honing on that and practice and get better at those things, we can put up some more points.”
Offensive coordinator Scott Turner said he didn’t expect Heinicke to be fazed by a potential quarterback switch. He likened Heinicke’s mental toughness to move on after negative plays, as he did by following an interception with a game-winning drive in Week 8 at Indianapolis, to his ability to rebound from his worse games.
“He’ll go give everything he’s got on Monday, and he won’t let the other stuff affect him,” Turner said. “We always have those conversations, ‘Hey man, just go play and be you. You’re not gonna always make the right decision. You’re always not gonna make the right throws, but if you try to overthink it, you’re not gonna make any plays either.’ So, he’ll bounce back.”
When asked if he viewed Monday night as a deciding factor in the quarterback battle, Turner said, “you always look at everything.”
“Ultimately, that’ll be Coach [Rivera]’s decision,” Turner added. “We’ll have conversations about it. We gotta wait and see when Carson is healthy, so a lot of that’s gonna be up to the trainers before we even put in that situation. Right now, we’re really just focused on getting Taylor ready.” | 2022-11-12T20:14:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carson Wentz is almost ready to return but Taylor Heinicke is unfazed - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/carson-wentz-taylor-heinicke-commanders/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/carson-wentz-taylor-heinicke-commanders/ |
People on the main square of Kherson celebrate the city's liberation from Russian occupation on Saturday. (Wojciech Grzedzinski for The Washington Post)
Amid the sea of happiness around her, Obozna, 61, stood ashen-faced, holding her six-year-old grandson’s hand. “We don’t know where he is,” she said.
Fomina said she had cancer and needed chemotherapy but had been unable to get treatment for more than eight months. “At our hospital, in order to get any sort of treatment you’d need to show a Russian passport,” she said. “Otherwise you didn’t have any rights.”
Volodymyr Tymar, 18, said Russian soldiers had stripped him down to his underwear on the side of the road to look for pro-Ukrainian tattoos — describing what he said was a common tactic. Two of his friends had been detained for a week and a month respectively. They had hardly been fed, and were released with shaved heads.
When Obozna’s son was detained on Aug. 3, his children saw him led away. “Are you going to give him back,” Dmytro’s six-year-old son had asked the Russian security agents.
Kamila Hrabchuk and Isabelle Khurshudyan contributed to this report. | 2022-11-12T20:15:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Kherson residents celebrate liberation and describe trauma of occupation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/12/kherson-celebration-liberation-trauma-occupation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/12/kherson-celebration-liberation-trauma-occupation/ |
The United Arab Emirates steered U.S. foreign policy in its favor through a series of legal and illegal exploits, according to an unprecedented U.S. intelligence document
Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, and Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE's ambassador to the United States, speak with President Biden during a video call between Abu Dhabi and Washington on Nov. 2. (The Uae Presidential Court/Handout Handout/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) | 2022-11-12T20:15:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UAE meddled in U.S. political system, intelligence report says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/12/uae-meddled-us-politics-intel-report/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/12/uae-meddled-us-politics-intel-report/ |
Planes crash midair at Dallas air show, videos show
Two planes crashed in midair during an air show Saturday afternoon in Dallas, the FAA says.
“A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and a Bell P-63 Kingcobra collided and crashed at the Wings Over Dallas Airshow at Dallas Executive Airport in Texas around 1:20 p.m. local time Saturday,” an FAA statement said. “At this time, it is unknown how many people were on both aircraft.”
It was unclear how many people were aboard the planes or whether there were injuries.
Dallas Executive Airport, which was hosting the event, said fire and rescue crews were responding. The FAA will assist an investigation led by the National Transportation Safety Board, the statement said.
The B-17 was called the Texas Raiders, said Leah Block, spokesperson for Wings Over Dallas organizer Commemorative Air Force.
Videos, reportedly from the area, showed one plane strike another midair with people on the ground gasping.
Anthony Mendoza, 27, was at the Wings Over Dallas event with a friend when at about 1:45 p.m. a P-63 fighter plane clipped the back end of a B-17 bomber, breaking its back in half, he said. The front half of the B-17 nosedived into the ground, followed by the other aircraft.
“They hit the ground and burst into flames,” Mendoza, who sat about 500 yards from the crash, told The Washington Post. “People were in shock. There were people crying, holding each other, visibly upset.”
Paramedics rushed to the scene, Mendoza said, and bout half an hour later the crowd was asked to leave the venue and the rest of the event was canceled.
“I just hope everybody involved is okay, and I pray for their family and their loved ones. We are all hoping for a miracle.”
He said it was “very windy.”
[The video below contains obscenity.]
In their World War II heyday, according to Boeing, B-17 bombers could accommodate two pilots and eight crew members. About 12,000 were made, and “only a few B-17s survive today, featured at museums and air shows; most were scrapped at the end of the war.” | 2022-11-12T21:40:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Planes collide midair at Wings Over Dallas event, footage shows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/12/planes-collide-wings-over-dallas/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/12/planes-collide-wings-over-dallas/ |
Man found fatally shot in vehicle in Dumfries
A man was found fatally shot Saturday morning in a vehicle in Dumfries, Prince William County police said.
About 5:30 a.m., several people called 911 saying they heard gunshots in the area of Williamstown Drive and Old Triangle Road. When officers arrived, they found a vehicle that had been hit by bullets and a man in the driver’s seat who had been shot, police said.
Rescue workers arrived and pronounced the man dead. Police said they searched the area and did not find anyone else who was involved in the incident. They have not released the name of the man who died.
Police ask anyone with information about the shooting to call 703-792-7000. | 2022-11-12T23:17:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man found fatally shot in vehicle in Dumfries - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/dumfries-shooting-prince-william-police/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/dumfries-shooting-prince-william-police/ |
Md. man dies in crash on Fairfax County Parkway
A Maryland man died in a three-vehicle crash Friday morning on the Fairfax County Parkway, police said.
Noe Solis Espinoza, 37, was driving a 1999 Ford Ranger north on the Fairfax County Parkway when he lost control of his vehicle at 7:40 a.m., according to Fairfax County police. He crossed over the raised median and went into the southbound lanes near Whitlers Creek Drive and collided with two cars, they said.
Solis Espinoza first crashed into a 2018 Ford Escape, then collided with a 2019 Honda Ridgeline, injuring the driver of the Honda. Solis Espinoza was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.
Detectives from the department’s Crash Reconstruction division said they do not think alcohol was a factor in the crash. | 2022-11-12T23:17:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Md. man dies in crash on Fairfax County Parkway - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/fairfax-parkway-fatal-crash/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/12/fairfax-parkway-fatal-crash/ |
Bowie boys’ soccer scores early, holds on to clinch spot in title game
Maryland 4A semifinals: Bowie 1, Urbana 0
Bowie's Kingsely Adekanmbi keeps the ball away from Urbana's Brady Roberton during the 4A state semifinal soccer match Saturday at Montgomery Blair High in Silver Spring. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post)
For much of Saturday’s Maryland 4A semifinal, the Bowie boys’ soccer team was handed a strenuous task: protect a one-goal lead. After senior Kingsley Adekanmbi scored in the opening 10 minutes, the Bulldogs knew their passage to the team’s first state title game since 2011 would only be granted with patience and plenty of defense.
“To me, a 1-0 game is a lot harder than 0-0 because you’re trying to get another one but you have to be so cautious,” Adekanmbi said. “Especially at the end, we were just trying to keep the lead.”
Their efforts paid off at the final whistle, as the Bulldogs earned a 1-0 win over Urbana in Silver Spring.
The Bulldogs (16-2) have long been a program to fear and respect in Prince George’s County, winners of nine state championships and a constant producer of talent. Often times, it is early November when a successful Bulldogs team looks to push a season from good to great by winning games such as this one. Last fall, the team fell to Northwest in a dramatic and controversial semifinal.
This year, Urbana (14-5), a two-time state champion out of Frederick County, was not provided too many opportunities to break the Bulldogs’ hearts. After Adekanmbi gave Bowie a 1-0 lead, it tightened its defense and allowed few scoring looks.
Perhaps the most dangerous came with two minutes remaining in the match, as Urbana earned a fast-developing two-on-one break. A Hawks forward drew near to Bulldogs goalkeeper Ronaldo Sosa and then ripped a right-footed shot toward the net. Sosa shot his arms up just in time, and the ball rocketed off his hands and out of danger.
“It was just timing and reaction,” Sosa said. “As a goalkeeper, if you think too much you’re done. You start questioning decisions, you’re done. You just have to act.”
This coming week, the Bulldogs will travel to Loyola University for the 4A title game. They will face the winner of Saturday night’s semifinal between Blair and Severna Park.
“Funny enough, our motivation for winning this game wasn’t to make the championship but just to be able to keep training together,” Sosa said. “And I did not want this to be over.”
Centennial mounts comeback in 3A
In the 3A bracket, Centennial will represent Howard County in the state title game after beating Wicomico County’s J.M. Bennett High, 2-1, in Friday’s semifinal in Crofton. Down 1-0 at halftime, the Eagles (14-1-1) scored twice in the first 20 minutes of the second half to take down the defending state champion Clippers.
“It always feels like a lot more pressure when you have something to lose,” Eagles Coach Justin Thomas said. “We bent a little bit holding onto that lead but we didn’t break.”
Centennial, a dominant program in the 1980s and ’90s, is chasing its ninth state championship but first since 1995.
“The way this group can handle a setback, can accept a setback but not put their heads down, is what I’m proudest of,” Thomas said. “It’s very easy to lose confidence [down 1-0], but they settled. And I’m so proud of the way they got back in it.”
Glenelg into 2A final
In the 2A bracket, Glenelg avenged a painful loss from last season by defeating Wicomico County’s Parkside, 2-0, on Friday night in Gaithersburg to punch its ticket to the coming week’s championship.
The Gladiators (10-4-2) were handed a rematch of last year’s state semifinal, where they fell to this same Parkside team, 1-0. They took full advantage of this second chance, scoring two second-half goals.
Glenelg will make its first trip to the final stage since 1997. It will face North Harford, which defeated Lackey in the other 2A semifinal on Saturday. | 2022-11-12T23:17:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bowie boys’ soccer scores early, holds on to clinch spot in title game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/bowie-boys-soccer-scores-early-holds-clinch-spot-title-game/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/bowie-boys-soccer-scores-early-holds-clinch-spot-title-game/ |
At COP 27, an artist asks attendees to feel climate change — literally
Bahia Shehab’s “Heaven and Hell in the Anthropocene” is an immersive installation that invites visitors to think about global warming with their bodies
The immersive installation “Heaven and Hell in the Anthropocene” at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Courtesy of Fine Acts)
As world leaders debate climate change policies at COP27, the annual U.N. climate summit running through Friday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Bahia Shehab wants to turn up the temperature — literally. The Cairo-based artist has made the threat of a warming planet more visceral with an immersive installation “Heaven and Hell in the Anthropocene,” a reference to the current, human-centric geological age.
Installed in an area known as the Green Zone at COP27, the artwork features two unlabeled rooms — described as “scenarios of eternity” — that have different temperatures, sights, sounds and smells meant to represent two possible outcomes for humanity. Inspired by a 2011 study that suggests people who are in warm surroundings are more likely to say climate change is a problem, the piece, made in collaboration with the arts and social justice organization Fine Acts, underscores the physical and personal stakes of a global issue that, for many, can seem abstract and unmanageable.
“We are trying to address climate anxiety by gamifying and simplifying scientific data, by making it relatable to everyday people and helping them feel like they have the power to make decisions,” Shehab, 45, told The Washington Post in a phone interview. “We just see floods and we see the news and we’re scared. [The installation] is powerful because I can tell you something that’s really complex in a very simple way.”
COP27 comes at the end of a year that has seen disastrous flooding in Pakistan, mudslides in South Africa, drought in China and heat waves in Europe and the United States. Through this sensory installation, Shehab hopes to give visitors a sense of agency and challenge those who say there is nothing we can do. She wants to make the threat feel immediate and tangible — but not insurmountable.
“There’s something instinctive. It doesn’t have to do with our brains. It has to do with our biology,” Shehab says of the psychology behind the artwork. The installation also taps into deeply ingrained spiritual beliefs, she said. “The religious discourse that we’ve been fed for, like, millennia says, if you’re bad, you’ll burn in hell. Heat is bad.”
Before entering the installation viewers respond to a questionnaire: One question asks participants if they would agree to limit showering to four minutes, wash only with a bar of soap and reuse a day-old towel to conserve water and limit plastic usage. At the end, participants receive a score, which sends them to a room.
Some will find themselves in a light, domed interior set at a comfortable temperature in the low to mid-70s, surrounded by nature sounds and scents of “freshness, orange blossoms,” Shehab said. Others will find a dark, claustrophobic space set around 95 degrees and reeking of decomposing fruit and hospital rooms. So far, Shehab said she has sent 537 people to “hell” and 969 to “heaven” in what she calls a “very interesting social experiment.” Later, she encourages them to visit the other room.
The piece is based on the concept of “visceral fit”: the theory that “people will judge states of the world associated with their current visceral experiences as more likely,” according to researchers Jane Risen and Clayton Critcher. Thirst, for example, can increase expectations of drought and desertification. Warmth can increase concern about climate global warming. We think with our bodies.
This is in direct conflict with the way climate change has been historically discussed — with graphs and numbers and jargon. Shehab wants to counter that.
“I wanted a concept that everybody could understand,” she said. “I’ve had site workers and doctors and professors and climate activists and professionals and everybody walk through, and they all get it.”
While she recognizes that questions of personal responsibility — whether you recycle, for example — are only one small piece of the puzzle, she doesn’t discount them. Her work is aimed at places where conversations about climate change are more limited.
“Yes, we need to talk to the high polluters. We need to talk to those flying their private jets to COP,” she said. “But we also need to talk to developing nations with simpler discourses. And we really need education.”
Ever since she was a child, Shehab has admired climate activists, and in 2020 she got into the fray herself, building a pyramid of garbage in Cairo that stood nearly 20 feet high. It was meant to contrast the majestic pyramids of Giza with our current “overproducing, over-consuming” existence, she wrote in an artist’s statement.
Shehab, who is also a street artist and an art and design professor at the American University in Cairo, has long used art as a political and educational tool. During the Arab Spring, she created calligraphy-inspired graffiti with messages such as “No to a new pharaoh” and “No to violence,” written around Cairo. And while Britain was preparing to vote on Brexit, she wrote “No to Borders” and “No to Brexit” on walls in London.
In “Heaven and Hell in the Anthropocene,” which will be replicable, under an open license, after COP closes, Shehab wants people to say yes: Yes to wearing secondhand clothes; yes to conserving water; yes to anything they can do to curb climate change.
In both rooms of the installation, viewers will find mirrors — broken ones in hell and curved ones in heaven. The artist hopes they prompt reflection: “For us to really face our future, we really need to look at ourselves.” | 2022-11-13T00:22:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At COP 27, an artist asks attendees to feel climate change — literally - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/12/cop-27-art-installation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/12/cop-27-art-installation/ |
Georgetown uses big second half to rout Green Bay and improve to 2-0
Georgetown Coach Patrick Ewing, pictured here at a preseason news conference, has the Hoyas off to a 2-0 start. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Brandon Murray walked into Saturday’s postgame news conference with a wrestling-style title belt adorned with the phrase “Hoya toughness” after Georgetown dispensed with Wisconsin-Green Bay, 92-58.
Murray and Georgetown haven’t won a championship during the first week of the season. Far from it. Yet such a mix of frivolity and dedication can’t help but be a welcome development for the Hoyas after last year’s 6-25 slog.
Murray, a transfer from LSU, had 19 points and seven assists as Georgetown (2-0) dominated the second half after a sleepy start to an 11 a.m. tip before 4,583 at Capital One Arena.
“He makes all the right plays,” Coach Patrick Ewing said. “He makes all the right passes. He gets on my nerves from time to time, but he makes all the right plays.”
Duquesne transfer Primo Spears had 21 points and five assists, center Qudus Wahab posted 18 points and seven rebounds a game after he was saddled with three first-half fouls, and reserve sophomore guard Jordan Riley scored a career-high 11 points for the Hoyas.
Clarence Cummings III scored 14 points and D.C. native Zae Blake had 13 off the bench for the Phoenix (0-2).
The 34-point margin was Georgetown’s largest since a 102-67 rout of Howard on Dec. 29, 2018. The Hoyas shot 62.3 percent from the floor, their most efficient day since connecting on 63.8 percent at Butler on Jan. 28, 2017, during their final season under former coach John Thompson III.
Georgetown didn’t appear headed for such a comfortable victory when it took a 31-29 lead into the break against a Green Bay team that also lost 25 games last season and added 10 new players this season. That start was even more ominous in the wake of a 99-89 overtime triumph Tuesday over a weary Coppin State team that played a night earlier.
But the Hoyas ripped off a 15-2 run to begin the second half Saturday, and only committed one turnover in the final 20 minutes after coughing up 10 in the first half.
“Our energy was a lot different,” Murray said. “We all had the same mind-set that we have to run the score up and we have to pass it more. The ball was sticking a lot in the first half and then in the second half we started moving the ball.”
Georgetown shot 70.3 percent (26 of 37) and had 13 assists in the second half. | 2022-11-13T00:22:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Georgetown uses big second half to rout Green Bay - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/georgetown-routs-wisconsin-green-bay/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/georgetown-routs-wisconsin-green-bay/ |
Fighting Irish 35, Midshipmen 32
Notre Dame wide receiver Braden Lenzy somehow made this catch for a touchdown around Navy cornerback Mbiti Williams Jr. (Terrance Williams/AP)
BALTIMORE — The highlight was circulating online before the first quarter came to a close. Notre Dame quarterback Drew Pyne dropped back and horribly underthrew a ball into the end zone, not that the throw mattered. Wide receiver Braden Lenzy put his name in the conversation for catch of the year as he wrapped his arms around Navy cornerback Mbiti Williams Jr. to get his hands on the ball. Lenzy and Williams were facemask-to-facemask when the ball nearly hit Williams in the back, but Lenzy pinned it to the No. 7 on the back of the defender’s jersey. Fans looked on in disbelief as the wideout pulled the ball around with one hand, scoring the second Irish touchdown of the game.
That’s the kind of first half it was for Navy in a 35-32 loss Saturday at M&T Bank Stadium. The game was essentially decided by halftime despite a pair of Navy fourth-quarter touchdowns that made the score closer than the game was for most of the day.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been more proud with a football team after a game, win or loss,” Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo said. “I just thought our kids battled to the very end. Great testament to who they are, their character, their fortitude, their resolve and resiliency.
“[The halftime message was] we ain’t going anywhere. Maybe they thought we were going to quit. These kids are the toughest kids. We were going to battle to the end regardless of the score.”
No. 20 Notre Dame (7-3) scored touchdowns on its first three drives and on five of six in the first half. The Midshipmen (3-7) have allowed opponents to score on their opening drives in seven of 10 games this season and are 0-7 in those contests.
There was a brief moment in the second quarter when Navy trailed 21-13 and it looked like the Midshipmen could make some noise. Fullback Daba Fofana (133 rushing yards) had ripped off big runs on consecutive drives that led to touchdowns, including his own 36-yard score, and the defense had finally gotten a stop when Notre Dame kicker Blake Grupe missed a 45-yard field goal. That’s when things fell apart in front of an announced crowd of 62,124.
Niumatalolo tried to get sneaky on the first play after the missed field goal, and a disaster ensued. The play was a reverse to slotback Kai Puailoa-Rojas, who pulled up and threw downfield to quarterback Xavier Arline. The pass hung in the air long enough for Notre Dame cornerback Clarence Lewis to sprint over and pick it off. Pyne ran for an 11-yard touchdown three plays later.
The nightmare of a first half was far from over. The Navy offense promptly went three and out, and Jack Kiser blocked the subsequent punt. It was the fifth straight game the Fighting Irish have blocked a punt and the seventh block of the season. Pyne threw his fourth touchdown of the half on the next play, a perfect 37-yard strike to Jayden Thomas.
Notre Dame went into halftime with a 35-13 lead, having scored the last 14 points in 1:09 of game time.
“It was a very bad sequence,” Niumatalolo said. “Probably got a little too greedy myself, calling the trick play. But I was going to come out swinging. In hindsight, probably should have just kind of ran the ball a little bit. Obviously that blocked punt hurt us too. But also we’ve got to make some stops.”
Pyne completed 14 of 16 passes for 234 yards and four touchdowns in just the first 30 minutes of the game. He finished with 269 yards and those four touchdowns.
Arline made his second start after Tai Lavatai was lost for the season with a left knee injury in Navy’s overtime win against Temple on Oct. 29. Arline was forced to leave the game midway through the fourth quarter with an apparent leg injury and had to be helped off the field. He was taken into the medical tent and replaced by senior Maasai Maynor. Niumatalolo didn’t have details on the injury after the game but hoped it wasn’t long-term. Arline finished with 59 rushing yards and a touchdown to go along with 57 passing yards and a score.
Notre Dame took its foot off the gas a bit after halftime, but the Navy defense was also much more aggressive. The Irish didn’t score again as Navy tied a season high with five sacks and chipped away at the lead. The defense held the Fighting Irish to 12 total yards in the second half after giving up 323 in the first.
“The one thing you know about Navy is they will never quit,” Notre Dame Coach Marcus Freeman said. “We had to match their urgency throughout the entirety of the game. We did in the first half. We did not have the urgency and execution that we needed to finish the game the way we wanted to. … Somehow, some way, we have to be better because of what happened in the second half.”
Maynor threw a 20-yard touchdown to Maquel Haywood with 1:21 left in the game. Navy attempted an onside kick, but Notre Dame recovered and ran out the clock.
“I just feel like it speaks on our grit,” Maynor said about the second half. “Halftime I believe it was 35-13. Some teams would be like, okay, next game-type thing. But we kind of came into halftime, we were just thinking, ‘We are right where we need to be. We know that we have killed ourselves, so let’s go into the second half and let’s show them who we are.’ ”
Linebacker John Marshall added: “Our offense was keeping us in it in the first half, and it was kind of our duty to do it the second half.” | 2022-11-13T00:22:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Braden Lenzy's amazing catch helps Notre Dame beat Navy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/notre-dame-highlight-catch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/notre-dame-highlight-catch/ |
Grizzlies once thrived in these wilds. The U.S. may bring them back.
A grizzly bear mother and her cub walk near Pelican Creek in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in October 2012. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images)
In the wilds of Washington state’s North Cascades — a vast expanse of glacier-capped peaks, rugged valleys and ancient forests — grizzly bears once thrived.
It’s been more than 25 years since one has been definitively spotted there, according to the National Park Service. But that could change with a new federal process, to begin Tuesday, that will examine whether to reintroduce grizzlies to the 9,800-square-mile ecosystem.
“This is an opportunity to make progress for wild places, to restore the last missing piece of the North Cascades,” said Graham Taylor, Northwest program manager for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association. “We came so close last time. I hope that we can really get it done this time.”
Ranchers and farmers have historically opposed reintroducing the bear, whose population was devastated by hunters in the 19th and 20th centuries, while environmental advocates say the grizzly’s recovery in Washington state is long overdue. The bear is a key part of the ecosystem and is culturally important to Indigenous people — and the North Cascades offers one of the best grizzly habitats in the contiguous United States, the National Park Service says.
A public online meeting on Tuesday will mark a “completely new” evaluation by the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that will examine options for bringing grizzly bears to the region, the agencies said in a statement Thursday.
From 2020: Conservation groups upset by North Cascades grizzly decision
It’s an effort with a decades-long history. The North Cascades is one of six ecosystems designated for grizzly recovery in the Lower 48, but it has been nearly 30 years since those recovery zones were established. While other zones in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho have grizzly populations, the land in Washington state has no known population of the bears, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
“This is a first step toward bringing balance back to the ecosystem and restoring a piece of the Pacific Northwest’s natural and cultural heritage,” Don Striker, superintendent of North Cascades National Park, said in the statement.
The restoration planning process was underway in 2020 when the Trump administration’s Interior Department terminated it, citing local opposition led by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), who said farmers, ranchers and others did not want grizzlies in the region.
“The people who live and work in north central Washington have made their voices clear that they do not want grizzly bears reintroduced into the North Cascades,” Interior Secretary David L. Bernhardt said in a statement at the time, pledging to continue improving grizzly bear populations in other areas of the country.
Newhouse, whose office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post on Saturday, tweeted criticism of the government’s decision to reopen the issue Thursday, urging constituents to submit comments to the National Park Service to help “put this misguided proposal to rest, once and for all.”
“The introduction of grizzly bears into the North Cascades would directly, and negatively, impact the people & communities I represent,” he wrote. “It is disappointing our voices are once again being ignored.”
The North Cascades are good for bears for many reasons, including a plentiful supply of huckleberries, a highly diverse ecosystem, and very few roads, particularly in the core of the region, conservationists said. Grizzlies are “nature’s gardeners,” spreading nutrients and seeds and helping the ecosystem, said Kathleen Callaghy, Northwest field representative for Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation group.
“If you protect their welfare, then the welfare of the ecosystem tends to go along with them,” Callaghy said.
“That’s a big deal, because that really reduces what some people would call the burden of recovering endangered species,” Taylor said. “It is 100 percent a response to local concerns and questions about how this will work. … It’s a very clear sign that the government’s listening to local people.”
“Our people and the grizzly bear coexisted for 10,000 years here before the first Europeans came into this area,” said Scott Schuyler, a policy representative for the Upper Skagit tribe. “When you have a healthy ecosystem in place, the bear will be there, should be there, just as all the other creatures. Its role is very significant.”
If bears were reintroduced, the plan could bring in five to 10 bears every year, with the hope of reaching a population of 25 — a “minuscule” number for the ecosystem’s size, said Joe Scott, who directs the organization Conservation Northwest’s work on grizzly bears.
The process would be slow, partly because grizzly bears don’t reproduce quickly. It probably would then take about a century to reach a population of 200 or more bears. In the greater Yellowstone region, an estimated 728 grizzlies were living in 2019, according to the National Park Service.
“We hope that we get to that point where federal managers and wildlife biologists can start moving bears in here. It’s not an easy process,” Scott said. “We’d be ecstatic if we had a reasonable expectation that we’d have 200 bears in this place 50, 60, 80 years from now.” | 2022-11-13T00:48:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Feds to study bringing back endangered grizzly bears in Washington state - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/12/grizzly-bears-washington-cascades-restoration/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/12/grizzly-bears-washington-cascades-restoration/ |
High price, nebulous health benefits and other challenges have hindered the success of plant-based meats
Beyond Meat products at a grocery store in Mount Prospect, Ill., in February. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
Plant-based meat, heralded by many as the death knell to Big Meat, appears at this moment to have dealt only a flesh wound.
The promise of high-tech meat substitutes prompted a frenzy of celebrity investment and red-hot IPOs in 2019. The pandemic saw significant consumer curiosity and a stampede of newcomers in the category, including entries from the world’s largest food and meat companies, with Tyson, Smithfield, Perdue, Hormel, Nestlé and others leaping into the fray.
Who are you calling chicken? Tyson Foods is getting into the business of plant-based meat.
Analysts wrote about the hunger for meat, dairy and egg substitutes among “flexitarians” — non-vegetarians looking for easy swaps to do less harm to the environment, animals and their health. Executives poured in from other multinational food companies to nab top jobs in the nascent industry; fast food giants added plant-based offerings with much fanfare.
But then things slowed down. Meteoric growth in 2020 flattened in 2021 and retail sales have dropped more than 10 percent in the past year. Beyond Meat, the Los Angeles-based purveyor of plant-based burgers, crumbles, nuggets and such, saw its stock prices plunge nearly 80 percent from its peak, and last month the company announced it would lay off about 19 percent of its workforce. It’s not just Beyond: Meat giant JBS SA announced in early October it was shuttering its two-year-old Planterra business in the United States. and closing its 190,000 square-foot Colorado facility, and McDonald’s has tabled its idea to roll out the McPlant burger nationally.
The industry’s troubles come despite mounting evidence that people should, for health and environmental reasons, reduce their consumption of beef, lamb, pork and poultry produced via traditional animal agriculture.
The Stockholm Environment Institute recently issued a report that found the production of animal-based foods responsible for as much as 20 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions. If meat consumption continues along current trends, it will be impossible to keep global warming below the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, and difficult to stay below 2 degrees Celsius, its authors said. The report also found the animal-based food system a key driver of biodiversity loss.
The past few years have also seen an avalanche of reports about the ills of a meat-heavy diet for human health, for planetary health, for workers’ health and for the habitat of the planet’s animal species.
Meanwhile, the world’s appetite for meat continues to grow. The global consumption of meat has more than doubled since 1990, reaching over 339 million metric tons in 2021, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that will rise to 374 metric tons by 2030.
Here are five reasons the market for alt-meat has cooled.
Fuzzy health benefits
Too many players
Restaurants not buying in
Lack of versatility | 2022-11-13T00:48:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Here's why the market for vegan, plant-based meat has cooled - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/12/plant-based-meat-market/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/12/plant-based-meat-market/ |
Virginia education department proposes major changes to social studies standards
Critics say the changes are politically motivated and prevent teachers from delivering impartial lessons
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) tours Colonial Forge High School in Stafford on Sept. 1. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
The Virginia Department of Education proposed revisions to the commonwealth’s history and social science learning standards late Friday in a move that would significantly alter the guidelines it had previously recommended and prompted a blistering response from critics who described it as political meddling.
The Virginia board of education had been scheduled to vote on the recommended guidelines in August but it held off to give its five new members — appointees of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) — more time to review the standards, and to allow for additional public comment. The original guidelines were developed over months in consultation with museums, historians, professors, political scientists, geographers, economists, teachers, parents and students.
In the introduction to its new draft, the education department writes that the aim of the standards overhaul is “to restore excellence, curiosity and excitement around teaching and learning history.”
“The standards will recognize the world impact of America’s quest for a ‘more perfect Union’ and the optimism, ideals and imagery captured by Ronald Reagan’s ‘shining city upon a hill’ speech,” the document continues. “Students will know our nation’s exceptional strengths, including individual innovation, moral character, ingenuity and adventure, while learning from terrible periods and actions in direct conflict with these ideals.”
Split Va. Board of Education to vote on new history standards in 2023
In a fact sheet sent to state legislators obtained by The Washington Post, the education department said the changes were made because the “August 2022 draft standards were unnecessarily difficult for educators to understand and implement; they were also inaccessible for parents and families.” It said the new proposed standards would revise “repetitive and vague skills-based standards, which teachers could interpret in infinitely various ways, thus not resulting in ‘a shared knowledge as Virginians and as U.S. citizens.’ ”
But critics said the new standards are politically motivated and interfere with the ability of teachers to do their jobs and deliver impartial academic instruction and curriculum.
“The standards are full of overt political bias, outdated language to describe enslaved people and American Indians, highly subjective framing of American moralism and conservative ideals, coded racist overtures throughout, requirements for teachers to present histories of discrimination and racism as ‘balanced’ ‘without personal or political bias,’ and restrictions on allowance of ‘teacher-created curriculum,’ which is allowed in all other subject areas,” James J. Fedderman, president of the Virginia Education Association, a union representing more than 40,000 education workers in the commonwealth, wrote in a statement.
By law Virginia is required to reassess and update its History and Social Science Standards of Learning, known as SOLs, every seven years. The standards — last updated in 2015 — provide general guidance on what subjects and areas must be taught, but the specifics of curriculums are mostly determined by individual school districts.
State Sen. Jennifer B. Boysko (D-Fairfax) said she was disappointed the new standards didn’t address the contributions of the large and varied communities from Central and South America and Asia who are a significant part of Virginia’s population. She also said it was important for students to learn about history even if it was difficult and sometimes uncomfortable.
“Especially in the world right now with social media really sectioning people off so that they’re not listening to a broader array of information, we need to make sure that in schools students have a safe opportunity to engage with some of these challenging concepts so that they are fully informed,” she said.
Boysko also criticized the new standards for not emphasizing the responsibility students have as citizens to participate fully in society.
“What I want to see is that all students understand that they can contribute to making the world a better place as opposed to just memorizing facts and dates about people who have contributed to history,” she said.
Others, though, supported the department’s changes .
“History is a function of human nature, conflict, and progress. It can be inspiring, it can be dark, and it can be challenging to teach and learn,” Ian Prior, a Loudoun County parent, former Trump administration official and founder of the education advocacy group Fight For Schools, wrote in a statement. “... Applied correctly by educators in the classroom, [the proposed changes] will unlock key critical thinking skills that students can use to make their own analysis and decision as they mature into young leaders.”
Education was a key issue in last year’s governor’s race, and Youngkin campaigned on pledges to put parents in charge of learning. During his first week in office, Youngkin, who is often mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024, issued an executive order forbidding the teaching of “inherently divisive concepts, including Critical Race Theory,” an academic framework that examines how policies and laws perpetuate systemic racism in the United States.
“This effort to revive social studies content is the latest in a series of efforts by the governor to shape education along the lines of his preferences,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington. “The governor may be walking into a fight with educators, but that can’t possibly be a surprise to him at this point.”
The board is expected to vote on the new standards early next year. If approved, the standards would begin being taught in the 2024-2025 school year. | 2022-11-13T00:48:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New history standards from Va. education department called 'political meddling' by critics - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/12/virginia-schools-history-standards-youngkin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/12/virginia-schools-history-standards-youngkin/ |
Gladiators 2, Mavericks 0
The Glenelg field hockey team after winning the Maryland 2A state championship at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Md. (Shane Connuck)
OWINGS MILLS, Md. — One of the first things Christina Giampalmo did when she took over as Glenelg’s field hockey coach in August was have the players write down what they wanted to get out of the season. Most of them had one goal in mind — to repeat as Maryland 2A state champions.
The Gladiators’ hopes came to fruition Saturday at Stevenson University. A couple of fourth quarter goals lifted Glenelg to a 2-0 shutout of Manchester Valley, giving the Howard County school its second straight title and its sixth since 2010.
“We really united at the end,” Giampalmo said. “We went from having a whole bunch of talented players to having a whole squad that worked together.”
Giampalmo, a 2010 Glenelg alumna, had no coaching experience when she took over for Nicole Trunzo, who left the team because she was pregnant. Giampalmo leaned on assistants Candice Russ and Hope Burke, both of whom coached at Maryland-based Warhawks Field Hockey Club. Russ has known a lot of the Gladiators since they were as young as 10, including Theresa Stiller, the Gladiators’ leading goal scorer.
Saturday’s match was a stalemate into the fourth quarter, as Manchester Valley (13-3-1) was stifling the Gladiators’ strong attack. The Mavericks drew a series of penalty corners in the second quarter, none of which resulted in successful shots.
About a minute after the final period began, Glenelg (13-6) broke the ice on a well-designed penalty corner play. A series of passes culminated in junior forward Ashley Kim feeding her sixth assist of the year to junior midfielder Emily Altshuler, who buried the shot.
Glenelg broke through again with two minutes to play in the fourth. This time it was Stiller pushing her team-high 17th goal of the season into the back of the cage from the right side off an assist from Skylar Rill.
“Not even considering that I’ve known them for so long, even over the course of this year, the growth that they’ve made as individuals and as a team is something that’s stood out to me,” Russ said. “I think a lot of it, too, is that there was a little bit of uncertainty with them because they didn’t have a coach until preseason started.”
This summer before tryouts, the Glenelg players were setting up their own practices and workouts. A former football coach was helping out the junior varsity team. But once Giampalmo was named coach, she had a group of players who had already started working toward the goal they accomplished Saturday.
“We’ve just been going up all season and getting better,” sophomore defender Sarah Walker said. “And I think the goal is to do it again next year.” | 2022-11-13T00:49:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Glenelg repeats as Maryland 2A champions — this time with a new coach - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/glenelg-repeats-maryland-2a-champions-this-time-with-new-coach/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/glenelg-repeats-maryland-2a-champions-this-time-with-new-coach/ |
Nittany Lions 30, Terrapins 0
Penn State's Hakeem Beamon (51) hits Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa (3) during Saturday's game. (Scott Taetsch/Getty Images)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Michael Locksley knows this isn’t a rivalry. Penn State is Maryland’s nearest neighbor in the Big Ten and the football programs share similar recruiting terrain, but to be true rivals, the games must be tightly contested. And Maryland can’t keep up with the Nittany Lions, with Saturday’s thrashing the latest blow in this lopsided series.
The Terrapins, led by Locksley, were dominated all afternoon in their 30-0 loss at Beaver Stadium. Maryland, which has just three wins in 46 attempts against Penn State, has rarely been competitive against the Big Ten’s best programs. The Terps seized an opportunity to beat a struggling Penn State team two years ago, but that’s an anomaly. Performances similar to this one — familiar for the fan base but deflating each time — have instead been the norm.
Penn State commanded the line of scrimmage; Maryland couldn’t stop the run, and the Nittany Lions pressured quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa into an atrocious outing. No. 14 Penn State (8-2, 5-2 Big Ten) racked up 413 offensive yards compared to Maryland’s 134, most of which (107) came in the second half with the game out of hand. The Terps suffered their first shutout since 2019 when Penn State imposed its will in a 59-0 victory. The search for positive moments in this four-quarter drubbing is mostly a futile task.
After a disappointing loss at Wisconsin last weekend, the Terps (6-4, 3-4) face a losing streak for the first time this season — and their next test is against No. 2 Ohio State. The season finale against Rutgers could determine whether Maryland slumps to a winless November.
Against Penn State, Maryland’s dreadful offense stalled repeatedly and only had three drives that gained more than 20 yards. All three ended with failed attempts to convert on fourth down. Tagovailoa was sacked seven times, including twice by Chop Robinson, once a touted freshman for the Terps who is a sophomore for the Nittany Lions and a captain for this game. Tagovailoa, usually the engine of the offense, finished with 74 passing yards, a new low in his Maryland career after setting his previous low (77) in his last outing in Madison, and he completed just 11 of 22 passes.
Backup quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. took the reins midway through the fourth quarter. After a Penn State turnover, the offense tried to string together a series to avoid the shutout, but Edwards came up short on fourth down and limped off the field with an apparent injury.
The Nittany Lions, meanwhile, averaged 5.7 yards per play. Twice on fourth and short, freshman running back Nicholas Singleton sprung free for long touchdown runs. Singleton finished with a game-high 122 rushing yards, and fellow freshman Kaytron Allen wasn’t far behind with 73. Quarterback Sean Clifford didn’t need to do much. He had 139 yards on 12-of-23 passing. Penn State’s dominance in the trenches was enough for it to control the matchup.
The Terps’ deficiencies were obvious early. They had an abysmal start, accumulating -15 yards through three possessions as Penn State’s pressure consistently swallowed Tagovailoa. The defense offered a blip of positivity by forcing a three and out early in the second quarter — only to be followed by an offensive drive that included a rush for a loss of four, a sack for a loss of 11, another sack for a loss of two and then a punt.
Just before halftime, the Terps mustered a stop that, in an ideal situation, could have given their offense a chance to score on a methodical, two-minute drive to close the quarter. But Maryland’s afternoon in State College was far from ideal and repeatedly unfolded as such.
On this Penn State punt, Dante Trader Jr. picked up a personal foul for roughing the kicker, gifting the Nittany Lions an opportunity to continue driving. Despite an unsportsmanlike conduct call on Penn State Coach James Franklin (he punished himself with 15 push-ups on the sideline), the hosts grabbed three points with a 50-yard field goal. After a Maryland possession stalled quickly, Penn State got the ball again, and this time, drove 48 yards to kick another field goal.
By halftime, Maryland’s offense amassed just 27 yards. The game had slipped out of reach. Penn State had forcefully proved it was the better team.
For Maryland, this isn’t a Penn State problem. The trouble almost always resurfaces when the Terps play a top-tier opponent.
Since joining the Big Ten in 2014, Maryland is 3-21 against the typical powers in its division — Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. The losses have been decided by an average margin of 33 points, a stark reminder of the gap the Terps have yet to close. The Terps still haven’t beaten a ranked Big Ten team since switching leagues.
Despite those high-profile letdowns that loom over the program, the Terps appeared to take a step forward this season. They have a third-year starting quarterback and dynamic wide receivers. Maryland had strong outings early in the season and managed to play a close game against still-undefeated Michigan.
But the team regressed toward the familiar. The Terps were overmatched, and their weaknesses gave Penn State another opportunity to showcase its dominance over a regional foe. | 2022-11-13T00:49:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Penn State blanks Maryland in another Terps flameout vs. Big Ten elite - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/penn-state-crushes-maryland-football/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/penn-state-crushes-maryland-football/ |
Use of school funds to pay Prince George’s board chair’s legal fees challenged
Board members say they did not know about or approve of disbursement of at least $32,280 to Juanita Miller’s attorneys
Juanita Miller is the chair of the Prince George’s County Board of Education. She was selected by County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D). (Prince George’s County Public Schools)
County council member and former school board member Edward Burroughs III has requested that the Maryland state prosecutor and inspector general investigate school funds being used to pay attorney’s fees for Prince George’s school board chair Juanita Miller’s legal fight to remain on the board.
The county school board found out about the expenses last week after invoices were discovered showing fees paid to Miller’s attorneys battling charges against her from the state education board of misconduct in office, neglect of duty and incompetence. Prince George’s school board members said they were unaware of the payments and disapproved of them.
The invoices, first reported by Fox 5 and obtained by The Post, show that at least $32,280 of school funds were directed to MarcusBonsib LLC — the legal firm representing Miller, and appear to be approved by board vice chair Sonya Williams. One of the invoices is initialed “SW” with “OK to pay” written by it.
Miller has not commented on the payments for the legal fees. In a message Friday, Miller said she had been busy working during early voting and Election Day but would “probably issue a statement” now with more flexibility in her schedule. Her attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
“There’s a lot of information that hasn’t been shared, and so if the media would investigate it, then they would find the information out,” Williams said in an interview at Thursday’s meeting. “But because this is a legal matter, I’m not privy to discuss it.” She declined to answer additional questions about the invoices.
Alsobrooks asks Pr. George’s Board of Education chair Miller to resign
Burroughs’s letter to state investigators, dated Nov. 4, said that Miller and Williams’s apparent actions were “a clear violation” of a board policy that prohibits all conduct considered fraud, waste or abuse. The policy defines fraud as “all acts for personal gain, without limitation” and mentions “the unauthorized signing of documents” or “invoices.” He also cited another board policy prohibiting board members from taking action in the name of the board, unless it is formally approved by the board.
“The apparent misappropriation of tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds” must be investigated, Burroughs wrote, and if substantiated, “those responsible must be held accountable and the taxpayer funds repaid.”
The state prosecutor and inspector general for education did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
The board doesn’t have a policy that restricts it from covering members’ legal fees, said Meghan Gebreselassie, a school system spokeswoman. The school board submitted all the required documentation and authorizations for processing an invoice, Gebreselassie wrote in an email Friday. “This is strictly a Board of Education matter and not an administration question,” she said.
School board members discussed the payments for Miller’s legal fees privately during Thursday night’s board meeting, said two people with direct knowledge of the meeting. The people, who declined to be named because the action happened in closed session, said the discussions about the payments were ongoing. The matter was not discussed publicly at the meeting Thursday, though some board members argued it should have been.
The Maryland State Board of Education’s charges against Miller in May partly stem from a complaint against her alleging misconduct by a group of current and former board members. Miller has also refused a request to resign her seat by County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who appointed Miller chair of the board last year.
A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 28 involving the charges issued against Miller by the state education board. The ongoing legal fight could extend until at least Dec. 21, when new state legislation is scheduled to take effect that would allow the county school board to select its own leadership.
Thursday’s meeting was the last for Williams, who did not seek reelection this year. | 2022-11-13T01:27:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Payment of Prince George’s school board chair’s legal fees questioned - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/12/prince-georges-school-board-juanita-miller-legal-fees/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/12/prince-georges-school-board-juanita-miller-legal-fees/ |
CBP head Chris Magnus has resigned, following standoff with DHS secretary
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus resigned late Saturday, the White House said in a short statement, ending an awkward standoff between the country’s top border official and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Mayorkas asked Magnus to step down on Wednesday but the CBP commissioner refused to go quietly, insisting would not leave unless asked by the White House.
The White House said President Biden accepted Magnus’s resignation, “and appreciates his nearly forty years of service and the contributions he made to police reform during his tenure as police chief in three U.S. cities.”
In a statement to The Post, Magnus said the decision “provides me with the best path for advancing my commitment to professional, innovative, and community-engaged policing.”
The White House also published a copy of a letter from Magnus thanking Biden for his opportunity to serve “over the past year.” But Magnus lasted just 11 months in the job. He was confirmed by the Senate last December in a vote largely along party lines.
Magnus, 62, was picked by the White House to lead the country’s largest law enforcement agency after building a reputation as a leading law enforcement reformer during tenures as police chief in Fargo, N.D., Richmond, Calif. and Tucson He was CBP’s first openly gay commissioner.
Yet Magnus’s ambitions to overhaul CBP put him at odds with Mayorkas and senior CBP leaders struggling to contend with record numbers of migrant arrests along the Mexico border.
Magnus said he sought to make changes to policies governing high-speed vehicle pursuits, staff overtime practices as well as CBP officer inspections of travelers’ cellphones at border crossings, among other reform ideas. Those efforts were stymied, he said.
“I didn’t take this job as a resume builder. I came to Washington, D.C. — moved my family here — because I care about this agency, its mission, and the goals of this Administration,” Magnus said while defying attempts to oust him.
Magnus said he tried repeatedly to bring much-needed changes to CBP, but Mayorkas did not welcome disruptions, and was more attuned to the needs of career officials coping with the strains at the border.
According to Magnus, tensions peaked Wednesday after Magnus traveled to El Paso to attend a meeting of the Border Patrol sector chiefs. Mayorkas had asked him not to go. Magnus said Mayorkas then asked for his resignation during a videoconference, telling Magnus that he and CBP staff had lost confidence in him and that Magnus had disobeyed him by traveling to El Paso.
Deputy CBP commissioner Troy Miller will serve as the agency’s acting leader, Mayorkas said in an email to CBP staff sent late Saturday. Miller ran CBP as its interim leader during much of 2021. | 2022-11-13T02:19:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | CBP head Chris Magnus has resigned, following standoff with DHS Secretary Mayorkas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/12/cbp-magnus-resigns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/12/cbp-magnus-resigns/ |
Washington Capitals forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel was suspended Saturday. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Washington Capitals forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel was suspended three games for an illegal check to the head of Tampa Bay’s Cal Foote, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety announced Saturday.
Aube-Kubel delivered the open-ice hit on Foote near the Capitals’ blue line at 1:56 of the second period in Washington’s 5-1 win on Friday.
Aube-Kubel received a five-minute major and a match penalty on the play. Foote left the game and did not return.
In a video announcing the suspension, the league determined Foote’s head was the “main point of contact” and the blow to the head “was avoidable.”
Aube-Kubel will miss Washington’s game Sunday at Tampa Bay, Tuesday’s game at Florida and Thursday’s game at St. Louis. He will forfeit $16,216.23 in salary. He will be eligible to return next Saturday for Washington’s game against the Colorado Avalanche. This is Aube-Kubel’s first suspension; he had been previously fined twice.
Washington (7-7-2) plays Tampa Bay (7-6-1) again Sunday — this time at Amalie Arena. It is the start of a three-game trip for the Capitals.
Lightning players and coaches were upset with the hit after Friday’s game. Coach Jon Cooper said: “That [hit] defines the word blind-side. It’s too bad we’re playing them again [Sunday] because I doubt [Foote] will be around to see the game.”
In addition to Aube-Kubel’s suspension, winger Garnet Hathaway was fined $4,054.05, the maximum allowable under the CBA, for unsportsmanlike conduct in Friday’s game. Tampa Bay’s Pat Maroon was also fined $2,702.70. Hathaway and Maroon fought while the officials reviewed Aube-Kubel’s hit. Both were assessed five-minute fighting majors and 10-minute misconduct penalties.
The Capitals will also be without Coach Peter Laviolette for Sunday’s game. Laviolette entered the NHL’s covid-19 protocols Friday. He could rejoin the team as soon as Tuesday — if he tests negative twice on Monday — for the Capitals’ game against the Panthers in Sunrise, Fla. Assistant Coach Kevin McCarthy will continue head coaching duties while Laviolette is sidelined.
Washington could see the return of defenseman Dmitry Orlov at some point during the team’s trip. He has missed the past three games with a lower-body injury. He has skated the past few days, most recently Saturday during the team’s optional practice before Washington flew to Tampa.
With Aube-Kubel ineligible to play Sunday, the Capitals will have to decide which forward — Joe Snively or Connor McMichael — will enter Washington’s lineup. Snively and McMichael have each played in four games without recording a point.
Snively last played Nov. 3 against Detroit; McMichael last played Nov. 5 against Arizona. | 2022-11-13T02:20:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capitals’ Nicolas Aube-Kubel gets three-game ban for hit on Cal Foote - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/capitals-nicolas-aube-kubel-discipline/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/capitals-nicolas-aube-kubel-discipline/ |
Wizards forward Anthony Gill, left, greets teammates Corey Kispert, Kristaps Porzingis and Monte Morris (from left) during Saturday's 121-112 win over Utah. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Back before the season started, before their three primary scorers had even shared a court, Washington Wizards players said their biggest strength would be their offensive versatility. It made sense on paper with Bradley Beal, Kristaps Porzingis and Kyle Kuzma offering an abundance of scoring ability — yet through the majority of their first 10 games, that offense sputtered as often as it sparkled.
Washington leaned on a diverse group of scorers to attack the red-hot Jazz and came away with its third straight win, all of which have come without Beal, who missed his fourth consecutive game with covid-19. Beal cleared the league’s health and safety protocols Friday but stayed on the bench against Utah as he regains his conditioning. Coach Wes Unseld Jr. said he will also miss Sunday’s game against Memphis.
It’s a rare thing that the Wizards can be missing Beal, give up 14 three-pointers and still come away with a win. But their offense was robust enough to trump the second-highest scoring team in the league: they had five scorers in double figures, two more with nine points each, a season-high 16 three-pointers and shot 50 percent from the field.
“The two areas where they struggle are in the paint, and in transition,” Unseld said, referring also to the Wizards’ 52 points in the paint. “And those are two areas we actually had some success. … Our two biggest strengths tonight are their two biggest weaknesses.”
Porzingis had a game-high 31 points on 12-for-20 shooting from the floor, including making 4 of 8 from three. He added 10 rebounds and worked Washington’s system exactly as he’s meant to, getting Utah’s defense out of position by taking advantage of size mismatches.
G League call-up Jordan Goodwin bringing 'Goody' vibes to Wizards
Kuzma was ill with what the team said is a non-covid illness — he used a four-letter word to describe how terribly he felt Saturday morning — but had another highflying night with 23 points, eight rebounds and six assists, a strong encore to Thursday’s 36-point night against Dallas. He said after that game he’d been asking the Wizards coaching staff to run the offense through him for weeks.
“He has, and it’s one of those things where it’s got to be done by committee,” Unseld said. “ … I like the way he’s played as far as his pace, even off makes. That’s great, the best part about that is we’re still able to stay organized, for the most part.”
Does he think Kuzma might back off his requests anytime soon? Unseld could only laugh, noting, “I don’t know if he’ll ever be satisfied.”
Corey Kispert broke through, too. The guard had a season-high 18 points in his fifth game of the year after coming back from a left ankle sprain and shot a perfect 6 for 6 that included four three-pointers.
“Tonight was the night where I really felt like I was in the flow of the game from the jump,” Kispert said.
Point guard Monte Morris added nine assists, five points and seven rebounds.
Jordan Goodwin’s trio of three-pointers to end the first quarter gave the Wizards a nice jolt and some added confidence from beyond the three-point line that trickled down. Even as they fell behind by nine points in the second quarter, they played with increased energy, keeping the ball moving around the arc and capitalizing defensively on the Jazz’s turnovers. Utah had nine in the first half, the major difference in an otherwise tight game.
The Jazz walked into the locker room shooting 50 percent from the floor having hit 10 three-pointers, yet Washington was ahead 61-55.
Here’s what else you need to know from Saturday’s win:
The Wizards have won three games in a row for the first time this season. But unlike the silly, almost giddy atmosphere that defined the historically hot start at the beginning of last season, the mood in the locker room hasn’t been noticeably different this week.
“Its important, it’s a good feeling, but we don’t ever want to get ahead of ourselves,” Unseld said. " … You want to kind of keep that momentum. Of course it’s fun to win, it’s fun to win at home, you have the crowd behind you so it’s a great environment. But we don’t want to start looking too far down the road. One at a time, and if they stack up, they stack up.”
One huge part of tamping down the Jazz’s offense was keeping them off the free throw line. Utah shot 10 for 11 from the foul line, the second fewest free throws they’ve attempted all season.
Rui Hachimura is thriving off the bench. In addition to his 11 points and four rebounds Saturday, he has eight blocks in 13 games — one short of his career high for a single season. | 2022-11-13T03:25:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wizards are too much for Jazz, collect third straight win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/wizards-jazz-kristaps-porzingis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/12/wizards-jazz-kristaps-porzingis/ |
Dear Amy: I’m a 28-year-old man. My best friend from childhood, “Kenneth,” recently got engaged. I couldn’t be happier for him.
Then, a few weeks later, Kenneth and I went out to dinner. We all laughed and joked and had a wonderful time, until Kenneth made a joke about me being the “best man” but Bart the “better man” (because he had chosen him over me). I laughed a little to play along, but honestly this hurt me deeply. Kenneth and I have talked many times about what a jerk Bart is. He’s rude, ungrateful, spoiled and entitled. He is also a womanizer.
I tried to forget about this silly remark, but it has now been repeated several times, not just by Kenneth, but by other members of the bridal party. Even though it’s always said with a laugh and meant as a harmless joke, it bothers me more and more. I just chuckle along because I know this wedding isn’t about me and I don’t want to cause any sort of drama.
The wedding is still several months away, but I don’t know if I can take hearing this “joke” anymore. Am I overreacting? Or should I privately mention this to Kenneth? I know he didn’t mean to hurt me, but I’m not even quite sure why he made the joke in the first place.
Do you think this is something worth discussing with him, and if so, how should I approach it without causing any drama? Or, again, am I just overreacting?
Bothered: There is no need for you to continue to second-guess your own reaction to this comment. It was fairly tasteless and unkind the first time you heard it, and it is not improving with repetition.
My instinct is that “Kenneth” is trying to paper over the fact that he passed you over for the honor of being his best man, while still acknowledging that he did so — “owning” it with an unfunny pun. I assume that as time goes by, you might actually be relieved not to be hosting this friend’s bachelor party. (Talk about dodging a mojito!)
Dear Amy: My husband and I married on Christmas Day. He died on a Memorial Day weekend eight years later. Despite the passage of time, this remains a difficult season. What makes it extremely hard is the forced cheerfulness of the season.
While I try to smile and respond in kind, it’s exhausting. Being chided by strangers for not exhibiting the proper holiday spirit is frustrating. Demoralizing. Depressing.
I don’t want the charity of strangers or to try to graft myself onto someone else’s family gathering; I find serenity in being alone. I just wish I could get others to stop forcing their interpretation of Christmas down my throat. All I want for Christmas this year is for others to remember that this is a difficult time for so many people in this country, from the working poor to the homeless who will crowd into shelters and soup kitchens.
Grieving: Letting people “be” is a gift we can all give one another.
Fan: I enjoy simple factual accounts of where and how people are. I especially love photos of kids, elders, and pets. | 2022-11-13T05:14:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Amy: My best friend’s jokes about me not being his best man hurt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/13/ask-amy-not-best-man/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/13/ask-amy-not-best-man/ |
Chinese President Xi Jinping unveils the Communist Party of China's new Politburo Standing Committee in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last month. (Bloomberg)
An American policy wonk in China rarely receives the attention paid last month to Scott Kennedy, the first U.S. scholar to visit since Beijing’s strict coronavirus travel restrictions began over two years ago.
For Kennedy, an expert on Chinese business and economy at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, it was intended as an icebreaker trip. But the tenor of his meetings with more than 100 academics, businesses and officials, including Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, surprised him.
Their interest in dialogue was in part to make clear the country’s apprehension over its strained relationship with the United States. “There is significant concern in Beijing about U.S. motives. They see Washington as having a deep-seated fear of any rivals,” Kennedy said after returning home. “From their perspective, the ball is in the U.S. court.”
President Biden intends to use his Monday meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Bali to establish a “floor” for the relationship. China, too, has signaled it wants to put ties back on track after several years of fierce disagreements over trade, technology and human rights. But for Beijing, doing so is not about agreeing to disagree or working out how to avoid the worst-case scenario of outright conflict.
Since being reconfirmed as paramount leader last month, Xi is more focused than ever on China becoming a modern socialist superpower with global influence — a status he expects the United States to accept. Chinese experts say that fixing the relationship will require more than a show of goodwill from the United States. It will take agreement on fundamental aspects of the relationship, including the fate of Taiwan, the self-governed, democratic island of 23 million that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
“The United States thinks that so long as there is no conflict or crisis in relations, then that’s fine. But China wants to see evidence of progress, especially when it comes to Taiwan,” said Wu Xinbo, dean of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
Yet Xi’s determination to take control of the island, by force if necessary, has only grown in response to American efforts to shore up Taiwanese defenses in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
After back-to-back pandemic years of minimal in-person contact, with many government channels canceled, suspended or lapsed, unofficial dialogues have been among the few tools left to keep the two sides from continuing to talk past each other. Well-known Chinese scholars have begun traveling to the United States in recent months, and they have invited American counterparts to do the same in reverse.
“If we can revive communication mechanisms, then in the future we won’t have to overly rely on top leaders meeting,” Wu noted.
That state media hailed this uptick in exchanges as a sign of easing tensions reveals just how bad things are. Sixteen months ago, Foreign Minister Wang Yi presented lists of complaints and demands to U.S. diplomats in Tianjin. China made clear the United States would need to make the first move, and it had three bottom-line requirements: no attempts to undermine China’s development, no challenges to its political system and no “harm” to its sovereignty claims on Taiwan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
Beijing’s position hasn’t changed since then. What has changed, however, is Xi’s degree of control at home and concern about the state of the world. At the recently concluded 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, where his rule was extended for at least another five years, Xi stacked the top leadership with loyal lieutenants and warned of “dangerous storms” undermining China’s rise.
Some in China argue that Biden is too constrained domestically to make lasting agreements or truly improve ties.
“Beijing thinks that White House control over the Taiwan issue is decreasing, because Congress has grabbed the wheel,” said Zhao Minghao, a professor at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Biden faces a divided government after the midterms, which has escalated the risks of China and the U.S. falling into open hostilities over Taiwan.”
Chinese leaders are especially concerned about Biden’s efforts to rally allies. In a response to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech on China policy in May — in which he called the country “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order” — the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the United States of attempting to create an Asian-Pacific version of NATO with Australia, Japan and Korea to “disrupt security and stability” in the region.
Though the relationship began deteriorating during the Trump administration, Zheng Yongnian, an influential scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, said its decline has become more substantive under Biden. The president has “weaponized and politicized” trade rather than merely try to slow China’s economic and technology development, Zheng said.
When Biden first took office, China signaled a degree of willingness to work with the United States on areas of shared interest while both tried to minimize differences. But the approach has largely failed, with Beijing suspending or canceling military-to-military talks, anti-narcotics cooperation and climate change discussions in retribution for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August.
“On the U.S. side, it’s all about crisis communications. How do we prevent a worst-case scenario? Whereas on the Chinese side, the way to responsibly manage the competition is to reach an agreement on basic principles,” said Rorry Daniels, managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.
Some Chinese scholars, Daniels added, had even raised the idea of trying to produce a joint communique such as the three foundational documents that shaped the nations’ dealings with each other in the 1970s and 1980s.
“China is really probing for a north star to point to and say ‘This is the nature of the relationship,’” she said. “But the U.S. isn’t approaching China with the same mind-set.”
A report released in May by Renmin University of China offered three possibilities for future ties between the countries. The best case was simmering tension and fierce competition. The middle scenario was technological, economic and cultural decoupling.
The last was all-out nuclear war. | 2022-11-13T06:19:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | China wants to mend ties with U.S. But it won’t make the first move. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/china-united-states-relations-xi-jinping/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/china-united-states-relations-xi-jinping/ |
Election deniers lose races for key state offices in every 2020 battleground
Nevada secretary of state candidate Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, was projected to have defeated Republican nominee Jim Marchant. (David Becker for The Washington Post)
Voters in the six major battlegrounds where Donald Trump tried to reverse his defeat in 2020 rejected election-denying candidates seeking to control their states’ election systems this year, a resounding signal that Americans have grown weary of the former president’s unfounded claims of widespread fraud.
Candidates for secretary of state in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada who had echoed Trump’s false accusations lost their contests on Tuesday, with the latter race called Saturday night. A fourth candidate never made it out of his May primary in Georgia. In Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s most prominent election deniers lost his bid for governor, a job that would have given him the power to appoint the secretary of state. And in Wisconsin, an election-denying contender’s loss in the governor’s race effectively blocked a move to put election administration under partisan control.
Trump-allied Republicans mounted a concerted push this year to win a range of state and federal offices, including the once obscure office of secretary of state, which in many instances is a state’s top election official.
Some pledged to “decertify” the 2020 results, although election law experts said that is not possible. Others promised to decommission electronic voting machines, require hand-counting of ballots or block all mail voting. Their platforms were rooted in Trump’s disproven claims that the 2020 race was rigged, and their bids for public office raised grave concerns about whether the popular will could be subverted, and free and fair elections undermined, in 2024 and beyond.
Elsewhere, the losers included Doug Mastriano for governor in Pennsylvania, as well as three candidates for secretary of state — Mark Finchem of Arizona, Jim Marchant in Nevada and Kristina Karamo of Michigan — all of whom sought to overturn the 2020 result. Losing gubernatorial contender Tim Michels in Wisconsin would have had the power to push a Republican plan to eliminate the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission and transfer election administration to the secretary of state or another partisan office.
Of the five who were defeated in the general election, only Michels, who lost to Gov. Tony Evers (D), had conceded as of Saturday afternoon. But most of the others have, so far, stopped short of claiming that fraud had tainted their races. Their muted reaction to Tuesday’s outcomes signaled that attacking the integrity of American elections is not a winning formula, at least for state office, voting rights advocates said.
“Republicans are tired,” said Democrat Cisco Aguilar, who was projected late Saturday to have defeated Marchant in Nevada. “They’re seeing that it’s not a winning path. I think they’re hearing the voters.”
As workers in Clark County, Nev., scrambled to count a batch of remaining mail ballots, elections chief Joe Gloria told reporters Saturday that no election-denying candidates had lodged any complaints. Hours later, after officials released new vote totals, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) was projected to win reelection, edging past Adam Laxalt (R), a former state attorney general, and delivering Democrats an expected majority in the next Senate.
Laxalt tweeted earlier on Saturday that it appeared the new batches of votes could block his path to victory.
“If they are GOP precincts or slightly DEM leaning then we can still win,” Laxalt tweeted, in language that signaled a willingness to accept the results even if his opponent won. “If they continue to trend heavy DEM then she will overtake us.”
It was a dramatic contrast from Laxalt’s rhetoric in 2020, when he helped Trump try to overturn Biden’s victory in Nevada, in part by falsely claiming that heavily Democratic batches of mail ballots were illegally dumped into the count after Election Day.
“It’s positive for our country when losers of elections accept their defeat,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold. “American democracy is predicated on that. It’s also good at this point that they’re not flagrantly denying the result.”
Although many candidates denying the outcome of the 2020 vote came up short in their bids for state office, the U.S. House was a different matter. At least 150 election deniers were projected to win their House races as of Saturday — an increase over the 139 Republicans who voted against the electoral college count following the assault on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on Jan. 6, 2021.
Overall, more than 170 election deniers on the ballot for the U.S. House, Senate and key statewide offices were projected to win their elections as of Saturday, according to a Washington Post analysis. The Post identified candidates as election deniers if they questioned Biden’s victory, opposed the counting of Biden’s electoral college votes, expressed support for a partisan post-election ballot review, signed onto a lawsuit seeking to overturn the 2020 result or attended or expressed support for the rally on the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Election denialism is not going away overnight,” Griswold said. “The attacks on voting rights and the attacks on American democracy will not stop.”
Still, many voters signaled in interviews that defeating such candidates was a driving force in their votes on Tuesday. Andrew Haber, a 53-year-old child psychologist in Arizona, didn’t vote in the primary election, but he cast his ballot for Democrats after being alarmed by conspiracy theories advanced by the Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, and her fellow conservatives.
“When you abandon the process, then how do you steer the ship back in a democratic way?” Haber, a Democrat, said at a polling place in Paradise Valley, outside of Phoenix. “I’m still hopeful we can right the ship, but it would be really hard to do once we have more people holding the levers of power that don’t believe in democracy.”
Matt Kroski, a 43-year-old who has voted for both parties, said he was disturbed by “voter intimidation” efforts he saw Republicans embrace, including armed observers at ballot drop boxes in nearby Mesa. He saw his votes for Democrats in his neighborhood north of Phoenix as an insurance policy for democratic norms.
“I just feel that after the whole ‘Stop the steal,’ it’s very much ‘I didn’t lose, you stole,’ ” Kroski said. “At the end of a sporting game, we know who the winners and losers are, who scored more points, who got more votes. I’m hoping that things stay in place so that at least our votes will count.”
Finchem’s Democratic opponent, Adrian Fontes, had won more votes as of Saturday evening than any other candidate on the Arizona ballot — even the ones in hotly contested races for U.S. Senate and governor.
In an interview, Fontes said he had built a broad coalition that included moderate Republicans and independents. But he also conceded that his success had as much to do with what he wasn’t. “I’m not an insurrectionist,” he said, contrasting his public image with that of Finchem, who is a member of the extremist Oath Keepers group and was photographed outside of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack.
“I think a lot of civic-minded Republicans really didn’t like what Mark Finchem stands for and who he is,” Fontes said.
Finchem has not conceded and has criticized the “fake news” for calling his election for Fontes while officials are still counting ballots. “You don’t quit a marathon on mile 15,” he tweeted Saturday. “Same with elections — they are not over until the last legal vote is counted.”
Griswold and others said several factors fueled what she described as a victory for democracy. First was the quality of the election-denying candidates, who embraced extremist views that most voters recognized and were motivated to reject.
An additional factor was the fact that many Republicans — including Trump — discouraged voters from casting their ballots by mail, a dubious strategy that may have suppressed GOP turnout. Finchem went so far as to urge voters to turn out only at the end of the day Tuesday and to vote provisionally — a convoluted instruction that left some GOP strategists bewildered and alarmed.
Democrats were also aggressive in defining their opponents as election deniers and spending money to emphasize the point. Aguilar spent $1 million airing an ad called “Dangerous,” featuring various election-denying statements from Marchant — and suggesting that the Republican would be willing to rig an election in the future.
“If we get elected, their power is over,” Marchant can be seen saying in the ad. Marchant is a founder of the America First Secretary of State Coalition, a group of pro-Trump, election-denying candidates that included Finchem, Karamo and Mastriano.
The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State and affiliated groups spent historic sums — more than $24 million — on races in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada, said Griswold, who leads the political committee. Four years ago, the group spent less than $3 million.
Even as many election-denying candidates have accepted their defeats quietly, Trump has continued to try to stir up his supporters with unsubstantiated claims that fraud is occurring in Nevada and Arizona as ballot counting continues in both states.
“Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system (be careful Adam!), as do many places in our soon to be Third World Country,” Trump wrote Thursday on his social media site, Truth Social, referring to the Senate candidate, Laxalt. “Arizona even said ‘by the end of the week!’ — They want more time to cheat!”
The government in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, published a response on its Twitter account calling Trump’s claims “outrageous” and saying “he is obviously still misinformed about the law and our election processes.”
But with Trump expected to announce plans to run for president again in 2024 as soon as Tuesday, his attacks on voting systems are not likely to abate.
Aguilar said secretaries of state have more work ahead of them to tamp down false election claims as 2024 approaches. One of his goals when he takes office in January is to persuade the state legislature to make it a felony to harass or intimidate Nevada election workers, he said. He also hopes to build relationships with election officials in all 17 Nevada counties, including the heavily Republican counties outside of Reno and Las Vegas that are home to many voters who are skeptical of the system.
“My opponent spent a lot of time telling lies, giving misinformation,” Aguilar said. “It’s going to be my responsibility to go out there and break it down and get people to understand that we do have safe and secure elections.”
Jesse Haw, a developer, former state senator and moderate Republican who lost to Marchant in the GOP primary this year, criticized Democrats who spent money elevating Marchant during the nominating battle — a strategy based on the idea that Marchant would be easier to defeat in a general election.
“It was a calculated risk,” Haw said. “The Democrats that I talked to didn’t like it. If this guy had won, it would have really hurt our state.”
But Haw acknowledged: “In this case it worked, so good for them, I guess.”
Haw was happy to share his choice for secretary of state on Tuesday.
“In this day and age, where we’re supposed to be one side or the other, I voted for whoever I think is best for the people of Nevada,” Haw said. “And that wasn’t Mr. Marchant.”
Thebault reported from Phoenix. Patrick Marley in Madison, Wis., and Azi Paybarah in Washington contributed to this report. | 2022-11-13T09:22:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Election deniers lose races for key state offices in 6 battlegrounds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/13/election-deniers-defeated-state-races/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/13/election-deniers-defeated-state-races/ |
Will Your Claim Against a Russian Oil Tanker Be Paid?
Oil in plastic bags after an oil spill on Cavero beach in Callao, Peru, on Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022. High ocean waves stemming from a massive volcanic eruption near Tonga caused an oil spill off the coast of Peru, closing beaches and halting fishing after the country’s Navy failed to issue a tsunami warning. (Bloomberg)
Three weeks from now, it’s going to get a lot more difficult to get compensation for any damage caused by tankers carrying Russian crude.
Europe and the UK are large providers of marine insurance, as well as brokerage, finance, vessel classification and other services that make possible the movement of oil around the world. They are also home to many of the vessels that ply the trade. Greek companies are the world’s top tanker owners.
After Dec. 5, those vessels will no longer be able to carry Russian crude and the services won’t be available to any ship that does, European or not, unless the price paid for the cargo is below a still-to-be-decided cap. The bans will be extended to refined products two months later.
It looks very likely that most of Russia’s exports will be carried on its own ships, those of its remaining customers, or a growing fleet of aging tankers owned by little-known companies registered in jurisdictions not known for their openness or transparency.
Who will insure those vessels and what will that mean for potential claimants?
Think of oil-related marine insurance claims and your mind might be drawn to the sinking of the Sanchi off the coast of China in January 2018 or, more likely, to the grounding of the Exxon Valdez off Alaska in 1989.
The sinking of the Sanchi cost insurers close to $200 million, a figure that was kept low because there was no shoreline pollution from the wreck. The Exxon Valdez disaster, which coated 1,200 miles of Alaska’s coastline with oil, cost its owner an estimated $3.5 billion before punitive compensation, of which $780 million was recovered from insurers.
But these big disasters make up a tiny proportion of claims in the shipping industry. Most are much smaller and generally go unnoticed outside the companies involved.
How, or even whether, claimants will get paid for losses caused by a tanker carrying Russian crude are not clear. This should be a concern for every country whose ports or coastlines could be at risk.
Tankers carrying Russian crude aren’t likely to dock in “unfriendly” countries, but they will certainly pass close to their shorelines, whether that’s when exiting the Baltic through the Danish Straits or traversing the English Channel.
Russian oil tankers are now insured by Ingosstrakh Insurance Company, the country’s fourth-largest general insurer, which already covers some 2,000 vessels. It is also likely to cover much of the so-called “ shadow fleet” of tankers expected to continue carrying Russian crude next month. That’s raising concerns.
First revolves around the ability of the company to meet any really big claim resulting from the loss of a ship, with its cargo ending up washed ashore on beaches. If those beaches are, say, in the UK or an EU country, what is the likelihood that claims against the vessel’s owner or charterer will be successful?
A second question is, would Ingosstrakh be permitted by the Russian government to settle claims from “unfriendly” countries? And would companies or governments in those countries be able to receive payments from Ingosstrakh?
The EU sanctions ban provision of services, including insurance, in perpetuity to a vessel that carries a cargo of Russian crude purchased at a price above the cap. So owners, both current and future, would be accepting Russian cover for the rest of the vessel’s life, unless the sanctions are revoked.
Vessels are required to carry a “blue card” proving that they carry insurance recognized by the International Maritime Organization. These cards provide assurance to ports — and anyone else in the supply chain — that a vessel has appropriate cover. Russia’s protection and indemnity insurers can provide these cards, but it’s then down to individual ports to decide if they truly demonstrate a level of cover that’s satisfactory. And they will have to bear in mind that they may ultimately be asking the Russian state to pay up.
India is willing to take that risk. Port authorities will accept liability cover for foreign ships provided by Ingosstrakh against risks, including oil spills and collisions. The company is among a list of 15 that aren’t part of the International Group of P&I Clubs approved by the Indian government.
China too, is likely to accept Russian insurance cover for tankers discharging at its ports.
Both are likely to get paid in the event of making claims. But I’m not so sure that European countries, the UK, or the US will fare so well. | 2022-11-13T09:57:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Your Claim Against a Russian Oil Tanker Be Paid? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/will-your-claim-against-a-russian-oil-tanker-be-paid/2022/11/13/5f9d790a-6332-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/will-your-claim-against-a-russian-oil-tanker-be-paid/2022/11/13/5f9d790a-6332-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during the Institute of International Finance (IIF) annual membership meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. This year’s conference theme is “The Search for Stability in an Era of Uncertainty, Realignment and Transformation.” (Bloomberg)
Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked, as Warren Buffett famously said. After more than a decade or near-zero interest rates and the mother of all stock-market parties, the tide of free money is most definitely receding. The bankruptcy of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire is a foretaste of what may be to come. While the crypto world dances to an arcane beat that may be only tangentially connected to the realm of conventional finance, it’s emblematic of more straitened times that a business valued at $32 billion only a few months ago couldn’t find anyone to put up the extra funds that would enable it to keep going.
If history is a guide, the uptrend in corporate failures to be expected from rising costs of capital is likely to be accompanied by an increasing incidence of fraud. The Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. scandals both blew up in the years after the bursting of the dotcom bubble, another period of near-free money, at least for companies that could tinge themselves with a new-economy aura. Bernie Madoff’s investment firm finally collapsed during the nadir of the global financial crisis in 2008, exposing the world’s largest-ever Ponzi scheme. In the UK, Polly Peck International Plc expanded rapidly during the go-go 1980s before foundering in the 1991 recession. Its chief executive officer was later jailed for theft. The 1997-98 Asian crisis uncovered abuses across some of China’s international trust and investment corporations. The list goes on.
“You’re going to get a lot more frauds,” Christopher Leahy, Singapore-based managing director of research and advisory firm Blackpeak Group, told the Asian Corporate Governance Association conference in London. With a recession coming, “we should prepare ourselves,” he said. “Everywhere you look there are potential land mines.”
It may be time for investors to brush up on the forgotten skills of scouring balance sheets, profit-and-loss accounts and cash-flow statements for red flags. It wouldn’t be surprising if these fundamental building blocks of value investing have atrophied in the post-crisis era. The practice of finding and buying companies that are trading for less than their intrinsic worth hasn’t worked out too well for much of the post-crisis era. Little wonder: Who needs the downside protection of conservative finances and margin of safety when companies can shake the magic money tree for whatever they need? Those easy conditions are receding in the rearview mirror, though. Here are some broad principles that may give you a chance of spotting the next listed company fraud scandal before it blows up:
• Read the accounts, duh. More importantly, read from the back. The front is where the pretty pictures, colorful charts and corporate spin go. The notes at the back, usually voluminous pages of densely typed text and figures, are where anything unpleasant gets buried.
• Don’t ignore the obvious. The Madoff fraud was always hiding in plain sight. Former security industry executive Harry Markopolos repeatedly provided the Securities and Exchange Commission with a list of red flags, such as his suspiciously consistent returns. His scheme had swelled to $65 billion before it collapsed. An old investment adage holds: If something is too good to be true, it probably is. All those who invested with Madoff ignored that cautionary wisdom.
• There are no stupid questions. Accounting can be fiendishly complicated. For all that, it’s driven by a basic logic. Balance sheets have to balance. And if the accounts are so convoluted that they can’t be understood even by a numerate reader familiar with financial statements, then perhaps the company doesn’t want you to understand them — raising the question, why?
• Watch for anomalies. Pay particular attention to anything that looks unusual or doesn’t appear to make sense. Leahy told of one Indonesian company that his firm was engaged to scrutinize on behalf of a potential investor, which suspected that something wasn’t right. Eventually, it found a disclosure in the notes of a $60 million cash outflow, with an explanation that conflicted with what the company had said elsewhere. “There’s a reason people do transactions,” he said. “If there’s a transaction that doesn’t make sense, then you have to find out the reason.”
• Listen to whistle-blowers. Most whistle-blowers are insiders who know what is happening inside their company and are unhappy about it, according to Leahy. They played a part in the downfall of Enron and WorldCom. There is a lot of potential downside in being a whistle-blower, and very little upside. That means they deserve to be taken seriously — though by the time a whistle-blower’s report becomes public, you’re probably already too late to avoid a loss.
No country has a monopoly on fraud. Accounting scandals span markets across the world, from Wirecard AG in Germany, to Parmalat SpA in Italy, to Olympus Corp. in Japan. And the variety of potential red flags is too numerous to list: overstating revenue; understating liabilities; excessively high inventories; contradictions between the income and cash-flow statements; unexplained loans; excessive numbers of related-party transactions — to name just a few. Whole books have been written on the subject, notably Howard Schilit’s Financial Shenanigans: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks & Fraud in Financial Reports. It might be time to give that another scan. Happy reading.
British CEOs Snared Big Bonuses. For What?: Matthew Brooker
Why WFH When You Can Live in the Office Like Musk?: Chris Hughes
The Wild West of Crypto Claims Yet Another Victim: Lionel Laurent | 2022-11-13T09:57:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | FTX Is a Signal to Brush Up on Your Red Flags - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ftx-is-a-signal-to-brush-up-on-your-red-flags/2022/11/13/5ed88794-6332-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ftx-is-a-signal-to-brush-up-on-your-red-flags/2022/11/13/5ed88794-6332-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html |
The Boston Red Sox and other teams honored Jackie Robinson on April 15, 2022. (Michael Dwyer/AP)
Major League Baseball recently wrapped up its season-long celebration of the 75th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, beginning with “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom Jr. narrating a video tribute to Robinson and ending with a nationally televised World Series promotion.
But if the high-profile commemoration gave the impression baseball solved its integration problem 75 years ago, history provides a much more complicated story. After Robinson’s debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947, progress was haltingly slow across the sport.
Two other ballclubs integrated that year — the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Browns. But over the next five years, just three more teams — the New York Giants, Boston Braves and Chicago White Sox — followed suit. And Robinson was not shy about calling out the holdouts, beginning with the New York Yankees.
On Nov. 30, 1952, about two months after the Yankees beat the Dodgers in a seven-game World Series, Robinson appeared on the NBC News show, “Youth Wants to Know.” A boy asked Robinson whether he believed there was prejudice, and he replied, “Yes,” according to the New York Times. Explaining he was referring to the club executives and not the players, Robinson said, “I think the members of the Yankees team are fine sportsmen and wonderful gentleman, but there isn’t a single Negro on the team now, and there are very few in the entire Yankee farm system.”
“It seems to me,” he elaborated in a follow-up interview with the Times, “the Yankees front office has used racial prejudice in its dealings with Negro ball players.”
Yankees vice president George M. Weiss claimed in an interview with the Associated Press that wasn’t the case.
“Our attitude always has been that when a Negro comes along who can play good enough ball to win a place on the Yankees we will be glad to have him but not just for exploitation,” Weiss said.
11 weeks after Jackie Robinson’s debut, Larry Doby arrived
Some sportswriters defended the Yankees. In a 1955 Times sports column, Arthur Daley wrote:
“The charge has been leveled against the New York Yankees that they have been prejudiced against Negroes. It has been made mostly by irresponsible persons who point to the fact that the Bombers have never had one on their squad. It also has been made by the sensitive and crusading Jackie Robinson.”
Daley said he “never believed a word of it. The men in the Yankee front office have stubbornly refused to be panicked into hiring a Negro just because he was a Negro.”
But Roger Kahn would recount in his 1972 baseball classic “The Boys of Summer” that the real reason was in fact prejudice as Robinson had suspected. Kahn wrote that a high-ranking Yankees executive told him at the 1952 World Series that he would never allow a Black player to wear a Yankees uniform. “We don’t want that sort of crowd,” the executive said after three martinis, according to Kahn. “It would offend boxholders from Westchester to have to sit with” Black people, using the n-word.
‘Subversive persons came to Washington’
By 1952, 10 of the sport’s 16 teams had yet to feature a Black player on their major league roster, but the track record was better in New York. The city was home to three teams at the time, and the Yankees were the only one that remained all White. The Giants had integrated in 1949 with two players — Hank Thompson and future Hall of Famer Monte Irvin (although Thompson made his MLB debut two years earlier with the Browns). Willie Mays joined the team in 1951.
Publicly, some owners would use the same justification Weiss did.
Writing in a 1952 Sporting News retrospective, Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith complained that a few years earlier “subversive persons came to Washington from New York, and picketed our ballpark. I was accused of discrimination against Negro players.”
“I stand ready, and eager, to place Negro players on our Washington club,” Griffith wrote. “But they must rate the jobs on the basis of ability, and not merely because they happen to be Negroes. I will not sign a Negro for the Washington club merely to satisfy subversive persons. I would welcome a Negro on the Senators if he rated the distinction, if he belonged among major-league players.”
The Yankees could at least claim they were fielding a great team despite their refusal to integrate the roster. The Senators could not. They hadn’t won a pennant since 1933 and often finished at or near the bottom of the American League standings.
Momentum to fully integrate baseball didn’t build until the mid-1950s. In 1954, the Senators finally put a Black player on the roster, outfielder Carlos Paula, making them one of four teams to integrate that year. In 1955, eight years after their crosstown rivals had done so in Brooklyn — and a year after the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education — the Yankees debuted their first Black player, catcher Elston Howard. His first game came in the home opener of the Boston Red Sox, where Fenway fans, still waiting for their own team to have a Black player, gave him a rousing welcome.
“This is the first time I have ever been in Boston, and the people applauded me like that,” Howard said after the game. “It was real nice.”
The Yankees were the 13th team to integrate.
The last holdouts
Robinson retired after the 1956 season — nine years after his debut — and strikingly, there were still three teams that had yet to employ a Black player: the Philadelphia Phillies, Detroit Tigers and Red Sox. Again, Robinson challenged the status quo.
“I can’t understand why 13 major league clubs have Negro players and the other three clubs can’t come up with any. I don’t know if it’s their scouting systems or what,” Robinson told Boston reporters in February 1957, following a breakfast with Mayor John B. Hynes to launch Robinson’s local campaign for the NAACP’s freedom fund drive.
When told at the news conference the Red Sox had two players on their San Francisco farm club, Robinson replied: “That doesn’t mean a thing. They don’t have any on the Red Sox roster.”
Rick Swaine, author of “The Integration of Major League Baseball: A Team by Team History,” said there was a simple explanation for the slow progress by most teams.
“I don’t think they wanted to hire Black people. It was largely racism,” Swaine said in a telephone interview. “They actually thought Blacks were inferior players, even though they had proven to be as good if not better than the White players. And they were cheaper.”
Larry Doby
St. Louis Browns
Hank Thompson, Monte Irvin
Boston Braves
Sam Jethroe
Minnie Minoso
Philadelphia Athletics
Bob Trice
Tom Alston
Curt Roberts
Chuck Harmon, Nino Escalera
Carlos Paula
Elston Howard
Ozzie Virgil
Pumpsie Green
Around this time, Phillies owner Robert Carpenter trotted out the same rationale for his all-White team that the Yankees and Senators had used. “I’m not opposed to Negro players. But I’m not going to hire a player of any color or nationality just to have him on the team,” he said, according to the “The Phillies Encyclopedia” by Rich Westcott and Frank Bilovsky.
Narrative of Jackie Robinson, like that of MLK, is at odds with the reality
The Phillies became the last National League team to integrate in 1957, when 30-year-old John Kennedy came into the game as a pinch runner. His career consisted of two at-bats across five games.
The Tigers were next, bringing up infielder Ozzie Virgil from the minors in 1958. Virgil, who already had played two seasons for the Giants, was also the first Dominican player in the majors. His Detroit debut followed a local boycott campaign that pressured the Tigers to integrate. And it came six years after the death of team owner Walter O. Briggs, whom Black sportswriter Wendell Smith described as “Oh so very prejudiced. He’s the major league combination of Simon Legree and Adolf Hitler.” (Legree was the villain in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”)
Briggs’s great-grandson, Harvey Briggs, wrote a 2017 opinion piece in the Detroit Free Press condemning the late owner as a racist.
The Red Sox were the final holdouts. Back in 1945, under local political pressure, they had given a tryout to Robinson, along with two other Black players, but Robinson said years later he knew it was a sham and that he would never hear from the team.
The Red Sox finally integrated in July 1959 with infielder Pumpsie Green but not without attracting criticism over how they treated him. Boston sent Green down to the minors before the season even though he hit .327 in spring training.
“The Red Sox won no prizes this spring for the way they treated Pumpsie Green,” Boston Globe columnist Harold Kaese wrote.
Kaese noted that Green spent half of spring training living alone in a motel on the outskirts of Phoenix, 10 miles away from where the rest of the team lived in Scottsdale, Ariz., because the “exclusive” Scottsdale hotels wouldn’t let him stay at their establishments. “The Red Sox should not have lived in Scottsdale themselves under such conditions,” he wrote.
Keeping up the pressure
Robinson, meanwhile, would continue to press baseball on its hiring practices. When MLB honored him at the 1972 World Series to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his debut, Robinson — just nine days before his death at 53 — used the occasion to urge a major league team to hire the sport’s first Black manager.
At the time, Dusty Baker had just finished his first full season as a player. A half-century later, Baker this month became the third Black manager to win a World Series when his Houston Astros beat the Phillies. (The first two were Cito Gaston of the Toronto Blue Jays and Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers.)
Baker has talked about growing up in Southern California and idolizing Robinson, whose No. 42 is worn across baseball on April 15 to commemorate his debut.
“I’ve kept every Jackie Robinson Day jersey that we’ve had,” Baker said in April. “It means a lot to me. I think of my dad a lot on this day.
“All the time I was growing up as a kid, my dad would always remind me when I would get in a scrap or scuffle or something, especially like a racial scuffle, my dad would also tell me to think about what Jackie would do.” | 2022-11-13T11:02:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After Jackie Robinson, MLB integration was halting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/jackie-robinson-mlb-integration-75h-years/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/jackie-robinson-mlb-integration-75h-years/ |
Six women poised to change the face of the Montgomery County Council
Voters fill out and cast their ballots at the early voting location in the ballroom of the Sandy Spring Volunteer Fire Station on Oct. 27 in Sandy Spring, Md. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Montgomery County voters elected a historic slate of candidates to the county council on Tuesday, adding Latina, Asian and Black representatives to a body that will be majority-female for the first time.
The six incoming members — all women — have their own priorities and beliefs that range from moderate to ultraliberal. On the whole, the changes are expected to shift the body further left in a deep blue county that already prides itself as a haven for progressive ideas and policymaking.
“I’m really excited that we finally have a council that reflects the rich and beautiful diversity of our county” said Laurie-Anne Sayles, who was elected to an at-large seat Tuesday.
In interviews, the newcomers cited plans to boost affordable housing and pedestrian safety and road quality, bolster the county’s mental and behavioral health resources, restore jobs lost in the pandemic and improve wages. Several campaigned on promises to improve equity for disenfranchised residents here, in one of the wealthiest counties in a state frequently ranked among the wealthiest in America by median household income.
Similar pledges lifted candidates across the state and nation to ‘firsts’ this cycle: voters seated Maryland’s first Black governor, first Black attorney general and first immigrant and woman of color to serve as lieutenant governor. Nationally, voters elected the first women governors in Massachusetts and New York; and elected the first-ever openly lesbian governors in Oregon and Massachusetts. Arkansas also elected its first woman governor, though her politics are a stark contrast to the Democrats who made history in other states.
In Montgomery, where people of color number nearly 6 in 10 of the county’s 1.05 million residents, incoming council members said they recognized the significance of representing people who aren’t accustomed to seeing themselves in the county’s elected leadership.
In Montgomery’s long neglected east county, a new map stirs hope for stronger representation
The new members include an accountant, a mayor, a Venezuelan immigrant and dreamer, an adoptee who serves as an assistant state attorney general, a first-generation Chinese American born and raised in the county and a first-generation Jamaican American who works in public health.
In addition to Sayles, also elected Tuesday were Marilyn Balcombe (D-District 2), Kate Stewart (D-District 4), Kristin Mink (D-District 5), Natali Fani-González (D-District 6) and Dawn Luedtke (D-District 7). They will join five incumbents who secured reelection.
The incoming council will be tasked with taking up implementation of the controversial Thrive 2050 plan guiding growth and development that passed last month, appointing a new planning board after the entire body resigned amid scandal earlier this year, and continuing efforts on police reforms and steering Montgomery’s coronavirus recovery.
The council is expanding from nine to 11 members this year under a plan voters backed to alter the body’s makeup in 2020. District lines were redrawn to create seats that better represent residents in the eastern reaches of the county. Throughout the campaign cycle, voters and candidates have questioned whether the equity-minded county government has done enough for the county’s east side, where immigrant communities and predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods have for decades gone without investment that helped other parts of the county prosper.
Mink will represent one of the new districts carved out to better represent east county residents, which consolidates Four Corners through Burtonsville. Mink ran on a liberal platform supporting rent stabilization and eviction protections, free bus rapid transit and substantial economic investment in White Oak and Burtonsville Crossing, among other progressive issues.
Many of those priorities have been hot-button issues for the council in the past.
Newcomers Balcombe and Luedtke have positioned themselves as fiscal moderates, with major priorities that include fostering economic growth, increasing jobs and supporting small businesses.
Will Jawando (D-At Large), who has endeavored to push the council left since joining the body in 2018, hopes to see the incoming council revisit issues like rent stabilization, public safety reforms and progressive tax policies — all efforts he pushed but had to compromise on with the more moderate council of the last four years.
“I am excited that the new council will reflect the dynamism and rich diversity of our county,” Jawando told The Washington Post.
A largely new council also presents an opportunity for a reset of the at-times tense relationship between the county’s legislators and County Executive Marc Elrich, who narrowly survived a primary challenge this year. Elrich depends on the council to advance his legislative agenda, but the two branches of government have sometimes been out-of-step — even as they worked toward common goals on issues like economic development and the pandemic. But after Tuesday’s election, Elrich — who championed the effort to add new council districts to better reflect the county — and many of the new council members voiced excitement about the opportunity to work together and, hopefully, forge a better relationship moving forward.
“It is not unusual to have differences of opinions between an executive and the council,” Elrich said, adding that he is optimistic about working with new members who have a “more progressive agenda.”
He said he expects his political priorities to align well with those more left-leaning new members and anticipates better success pursuing ideas that hit a dead end with the previous council, like long-term rent stabilization and increasing the number of affordable units attached to new developments.
“If you’re only one voice or two voices, it can be hard to break through the noise,” he said.
Montgomery voters on Tuesday voiced concerns over investment in east county, protecting abortion access, fixing roads and funding schools. But no issue animated voters like housing affordability and wages.
In a liberal Maryland suburb, social justice reshapes the political debate over housing
Amina Manguera, 28, moved back home with her mother during the pandemic to save money on rent. At the polls on Tuesday, the pair cast votes supporting Stewart because of her positions on keeping housing costs affordable so people do not have to leave Montgomery to find a place to live.
“We like the area,” said her mother, Jennifer Manguera. “But we want it to stay affordable, where we can actually live and do things.”
Creating and maintaining affordable housing was a shared concern among new members — though they had varying ideas for how to solve the county’s housing woes. Stewart, who previously was mayor of Takoma Park, emphasized the county’s need to make it easier for renters to become homeowners by funding programs that assist funding down payments and deferred maintenance. Others support adding new units near transit lines and providing legal representation for people facing evictions. Still others favor rent stabilization and expanding tenant associations.
The number one priority for Fani-González, who will represent a new east county district, District 6, is making Wheaton’s streets — especially Georgia Avenue — safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
“That’s the heart of Wheaton, that’s my community,” she said. “We deserve to live in a place that connects streets and parks and libraries and businesses without getting killed just crossing the street.”
A Venezuelan immigrant, who moved to the U.S. with her mother as a child, Fani-González cut her teeth in politics with CASA de Maryland, going door to door to persuade conservative voters to support the Maryland Dream Act. She was an advocate for the development of the Purple Line and served seven years on the Montgomery County Park and Planning Commission.
Most of the new members emphasized the importance of growing jobs within the county to recoup pandemic-era losses and help the region compete with its heavyweight neighbors in northern Virginia.
“My focus is business and jobs and the economy,” Balcombe told The Post.
She wants to focus on making it easier for small businesses to navigate the county’s regulatory requirements, and favors expanding certificate programs and involving local businesses in the curriculum-development so young workers’ skills will match employers’ needs.
Balcombe also said she was ready to tackle the thorny issues that are sure to come up as the county implements the Thrive 2050 plan, which recommends zoning changes to allow duplexes, triplexes and small apartment buildings in areas previously limited to single family homes. That plan passed last month after three years of contentious public debate over how the county should absorb a growing population and address its housing shortage.
Opponents said adding denser housing to neighborhoods originally designed for single family homes would cause traffic congestion, crowded schools and overtaxed police and emergency response services; supporters said the plan would make the county more walkable, affordable and transit-oriented.
Luedtke, who works for the state attorney general, said she wants to work on issues of public safety, education and health equity. She said she would support expanding the county’s diversion courts that allow nonviolent offenders to receive treatment for addiction or mental health issues instead of serving jail time. She also supports community policing and favors a law enforcement strategy that is “not simply being a reactionary force.”
As a representative of District 7, which encompasses parts of Upcounty and Midcounty, Luedtke also said she will advocate for policies that support the Agricultural Reserve in Montgomery — including supporting emergency preparedness and resiliency programs to make sure the county can produce and supply the food it needs.
Sayles also ran on supporting local food production there and backed strengthening education and career-readiness programs, funding rental assistance and addressing climate change by supporting better transportation infrastructure including the Purple Line and the bus rapid transit system.
Andrew Friedson (D-District 1), often perceived as one of the most moderate members of the council, said he expected the new members to increase debate over policy in a “very productive, constructive and healthy way.”
“I think that there are six new council members who all bring in different perspectives,” he said. “Generally, there’s agreement on what we would like to do. I think the question is the approach and how we handle those issues.”
Shwetha Surendran contributed reporting | 2022-11-13T11:28:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Six women elected to Montgomery County Council in historic election - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/13/montgomery-county-council-women/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/13/montgomery-county-council-women/ |
Mothers and fathers don’t need campaign ads to pick the right schools for their children
Parents and students walk to the new Harriet Tubman Elementary School on the first day of school in Gaithersburg, Md.y, in August. (Robb Hill for The Washington Post)
The current debate over schools puzzles me. Much of the talk is about the need for more parent rights and more parent choice. Some people fail to recognize that parental decisions are at least as, if not more, important than anything else going on in schools these days.
Parents want their children to acquire skills that will pay their bills and develop resourcefulness to handle tough times in their lives. Parents look for schools with good teachers who can help with that.
Most make their school choices based not on their politics but on what is going on in those classrooms. The alleged lessons on race and sex that are being debated don’t matter to them as much as progress in reading and math.
Decades of educational research shows that increased achievement in our schools is tied to rising living standards. The fact that parents have been working hard, doing better financially and supporting school improvements helps explain significant gains in U.S. learning from 1971 to 2017, according to researchers M. Danish Shakeel and Paul E. Peterson.
The pandemic has set that back, but there has been no decline in parental eagerness for good teaching. Mothers and fathers will demand that schools recover the gains lost and won’t rest until that happens.
Do you think our schools are worse than ever? You’re wrong.
Parents often gravitate to schools in the most affluent neighborhoods, where average test scores are high. But that focus on nice suburbs overlooks what is happening in communities on the other end of the income scale.
The largest and one of the most academically successful public charter school networks in the country is KIPP. It began in 1994 with 49 students in one elementary school classroom in a poor part of Houston. Today, it has 120,000 students, 88 percent of them low-income. The similarly high-scoring IDEA public charter network began in 1998 with 75 mostly low-income students in Donna, Tex., near the Mexican border. That network now has 80,000 students, 87 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged.
How did those students get into those great schools? Their parents enrolled them. Mothers and fathers recognize that KIPP and IDEA are among several charter networks, and some regular public schools far from rich neighborhoods, distinguishing themselves academically.
The parent grapevine has spread the word. Parents have similarly had much to do with significant growth in the number of high schools that embrace the high standards of the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and Cambridge programs, revolutionizing the way we teach teenagers in this century.
When I started in 1996 measuring participation in three-hour-long AP and IB exams, much tougher than standard high school course finals, I found only 1 percent of American schools had the equivalent of at least half of their 11th- and 12th-graders taking at least one AP or IB exam. In 2019, that number had risen to 12 percent, in part because many neighborhood high schools have thankfully stopped barring average students from the invigorating challenge of those courses and tests.
Research indicates even students who fail AP exams are better prepared for college than those who take regular high school courses. A 2013 study by College Board researchers Krista D. Mattern, Jessica P. Marini and Emily J. Shaw, based on a sample of 678,305 students in Texas, found that “regardless of what score was earned on the AP Exam(s), students who took an AP Exam were more likely to graduate [from college] in four years or fewer than students who took no AP Exams.”
The power of AP has meaning for a recent educational controversy — the effort to change the admission system at the nation’s most selective public school, the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Va. Some parents have protested Thomas Jefferson’s switch from heavy emphasis on entrance test scores to evaluating students with a qualifying GPA and course load on “experience factors” such as socioeconomic background.
I noticed something odd about parent behavior in that school district. It was never explained by the people demanding Jefferson stick with selective tests. Less than 20 percent of students applying to Jefferson get in. You would think if the school were as exceptional as many say it is, the parents whose kids were rejected would be complaining about that.
Very few of them are. Instead, they send their children to the county’s neighborhood high schools, happy in the knowledge that those campuses have the same AP classes Jefferson has, or the IB equivalents. Jefferson seniors sometimes take courses above the AP level, but students in other schools have to wait only a year to get those courses in college. The teachers at the other schools appear to be just as good as those at Jefferson because the magnet school has no special requirements for its staff.
Jefferson students also have no advantage in getting into selective colleges. In fact, because competition among Jefferson seniors for Ivy League acceptance is so intense, and because brand name colleges like to get students from a wide range of high schools, it is easier to get into Yale or Cornell if you are a great student attending a school other than that super magnet in northern Virginia.
Students that good are going to get into a fine college anyway. Which takes me to the big education story of the moment, the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration of lawsuits asking that it end admission practices at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that challengers say give Black and Hispanic applicants a better chance of admission than Asian applicants.
Those two universities are highly ranked because so few people get into them. The most recent admission rate at Harvard was 5 percent and at UNC 25 percent. Such exclusivity excites our species. We are tribal primates obsessed with pecking orders. Many of us believe attending the choosiest schools leads to greater success in life.
That’s wrong. Read Stacy Berg Dale and Alan B. Krueger’s paper “Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College.” It shows that graduates from lesser colleges who happen to have character traits such as patience and perseverance are making just as much money 20 years later as Ivy grads.
Also notice we don’t have mobs of American parents of any ethnicity banging on the doors of the Supreme Court to let their kids into those two famous universities. They may not have read all the research, but they know instinctively that you do NOT need to have attended a brand name college to realize your dreams. They figured this out when they noticed many of the best-paid and most powerful people at their jobs went to lesser-ranked undergraduate institutions.
How does a high school full of low-income kids become best in U.S.?
Here are the five top companies on the Fortune 500 list, in descending order: Walmart, Amazon, Apple, CVS and United Health. I concede the chief executive officer at Amazon went to Harvard, but the Walmart CEO went to the University of Arkansas, the Apple CEO went to Auburn, the CVS CEO went to Boston College, and the United Health CEO went to the University of Nottingham. I was unfamiliar with that last school, so I looked it up. It was no surprise to learn it is in England, near Sherwood Forest.
Despite what you see in political fliers, we have much parental involvement and parental choice in schools. Most American parents, rich or poor, are doing a fine job supporting schools that in most cases are preparing students to contribute to our thriving economy. That is one reason so many people in the rest of the world want to move here.
Our parents care more about what is happening in our schools than campaign slogan writers do. We should thank parents for that and listen carefully whenever they, not ambitious politicians, tell us something they know would make our schools even better. | 2022-11-13T11:28:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Despite school debates, parental involvement key to student success - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/13/parental-rights-parent-choice-schools/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/13/parental-rights-parent-choice-schools/ |
The GOP’s disappointing midterm results spur some donors and party leaders to consider other 2024 candidates
Former president Donald Trump still has a grip on the Republican Party, but after a disappointing performance in the midterms, some Republicans might be looking elsewhere. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Five days after a disappointing midterm election result and two days before former president Donald Trump is expected to announce a 2024 presidential bid, Republicans are grappling with an almost existential quandary: Who can lead the party to a post-Trump future?
In private conversations among donors, operatives and other 2024 presidential hopefuls, a growing number of Republicans are trying to seize what they believe may be their best opportunity to sideline Trump and usher in a new generation of party leaders.
Many blame Tuesday’s midterm results — Republicans made smaller-than-expected gains in the House and failed to gain control of the Senate — on the former president, who during the primaries elevated extremist candidates who fared poorly in the general election. The discouraging election outcomes, combined with Trump’s 2020 loss to Biden, have increased both public and private talk of considering a post-Trump world.
Many of the party’s top donors are actively trying to back other candidates and are tired of Trump, according to Republican officials and operatives in touch with them, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations.
Many donors and operatives are already raving over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has fashioned himself as a Trump-lite Republican and cruised to a nearly 20-point victory over Democrat Charlie Crist on Tuesday night, flipping Miami-Dade County — a heavily Hispanic, densely populated county that has not been won by a Republican gubernatorial candidate in two decades.
Other potential Republican candidates — from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to former vice president Mike Pence to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin — are also quietly taking stock of what their own presidential bids might look like.
“The issue set was clearly in our favor — on inflation, on the border, on crime — and yet we failed to meet expectations,” said Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff. “The question is: Are there different candidates out there where the issue set still works, but with a different style that is also more in our favor?”
Uncertainty also looms over the Republicans eager to move beyond Trump. After all, Trump’s poor showing Tuesday and the calls for him to recede have echoes of previous moments when Trump seemed politically doomed, only to resuscitate himself: The early days of his first presidential bid, when he dismissed the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Vietnam prisoner of war, as “not a real war hero.” The final days of his 2016 campaign, when an “Access Hollywood” tape emerged showing Trump crudely boasting about groping women. In the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack, when Trump, having lost the presidency, encouraged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol.
Now, with Trump signaling he plans to announce his 2024 campaign on Tuesday, some Trump skeptics worry that alighting on a successful message to defeat him in their party’s primary is almost Sisyphean.
But others, like Christie, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, say that while the former president’s policies are generally popular, the pitch for defeating him is also simple: Trump is a loser who is dragging the rest of the party down with him.
“How about this? When Donald Trump won in 2016, he said we were going to get so tired of winning we would ask him to stop winning so much,” Christie said. “In 2018, we lose the House. In 2020, we lose the Senate and the White House. In 2021, we lose two winnable [Senate] seats in Georgia. And in 2022, we vastly underperform historic norms given inflation and gas prices and crime and a president at 40 percent. I’m tired of losing.”
“The only winning that has been done since Donald Trump has been president is for Donald Trump,” Christie concluded. “That’s what you tell people.”
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, says the party’s electorate can be divided into three key buckets. A small group, roughly 10 percent, are “Never Trumpers,” Republicans who have long and vocally opposed Trump. A far larger group, about 40 percent, are “Always Trumpers,” his hardcore base that will never abandon him.
The remaining 50 percent or so, Ayres said, are “Maybe Tumpers” — Republicans who voted for him twice, who generally like his policies but who are now eager to escape the chaos that accompanies him.
“So they are open to supporting someone else who will do much of what they want without all of the baggage,” Ayres said. “So then the question becomes: Who?”
In addition to DeSantis — the current Republican infatuation — the list of hopefuls is growing. Pence’s new book, “So Help Me God,” will come out on Tuesday, the same day as Trump’s expected announcement, and Pence’s aides have said the former vice president plans to make a decision about running sometime this spring and will not be influenced by what Trump does.
Hogan, the outgoing Maryland governor, has said he’s interested in exploring a 2024 run, and he is hosting a Nov. 30 gathering in Annapolis to discuss both what he’s accomplished and what his future looks like.
And Youngkin — whose 2021 victory in a state Biden had won by 10 points the year before put him on the radar of donors — spent the midterms traveling the country campaigning for Republicans and growing his base of support. At the end of September, he hosted a “Red Vest Retreat” for donors at a luxury resort outside Charlottesville, which was widely seen as a prelude to Youngkin’s announcing a presidential campaign.
At the retreat, former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich told the crowd that three potential 2024 candidates had separated themselves from the pack: Trump, DeSantis and Youngkin.
“There are a lot of talented people out there, but if you are looking at people who are sending the signals that matter, you would have to say it is Trump, and then at a considerable distance less it is DeSantis, and then at a distance less it is Youngkin,” Gingrich said later.
Other Republicans generating some 2024 speculation include Christie; Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and U.N. ambassador under Trump; Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state under Trump; and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who hinted at his higher aspirations during his victory speech Tuesday night.
Scott, who is Black, talked about how his grandfather voted for former president Barack Obama’s reelection. “I wish he had lived long enough to see perhaps another man of color elected president of the United States,” Scott said. “But this time let it be a Republican.”
Pence and Pompeo, in particular, have been meeting with Trump donors nonstop, said a Republican in touch with many potential 2024 candidates.
Several Trump advisers said the former president viewed DeSantis and Youngkin — both of whom he has publicly lashed out at in recent days — as among his most formidable political rivals, and has smarted for more than a year at what he sees as Youngkin’s overly positive media coverage. Trump thinks his support for both of them helped propel them to victory and they have not been sufficiently grateful, one person close to Trump said.
Bobbie Kilberg, a top Republican donor in Virginia, said she would support a number of non-Trump candidates — with Christie and Hogan as her favorites.
“Donald Trump needs to go away, period,” Kilberg said. “He has shown yet again that he basically cares only about himself and not about the future of the Republican Party. If it doesn’t change, we are going to have a really sad state of affairs.”
She added that post-midterms, she has been flooded with emails from fellow Republicans saying that now is DeSantis’s moment. And, she said, “I am hearing from people who are saying they no longer have faith in Trump that he can lead the Republican Party because he cannot win and he should not win.”
Later this week, Christie, Sen. Tex Cruz (R-Tex.), DeSantis, Haley, Hogan, Pence, Pompeo, Scott, and Youngkin will all address the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting in Las Vegas — the first major opportunity after the midterms for them to present themselves as alternatives to Trump.
“There is no question that Trump has a set of hardcore supporters who will be with him no matter what, but there are a group of people who may end up being with Trump but are looking to see what other options are out there,” said Matt Brooks, the coalition’s executive director, referring to the party’s top donors. “There are a lot of people in the store browsing right now.”
Some of the frustration with the poor Republican showing Tuesday broke into the open after a call that Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel convened with the committee’s members Wednesday afternoon. McDaniel, who spoke for about 10 minutes, claimed the election had been a success because the party was on track to take back the House and did not take any questions because she had a television appearance scheduled on Fox News, according to participants.
In an email that Bill Palatucci, a member of the Republican National Committee from New Jersey, sent McDaniel after the call, he called her remarks “disappointing” and warned that “being unwilling to address the reality of the situation does no one any good.”
“You have worked hard over the past two years, and we all appreciate the time you took away from your family to work towards victory yesterday,” Palatucci wrote in the email, which was obtained by The Washington Post. “But we have to face the fact that most of our candidates and the party in general underperformed by any objective measure.”
In an interview, Palatucci, a longtime Trump critic, was similarly critical.
“I think we do have to be honest with ourselves about candidates who were chosen and the interaction with the former president and how our vast resources were spent or misallocated,” he said. “We did not have a great night … The results of Tuesday are full of implications for 2024 and I have been very clear for a long time that we have to be a party beyond the personality of Donald Trump. And I think Tuesday night proved that.”
McDaniel responded to Palatucci’s email by telling him that she was always available to take questions and planned to do a “better analysis” of the results once the votes were counted.
“I think winning back the house is a big win. The Senate is still in play,” she wrote to Palatucci. “I have consistently said not to use the phrase red wave because we won so many house seats in 2020 and redistricting made the competitive house map much smaller.”
A clear strategy to bypass Trump heading into 2024 remains murky, at best. One prominent Republican in touch with both Trump and DeSantis’s teams said there is an effort afoot among some allies to broker an uneasy detente between the two men.
Trump advisers say they have been surprised at the fierce blowback the former president has engendered from attacking DeSantis. And while DeSantis is the top choice of many donors looking for a Trump alternative, some Republicans are encouraging him to hold off and are not convinced that he will actually run, one top Republican operative said.
“If you shoot at the king and you miss, you’re damaged,” the person said.
Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump GOP strategist who has been conducting regular focus groups with Republican voters, said the challenge DeSantis and others face is dispatching a former president who is still popular with huge swaths of the party. When she conducted focus groups of Republicans earlier this year, as House hearings on the Jan. 6 attack dominated the news, she said most would-be voters still didn’t plan to abandon Trump — but did show a newfound willingness to consider other candidates.
“The tough thing for DeSantis is the voters talk about how DeSantis is like Trump,” Longwell said. “What they like is that he’s a fighter and he’s yelling at people, and it’s very clear that Ron DeSantis’s whole brand is a Trump imitation … The question is: What happens when he goes head-to-head with the guy he’s imitating?”
Meanwhile, many Republicans are also still trying to come to grips with an expected red wave that became a low red tide, barely lapping at the ankles of Democrats. Gingrich said he had been shaken by the results on Tuesday, which he is still sorting through.
“I feel like a guy whose compass is so goofed up I have no idea which way is north,” Gingrich said. | 2022-11-13T11:29:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Republican rivals start plotting a post-Trump future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/13/trump-republicans-rivals-2024/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/13/trump-republicans-rivals-2024/ |
NFL Sunday primer: Germany game, Josh Allen’s elbow, Jeff Saturday’s debut
Jeff Saturday was introduced Monday as interim head coach of the Colts. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
It begins early, with a 9:30 a.m. Eastern time matchup between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Seattle Seahawks in Munich, as the league continues to attempt to broaden its international appeal.
This will be the fourth of five games played this season outside the U.S. The first three were played in London. The Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers meet Nov. 21 in Mexico City.
The Bills host the Minnesota Vikings in an early-afternoon game in Orchard Park, N.Y., that could have sloppy weather, with the potential for a rain-snow mix in the forecast. Allen participated in Friday’s practice on a limited basis after missing practices Wednesday and Thursday because of an elbow injury. The Bills listed him as questionable on their injury report.
But they’re coming off a defeat last Sunday to the New York Jets in East Rutherford, N.J., and now they might have to face the one-loss Vikings. They lead the Jets and Miami Dolphins by only a half-game in the AFC East. Things suddenly have gotten complicated.
That also is true of Saturday, who makes his debut as the interim head coach of the Indianapolis Colts in a late-afternoon game at Las Vegas. Colts owner Jim Irsay fired Frank Reich as the team’s coach Monday and hired Saturday, a former all-pro center, to replace him. Saturday had been an NFL analyst for ESPN and never has coached above the high school level.
Irsay said Saturday was the best candidate for the job. The Colts would not have made any move, Irsay said, if Saturday had rebuffed their interest. Saturday said he was shocked by the offer but is confident in his leadership qualities. He appointed Parks Frazier, the Colts’ 30-year-old assistant quarterbacks coach, to serve as the team’s offensive play-caller. | 2022-11-13T11:29:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL goes to Germany, Josh Allen’s elbow, Jeff Saturday’s debut - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/nfl-week-10-allen-saturday/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/nfl-week-10-allen-saturday/ |
The arrival of the Silver Line has spurred new development, but walkability is still a challenge eight years after the Metro line opened
Pedestrians cross Route 7, one of the main arteries running through Tysons. (Eric Lee/For The Washington Post)
On a sunny fall afternoon, Kathy Killion enjoyed a takeout lunch in a small park at The Boro, a budding cluster of shops, restaurants, offices and apartments near the Silver Line’s Greensboro station in Tysons.
According to Google Maps, the development is a 15-minute walk from Killion’s office, but whenever she goes there, she drives.
“You could walk, I guess, but you’d have to go across Route 123, and that’s a six-lane road,” said Killion, a commercial real estate broker who lives in Arlington and enjoys walking and biking. “And it’s a little awkward with Route 7 with this massive Metro line [in the middle]. It doesn’t seem too enticing to walk.”
More than a decade after Fairfax County set out to remake the traffic-swamped suburban office center into a walkable urban downtown, Tysons remains a conundrum.
Since opening in 2014, the Silver Line has brought plenty of new places to eat, live, work and shop within walking and biking distance of Metro. But as Killion and others have found, getting beyond, and between, those burgeoning areas remains daunting without a car.
The Silver Line to Dulles opens Nov. 15. Here's what to know.
The Tysons transformation, expected to take another 30 years, is being watched in suburbs across the country, including in next-door Loudoun County, where the rail line’s second phase is scheduled to open Tuesday afternoon. The six new stops include one at Dulles International Airport and two others in Loudoun, about 30 miles from downtown Washington.
As in Fairfax, Loudoun officials plan to use Metro to jump-start a different type of suburban development: a dense mix of high-rise apartments and offices above restaurants and entertainment designed to attract more companies, workers and residents. They also hope new apartment buildings will bring more affordable housing to the affluent outer suburb, where single-family homes make up more than 80 percent of housing options.
“We get to start from scratch,” said Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large), chair of the Loudoun Board of Supervisors. “We get to learn from everybody’s mistakes. When Dulles Airport was put out here so many years ago, it changed the game for Loudoun. Now with Metro coming, it will really change things.”
Unlike in Loudoun, where Silver Line stations are still surrounded by large parcels of vacant land, Tysons’s makeover requires retrofitting a densely developed area spanning three square miles. Loudoun, however, will face similar challenges bringing walkability to the county’s wide roads designed to move cars, not pedestrians and cyclists.
Fairfax officials say their transit-oriented plans have been most successful in encouraging home construction amid a sea of office buildings. The area has added 4,459 apartments and other homes since 2010, leaving about six jobs in Tysons for every household, down from the initial ratio of almost 12-to-1, planners said.
A place that once emptied out by 6 p.m. on weekdays and lay dormant on weekends now has residents buying groceries, attending concerts and rooftop happy hours, and taking Saturday yoga classes.
Amazon's $55 million speeds up affordable housing project in Tysons
“It is living up to its promise,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), a longtime supporter of the rail project and former chairman of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors. “If you want to see part of the future, go see the Capital One development [at the McLean Metro station]. … It’s an urban center within an urban space.”
Tysons has a performing arts center, Whole Foods and Wegmans supermarkets, 34 acres of public parks and plazas, and three athletic fields. Since 2010, 31 new buildings have sprung up, and another seven are under construction. The area has added more than 10 miles of bike lanes and 14 Capital Bikeshare stations.
Even so, it remains an area in transition, where sidewalks and bike lanes suddenly end and narrow sidewalks hug roads 10 lanes wide. Crosswalks remain few and far between, and direct walking routes sometimes send pedestrians through parking lots. The area is surrounded and divided by the Capital Beltway and other major commuter thoroughfares.
“To make sure these Metro stations flourish, you need to get the street design right,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
Fairfax leaders say plenty of Tysons-area residents are frustrated that walking and cycling doesn’t feel safer or easier. Still, public officials say, the area is showing potential. It will take more time, they say, to find a balance between moving thousands of vehicles and creating space for what they hope will be a growing number of pedestrians and cyclists.
“You don’t just wave a magic wand and turn an auto-oriented suburb into a walkable, transit-oriented community overnight,” said Fairfax Supervisor Walter Alcorn (D-Hunter Mill), who chaired the county’s planning commission committee that developed the Tysons plan. “It’s a huge lift.”
A Virginia professor seeks to plot Tysons's transformation from the start
Jeffrey C. McKay (D), chairman of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors, said he hears from residents who are disappointed with the slow pace of change. But the increasing number of walkers he sees in Tysons, especially on weekends, shows the county’s ambitious plan is working, he said.
“Patience is a really important virtue when it comes to transforming a place that in my entire lifetime has required you to get in a car,” McKay said. “Is it perfect? Far from it. Are we making tremendous progress? Absolutely.”
For decades, Tysons was best known for auto dealerships, two mega shopping malls and for being one of the largest office markets in the country. One question facing it and Loudoun: how transit use and Metro-centric developments will emerge from the pandemic as more people continue to work from home.
After a slow start, ridership along the Silver Line’s five new stations climbed steadily, peaking in 2019. Since then, passengers — like on the rest of the rail system and transit nationwide — have been slow to return, at less than half of pre-pandemic levels.
Christopher B. Leinberger, a developer and real estate professor emeritus at the George Washington University School of Business, said urbanizing a built-out suburb as big as Tysons takes time.
“Without a doubt, Tysons is fundamentally getting a complete makeover from a drivable suburb — it was traffic hell — to a place that’s walkable,” he said.
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One of the big problems, pedestrian advocates say, is the pace of adding shorter side streets with wide sidewalks, bike lanes and frequent crosswalks — the kind of pedestrian-friendly street grids found in downtowns. More people would walk between Metro stations and within surrounding communities, advocates say, if they didn’t have to brave major thoroughfares like Route 123 and Route 7.
Nikhil Gokhale, who grew up in Fairfax, said he remembers Tysons as a place with a mall but “nothing to do and nowhere to walk to.” The glass high-rises and restaurants in the growing Boro development, he said, are starting to feel “more hip” than Reston Town Center.
“That feels more like a suburb, and this feels a bit more like a city,” Gokhale, who works in software sales, said as he walked back to his office from lunch. “Granted, it’s kind of an isolated block, but if they can [grow] this … and have shops close together and more people out, I think you’ll get that downtown vibe and that community feel.”
He said he drives to work because riding Metro would take far longer. The mall is just over a half-mile from his office, but he said he’d rather drive than walk through vast parking lots or cross Route 123.
Tysons, he said, “is still not amazingly walkable.”
Even if they don’t commute by Metro, experts say, the fact that Gokhale and others can easily walk to lunch or a cup of coffee in dense developments like The Boro helps to reduce the midday rush hour that has plagued Tysons for years. Some developers say it’s more realistic to focus on walkability around each Metro station rather than between them.
Donna Shafer, a managing director of Cityline Partners, said her company has built a grid of smaller streets and bike lanes in the Scotts Run area across Route 123 from the McLean Metro station. She said they have attracted far more pedestrian traffic to a development where new restaurants, shops, apartments and a hotel have been built or are under construction, replacing low-rise office buildings surrounded by a sea of parking.
Trying to remake Tysons into a cohesive downtown, she said, would be the equivalent of redesigning the area between Capitol Hill and Georgetown.
“You’d never note that land mass and say, ‘Is it walkable?’” Shafer said.
The new street grid is emerging piecemeal as property owners are required to build sections when they redevelop parcels. The street network surrounding Loudoun’s Metro stations will be built in the same way, officials said.
The challenge in Tysons: The pace of redevelopment — and, in turn, build out of the street grid — depends upon each property owner’s business calculations. A parcel that might be ideal for a pedestrian-friendly street, experts say, might not be redeveloped for years if it already has a business with a lucrative long-term lease.
Fairfax officials say they’re working to get more people out of their cars. Tracy Strunk, director of the county’s Department of Planning and Development, said the Tysons plan has been “wildly successful” in adding more transit-accessible housing.
She noted the county and Virginia Department of Transportation recently opened a pedestrian bridge across the Beltway to connect McLean and Falls Church neighborhoods to the mall. Scotts Crossing Road, which opened in 2020 with bike lanes and lighted sidewalks, provides another Beltway crossing near the McLean Metro station.
The county also is working with VDOT to make crossing Route 123 easier, planners said, and is studying how to redesign the Route 123 and Route 7 interchange to simplify navigating on foot. Meanwhile, 37 of 41 pedestrian improvements that were identified to make Metro stations more accessible have been completed since 2012, including new crosswalks, sidewalks and trails. Property owners in Tysons pay a special tax devoted to transportation projects in the area.
“I am not concerned long-term that we’re going to end up with little bits and pieces [of walkable areas] and no connections between them,” Strunk said. “There are going to be places that take some time … but I think even in the last 10 years, the places where [walking] has gotten better is really striking.”
But building better-connected side streets won’t help enough if busy thoroughfares continue to divide the area, critics say.
Emily Hamilton, a senior research fellow in urban economics at George Mason University, said the Tysons plan “includes a bit of wishful thinking.” She said major roads can’t become more comfortable for walking and cycling without narrowing lanes to slow down vehicles — a politically sensitive move in traffic-clogged suburbs.
Without doing that, Hamilton said, “I think the best we can really hope for are little pockets of environments that are safe and pleasant for pedestrians.”
Reshaping suburban growth will bring similar challenges in Loudoun, where Silver Line stations sit in the middle of the Dulles Toll Road, separating future development on either side. Dense, transit-oriented development is unlike anything that has been built in Loudoun.
Loudoun Supervisor Matthew F. Letourneau (R-Dulles) said he is optimistic Metro will attract the kind of development that many people are seeking — and at lower prices than in closer-in areas.
“If you want to live in a little bit more of an urban environment with amenities and places to eat and some stuff to do, but maybe a little bit less cost than what you’re going to see in Arlington and Washington, D.C.,” Letourneau said, “I think [Loudoun] becomes a viable option.” | 2022-11-13T11:29:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After Silver Line, Tysons makes progress in becoming less car-centric - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/13/tysons-silver-line-metro-walkable/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/13/tysons-silver-line-metro-walkable/ |
President Biden chats with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Sunday, on the sidelines of a summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Yonhap/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — President Biden was triumphant on Sunday after Democrats cemented control of the Senate and said the result meant he was going into his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali on Monday “stronger.”
Biden made the remarks during his second day at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Cambodia, where the U.S. aim is unite other nations to provide a counterweight to the rising economic and military threat China poses.
The president has used his swing through Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia to assure global allies that the United States is a reliable partner, a task that became easier for Biden after a better than expected midterm showing. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) was projected to win reelection in Nevada on Saturday, a result that confirmed Democrats were on course to retain control of the chamber.
“I feel good. And I’m looking forward to the next couple of years,” Biden said. “I think it’s a reflection of the quality of our candidates.” He also touted how Democratic candidates were in line with one another and largely ran on the same agenda during their campaigns.
The Nevada Senate race was called hours before Biden met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.
In a joint news conference, Biden said North Korea had continued its “provocative” behavior toward the South, with Yoon saying: “At a time when South Koreans are grieving in deep sorrow, North Korea continues its provocations,” referring to the Halloween crowd crush in Seoul that killed 154 people last month.
Biden said they also discussed “how we can preserve peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” how to better support Ukraine, and how the three leaders can work toward a “common goal of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“One thing that President Biden certainly wants to do with our closest allies is preview what he intends to do and also ask the leaders of the ROK and Japan, ‘What would you like me to raise? What do you want me to go in with?’ ” Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, told reporters during a briefing on Saturday.
Experts said the unexpected midterm results — which also kept several election-denying Republicans out of key positions in swing states and in the Senate — was a much-needed assurance to U.S. allies.
Curtis S. Chin, a former U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank and now chair of the Milken Institute Asia Center, said there was a sense of “relief.”
“Loss of control of the U.S. Senate by the president’s party might well have left Biden in an even weaker position in Asia when it comes to perceptions of his strength as a leader,” Chin said. “As it is, from a disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden to worsening relations with China, Russia and oil-rich nations in the Middle East, the foreign policy challenges facing Biden remain clear to Asian leaders.”
Chin added that the ASEAN region is home to almost 700 million people with a GDP of more than $3 trillion. “I’m hopeful that post-midterms and post presidential visit, the U.S. will also focus on the benefits of strengthened economic ties with Asia, particularly Southeast Asia,” he said. “It remains time for a robust U.S. business pivot to Asia, especially Southeast Asia.”
Beyond enabling Biden to continue remaking the federal judiciary and confirming key appointees, control of the Senate also strengthened his hand heading into his first face-to-face meeting with Xi as president. White House officials noted that Xi respects strength, and Biden’s strong political showing at home — coupled with Russia’s retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Kherson, a humiliating defeat for President Vladimir Putin — would help elevate the United States in the eyes of China.
Biden touted his years-long relationship with Xi and repeated his assertion that he has spent more time with the Chinese premiere than any other world leader. “There’s never any miscalculation” between the two leaders, Biden said.
The meeting also comes at a time of renewed strength for Xi, who secured an unprecedented third term last month and was anointed as China’s uncontested leader for five more years, if not many more. Xi has concentrated power to a degree not seen since the days of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping and has positioned his country firmly against the West.
The U.S.-China relationship is at one of its lowest points in decades. Biden’s national security strategy identified China as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge,” noting that the president was particularly worried about the country’s efforts to “layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy.”
Joyce Lau contributed to this report. | 2022-11-13T11:29:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden says he's going into Xi Jinping meeting 'stronger' after midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/biden-china-xi-meeting-g20/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/biden-china-xi-meeting-g20/ |
Anthropologist and political organizer Irina Karamanos, 33, is the partner of Chilean President Gabriel Boric. (Tamara Merino/FTWP)
Chile’s millennial first lady wants to end the job for good
SANTIAGO, Chile — Irina Karamanos could have taken the car to work. But it was springtime in Santiago and the anthropologist and political organizer wanted to walk.
The first lady who didn’t want to be first lady any more.
It had been three weeks since Karamanos, the partner of Chilean President Gabriel Boric, had announced that she would stepping down from the role — a job she didn’t seek; a job she doesn’t believe should exist.
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In the months since, she had worked quietly to overhaul the role. She planned to move the responsibilities — mostly, running six foundations, overseeing programs such as a children’s day care network, a science museum and a women’s development organization — to the ministries she believed could better lead them and eventually shut the office down. In doing so, she hoped to reshape what it would mean to be the partner of a president, not only in Chile but around the world.
Which was why, on her Thursday morning walk, she was firing off phone calls to ministers and members of the six foundations the first lady is supposed to lead.
“No one is answering,” she told her press secretary, so she began sending voice memos instead.
One went to a member of a foundation where some had been resistant to the idea. The children’s orchestra didn’t want to lose the prestige that came from a first lady’s presence.
The role has nothing to do with Karamanos’s skills or experience or degrees, she thought. All that matters is the title.
“From now on, everything I do will come second,” she said. “The first thing everyone will know about me was that I was the president’s partner.”
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“I didn’t see why I needed to leave my job to accompany my husband who changed his job,” Müller told The Washington Post. But she continues to represent the Mexican government at diplomatic events.
Colombia wants to put the boy up for adoption. His family in Venezuela wants him back.
Historians say Jill Biden, who has long taught English composition at Northern Virginia Community College, is the first U.S. first lady to hold a paying job outside the White House while her husband was president.
But none of these women have overhauled the role while in office as Karamanos is attempting, said Carolina Guerrero, a Chilean political scientist. In the United States, Ohio University historian Katherine Jellison says, such an effort would be “political dynamite.”
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“The partner of the president is chosen to be a partner,” she said, “not to be a president of foundations.”
Boric’s approval ratings had plummeted to new lows — just 27 percent in one poll. In September, he suffered his greatest setback yet, when voters rejected the new constitution he had helped propel.
Karamanos’s efforts rubbed some the wrong way from the beginning, when headlines reported that the name of the office of the first lady had been changed to the “Irina Karamanos cabinet.” For some, it reinforced the idea that Karamanos was making the transformation about herself. (She later called the name change an “administrative error.”)
Marcela Solabarrieta, 52, considers Karamanos’s efforts “impolite.” “If she didn’t want this, then she shouldn’t have chosen to be the partner of a presidential candidate,” she said.
Alejandra Morales, a 55-year-old visual artist, said Karamanos should modernize the job — not eliminate it.
“We didn’t elect you,” one man tweeted. “This wasn’t in the president’s program. Why do you assume your own agenda, leaving the figure of the first lady like this, a decorative figure, taking away her powers?”
‘What does Irina want?’
A U.S. murder suspect fled to Mexico. The Gringo Hunters were waiting.
In Venezuela, priests convicted of abuse have returned to ministry | 2022-11-13T11:29:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chile's first lady Irina Karamanos doesn't want the job - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/irina-karamanos-chile-first-lady/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/irina-karamanos-chile-first-lady/ |
Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) delivers remarks to supporters and attendees at the John Lewis Mural in Atlanta on Nov. 10. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
ATLANTA — The vast political machinery that just fought the Senate race between Democratic Sen. Raphael G. Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker to a near draw is ramping up again for a runoff election — the second in less than two years — but this time the outcome will not determine which party will control the U.S. Senate.
Democrats will maintain their slim majority in the Senate, securing a 50th seat on Saturday after Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was projected to win reelection. On Friday night, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (D) was projected to win reelection. Republicans needed to win two of the three outstanding races to take the Senate.
It is not immediately clear how the resolution of which party will control the Senate will affect the intensity of campaigning for the Georgia runoff. When state election officials announced Wednesday that neither Warnock nor Walker had won 50 percent of the vote as required for an outright win and that the race would be decided in a Dec. 6 runoff, Republicans and Democrats began funneling money for ads and field operations into Georgia in an effort to persuade voters to go back to the polls.
Warnock was getting help from a top Democratic group that has begun airing new television ads in Georgia, while liberal groups are lining up to mobilize voters. Walker allies included a top Republican group preparing to launch an aggressive ground game and a separate conservative group that started knocking on doors the day after Tuesday’s elections.
Even though Democrats have held their majority in the Senate, with Vice President Harris able to cast tiebreaking votes, picking up a 51st vote in Georgia would offer a cushion for key legislation. During the past two years, Democrats have been unable to move forward with some agenda items, including voting rights and a sweeping climate and social spending bill, because they couldn’t always get the votes of Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.).
Kendra Cotton, chief executive of New Georgia Project, a civic engagement organization, said it would be “super shortsighted” for Democrats not to make an aggressive play for Warnock — who won the seat in a January 2021 special election runoff — to be elected to a full six-year term. He is Georgia’s first Black senator and the first Black Democratic senator to represent a former Confederate state.
“It’s like if you’re playing a football game and you’re winning by three and you have the opportunity to score a touchdown — and you’re like, ‘Oh, no, I’m already winning by three,’ but there’s like 10 minutes on the clock,” Cotton said. “You look stuck on stupid. Score a touchdown.”
Warnock, who led Walker by more than 35,000 votes in Tuesday’s election, has sought to reassure his supporters that he’s been in this scenario before and “we know how to win a runoff.”
Walker, whose candidacy has been plagued with scandals, including allegations of domestic abuse and that he paid for two former girlfriends to have abortions, is the only Republican on the statewide ticket who didn’t win on Tuesday night. He is telling his supporters that this is “the most important election of your lifetime.”
Georgia Honor, a group tied to the Senate Majority PAC aligned with Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), on Saturday started airing a new ad attacking Walker’s character. The 30-second ad calls Walker “unfit for office,” saying he’s a liar with a “long record of violence toward women.” The ad campaign is backed by a $4 million purchase, the group said.
“We’re all in to help Reverend Warnock hold the line and we intend to communicate in every way possible to Georgia voters that Herschel Walker is unfit and unprepared to serve them in the United States Senate,” Veronica Yoo, spokeswoman for Senate Majority PAC, said in a statement.
While national Republicans flocked to Georgia to stump for Walker, state Republicans, including Gov. Brian Kemp, largely kept their distance from him during the general election campaign. That was most acutely on display the night before the election, when Kemp hosted a rally with most of the statewide GOP ticket and Walker opted to host his own rally nearby.
But Georgia Republicans have quickly closed ranks around Walker ahead of the runoff. “I’m committed to helping the whole ticket,” Kemp said Wednesday in an interview with Channel 2, a local Atlanta TV station.
The super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is teaming up with Kemp to back Walker. Kemp has agreed to share his ground data and analytics operation, which includes door-knocking and phone-banking, with the Senate Leadership Fund, a spokesperson for the super PAC confirmed.
The Senate Leadership Fund is funding the operation that will cost more than $2 million. It’s the first time the super PAC has ever funded a ground operation, the spokesperson said.
“Governor Kemp wrote the playbook for how to win big in Georgia, and we are thrilled to partner with his top-notch team to elect Herschel Walker to the Senate,” said Steven Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund.
Kemp on Tuesday night won his reelection bid against Democrat Stacey Abrams by more than seven points, garnering 2.1 million votes. Walker received 1.9 million votes.
Walker’s support largely came from White voters, as 70 percent voted for him, according to early exit polling. Warnock’s coalition was significantly more diverse: He won 90 percent of Black voters, 58 percent of Latinos and 59 percent of Asian American voters, the exit poll shows. Warnock also received support from a majority of women and voters under 44.
Warnock’s campaign is betting that its diverse coalition will deliver for him again — just as it did in 2021. The senator will continue traveling across the state, focused on delivering a bipartisan message, a campaign spokesperson said. That strategy clearly worked, the spokesperson said, noting that a large number of split-ticket voters backed Kemp and Warnock on Tuesday. Warnock’s team is aiming to turn out the Democratic base while still attempting to appeal to voters across the ideological spectrum, the spokesperson added.
Warnock is completing the term left vacant by former senator Johnny Isakson, who stepped down for health reasons in 2019 and died last year. Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler to the U.S. Senate after Isakson’s resignation, and she ultimately lost to Warnock.
In his campaign for the 2020 special election and the subsequent runoff, Warnock used his background as a pastor — he’s currently senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, which served as a home base for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — to connect with voters on kitchen-table issues. A campaign spokesperson said that approach will remain unchanged this time.
On Thursday, Warnock projected confidence he could win the runoff.
“Now, we all knew this election would be close but I’ve done this before. We’ve done this before. We know how to win a runoff,” Warnock said in remarks in front of a downtown Atlanta mural honoring John Lewis (D-Ga.), the late civil rights icon and congressman. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. And they’re going to throw every dollar at us that they can. Every lie. Every attack.”
“But I think we have something better: We have the truth. We have hope for the future,” he added.
Walker’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Looming over the runoff is whether former president Donald Trump and President Biden will visit Georgia to stump for their party’s candidates.
Walker and Republicans have long sought to tie Warnock to Biden, who has a low approval rating in the state. Biden stayed away from Georgia in the final weeks of the election as he headed to other battleground states, including Pennsylvania. Former president Barack Obama was the only national Democrat to come campaign with Warnock.
Walker on Thursday night renewed his attack on Warnock, repeating a line he’s said often on the campaign trail that the senator “voted with Joe Biden 96 percent of the time.” He also went on to tie Warnock not only to Biden, but to other high-profile Democrats who have drawn the ire of the Republican base.
“This is the most important election of your lifetime. … We don’t want to have Kamala Harris making decisions for us. We don’t even want Sen. Warnock making anymore decisions for us,” Walker said to a mostly White crowd of more than 1,000 supporters in Canton, Ga. “The way you end this is by putting Herschel Walker in the Senate.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who stumped with Walker at the Canton rally, called on Biden and Democrats, such as Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), to come campaign in Georgia during the rally — and repeated it afterward to reporters.
“What does it tell you that Raphael Warnock is hiding from the president of the United States?” Cruz said. “Raphael Warnock’s record in Washington is wildly out of step with the values of the people of Georgia.”
On the campaign trail, Warnock often talks about working across the aisle to deliver for Georgians. Leading up to the election, he frequently told a story about how he worked with Cruz on an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure package that designates the planned extension of Interstate 14 a high-priority corridor.
Throughout much of his campaign, Warnock largely steered clear of mentioning the former football star, but in the final weeks before the election, as polling put them in a dead heat, he became more vocal in attacking Walker, calling him unfit for office.
“This race is about competence and it’s about character. When it comes to that, the choice could not be more clear between me and Herschel Walker,” Warnock said at his event Thursday. “Some things in life are complicated. This ain’t one of them.”
Meanwhile, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Thursday announced that it would spend $7 million on field operations, namely door-to-door canvassing, during the next four weeks. And the National Republican Senatorial Committee on Thursday was first to spend on ads for the runoff, reserving $234,000 for television spots, according to media-tracking service AdImpact.
Ralph Reed, president of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, said the group’s canvassers started knocking on doors the day after the election.
Faith and Freedom Coalition is aiming to knock on 400,000 doors targeting the homes of mid- to low-propensity evangelical voters, said Reed, who is supporting Walker. The group will also make 1 million calls to get out the vote and provide voter guides in 5,200 churches. Reed said the group was also leading Hispanic and African American faith efforts with bilingual voter guides and plans to hold “Souls to the Polls” caravans.
“It is clearly one of the single most consequential U.S. Senate races in the post-WWII period. That will fire up the conservative grass roots,” Reed said.
In the days since the election, New Georgia Project, has raised more than $700,000, Cotton said. She said that both New Georgia Project and New Georgia Project Action Fund need $2.5 million to execute a runoff plan to knock on 400,000 doors, make 100,000 calls and send 250,000 text messages to voters, as well as launch a mail and ad campaign. The group plans to start implementing its strategy on Monday. Warnock is a former board chairman of the group.
Somos PAC, a liberal group focused on mobilizing Latino voters, on Friday announced it would invest more than $2 million in helping Warnock win the runoff with plans to send out bilingual mailers and run ads. The group has been active in Arizona and Nevada leading up to the midterms.
“We are ramping up our efforts to ensure the people of Georgia send Sen. Raphael Warnock back to Washington D.C.,” said Melissa Morales, founder and president of Somos PAC. | 2022-11-13T12:21:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Warnock, Walker prepare for Ga. runoff with help from national parties - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/13/georgia-senate-runoff-warnock-walker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/13/georgia-senate-runoff-warnock-walker/ |
Commanders Coach Ron Rivera shakes the hand of receiver Curtis Samuel before their game against the Minnesota Vikings at FedEx Field. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
Ron Rivera never got to celebrate the Washington Commanders’ win over the Green Bay Packers. Less than 48 hours later, he hopped on a private jet to California to visit his mother, who was battling Stage 4 lung cancer and didn’t have much longer. For weeks, Rivera had been shielded from the seriousness of her condition.
But it reached a point where Dolores Rivera-Munoz knew she needed to see her son. So Rivera took a quick trip, left the hospital in California believing he had seen his mother for the final time and returned to Virginia — where he was bombarded with chaos.
Daniel and Tanya Snyder, co-owners of the Commanders, announced they had retained a bank to explore potential transactions related to the team, including a sale, which trampled any shred of renewed hope and fanfare the win head earned.
Shortly after the Commanders’ close loss to the Minnesota Vikings two weeks later, Rivera was again on a flight to California, this time for his mother’s funeral. He returned Wednesday night — again, just in time for more drama in Ashburn. A statement issued by a team spokesperson referenced running back Brian Robinson Jr., the victim of a shooting in D.C. in August, while clapping back at the District’s attorney general. It earned widespread criticism, and though team president Jason Wright tried to walk it back, Rivera had to address the matter with his team the next morning.
“[At] a team meeting at 8 a.m. … he came in and talked about it,” quarterback Taylor Heinicke said. “[He said:] ‘This is what’s going on. I want you guys to focus on football. I’m going to take care of this.’ For everything that goes on, he does a great job of doing that. He really just wants us to focus on ball.”
Ron Rivera is confident in Commanders’ growth as third training camp nears
For nearly three years, since he accepted the job of head coach, lead football decision-maker and de facto culture-fixer in Washington, Rivera has taken on a task few could tackle. He is a shield. At times, he’s also a team spokesperson. He’s the rally captain when the outside negativity intensifies, the trusted voice when the noise permeates the locker room walls.
The weight of his job has, perhaps, never been more magnified, as he manages his own grief, the franchise’s football operations and his players’ needs as they prepare for a matchup with the undefeated Eagles in Philadelphia.
“He’s doing a good job,” left tackle Charles Leno Jr. said. “He’s trying to keep us focused on football. That’s not his job — he shouldn’t have to keep us focused on football — but he’s done a good job with that.”
Turns out, Rivera didn’t get his knack for compartmentalizing or his compassion for his players from football or from coaches in his past. He got them from his mother.
Rivera choked up when he was asked to share about his mother just days after her Oct. 31 death.
“There was a toughness about my mom,” he began.
Rivera-Munoz, 82, loved sports. Loved football. And, boy, did she love her family.
When Rivera’s father, Eugenio Rivera, served in Vietnam, Rivera-Munoz filled in as interim coach, pitching batting practice for her sons and even taking part in tackling drills. She was involved in bake sales and Christmas bazaars. She was the team mom on all of her sons’ sports teams.
Later, after Rivera embarked on a successful career in football, she purposely shielded her son from bad news so as not to worry him or to take his focus away from his team.
Early in his career, when Rivera was with the Bears, he bought his parents tickets to see a preseason game against the 49ers in San Francisco. But when he jogged onto the field, he noticed their seats were empty. His parents didn’t answer his calls after the game, and it wasn’t until he stepped on the plane that his mother finally rang.
Rivera’s father had been hospitalized because his appendix burst. Surgery was scheduled.
“He goes through this whole thing and doesn't say a word,” Rivera said. “That's kind of them.”
Years later, when Rivera was in Spartanburg, S.C., for training camp with the Carolina Panthers, he called his parents again and again to no answer, only to hear from his mother days later. She had been in the hospital; doctors had found a benign tumor on her pancreas, and they had removed it.
Then, in 2020, Rivera called home to inform his parents he had been diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma in his neck. He heard his mother cry on the other end; she had already lost her oldest son to cancer in 2015.
When Rivera talked to his father, Eugenio confidently assured his son everything would be fine — because, unbeknown to his son, Eugenio, too, had been diagnosed with cancer a couple years earlier. Eugenio told Ron he’d had treatment, that doctors had traced the cancer back to Agent Orange, from his time in Vietnam, and that everything was fine.
“I’m stunned,” Rivera said. “I’m like, ‘What is with you guys?’”
In August, when Rivera’s mother shared the news of some tests, he knew something was up. He had seen this dance before, and it became clear Rivera-Munoz was hiding something. She asked Rivera’s brother to take her to a specialist weeks later, and she ordered him to not say a word. Eventually, though, John Rivera told his older brother he needed to fly out immediately.
When Rivera arrived, he learned what had been going on. His mother’s first question when he arrived: “What are you doing here?”
“She was private. She was quiet. She didn’t say much,” Rivera said. “… She was the wife of an officer. Everything was community service. … Her duty was her family, her kids and protecting us and shielding us from stuff.”
Over the past few years, Rivera has used one mantra often: Focus on what’s important, not what’s interesting.
“I compartmentalize things,” Rivera said. “I’m able to separate them and put them in buckets.”
Rivera reminded the team of what’s interesting vs. what’s important last month, when their Thursday night game in Chicago turned into a wild day of news that could’ve easily distracted them. More allegations had been made against Snyder, and there was a report that Washington’s highest-paid cornerback wanted out. Despite the whirlwind, the Commanders eked out a win over the Bears, and Rivera was feted with the game ball.
Days later, Colts owner Jim Irsay declared at the league’s fall meeting that “there [was] merit to remove” Snyder as owner. And days after that, the Commanders rallied to defeat the Packers, only for the top headline to be about the “sell the team” chants from the crowd. A week after that, Washington’s win in Indianapolis gave way to the news that the Snyders may be selling.
And with every controversy, Rivera is almost always asked for his reaction, a comment, a response of any sort. So, too, are his players.
“The hard part is a lot of the stuff doesn't involve us,” Rivera said. “That's one thing that I try to get across to the guys first and foremost. This stuff happened before us.”
Yet when the outside noise builds, Rivera is able to cut through the pandemonium, a skill some players know is a rarity. It’s one they deeply respect.
“I can think of coaches right now who couldn’t take on a task like this,” Leno said. “They wouldn’t be able to control what they can control.”
Before Rivera left for his mother’s funeral, his family framed an enlarged photo of her. It was taken at his wedding, and in it, his mother stands with a small smile on her face — a smile “that kind of tells you, ‘Hey, everything’s going to be fine,’” Rivera said.
The photo is Eugenio’s favorite, and it was featured at Rivera-Munoz’s vigil and rosary, as well as at the funeral and ensuing reception. That small smile was the same one she’d had on her face when she last saw her son, at the hospital in California days after his team defeated the Packers.
Rivera knew what the smile meant as he left the hospital. Shortly after the coach returned home, his mother’s doctor called to confirm the news she’d shielded him from for weeks.
She didn’t have long.
“I was the last one to know, and that was her wish,” Rivera said. | 2022-11-13T12:38:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders Coach Ron Rivera shields his team from chaos, even during tragedy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/ron-rivera-commanders-mother/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/ron-rivera-commanders-mother/ |
Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem after Herzog tasked Netanyahu with forming a new government Sunday. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)
TEL AVIV — Benjamin Netanyahu was awarded a mandate Sunday to launch his political comeback and begin assembling a government that is predicted to be the most right-wing in Israel’s history and is already eliciting concerns from Washington.
The decision, announced by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, gives Netanyahu four weeks to cobble together a coalition. The former Israeli prime minister and his religious and far-right partners have a clear, 64-seat parliamentary majority after the Nov. 1 elections, the fifth since 2019.
“Our many challenges require consideration and domestic unity,” Netanyahu said in a joint statement with Herzog at the president’s residence in Jerusalem.
Analysts say that Netanyahu, who campaigned on the promise to return to a “full right” government with the support of the far-right Religious Zionism bloc, will need to strike a balance to maintain Israel’s international standing. Support from Israel’s allies, especially the United States, will be critical as the country increasingly faces off against Iran, its main regional foe, which has a foothold in both Ukraine and Syria.
“Netanyahu needs to minimize the impact of the far right on his policies and to retain an effective relationship with Joe Biden, his friend for many years,” said Eran Lerman, who served as deputy national security adviser under Netanyahu from 2015 to 2019. “He’s acutely aware that he needs to function in the international environment, which could become more complicated with the Iranian presence.”
Members of the Biden administration, in an unprecedented move, have signaled that they will not engage with one of Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners, Itamar Ben Gvir, according to reports in Israeli media.
“The whole world is worried,” Herzog said on a hot mic during a meeting with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party last week, referring to Ben Gvir’s inclusion in the government.
Since clinching a decisive victory, Netanyahu’s plans to swiftly usher in a new government have been thwarted by the demands from Religious Zionism, the far-right bloc that skyrocketed to power and is now the second largest in the expected coalition and the third largest in the Knesset.
Ben Gvir, a once marginal politician who has advocated expelling “disloyal” citizens and spent decades defending Israeli settlers charged with attacking Palestinians, has demanded to head the Public Security Ministry. The office would give him control over the police, prisons and law enforcement at and around the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a decades-long flash point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Clashes at the site were among the catalysts of a war in May 2021 between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group ruling Gaza.
Bezalel Smotrich, the head of Religious Zionism who has been arrested on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack and, today, champions the Israeli annexation of the West Bank — the land that Palestinians envision as part of their state — wants the Defense Ministry. That appointment would spell “major disaster,” Amos Gilad, a former top Defense Ministry official, said at a news conference in Beersheba on Saturday.
Coalition negotiations have coincided with the Israeli memorialization of the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who was gunned down by a far-right Israeli settler who accused him of “treason” for seeking peace with the Palestinians.
The pivotal event, which has since frozen Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, is still widely contested in Israel. Many far-right settlers, including Smotrich as recently as last week, have promoted conspiracy theories that the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, was actually responsible for the killing.
In 1995, Ben Gvir appeared on Israeli TV and threatened Rabin, three weeks before his assassination. Last week, he attended a memorial service for Rabbi Meir Kahane, an American-Israeli politician whose Kach party was disqualified from Israeli politics and designated by the United States as a terrorist organization for being anti-Arab and anti-democratic.
“Celebrating the legacy of a terrorist organization is abhorrent,” U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a news conference Thursday, adding that he would not comment on the Israeli government before it was formed.
“We remain concerned by the legacy of Kahane Chai and the continued use of rhetoric among violent, right-wing extremists,” Price said, using the name of Kahane’s political party following his own assassination in 1990.
Assaf Sharon, a philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University and a former West Bank settler, said that Netanyahu, who was Israel’s longest-ruling politician and who is now tasked with reining in his far-right partners, will probably allow them symbolic wins, like the legitimization of Israeli outposts in the West Bank, while blocking more significant policy changes, like the annexation of that area.
“Or maybe,” Sharon said, “Netanyahu’s gone off the deep end, and the pressure will be too strong.” | 2022-11-13T12:47:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Netanyahu, who campaigned with far right, set to form new government - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/israel-netanyahu-government-ben-gvir/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/israel-netanyahu-government-ben-gvir/ |
Dan O’Dowd, founder of The Dawn Project, in Santa Barbara, has made it his mission to get Tesla's Full Self-Driving Beta off the road. (Jonas Jungblut for The Washington Post)
Dan O’Dowd says Tesla’s ‘Full Self Driving’ software shouldn’t be on the road. He’ll keep running over test dummies until someone listens.
How auto regulators played mind games with Elon Musk
“Consumers should never attempt to create their own test scenarios,” said National Highway Traffic Safety Administration spokeswoman Lucia Sanchez.
O’Dowd’s view that software should be developed methodically, ensuring it’s fully secure before releasing it, is a stark contrast to the “move fast and break things” mantra that allowed companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon to become the behemoths they are today. Tesla has taken that mantra and applied it to public roads, he believes. O’Dowd’s critics allege his campaign against Tesla is self-serving: One of his customers — Intel-owned Mobileye — makes a computer chip that runs driver- assist and self-driving software. O’Dowd says Mobileye is just one of hundreds of customers and his motivation is driven purely by his concerns about the safety of Tesla’s tech.
Tesla cars have had a range of driver-assist features for years, like lane-keeping and automatic braking, called Autopilot. Millions of vehicles in the U.S. use advanced drive-assist features, and more than 60 percent of the cars sold in 2021 had lane-keeping, according to research firm Canalys. Data released by NHTSA in June showed that Tesla cars were involved in almost 70 percent of the 392 crashes involving advanced drive-assist features reported over the previous 11 months. NHTSA also recorded six deaths dating back to 2019 involving the features, five of which were tied to Teslas. The data set doesn’t account for how different automakers collect data, making direct comparisons with other manufacturers difficult.
But the company’s Full Self-Driving Beta program, which is currently available to about 160,000 drivers in the U.S. and Canada, goes further than anything else used by regular drivers on public roads, giving the car the ability to navigate through city and residential streets, stop for red lights and make turns on its own while following a mapped route.
Public testing
In early 2016, a year after Tesla first launched Autopilot, Musk said the tech was already “probably better” than a human driver and predicted that in two years his cars would be able to drive themselves across the country.
That hasn’t happened yet, but the company has steadily upgraded Autopilot over the years, allowing drivers to give up more control over their vehicles, though Tesla insists they must stay alert at all times. Full Self-Driving Beta represents the latest version of Tesla’s tech, and is available to Tesla drivers who’ve already paid $15,000 for the regular version of Full Self-Driving and have a good “safety score” as measured by Tesla’s in-car software.
In an interview with a Tesla owners group posted in June, Musk said successfully building self-driving software is “the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero.”
Autopilot technology has spurred several government investigations, including one from NHTSA that is looking at whether the tech played a role in Teslas crashing into parked emergency vehicles.
Overall though, Tesla has benefited from a U.S. regulatory vacuum, where there are no rules against putting new driver assistance software out on public roads as long as the automaker specifies that the driver stay alert at all times.
Auto safety rules were written well before the advent of cars that can make their own decisions, said Koopman, the auto regulations expert. The government moves at a “glacial” pace, and the rules have in some ways become more permissive, Koopman said. In 2022 NHTSA said cars don’t need to have a steering wheel and pedals any more to meet safety standards.
“The regulatory pressure has been to make it easier, not harder,” he said.
NHTSA says that no vehicle available for purchase is self-driving, and drivers are always required to stay attentive, regardless of what technology their cars have.
O’Dowd’s strategy is straightforward: Find proof that Tesla’s software makes serious mistakes and get that evidence in front of the public and regulators.
He kicked off his campaign in January with a full-page ad in the New York Times, which alleged that the software makes a mistake every 8 minutes, based on analyzing dozens of hours of YouTube footage. The ad demanded that regulators ban Full Self-Driving from American roads.
Then came his Senate campaign, something he said was partly motivated by the fact that campaign advertising laws would make it easier for him to get his message out if he was technically running for public office. He’s spent millions of dollars on ads that play on TV channels across the country.
Rivian sold Wall Street on an electric SUV. Then reality hit.
The ads pull from videos of Tesla drivers having to intervene when their cars running Full Self-Driving Beta make mistakes. Another set of ads compares Musk’s predictions for when his cars would be able to drive themselves to the reality that they still need close driver supervision. (One of O’Dowd’s ads quotes text from a Post story. The Post was not involved in the ad’s production.)
Next, O’Dowd began shooting his own videos. He hired a driver for his new Model 3 to do tests on public roads and closed courses. At one point, O’Dowd was in the passenger seat when the vehicle began crossing the centerline just as another car was coming in the other direction. The test-driver grabbed the wheel and averted a head-on collision, according to O’Dowd’s recollections and dash-cam video reviewed by The Post.
“It almost killed me,” he said. “It’s personal now.”
In addition to his ads and online videos, he sends the videos to NHTSA, imploring the agency to take action. Besides confirmation of receipt, he hasn’t heard more from the agency.
NHTSA looks at all relevant information in its investigations, Sanchez, the agency spokeswoman said.
O’Dowd has set up an entire media operation, converting a large room in his company’s office building into a TV studio, complete with green screen and high-speed upload link. He’s hired public-relations professionals and video editors.
The campaign has gotten attention from Musk’s many followers. Online, some call O’Dowd by the clunky nickname “O’Clown.” Musk himself has referred to O’Dowd on Twitter with the emoji for bat and poop — suggesting he’s crazy — although there doesn’t seem to be much direct interaction between the two men. O’Dowd says they’ve never spoken.
🦇 💩 crazy
In August, O’Dowd released the video of his Tesla repeatedly hitting the child-size mannequins. He set up the test at a closed course, then had his driver go down a lane of orange safety cones and engage Full Self-Driving Beta. When the video came out, skeptics accused him of rigging the test by not turning on Full Self-Driving or by overriding it by having the driver press down the accelerator pedal. O’Dowd says the test was legitimate and has begun running more, with video cameras filming from more angles to back it up.
Hours after O’Dowd released video of his test, one of the best-known Tesla fans put out a call on Twitter for a real child so that he could run the test himself. In the test by Omar Qazi, a 28-year-old software engineer who goes by the name Whole Mars Catalog and frequently clashes with O’Dowd and other Tesla critics, the car spotted the child and wouldn’t move forward.
Qazi views O’Dowd as just another anti-Tesla character, standing in the way of progress but doomed to fail.
“This is something that can’t be stopped by Dan or anyone else,” said Qazi, who owns Tesla shares but says they make up a small part of his overall investments. “I think putting something out now, even if it’s imperfect, it really has a lot of benefits.”
O’Dowd said he wants to do the tests again, this time with media, regulators, Tesla supporters and even Musk himself in attendance, so he can erase whatever lingering doubts there may be about his methods.
Qazi, for his part, isn’t worried O’Dowd will get the program banned any time soon, despite his incessant lobbying.
“Dan O’Dowd has been talking their ears off, everyone who will listen, and they have not banned it,” he said. | 2022-11-13T12:51:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dan O'Dowd is the rich tech CEO spending millions to stop Elon Musk - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/13/dan-odowd-challenges-tesla-musk/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/13/dan-odowd-challenges-tesla-musk/ |
US President Joe Biden and former US President Barack Obama arrive to speak during a Democratic National Committee (DNC) rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, on Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022. Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz has taken the lead in the US Senate race in Pennsylvania against Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman in the final days before Tuesday’s vote, according to a poll released Thursday. (Bloomberg)
Biden’s coherent policies have been ushered through the House of Representatives by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is widely considered by congressional scholars to be among the most skilled and successful speakers in American history. Even Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer surprised with his ability to pull occasional victories in a caucus that included Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Synema of Arizona – two exceptions that proved the rule of Democratic cohesion.
In previous elections, the Democrats produced the nation’s first Black, and first woman presidential nominees. This November, they produced the first openly lesbian governors-elect, in Massachusetts and Oregon.
It’s the Republican Party’s job, of course, to make those tasks hard. But the GOP’s erratic leaders, shaky commitment to democracy and Trumpist dysfunction has made everything harder than it should be. | 2022-11-13T13:00:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats in Array? It’s Hard to Deny After the Midterms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/democrats-in-array-its-hard-to-deny-after-the-midterms/2022/11/13/673484d8-6350-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/democrats-in-array-its-hard-to-deny-after-the-midterms/2022/11/13/673484d8-6350-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
How the 1918 pandemic changed America, from women’s rights to germaphobia
By Jess McHugh
St. Louis Red Cross Motor Corps personnel wear masks as they hold stretchers next to ambulances in preparation for victims of the influenza epidemic in October 1918. (Library of Congress/AP)
In 1920, Sen. Warren G. Harding campaigned for president on one of the blandest platforms in U.S. history. He promised neither hope nor change, nor making America great again. Instead, his slogan — which would help him win an unprecedented 60 percent of the popular vote — was a “return to normalcy.”
"America’s present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration; not agitation but adjustment; not surgery but serenity,” he told Americans in a speech four months before his victory.
After the two crises of World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic, normalcy was a welcome salve. With 675,000 Americans dead of the flu — of at least 50 million victims worldwide — fear, anxiety and a residual national trauma permeated daily life. But many of the changes the virus had brought, for better and for worse, would not soon be reversed. (And ironically, Harding’s presidential tenure would be defined not by normalcy but by scandal.)
Of course, other factors contributed to the societal upheaval of the 1920s — the war, long-simmering political tensions and immigration all played a role — but the fallout from the pandemic would transform the way that Americans lived, worked and learned.
The 1918 flu didn’t end in 1918. Here’s what its third year can teach us.
Pandemics punctuate history, creating a schism between how life was before and how it might look in the future. As the United States emerges, haltingly, from the devastation of covid-19, it’s instructive to look back a century at how the country’s last mass pandemic altered the nation’s fabric — sometimes permanently.
Much as we’re seeing now, with many Americans emboldened by coronavirus vaccines and feeling that the worst is behind us, the months and years immediately following the 1918 flu pandemic were marked by a desire to go out: to newly reopened cinemas, restaurants and family gatherings. There was even an uptick in Christmas shopping in 1918. The country was on the cusp of the Roaring ’20s, a time of pushing societal boundaries and experimenting with new ideas.
Lurking behind the era’s glitzy flappers and Wall Street speculators was a collective trauma of both the war and the pandemic. Dying of an infectious disease such as cholera or tuberculosis may have been a far more common experience then than that it is now, but the scale of mortality during the flu pandemic was extraordinary. Ten times as many Americans died of the 1918 flu as from the First World War.
“I think a lot of average Americans were traumatized by the flu,” said Nancy Tomes, a historian at Stony Brook University specializing in popular understanding of disease. “The fact that this was such a common experience to die suddenly from an infectious disease makes you more stoical, but it doesn’t rid the experience of the terror. And you deal with that in all kinds of weird ways.”
The slow, frustrating effort to vaccinate young children — against polio
One of those ways was a heightened fear of germs: Tomes said this pandemic may have spawned germaphobia. There was an urgent push to educate the public, including children, about the invisible threat of germs. Health curriculums arrived in public schools in the 1920s, including the “handkerchief drill,” in which children as young as kindergarten students were taught to sneeze into their handkerchiefs with “military-style precision.”
Even advertisements capitalized on fear of the flu to sell their products. “Don’t let influenza get the upper hand!” warned an ad for Listerine mouthwash. The ad continued, “Never make the mistake of underestimating the menace of a cold, sore throat or Influenza. They may develop into serious or fatal conditions. You can probably recall such a case among your friends.”
The public’s understanding of infectious disease, set in motion by the public health crusaders fighting tuberculosis in the early-20th century, saw a groundswell shift following the flu pandemic. Well into the 20th century, germ theory had not yet taken hold among the broader public, and many Americans still believed that unhealthy vapors produced in dirty places caused disease. With the flu pandemic — and its ability to kill in country and in city, in dirty tenement and in clean estate — the public became convinced that disease passed from person to person. As Tomes put it: “Flu dealt the miasma theory a death blow.”
The world’s first anti-vaccination movement spread fears of half-cow babies
The country succeeded in applying some lessons from the 1918 flu to another, less virulent one 10 years later. Colleges and universities, for instance, acted quickly to enact isolation techniques learned in the 1918 pandemic to limit the 1928 virus’s spread.
At the same time, the high levels of flu mortality in 1918 caused a deep mistrust of traditional science. “There was a definite feeling that science had failed us,” said Laura Spinney, science journalist and author of “Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World.” As a result, the country saw a surge in both alternative medicine and anti-science groups. Christian Scientists, who generally reject medical care, saw their numbers boom post-pandemic, Spinney writes in her book. In the 1920s, one-third of the population of many U.S. cities visited alternative medicine practitioners in addition to traditional doctors, according to Spinney.
Racist pseudoscience such as eugenics also flourished in the post-pandemic years, fueled by anti-immigrant sentiment. “Xenophobia goes hand in hand with pandemics [since] the beginning of time,” said Spinney, adding, “There’s definitely this pervasive idea that if there was illness in the ghettos, in the poorest and most insalubrious parts of town, that was because those people were conditionally inferior — nothing to do with their environments.”
Tomes said a desire to get away from people who were “stereotyped as being disease-carriers” contributed to a wave of suburbanization in the 1920s. Many young families also moved to the suburbs in the 1920s and 1930s to accommodate a baby boom that followed the war and the pandemic. (Even countries that had remained neutral during the war, such as Norway, saw a spike in birthrates.)
A war with Russia led Florence Nightingale to revolutionize nursing
The flu also helped bring women into the workforce. Working-age men were in short supply: Many whom hadn’t died on the battlefield succumbed to the virus, which affected 20- to 40-year-olds disproportionately. Desperate for workers, industries that once barred women now accepted them into their ranks.
Women began working in fields once thought too dangerous or unfeminine: manufacturing, textiles, even science and medicine. Clinical diagnostic laboratory testing, for instance, became female-dominated, according to Lindsey Clark, an assistant professor in the laboratory sciences department at the University of Arkansas and author of a paper on how the pandemic changed women’s lives.
By 1920, women were approximately 20 percent of employed people in the United States.
Suffragists, barred from holding rallies during the pandemic lockdowns, went door-to-door to campaign for their cause. Women’s right to vote would be won in 1920, just months after the final waves of the pandemic blew through major cities.
“The war and the pandemic together gave women the opportunity to step up and prove that they are strong, and that they can be independent, and that they can take on those roles that previously they were thought to be too fragile to take on,” said Clark.
The coronavirus pandemic has had the opposite effect on women’s employment: A 2020 survey found that as many as 2 million women — disproportionately Black women — were considering leaving the workforce. Care work, whether for children or elderly parents, overwhelmingly falls to women, and the gender pay gap has pushed many women to opt to stay home rather than pay for expensive child care.
Much like the 1918 pandemic heightened existing bigotry against immigrants, this one seems poised to further entrench inequalities of both ethnicity and gender. And if the varied aftermath of the 1918 flu pandemic can teach us anything, it’s this: The ravages of a pandemic only bring simmering societal issues to a boil, underscoring the prejudices that already exist. It will probably take decades for the true outcome to be known. | 2022-11-13T13:00:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the 1918 flu pandemic changed America: working women, germaphobia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/13/1918-flu-pandemic-women-science/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/11/13/1918-flu-pandemic-women-science/ |
Jean-Pierre Ricard in March 2006 when he was the archbishop of Bordeaux. (Patrick Hertzog/AFP/Getty Images)
The pontiff’s delicate phrasing, and his timing, underscored the compounding damage the scandal has inflicted on the church’s moral authority and prestige. Days after Pope Francis shared those thoughts with journalists, new revelations of high-level sexual misconduct and cover-up in France shattered illusions of progress by the church toward establishing a culture of transparency and accountability in its hierarchy.
Pope Francis has said there is no turning back from “irreversible” steps designed to enhance safeguards against clergy child sexual abuse, and says the church has adopted a “zero tolerance” policy toward offenders in the priesthood and the hierarchy. His push for reforms has featured broadening the church’s definition of sexual crimes; requiring nuns and priests to inform their superiors of abuse allegations; holding bishops and other prelates to account for their handling of instances of abuse; and empowering the Vatican’s own commission that deals with cases of sexual abuse, elevating its status and clout. | 2022-11-13T13:00:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Catholic church’s sex abuse scandal continues in France - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/catholic-church-sex-abuse-france/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/catholic-church-sex-abuse-france/ |
Distinguished pols of the week: Center-left Democratic governors show how it’s done
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) comes on stage to address a crowd in Detroit on Tuesday. (Nick Hagen/For The Washington Post)
Whitmer also led the fight for abortion rights, helping pass a ballot measure that will enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. And as she promised in her first campaign, she has “fixed the damn roads.” Her campaign often boasted that her administration replaced 16,000 lane miles of roads and 1,200 bridges. Plus, The Post reports: “Whitmer also pushed an economic message of achievement, citing General Motors’ announcement of a $7 billion investment in four facilities in the state for electric-vehicle and battery production.”
The Post describes Whitmer’s image as a “a suburban mom from the 1990s: Gritty yet optimistic. No frills and authentic.” Despite intense resistance from the right wing in her state — including a plot to kidnap her — she stuck to the science in her covid response and tangled with President Donald Trump (who memorably referred to her as “that woman from Michigan.”). Few Democrats in recent years have advanced their viability as future national stars as much as Whitmer.
Then there is the new kid on the block: Shapiro. He caught national attention as Pennsylvania’s attorney general in fending off lawsuits from election deniers in 2020. During his gubernatorial campaign, he became an eloquent proponent of freedom and democracy. In the closing days of his campaign, he had this to say about his MAGA opponent, Doug Mastriano: “This guy loves to talk a big game about freedom, right?. Let me tell you something. It’s not freedom to tell women what they’re allowed to do with their bodies. That’s not freedom. It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they’re allowed to read. … It sure as hell isn’t freedom to say you can go vote but he gets to pick the winner.”
Shapiro ran on a centrist message that featured support for police, standardized tests and an “all-of-the-above energy strategy.” He showed himself to be both a policy wonk and a politician with impressive rhetorical skills. “Tonight, you, the good people of Pennsylvania, you won,” he declared in his victory speech. "Opportunity won. A woman’s right to choose won. The right to organize here in Pennsylvania — that won. Your right to vote won. And in the face of all the lies and the conspiracies and baseless claims, you also ensured tonight that truth won right here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
For running solid races, displaying long coattails, defending freedom and showing how Democrats defeat the “coastal elites” jab, we can say well done, Govs. Whitmer and Polis and Gov.-elect Shapiro. | 2022-11-13T13:00:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Three center-left Democratic governors show how it’s done - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/democrats-midterms-governors-whitmer-polis-shapiro/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/democrats-midterms-governors-whitmer-polis-shapiro/ |
Yes, the museums honoring women and Latinos belong on the National Mall
One of two proposed sites for the Smithsonian's new museums. The “South Monument site” is on Jefferson Drive SW, across the National Mall from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. (Nate Adams/National Park Service)
Lonnie G. Bunch III is the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
Since the red sandstone “Castle” was completed in 1855, the Smithsonian has been a fixture on the National Mall. First envisioned by Pierre L’Enfant, the Mall has come to embody both the nation’s character and ideals. What started as a marshy lowland has become the most-visited place in the National Park System, inviting people from across the country and around the world to better understand American democracy, and to experience the history and culture of this richly diverse nation.
The challenge ahead is to reimagine a Mall that tells the full American story. The Smithsonian is seeking congressional support to locate our newest museums, the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino, on the Mall. The sites we have identified — south of the Washington Monument adjacent to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Tidal Basin across from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum — are optimal for broadening the American narrative and expanding our civic discourse.
As expected, not everyone agrees. But Congress directed us to find the best sites for the museums, and we believe we have done so.
As founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, I long ago heard arguments that we hear again today: that “America’s front yard” had enough museums and that the Mall’s symbolic significance was overstated.
I could not disagree more. My experience creating a museum to represent the hopes and dreams of so many showed that the opposite is true. Adding cultural institutions, especially those that tell a greater diversity of stories about us as a people, only enhances the Mall’s appeal to all visitors. My reverence for the Mall’s beauty, symbolism and power has only grown since.
The Mall’s role in the American experience is burned into our collective consciousness, from Martin Luther King Jr.’s soaring rhetoric in front of the Lincoln Memorial to sobering reminders of friends and family lost to AIDS and covid-19 stretching across the big lawn. Cultural institutions such as the National Museum of the American Indian and the African American Museum help us widen the aperture through which we see U.S. history. As a historian, I believe the Mall’s role in enabling the expression of our national identity can never be overstated.
The two new museums belong on the Mall. The success of the African American Museum proved that location matters. Had the museum been built somewhere less accessible and more remote, vastly fewer people would have been inspired by its exhibitions. Placing the National Museum of the American Latino and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum on these sites will similarly change the way we look at America, past and future.
The legislation specified that these museums should be on or near the Mall. We have now chosen sites. Candidly, both locations come with challenges. But they have many positives compared to other sites: proximity to cultural institutions, less cost and complication than those that require relocating large government agencies, and the buy-in of the museums’ supporters.
We cannot ask the people who advocated, called, testified and crafted legislation to hold out for different locations simply to preserve the Mall in its current state. It has been changing since it was laid out, just like the country itself. These museums will be welcome neighbors and become integral parts of the Mall’s future.
The U.S. National Park Service, responsible for maintaining and protecting the Mall, has a foundational document that distills the Mall’s importance, describing it as “destined to evolve with and through the voices and values of the American people. It is more than a collection of memorials and monuments; it is a collection of stories that together define who we are as a nation.”
The Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino will best tell those stories here in their rightful place at the center of the capital. It will signal to all that America understands the power of embracing our shared past, and that confronting our nation’s complicated history will make for a better shared future. | 2022-11-13T13:00:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Lonnie Bunch: The Latino and women's museums belong on the Mall - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/latino-womens-museums-national-mall-lonnie-bunch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/latino-womens-museums-national-mall-lonnie-bunch/ |
My bipolar meds made me gain weight, so I stopped taking them. That was a terrible mistake.
Perspective by Danielle Huggins
(Rafael Elias/Getty Images)
I am under slept and overwhelmed. I’m in a London hotel room, at the beginning of a four-day trip that was too cheap to pass up. I am 25. There are assignments to complete for my graduate courses and tests to grade for my middle-school teaching job. I have brought work with me, and there are short stacks of papers everywhere.
Despite having airplane seats that turned into beds, sleep eluded me on the overnight trip from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. I’m worried about this lack of sleep. Will it make me manic? For people like me, with bipolar disorder, traveling can lead to mania, and the only antidote is sleep. To sleep, I need medication. I don’t have any. I stopped taking it a few months ago because it made me gain weight.
I’ve been here a couple of hours and should be napping when I hear a knock on my door and open it. “Be ready in 20. We are hitting a pub.” My travel companion glances into the room. “What are all these papers?” I shrug and say I’ll be ready. I put on tight jeans and a black sweater. In the mirror I look and feel amazing. I am gorgeous. Am I really gorgeous? Or am I manic and overly confident?
The next day, Lorenzo, my middle-school colleague who put the trip together, his mother, his sister and I make the most of London. We ride in a red double-decker bus, take pictures in a red phone booth and watch the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
At night, I start off trying to sleep but cannot. Instead I work. The piles of paper seem to multiply. On the second day, riding the London Underground, I hear Lorenzo speak to his mother in Italian. I think: Why are they speaking Italian? Is something wrong? Is this a code?
I know that being severely manic can cause the brain to spin webs of conspiracies and make connections that aren’t really there. But I no longer ask myself if I am or am not manic. His mom must be an illegal immigrant. We’re going to have to smuggle her back into the U.S. I am terrified.
I am certain that his mom is not a citizen and that the British police are onto us. At the Sea Life London Aquarium, Lorenzo is studying a map. I walk over, but I cannot make sense of it. The neon-colored routes are shifting and merging into one another. I say, “How are you supposed to figure out where to go with the lines moving all over the place?”
Lorenzo turns his head and cocks it. “Nothing is moving on this map. Danielle, are you all right?” Suddenly I have a realization. Lorenzo is pretending the map isn’t moving. He is trying to tell me that his mom isn’t a citizen, and he is trying to figure out a way to sneak her out of this place so she doesn’t get picked up by Interpol. I resolve to be quiet and follow him, his sister and mom out.
On the plane ride home, I believe we are the biggest story in, if not America, the world. All the passengers on the plane are reporters, writing up the story of how we’re smuggling Lorenzo’s mother into the United States.
Lorenzo pleads for me to sleep. I lean my head on the small, cool window pane and try to sleep, but the second I close my eyes I hear the click-clacking of the reporters’ computers. They are all writing about me and Lorenzo’s family. When I open my eyes and crane my neck to catch them in action, the sound stops. They are cagey and slick, these reporters.
Back home in New York, despite zero immigration issues, my paranoia persists. In his car, Lorenzo asks if I took any drugs. “Be quiet,” I say, since the radio must be bugged. I hear a helicopter and am convinced that Lorenzo’s green VW is being broadcast on every TV station, just like O.J. Simpson with his white Ford Bronco. I picture reporters relaying the story of how two middle-school teachers smuggled an illegal immigrant from Italy, via England, into the United States.
Lorenzo pulls into the parking lot of a hospital and tells me to wait in the car. I am so scared of being caught on camera I curl myself into as small as a ball as possible and wait for him underneath the glove compartment.
When Lorenzo comes out, I tell him I’m afraid of the camera men and reporters. He tells me the coast is clear. I feel safe enough to walk inside the emergency room. I talk to a psychiatrist. He asks me if I have been diagnosed with any mental disorders. I tell him I have bipolar. He asks about my sleep and decides I need to be hospitalized.
I am relieved because I know from experience that hospitals are secure, and there is no way any reporters will infiltrate. I don’t know how Lorenzo got this doctor to agree to admit me, but I don’t ask. Before being taken up to the unit Lorenzo hugs me and I see he is crying. He must be worried about his mom and these reporters.
In the hospital, I’m given 40 milligrams of Zyprexa. That is a lot of Zyprexa. I sleep. After four days, I realize my mind fabricated the entire story. My stay is two weeks long and I am discharged with medication much stronger than those I quit months ago. I have an additional two weeks of recovery at home before I am cleared to go back to teaching. I sleep late every day, getting 12 or 14 hours each night. During the day, I feel hazy and unclear. I can’t read, and even find it difficult to follow the plotlines of TV shows.
When I go back to work, Lorenzo tells me some teachers are asking what is wrong with me. He says they think I’m on drugs. I tell him I am on drugs but not illegal ones. I explain my diagnosis and why I got so sick.
He says, “I’m so glad you’re fine now.”
I am not really fine, however. I feel like a zombie.
I see my doctor every four weeks, and each time he lowers the dose of Zyprexa, until he takes me off it completely. After three months, he prescribes Lithium instead, an old standard, having been around since 1949. I do not feel as out of it on Lithium, but because every manic episode is followed by a depressive one, I still have little energy and long for my bed all day, every day. At some point, I have to be readmitted for depression, but my stay is less than a week, and I am able to go back to work right away.
In the two decades since that psychotic break, I have never gone off my meds again. And I have never had a manic episode as severe as the one in London. Since then, the last thing I do before bed is open my bedside table drawer, take out my green Monday through Sunday pill box, and swallow the sanity pills kept inside. | 2022-11-13T13:00:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What a bipolar breakdown feels like - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/13/bipolar-manic-episode/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/13/bipolar-manic-episode/ |
Princess Diana confided in Andrew Morton. Is there more to divulge?
In Morton’s new book, ‘The Queen: A Life,’ the author, who is dramatized on ‘The Crown,’ mines his notebook and observations since his explosive 1992 biography
Review by Arianne Chernock
If 1992 was Queen Elizabeth II’s annus horribilis, she had Andrew Morton to blame for many of her woes. In his book “Diana: Her True Story,” published that year, Morton disclosed Princess Diana’s struggles — strained relations with Prince Charles, the threatening presence of Camilla Parker Bowles, her bulimia and suicide attempts — revealing a shocking degree of dysfunction in the House of Windsor. The account became even more damaging when, just after Diana’s death in 1997, Morton revealed that Diana had fully cooperated with him by sending him secret tapes. “I have a few royal Deep Throats,” Morton once bragged. For a former tabloid journalist, it was the ultimate scoop. In the new season of “The Crown,” this collaboration is immortalized on screen, with Diana, aided by her friend James Colthurst, narrating her story into a tape recorder.
Morton’s new biography of Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September, asks us to remember these earlier feats. “The dam burst on June 14, 1992, with the publication of the biography, ‘Diana: Her True Story,’” he boasts in the early pages of “The Queen: Her Life.” “The response,” he continues, “was explosive.” Fair enough: When Diana’s role was disclosed, Buckingham Palace denounced the book and threatened to have it banned. Anyone looking for similar revelations in Morton’s new book, however, will be disappointed by his latest effort to stir the royal pot. For a more scandalous read, Tina Brown’s “The Palace Papers” is the better bet.
Tina Brown’s royal revelations spare no one, especially Meghan Markle
No spilling the tea on the queen here. Instead, Morton works mostly from his previous books and other published sources, recycling what has long been part of the public record. Even the organization of the material seems informed more by “The Crown,” for which Morton served as a consultant on the latest season, than by the vagaries of Elizabeth’s life. The most scandalous bits — the inclusion, for instance, of a letter from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to Diana acknowledging he couldn’t “imagine [that] anyone in their right mind would leave you for Camilla” — come to us courtesy of a report printed in the Daily Mirror. The result is a narrative that hits all the plot points but without the shock value.
Of course, this is precisely as Queen Elizabeth would have wanted it. If Diana was the ultimate rule-breaker, Elizabeth was the ultimate rule-follower. She may have had a “fine appreciation of the absurd,” as Morton observes in his preface, but she rarely breached convention or emoted in public. “Never complain, never explain,” was her mantra. Such rigidity can produce its own forms of tension.
It’s painful, for example, to read about the awkward early attempts by Elizabeth and Philip to forge a “combined existence,” with all the rewriting of gender codes that entailed. It’s disturbing, too, to be reminded of the very real challenges that Elizabeth confronted as one of the “few working mothers who held high-ranking positions” during the 1950s and ’60s. How understandable, then, that Elizabeth would hesitate when reunited with young Charles and Anne after spending six months away on a royal tour in 1954. What version of motherhood was she expected to perform in front of the cameras? Handshake or hug? (She chose the handshake.)
Even the perennial criticisms of the queen’s mien — that she didn’t smile enough, despite her best efforts — reveal the bind of a woman with power. Not surprisingly, it’s in recounting these scenes that Morton’s narrative is most affecting, precisely because it offers glimpses of the human struggle. For the most part, however, Elizabeth’s self-discipline means she was able to control her story, a boon to her long reign but frustrating to no end for muckraking journalists. Anyone who has watched the many dramatizations of the queen’s life — including “The Crown” — or the coverage of her death is already well-versed in the problems of always maintaining a stiff upper lip.
Princess Diana was the queen of revenge fashion
Morton’s reluctance to probe, though, is not just born of Elizabeth’s stoicism. It’s also a choice. Where he once placed himself firmly on Team Diana, here he equivocates, and only more so as his narrative marches toward the present. (The book was written before King Charles took power but was rushed to print to take advantage of it.) This cautiousness is most apparent in Morton’s treatment of the scandal surrounding Prince Andrew’s friendship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This is uncomfortable ground for Morton. At one point, he describes Andrew as a “witless royal falling prey to the generosity of wealthy friends of dubious provenance.” But was Andrew really “witless” in his relationship with the underage Virginia Giuffre, who has accused the Prince of raping her? Morton ought to give Andrew — and all of the royals — more agency, and more responsibility, in this story. The issues are too fresh, and too consequential, to be addressed with such platitudes.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, also pose dilemmas for the author. Meghan, Morton suggests, at one point promised to help make “the monarchy seem more relevant and inclusive in an ever-changing world.” But where does their withdrawal from royal life leave that inclusive project? In his epilogue, Morton wonders why “a white, Anglo Saxon Christian family automatically represent a diverse multiethnic nation and Commonwealth.” It’s an excellent question, and one that has become all the more urgent in light of the charges of racism that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have leveled at the royal family — within the context of a much broader history of royal entanglements with the slave trade and imperial expansion.
Morton is certainly not the only commentator opting for a milder approach following the queen’s death. Since September, there has been much hand-wringing among the public and pundits alike about the proper way to honor the sovereign and safeguard her legacy. Note the heated exchanges about historical veracity that took place in the lead-up to Season 5 of “The Crown” — capped by Dame Judi Dench’s plea for disclaimers at the start of each episode. This anxiety even extends to the royal family. Ahead of the publication of Harry’s memoir, “Spare,” and a docuseries about Harry and Meghan, the couple now seem to be questioning their commitment to candor. Let’s hope that Penguin Random House and Netflix prevail. Harry and Meghan’s truths, like those of Diana 30 years ago, may be just what the monarchy needs right now.
Arianne Chernock is a professor of history at Boston University. She is the author of “The Right to Rule and the Rights of Women: Queen Victoria and the Women’s Movement.”
Her Life
Grand Central. 448 pp. $30 | 2022-11-13T13:26:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review: The Queen: Her Life, by Andrew Morton - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/13/queen-elizabeth-morton-book/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/13/queen-elizabeth-morton-book/ |
Chappelle returns to SNL with no apologies — and many jokes about Kanye
"Saturday Night Live" host Dave Chappelle delivers his opening monologue on Saturday's episode. (Will Heath/NBC)
As Chappelle walked onto the stage for his opening monologue, he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and said he was going to “read a brief statement” that he had prepared.
“I denounce antisemitism in all its forms, and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community,” he began.
“And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time,” he said, to laughs from the live audience.
The choice of Chappelle, who hosted SNL after the presidential elections in 2016 and 2020, to anchor the post-midterms episode raised eyebrows because of his past jokes about trans people. The release last year of his Netflix special “The Closer” sparked a walkout by some employees of the streaming service who viewed his jokes as transphobic. Last week, Page Six reported that some SNL writers were planning a boycott in protest of Chappelle. In a statement to CNN, a representative for Chappelle said, “we’ve seen nothing to support media reports of a writer’s boycott.” NBC did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Sunday.
Chappelle has repeatedly joked about trans people over the years in ways some have deemed offensive and dangerous. He has blamed the media for framing the backlash “as though it’s me versus [the LGBTQ] community, that’s not what it is.”
Chappelle’s comedy special is a catalyst for change as Netflix walkout leads to calls for reform
In Saturday’s episode, Chappelle did not directly address the controversy over his jokes about trans people but touched on several other hot topics. He dedicated almost half of his opening monologue to the backlash over antisemitic statements and material shared by Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and by Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving.
Chappelle joked that he had learned in his decades as a comedian that “there are two words in the English language that you should never say together in sequence — and those words are ‘the’ and ‘Jews.’ I’ve never heard someone do good after they said that.”
In recent weeks, Ye lost a plethora of lucrative endorsement deals and attracted condemnation from all corners of the entertainment industry for his remarks about Jews, including a threat on Twitter to go “death con 3” on them. And the Nets suspended Irving after he tweeted a link to a documentary the Anti-Defamation League described as including “extensive antisemitism.”
Twitter and Instagram remove antisemitic posts by Kanye West
In his jokes, Chappelle appeared to pull from the same themes that landed Ye and Irving in hot water, alluding at one point to the unfounded antisemitic trope that Jewish people wield disproportionate power in some industries. Speaking of Ye, Chappelle said he broke “the show business rules [of perception],” which Chappelle described as: “If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. But if they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence, and you should never speak about it.”
He also said he understood how someone with “some kind of issue” — Ye has bipolar disorder — could “adopt the delusion” that Jewish people “run show business,” another antisemitic trope.
“I’ve been to Hollywood, this is just what I saw. It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot,” Chappelle said. “But that doesn’t mean anything, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri — doesn’t mean they run the place.”
Kim Kardashian condemns hate speech after Kanye West’s antisemitism
The other half of Chappelle’s monologue — and much of the rest of the episode — was dedicated to politics and the midterm elections, whose outcome came into sharper focus after the episode began as a Democratic win in Nevada allowed the party to retain its Senate majority. Control over the House of Representatives is still being decided.
The cold open lampooned the “Fox & Friends” morning news show, in which hosts, not including Chappelle, framed former president Donald Trump as a loser. “Mister President, I don’t know how to tell you this, but we’ve moved on. We can’t have you on the show anymore,” SNL cast member Heidi Gardner, playing co-host Ainsley Earhardt, told an irate Trump, played by comedian James Austin Johnson.
In his monologue, Chappelle also took aim at Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, whom he called “observably stupid,” and said Trump is an “honest liar.”
Several of the skits poked fun at White people and their perceived cluelessness about Black culture and history. In one skit, Chappelle, playing a blues musician, explains to stunned White talk show anchors and reporters that “potato hole” is not, as they seemed to infer, a word with sexual undertones, but rather describes the holes in the ground in which enslaved people in the United States buried food.
Democrats keep Senate majority with win in Nevada
But Chappelle’s jokes about the backlash to Ye’s and Irving’s antisemitism appeared to be have attracted the most attention, and he was trending on Twitter early Sunday.
The comedian appeared to acknowledge the divide over his humor and role in popular culture toward the end of his monologue, saying, “It shouldn’t be this scary to talk — about anything.” | 2022-11-13T14:27:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dave Chappelle returns to SNL, jokes about Kanye and antisemitism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/13/dave-chappelle-snl-kanye-antisemitism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/13/dave-chappelle-snl-kanye-antisemitism/ |
How a Warming Yukon Forced Its Farmers to Adapt
As the climate warms, Canada’s farmers are flourishing, even in remote regions like the Yukon Territory. Crops that previously didn’t make sense to grow so far north are sprouting as croplands expand. Steve Mackenzie-Grieve, co-owner of Yukon Grain Farm, one of the territory’s biggest food producers, farms 400 miles south of the Arctic Circle. “We can grow every bit of grain up here as you can in southern Alberta,” he explained to me recently as we toured his 450-acre farm.
It’s a tantalizing harvest. Yet climate change doesn’t have silver linings. Take Egypt, host of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference (COP27). The once-fertile Nile Delta is increasingly barren thanks to the same warming trends, driving expensive, desperate food shortages, made worse by the war in Ukraine. Global leaders have noticed: Bolstering global food security for climate change is a key item on the COP27 agenda.
It won’t be easy. As the climate warms, farmers in cooler regions won’t be able to ensure a stable, resilient food supply for consumers in warmer regions. They will face weather extremes of their own, and expanded production could result in additional carbon emissions. But the outlook doesn’t have to be bleak. By focusing on more climate-friendly practices, bolstering local food supply chains and adopting new, climate-resistant varieties and techniques, northern farmers can embrace climate-resilient agriculture that benefits everyone.
As far back as the 1940s change was afoot in Canada’s climate. Between 1948 and 2016, the average temperature in Canada increased by 1.7°C. These rising temperatures have had tangible impacts on agriculture. The growing season, the period during which weather is particularly conducive to plant growth, has lengthened by roughly 1.7 per days per decade since the 1950s in Canada. In the Yukon, which has warmed by an average of 2°C over the past 50 years, the growing season has lengthened by more than 20 days in some regions.
Warming has brought opportunity to more southern parts of Canada. Between 2010 and 2015, 2,275 square kilometers (878 square miles) of Canadian forest were converted to cropland south of the 60th parallel (the border of Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut). That’s nearly double the land converted for development. By one Canadian government accounting, arable land could expand by as much as 40% by 2040, with jarring consequences. “You see the types of crops changing,” explained Ian Jarvis, director of GEOGLAM, an international collaboration to monitor agricultural conditions globally, in a phone conversation. “More soybeans in Western Canada, for example. Soybean is a long season crop and the growing season has increased a lot.”
However, that expanded growing season and geographic range doesn’t mean that global food supplies can be balanced out by a warming north. “When you look at the unstable climate, more extremes, the actual acreage or area of land that can productively handle agriculture is probably diminishing overall,” Jarvis adds. “And the impact is greater in more susceptible, less resilient parts of the world.”
For now, though, many Canadians are benefiting from the shift, including in some unexpected places. Steve and Bonnie Mackenzie-Grieve semi-retired to the Yukon in 1999 and opened Yukon Grain Farm to grow oats and produce a bit of animal feed. They weren’t alone: Small farms have existed in the Yukon since the arrival of European settlers in the mid-19th century, with most devoted to growing animal feed.
Soon, Yukon Grain Farm pivoted to other crops. In 2002, a test plot of potatoes became an opportunity to supply hundreds of tons of potatoes per year to local groceries. Carrots came next, and eventually other vegetables sprouted in greenhouses, including cabbage and peppers. “The growing season up here is short, but we get 20 hours of sun,” Steve Mackenzie-Grieve tells me at his kitchen table overlooking snow-covered fields. “So crops sensitive to sun like cabbage, it grows like crazy.”
Warmth also helps, and in recent years the Mackenzie-Grieves are growing crops like wheat, canola and camelina that are historically associated with more southerly climates. Those grains and oils are processed by Yukon Grain Farm into feed sold locally to other farmers. Meanwhile, the vegetables, including 300 tons of carrots annually, continue to be sold to local groceries.
“Our carrots are fresher and better tasting than anything shipped up the highway from California,” Steve Mackenzie-Grieve tells me. Less need for transportation both locks in Yukon Grain Farm’s profits and benefits locals with lower-cost produce (and expends less carbon).
“That’s going to be one of the solutions to food security and climate change in the future, a focus on local food,” says GEOGLAM’s Jarvis, who points out that the majority of the world’s farmers are smallholders. As of 2021, there are 88 farms in the Yukon, ranging in size from small vegetable plots of less than 10 acres to livestock operations exceeding 2,000 acres. By the standards of Alberta, where there are thousands of farms and the biggest range has tens of thousands of acres, that’s tiny. But these smaller, self-sufficient farms can play an outsize role in making agriculture more sustainable.
Right now, despite the contributions of Yukon Grain Farm and its peers, only around 1% of Yukon’s food is locally cultivated. The official 2020 Yukon Agriculture Policy seeks to boost that to as much as 10% by supporting a range of programs, including outreach and extension services to help farmers find the right crops to work in their northern soils. At the same time, the Yukon intends to promote and support sustainable farming practices that sequester and increase carbon in the soil.
That’s an approach that can work in other regions, too. “If we’re able to provide smallholders with more financially resilient approaches to farming, increase their yields, better manage their fields, we’ll be able to improve food security and their carbon picture as well,” concludes Jarvis. If he’s right, a warming world doesn’t have to be a hungry one.
To Meet Climate Targets, Leave No Economy Behind: Eduardo Porter
Climate Costs Eat Up the Money to Avert It: David Fickling
It’s Better to Mine Rainforests Than Farm Them: David Fickling | 2022-11-13T14:31:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How a Warming Yukon Forced Its Farmers to Adapt - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-a-warming-yukon-forced-its-farmers-to-adapt/2022/11/13/4a6a72b6-635c-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-a-warming-yukon-forced-its-farmers-to-adapt/2022/11/13/4a6a72b6-635c-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
The airborne particulates and gases are causing chronic problems for more Americans, experts say
The Fairview Fire burns near Sage and Hemet, Calif., on Sept. 7. (Stuart Palley for The Washington Post)
Why Seattle currently has the worst air quality in the world
The Clean Air Act has substantially decreased the level of toxic particles from industrial and automotive pollution across the country since 1970, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But air pollution is expected to worsen in parts of the West because of wildfires, some researchers have found. A United Nations report this year warned of a “global wildfire crisis,” saying the probability of catastrophic wildfires could increase up to 57 percent by the end of the century.
Wildfire smoke harms more people in the Eastern U.S. than West, study shows
The public plays an enormous role in both preventing (nearly 90 percent of wildfires are caused by humans, according to U.S. government data) and adapting to wildfires, many experts said.
She counsels families about how to affordably stay safe during wildfire season, encouraging the use of N95 and KN95 masks, which were pivotal in combating the spread of the coronavirus. She also shares designs for do-it-yourself air filtration systems.
This article was produced by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts. | 2022-11-13T14:32:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The health risks of wildfire smoke - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/13/wildfire-smoke-health-risks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/13/wildfire-smoke-health-risks/ |
By Dana Hedgepeth, The Washington Post | AP
A view of some of the Native American artifacts found at St. Clement’s Island in Southern Maryland. Recent archaeological digs at the site show the rich history of tribes in the area that many say is often overlooked. Photo taken summer of 2022. (Dana Hedgpeth/The Washington Post via AP)
ST. CLEMENT’S ISLAND, Md. — The small pieces of oyster shells and ceramic shards in the palm of archaeologist Julia King don’t look like much. | 2022-11-13T14:32:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Unearthing Native American history on a Maryland island - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/unearthing-native-american-history-on-a-maryland-island/2022/11/13/b9ce7766-635b-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/unearthing-native-american-history-on-a-maryland-island/2022/11/13/b9ce7766-635b-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
A voter completes their ballot at a polling place in Denver on Tuesday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
First, courts have proved adept at heading off election-related shenanigans. For example, democracy defenders in Arizona succeeded in obtaining an injunction against right-wing groups menacing drop box locations. Other courts issued a flurry of decisions to strengthen voting rights and free and fair elections before Election Day. Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias took note of four of those decisions that all arrived on Nov. 3. As he wrote for Democracy Docket:
None of those cases grabbed a single national headline. Most received barely even a local mention. What made this day remarkable was its ordinariness. None of these cases were extraordinary. Indeed, that is the point.
One involved a college polling site, another guaranteed a county would print ballots and provide other election materials in Spanish, the other two involved the rules for Election Day and vote counting. While the headlines focus on how courts handle the most sensational attacks on our democracy — from the trials related to the Jan. 6 insurrection to the latest subpoena struggles with former President Donald Trump and his allies — it is the daily work of state and federal courts to ensure voting rights are protected one case at a time.
Third, low turnout in competitive midterm contests is no longer the norm. The Post reports: “Turnout was especially high for a midterm in several battleground states, where expectations of a close contest appeared to boost voter participation. Voter turnout in Pennsylvania is on track to exceed 2018 by four percentage points. Nearly 6 in 10 eligible voters in Wisconsin and Michigan cast a ballot.” While the nationwide vote total might not surpass that of 2018, it nevertheless remains relatively high.
Fourth, younger voters have learned to show up at midterm elections, boding well for the health of democracy and progressive values. The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University found that “27% of young people (ages 18-29) turned out to vote in the 2022 midterm election and helped decide critical races, wielding the growing power of a generation that is increasingly engaged even as many remain disillusioned about U.S. politics.” Again, this didn’t match 2018’s numbers, when 31 percent of young people voted, but it is “likely the second-highest youth turnout rate for a midterm election in the past 30 years.”
The report also looked at the swing states of Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and found that aggregate youth turnout there was 31 percent. And if you are looking for an explanation as to why the red wave turned out to be a red drip, consider that young voters supported Democrats in House races by a 63 percent to 35 percent margin. Perhaps President Biden’s student debt forgiveness was smart politics, after all?
Fifth, there were a number of “firsts” on Election Day. That includes election of the first openly lesbian governors (Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Tina Kotek in Oregon) and the first African American governor of Maryland (Wes Moore). The country will also have a record number of female governors. Despite the reactionary movement that seeks to take the country back to the 1950s, the United States continues to expand the definition of “We” in “We the people.” As our institutions and elected bodies start to look more like America, they will have more legitimacy in the eyes of many Americans.
Sixth, the movement for women’s autonomy has arguably never been more energized. All five ballot measures on abortion during the midterms resulted in losses for the forced-birth crowd. The power of women voters is not to be underestimated. That might have far-reaching consequences for years to come as Republicans continue to defend overwhelmingly unpopular abortion bans.
Finally, the Republican Party might finally be tiring of Donald Trump. The former president is a loser. The primary candidates he picked are losers. Even Republicans admit that he has been harmful for Republicans in tough races. Josh Holmes, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told The Post, "The one thing Democrats are not wrong about, and they were actually pretty smart about: Every time Trump is the center of the political conversation, Republicans had a problem in the polls.”
Yes, it’s Republicans’ own darn fault for not breaking with Trump earlier. And while the former president might continue to hang like a dark cloud over the 2024 race, stepping into the race has become more treacherous for him. And don’t forget that state and federal criminal investigations are speeding along and could result in an indictment of Trump in the weeks and months ahead.
In sum, democracy is looking stronger than it did a week ago. And with federal and state prosecutors still at work, I’ve never been more optimistic that Trump and his cronies will face accountability for their actions. This all bodes well for the survival of American democracy. | 2022-11-13T15:37:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | 7 reasons to be optimistic about the future of democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/midterms-democract-7-reasons-optimism/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/midterms-democract-7-reasons-optimism/ |
A club that was founded to tackle the 2008 global financial crisis is desperately seeking a second act
President Biden boards Air Force One after attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit Sunday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is headed to the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. (Alex Brandon/AP) | 2022-11-13T15:45:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Divided over Ukraine war, G-20 summit struggles on economic agenda - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/13/biden-g20-xi-ukraine-war/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/13/biden-g20-xi-ukraine-war/ |
FILE - Naomi Biden, right, and fiancé Peter Neal attend the Ralph Lauren Fall/Winter 2022 fashion show at the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, March 22, 2022, in New York. Naomi Biden, the granddaughter of President Joe Biden, and Peter Neal are getting married on the South Lawn on Saturday in what will be the 19th wedding in White House history. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-11-13T16:03:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Here comes the bride': White House to host its 19th wedding - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/here-comes-the-bride-white-house-to-host-its-19th-wedding/2022/11/13/75688ef0-6364-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/here-comes-the-bride-white-house-to-host-its-19th-wedding/2022/11/13/75688ef0-6364-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Ambulances near the scene of an explosion in central Istanbul on Sunday. (Kemal Aslan/Rueters)
ISTANBUL — An explosion on one of this Turkish city’s busiest shopping thoroughfares Sunday killed at least four people and injured 38 more, officials said.
Ali Yerlikaya, the regional governor of Istanbul, shared the preliminary toll in a tweet. He previously said that an explosion occurred shortly after 4 p.m. local time on Istiklal Street in the Beyoglu district, causing “casualties and injuries.”
Ambulances could be seen racing from the scene shortly after the explosion, through throngs of tourists. Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, appealed for calm on social media and called on people to assist authorities at the site.
Turkish authorities did not immediately release any information about the cause of the explosion.
Istiklal Street, sometimes called Istanbul’s Champs-Elysées, was the site of a suicide bombing in March 2016 that killed five people, including two U.S. nationals, and injured dozens more. | 2022-11-13T16:03:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At least 4 dead, 38 injured in Istanbul explosion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/istanbul-turkey-explosion-istiklal/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/13/istanbul-turkey-explosion-istiklal/ |
Helping Hand is back to raise money for District charities
Sheila White at Miriam's Kitchen, a Washington nonprofit that helps people experiencing homelessness. Miriam's is one of the partners in The Washington Post Helping Hand initiative. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)
Sheila White and I have something in common. We’ve both written about people experiencing homelessness. I do it in The Washington Post. She’s done it for Street Sense, a newspaper you may have seen people selling on street corners downtown.
White brought to her stories a perspective I don’t have — and hope never to have. She herself was once without a home. I asked her what kind of stories she wrote.
“I did a story about myself,” White said. “They always wanted me to write about me. I said, ‘I’m done with me.’ The stories I liked to write were other people’s stories. I wanted to hear how they endured being homeless.”
Today is the first day of this year’s Washington Post Helping Hand campaign. That’s our annual fundraising drive for three local nonprofit groups working to end homelessness and hunger in our area. Over the next eight weeks, I’ll share stories about Bread for the City, Friendship Place and Miriam’s Kitchen, one of the charities that helped White. I hope the people you meet in my columns will inspire you to give. (You can do that by visiting posthelpinghand.com.)
In the coming days, I’ll share more about Sheila White. But there’s something she told me that I want to share now.
“A homeless person isn't a bum,” she said. “People looked at me like I was a bum.”
White said she wanted her stories “to get people to be aware a homeless person is a human being like anybody. They had a life like you before they were homeless.”
I hope my stories will do the same. But first, let’s meet these three charities.
Over the last fiscal year, Bread for the City distributed nearly 306,000 bags of groceries to people in need from its two locations: on Seventh Street NW and on Good Hope Road SE. That’s a lot of bread — and vegetables, milk, meat and more — for the city.
But that’s not all Bread for the City did last year. More than 2,700 patients visited its medical, dental and vision clinics, or took advantage of behavioral health counseling. Medical staff administered 1,146 coronavirus tests and gave 350 covid vaccinations.
Nearly 400 people visited its clothing room to stock up on clothes, household items and toiletries. And 582,600 diapers were distributed through Bread for the City’s diaper bank.
Bread for the City also oversees social programs, such as job readiness and life skills classes, and operates a legal clinic that provides assistance in such areas as housing and family law.
To donate a check by mail, make it payable to “Bread for the City” and send it to Bread for the City, Attn: Development, 1525 Seventh St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001.
Last year, Friendship Place provided assistance to 3,673 people experiencing homelessness or at risk of falling into it. Many of them started their transition off the streets by visiting the charity’s Welcome Center on Wisconsin Avenue NW. It’s a place to do laundry, get mail, access medical services and meet with case managers — the social workers who can help craft a plan for the future. Friendship Place’s Street Outreach team reached others where they live: on the streets.
Friendship Place provides a home for families at a 50-unit building in Ward 3 called the Brooks. Valley Place is a new short-term apartment building for 52 residents in Southeast. La Casa is permanent supportive housing in Northwest for 43 men.
Friendship Place oversees several programs aimed at veterans. And last year, the charity’s AimHire jobs program helped more than 50 people find employment.
To donate by mail, send a check to Friendship Place, 3655 Calvert St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20007.
Miriam’s Kitchen describes its mission as “more than a meal.” But that meal — two meals, actually; breakfast and dinner, prepared every weekday in its Foggy Bottom headquarters — is pretty darn good. Miriam’s Kitchen serves close to 70,000 tasty, nutritious meals a year.
The dining room serves as a literal and figurative entry way to the charity. It’s a starting point for many people experiencing homelessness, a way to connect with Miriam’s Kitchen and learn about its services. These range from getting warm clothing and stocking up on toiletries to accessing free health care and mental health services.
At Miriam’s Kitchen, clients meet with housing experts who help prepare the forms needed to qualify for benefits. Those benefits can include permanent supportive housing. Last year, Miriam’s Kitchen helped 149 people move off the street and into their own homes.
Some of them return occasionally to Miriam’s Kitchen for a meal. The food is that tasty and the dining room is that welcoming. That’s because of something the staff and volunteers at Miriam’s Kitchen never forget: A homeless person is a human being like anybody.
To donate by check, write Miriam’s Kitchen, Attn: Development, 2401 Virginia Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20037.
Our Helping Hand campaign runs through Jan. 6. Please consider making a donation. | 2022-11-13T16:25:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Post's Helping Hand campaign begins its annual reader fund drive - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/13/helping-hand-homelessness-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/13/helping-hand-homelessness-dc/ |
In Brazil, Counter-Strike fans turn cheering into an over-the-top artform
In esports as in soccer, Brazilian fans bring the noise, and lots of it
By Lucas Benaim
(Washington Post illustration; Adela Sznajder for ESL Gaming)
Drums, vuvuzelas, flags and stadium chants. The Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro — with 18,000 fans in attendance — roars and trembles as the best teams in the world compete on the biggest stage. But this isn’t a soccer game. It’s the IEM Rio Major, the Counter-Strike esports world championship being played in Brazil.
“I think everyone had a feeling that it was going to be pretty crazy,” said Anders Blume, a “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” shoutcaster who has worked in the scene for nearly a decade. “But nothing could have prepared us for what's actually happening.”
“You can hear the music, drums, dancing and it's like, yeah, it just feels like a festival to us,” said Christopher “dexter” Nong, the Australian captain of MOUZ, one of the teams at the event.
Counter-Strike, in which teams of five compete to attack and defend bombsites, has a long history in Brazil, dating back over two decades. The game is a cultural phenomenon; many Brazilians under the age of 30 have played it at least once in their life.
Counter-Strike sees two majors — the esport’s marquee tournaments — every year, most of which are hosted in Europe. This year, when the major came to Brazil for the first time (after a pandemic-related delay) tickets sold out in an hour. When the organizer changed the event layout to accommodate additional seating, the extra tickets sold out within the hour as well.
Over the course of the tournament, which concludes Sunday, the fans morphed from just a part of the show to something closer to a main attraction. During the Challengers and Legends stages of the Major, played in front of a smaller audience in the event space Riocentro, the fans — who hooted, hollered, sang, stomped and banged the drums — garnered countless comments on social media for their passion.
This was the Brazilian crowd during SWISS POOLS of the CSGO IEM Rio Major
Liquid is a NA CSGO team and they were still cheering like this because they liked them THAT MUCH and hated Spirit THAT MUCH
I can't imagine what the playoffs are gonna sound like
I love Brazil pic.twitter.com/czVdNXXIdk
— kinoposting (@Kino_Posting) November 9, 2022
The fans who brought the Rio Major to life are known as the “Torcida Organizada,” a group influenced by Brazil’s history of soccer torcidas (or hooligans, as they’re known in the U.K.) Equipped with drums and flags for boasting the logos of the home teams, these fans recontextualized traditional soccer chants familiar to Brazilian fans with esports motifs — writing the Major’s anthems in the process.
Alexandre “Gaules” Borba, a Brazilian streamer, plays a big role in the proceedings, acting as something of a hype man for the whole country. His community — the “Tribo,” as he calls them — is one of the main forces behind the huge Brazilian viewership numbers. During the previous Major in Antwerp, his personal stream reached a peak of over 700,000 viewers during Imperial’s match against Cloud9.
Due to the high demand for tickets, ESL partnered with Borba to host a Fan-Fest outside of the arena where the voice of Brazil interacts with fans from a stage and casts the games live in front of an audience.
“When I started broadcasting, I wanted to bring the same energy that came with me from soccer because I’m a big fan of soccer,” said Borba, who, like many in Brazil, played soccer as a child. “I saw this generation and I was thinking most people who like and compete in esports weren’t able to have the same experience that I had in stadiums because It’s a different time.”
Perhaps the most prominent chant, “La Tribonera,” can be heard when the torcida wants to pressure the opposing team and lift up their own. The title mixes the word “Tribo” and La Bombonera, the stadium of Argentine soccer club Boca Juniors. It’s become part of Brazilian soccer folklore to say “La Bombonera breathes” because the structure literally shakes when fans gather to watch teams play there.
“I think that for the first time ever, we can prove that esports can be bigger than traditional sports,” Borba said. “I’ve gone to a lot of soccer matches and what I saw here, I’ve never seen in my life.”
The torcida started off as a fan group for Imperial, a Brazilian “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” squad that spiked in popularity after signing two of the country’s stars: Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo and Fernando “fer” Alvarenga. But after Imperial flunked out of the tournament, the group became a stand-in for all Brazilian Counter-Strike fans.
“When they fell out of the tournament we decided our team was not just Imperial,” said Angelo Matheus, a 20-year-old student and a drummer among the torcida in Rio. “It was all of Brazil.”
Players aren’t oblivious to the noise.
“People here are always supporting,” said Dzhami “Jame” Ali, the Russian captain of Outsiders. “I’m not talking every round, they support every second. From noon to dusk, it doesn’t stop. You’re going to have at least one fan screaming their heart out at any given time.”
“The crowd is very loud. Only 3,000 Brazilian fans can be louder than the 10,000 fans in Cologne,” said Ali, referring to the German city, which boasts a long history of hosting global esports events.
The energy isn’t lost on the talent staffing the event either. During one broadcast, the fans completely drowned out the casters. One of them, Harry “JustHarry” Russell, yelled hoarsely, attempting to speak over the sound of the crowd: “I don’t even know if you can hear me right now!”
IEM RIO MAJOR CROWD INSANEEEEEEEEEEEE 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/BwpIKUscsT
— Erick Bach (@Xeppaaa) November 12, 2022
“I can’t compare it to anything other than Premier League Football games in the U.K.” said James Banks, host and presenter for the IEM Rio Major. “Huge stadiums with 70,000 people and it doesn’t even sound like this because you will only get half of the stadium cheering for one team and the other half for the other.”
“The energy is electrifying,” Banks said. “I feed off the crowd and it’s like a caffeine shot without having to drink anything.”
While soccer hooligans in Brazil are often known for episodes of violence as much as their passion, those in the crowd at Jeunesse Arena aimed to do something different.
“We want to show the world we’re united as one,” said Matheus, the drummer. “Esports are more civilized. We don’t fight among ourselves like torcidas do in soccer.”
ROUND DA VITÓRIA DIRETAMENTE DA TEMPESTADE NO RIO DE JANEIRO
ALÔ CLIMA TEMPO AVISA QUE A BRAZILIAN STORM CHEGOU ⛈️⛈️⛈️⛈️ pic.twitter.com/n1v9fOjH1n
After Imperial’s fall, the torcida organizada found its new hope in Furia, a Brazilian team that advanced to the semifinal stage.
“The Rio Major has been a game-changing experience for most of us in Furia and in Brazil,” said Jaime Padua, co-founder and co-CEO of Furia. “The atmosphere at Riocentro made people cry. Our players have never felt such an energy. The connection between fans and players is a massive factor in this major. It sends a very clear message about esports: We are moving in the best direction possible.”
But Furia fell as well, losing to Heroic, a Danish team, on Saturday evening. It’s not clear, then, who Brazilian fans will cheer for during the finals Sunday. But one thing is almost guaranteed: They’re going to be loud.
Lucas Benaim is a freelance journalist from Argentina covering esports in Latin America. You can follow him on Twitter @LucasBenaim. | 2022-11-13T17:04:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At Counter-Strike Rio Major, Brazil's fans take cheering to a new level - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/esports/2022/11/13/counter-strike-rio-major-gaules-brazil/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/esports/2022/11/13/counter-strike-rio-major-gaules-brazil/ |
GOP disappointment is understandable. But the path to 2024 hasn’t changed.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), left, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) outside the White House on May 12, 2021. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Republicans smarting from a disappointing election want somebody to blame. Expectations, including mine, soared as the country was swamped with bad economic news. It wasn’t irrational exuberance, but it was still an understandable looking beyond the election in front of us to the GOP agenda, while looking past some obvious flaws in our own nominees. Lesson (re-)learned.
But this isn’t the GOP’s version of the Democrats’ 2016 shock, with stunned staffers sitting on curbs. It’s a prod to get better at party organization and to master the rules as they exist if they cannot be changed (and they won’t be in California).
What the GOP needs is a quick vote of confidence in the experienced congressional hands who know how to position the party while landing some wins along the way to the big contest for the presidency in 2024. GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) have critics within their caucuses, and some loud hecklers in the conservative media ecosystem, but both are canny, hard-working, competent coalition managers.
Right now, Republicans are overcorrecting to deep disappointment, and of course there are recriminations, egged on by Blue Bubble media and Democratic activists who would love to see a GOP civil war. What ought to matter to Constitution-first conservatives is that the House, as of Sunday morning, is still more likely that not to go Republican and, if it does, the GOP can (1) set up a select committee on China and (2) attend to a depleted Pentagon budget while (3) conducting vigorous oversight of federal agencies that are failing, especially Homeland Security.
A small majority can do these things, and they matter, both on the substance and with voters. Go that way. And put hard votes in front of the Democrats while standing as a wall against the excesses of the past two years.
McCarthy has been de facto leader of the GOP House since then-Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) announced retirement in April 2018. McCarthy guided the Republicans to increased numbers in 2020. If he has gotten them over the top this year, it would be insane to begin shooting inside the tent. No leader of a caucus of 218 or more members can satisfy them all, but outliers should not control the vast majority that supports McCarthy.
On the Senate side, every 10 years like clockwork the GOP forgets that candidates who win primaries are sometimes too far to the right for the general. Republicans cannot wish away independents who do not want abortion rights ended, only limited. They cannot wish away young voters. The Buckley Rule abides: Nominate the most conservative candidate who can win. The Republicans didn’t. McConnell warned them, but he did his part for those who were viable — J.D. Vance in Ohio (successfully) and Adam Laxalt in Nevada (the most disappointing loss of the election). In the closely divided chamber, the GOP should stick with the guy who had the guts and acumen to do what it took to secure a conservative Supreme Court majority.
And, by the way, gridlock isn’t inevitable, even with a tiny margin for the GOP. There may yet be legislative compromises to be had on the border and immigration. Also possible is responsible, legislated regulation of Big Tech that doesn’t strangle innovation in artificial intelligence or quantum computing but does insist on Chinese Communist Party-controlled products such as TikTok being banned from our shores — finally. There is more to do, and to run on, and chaos in the caucuses won’t get it done.
Disappointment can be a reason for change, but not if it descends into bitterness. With the presidency in Democratic hands, we were always going to have divided power in D.C. Republicans ought to focus on making 2024 a second 1980, not a second 1964. It won’t take much to secure a House, Senate, White House trifecta. But it could also turn into a triple loss if activists and donors can’t turn away from party-splintering internecine battles. | 2022-11-13T17:35:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | GOP disappointment is understandable. But the path to 2024 hasn’t changed. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/gop-disappointment-midterms-2024-mccarthy-mcconnell/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/gop-disappointment-midterms-2024-mccarthy-mcconnell/ |
By Shuran Huang | Nov 13, 2022
The Rev. Judith Moore spent her days leading up to the midterm elections energizing Black voters in the Pittsburgh area. She stood on a street corner holding a “Your Vote Matters” sign. She led poll monitor training sessions. She made phone calls.
Moore speaks at a get-out-the-vote “souls to the polls” event at Bethel AME Church in Tarentum, Pa.
“I drove by the polling stations and I rarely saw our voters,” the 69-year-old AME church preacher said.
Moore has led “souls to the polls” events at AME churches for 24 years.
Congregants sing hymns at Bethel AME Church in Tarentum, Pa.
Moore wants people “to understand their power and their strength and to make sure they are heard.”
“And the only way to do this is to get out to vote. Your voice matters. Your vote matters.”
Inside Bethel AME Church. Moore was born in Mims, Fla., to parents who were teachers and community leaders in the NAACP. They inspired her to become a civil rights activist, she says: “We just grew up knowing that is who we were. We were going to be serving leaders.”
Moore laughs with volunteers as she leads a poll monitor training session at Bethesda Community Church in Pittsburgh.
Volunteers at a poll monitor training session.
Moore and another volunteer with signs to encourage voting. “Your vote has power. We need to figure out how to leverage that power,” she says.
Twice a week for more than a month before Election Day, volunteers stood streetside to energize voters.
Bethesda Community Church is in the heart of Homewood, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Pittsburgh.
Moore spent hours driving around Pittsburgh on Election Day to mobilize voters.
Moore chats with a co-worker in Pittsburgh.
Moore works at home in New Kensington, Pa., talking with voter mobilization coordinators around the state.
“What is the next step?” Moore said in an interview. “We want to make sure the voting process is a portion of advocacy. It is important to push those people in the office to understand what our needs are. We want to be included in their agenda.”
“This shirt reminds me why I do what I do and how important voting is,” Moore says.
A voting rights button with a picture of the late congressman and civil rights champion John Lewis sits on a table at Moore's house, along with some candy.
Moore giggles with her husband, Leo. They have been married for almost 37 years. “He has always pushed me to become whoever I want to become,” she says. “He sees me more than I see myself.”
Moore looks out her door after a long day of work. She is also the founder of Sisters Saving Ourselves Now, an organization that aims help women of all colors.
Photo editing and production by Christine T. Nguyen | 2022-11-13T19:06:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Preacher mobilizes voters in Pennsylvania - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2022/preacher-mobilizes-voters-pennsylvania/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2022/preacher-mobilizes-voters-pennsylvania/ |
A planned renovation of Washington’s train station includes expanded tracks and concourses, underground parking and new amenities over two decades
A rendering of the new hall planned at Union Station as part of a multibillion-dollar redevelopment. (Federal Railroad Administration/U.S. Commission of Fine Arts)
Union Station is in line for its first major facelift in more than three decades, an investment that railroad and city officials say will help to move more passenger trains through the busy Northeast Corridor while modernizing a critical gateway to the nation’s capital.
Plans for the 115-year-old train hub include updated concourses and tracks, more retail options, a new train hall and modern parking and bus facilities. The proposed expansion, at least a $10 billion private and public expense, calls for a transformation of the nation’s second-busiest intercity rail hub by 2040.
The improvements would be the first since a $160 million restoration was completed in the late 1980s, when Union Station reopened as both a rail stop and a 110-store mall to become a shopping and dining destination on Capitol Hill. That vibrancy has dissipated, leaving a station that some D.C. officials, neighbors and passengers describe as outdated, unwelcoming and unsafe.
“There’s little reason to go inside if you aren’t trying to catch a train,” D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said.
The Federal Railroad Administration this summer unveiled images of plans for the station that show a spacious, light-filled atrium with large skylights and soaring ceilings. The station’s iconic main hall — with its 96-foot-tall ceilings lined with 23-carat gold — will be preserved. But much of the attached spaces will be redone to add wider rail platforms, a new bus terminal and updated concourses lined with shops and restaurants and with better access to Metrorail, buses, taxis, ride-hailing services, streetcars and parking.
“Modernizing the station would expand existing transit systems — meeting riders’ needs, aiding economic growth and positioning the historic station as a leading multimodal transportation hub well into the future,” the Federal Railroad Administration, which owns Union Station, said in a statement.
Although plans call for station upgrades to be finished in about 18 years, much of the timetable is unclear. The federal environmental review of the project, which began in 2015, is at least three years behind schedule. No funding has been secured for the renovation, according to the FRA, and such a pricey project, it said, “will require funding partners prepared to invest.”
The FRA, which is leading the project’s environmental review, paused the process for almost two years to revise the plan and respond to concerns from federal planners, the city and residents that it was too car-centric. A revised plan unveiled in summer eliminated a six-story garage and relocated parking and drop-off areas to an underground facility, which officials said will improve traffic circulation around the station. The changes are likely to increase the project’s cost.
The FRA is expected to complete the review — a requirement to move the proposed revamp toward construction — in late 2023. Once the federal approval process is complete, an extensive design phase is likely to take several years, project officials said, possibly followed by more than a decade of construction.
The revised plan includes a major reconfiguration of the bus terminal to align with a new train hall. The decision to move parking underground frees up space that would be used to create a park area and plazas. Directing some pickup and drop-off traffic below ground will help reduce congestion off Columbus Circle. Additional pickup space is planned at grade level off H Street NE.
The project was proposed by Amtrak and the Union Station Redevelopment Corp., which manages and operates Union Station under a long-term lease from the FRA. The plans call for an overhaul of Amtrak’s second-busiest rail station — after New York’s Penn Station — where many facilities date back to the D.C. station’s 1907 opening.
The renovation would also triple passenger capacity and transform the station into a hub for high-speed rail. Project documents completed before the pandemic said the existing platforms and waiting areas were at or exceeding capacity.
The station’s foot traffic and train operations have been reduced during the pandemic. Before 2020, Union Station had about 40 million visitors each year and was served by 85 to 90 intercity Amtrak trains daily. It is also the Washington region’s busiest transit hub, connecting Amtrak, Metro, Virginia Railway Express, Maryland MARC commuter trains, and intercity and local buses.
Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods said the railroad “is working with both public and private partners to explore all funding opportunities available for the project” and continues to work with USRC and the FRA. Amtrak earlier this year began a legal campaign to take over leasing rights owned by Union Station Investco at the station, a move that some local and transportation officials say could help redevelopment efforts.
Amtrak moves to seize control of Union Station
The project would allow for a separate private development in the airspace above the train tracks. Developer Akridge is planning to add up to a dozen buildings — with a mix of residential, office, hotel and cultural uses — along 15 acres of air rights it owns from north of Union Station to K Street NE. The estimated $3 billion project, known as Burnham Place, is contingent upon the station’s redevelopment.
The proposed expansion ranks as a top contender in the Northeast Corridor for federal infrastructure money through the law signed last year by President Biden. About $66 billion is earmarked for rail over five years, while the project also could use millions of additional dollars available for transit and other infrastructure projects.
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) earlier this year stood inside the station to say the city was ready to work with the federal government, Amtrak and USRC to secure some of that funding for the redevelopment.
“The potential that this site holds is enormous,” Bowser said at the time. | 2022-11-13T19:28:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Union Station in line for $10 billion facelift, but questions remain - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/13/dc-union-station-redevelopment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/13/dc-union-station-redevelopment/ |
Residents, commuters and workers say they are worried about the fate of the 115-year-old landmark, a once-vibrant gateway into D.C.
The majority of the commercial space at Union Station in Washington is now empty. (Craig Hudson for The Washington Post)
Union Station had as many as 100 stores more than two decades ago. It’s down to about 40 retailers and eateries while more than half its commercial space sits vacant.
Calls for fire and emergency services show the range of problems at the station, including drug and alcohol intoxication, overdoses and assaults. Meanwhile, foot traffic remains well below pre-pandemic levels, with Metro and commuter rail traffic roughly halved, even as Amtrak reaches more solid footing.
Travelers, commuters and workers say they are worried about the fate of the 115-year-old landmark, a once-vibrant gateway into the nation’s capital that was a destination on its own. They cite rising concerns about safety, encounters with those suffering from mental health episodes and declines in the building’s upkeep — deterioration that became evident years ago but was hastened by the pandemic.
As Starbucks exits, Union Station struggles with safety, empty stores
Washington’s largest transit hub is in line for a $10 billion renovation over two decades, but many worry Union Station’s best days have passed. Station officials say they are working on short-term improvements and a long-term strategy to create a vibrant transportation destination.
“The foundation of those plans involves ensuring the facility is safe, clean, and inviting — keys to providing a positive experience,” Doug Carr, president and chief executive of the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation, which oversees the property, said in a statement.
Those who pass through the iconic station — and those who once visited but now stay away — say they are hoping for another infusion of life into Union Station. The Washington Post spoke to commuters, business owners, longtime visitors and others to learn how its decline has altered their views of one of D.C.'s most beloved architectural jewels.
Commuter: ‘Get in and out as fast as possible’
Thomas Porter used to grab breakfast at Union Station on the way to the office or dinner on the way home. These days, he exits the 332 Virginia Railway Express train and heads straight for the exit.
Porter, 54, commutes about once a week during the pandemic and has seen the station’s amenities decline over the years and fall even more rapidly since the coronavirus slashed foot traffic at Union Station. Starbucks, where he routinely picked up a grande black coffee and an egg-sausage-and-cheese sandwich, closed in summer.
“I’ve seen the station when it was still in the darkest parts of covid — when the trains started running again — and there was just a post-apocalyptic feel to the station because everything was shut down,” said Porter, who commutes from Springfield to Capitol Hill, where he advocates for veterans and military families at a nonprofit. “There’s still some of those stores that haven’t opened, and it’s kind of a dismal place.”
A commuter through Union Station for more than two decades, Porter said he has felt more threatened at the station amid its surge in mental health incidents, homelessness and high-profile crime. Amtrak officers have responded to 47 assaults this year, up from 32 in all of 2021. Burglaries, robberies and vandalism are also up.
Back in the early 2000s, he would frequent B. Smith’s on the East Hall for business lunches, until it closed about a decade ago. He moved to the Center Cafe, a two-level bar in the middle of the main hall that closed in 2016. Starbucks was the only reason left to stop. He recently began avoiding the lower-level food court as harassment grew increasingly intolerable.
“Every single time, someone has approached me asking for something,” he said. “If people are getting harassed just while they’re trying to eat their Taco Bell or Chick-fil-A, they’re not going to want to spend any time there.”
Porter said he hopes the station gets a second life. He likes the multibillion-dollar redevelopment plans the federal government is reviewing. They look similar to the new Moynihan Train Hall in New York, he said, with skylights, modern amenities, dining options and areas restricted to ticketed passengers.
“Right now with the way that it is, it’s more of a place where people just have to go in and out,” he said, “and kind of want to get in and out as fast as possible.”
Business owner: Shooting was ‘very scary and unexpected’
Samarah Banks, 27, was helping a customer choose a $40 bouquet when she heard the gunshots. It was about 4 p.m. on Sept. 28, and her shop in the heart of Union Station was steps from where a person had been shot in the foot.
Banks, her 1-year-old dog, Dice, and the customer hid under a large cabinet as people quickly scattered.
“It was very scary and unexpected,” she said.
Banks runs Lee’s Flower Shop, a second location of the family-owned shop that has been a staple in the U Street corridor. Her mother, Stacie Lee Banks, said she couldn’t pass on the opportunity earlier this year to open at the historic station. She got a special lease deal — a lower rent in a prime space, at least until a market-rate tenant takes it over — because so many other businesses were leaving.
With foot traffic still slow, she said, the shop can only break even. Although Amtrak ridership has recovered to near pre-pandemic levels, commuter and Metro trains serving the station are at 30 to 60 percent occupancy compared to pre-pandemic levels. If the shop makes $200 in sales, it’s a good day. On Columbus Day, it brought in $26.
“It was crazy,” said Stacie Lee Banks, who with her sister runs the U Street shop that her grandparents opened in 1945. “It is slow. We’re not breaking any records in there, but we just love being there.”
Besides, she reasons, such an essential city spot deserves a florist after so many others have left.
“Every train station has to have a flower shop,” she said.
But it’s not all bad news, said Samarah Banks. She enjoys being in the shop to meet tourists from around the world. They stop outside her shop to snap selfies, capturing the barrel-vaulted ceilings lined with 23-carat gold leaf and the arched windows. She said foot traffic is starting to pick up. The September shooting, which police say is still under investigation, didn’t discourage her or make her feel less safe.
“Some things are inevitable,” she said. “Growing up in D.C., you kind of get like numb to things like this because it happens all the time.”
Janitor of 30 years: ‘It has changed a lot’
Before 8 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, Ana Julia Fuentes was making a routine round at Union Station when she spotted food wrappings atop liquid on the west side of the main hall. She grabbed the trash with her gloved hands, pulled disinfectant from her cart and wiped the floor until it was spotless. Her two-way radio buzzed.
“Can someone check the tunnel?” asked the voice, sending instructions in Spanish to assess reports of possible marijuana in the front colonnade.
“On my way,” Fuentes responded, pushing her black cart across the white marble floor.
As she stepped out the doors facing Columbus Circle, she pulled her surgical mask from her nose to track the smell. Finding nothing, she walked the length of the building, encountering only a handful of people pulling baggage as she picked up more litter, cigarette butts and empty soda cans.
An uneventful morning, said Fuentes, 72, recalling other days that involve more than trash and spills.
“People pee and poop here,” she said.
Her job of three decades can be demanding. That morning, she responded to clean broken glass bottles in front of the taxi-stand area. She’s seen people pass out and vomit. She’s cleaned fecal matter by the pizzeria on the second floor. She’s had to scrub the smell of urine with soap at various locations.
“It has changed a lot,” said Fuentes, recalling the 1990s when, after a major rehab, Union Station became a shopping and entertainment destination where families flocked to the now-defunct movie theater on the ground level. A once-thriving terminal is now filled with vacant storefronts.
The most striking change came during the pandemic, she said, a period that has seen more incidents involving panhandlers as the list of shuttered business grows. But in recent months, she said, she’s also seen more commuters and tourists. Each morning she looks forward to taking the bus from her Northwest D.C. home to Union Station, where something always needs to be cleaned, scrubbed or tidied.
“There’s always work,” she said.
Native Washingtonian: Fond memories, but ‘pretty lifeless now’
Dana “Franky J” James, 36, has fond memories of Union Station.
As a kid in the ’90s, her family would take Metro’s Red Line to the station every Christmas season to see it lit with decorations. On special occasions, they would dress up for dinner at B. Smith’s, a Southern-fare restaurant in the ornate East Hall. On short school days, James and her mom would meet to catch a movie at Phoenix Theaters.
“I even got my prom makeup done there,” she said.
The restaurant (closed in 2013), the theater (closed in 2009) and the beauty shop departed years ago. So did the Barnes & Noble (closed in 2013) where she used to go after school, and the H&M store (closed in 2021) where she would make quick shopping trips.
“It just feels pretty lifeless now, and a little sad,” said James, who grew up in the Takoma neighborhood. “Now, every time I go in there, there’s literally a shut door and I’m just like, ‘Where is everything going? What’s happening here?’”
Union Station has struggled for more than a decade to keep tenants, caught up in a trend similar to the one wiping out malls nationwide. The pandemic accelerated the station’s retail departure, a cycle that has hurt more businesses.
James works nearby but no longer goes to the station for entertainment, mainly visiting when she needs to drop a package at the post office. When she takes a train, she said, she worries about delays that could leave her stuck with nothing to do.
“I would literally be sitting there like, ‘What am I going to do?’” she said. “I hope someone in this city is coming up with ideas of how to bring life back to Union Station.”
The homeless: ‘You can’t stay in there overnight’
Union Station is the closest thing to home for Robert Wade.
It’s where he takes cover when it rains or when it gets too hot or too cold. Its facilities, he said, give him access to water; he cleans himself at the station with the soap and cloths he gets from charities. It’s where he finds food and charges his phone.
“There are some things you’re not allowed to do: like, you can’t stay in there overnight,” said Wade, 62. “They’ll tell you to leave. If you don’t do it, you go to jail.”
He knows only ticketed passengers are allowed after 11 p.m., so he finds a corner outside to sleep. He often walks to a nearby bridge where he can park his shopping cart and belongings — a pair of construction boots, a change of clothes, warm blankets. Until June, he had slept more soundly in a tent at a homeless encampment at Columbus Circle, but the National Park Service dismantled it.
Many of its three dozen residents left, but Wade stayed because the services he needs are nearby. The Salvation Army, Central Union Mission and So Others Might Eat distribute food. Churches bring care kits with combs, soap and shampoo. The nonprofit h3 Project has a team of social workers for people experiencing mental health crises. City social services also are available, including a team that responds to psychiatric emergencies and conducts routine checkups.
Wade said he has been at Union Station for about a year and came to Washington from his native Maine to find help after his identity was stolen. Back home, he said, a range of jobs consisted of driving trucks and car-reconditioning work. He said because of his stolen identity and legal problems, he can’t get a job or enroll in programs to get an apartment.
Homeless camp cleared at Union Station: ‘We don’t have nowhere to go’
He plans to stay at Union Station until he gets his life back on track.
Security and police will leave the homeless alone if they aren’t causing trouble, Wade said. He feels safe at Union Station, he said, although he feels better protected when police are around.
Wade stays mainly for the shelter and the services, but he has also formed a sense of community with others who spend hours each day under Union Station’s elegant roof.
“Home,” he said, “will be wherever I go.” | 2022-11-13T19:28:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C's Union Station faces safety, upkeep concerns. Can it be saved? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/13/union-station-dc-rail-renovation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/13/union-station-dc-rail-renovation/ |
Frustrated Republicans have begun pointing fingers and called for a delay in leadership elections
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-N.V.) on Sunday after her projected win against Adam Laxalt. (David Becker for The Washington Post)
Though control of the House remained undetermined on Sunday, Democrats were already celebrating retaining their majority in the Senate after Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) was projected to win reelection. Her victory secured the 50th Senate seat for Democrats and quashed Republicans’ hopes of taking control of both chambers of Congress, as many had predicted in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
“When far-right Republicans said they knew better, I knew we would prove them wrong,” Cortez Masto said in a victory speech on Sunday. “This election, Nevadans rejected the far-right politicians working to divide us. We rejected their conspiracies, their attacks on our workers and their efforts to restrict our freedoms.”
With the Senate runoff in Georgia next month between Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) and Republican Herschel Walker, Democrats have a chance to pick up a 51st seat, a stunning feat in a midterm election year that typically does not favor the party in power.
The developments have prompted some frustrated Republicans to call on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to clearly lay out a Republican agenda and to delay their leadership elections that are scheduled for Wednesday.
Parties gear up for the last outstanding Senate race in Georgia
If Democrats win a 51st Senate seat, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) would be able to bypass a power-sharing resolution with Republicans, in place because of the 50-50 Senate, and more easily confirm President Biden’s judicial nominees.
Schumer on Saturday night called the results a “vindication” for the Democratic agenda and a rejection of Republican extremism. On Sunday, he called on Republican lawmakers to work with Democrats but declined to get into specifics about what they would try to accomplish in the future. He said Democrats would try to have “as productive a lame-duck session as possible.”
“Maybe the Republican Party, which has been so negative on so many different issues, will realize that the election was a clarion call by the American people: Stop all this negativity, stop flirting with autocracy, stop spending your time denying the election, and work to get something done,” Schumer said.
Some Senate Republicans, including Rick Scott (Fla.), chair of the chamber’s Republican campaign arm, criticized McConnell for allowing Republicans to cross the aisle and help Democrats pass some key pieces of legislation with their slim majority over the past two years, including an infrastructure bill and investment in manufacturing of microchips.
“Republican leadership caved in on the debt ceiling, caved in on the gun deal, caved in on a fake infrastructure deal,” Scott said Sunday on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” while criticizing McConnell for not releasing his own Republican agenda ahead of the midterms.
Scott’s Republican agenda, which called for tax hikes on lower-income people and frequent reauthorization votes for Social Security and Medicare, has been blamed by some Republicans, including New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), for scaring older voters ahead of the midterm elections. The White House and Democrats used the plan repeatedly to warn that Republicans wanted to target entitlement programs if elected.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who narrowly won reelection, echoed much of Scott’s criticism on Fox News and also called for a delay in the leadership elections. But other Republican senators, including Sens. Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Bill Cassidy (La.) defended McConnell publicly on Sunday and said they supported his leadership bid.
No senator has yet announced a challenge to McConnell, who will become the longest-serving leader of either party in the Senate in the next Congress if he is reelected. A representative for McConnell declined to comment on Sunday.
As of Nov. 12, Democrats held enough Senate seats to retain their majority while the House had yet to be determined. Here’s how long it may take. (Video: Blair Guild/The Washington Post)
Others cast the blame squarely on former president Donald Trump, who backed several Republican candidates in battleground states who lost, including Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz and Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.
“It’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race. And it’s like, three strikes you’re out,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), a longtime Trump critic, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result,” he said. “I’m tired of losing. That’s all he’s done.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday credited Biden and Democratic voters for the midterms win. She called on her party to lift the debt ceiling in the lame duck session to ensure Republicans are not able to withhold their votes for lifting it next year if Republicans win back the House. Some House Republicans had floated the idea of demanding spending cuts and new border policies in return for lifting the debt ceiling.
Control of the House remained in the balance on Sunday, with neither party yet securing the 218 seats required to take the majority. Most of the uncalled congressional races are in California, where ballots are valid as long as they are postmarked by Election Day and where final election tallies could take weeks to determine.
Take a look at the latest House midterms election results here
As of Sunday, Republicans have won 211 House seats, while Democrats have won 203. Democrats have a slim chance of retaining control of the House, though Republicans are still favored to take a narrow majority. Despite that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) struck an optimistic and celebratory tone in interviews on Sunday.
“It was not anything that we ever accepted when the pundits in Washington said we couldn’t win because history, history, history. Elections are about the future,” Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I’m very proud of our candidates, both our incumbents as well as our red-to-blue candidates. They never accepted the punditry that they couldn’t win, they had courage, they had purpose, and they understood their district.”
Pelosi waved off any questions about whether she would run for House speaker again, if Democrats hung on to the majority in the chamber, saying she only wanted to focus on race results. She added that she was “disappointed” in what happened in New York.
That was where Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney lost his race. “But we haven’t given up,” Pelosi said. “We have the White House, we have the Senate, and we’re going to have a big strong vote in the House, a very different outcome than some would have predicted.”
Steven Zeitchik contributed to this report. | 2022-11-13T20:16:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats say voters rejected extremism as Republicans point blame - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/13/elections-2022-senate-house-control/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/13/elections-2022-senate-house-control/ |
It’s time to end forced prison labor everywhere in the United States
Elmore Correctional Facility in Elmore, Ala., where workers staged a strike in June 2015. (Brynn Anderson/AP)
As I was scanning the paper on Nov. 10, I noticed an article in KidsPost, “Voters in 4 states reject forced labor for prison inmates.” Because this is a topic that I care deeply about, I was both pleased and bemused that it should show up there. I am glad that The Post chose to present this topic to young readers.
In addition to constitutional bans passing in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont, a ban failed in Louisiana only because its main sponsor wanted a stronger version. I know from other sources that bans are already in place in Colorado, Utah, Nebraska and Rhode Island. D.C., Maryland and Virginia are conspicuously absent in this list, as are all the states that border our region. A resolution to change the 13th Amendment is pending in Congress, with an uncertain future.
The shameful record of the United States on mass incarceration is fed in part by our for-profit prisons and the cheap forced labor abused by states and corporations. Now is the time for our regional and national leaders to join the movement to truly and finally end slavery in this nation.
Charles Goedeke, Laurel
Opinion|Bicycle advocates won | 2022-11-13T20:24:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | It’s time to end forced prison labor everywhere in the United States - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/its-time-end-forced-prison-labor-everywhere-united-states/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/its-time-end-forced-prison-labor-everywhere-united-states/ |
Disadvantaged populations should not be relegated to telemedicine
Leana S. Wen’s Nov. 9 Wednesday Opinion column, “Telemedicine has improved health-care access. Let’s keep it.,” advocated the continued use of videoconferencing for medical visits. Dr. Wen claimed this will give better access to medical care for “people with disabilities, minorities and seniors with multiple underlying medical conditions.”
However, these are the very groups of patients who should not be directed to greater use of videoconferencing for medical visits. People with disabilities and multiple underlying medical conditions benefit from an in-person medical visit in which a good clinician can detect hidden medical conditions that cannot be detected on a video screen. Minority groups, some of whom now lack equal access to good medical care, should not be relegated to care of lesser quality in the form of videoconference examinations.
This is not an issue of the “doctor-patient relationship” but of the ability of an experienced clinician to detect hidden medical problems based on an in-person discussion of medical history and an in-person physical examination.
Edward Tabor, Bethesda | 2022-11-13T20:37:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Disadvantaged populations should not be relegated to telemedicine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/disadvantaged-populations-should-not-be-relegated-telemedicine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/disadvantaged-populations-should-not-be-relegated-telemedicine/ |
It’s time for Democrats to change their Cuba policy
Ruslan David Bosch Sardiñas, 38, cuts a customer’s hair on April 21 in a barber kiosk in Old Havana, Cuba. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
With the realization that Florida is a red state, driven in large part by South Florida’s Latino population, Democrats should shift their Cuba policy. I’m a Cuban American, born and raised in Miami. I have heard stories about Cuba and why my family left my whole life. It is time we end the embargo and sanctions imposed on Cuba. The easiest way to make inroads is for President Biden to remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
The embargo and sanctions are an anachronism. The Cuban revolution succeeded more than 60 years ago, and U.S. foreign policy has never adjusted to reality. The United States fought a war with Vietnam and established normal and constructive relations with the Vietnamese government. Many of the same criticisms of Cuba can be made of Vietnam; both are one-party communist states. Yet Vietnam is not subject to the same vindictive economic measures, demonstrating there is room for rational approaches in foreign policy. We’ve maintained our Cuba policy largely to mollify Cubans in the United States. With last week’s result, it should be clear this no longer has to be the case — they will never vote Democratic anyway.
Chris Moldes, Rockville | 2022-11-13T20:37:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | It’s time for Democrats to change their Cuba policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/its-time-democrats-change-their-cuba-policy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/13/its-time-democrats-change-their-cuba-policy/ |
Data analysis by The Washington Post undercuts claims pushed by gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and former president Donald Trump, among others
By Lenny Bronner
Election workers process ballots on Thursday at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in Phoenix. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
PHOENIX — The voting locations that experienced problems on Election Day in Maricopa County, home to more than half of Arizona’s voters, do not skew overwhelmingly Republican, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
The claims come as Lake continues to narrowly trail her rival, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, and as the number of ballots remaining to be counted dwindles.
Starting early on Tuesday, printers at 70 of the county’s 223 polling sites produced ballots with ink that was too light to be read by vote-counting machines, which caused ballots to be rejected. That forced voters to wait in line, travel to another location or deposit their ballots in secure boxes that were transferred to downtown Phoenix and counted there. County officials say no one was denied the right to vote.
The Post identified the precincts of affected voting locations using data provided by Maricopa County election officials and then examined the voter registration breakdown within each precinct using data from L2, an election data provider.
Throughout the week, prominent Republicans suggested without evidence that the problem with printers only affected Republican areas.
Lake, addressing reporters after voting with her family at a site downtown, said, “There’s a reason we decided to change locations — we were going to go to a pretty Republican area.” Instead, she said, “We came right down to the heart of liberal Phoenix to vote because we wanted to make sure that we had good machines.”
“And guess what?” she added. “They’ve had zero problems with their machines today. Not one machine spit out a ballot here today. Not one, in a very liberal area. So we were right to come and vote in a very liberal area.”
In fact, there were problems at locations in precincts that skew heavily Democratic, according to The Post’s analysis.
They included two elementary schools in east Phoenix and a health center in south Phoenix — all locations where the share of Democrats outnumbers Republicans by about 40 percentage points. At the Mountain Park Health Center in south Phoenix, which was among the precincts that experienced issues with printers, there were nearly three times as many votes for Lake’s Democratic opponent, Hobbs, as there were for the Republican candidate, according to results released by the county.
A spokesman for the Lake campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Lake’s claims were amplified throughout the weekend by Trump, who wrote on Truth Social, the social media site set up by the former president and his allies, that “Even Kari Lake was taken to a Liberal Democrat district in order to vote.”
The former president used that assertion to push an unfounded claim that Maricopa County officials “stole” the election from Blake Masters, the GOP nominee for Senate. Masters on Friday was projected to lose his race to the incumbent Democrat, Mark Kelly.
“So in Maricopa County they’re at it again. … but only in Republican districts,” wrote Trump, who made the county a target of his false claims of election fraud in 2020.
He concluded, “Do Election over again!”
Masters hinted at a similar demand in an appearance Friday on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show, before his race was called by the Associated Press. “I think the most honest thing at this point would be for Maricopa County to wipe the slate clean, just take all the ballots and do a fresh count,” he said.
Masters claimed that the county had “mixed up” ballots on two occasions but did not offer a basis for that assertion. A campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for the evidence underlying his claims.
A spokeswoman for the county’s elections department said that poll workers at two locations had combined two batches of ballots but that “This has happened in the past, and we have redundancies in place that help us ensure each legal ballot is only counted once.” Those redundancies, which include checking total ballots against check-ins at voting locations, are carried out “with political party observers present,” added the spokeswoman, Megan Gilbertson.
In a statement posted Saturday on Twitter, Masters did not push fraud claims but said he would not concede until all votes had been counted.
Maricopa County officials have stressed in recent days that the glitches did not cause any ballots to be misread or block anyone from voting. They say they are working as long as 18 hours a day to process a record number of ballots dropped off on Election Day — and they have said for weeks that tabulation could take as many as 12 days.
“I’m going to stand up for my state,” Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the county board of supervisors, told reporters on Friday afternoon. “We’re doing things the right way.”
Leaders of the Arizona Republican Party maintain that their voters were disproportionately affected by the glitches because of their tendency to vote on Election Day. “It was no secret that Republicans intended to vote on Election Day,” the state party said in a statement issued on Sunday.
But The Post’s analysis found that the proportion of Republican Election Day voters in precincts with printer problems was virtually the same as the share in precincts countywide, bolstering the county’s argument that people in affected areas who wanted to vote on Tuesday were not prevented from doing so.
Attorneys for the party asked a judge on Tuesday night to require county officials to extend voting times by three hours, citing the mechanical problems. But about five minutes before the polls were set to close, the judge denied the request, finding that Republicans were unable to show that any voter had been denied the ability to cast a ballot.
In Maricopa, voters can cast their ballots at any polling center, no matter where they live. It’s different from some systems that require people to cast their votes at designated locations near or in their neighborhoods.
Voters who live in the suburbs and drive into downtown Phoenix for work, for example, can cast their ballots either near their home, in the city’s center or at schools, churches or any of the 223 polling locations set up throughout the vast county.
Traditionally, people tend to vote in areas close to their homes or in locations that are part of their daily routines, said political scientist Michael McDonald of the University of Florida.
“The vote centers are conveniently located, they’re part of your day, they may be on your route for all of your errands,” he said.
Bronner reported from Washington. Jon Swaine and Reis Thebault contributed to this report. | 2022-11-13T21:43:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Arizona: Maricopa County precincts with voting problems were not overwhelmingly Republican - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/13/arizona-voting-problems-kari-lake-katie-hobbs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2022/11/13/arizona-voting-problems-kari-lake-katie-hobbs/ |
Lawmakers are pushing an unprecedented package of military aid to Taipei. But allocating the money for it is in question.
By Ellen Nakashima
A Cheng Kung class frigate fires an anti-air missile as part of a navy demonstration in Taiwan's annual Han Kuang exercises off the island's eastern coast in July. (Huizhong Wu/AP)
Mindful of lessons learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Congress is pushing to arm and train Taiwan in advance of any potential military attack by China, but whether the aid materializes could depend on President Biden himself.
Deliberations on an unprecedented package of billions of dollars in military assistance to the self-governing island democracy come as Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet in Bali on Monday, with maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait a top item of discussion.
The bipartisan effort would enable the U.S. military to dip immediately into its own stocks of weapons like Javelins and Stingers — something done at scale only for Ukraine, officials said — and provide weapons for the first time to Taiwan through the foreign military financing program, paid for by the United States.
Through these provisions, Taiwan could receive weapons such as anti-ship cruise missiles and anti-air defense systems, self-detonating drones, naval mines, command-and-control systems and secure radios.
The idea is essentially to do for Taipei what is being done for Kyiv — but before the bullets start flying, lawmakers said.
“One of the lessons of Ukraine is that you need to arm your partners before the shooting starts, and that gives you your best chance of avoiding war in the first place,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a former Marine who serves on the armed services committee.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said in September on a Bloomberg TV show that it “remains a distinct threat that there could be a military contingency around Taiwan.”
China plans to seize Taiwan on ‘much faster timeline,’ Blinken says
The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate support the provisions to arm Taipei, but it is not clear that the lawmakers who control the purse strings — the appropriations committees — are convinced of the need to allocate the funds.
Currently there is no money for this package in the 2023 budget proposal that Congress is working to pass, and if appropriators don’t find cuts to cover the weapons assistance, Biden will have to submit an emergency request to finance the spending for Taiwan and make the case for why it’s necessary, congressional aides say.
Administration officials declined to say whether they would do so.
“Our engagement with Congress has been focused on ensuring that legislation that moves forward is clearly consistent with our policy framework that has helped maintain peace and stability across the [Taiwan] Strait,” said a senior administration official, who like several others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The assistance package, whose details are being finalized now in the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act, has been crafted with White House input, congressional aides said. It would allow the provision annually to Taiwan of $1 billion worth of stockpiled U.S. munitions — what’s known as “presidential drawdown authority” — and up to $2 billion worth of weapons annually for five years paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Only Israel gets more on an annual basis.
Congressional advocates say the aid would be consistent with the United States’ obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act, which states that it is U.S. policy to provide Taiwan arms to enable its self-defense.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), an armed services committee member, said the goal is to “make the Taiwanese a formidable military force that can defend itself, like the Ukrainians, or at least make it very hard for the People’s Liberation Army to attack them.”
But skeptics question whether the assistance would further Taiwan’s defensive capabilities in the near-term.
The proposed assistance comes at a fraught time. China has stepped up provocative military maneuvers in the waters and skies near Taiwan in the wake of an August visit to Taipei by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). It also recently concluded a momentous 20th Communist Party Congress, at which Xi secured an unprecedented third term as party general secretary and consolidated his iron grip on power.
Beijing claims Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory, and says “peaceful reunification” is its goal. But at last month’s party congress, Xi reiterated the vow to “never commit to abandoning the use of force” toward that end, and said he was willing “to take all necessary measures” to do so.
U.S. military leaders have been warning for years of China’s growing threat to the region. In March 2021, the then-head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. Philip S. Davidson, testifying in the Senate, noted a string of concerning actions taken by China: a rapid and massive military buildup of ships, aircraft and long-range rockets; crackdowns in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet; border clashes with India; and militarization of islands in the disputed South China Sea.
China has long said it wants to achieve great power status by its centenary in 2049. “Taiwan,” Davidson said in March 2021, “is clearly one of their ambitions before then, and I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years.”
His remarks created a stir, with some observers interpreting them to mean China would invade by 2027.
In an interview, Davidson said that while China could mount an attack, there are other ways Beijing could bring pressure to bear on Taiwan. “That could be a blockade, missile barrage, profound cyberattacks on Taiwan infrastructure,” he said. “I do think this is the decade of concern, and I’m still concerned about the next six years.”
Sen. Sullivan, a colonel in the Marine Corps reserve, said a military takeover or blockade of Taiwan by China would result in “enormous” damage to the world economy, particularly as it would affect the global supply chain for computer chips. Taiwan is the world’s leading supplier of advanced chips that power artificial intelligence and supercomputers.
The administration, which is seeking to “responsibly manage” its relationship with Beijing, treads carefully when it comes to Taiwan. When Pelosi planned to travel to Taiwan in August, the Biden administration mounted an intense behind-the-scenes effort, arguing that a visit by such a senior U.S. official so close to the party congress would be seen as provocative and an affront to Beijing. Still, when Xi himself asked Biden to find a way to dissuade her, Biden said he could not oblige, as Congress was an independent branch of government.
Shortly after Pelosi’s visit, Beijing sanctioned some of its trade with Taiwan and stepped up military drills in the waters surrounding the island. It simulated a blockade and sent jets repeatedly across the “center line,” an unofficial barrier in the strait dividing Taiwan and the Chinese mainland that for decades was seen as a stabilizing feature — actions that in the view of analysts represent a change by Beijing in the status quo.
Washington followed up by announcing the launch of talks on a formal trade agreement with Taiwan, and in September announced its intention to sell $1.1 billion in arms to Taipei. That package includes Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. Such sales, though, generally take several years to be delivered because of larger structural challenges arising out of how foreign military sales are completed.
Biden says U.S. troops would defend Taiwan in event of attack by China
Some congressional aides say that the use of foreign military financing would not speed up the weapons delivery. Others argue that with such a tool, the U.S. government will be able to more quickly negotiate transactions and make decisions about the direction of Taiwan’s defense strategy and how it fits in with U.S. military capabilities.
The advantage to drawdown authority is speed — at least for weapons that are currently in U.S. stockpiles, including shoulder-fired antitank Stingers and anti-ship cruise missiles, said one aide.
A key difference with Ukraine is that Taiwan, being an island, would be harder to resupply in a conflict and essentially can only fight with what it has on hand when a conflict starts. “So surging and stockpiling as many critical munitions to Taiwan — and generally west of the international date line — is our best chance of preserving the peace and making Xi Jinping think twice,” Gallagher said.
Still, the debate over whether to finance the military assistance package is unresolved.
“We need to be clear we have broad support for any new initiative and what the trade-offs will be, especially at a time when senior Republicans are questioning whether we will sustain our support for Ukraine,” said one Democratic lawmaker familiar with ongoing discussions.
Congress traditionally has been more hawkish in its support of Taiwan than presidential administrations. The military assistance was part of a larger bill, the Taiwan Policy Act, that included several symbolic provisions the Biden team found objectionable and that angered Beijing.
That bill, co-sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Ranking Member James E. Risch (R-Idaho), for instance called for designating Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally” for the purpose of expediting arms sales and renaming Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington from the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office” to the more official-sounding “Taiwan Representative Office.”
The White House lobbied hard to get those provisions removed or watered down, but, congressional aides said, it provided guidance on the military assistance portion.
“There are elements of that legislation with respect to how we can strengthen our security assistance to Taiwan that are quite effective and robust, that will improve Taiwan’s security,” Jake Sullivan told financier David Rubenstein on the Bloomberg podcast in September. “There are other elements that give us some concern.”
Beijing’s aggressive military maneuvers have served to close bipartisan ranks in Congress on the package. “We are on the final stages of negotiations,” Menendez said. “But authorizing billions alone in military assistance will not be enough. Both Washington and Taipei will need to continue to take steps to ensure that the right capabilities are delivered in a timely fashion.”
The leaders of both chambers voiced confidence the measures would pass. “The Democratic House is committed to helping Taiwan defend itself in the face of aggression from the [People’s Republic of China],” said a Pelosi spokeswoman, Shana Mansbach.
“This legislation will strengthen military cooperation with Taiwan and show that the United States will not stand by as President Xi seeks to isolate and coerce Taiwan,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said it was grateful for Congress’ efforts to enhance the island’s defenses. “It is our responsibility to ensure national security, and only after we can depend upon ourselves, can we expect help from others,” spokesman Sun Li-fang said.
Davidson, who retired last year, said that besides continuing to help arm and train Taiwan, the United States needs to strengthen diplomatic, economic and military capabilities in the region. “Our conventional deterrent is eroding,” he said. “The main reason is the staggering growth in China’s air and maritime forces, its rocket forces, its nuclear program, and the development of weapons like hypersonic missiles.”
“If Xi can draw back the curtain and see what the United States looks like out in the region, economically, diplomatically and militarily” and sees U.S. engagement and a potent military, said Davidson, “he’ll have to say, ‘I don’t want to mess with that,’ and close the curtain. That’s what winning looks like.”
Christian Shepherd and Vic Chiang in Taipei contributed to this report. | 2022-11-13T23:40:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Congress seeks to arm Taiwan quickly as China threat grows - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/13/taiwan-china-invasion-military-aid/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/13/taiwan-china-invasion-military-aid/ |
MUNICH — Tom Brady stayed undefeated abroad by throwing two touchdown passes as Tampa Bay beat Seattle in the first regular-season game played in Germany.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Tua Tagovailoa maintained his scorching form since his return from a concussion, throwing three touchdown passes as Miami won its fourth straight.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Daniel Jones threw two touchdown passes, Saquon Barkley ran for 152 yards and a TD and New York beat Houston.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Ryan Tannehill threw two touchdown passes to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine as Tennessee rallied from a 10-point deficit to beat Denver.
CHICAGO — Jamaal Williams scored on a 1-yard run in the closing minutes, Jared Goff threw for 236 yards and a touchdown, and Detroit overcame another spectacular effort by Chicago’s Justin Fields.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Mahomes threw for 331 yards and four touchdowns as Kansas City rolled past Jacksonville.
PITTSBURGH — Kenny Pickett and George Pickens ran for 1-yard touchdowns and Pittsburgh pulled away from listless New Orleans. | 2022-11-13T23:42:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Allen's miscues, Jefferson's big day help Vikings beat Bills - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/allens-miscues-jeffersons-big-day-help-vikings-beat-bills/2022/11/13/33dcec1a-63aa-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/allens-miscues-jeffersons-big-day-help-vikings-beat-bills/2022/11/13/33dcec1a-63aa-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
St. John’s 2, Maret 1
St. John's finished 19-0-1. (Michael Errigo/The Washington Post)
Returning 10 starters from the team that won last year’s Washington Catholic Athletic Conference title, the Cadets were bound to be a contender. But with time, they transcended that label and started chasing grander goals. They finished the regular season undefeated and then stormed through the WCAC bracket to earn a second straight conference title. After that, there were only two milestones remaining: the D.C. State Athletic Association championship and an undefeated season.
Maret (13-4-2) turned in a season of stellar soccer only to falter by the smallest of margins. All four of its losses came by one goal. After Emely Rubio Garcia gave St. John’s an early lead by converting a penalty kick, Maret responded with a headed goal from junior Ashley Ahn.
“There was a point in the regular season where we felt like we could do this,” said Rubio Garcia, who earned MVP honors. “We felt confident in our play, and we thought this was the year we could make this happen.” | 2022-11-14T01:12:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | St. John's girls' soccer team wins DCSAA title over Maret - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/st-johns-girls-dcsaa-champions-maret/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/st-johns-girls-dcsaa-champions-maret/ |
Boston Bruins’ David Pastrnak lets go with a shot against the Vancouver Canucks during the first period of an NHL hockey game Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, in Boston. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
BOSTON — Patrice Bergeron scored his third goal in two days and the Boston Bruins won their fourth straight game, beating the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 on Sunday night. | 2022-11-14T02:46:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bergeron, Bruins beat Canucks 5-2 for 11th win in 12 games - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/bergeron-bruins-beat-canucks-5-2-for-11th-win-in-12-games/2022/11/13/d14817fc-63c0-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/bergeron-bruins-beat-canucks-5-2-for-11th-win-in-12-games/2022/11/13/d14817fc-63c0-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
From 9 to 5 to $100 million, Dolly Parton receives Bezos charity award
Inductee Dolly Parton speaks onstage at the 37th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony Nov. 6. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)
And the Queen of Country has followed her heart to become many things — a top contributor to the American songbook, a brilliant vocalist, an Island in the Stream — but above all, she’s a giver.
She can gift the money to any philanthropic organization of her choosing. That could buy coats of many, MANY colors.
This is the second year Bezos has handed out the award. Last year, he gave chef and disaster relief specialist José Andrés and CNN commentator and activist Van Jones $100 million each.
(Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Dolly Parton likes to give away books. She just donated her 100 millionth.
Dolly Parton’s Dollywood says it will pay all tuition costs for employees pursuing higher education
When wildfires threatened her native Sevier County, Tenn., in 2016 she pledged financial support for those who lost their homes. Parton also revealed last year that she invested the royalties from Whitney Houston’s cover of Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” — recorded for the 1992 film “The Bodyguard” — into a historically Black neighborhood in Nashville called Sevier Park.
Country music star Dolly Parton's $1 million donation towards coronavirus research helped fund Moderna's promising vaccine. (Video: John Farrell/The Washington Post)
And — here she comes again — then there’s the tunes.
Dolly Parton invested Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ cover royalties in Black community
Parton has only gotten more popular of the years — as shown by her 5.5 million followers on Twitter. Although it pays people to take its surveys, YouGov found that Parton drew the most positive opinions of any music artist.
She’s well-liked because she’s good, and she just got $100 million for charity because she’s been philanthropic her entire professional career.
Country singing star Dolly Parton organized a telethon for victims of the wildfire that devastated her home state of Tennessee in November. (Video: Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) | 2022-11-14T03:53:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dolly Parton earns Jeff Bezos's $100 million Courage and Civility Award - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/13/dolly-parton-courage-and-civility-award/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/13/dolly-parton-courage-and-civility-award/ |
Goalie Darcy Kuemper didn't make it out of the first period before he was pulled from the Capitals' loss Sunday night. (Jason Behnken/AP)
TAMPA — Two nights after the season’s first meeting between Washington and Tampa Bay caused tension to rise and fists to fly, a physical rematch was on tap Sunday at Amalie Arena.
The game concluded with just two fights, but the Lightning nonetheless delivered an old-fashioned beatdown in its 6-3 win over the Capitals. Tampa Bay jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first period and didn’t look back despite a late push from Washington.
Conor Sheary finally solved Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (19 saves) with 1:56 left in the second period to bring the Capitals within three. But Cole Koepke scored his first NHL goal to put the Lightning up 5-1 with less than seven minutes to play. The on-ice officials missed Koepke’s goal; his shot hit the post, then glanced off the in-net camera before bouncing away. Play continued and Brandon Hagel scored a few seconds later. But upon video review, Koepke got credit for his goal, Hagel’s was taken off the board, and the clock was rewound — something the Capitals surely wish they could have done after a painful first period.
Goalie Darcy Kuemper was pulled at 16:22 of the first after allowing four goals on nine shots. (Two goals deflected into the net off his teammates, and the other two came on the power play.) Backup Charlie Lindgren made 24 saves in relief.
Washington did not record a shot on goal in the first 17 minutes. Then, facing a four-goal hole, the Capitals did themselves no favors in the second period. Captain Alex Ovechkin was dinged for a double minor after high-sticking Steven Stamkos. Tampa Bay couldn’t convert, but its power-play time kept the Capitals far from the Lightning net.
Washington’s next game is Tuesday at Florida. The Capitals (7-8-2) are 2-4-2 in their past eight games.
Tampa Bay (8-6-1) came out with a vengeance after Friday’s 5-1 loss at Capital One Arena. Not only was the game lopsided, but the Lightning was upset after Capitals forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel delivered an illegal check to the head of defenseman Cal Foote that knocked him out of the game.
Aube-Kubel was suspended for three games Saturday. (He will be eligible to return this coming Saturday vs. the Colorado Avalanche, which he helped claim the Stanley Cup last season.) Foote did not play Sunday; neither did fellow defenseman Erik Cernak, who is day-to-day with a lower-body injury after he was injured blocking an Ovechkin one-timer late in Friday’s game.
Washington also remained without Coach Peter Laviolette, who is in the NHL’s coronavirus protocols. Assistant Kevin McCarthy is handling head coaching duties until he returns.
Defenseman Mikhail Sergachev gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead after he fired a point shot through traffic that deflected off the Capitals’ Dylan Strome in front and eluded Kuemper at 1:23.
Nikita Kucherov doubled the Lightning’s lead at 8:19 with a one-timer on the power play. Defenseman Nick Perbix put Tampa Bay up 3-0 after his shot bounced off Erik Gustafsson’s skate and got past Kuemper.
Sergachev scored his second goal with 16:22 left on a power-play point shot. Sergachev also had two assists in the first 20 minutes.
Lars Eller scored with 3:01 left in the game to make it 5-2 before Nick Paul hit the empty net to bring the Lightning’s lead to 6-2. Garnet Hathaway scored with 2:02 left to produce the final score.
The teams have one more meeting, set for March 30 in Tampa.
Irwin tussles twice
Defenseman Matt Irwin fought twice: He scrapped with Pat Maroon as the first period ended, then dropped the gloves with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare late in the second. A third fighting major would have resulted in a game misconduct.
Before Sunday, Irwin had fought just eight times in his pro career, and he had never been in more than two fights in a season.
In their win Friday, the Capitals scored five times, but that total could have been higher. Washington had six power-play chances but couldn’t find the net.
Those woes continued Sunday, when Washington again went 0 for 6. The Capitals are 0 for 16 on power play over their past three games — after they went 4 for 5 in a win over Edmonton on Monday.
McMichael checks in
Connor McMichael slotted into the lineup for his fifth game of the season. He took Aube-Kubel’s place as the third-line left wing alongside Eller and Anthony Mantha. He was mostly a nonfactor as he skated a team-low 9:17.
“Mikey has done a good job for us,” McCarthy said Sunday morning. “He’s obviously a centerman by nature, but he’s played the left side before, he has been successful at that, and he has a good understanding of our system.”
As for Aube-Kubel’s suspension, McCarthy noted: “I will say it was not intentional. It is a fast game obviously, and you just have to live with the consequences.” | 2022-11-14T03:57:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lightning blitzes Capitals for 6-3 victory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/capitals-lightning-rematch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/capitals-lightning-rematch/ |
Kristaps Porzingis had a game-high 25 points in the Wizards' win over the Grizzlies. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Kristaps Porzingis didn’t hide his glee at the end of a short news conference following a snazzy performance in a win over the Utah Jazz on Saturday night.
“That’s it?” he said cautiously before celebrating by pumping both fists above his head. The 27-year-old was eager to get home to his favorite pastime — watching the UFC. The Washington Wizards center loves the mixed martial arts competition so much that he watched for hours the night before a game in Cleveland last month, sipping espresso all the while — and accidentally consumed so much caffeine that he couldn’t fall asleep until 4 a.m.
Taking a cue from his favorite athletes, the affable Latvian has become something of a heavyweight in his own right for the Wizards. With Bradley Beal still sidelined as he ramps up his conditioning after testing positive for the coronavirus, Porzingis led Washington to a 102-92 win over the shorthanded Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday night for its fourth straight win.
He did so by lording over the three-point line as if he were a foot shorter. Porzingis scored 25 points on 7-for-15 shooting, made a season-high six three-pointers and set the pace for Washington’s second straight night of excellence from beyond the arc. The Wizards had set a season high from the perimeter just 24 hours before with 16 threes against Utah. They made 19 threes against Memphis (9-5).
That was all the Wizards (8-6) needed against a Grizzlies team missing Ja Morant (ankle soreness) and Desmond Bane (toe soreness). It was far from a pretty affair given all the sidelined stars — but at least the threes looked good.
“Offensively, we’re playing much better with our pace, our willingness to move and share the ball. I think that’s why we’re getting the threes that we’re generating,” Wizards Coach Wes Unseld Jr. said. “We’re playing faster off makes, off misses. We’ve done a better job with our spacing, and guys are really just starting to feel each other out as far as where they want to get shots, how they want to get shots. And that takes a little bit of time.”
Just about everyone shined for the Wizards on this night. Deni Avdija rode a hot first quarter to a season-high 21 points on 8-for-16 shooting, including four threes. Kyle Kuzma, who has been under the weather with a non-covid-19 illness for three games, led the way on the boards with 11 rebounds and added nine points.
For Porzingis, Sunday was another entry in a stretch of performances so reliably consistent that they are coming close to humdrum: He has scored in double figures in every game he has played. Part of his success — especially this weekend, when he also had 31 points and 10 rebounds against the Jazz — has been tied to the Wizards’ better spacing on offense.
“I think just the way we’re playing for each other — we’re making the extra pass, we’re cutting for each other. We’re doing little things that might not be as visible, but those are the things that actually help us win,” he said. “And once we get Brad back, I think that’s going to take even more pressure off everyone else.”
Another part of it was Porzingis feeling increasingly in rhythm with his shot. That was his primary gripe about his play in the first few games of the season and something he paid special attention to over the summer. He changed his shooting routine and now tries to mimic gamelike situations as much as possible, even when just shooting around during practice or on the road — down to his sleeve, the type of shirts he plays in and how warm his body is.
Porzingis relied on his shot more in this game after scoring a season-low 10 points against the Grizzlies in the teams’ first meeting, a loss in Memphis a week earlier. He didn’t exactly draw from the UFC, but a different sport was on his mind.
“I realized I don’t want to waste all that energy by wrestling Steven Adams,” Porzingis said of the Grizzlies center. “He’s a big guy, and I kind of went back to my old days. I’m skinny now, but when I was way skinnier playing in Spain against grown men, a lot of times it was about avoiding contact and go for the block and just being able to affect the game that way.”
Beal was on the sideline again as he recovers from covid-19. Unseld said he is hopeful the guard will be back with the team for Wednesday’s home game against Oklahoma City.
Monte Morris’s reputation as a point guard who takes care of the ball preceded his joining the Wizards. He attributed his low turnover rate to his mother, who told him when he was a kid learning the game to pretend he was carrying her purse when he brought the ball up the floor. When someone gets close to you, she would say, don’t let them steal from mom’s bag.
Morris has been excellent for the Wizards in that regard. He had six assists against two turnovers Sunday after having nine assists and no turnovers Saturday. His assist-to-turnover ratio (5.46) is 11th best in the league.
Goodwin’s plenty
Jordan Goodwin’s impact on the Wizards usually goes beyond his stat line — and his stat lines are usually pretty good. The two-way player had 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists Sunday, but those numbers didn’t capture how disruptive he was when he checked in early in the first half. Goodwin’s quick hands blew up multiple Memphis possessions, and his energetic defense, which he pulls off without over-fouling, caused problems.
While part of the closing group in the fourth quarter, he had a highlight-reel play where he missed a rebound but sprinted back for a block and heaved the ball to Will Barton for a dunk.
GOODY BLOCK.
THRILL DUNK.
THAT'S JUST BEAUTIFUL BASKETBALL. pic.twitter.com/dDXnnpjSAc | 2022-11-14T03:57:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wizards stretch winning streak to four, powered by Kristaps Porzingis - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/wizards-grizzlies-kristaps-porzingis/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/13/wizards-grizzlies-kristaps-porzingis/ |
Philadelphia 76ers’ Tyrese Maxey, left, tries to get past Utah Jazz’s Mike Conley during the first half of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
PHILADELPHIA — Tyrese Maxey jumped on Joel Embiid’s back and pounded the big man’s chest in celebration of the greatest game in the 76ers center’s career. The frivolity was fitting because Embiid carried the Sixers in the fourth quarter — all while he etched his name alongside the greats in NBA history. | 2022-11-14T04:15:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Embiid scores career-high 59, leads 76ers past Jazz 105-98 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nba/embiid-scores-career-high-59-leads-76ers-past-jazz-105-98/2022/11/13/44759fac-63ca-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nba/embiid-scores-career-high-59-leads-76ers-past-jazz-105-98/2022/11/13/44759fac-63ca-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
BOSTON — Patrice Bergeron scored his third goal in two days and the Boston Bruins won their fourth straight, beating the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 on Sunday night.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alexander Barabanov scored in the fifth round of the shootout and San Jose got consecutive wins for the first time this season.
SEATTLE — Mark Scheifele scored his second goal of the game 54 seconds into overtime, lifting Winnipeg past Seattle.
NEW YORK — Barclay Goodrow and Adam Fox scored late in the second period and New York a three-game home losing streak.
TAMPA, Fla. — Mikhail Sergachev had two goals and two assists during a four-goal first period, and Tampa Bay beat Washington.
PHILADELPHIA — Joe Pavelski had a goal and two assists and Jake Oettinger stopped 37 shots to lead Dallas. | 2022-11-14T04:16:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bergeron helps Bruins beat Canucks for 11th win in last 12 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/bergeron-helps-bruins-beat-canucks-for-11th-win-in-last-12/2022/11/13/b7cde25c-63cf-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/bergeron-helps-bruins-beat-canucks-for-11th-win-in-last-12/2022/11/13/b7cde25c-63cf-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
A 34-year-old human resources manager of an IT company has been in hiding to avoid military conscription in Russia. (The Washington Post)
Although Russian President Vladimir Putin and his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, proclaimed the completion of their mobilization of 300,000 new soldiers, many fighting-age Russian men remain in hiding — still fearful of being seized by military recruiters and sent to fight, and die, in a failing war.
Among them is a young IT worker in southern Russia, now living in a tent in the forest.
Like others eligible for military service, the IT worker quickly began planning to run after Putin issued his mobilization decree on Sept. 21 — frantically checking outbound flights, which spiked in price every time he hit the refresh button.
Then, he had an epiphany: If he couldn’t afford to flee Russia or leave his family and friends behind, he could at least escape civilization and the state’s military conscription system. So, he took a week off from work and drove to hide in the woods.
“I feared that I’d get drafted if I go to the store or that someone will come to my house,” the IT worker, who shares his experiences on a Telegram blog under the pseudonym Adam Kalinin, said in a phone interview. He requested anonymity because he is hiding from the authorities.
The Washington Post interviewed five other men who have spent recent weeks hiding in rented apartments, country houses, and even a music studio. Some were interviewed by phone, others agreed to be visited by a photographer in their places of hiding. Although they come from different backgrounds, professions, and family circumstances, they expressed an identical goal: to avoid killing, or being killed, in Ukraine.
In the interviews, most said that they still don’t feel safe from Putin’s war machine, and they each requested anonymity to avoid being identified by the authorities.
“I’m not rushing to go back to normal lifestyle,” said a 38-year-old lab technician who was ambushed by a group of police and enlistment officers who handed him a summons at his home in late September.
He did not sign it and decided not to show up at the assembly point the next day, as demanded. Instead, he hid at a cottage house outside Moscow, while notices piled up on his apartment door.
Eventually, he had to return to the city for work but swapped his car for a bike to avoid traffic police and wore a mask, wary of Moscow’s vast CCTV network with built-in facial recognition system.
“I didn’t have a place to flee to, nor a way to work remotely,” he said when asked whether he considered going abroad. Having served in the Russian military before, the lab technician said he wants to avoid experiencing that again, but said he doesn’t feel “unambiguous support for either side” in the war.
The IT worker and his wife were always avid campers, so he had most of what he needed to evade the enlistment officers: a sleeping bag, a saw, a gas burner. He also bought solar panels, a tent for winter fishing and a satellite dish to keep working online.
Shoigu’s public statements that the mobilization was finished brought little peace of mind to the IT worker or other Russian men in hiding. No legal decree has been issued formally ending the conscription drive.
So the IT worker, who calls himself pacifist, is now living his second month as an antiwar recluse.
For the IT worker, his daily commute is now walking three minutes from his “home” to his “office” — a separate tent set higher in a clearing, the only location nearby with a relatively stable internet connection.
He cooks on an open fire and said he misses hot showers and fresh fruit but that his living conditions were still far better than those of mobilized men sent to Ukraine. Hundreds of Russia’s new conscripts, many poorly equipped and given little training, have already been killed, according to Russian media — reinforcing the IT worker’s decision to stay in hiding.
“The very first news that came out of mobilization is how people are missing basic gear, or the conditions they are in,” he said, referring to reports of senior officers forcing new soldiers to buy their own bulletproof vests or sleep in dilapidated, unheated barracks.
“They are suffering even before they get to the front line and can easily get, say, pneumonia, and no one will care, which put it into perspective for me,” he said. “I’m either mobilized and put into something akin to a prison, where you have no rights, just obligations, or I stay here, where I still have many problems and issues, but I am free.”
With Russia’s casualties continuing to climb and troops inevitably requiring rotation, there is little doubt additional reinforcements will be needed.
“For how long the hundreds of thousands of mobilized servicemen have been sent to the Armed Forces is unknown,” Pavel Chikov, a lawyer with Agora, a human rights group, wrote on Telegram. “Sooner or later … either because of death, injury and other reasons their places will need to be filled with recruits.”
A 24-year-old financial consultant from Moscow was a key target for enlistment officers because of his prior service as a special operations soldier, and they tried hard to track him down, he told The Post.
First, the apartment door at his declared address — all Russians are required to register with the authorities — was plastered with draft notices. The financial consultant, who lives elsewhere, never picked them up.
Then, the local commissariat sent a notice to his office. Under Russian law, employers are obliged to hand them to staff, or risk hefty fines. Instead, his company fired him on paper but allowed him to work remotely in an unofficial capacity.
Days before the mobilization was supposed to end, military recruiters went to the apartment with a police escort and questioned the tenants living there about the ex-soldier’s whereabouts.
From the start of mobilization, the financial consultant, who graduated from a naval academy, said he knew he would be summoned. “I wore the uniform for six years,” he said. “So I already prepared myself for this.”
When Putin issued the degree, his family wanted him to flee to Kazakhstan but he refused to leave, fearing he would get stopped at the border or worse — labeled a deserter. His former military colleagues were also bombarded with notices.
But the consultant said he was not willing to fight and die in a pointless conflict.
“I think this is absolutely not my war, and there is nothing for me to do there,” he said. “Knowing the mechanics of the military, it’s gruesome to realize how many civilians are dying.” He added, “On a political level, I don’t even get involved there and I don’t even want to know what they are fighting for there. But on a personal, moral level I don’t want this to be happening.”
He went into hiding at a dacha, or country house, then rotated through several friends’ apartments in the Moscow region. “I avoided all public transport,” he said. “I refused to go to the office under any circumstances, and you wouldn’t see me in public places.” After Putin declared the mobilization complete, the consultant returned to his rental apartment but still keeps a low profile.
A 40-year-old music producer in Moscow, who underwent military training in university, also had enlistment officers repeatedly bang on the door of an apartment he owns but rents out.
“I am against the war, I’ve never hit anyone in my life,” the producer said, sitting in a dimly-lit room of his music studio adorned with Soviet paraphernalia. “When issues are being solved through violence, this is the most primitive way, a return to the animal state.”
The producer moved away from his wife and children and spent nights on a couch in the studio, rattled after hearing that his friend, also in hiding, got handed a notice by police who stopped his car.
Most of the producer’s friends left Russia, and his wife pleaded with him to follow suit, even threatening to divorce him. But he refused, saying he would not let Putin “steamroll” the life he built in Moscow.
“I’ve never held onto Russia, I always considered myself a man of the world,” the producer said. “But when the war began, that somehow reversed my thought process. … I’ve decided that I am not running away. I am a full-fledged resident of this country and because someone went off the rails, this does not mean I should give up my house, my convictions and my work.”
He continues to live “outside the system” — avoiding the subway, crossing the street if he sees anyone in a uniform and mostly keeping his phone off to avoid being tracked. “I think you have to pick a strategy of maximum security if you have decided to stay here,” he said. “The situation can turn for the worse. The rumor is there will be a second enlistment wave, then maybe a third.” | 2022-11-14T06:51:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Fighting-age men in Russia are still hiding in fear of being sent to war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/russia-young-men-hiding-mobilization/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/russia-young-men-hiding-mobilization/ |
Ukraine live briefing: Focus turns to damage and evidence of atrocities in Kherson
A Ukrainian serviceman embraces his mother in the village of Vavylove on Sunday, after being reunited for the first time since Russian troops withdrew from the Kherson region. (Bernat Armangue/AP)
Ukraine is working to restore key infrastructure in the newly liberated city of Kherson as it assesses the damage and evidence of “war crimes” left by months of Russian occupation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday night. Zelensky warned that the city in southern Ukraine was still “very dangerous,” with unexploded ordnance scattered in the area.
The United States on Sunday said it would send more aid to Ukraine, and experts said the retaking of Kherson was a time to “help Ukraine take advantage of its momentum.” Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues in what appears to be Russia’s next target, the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian prosecutors have documented more than 400 war crimes allegedly committed by Russian troops, Zelensky said Sunday in his nightly address. He said the bodies of civilians and soldiers were being found. In Kherson, he said, “the Russian army left behind the same atrocities as in other regions.” Evidence of torture and brutal killings were found in areas like Bucha, near Kyiv, and Mariupol, on the Black Sea, after Russian troops retreated.
Ukraine is working to restore essential infrastructure in Kherson such as communication, internet, television, electricity and running water, Zelensky said. “We will bring back transport and postal services,” he said. “We will bring back ambulances and normal medicine.” Kherson was one of the first major cities to be captured during the Russian invasion and was subjected to harsh occupation. About 100,000 residents are there now, Zelensky said — a fraction of its prewar population of about 300,000.
Some communication with the outside world had been restored in Kherson, thanks to Starlink systems set up by the Ukrainian military and police in the central square. Dozens of residents lined up to gain access to the free internet service after days, if not weeks, of being cut off from friends and family. Some cellular service was also restored in the center of the city on Sunday evening, Oleksandr Samoylenko, head of the regional council of Kherson, told The Washington Post.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States will send additional military aid to Ukraine soon, in an amount “roughly the same magnitude” as a $400 million aid package announced last week. “We are remaining steady in our supply of security assistance,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, as they traveled with President Biden to the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia. “There will be no slackening in our support or deviation from the frequency and intensity of that support,” Sullivan said. The political composition of the 2023-24 U.S. House is still undetermined.
The Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine is emerging as Russia’s next target. After its retreat from Kherson, Russia is launching a new offensive in the eastern region, the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said Sunday evening. Zelensky said the fighting there was still intense. “The level of Russian attacks is not decreasing,” he said.
Ukrainian crews have removed thousands of explosives, but many more pose a danger to Kherson, authorities said. One person died and four others were injured while clearing mines, Zelensky said. Yaroslav Yanushevych, the regional governor, posted a video Sunday in which he said Russians “have mined almost everything.” He also called on people to avoid “crowded places.” In another dispatch, he urged people to avoid the city center on Monday so crews could clear explosives.
Zelensky plans to address the G-20 summit via video on Tuesday. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is in Asia this week to meet with his counterparts and discuss support.
Ukraine has revoked credentials from journalists who conducted unauthorized reporting in Kherson, the nation’s military said. Sunday’s announcement — which was posted in English and Ukrainian — did not identify the journalists or the outlets with which they were working.
Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced a new amendment to strip some Russians of their citizenship if they criticize the military over its war on Ukraine or call for Russia to leave the territories it illegally claimed to annex. If rubber-stamped by Russia’s parliament, as expected, the amendment would apply to Russians of foreign parentage who were granted citizenship. Those who question Russia’s borders or criticize the war would lose their Russian passports even if they have no other citizenship.
Russian zookeeper kidnaps animals — including raccoons — from Kherson: Russia’s military has gained a reputation for looting its way across Ukraine, taking washing machines, electronics, cultural artifacts and even the bones of the lover of Empress Catherine II. But the latest theft — including seven raccoons, two female wolves, peacocks, a llama and a donkey from Kherson Zoo — entered the realm of farce, The Post’s Moscow bureau chief Robyn Dixon reports. | 2022-11-14T07:05:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russia-Ukraine war latest updates - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/russia-ukraine-war-latest-updates/ |
When UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak imposed a windfall tax on oil and gas companies in May, Labour leader Keir Starmer — who’d advocated for the levy for months — claimed an I-told-you-so moment. Now Starmer has his eyes on what in many ways would be a bigger U-turn by the novice premier: closing the loophole that enables the international elite in the UK to protect overseas wealth from the taxman.
Last week Starmer claimed that ending the benefit would provide £3.2 billion ($3.8 billion) a year in revenue. Sunak batted away the challenge, but clearly the government is on the back foot as it finalizes the Nov. 17 budget statement. Sunak is under pressure to find new taxes that the public will swallow.
The system has undoubtedly helped attract the likes of steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal and the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich (before he was sanctioned out of the country). But those are just the headline names. More than 20% of top-earning bankers have claimed non-dom status at some point, according to a study by researchers from the University of Warwick and the London School of Economics, who came up with the £3.2 billion savings figure.
Not all non-doms are in finance. A large share of the top 1% earning over £125,000 a year in other industries — including two-fifths of top earners in the oil industry and a quarter of top earners in the car industry — have been non-doms. Sports, entertainment, construction, architecture and even mining all count non-doms at the upper echelons of companies. Around 80% of non-doms have earnings from some kind of work as their main source of income; 93% are foreign-born.
For years, both sides engaged in virtue-signaling to their respective bases, and then agreed to disagree. But the argument is harder to dismiss now when people are faced with a cost-of-living crisis and rising taxes and the government needs to find ways to raise revenue.
The claim that the Treasury would net £3.2 billion a year by changing this system is based largely on an estimate of undeclared overseas holdings and on the response to 2017 reforms put in place by then-Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, which ended “permanent” non-dom status and increased the costs on those who wanted to claim the status. Despite worries about an exodus, there wasn’t much evidence of it. Those who later became “deemed domiciled” — that is, who were formerly treated as non-dom for tax purposes — contributed more in tax than the lost revenue from non-doms.
Labour knows this is awkward for Britain’s prime minister. It emerged earlier this year that then-Chancellor Sunak’s Indian-born wife, Akshata Murty, is a non-dom who received millions in dividend income (an estimated $15.3 million in 2022) on shares in Infosys Ltd., the Indian company founded by her father. The optics were terrible at a time when the Treasury was raising taxes to pay for pandemic spending. Under intense media scrutiny, Murty announced in April that she would pay British income tax on her global income.
Following Brexit, there wasn’t the mass exodus from the City of London many predicted. But thousands of jobs did leave, and new recruitment has often shifted to other financial centers. Meanwhile, Europeans who felt less welcome stopped coming. It wasn’t the pop of a burst balloon but the sound of air slowly hissing out of a punctured tire. For that reason, Sunak the Brexiteer must be wary now too.
It’s naive to assume there would be no behavioral response to a change in incentives. If Sunak isn’t careful, he could drive much-needed talent and revenue away while further harming the UK’s global reputation as a place where an international elite want to be.
• Sunak Must Tread Carefully on Capital Gains Tax: Therese Raphael
• Indians Have Good Reason to Celebrate Rishi Sunak: Mihir Sharma | 2022-11-14T07:18:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Sunak Test the Love of Britain’s Top 1%? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/will-sunak-test-the-love-of-britains-top-1percent/2022/11/14/64d7aa02-63e2-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/will-sunak-test-the-love-of-britains-top-1percent/2022/11/14/64d7aa02-63e2-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Analysis by Anjani Trivedi and Paul J. Davies | Bloomberg
As Credit Suisse Group AG is overhauled, the Saudis have swooped in to help. But the Swiss bank may end up playing its own rescue role, too.
The troubled lender, beset by scandals and losses, is striking deals to raise capital from outside investors and going back to its wealth-management roots. Saudi National Bank, or SNB, majority-owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund and its largest lender, has committed to $1.5 billion to become a new strategic investor and take a 9.9% stake in Credit Suisse, subject to approval by existing shareholders.
With Saudi Arabia’s newfound swagger, SNB’s move isn’t just another bailout by a deep-pocketed Gulf investor. The country’s de facto leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, is on a modernizing streak and has bigger, bolder plans. As he cleans house, tightens purse strings and tries to make his grand Vision 2030 economic blueprint a reality, the banking system and financial plumbing are increasingly crucial.
While there’s plenty of money in the hands of Saudi’s richest citizens, the country remains heavily reliant on foreign wealth managers and banks to deploy capital.
SNB itself was created earlier this year through the merger of National Commercial Bank and Samba Financial Group. The combined entity, overseeing almost one-third of the country’s banking assets, is a mash-up of a large retail bank and commercial lender. Flexing their financial muscle, SNB Chairman Ammar al-Khudairy has said that the investment in Credit Suisse is a “manifestation of the new Saudi Arabia.”
SNB developing an investment banking operation to raise money overseas for projects at home would be extremely useful in realizing MBS’s vision, which includes the $500 billion high-tech metropolis in the desert called Neom. (Saudi Arabia is working with Lazard Ltd. as it considers how it will pay for Neom, Bloomberg News has reported). But where they ought to focus first is on using local money better and offering it more of a reason to stay. That’s where a stake in Credit Suisse comes in.
Credit Suisse’s wealth-management know-how and technology could prove extremely valuable to the Saudi bank – and for MBS’s plans. Technology that saves costs has become much more important in recent years because lower investment returns and growing transparency have put pressure on fees. At the same time, even the most complicated clients increasingly want to use their mobile phones or other digital devices for their finances. SNB could definitely use some help to develop those kinds of things more quickly.
Saudi also faces growing local competition in finance. The financially savvier United Arab Emirates has gone big on drawing in banks, global asset managers and talent to build a center of expertise. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are creating investment bases and showing that they can – potentially – diversify and pivot their economies to be more than just dependent on oil and trade. And, that they know how to use their own money well.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, the fastest-growing economy in the world this year, hasn’t quite gotten itself known as a shrewd financial investor despite the heaps of capital it sits on or invests.
MBS has pushed hard to bring in foreign bankers, investors and lawyers and deepen the country’s financial system. With the Credit Suisse move, he has more access to a damaged but still sophisticated knowledge base. He also has Michael Klein – the star banker and Middle East specialist — who is due to become head of Credit Suisse’s quasi-independent investment bank CS First Boston, on his side.
If the country can get the most out of this expertise, Vision 2030 might actually have a chance.
• Credit Suisse’s Gulf Suitors Need to Be Smarter: Anjani Trivedi
• Credit Suisse’s Journey Is More of a Grail Quest: Paul J. Davies | 2022-11-14T07:18:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | MBS’s Credit Suisse Stake Isn’t Just Another Gulf Bank Rescue - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/mbss-credit-suisse-stake-isnt-just-another-gulf-bank-rescue/2022/11/14/651b2b1a-63e2-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/mbss-credit-suisse-stake-isnt-just-another-gulf-bank-rescue/2022/11/14/651b2b1a-63e2-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
(Michael Conroy/AP)
As former president Donald Trump held rallies across the country in advance of the midterm elections, a central part of his speech was a dramatic proposal to begin executing drug dealers quickly, with little recourse for defendants to due process rules that might prevent swift prosecution and sentencing. Trump presents his idea with a blizzard of statistics and figures — and a gruesome anecdote — to justify what would be an extraordinary and legally shaky change in criminal justice policy.
As is often the case with Trump, the claims he makes as part of this riff are easily debunked or cannot be verified. And, as he often does, Trump speaks in admiring terms about an authoritarian regime as he offers China as a role model — although with an inaccurate depiction of its practices and history.
Yet Trump’s plan to execute drug dealers is one of the few substantive policy proposals he makes in speeches that delve deeply into grievances about his defeat in the 2020 election. As president, Trump sometimes complained that sentences were not tough enough for drug dealers. Now he appears to have developed a solution.
So it should be taken seriously, especially because it might feature prominently if, as expected, he announces a third run for the presidency.
Here’s a line-by-line dissection of specific claims Trump made at an Ohio rally Nov. 7 for Senate candidate J.D. Vance as he detailed his proposal to the cheers of the audience. A Trump spokesman did not respond to a query concerning the sourcing for Trump’s statistics and other claims.
“Biden and the radical Democrats do nothing to stop the lethal poisons pouring across our borders. And we had it almost stopped.”
As president, Trump often touted how much seizures of drugs at the southern border had increased on his watch. (Most drugs are smuggled through legal ports of entry.) This is an imperfect metric. It could mean that law enforcement is doing a better job. But more seizures also might indicate that the drug flow has increased, and that law enforcement is missing even more.
In any case, the flow of drugs over the border was not “almost stopped” under Trump. Under Biden, according to Customs and Border Patrol statistics, overall drug seizures have dropped, especially for marijuana, but have increased substantially for fentanyl — the drug most responsible for overdose deaths. Both the decrease in marijuana seizures and the increase in fentanyl seizures reflect trends that started under Trump.
A few moments later, Trump made a similar if slightly different claim — “the drugs are seven times to ten times higher than when we had it only two years ago.” There are no government figures that verify that statement.
“Since the end of the Trump administration, the drug cartels have seen their revenue skyrocket by an astounding — listen to this one, you businesspeople, you think you’re good at business, you’re nothing compared to these people — 2,500 percent.”
The illicit drug business can be extraordinarily profitable, especially when making synthetic opioids. Fentanyl-type products have an inexpensive and easy-to-make formula. But Trump offers a suspiciously precise statistic — 2,500 percent — for an industry that does not publish revenue figures and whose financials can only be roughly estimated. Moreover, price increases often happen at the retail level — north of the border — and do not return to the drug cartels in Mexico.
A Rand study released in May estimated that the median price for illegally manufactured fentanyl has declined more than 50 percent from 2016 to 2021. Beau Kilmer, co-director of the Rand Drug Policy Research Center, said, “We have no idea how many people are using illegally manufactured fentanyl and heroin in the U.S., let alone how many people are selling these products.”
He said the most recent study on spending on illicit drugs was completed in 2016 — and it showed spending in the United States for cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine was about $150 billion that year. That was little changed from 2006. But that study did not cover fentanyl, as there is not good data on fentanyl consumption.
“Much of the crime wave is caused by drug dealers who, during the course of their lives, will kill an average of 500 Americans. Think of that. A drug dealer. You see, a drug dealer will kill on average 500 people.”
Trump offers another precise statistic, again very dubious. As Kilmer noted, the number of drug dealers is unknown, making it impossible to estimate how many people die per drug dealer. But on a practical level, his figure makes little sense.
About 600,000 people died of drug overdoses from 2010 to 2020, according to the National Institutes of Health. Doing the math, Trump’s statistic would suggest that there are only 1,200 drug dealers in the United States. But the federal government prosecutes nearly 20,000 drug traffickers a year.
Still, for Trump, this figure is a rare pullback. As president, he would routinely say drug dealers would kill thousands of people, such as in 2018: “A drug dealer will kill 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 people, during the course of his or her life.”
At the time, when we investigated this statistic, White House officials suggested that Trump was not talking about ordinary dealers but drug kingpins. They pointed to a drug trafficking conspiracy in Knoxville, Tenn., to distribute oxycodone, oxymorphone and morphine through pain management clinics. Some 12 million opioid pills were prescribed by the group, leading to as many as 700 deaths, prosecutors said.
As president, Trump often claimed that drug dealers would just get 30 days in jail. One of the alleged ringleaders in the Knoxville case, a 56-year-old grandmother, in 2020 was sentenced to more than 33 years in jail.
Whether the death penalty could be applied to drug dealers is unclear. The Supreme Court, in a 2008 ruling, said “the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken.” But the majority opinion did not completely close the door: “We do not address, for example, crimes defining and punishing treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the state,” not against individuals.
“I am calling for the death penalty for drug dealers and human traffickers, which will, upon its passage, reduce drug distribution and reduce crime in our country by a minimum of 75 percent.”
The death penalty has not been shown to be effective in reducing crime or murder rates in the United States, according to research — in part because it is applied so rarely that researchers cannot easily measure the impact. Trump’s estimate of a 75 percent reduction appears to have been conjured out of thin air.
“With President Xi in China, I see him and say, ‘President, you have 1.5 billion people. Do you have a drug problem?’ ‘No, no, no drug problem.’ ”
There is no way of knowing whether Xi Jinping said this to Trump, but Trump several times recounted a similar conversation during his presidency. But if Xi ever said this to Trump, he was spinning him.
News reports indicate that China has a significant drug-trafficking problem. “In March [2017], the China National Narcotics Control Commission told media that China’s seizure of synthetic drugs including methamphetamine and ketamine has ‘surged by 106 percent year on year in 2016,’ ” the BBC reported. The official Xinhua News Agency said in 2018 that a part of Guangdong province is “plagued with rampant drug production and trafficking,” the BBC reported.
The number of drug addicts officially registered with the Chinese government rose to about 2.5 million in 2013 from just under a million in 2001, according to the 2016 Brookings Institution report titled, “A People’s War: China’s Struggle to Contain its Illicit Drug Problem.”
A 2022 Chinese government report said the number of drug users had dropped to 1.5 million in 2021, which the report credited to a concerted anti-drug campaign. The report also said that prosecutors uncovered 41,000 drug smuggling, trafficking, and transportation cases and arrested 60,000 traffickers.
China was a significant source of fentanyl in the United States until, under pressure from the Trump administration, it imposed new controls on all forms of fentanyl. According to the State Department, these controls resulted in the detection of no shipments of fentanyl from China since September 2019. But the State Department says traffickers simply switched tactics, and as a result of “ineffective oversight,” China remains a major source of precursor chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl in Mexico for shipment to the United States.
“Xi goes, ‘We have a quick trial.’ … That means they catch a drug dealer, they give them a quick trial, not a trial that takes 12 years and 12 years of appeals. Twenty-five years later, and everyone’s dead by the time they get to the end of that. Now, this is a trial that takes approximately 2 hours. And if they’re guilty, they are executed.”
Trump is in the ballpark here. But it is wrong to suggest that all drug dealers in China receive the death sentence and that all are quickly executed.
China is known to have a high number of executions — potentially thousands a year, according to Amnesty International — for several offenses, including nonviolent crimes such as bribery and running a sex-work ring. Appeals are limited. But China does not disclose the annual figure of those killed because the use of the death penalty is classified as a state secret. Harm Reduction International, in a 2022 report, said it could confirm at least one execution for drug offenses in China in 2021 — that of a woman.
The Sun newspaper in 2018 quoted local media as reporting that two Chinese drug dealers were sentenced to death in front of thousands of people, including 300 schoolchildren, as part of international anti-drug day. They were immediately taken to an execution ground and killed. Seventeen other drug dealers were also put on trial in front of the crowd, with eight being given death sentences or death sentences with suspension, according to the report.
“The bullet. I don’t know if anybody wants to know this. It gets a little bit too graphic, but the bullet is sent to their families, you know that, right? You know that it’s actually sent to their families. It’s pretty tough stuff. There’s no games. So they have no drug problem whatsoever.”
There is limited evidence to support Trump’s anecdote but it appears out of date. The Chinese government today carries out most executions with lethal injection. So there would be no bullet to deliver.
“The move to lethal injection also facilitates the use of the organs of executed prisoners, in circumstances where their meaningful consent is impossible,” said Kevin Darling, a spokesman for Amnesty International. “Claims that family members were presented with the bullet date back to Cultural Revolution times, so they could be considered historical, but it is not something Amnesty has documented — especially not in recent decades.” The Cultural Revolution took place between 1966 and 1976.
Nicola Macbean, the director of the Rights Practice in London and an expert on human rights in China, also said that with the advent of lethal injections, such a practice probably is not in current use and it probably was never an official policy.
“I have heard of bullets being sent to the family following execution, but I suspect this is no longer the practice and it’s unclear if it was widespread,” she said. She noted that The Washington Post, in a 1994 report, said that in some cases a prisoner’s family was billed for the bullet — the equivalent of about 6 cents — or else the executed person’s ashes would not be returned to the family. | 2022-11-14T08:49:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The debunked claims and faux ‘facts’ supporting Trump’s plan to execute drug dealers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/debunked-claims-faux-facts-supporting-trumps-plan-execute-drug-dealers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/debunked-claims-faux-facts-supporting-trumps-plan-execute-drug-dealers/ |
Man charged with sneaking abortion drug into pregnant wife’s drinks
Mason Herring, 38, is accused of saying the pregnancy ‘would ruin his plans and make him look like a jerk’
Mason Herring’s pregnant wife noticed the water that her husband had given her was cloudy only after she’d drunk it, court documents state.
When she asked about it, Herring allegedly told her the cup or the pipes inside the Houston home were probably dirty before taking the drink and hurrying away. The woman’s cramping started about a half-hour later on March 17, according to an affidavit. Severe bleeding followed, forcing her to go to an emergency room.
Earlier this month, a grand jury in Harris County indicted Herring, 38, with assaulting a pregnant woman — his wife and the mother of their two children. It’s unclear how far along Herring’s wife was with her third baby when she went to a hospital in March. The incident occurred about six months after Texas’s Heartbeat Act took effect. One of the most restrictive bans in the country, the law essentially blocks all abortions after the six-week mark by empowering citizens to sue anyone who helps a person get one after that point, whether it’s the doctor doing the procedure or the driver providing transportation to the clinic.
Herring’s lawyers, Dan Cogdell and Nicholas Norris, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday. In a statement to KTRK, Cogdell said they “very much look forward to our day in court and are thoroughly convinced that we will prevail in a Court of law when our time comes to defend these allegations.”
The Texas abortion ban created a ‘vigilante’ loophole. Both parties are rushing to take advantage.
The Herrings’ 11-year marriage was strained before either of them knew about the pregnancy, a Houston Police Department investigator wrote in an affidavit. In February, Herring told his wife he wanted to separate and moved out, although he agreed to go to couples counseling, the investigator wrote.
Soon after, the wife learned she was pregnant, he added. On March 8, she told Herring about it during a couples counseling session, the affidavit states. She would later describe her husband’s reaction as “negative” and tell police that he sent her text messages expressing that he wasn’t happy about the pregnancy and didn’t know what to do, according to the affidavit.
Herring said that “this would ruin his plans and make him look like a jerk,” the affidavit states.
The Herrings’ couples counselor suggested they temporarily reconcile by spending spring break together with their two children, ages 6 and 2 at the time.
The Herrings did. During that week in mid-March, Herring started talking about his wife’s hydration, telling her that she needed to drink more water, the affidavit states. Then, around 8 a.m. on March 17, he allegedly brought her breakfast with the cup of water. That led to a day-long bout of symptoms that forced her to the emergency room, where the bleeding continued, according to court documents. She returned home that night.
Over the next week, Herring tried to give her four more beverages, the affidavit states. Wary, she drank none of them, having noticed “an unknown substance” in three and a broken seal on the fourth — a bottle of orange juice.
The untold story of the Texas abortion ban
About a month later, on April 20, Herring’s wife invited two people to her house as “witnesses” to her husband’s anticipated visit, the affidavit states. Herring arrived that morning to take their children to school, and even though she had two beverages in front of her, he allegedly tried to give her another. The wife told police she and her two confidantes all saw “an unknown substance” floating inside.
The next day, Herring brought another drink, this time one from a Sonic fast-food restaurant, according to the affidavit. Again, his wife told investigators, she noticed an unknown substance. Again, she didn’t drink it.
On April 24, the wife watched surveillance camera footage, noticing that Herring had cleaned out his truck and taken the trash to the curb, something she described as out of character, the affidavit states. After he left, she inspected the trash and discovered open packs of “Cyrux,” police said. She learned it was a Mexican version of the American-made Cytotec, whose main ingredient is misoprostol, which she knew could be used to induce abortions, according to the affidavit.
On April 26, Herring allegedly returned. While there, his wife saw him making a beverage in the kitchen, the affidavit states. She watched as he pulled a plastic baggie out of his pocket, emptied its contents into a liquid and eventually served the drink in her bedroom, according to the affidavit.
The investigator with the Houston Police Department watched surveillance footage that showed Herring cleaning trash out of his truck, the affidavit states. The investigator also saw video of Herring allegedly taking a plastic baggie out of his pocket and emptying its contents into a liquid. Herring then added cranberry juice and water to the concoction, the affidavit states.
Herring’s wife also gave the investigator photos of the various drinks, and he saw “an unknown substance” in all of them, according to the affidavit. | 2022-11-14T10:21:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man charged with sneaking abortion drug into pregnant wife’s drinks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/14/texas-husband-abortion-drug-wife/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/14/texas-husband-abortion-drug-wife/ |
President Biden shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the two gather for their private meeting during the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
BALI, Indonesia — President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping launched into a high-stakes meeting here on Monday, the first in-person exchange between them as their nations’ leaders and at a time of extreme tensions between the global powers.
With aides and advisers looking on from long draped tables — everyone in the delegations wearing masks except for the two principal figures — both presidents expressed hope they could get the U.S.-China relationship back on track.
“The world expects, I believe, the U.S. and China to play a key role in global challenges, from climate change to food insecurity, and for us to be able to work together,” Biden said in remarks ahead of the meeting. “The United States stands ready to do just that.”
“We need to find the right direction for the relationship going forward, and elevate the relationship,” Xi said a few minutes later. “The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship. For our meeting, it has attracted the world’s attention.”
Each leader, in Bali for the Group of 20 summit, came to the table feeling newly emboldened. Xi has consolidated control — securing a third, norm-defying five-year term and consolidating power to a degree not seen since the days of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Biden is fresh off a midterm election in which his party did far better than expected and will maintain its Senate majority.
White House officials have been jubilant since last week’s Democratic showing in the midterm elections, with several reporting that foreign leaders have approached Biden to comment on his fresh domestic victories, referencing key states and districts with a striking familiarity that they said came even from counterparts who did not represent democracies.
The sit-down between Biden and Xi occurred on the third day of Biden’s swing through Asia. He first arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Saturday for a summit with Southeast Asian nations, where the U.S. aim was to unite them as a counterweight to the rising economic and military threat China poses.
The U.S.-China meeting began just after 5:30 p.m. local time and could extend for hours. The plan was for simultaneous translators, which U.S. officials have often preferred as a way to expedite the dialogue so each leader doesn’t have to wait for the other to finish before translation begins.
The face-to-face is the result of months of quiet negotiations as diplomats laid the groundwork for the talks. Senior Biden administration officials cast those discussions as an improvement in the countries’ interactions even as they kept expectations low for any breakthrough because of the meeting. Biden and Xi have held five phone calls since the start of Biden’s presidency, but they have not met in person since 2017.
No joint statement, which is typical when the sides want to show progress and areas of agreement, is expected at the end of the meeting. White House officials said beforehand that they didn’t expect any major announcements.
Instead, they cast the dialogue as a start of a long process, one to help thaw a relationship rife with so much tension that even talks on issues of mutual interest, such as climate change, have sometimes been shut down. Officials said they know the United States is in “stiff competition” with China — and Biden “embraces that” — but that ongoing dialogue would be important to defuse conflicts.
“Lines of communications should be open. Period, full stop,” said a senior administration official ahead of the meeting. “The only thing worse than having contentious conversation is having no conversation at all.”
One area the two men expected to discuss is economic rivalry. Biden has maintained tariffs that were imposed by President Donald Trump, and he has implemented restrictions on selling semiconductors and chip-making equipment to China.
“He wants to make sure that competition is bounded, that we develop guardrails, that we have clear rules of the road, and that we do all of that to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict,” said the administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the talks.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, speaking with reporters a few hours before the Biden-Xi meeting, said she anticipated the conversation to include the state of the Chinese and world economies.
After decades of rapid growth, the Chinese economy has markedly slowed this year. Repeated lockdowns under Xi’s rigid “zero covid” policy and a heavily indebted property sector that accounts for one-fifth of the economy have been major factors. The International Monetary Fund said last month that the country’s annual growth rate is expected this year to be 3.2 percent, compared with more than 8 percent in 2021.
“First and foremost, the meeting today is intended to stabilize the relationship between the United States and China and to create a more certain atmosphere for U.S. businesses so they understand what to expect,” Yellen said.
The treasury secretary reiterated that U.S. companies are overly dependent on China as a source for critical products, including minerals needed to produce electric-vehicle batteries. But she suggested much of the $600 billion annual trade flows between the countries should continue.
“We want a more secure and more resilient supply chain. But certainly over a wide range of commercial activities — and U.S. firms doing business in China — that’s certainly not something that we are intending to hamper,” she said.
Biden also planned to bring up long-standing issues that the United States has with China’s record on human rights. They have disagreed strongly over Taiwan, particularly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the self-governing island that Beijing considers part of its territory in August. Xi had asked Biden to find a way to prevent her from visiting; in the aftermath of her trip, China suspended talks with the United States on a range of other issues.
“Both sides seem to want the leaders meeting in Bali to lower the temperature in an overheated relationship,” said Danny Russel, a former diplomat who advised Biden on past meetings with Xi and who is now vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
“Washington is mindful of the risk of an unintended incident quickly escalating into a crisis,” Russel added. “Beijing seeks to avoid another round of punishing U.S. measures like the recent export controls on semiconductors.”
Going into the meeting, China had signaled it wants to put ties back on track and keep disagreements from spiraling into conflict. But the two sides have totally different ideas about how to establish guardrails, noted Chen Dongxiao, president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, a think tank.
“China defines the ‘floor’ from a strategic and political perspective, which is fundamentally about not letting the United States repeatedly threaten or harm China’s core interests,” he said, while Beijing sees practical measures alone as “unreliable and of little use.”
The White House has found it notable that Xi warned for the first time against the use of nuclear weapons in Russia’s war on Ukraine when he sat down with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week. His comment was viewed as a clear signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I think there is undeniably a discomfort in Beijing about what we’ve seen in terms of reckless rhetoric and activity on the part of Russia,” a second senior administration official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters on Monday. “I think it is also undeniable that China is probably both surprised and a little bit embarrassed by the conduct of Russian military operations.”
The Biden-Xi meeting is a reconnection of sorts for a relationship that developed more than a decade ago, when each man was vice president of his country and tasked with getting to know each other and foster greater understanding.
At one point, during a tour of a school in Los Angeles, they each displayed white T-shirts that read, “Fostering Goodwill Between America & China.” Biden’s shirt was in Mandarin, and Xi’s was in English.
Christian Shepherd reported from Taipei. David Lynch in Bali contributed to this report. | 2022-11-14T10:21:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden and Xi finally meet again against a backdrop of high tensions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/biden-xi-meeting-bali-g20/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/biden-xi-meeting-bali-g20/ |
Police officers stand guard after an explosion on Istanbul's popular pedestrian Istiklal Avenue late Sunday. (Emrah Gurel/AP)
ISTANBUL — Turkish authorities have detained 46 suspects in connection with a deadly bomb attack on one of Istanbul’s busiest shopping streets, including a woman they said had planted the explosives, police said Monday.
The explosion, which occurred Sunday afternoon on Istiklal Street as it was teeming with shoppers, killed at least six people and wounded dozens of others.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing. Turkish officials have blamed the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has fought a long insurgency against Turkey’s government, for the explosion. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it a “treacherous attack.”
The police on Monday identified the female suspect as a Syrian national named Ahlam Albashir and said she had confessed during an “interrogation” to being trained by Kurdish militants as an intelligence officer. She had entered Turkey illegally via Syria, a police statement said.
A picture shared by the authorities showed the suspect handcuffed and wearing a purple sweatshirt that said “New York.”
Video footage of the explosion showed a small fireball on Istiklal Street, a storied shopping thoroughfare in Istanbul’s historic Beyoglu district, and panicked pedestrians fleeing. By Monday morning, the street appeared emptier than normal, apart from a large entourage that followed the city’s mayor as he greeted shop and restaurant workers. Municipal workers dug through planters on the street, looking for hidden objects.
An explosion ripped through a busy shopping thoroughfare in Istanbul on Nov. 13, killing several people and injuring dozens. (Video: Julie Yoon/The Washington Post)
Erdogan, in remarks to reporters on Sunday shortly before departing Turkey for the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, said, “if we say that this is terror it might be wrong, but with the initial developments and with the information that my governor has relayed to us, there is the smell of terror.”
On Monday, Turkish police said a review of security camera footage showed that after the bombing suspect left the scene, she took a taxi to a district about 12 miles northwest of Beyoglu. There, police said they carried out an operation in 21 different sites linked to the suspect.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Monday that the “order” for the attack came from a town in northern Syria controlled by an affiliate of the PKK. He did not provide further detail. Turkey has repeatedly criticized Western countries, including the United States, for supporting a Kurdish-led militia in Syria that helped lead the fight against the Islamic State militant group, and that has ties to the PKK.
“We will show them a response,” Soylu said.
Istiklal Avenue has been targeted before: It was the site of a suicide bombing in March 2016 that killed five people, including two U.S. nationals, and injured dozens more. The street is usually filled with people — Turkish citizens from Istanbul and beyond, along with tourists from a multitude of countries — strolling or visiting large chain stores that have outlets on Istiklal, as well as a handful of shopping malls.
On evenings and weekend days, the crowds are thick.
Soylu said the dead, all born in Turkey, came from three families. He named them as Arzu Ozsoy and her daughter Yagmur Ucar; Ecrin Meydan and her father Yusuf Meydan; and Adem Topkara and Mukaddes Elif Topkara, a married couple.
Mourners gathered near the site of the blast on Monday to lay flowers and pay their respects to the victims. Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul’s mayor, said in a tweet, “we are all deeply heartbroken and at a loss for words.” | 2022-11-14T11:00:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Turkey accuses Kurdish militants in Istanbul bomb attack, arrest woman - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/turkey-istanbul-explosion-suspect-arrested/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/turkey-istanbul-explosion-suspect-arrested/ |
Former Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid attends a fundraiser in 2019 for the Nevada Democratic Party in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)
LAS VEGAS — After a devastating 1994 midterm election for Democrats in Nevada, Sen. Harry M. Reid called up his closest allies with one message: Figure out how to win in the conservative state.
But the new effort sputtered and hit a low point in 2002, when Democrats in the state suffered devastating losses up and down the ballot, including in the newly created 3rd Congressional District in southern Nevada.
Reid, Taylor said, called another meeting. This time, Reid, the soft-spoken giant of Nevada politics, attended the gathering and introduced his new party director, Rebecca Lambe. He demanded they build again, take advantage of the rapid population growth of the state and start winning.
It worked. From that point on, Nevada Democrats have had strong showings in competitive races each cycle.
Two decades later, facing its toughest test yet, the “Reid machine” is holding up in the Silver State, almost a year after its namesake died following a battle with cancer.
Reid’s protege, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), narrowly won reelection in a race that, once it was called Saturday, kept the Senate majority in Democratic hands. Three Democratic incumbents won closely contested House races. Francisco “Cisco” Aguilar, a former Reid aide, won the secretary of state race, and while Republicans won the governor’s mansion and the lieutenant governor race, the state legislature remains in Democratic control.
“We take it as a point of pride to win here,” said J.B. Poersch, president of the Senate Majority PAC, the dark-money group Reid started when he was leader that works to elect Democrats to the Senate.
And now Lambe is leading the effort for Nevada to be the first-in-the-nation state in the Democratic presidential primary, which would make the national party invest even more into the state’s political operations and provide further resources for Silver State Democrats for decades to come.
“There’s no question that every Democrat in Nevada wishes he was still here,” Lambe said of Reid, but adding that the organization is “firing on all cylinders.”
Moreover, the victories this year provided a psychic boost to the former Senate majority leader’s alumni in Nevada in a race that played out like a political soap opera. The candidates served as proxy stand-ins for old foes, several of whom have been dead for years but whose influence lives on.
Reid v. McConnell once again
By early last year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who spent a decade clashing with his Democratic counterpart until Reid retired six years ago, made Nevada the cornerstone of his bid to reclaim the majority.
Win Nevada, McConnell reckoned, and he was on his way back to being majority leader. His top political advisers helped recruit and then run the campaign of Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general.
He is the grandson of the late Paul Laxalt, who defeated Reid for this Senate seat by less than 700 votes in 1974. Reid, who first won this Senate seat in 1986, after Laxalt retired, only learned who Adam Laxalt’s father was in 2013: His old friend, the late Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who had an extramarital affair with Paul Laxalt’s daughter.
So “Team Mitch,” as McConnell’s political operation bills itself, went up against the “Reid Machine,” facing questions about its strength with Reid dead, in an effort to put the Senate seat back into Laxalt family hands and reclaim the GOP majority.
Laxalt and McConnell’s teams believed everything that favored Republicans on the national front — inflation at 40-year highs, a pandemic recovery that is uneven, the rightward drift of Latino voters and President Biden’s sagging approval ratings — resonated deeper out here.
In the tourist-reliant economy, Nevadans feel the economic pinch faster and longer. Gas prices are still more than $5 per gallon in Las Vegas. The unemployment rate, which nearly hit 30 percent at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, remains second highest in the nation.
Cortez Masto’s low-key style translated to low name recognition in the transient state. She’s a sharp contrast to Reid’s take-no-prisoners but polarizing style.
In Nevada, a Democratic senator tries to fend off GOP momentum on the economy
Republicans smelled weakness.
That’s when the connections between Laxalt and Josh Holmes, a top political adviser to McConnell, grew stronger. In early 2021, Holmes talked to his boss, and they agreed that the former state attorney general, with two statewide races under his belt, seemed like their best candidate. Soon after, another top adviser to McConnell, John Ashbrook, began serving as a strategist for Laxalt’s campaign.
It helped that Laxalt, who was co-chair of Donald Trump’s Nevada operation in 2020, could thread that needle between the GOP leader and the former president, who have clashed openly over Senate races this year. Laxalt even once roomed with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as naval officers, giving him entree into three competing orbits of today’s Republican Party.
The only question was whether Laxalt wanted to run for governor, the office his grandfather first won before moving to the Senate, but Team Mitch made a strong pitch that Nevada’s biggest problems were in Washington, not Carson City, and McConnell’s team spelled out for Laxalt how he would be the majority maker.
“He always believed this would be the 51st seat,” Robert Uithoven, the longtime top Laxalt adviser, said in an Election Day interview. “This was going to be the battleground for the Senate, this seat.”
From the outset, Laxalt’s team focused on what his advisers called three “micro campaigns” they believed would deliver the race for him: One, winning a little bit more of the Latino vote, which has been key to Democratic wins in past races; two, a “Ladies for Laxalt” effort to cut the gender gap; and three, the battle to win Washoe County, the pivotal swing region anchored by his hometown of Reno.
For Democrats, the question was whether a machine without Reid could deliver in its first test since his death in December.
But the machine, which focuses on registering voters and then getting them to the polls, kept humming along.
“My friend Harry M. Reid, he may be gone but he’s still with us. His legacy in Nevada continues to shine [as] bright as the lights on the Vegas strip,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Saturday night at a hastily arranged news conference once Cortez Masto’s victory was called.
Reid’s operation first took flight in 2003, in an era when Nevada had been the fastest growing state for years. Lambe, Reid and other close confidants determined success would be achieved through voter registration. They relied on unions, Hispanic groups, Asian American Pacific Islander organizers and liberal groups to run huge voter registration drives. Many were coupled with citizenship drives for the growing immigrant population.
In 2006, Reid saw a way to quickly boost voter registration. He argued that Nevada should be an early presidential nominating state. New Hampshire and Iowa aren’t representative of the country, he said.
The Democratic Party had little choice but to agree with the then-Senate leader. Reid instituted a caucus system for the 2008 Democratic primary as a way to boost Democratic participation, but especially registration, registering tens of thousands of Democratic voters and far surpassing the number of registered Republican voters.
Because the state is so transient, the organization is well-versed in introducing the party and the candidates every election cycle. (This was something it had to do this cycle with Cortez Masto, too, even though she was running for reelection.)
Voter registration translated into a massive get-out-the-vote operation, which resulted in the most successful election Democrats had in Nevada’s history, winning two Democratic House seats and breaking the Republican presidential streak when Barack Obama won the state.
The robust ground game has continued. The Culinary Workers Union, for instance, said it knocked on a record 1 million doors across the state this election.
But the Reid machine is more than the ground game. It’s about the money and has been set up to run like a campaign instead of a state party.
Reid didn’t just have the support of union workers, the people who cleaned and built the hotels, but the casino executives, too. Reid had the support of the mining executives and also the environmental groups — two groups that rarely agree.
It’s an entity to collect and redirect campaign contributions into the different parts of the organization. It ensures allied grass-roots groups are well funded. It’s an opposition research organization and communications shop that starts eyeing potential challengers years in advance.
“It was really about making sure that those resources were put to the kinds of programs that are tried and true here, that we knew that it would take to win,” Lambe said.
It finds and trains political operatives and people to run for office and in key party slots. For instance, Reid noticed Adriana Martinez’s better-than-expected run for local office in 2002 in a Republican part of town. After her failed campaign, he called her, impressed, and asked her to run the Nevada Democratic Party.
“I had no idea what it would entail,” said Martinez. “There were only two Latino [state party chairs] at the time.”
Martinez was essential in helping to recruit Latinos to vote, volunteer and run. She later co-founded Emerge Nevada, a group dedicated to training Democratic women to run for office. After she won difficult, statewide races, he also chose Cortez Masto to run for his seat.
The machine works as a unit so that all Democrats on the ticket run as one. This cycle it worked with allies in the state legislature to pass universal mail-in voting and the rules around counting those mail-in ballots, which successfully expanded voter access.
The Reid machine is also ruthless. In 2010, Reid knew that former television anchor and state senator Sue Lowden was a more formidable opponent than far-right state legislator Sharron Angle.
When Lowden was asked during an interview how people should afford health care, Lowden suggested people barter chickens. Reid’s machine pounced, setting up funding for “chickens for checkup” ads, tanking Lowden’s chances. He faced Angle and won.
A machine in need of oiling
On its face, the Nevada Democratic Party looked to be dominant two years ago. The state had just supported Biden, the fourth straight Democrat to win its presidential electoral votes. Both Senate seats were held by Democrats, three of the four House members were Democrats, and the party controlled all levels of power at the legislature in Carson City.
But underneath, problems mounted. A split in the Democratic Party between Reid loyalists and supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) only grew, operating completely independent of each other.
Bernie Sanders decisively wins Nevada caucuses
The institutional challenges were exacerbated with what was expected to be a difficult environment for Democrats this year.
Nearly every person interviewed said the split in the Nevada Democratic Party that emerged during the 2020 election could have cost Democrats their races this cycle.
The Democratic Party split after Sanders loyalists were elected to top positions in the party and shut out longtime Democratic activists and Reid loyalists. The Reid machine doubted the newcomers’ ability to raise the amount of money necessary, understand the dynamics of the state and run a campaign necessary to win.
The Reid loyalists created a shadow organization they called Nevada Democratic Victory, in which they starved the Sanders wing of the party from funds and a mission. The machine lived.
Rozita Lee, a longtime organizer in the Filipino community in Las Vegas, said the split “of course had an impact” on morale and finances. But she said the newcomers didn’t understand the decades of work that has been done to build the party in the state.
Matt Fonken, executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party, said the “elitist consulting class” just wanted to line their pockets.
“They knew we were going to be frugal because we want this to be a year round operation,” he said. The two wings of the party don’t talk, don’t share resources and don’t support each other. The money-strapped Sanders wing settled on working to elect Las Vegas City Council and Clark County Commission seats.
As the Democratic National Committee is set to determine as early as this week the order in which states will pick the party’s presidential nominee, the party thinks its success in holding a broad coalition of voters shows that Nevada has the right formula for national success.
“It’s why Nevada should be moved up in the calendar,” Lambe said. “The folks that you have to win and mobilize to vote are the very voters that are going to get us to 270 and 2024.”
In addition to the presidential race, Nevada will also have a competitive Senate race when Sen. Jacky Rosen (D) is up for reelection.
Reid’s legacy will be a factor.
“Are they going to face a Reid machine in 2024? Yes,” Uithoven said, for whichever candidates run statewide. “Any Republican running in 2024 shouldn’t assume the Reid machine is dead.” | 2022-11-14T11:13:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | ‘Reid machine’ helps Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto to victory - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/reid-mcconnell-nevada/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/14/reid-mcconnell-nevada/ |
Court tosses conviction of woman who said she killed husband in self defense
Diana Lalchan was convicted of fatally shooting her husband in 2013. The D.C. appeals court ordered a new trial, ruling that the trial judge failed to instruct jurors of the long-term effects of what was once called battered wife syndrome.
Diana Lalchan (foreground) (Keith Alexander/TWP)
A former Walter Reed pharmacist who in 2019 was found guilty of fatally shooting her husband in the back of the head was freed from prison after the D.C. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and determined that the judge overseeing her trial failed to adequately instruct jurors on the lingering effects of a particular legal defense once referred to as battered wife syndrome.
The appeals court had granted Diana Lalchan, 37, a new trial in the 2013 killing of Christopher Lalchan, but prosecutors earlier this month wound up dismissing all charges against her following the September ruling. Lalchan, also known as Dianna Lalchan in several court filings, had served nearly half of her 7 ½-year sentence in a federal prison after a D.C. Superior Court jury in 2019 found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter while armed.
The D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that Judge Ronna L. Beck failed to thoroughly instruct jurors before deliberations about the lingering effects of spousal abuse and how those effects could lead a person during an act of violence to believe they were acting in self-defense. The three-judge panel agreed with Lalchan’s public defenders and said Beck should have told jurors that they could “consider the effects of battery in assessing whether Ms. Lalchan’s perception of danger was objectively reasonable.”
“We are hopeful that the Court’s clarification of the District’s self-defense laws will help reduce the discrimination against people suffering from intimate-partner violence who are forced to defend themselves against their partners,” said Janet Mitchell, special counsel for the District’s Public Defender Service.
The Court of Appeals decision was seen as a victory for individuals who claim self-defense in crimes involving domestic violence. But members of Christopher Lalchan’s family say they were “robbed” of justice by the appellate court and by prosecutors who chose not to retry Diana Lalchan.
“In court they made Chris out to be a stereotype, this big, angry, abusive Black man. We know that was never him,” said David Heiserman, Christopher Lalchan’s cousin-in-law.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment on the case.
At the close of their evidence, Lalchan’s attorneys asked Beck to instruct the jury that, in determining whether she acted in self-defense, the jury could also consider whether Lalchan acted, according to the opinion, “as a reasonable woman with a history of trauma and the effects of battery.”
Beck wrongfully denied that request, the three-judge panel determined, concluding that evidence Lalchan suffered from prior battery could be considered in determining whether she perceived danger, but had no bearing on whether her perception was “objectively reasonable.”
Such an instruction, defense attorneys have argued, could help some jurors avoid faulting individuals who claim self-defense, but then question why a defendant did not call police, seek a restraining order or just terminate the relationship. Attorneys have argued that many individuals who have been abused are often unable to make such rational moves due to being paralyzed with fear or financially dependent on the abuser, all of which, the attorneys say, result in diminished mental capacity.
Patricia Riley, a former federal prosecutor in the District and now an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law, said the appellate court’s opinion instructs D.C. judges to ensure such oral instructions inform jurors to consider that prior abuse can alter the rationale of a person who may believe he or she was in a violent situation.
“People have a hard time understanding self-defense when it comes to abusive relationships,” Riley said. “They want to fault the abused for not leaving the relationship or seeking help from police as soon as the abuse began. But that would be rational thinking. This instruction would have reminded jurors that individuals who have had years of abuse, may not have been thinking rationally when they assault or kill.”
During the nearly month-long trial, Lalchan took the witness stand, sobbing at times, and testified that her husband had been controlling and abusive. She said he often wrapped his hands around her throat in fits of rage until she decided to fight back. Several of Lalchan’s co-workers and friends also testified, saying they saw bruising on her neck and or that she told them her husband had attacked her.
Lalchan told authorities on the night she shot her husband in their Southwest Washington home that the two had been arguing about getting a divorce and he grabbed a mop handle and threatened her with it. It was then, she said, she fired three bullets at her husband. The first two bullets hit the wall and floor. The third bullet struck Christopher Lalchan in the back of his head.
Federal prosecutors described Lalchan as manipulative and charged her with first-degree murder. Prosecutors argued there was no evidence of domestic abuse and that Lalchan had fabricated the story because she wanted to leave her husband and live as a lesbian. Prosecutors also said that she did not want to pay alimony or shame her parents who raised her in a religiously strict household.
Authorities said there was no sign of a struggle, and no 911 call from Lalchan pleading for help before the shooting. Prosecutors argued Lalchan did not fit the profile of an abused spouse, an argument the defense vehemently countered was based on “stereotypes.” The prosecutors stressed at trial that Lalchan had an advanced degree and was the breadwinner of her household, making more than $100,000 as a pharmacist — suggesting she had the resources to leave the relationship.
At trial, psychological experts hired by Lalchan’s attorneys testified that their client’s behavior was consistent with that of other survivors of intimate-partner violence, formerly known as battered woman syndrome, her attorneys said. One of the psychologists testified that battered partners — both male and female — often do not leave an abusive relationship or report violent before because of embarrassment or fear that such steps might make the abuse worse. Or they stay and instead hope that the abuse will cease.
In staying in such relationships, Lalchan’s attorneys argued that psychologists have found that victims of abuse often are able to recognize verbal and nonverbal cues from their abuser as a flag of imminent physical assault. The attorneys requested that the judge overseeing the trial reiterate such claims by their psychologist to the jurors.
Following two days of deliberations, the jury acquitted Lalchan on first- and second-degree murder. But they found her guilty of manslaughter while armed. As the guilty verdict was read, Lalchan sat motionless. One of her attorneys was visibly distraught and began wiping away tears.
In their appeal, Lalchan’s attorney’s argued that had the judge instructed the jury about the diminished capacity of abused victims, their client would have been acquitted of all charges.
Jeremy Karmel, another of Christopher Lalchan’s cousins, said it was “outrageous” that the case against their cousin’s killer was dismissed.
“She shot him, in the back of his head. And between 2013 and now, she only spent three years in prison for that. That is not justice. And now she lives her life, but Chris isn’t so fortunate,” Karmel said. | 2022-11-14T11:39:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dianna Lalchan freed after conviction in husband's fatal shooting is tossed. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/14/lalchan-battered-wife-conviction-overturned/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/14/lalchan-battered-wife-conviction-overturned/ |
The Maryland Republican Party, divided by Trump and, critics say, not built up by Hogan, never made gains during his two terms. Unable to replicate his success, the GOP is left with a very shallow bench and an executive director who quit.
Larry Hogan will leave office as a historically popular Maryland governor, but many Republicans say he didn't do enough to build up the party. (Graeme Sloan for The Washington Post)
Republican Larry Hogan is one of the most popular governors in modern state history, but the star power never translated into political gains for the Maryland GOP he will leave behind.
His sky-high popularity didn’t boost the rest of the state’s Republican Party, which suffered consistent down-ballot losses during his two terms — by moderates and by Trump-style firebrands. His handpicked successor lost a primary this year to a backbench freshman state delegate. After a bruising Election Day, party leaders say there’s no robust bench to build the Maryland GOP back up.
Hogan, who is weighing a presidential run on the strength of his brand of pragmatic conservatism, had raised millions for Maryland Republicans and attracted national attention. But the term-limited governor is leaving the state party where it was eight years ago: rife with infighting and without a clear path forward.
“I don’t think he has a legacy,” Maryland Republican Party Chairman Dirk Haire said of Hogan’s mark on state politics. “He certainly had no coattails. What worked for him, didn’t work for anybody else.”
Of the small group of Maryland Republicans endorsed by Hogan this year — a comptroller, a congressional candidate, a county executive, a state’s attorney and two state senate candidates — nearly all lost. (A notable exception is his daughter, Jaymi Sterling, who became St. Mary’s County’s top prosecutor.)
Hogan said Republicans in his own state need a new path, but he does not assume responsibility for the one they’re on. He wants to be a leading voice in how the Republican Party moves beyond the Trump era. He said losses by Trump-backed candidates nationwide on Tuesday vindicated his wing of the party and inched him closer to a presidential run, telling CBS News on Wednesday he was “getting calls all night” from national party figures “saying it’s a good night for Larry Hogan.”
At a news conference on Thursday, he blamed Republican losses in Maryland on Democrats’ 2-to-1 party registration advantage.
“We’ve been really successful with our brand of politics,” he said. “I don’t think the Republican Party in Maryland has much of a future by doubling down on failure and by moving in a wacky direction (with) a message that does not appeal to swing voters and traditional Republicans and independents. … They have some soul-searching to do at the state party, but also at the national party, about what direction our party takes in the future if we want to ever get back to winning elections again instead of losing them.”
About 90 minutes later, he tweeted about failures of the national Republican Party’s leaders: “This should have been a huge red wave. Excuses, lies, and toxic politics will not win elections or restore America. Only real leadership will do that,” he said.
Hogan’s exploration of a presidential bid intensifies
Analysts expected history’s political trends to take hold this year: a rout for the incumbent president’s party, worsened by an uncertain economy and President Biden’s job approval ratings in the 40s. That so-called “red wave” of Republican victories evaporated to a mist, with Democrats unexpectedly holding seats widely considered in peril.
In deeply Democratic Maryland, GOP leaders had realistic hopes: potentially electing a moderate GOP comptroller, flipping at least one congressional seat, securing a few state senate seats, and installing a trio of county-level executives who could be waiting in the wings to run for governor one day. One county executive candidate won, but all the other candidates who had not already lost by Monday morning were in close races with shrinking leads as mail-in ballots were counted.
Wes Moore defeated Dan Cox to become Maryland’s first Black governor. Moore’s campaign set high expectations. Here’s what to know about him.
In 2023, adults over 21 in Maryland can possess up to 1.5 ounces of marijuana. Here’s what we know.
The top of Maryland’s ticket, featuring Trump-aligned Del. Dan Cox in a state the former president lost by more than 30 points — faced the biggest gubernatorial margin of defeat since 1986. Moderate candidates who styled themselves after Hogan’s brand of pragmatism fell far short, too — a remarkable turnaround for a state that reelected Hogan by 12 percentage points in 2018.
Voters on Election Day described Hogan as an individual with a likable personality, not a brand of politics.
“He fits what I like … His style is attractive to a lot of people,” said Hyattsville voter Bob Green, who said he left the Maryland Republican Party in 2016 after Trump was elected. But Green couldn’t think of a Republican candidate who seemed to have Hogan’s brand: strength of personality alongside moderation, frankness and, a clear openness to work with Democrats.
“He doesn’t fit the mold,” Green said of Hogan.
Some critics charge that Hogan’s brand never took off because he never bothered to build up the party infrastructure and persuade rank-and-file members to prize effectiveness over ideology — he rarely appeared at state party events or conventions and has judiciously endorsed GOP candidates.
Cox’s concession statement to Gov.-elect Wes Moore (D) tore into the governor for undermining his nomination: “Gov. Hogan’s disrespect of the people of Maryland in his own party will go down in history as disqualifying him from any future office as a Republican.”
Among the reasons Hogan said Cox was unfit to lead: Cox called the 2020 presidential election “stolen.”
But Hogan and his supporters say the party faithful shouldn’t have elevated candidates with fringe ideas who stood no chance in a general election, where the simple math requires a Republican to attract independents and some Democrats to win.
“The victims here are the voters, who are deprived of good choices,” said Republican strategist Doug Mayer, a Hogan adviser who worked on the governor’s reelection and the unsuccessful campaigns of candidates who tried to emulate Hogan’s formula: Barry Glassman for comptroller and, for governor, Kelly Schulz, who lost in the primary. Then, the Democratic Governor’s Association spent millions telling primary voters about Cox’s ties to Trump.
Mayer said primary voters’ selection of far-right statewide candidates had a drag on the entire ticket in the general, including Hogan-type candidates such as Glassman, who lost his race to Comptroller-elect Brooke Lierman (D).
“The governor’s legacy is that he was right,” Mayer said. “He showed what people needed to do to get elected as a Republican. If people don’t want to follow it, that’s on them.”
The governor’s eagerness to criticize Trump — which endeared him to Democratic voters who also admired his science-first pandemic response — helped inflame party divisions, some Republicans said, making it impossible to walk a line between the two flanks.
“The Hogan style of politics doesn’t bring together enough of our primary voters,” said House Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel (R-Allegany), adding that he admires the governor and his record.
“I don’t think that his positions or the way he conducted himself was intentionally designed to anger or alienate more conservative voters, but I do think that over the past two years that he did,” Buckel said. He said the governor’s regular appearance on news shows both boosted his national profile and had a ripple effect as Republicans at home watched.
Brian Griffiths, a blogger and former state central committee member who resigned after Cox was nominated, predicted Cox’s candidacy would be “an extinction-level event” for the party. Maryland is headed to single-party rule in Annapolis, where Democrats again hold supermajorities in both chambers plus all statewide offices.
Griffiths said he and others thought Hogan’s success would have ushered in a sea-change in how Maryland Republicans run for office, but instead, many activists pulled away from him as he became more appealing to independents and Democrats.
Hogan’s 73 percent job-approval rating crosses party lines, but 65 percent of Maryland Republicans polled in September said they would vote for Trump instead of Hogan in a hypothetical primary matchup for president.
Griffiths said there was little he could do to sway them, even if he’d showed up at all of the local fundraisers and annual events. “It’s a two-way street. When you get down to the party level, Larry Hogan was never conservative enough for them,” he said.
The division between the Trump wing and the Hogan wing are so deep that Haire, the party chair for six years, announced Wednesday he’s resigning. In a letter to Maryland Republican Party State Central Committee members, Haire wrote that dysfunction in the party created a “circular firing squad” that will lead to political ruin. The Hogan and Trump camps, he said, have to learn to coexist without repeatedly asking the party to decry the other in the name of “unity.”
“While I believe in the mission of limited government and freedom, I also believe in efficiency, chain-of-command, and discipline,” he said. “I’ve seen very little of that within the Party the last six years, and it’s gotten even worse in the last two years.”
Mail-in ballots were still being tallied in close races across Maryland this weekend, including the Anne Arundel County executive race between incumbent Steuart Pittman (D) and Republican Jessica Haire, Dirk Haire’s wife.
Haire stepped aside well before the race was called. “I’m very tired of trying to save people from themselves,” he said in an interview. “Political primaries and social media are destroying America. All it does is put even more extreme people on both sides of the political extremes.”
The race to succeed him pits Nicole Harris — wife to U.S. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the lone Republican in the state’s congressional delegation — against Gordana Schifanelli, who was Cox’s running mate, among others.
Schifanelli started laughing when asked why she wanted to be party chair. “That’s a good question: Why would anyone want to go into hell? Why do you think? Because it’s the right thing to do. I am new and fresh,” she said. “We need a good, fresh start … Adults have acted worse than kindergartners.”
Schifanelli, who included Hogan, the media, Republicans and Democrats among those acting like children, said she’d leave it up to party members to evaluate Hogan’s political legacy.
But Hogan’s unwillingness to embrace Republicans who didn’t fit his mold benefited the state and democracy, said Democratic strategist Justin Schall, who ran Anthony G. Brown’s unsuccessful 2014 gubernatorial campaign against Hogan.
“Hogan’s legacy is that no dangerous election-deniers got elected in Maryland,” Schall said. | 2022-11-14T11:39:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Larry Hogan's popularity with Md. voters hasn't helped the state GOP - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/14/maryland-gop-hogan-future/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/14/maryland-gop-hogan-future/ |
Laila Soueif, mother of jailed pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah speaks in front of his picture at her home in Cairo on Thursday. (Amr Nabil/AP)
CAIRO — The family of British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah — who started a water strike on Nov. 6 — received proof of life via handwritten letter date Nov. 12, his sister announced Monday.
His case has dominated the discourse at the U.N. Climate Conference known as COP27 — a gathering Egypt hoped would help bring the country positive attention. Instead, there has been a focus on Egypt’s record of repressing civil society. Visiting world leaders have repeatedly called for Abdel Fattah’s release as his family raised alarm that he could die behind bars during the conference.
A prominent voice from the country’s 2011 revolution, Abdel Fattah is serving a five-year sentence after he was found guilty of “spreading false news undermining national security” last year. He has been in and out of prison for around a decade on various charges that rights groups say are only an attempt to silence his dissent.
Egypt conducts ‘medical intervention’ on hunger-striking dissident, family says
Before Saturday’s letter, his family last heard from him via letter that he planned to launch a water strike on Nov. 6.
“I’m so relieved,” his sister Sanaa Seif wrote on Twitter. “Alaa is alive, he says he’s drinking water again as of November 12th.”
She added: “He says he’ll say more as soon as he can. It’s definitely his handwriting. Proof of life, at last.” | 2022-11-14T11:39:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Egyptian dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah sends letter to family as proof of life - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/alaa-abdel-fattah-egypt-hunger-strike/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/14/alaa-abdel-fattah-egypt-hunger-strike/ |
In ‘Interview with the Vampire,’ Jacob Anderson is a complicated monster
Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac in “Interview with the Vampire.” (Alfonso Bresciani/AMC)
“There’s something about vampires as these creatures in the shadows,” said Anderson, who fans will instantly recognize as the strong and mostly silent eunuch Grey Worm from HBO’s “Game of Thrones.” In “Interview,” the 32-year-old British actor (and musician) plays the reluctant bloodsucker, Louis de Pointe du Lac, made famous on-screen by Brad Pitt in the 1994 movie. In this version, Louis is a closeted gay Black man running a brothel in early 20th century New Orleans. He is a man of the night even before he meets his maker and lover, the ancient French vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (played by Australian actor Sam Reid). The couple later add forever-14-year-old Claudia (Bailey Bass) to their dysfunctional family.
Anne Rice is gone, but her New Orleans vampire ball lives on
Q: Code-switching serves as a storytelling device throughout the series. Louis is the main narrator but his voice, his cadence, switches up so much. How did you approach the different Louises: the brothel owner, the legit businessman, the centenarian?
Q: Alright, something I need to fact-check. You’ve called out producer Pharrell Williams as a dream guest star on the show. Is that because the perpetually youthful 49-year-old is a vampire? | 2022-11-14T11:52:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In ‘Interview with the Vampire,’ Jacob Anderson is a complicated monster - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/14/interview-with-vampire-jacob-anderson/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/14/interview-with-vampire-jacob-anderson/ |
A superstar of contemporary art presents new work in New York
Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s “There Is a Song in My Heart and a Hammer in My Brain” features a gorgeous video installation, somewhat like his famous “The Visitors”
Perspective by Sebastian Smee
Iceland Dance Company dancers perform Ragnar Kjartansson, Margrét Bjarnadóttir and Bryce Dessner's “No Tomorrow.” (Courtesy of the artists; Luhring Augustine, New York and i8 Gallery, Reykjavik)
NEW YORK — Is Ragnar Kjartansson, one of contemporary art’s shining lights, an artist in the commonly accepted sense? Or is he more of an impresario — a figure like the failed artist and Ballet Russe founder Sergei Diaghilev, whose special genius was to convene other talents and to bring forth his vision through them?
Well, he is both. But Kjartansson’s success reminds us that such distinctions — a hangover of our romantic obsession with the idea of individual genius — have something wheezing and exhausted about them. Yes, there is a difference between making it happen and doing it yourself. But what matters in the end is that it gets done.
Kjartansson is best known to the world for his multi-screen video installation “The Visitors,” a collaborative musical performance presented as a nine-screen video installation. The work was declared in 2019 by the Guardian as the best artwork of the 21st century. (I recently spent nine months compiling an oral history of the making of “The Visitors.”)
His latest show at Luhring Augustine, his Chelsea gallery, is titled “There Is a Song in My Heart and a Hammer in My Brain” and it features another gorgeous video installation, “No Tomorrow.” This, too, emerged from a performance — eight guitar-wielding dancers from the Iceland Dance Company. Presented on six large screens that surround the audience, with music emitting from 30 sound channels, the work unspools, with its own swelling dynamics, over about 30 minutes.
Where “The Visitors” was set in a gorgeously rundown, richly atmospheric bohemian mansion on the historic Hudson River, “No Tomorrow” plays out on a gleaming stage that reflects the turquoise-and-white-striped curtain backdrop. The look of the piece is taut, clean, very Nordic. The dancers, all women, wear uniforms of blue jeans with white T-shirts and white socks. They move across the stage, and from one screen to the next, as they strum their guitars.
It’s a classic Kjartansson production in that it seems slight at first, verging even on silly, but before you know it you are completely under its spell.
“No Tomorrow” was choreographed by Margrét Bjarnadóttir, an Icelandic artist, writer and choreographer, and set to music by Bryce Dessner, a guitarist with the American rock band the National. (Kjartansson has collaborated with the National before, including on a repeating, six-hour performance of their hit song “Sorrow.”) The music here is played by the dancers, who also sometimes sing. Kjartansson and his wife, the artist Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdottir, took the lyrics from the Greek poet Sappho and from Vivant Denon, whose exquisite 18th-century novella “No Tomorrow” gives the piece its name.
Bjarnadóttir’s account of how “No Tomorrow” came into being is worth relaying — not only because it’s hilarious, but because it also offers a glimpse into Kjartansson’s Diaghilevian DNA:
“[Kjartansson] called me,” the choreographer said in a statement released by the gallery, “and asked if I’d have lunch to ‘discuss ballet.’ We met in a restaurant in downtown Reykjavík and, as always, Ragnar was dressed for the occasion, wearing a pink ‘ballet scarf’ (these were his words) around his neck. It was an elegant meeting: we ate deviled eggs, had some wine, and I think Ragnar also ordered a salad because that’s what he imagined ballet people would eat. And he showed me a drawing he’d made of a ballerina with a guitar and asked if I’d be interested in creating this piece with him. I can’t remember if there were really any more meetings to discuss the work.”
If this is an account of how one particular, collaborative artwork came into being, it’s also a sly description of social life itself as a state aspiring to art, or to something like aesthetic bliss — defined by Vladimir Nabokov as “a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.” To live such a life, Kjartansson seems to have intuited, you have to do it with conviction, but also with a sense of absurdity, futility, silliness — like a self-aware libertine cavorting on plump, satin pillows as Jacobins oil the guillotines.
Somewhere between the seriousness and the absurdity, you will, with any luck, find the key to everything. (You will then, of course, go searching for the lock, and never find it.)
“No Tomorrow” premiered as a live performance in Reykjavik in 2017. It toured, won awards and was subsequently filmed. Bjarnadóttir describes the piece as “an ode to love, youth, music and beauty” and “to fleeting moments of love and transcendence that we wish would last forever.” It evokes, in other words, the spirit of the 18th century, a period with which Kjartansson (like Vivienne Westwood, the founder of punk fashion) has long been infatuated.
He has paid homage to 18th-century Europe in other works, including “Scenes From Western Culture” and “Bliss,” in which an opera company repeated the exquisite, three-minute “Contessa perdono” finale from Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” for 12 hours straight.
“No Tomorrow” particularly recalls the paintings of Antoine Watteau, whose modestly sized pictures, designed for the salons run by France’s most influential women, feature young lovers and characters from the commedia dell’arte, often cradling stringed instruments, in enchanted settings. Watteau’s bodies, leaning into one another, huddled on benches or picnicking on the grass, speak a delicate language of love — and so do the dancers in “No Tomorrow.”
Many of Bjarnadóttir’s dancers had never played the guitar. They had to learn to strum their instruments and, at intervals, sing dreamy melodies, rounded out with harmonies and subtle dynamics, all while performing an elegant sequence of shifting formations. Dessner’s music matches their movements. His minimalist impulses combine with complex patterns to create a sculptural feeling, with spaces for silence, shifting rhythms and sound emitted from changing locations.
Rehearsals took place as Donald Trump was beginning his four years as president. According to Bjarnadóttir, “No Tomorrow” had nothing to do with him. But the new situation in America became, she said, “an anti-guiding light for the piece.” It evolved into “everything that Trump is not” — a collective expression of “grace, listening, tenderness, and inner strength” not to mention “empathy and sensitivity.”
Watteau is beautiful. But he is also full of longing and preternaturally sensitive to the fact that everything beautiful must end. His art is shot through with the kind of poignant self-mourning known only to the young. It is at once sad and in love with its own sadness. A similar sensibility informs “No Tomorrow,” which is alive not only to its own artificiality, but to the fragility of art’s hold on reality, too, including the political sphere.
A second work in the exhibition, “Guilt and Fear,” is a wallcovering installation of 1,000 porcelain salt and pepper shakers made in the Netherlands (where the installation was first shown). Instead of “salt” and “pepper,” they are labeled “guilt” or “fear.” Kjartansson acknowledges that both emotions are playing an ever-greater role in political life, but he also wants us to see that they’re not entirely negative — that guilt and fear have a role to play in pulling us out of ourselves and adding a bit of seasoning to our social existence.
As an artist, you can make art with dancing and songs and beautiful women, but then, as Kjartansson has said of another of his projects, “you realize, ‘Oh, Goebbels would have liked this piece!’ ” There is nothing inherently good, that’s to say, about supercharged beauty. Kjartansson uses very 21st-century modes of irony and humor, as well as repetition (his aesthetic calling card) and boredom, to draw our attention to this. He is 100 percent committed to art. But he is an enemy of solemnity. And a friend, it would seem, to all kinds of talent.
Ragnar Kjartansson: There Is a Song in My Heart and a Hammer in My Brain Through Dec. 17 at Luhring Augustine, Chelsea, New York. luhringaugustine.com. | 2022-11-14T11:52:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ragnar Kjartansson's latest video installation premieres in New York - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/14/ragnar-kjartansson-video-artist-new-show/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/14/ragnar-kjartansson-video-artist-new-show/ |
The Republicans lost the election – and so did Putin, MBS and Netanyahu
President Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 16. (Mandel Ngan/Pool Photo via AP)
Democrats just had one of the strongest showings in the past century for a president’s party in midterm elections, while many of the candidates endorsed by former president Donald Trump lost. Those results are not only shaking up domestic politics — they will also reverberate abroad. Dictators and right-wing populists who were hoping that Trump would return to power are sure to be disappointed, while the United States’ democratic allies can breathe a little easier.
Both Kyiv and Moscow were watching the election results closely. Ukrainians were apprehensive that if Republicans won power, U.S. aid to their country would be cut off. That’s a legitimate concern, given that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who may be the next House speaker, said that Ukraine would no longer have a “blank check.”
In fact, given the Russian army’s dismal combat performance, a U.S. aid cutoff is Vladimir Putin’s best bet to win the war. That helps to explain why the Kremlin once again activated its trolls and bots before Election Day to help the MAGA movement. Russian propagandists even said that Putin avoided announcing the Russian withdrawal from Kherson until the day after the vote so as not to give a lift to Biden and Democrats. Democrats still did well — and Russia did badly.
Another country that might have benefited from a Democratic defeat is China. That’s not because Republicans are pro-China; while there is a lot of sympathy for Putin in MAGA world, there is none for Xi Jinping. But as the United States’ foremost geostrategic challenger, China benefits from a weak president and a divided America.
Xi just won another five years in power from the Chinese Communist Party conference. He would be in a stronger position meeting Biden on Monday, at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, if the U.S. president had just suffered repudiation at the polls. While Biden hasn’t had his term extended, he has been given a new lease on life: He won’t be a lame duck for the next two years. That enables him to parley with Xi from a position of greater strength — all the more so since inflation slowed in October, suggesting that the U.S. economy may avoid a recession.
The election was also being closely watched in the Middle East, where many of the United States’ illiberal allies have been pining for the days when Trump gave them a pass on their atrocious human rights records. I recently talked with a reporter from an Arab country who told me that her government is locking up more journalists while ignoring protests from the State Department because its rulers are counting on Trump to come back in two years. That seems less likely now, which adds to the pressure on Arab states to listen more carefully to what the Biden administration is telling them.
A test case will be in Egypt, where the administration is doing “everything we can” (in the words of national security adviser Jake Sullivan) to secure the release of British Egyptian political prisoner Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is on a hunger strike in an Egyptian prison. Biden just met with Egyptian ruler Abdel Fatah El-Sisi at the climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh. Sisi may still not do the right thing, but he at least has more incentive to listen to what the U.S. president says now than he might have had a week ago.
Another Middle Eastern regime that has been giving Biden the middle finger is Saudi Arabia. In July, Biden traveled to the kingdom to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite his role in ordering the murder of Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi. Biden hoped to win agreement from Saudi Arabia to maintain high oil production to moderate inflationary pressure since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
MBS, as he’s widely known, refused to oblige in what was widely seen as an attempt to hurt Biden politically and usher in the return of his MAGA friends. The Wall Street Journal reported that MBS “mocks President Biden in private … has told advisers he hasn’t been impressed with Mr. Biden since his days as vice president, and much preferred former President Donald Trump.”
Well, as Omar Little said in “The Wire,” “You come at the king, you best not miss.” MBS missed — and now he will have to deal with an empowered Biden.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is returning as Israel’s prime minister, is yet another Middle Eastern leader who preferred Trump to Biden. Now he will have to listen more carefully when Biden tells him not to annex parts of the West Bank as demanded by the right-wing members of his coalition.
I don’t want to exaggerate the impact of the election. The United States remains divided politically, and Republicans may still take over the House. But the unexpectedly strong showing by Democrats leaves Biden in a stronger position not only at home but also abroad. U.S. democracy looks healthier today than it did a week ago — to the delight of fellow democracies and the dismay of dictatorships. | 2022-11-14T11:53:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The Republicans lost the election – and so did Putin, MBS and Netanyahu - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/14/midterms-empower-biden-foreign-policy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/14/midterms-empower-biden-foreign-policy/ |
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