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The story of how dreams of being speaker can get crushed — and why McCarthy has some things working in his favor.
Perspective by Bennett Parten
Bennett Parten is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Yale University.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy walks to a closed-door Republican leadership meeting for a vote on top House Republican leadership positions on Tuesday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Although it took more than a week, on Wednesday, media outlets projected that Republicans had won enough House seats to take over the chamber — albeit far more narrowly than expected. Now the question is: who will be the next Speaker? Current House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) faces challenges from the right within his own party — in an internal caucus vote on Tuesday, McCarthy only received 188 votes to be the Republican nominee for speaker, far short of the 218 he will need on the House floor in January. And although he has diffused tensions in the past with the right-leaning House Freedom Caucus, that same coalition sunk his last bid for speaker back in 2015 and may do so again.
Yet, the increased political polarization in recent years may make McCarthy’s bid for speaker easier than in 2015.
Just ask John Sherman, an Ohio congressmen, who fell victim to sectional politics on the eve of the Civil War and lost his bid for House speaker.
Sherman may be the most important American statesman you’ve never heard of. He’s the Sherman behind two famous bills: the Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1894) and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890). He served for over 30 years in the Senate, held a four-year tenure as secretary of the Treasury and finished his career with a stint as secretary of state, America’s chief diplomat.
Sherman was the younger brother to another famous Sherman — William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War hero best known for leading military campaigns that conquered the South. Unfortunately, we tend to remember the general and forget the statesman.
Nevertheless, John Sherman was perhaps the poster-child for contentious speakership battles gone wrong. In 1859, while serving his third term, Sherman had the inside track at winning the speakership should the Republicans win the majority. Yet his bid went sideways following a reprinting of Southern social theorist Hinton Rowant Helper’s “The Impending Crisis of the South.”
“The Impending Crisis of the South” was a scathing critique of Southern slaveholding. Helper, a child of North Carolina’s Western piedmont, argued that slavery, as an institution, stifled the development of industry in the South and suppressed the type of competition needed for capitalism to thrive — indeed, he compared large plantation owners to oligarchs, thieves and demagogues.
But Helper really ignited passions when he called on small landowners and non-slaveowning Whites to rise up and overthrow their landed oppressors. In the aftermath of John Brown’s raid, powerful Southerners saw this call as a true danger to slavery’s continued viability.
Helper’s book became to nonfiction what Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was to fiction. Within Congress, a loud uproar broke out when the book appeared with an endorsement from a group of congressional Republicans, including Sherman, all of whom hoped the book would influence the upcoming presidential election of 1860.
As the leading candidate for House speaker, Sherman became the presumed ringleader of the whole affair and the eventual scapegoat.
Though he claimed no knowledge whatsoever of how his name appeared on the book, the scandal doomed his chances of raising the gavel. One Southern Democrat in the Senate threatened to walk out of Congress and never return if the Republicans made him their choice.
Such threats worked because even amid the sectional crisis of the 1850s, the U.S. House was still enough of a consensus-seeking body that Sherman’s fellow Republicans heeded the words of their Democratic colleagues. The more moderate members of his own party deemed him too toxic and sank his bid for the overall health of the Congress. They instead elected William Pennington of New Jersey, a freshman congressman, whose only virtue appeared to be offending no one and having no apparent agenda.
Sherman’s chances also were hindered by him seeking the speakership during a moment of transition when the political parties were in flux.
While slavery had emerged as a dividing line between Republicans and Democrats, Republicans were still an upstart party. They were little more than a few years old, and party members, while all technically anti-slavery, possessed a range of opinions on not just the issue of slavery but on how best to confront proslavery Democrats.
The Democrats had issues of their own. For one, the party’s coalition changed throughout the decade. Many anti-slavery Democrats from the North migrated over to the Republicans as the sectional crisis intensified; Northern Democrats clashed with Southern Democrats. Indeed, Southern Democrats had already begun acting as a distinct faction within the party, and in 1860, they would even nominate their own presidential candidate, John Breckinridge of Kentucky.
There were also two other parties — the “Southern Opposition Party” and the “Know-Nothings.” Both groups were made up of former Whigs, who cut a middle ground between Republicans and Democrats and who, together, formed enough of a caucus to swing Congress in either direction. Sherman lost partly because he could never win enough support from these two groups.
In such an environment, where the parties were not as rigidly sorted as they are today and were relatively weak by comparison, Sherman’s anti-slavery appearances became a liability. While endorsing Helper’s book boosted his standing in key regions up North, it came across as too partisan and appeared too much like a political stunt elsewhere.
Sherman eventually rebounded. After losing the speakership in 1859, his Ohio legislature selected him to fill the Senate seat vacated by Salmon Chase, Lincoln’s secretary of the Treasury. In the Senate, he served on the Senate Finance Committee and, along with Chase, spearheaded major pieces of legislation that helped raise money for the war.
From there, he went on to hold office for the rest of his life. He even unsuccessfully campaigned for his party’s presidential nomination throughout the 1880s. But in the 19th century, when political involvement doubled as an affair of honor, pulling political stunts (and getting caught) required paying the price.
Today, the partisan environment is different. Parties are more ideologically rigid. Perhaps more significantly, playing political games, trolling opponents and grandstanding when the cameras are rolling are not just routine aspects of the job, but thought to be how you win and gain prominence. This means that Kevin McCarthy can scheme away with near impunity. In fact, not scheming, avoiding these stunts, or appearing too statesmanlike may be a greater hazard.
So while McCarthy may have a challenge come January due to the razor thin Republican majority, the present political environment makes his bid easier to maneuver. Not only are the parties stronger, polarization tends to mediate intraparty dissent, which makes whipping votes a more straightforward task.
As a result, McCarthy can rest assured that he’s unlikely to go the way of John Sherman, whose failed election crops up as a cautionary tale whenever there’s a new race for speaker. | 2022-11-18T12:02:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Kevin McCarthy be the next John Sherman? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/18/mccarthy-john-sherman-speaker-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/11/18/mccarthy-john-sherman-speaker-house/ |
From “Meadowlark,” published by Deadbeat Club, 2022. (Ian Bates)
Ian Bates’s book “Meadowlark” (Deadbeat Club, 2022) opens with two photographs, one echoing the sublimity of nature and the other giving voice to the extraordinary that can often be found in the banal, everyday things we usually ignore. And then right after this, we are greeted by a poem from Jim Harrison, titled “I Believe.”
Harrison’s poem is a paean to everyday things — thunderstorms, empty swimming pools, brush piles, thickets, cottages by lakes. There is a comfort in these memories of ordinary things, a reminder of how we drift through a life punctuated, here and there, with life’s signposts.
“Meadowlark” proceeds very much like Harrison’s poem. Bates’s photos recollect a wandering, searching soul. Landscapes are punctuated with meetings of people, both single and multiple. Ah, these can be taken for the memories and things recounted by Harrison’s poem. In a sense, then, Bates’s work in this book is a visual explication of the poem.
The book is reminiscent of, say, slow cinema — as Bates drifts with his camera, things reveal themselves in an unhurried way. That’s a nice counterpoint to our ever-increasing frenetic pace of life. Sometimes life’s pace feels too fast, suffocating. Bates’s photos of slow discovery are an antidote to our too-rushed lives.
Sometimes, many times, the profundity of life and living is drawn out in simplicity, not complexity. And, ironically, that contributes to an abundance of riches, as the saying goes, “sometime less is more.”
Bates spent years driving through the vast expanse of the American West to make the photos for “Meadowlark.” He would often sleep in his car. Here is the publisher’s description of the project:
“This is a project borne of both passion and patience, and though Bates was initially inspired by the Western Meadowlark — state bird of North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, Kansas, and Nebraska — the bird ultimately proved elusive, and appears here only once, as a crude facsimile painted on a weathered scrap of plywood ….
Bates’s photographs are full of things disappearing in plain sight. Like all photos, they’re an imposition, but given the glorious anonymity of sprawling tracts of Western and Plains states geography, they’re also about respectful distance, and the space(s) between people, places and things …
Every photographer is essentially exploring outer space, but in “Meadowlark,” Bates is in deep space, and these are photos that are as reticent as their subjects. This world doesn’t much nurture silence, but it’s still out there, a stealth force, a glacier, and in the places it lives it can hear things coming from a long way away.”
Yes, I think that’s right, “This world doesn’t much nurture silence.” But maybe it should. Maybe we need to take a step back and out of the white noise generated by our always-connected 24/7 lives. Maybe we need to lionize the quiet things, the contemplation of things, rather than heralding the newest, often impendingly useless gadget. Maybe we should abandon the notion that everything is a contest to separate the “winners” from the “losers.” Maybe we just need to drift more, taking note of the extraordinary in the ordinary. It’s there, and this book is a sharp reminder of that.
You can see more of Bates’s work on his website, here. And you can buy “Meadowlark” on the publisher’s website, here. | 2022-11-18T12:02:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ian Bates’s book “Meadowlark” is a reminder to slow down - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/11/18/these-photos-reveal-profundity-banality-every-day-life/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/11/18/these-photos-reveal-profundity-banality-every-day-life/ |
Ethiopia’s peace may depend on post-conflict plans for Tigray soldiers
Successfully demobilizing and reintegrating rebels could help Ethiopia avoid further conflict, the research shows
Analysis by Sally Sharif
Getachew Reda, an adviser to the president of Tigray Region and the spokesman of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, listens in Nairobi on Nov. 12 during an event about the peace agreement. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images)
Ethiopia reached a peace agreement with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebels this month. The Nov. 2 deal follows two years of fighting that killed about 500,000 people and displaced 3 million from Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia.
Article 6 of the agreement lays out the terms for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of the TPLF combatants. But these types of programs fail almost half the time. Will the Ethiopian peace agreement hold — and can Ethiopia avoid another conflict?
The peace agreement is a necessary first step in ending the two-year conflict. But my research suggests a lasting peace will require demobilization and reintegration plans that ensure the economic and social wellbeing of rebel commanders and combatants.
What helps demobilization succeed?
Disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating rebels (DDR) is one of the most important factors for post-conflict peace. But the Ethiopian accord only pays lip service to DDR. Article 6 lays out a stringent timeline for disarming the rebels within 30 days, without a specific demobilization plan or program to reintegrate fighters into society. And the accord recognizes that Ethiopia has only one defense force. There is no plan for security sector changes, and TPLF fighters will not be incorporated into the country’s armed forces. Article 6 also specifies that the program will be designed and implemented according to Ethiopia’s constitution, without any international support.
What happens to rebel fighters is one of the most expensive post-conflict interventions — and the stakes are high when it comes to reconciling rebels with civilians and promoting long-term peace. Since this approach began in the 1980s, 73 DDR programs have been implemented across the world. My research shows that these programs fail almost 50 percent of the time, with rebels rearming to continue the fight.
How Ethiopia tackled previous disarmament attempts
Ethiopia has already managed two demobilization programs, in 1991-1995 and 2000-2005. The first program targeted the Derg regime’s soldiers after rebel victory and was a partial success. Peace failed for a short period when the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) withdrew from the transitional government in 1992 and rearmed. Some of the Derg soldiers assembled in demobilization camps became unhappy with the reintegration program, and also joined OLF. The rebellion was soon crushed and OLF combatants were sent to demobilization camps Following this episode, Ethiopia successfully demobilized over 500,000 combatants.
The first program provided veterans with temporary financial support, as well as skills training, formal education, land and job opportunities, costing a total of about $196 million. Due to lack of funds, the Ethiopian government depended on donor support to reintegrate the half a million fighters. A World Bank survey found that ex-combatants were socially accepted into civilian communities and were not poorer than the general rural population.
The second DDR program targeted 148,000 Ethiopian army soldiers after the war with Eritrea. The program extended to six years due to lack of funds: ex-combatants were promised financial and technical support that failed to materialize. The program’s total cost was $174 million, with less than $3.1 million paid by the Ethiopian government. The World Bank lent Ethiopia $170 million to implement the DDR program.
This program was a success in that the soldiers did not rearm or join insurgents. Social reintegration also happened smoothly. But ex-fighters’ assets deteriorated gradually, according to a World Bank survey after the program ended.
In both DDR programs, detailed program design and funding, as well as international funding, determined eventual success. But the government of Ethiopia has accrued a burgeoning foreign debt since the end of the last DDR program. In 2021, it owed foreign lenders 57 percent of its national income. National debt stood at about 40 percent during previous DDR programs. Considering the government’s current economic performance, affording a costly demobilization and reintegration program is wishful thinking. Without such a program, peace will remain elusive.
Can Ethiopia avoid further fighting?
For Ethiopia, that’s a big question. The African Union lauded the peace negotiations, which excluded representatives from the Global North and the United Nations, as providing “African solutions to African problems.” But the DDR program is unlikely to succeed without technical support and funding from international organizations.
Successful DDR programs, the research shows, require a plan of action with a detailed timeline, secure funding and technical support for reintegration of rebel forces. In Ethiopia, this would mean building demobilization camps for TPLF fighters and training the group’s commanders in managing their combatants after conflict formally ends.
Typically, the standard U.N. practice for ensuring rebels do not rearm involves breaking the rebel wartime command-and-control structure after disarmament. This would mean separating TPLF commanders from the rank-and-file combatants.
In Ethiopia’s civil war, violence against civilians is eroding support for the government
But my research suggests that for rebel groups with a strong command-and-control structure — like the TPLF — DDR is more likely to succeed if the government assembles combatants in demobilization camps and provides them with educational opportunities, vocational training and prospects for employment. This temporary period during which active combatants are assigned to camps for processing, discharging and disarmament is called “cantonment.”
The TPLF has deep roots among the 7 million Tigrayans. Some TPLF commanders are former high-ranking Ethiopian military officers or political leaders who once held top positions in the federal government. Sidelining them from the demobilization and reintegration program is likely to create adverse incentives for rearmament.
My recent work shows that the bonds formed among combatants during war can be essential for successful rebel reintegration. Mid-level commanders, responsible for shaping wartime social bonds among combatants, are essential for allocating ex-combatant roles and redefining rebel-civilian relations.
For the November peace deal to hold, the Ethiopian government is most likely to succeed if it trains rebel commanders in peacebuilding. These efforts would include ensuring combatants’ security during cantonment through cooperation with the Ethiopian armed forces, providing economic opportunities, and starting reconciliation programs with civilians and victims of conflict.
Sally Sharif (@sally_sharif1) is the Simons Foundation Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at Simon Fraser University. She holds a PhD in political science from the City University of New York. | 2022-11-18T12:02:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Ethiopia seek international support for peacebuilding? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/ethiopia-peace-tplf-tigray/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/ethiopia-peace-tplf-tigray/ |
Budweiser beer kiosks are pictured at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha on Friday, ahead of the Qatar 2022 World Cup football tournament. (Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images)
DOHA, Qatar — World Cup organizers said Friday they were abandoning plans to sell beer around match stadiums, a reversal after Qatar previously said that beer would be sold “within the stadium perimeter” for designated periods before and after World Cup matches.
A statement by FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, said the decision came “following discussions between host country authorities and FIFA,” but did not give any further detail on the reasons for the decision. Beer would continue to be sold at other areas designated for World Cup fans, the statement said.
Qatar, a conservative Muslim country, strictly limits the sale of alcohol and bans its consumption in public places. It had made exceptions to those rules for the World Cup, announcing that ticket holders would have access to Budweiser beer beginning three hours before matches, and for an hour after the final whistle.
Today’s WorldView: Even as the World Cup is days away from starting, talk of boycotts is only getting louder. Soccer fan protesters have voiced their disdain about the host nation’s autocratic monarchy, including its alleged human rights abuses, suppression of dissent, persecution of LGBTQ people and mistreatment of migrant workers.
One last dance: Fans are looking forward to what will probably be a final opportunity to watch one of history’s greatest players in international play, as Lionel Messi, 35, takes the field next week for what’s expected to be his final World Cup. | 2022-11-18T12:03:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Qatar, in reversal, bans alcohol sales at World Cup stadiums - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/qatar-world-cup-beer/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/qatar-world-cup-beer/ |
The former Theranos CEO was convicted on four counts of fraud early this year
Elizabeth Holmes faces years in prison after being convicted of fraud. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
The entrepreneur — who started Theranos as a Stanford University dropout and grew it into a company with a peak valuation of $9 billion — was convicted in January of misleading investors that her technology could run hundreds of tests from just a few drops of blood. In reality, the company was relying on technology from other companies to run the tests.
She was convicted of four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud after a four-month-long trial that featured testimony and tales of billionaire investors, former U.S. officials’ endorsement and patients who had used the company’s technology. Holmes also took the stand over the course of seven days in emotional testimony defending her actions as being in good faith and denying that she was aware of the fraud.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes found guilty in landmark Silicon Valley fraud case
Holmes will appear in a drab courtroom in the heart of Silicon Valley today at a federal sentencing hearing where federal prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence her to 15 years in prison, as well as require a fine of $800 million to pay back investors and business partners.
“Her reality distortion field put, and will continue to put, people in harm’s way,” prosecutors wrote in memo to the judge. “She stands before the Court remorseless. She accepts no responsibility. Quite the opposite, she insists she is the victim. She is not.”
The Elizabeth Holmes trial is the hottest ticket in Silicon Valley
She leased space in a famed Silicon Valley office park and hired hundreds of employees. After her start-up went public with its ambitions roughly a decade ago, Holmes soared to fame. She was one of the few young female founders in a competitive tech world that still often features White, male CEOs. The media took notice, putting her on the covers of magazines including, Forbes, Fortune and Inc. as well as speaking at conferences and giving a TEDMED Talk. She inked deals with Walgreens and Safeway to put her technology — a small blood-testing machine, known as the Edison, that purported to use “nanotainers” that needed just a finger prick’s worth of blood to test for everything from cholesterol to herpes.
But internally, it was a different story, according to testimony at her trial last year. Theranos’s proprietary technology could in reality only run only about a dozen tests, and witnesses said it didn’t always do those reliably.
During the trial, former employees testified about growing concern within the company about how quickly Theranos was pushing to use the technology on patients. Former Walgreens and Safeway executives said they didn’t realize Theranos was using other company’s traditional machines to process blood tests. And former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who served on the company’s board, said he would have had a different view of the company if he had known the limitations of the Theranos blood-testing device.
“It would have tempered my enthusiasm significantly,” he said in court.
Whistleblower testifies to concerns over blood-testing technology in Elizabeth Holmes trial
Regulators started investigating the company, and Theranos went on the defensive. Holmes’s empire and public image began to crumble.
A federal regulator of laboratories found deficiencies at the company’s lab that “pose immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety.” Holmes was eventually barred from owning or operating a medical lab for at least two years. And in 2018, she was charged with massive fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which she paid a hefty fine to settle. She left Theranos that year and the company shuttered soon after.
Perspective: Elizabeth Holmes used every trope in the book
Holmes testified on the stand for more than 20 hours during the trial last year, speaking publicly for one of the first times in years and drawing a crowd of reporters and members of the public to see her in person. She told the jury that she was always acting in good faith — trying to create and sustain a technology that would help people.
“They weren’t interested in today or tomorrow or next month,” she said on the stand. “They were interested in what kind of change we could make.”
Elizabeth Holmes is having her days in court. Here’s her defense.
Throughout the trial, Holmes’s lawyers argued she made mistakes as a young CEO but acted with good intentions and believed in the company she was creating.
“Theranos certainly didn’t see mistakes as crimes; they saw them as part of the path to success,” attorney Lance Wade said at the beginning of the trial.
Holmes’s defense lawyers asked the judge to sentence her to 18 months in prison, or home confinement plus community service hours.
“She founded and built Theranos for indisputably good reasons,” they wrote to the judge. “She worked tirelessly along with hundreds of brilliant and committed employees to improve access to affordable health information.”
Holmes has been trying to get a new trial for months. Holmes’s team previously filed three motions for a new trial, all of which were denied by Federal District Judge Edward J. Davila.
Former defense secretary Jim Mattis testifies about his time on Theranos board during Elizabeth Holmes trial
One motion to dismiss cited an encounter between a prominent witness in the trial, former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff who apparently showed up at Holmes’s house and spoke with her partner, Billy Evans.
In a memo about the conversation, Evans said Rosendorff was “desperate” to talk to Holmes and commented that the prosecutors were trying to make everyone look bad.
“And that this was weighing on him, He said he was having trouble sleeping,” Evans wrote.
Holmes’s former business and romantic partner Sunny Balwani, was charged together with Holmes before his case was later severed when Holmes alleged he had abused her for years. Balwani has denied the allegations.
“In the years since, I’ve always been struck by the way our conversations focused on her desires to make a positive impact on the world,” he wrote.
Theranos failed, but other blood-tech companies are still trying to make testing faster and easier
Holmes’s partner Evans also wrote to the judge, seeking to describe a different Holmes than had been portrayed in the media. He extolled her “willingness to sacrifice herself for the greater good is something I greatly admire in her.”
He also wrote that “earlier this year, while pregnant, she decided she wanted to swim the Golden Gate Bridge,” something that concerned Evans.
“Rain or shine she practiced, and her determination was overpowering the odds against her,” he wrote. “Two weeks before the event she made the cut off time, swimming the breaststroke. I was wrong, you would think by now I would learn to not discount her perseverance.”
The rise and fall of Theranos
Elizabeth Holmes learned all the wrong lessons from Silicon Valley
Elizabeth Holmes testifies her ex-partner was controlling, sexually assaulted her | 2022-11-18T12:03:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Elizabeth Holmes faces prison as sentencing begins in fraud case - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/18/elizabeth-holmes-sentencing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/18/elizabeth-holmes-sentencing/ |
Friday briefing: Talks break down at COP27; chaos at Elon Musk’s Twitter; Nancy Pelosi; Taylor Swift; World Cup; and more
Talks at the U.N.’s climate summit in Egypt have broken down.
What to know: COP27 is supposed to end today, and countries haven’t made much progress on a new agreement to tackle climate change.
A key sticking point: Developing nations, which are often more vulnerable to rising temperatures, want money from rich nations, who are responsible for the most emissions.
Why this matters: We’re still on track for dangerous global warming in less than 80 years, unless countries agree to make more drastic changes.
Hundreds of Twitter employees have reportedly decided to quit.
Why? Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the new owner, told workers to choose by last night between working longer hours or leaving with severance pay. Many chose the second option.
What this means: It immediately threatens the social media site’s ability to keep running. Some critical systems may not have any engineers left.
Nancy Pelosi is stepping down as the top House Democrat after two decades.
Why? It’s time for a new generation to lead, the House speaker said yesterday. She’ll still be a member of the House.
Her legacy: She made history in 2002 as the first woman to become speaker — a role many experts say she has redefined.
Who could replace her? Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York is an early favorite.
Closing arguments will begin today in a high-profile Jan. 6 trial.
What to know: The founder and four other members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group, are accused of helping organize the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Why it matters: All five are facing a rare Civil War-era charge of seditious conspiracy and other counts punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
There’s been chaos over tickets for Taylor Swift’s next tour.
What’s happening? Glitches on Ticketmaster’s website left fans stranded for hours, and the company canceled today’s planned ticket sales because there aren’t enough left.
The bigger picture: The meltdown has sparked calls to investigate and break up Ticketmaster, which critics say has become a monopoly.
The World Cup kicks off this weekend.
The details: Soccer’s biggest tournament is being played in Qatar. It will feature 32 nations with matches starting Sunday and going through Dec. 18.
What the U.S. men’s team faces: Group games against Wales (on Monday), then England and Iran. Here’s how to watch on a budget.
There’s a lot of controversy: Qatar’s anti-LGBTQ laws and its mistreatment of migrant workers have caused calls to boycott the tournament.
Octopuses may deliberately throw things at each other.
How we know: They were caught on camera flinging objects at each other in what could be intentional attacks, a new study found.
Why are they doing this? It’s probably to defend their personal space, researchers said. They might be protecting their eggs or simply be angry.
And now … get ready for Thanksgiving next week: Try these turkey alternatives, a 20-ingredient dinner menu, dessert ideas, stuffing recipes and tips to avoid food waste. Plus, make sure to avoid these cooking disasters. | 2022-11-18T12:03:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Friday, November 18 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/11/18/what-to-know-for-november-18/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/11/18/what-to-know-for-november-18/ |
A potluck is fine. But it’s wrong to blindside guests with a bill for a meal you host.
No, worries. The friend arrived with the dessert and two bottles of wine.
Despite their shock, the couple shelled out $25.
“I am really disgusted that they treated us like this,” she wrote. “When she invited us for dinner, she should have told me that she wanted us to pay, and we could have declined the invitation. Any advice you can provide would be appreciated because I don’t know how to handle this.”
Miss Manners: No etiquette precedent for making guests pay for dinner
It’s helpful that Cash App and Venmo make it easier to recoup shared, agreed-upon expenses. But has this contributed to a breach in etiquette so egregious that folks think it’s acceptable to pass along the cost of their celebration to their guests?
Invitations come with the term “no-host,” which invitees are supposed to surmise means they’re paying for their own meal. Or worse, there is no warning, and you arrive at the restaurant or catering hall only to be handed a check later.
“I was caught off guard,” she wrote. “I didn’t know what to say. To me, it’s not the money so much as it is you just don’t treat friends like this. In the past, we bought takeout at the same restaurant and took it to their house. She never mentioned that she wanted us to pay when I asked what I should bring.”
Miss Manners: Be clear when asking friends to dinner
Miss Manners: A friend’s wife wants us to pay for his birthday party
Friends agreeing to gather at a restaurant and celebrate a milestone is not the same as an invitation to a soiree. If you invite them out, you’re on the hook because you are the host. If you can’t afford the party, practice some delayed gratification.
Miss Manners: Party guests being charged ‘entrance fees’
If you want to make your feelings known so that you don’t harbor resentment, talk it out. Be honest. I advised the reader to call her friend right away. Don’t brood.
I gave her a script: “Hey, I was a bit bothered that you asked for us to pay for the takeout. When we host, we don’t ask you to pay. Did I misunderstand the invitation? It’s not the money, it’s just you didn’t mention paying for our meal when I asked what we could bring.”
Stop costing people money. Show some RSVP R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, respectfully push back. Don’t accept a financial obligation that you weren’t given an opportunity to turn down.
Here’s a script you could use: “I’m so sorry, but I’m not prepared to pay because I was not aware this was a paid affair. Next time, I would be happy to consider contributing if we are sharing the hosting duty.”
If you still feel pressured to pay to keep the peace, you have my permission to make it a rule to ask this particular comrade about the cost of all future invites. If there’s a price presented, send your regrets on principle. Because guests don’t pay. | 2022-11-18T12:27:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Friends don’t charge friends for dinner parties - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/18/friends-dont-charge-friends-dinner-parties/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/18/friends-dont-charge-friends-dinner-parties/ |
What to watch with your kids: ‘Spirited’ and more
Ryan Reynolds, left, and Will Ferrell in “Spirited,” a musical comedy based on “A Christmas Carol.” (Claire Folger/Apple TV Plus)
Spirited (PG-13)
Dickens musical has comedic chemistry, swearing, slapstick.
“Spirited” is a creative musical comedy based on Charles Dickens’s classic holiday story “A Christmas Carol.” This take on the redemption tale flips the script on Marley & Co. by coming at the story from the ghosts’ perspective. Although most of the humor is aimed at adults, many kids love stars Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell, and there’s a memorable subplot about a 12-year-old and the dangers of misusing social media. Other themes include teamwork and perseverance. Expect a few creepy moments with the ghosts, but given that it’s all presented within the context that their appearance is an elaborate production, scares are quickly subdued. There’s also plenty of slapstick humor, a bit of innuendo, and a wide assortment of saucy language and inventive insults, including “s---,” “diddling,” “d--king,” “dingus” and “prick” — a 19th-century put-down even gets its own hilarious song-and-dance number. A negatively portrayed character is referred to as a drunk and is seen holding a glass that infers alcohol is in it. A romantic subplot involves kissing and flirting and features actors in their 50s, which automatically makes them nontraditional love interests. (127 minutes)
In theaters; also available on Apple TV Plus.
A Christmas Story Christmas (PG)
Sequel to holiday fave has language, injuries, drinking.
“A Christmas Story Christmas” is a sequel to the beloved 1983 film and features many of the same characters and actors (including star Peter Billingsley). It has lots of positive messages about family and friendship, as well as many scenes involving adults drinking, kids clamoring for toys for Christmas, and both kids and adults bullying each other. Characters fall down and have sledding accidents that include falling from heights, ramming head-on into cars and lampposts, breaking limbs, and being taken to the hospital with injuries. People grieve the loss of loved ones. A boy looks at an underwear catalogue, and a child is allowed to help behind a bar. Language includes “hell,” “damn,” “a--,” “dumba--,” “son of a b----,” “suckers,” etc. (98 minutes)
Available on HBO Max.
Mickey: The Story of a Mouse (TV-G)
Insightful doc about history of iconic cartoon character.
“Mickey: The Story of a Mouse” is a revealing documentary about the making and merchandising of the iconic cartoon character. References and images include bombings, bullying, death, guns, war and smoking. There’s a mention of the word “helluva.” One of the film’s important messages is how one person’s hopes and dreams can make a positive impact on others. Themes also include perseverance, communication and teamwork. (89 minutes)
Child faces peril, parental loss in imaginative adventure.
“Slumberland” is an action-packed adventure film in which characters, including a child named Nemo (Marlow Barkley), face significant danger. Nemo’s life and the lives of others are often at risk, and her father dies in an early scene. People fall down, are pushed out of windows, crash in cars and airplanes, are hit with a freeze ray and locked up, drown in the ocean or come close to it, and are pursued by nightmarish shadowy creatures. And Nemo isn’t the only character experiencing sorrow who feels like she wants to disappear and let life pass her by. Characters demonstrate courage and resilience, making sacrifices for one another. The film’s story and characters are based loosely on Winsor McCay’s early 1900s comic strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” and it has some insightful messages about overcoming grief and choosing to live life to its fullest. Language includes “damn,” “hell,” “heck,” “butt” and mild insults. Jason Momoa, Kyle Chandler and Chris O’Dowd co-star. (117 minutes) | 2022-11-18T12:44:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Common Sense Media’s weekly recommendations. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/18/common-sense-media-november-18/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/movies/2022/11/18/common-sense-media-november-18/ |
‘I promise you,’ musician Angela Alvarez said in her acceptance speech. ‘It’s never too late.’
Angela Alvarez holds the award for best new artist in the press room during the 23rd Annual Latin Grammy Awards ceremony in Las Vegas on Thursday. (Caroline Brehman/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Angela Alvarez has been singing for more than nine decades, hoping to one day become a professional musician.
Now, at age 95, she has exceeded all her dreams: Alvarez just won a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. She made history Thursday night as the oldest person to win a Latin Grammy.
“Mejor nueva artista” a los 95 años Ángela Álvarez! Hágase esa! 👏👏#LatinGRAMMY pic.twitter.com/dwG3iBcXLV
“To those who have yet to make their dreams come true, know that although life is hard, there’s always a way out and with faith and love everything can be achieved,” the Cuban-born singer said in her acceptance speech. She shared the award with Silvana Estrada, 25, a Mexican musician.
For Alvarez, the path to becoming best new artist was far from easy. Her journey was fraught with several setbacks, beginning with her father’s early disapproval of her plan to become a professional singer.
Alvarez was also separated from her four young children for two years during a time of political turmoil in Cuba in the 1960s, and she later lost her husband and only daughter to cancer. Through it all, she never gave up on her dream of sharing her music with the world.
Her grandson, L.A.-based composer Carlos José Alvarez, decided to produce an album of his grandmother’s music, which was released in June 2021. He did it mainly for his family, and never anticipated what would follow for his grandmother, who he calls “Nana”: a documentary film and a role in the recent “Father of the Bride” reboot starring Andy Garcia.
Winning a Latin Grammy is the latest addition to Alvarez’s list of late-life triumphs.
“There’s been so many amazing surprises around this,” Carlos Alvarez, 42, told The Post. “This project is the gift that keeps on giving.”
His grandmother’s story, he said, highlights “the need to fulfill that dream that lives in every single one of us.”
In her acceptance speech, Alvarez thanked her grandson, who accompanied her to the awards ceremony in Las Vegas, and stood beside her on stage.
“He was the one who helped me get here,” she said.
Praise for Alvarez poured in on social media, as fans called her an inspiration.
“The reminder that you should never stop dreaming,” one person posted on Twitter.
“Dreams do not age,” another tweet said.
Indeed, Alvarez said in her speech, “I promise you, it’s never too late.” | 2022-11-18T12:49:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Angela Alvarez, 95, just won a Latin Grammy for best new artist - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/18/angela-alvarez-latin-grammy-95/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/18/angela-alvarez-latin-grammy-95/ |
Man fatally shot in Southeast Washington, police say
A D.C. police vehicle. (Peter Hermann/TWP)
A 26-year-old man was fatally shot Thursday afternoon along a commercial strip in Southeast Washington, according to D.C. police.
The victim was identified as Khalil Jones of Southeast Washington.
Police said the shooting occurred about 2:50 p.m. in the 1500 block of Alabama Avenue SE, near Congress Heights. Police said he was pronounced dead at the scene.
No other details have been made public.
There have been 183 homicides in the District this year, 8 percent fewer than at this time in 2021, according to police statistics. | 2022-11-18T12:57:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man fatally shot in Southeast Washington, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/homicide-shooting-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/homicide-shooting-dc/ |
Group’s Instagram suspended after posting letter supporting Amber Heard
Actors Amber Heard and Johnny Depp watch as the jury leaves the courtroom for a lunch break at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Va., on May 16. (Steve Helber/Pool/AP)
The defamation case that revealed intimate details of alleged domestic violence between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard left many vilifying Heard online. Now over 200 experts and organizations have published an open letter calling for an end to the harassment faced by the actress and others who report sexual and domestic abuse.
But the letter was met with anger from Depp fans, some of whom flooded the organizers’ Instagram account with disparaging comments. Just hours after the account went live when the letter published on Wednesday, it was suspended for almost a day, highlighting the backlash survivors face when confronting online harassment, Michele Dauber, a Stanford Law School professor and longtime advocate for victims of sexual assault, told The Washington Post.
“This is a letter about the online vitriol and public shaming that Amber Heard experienced as a result of coming forward with allegations of abuse,” said Dauber, who signed the letter. “And it is also about the online attacks against anyone who supported her. It has nothing to do with the trial’s verdict.”
The @letterforamber Instagram account received an onslaught of angry comments — some laced with profanity and decrying Heard as a liar and an abuser, according to screenshots obtained by The Post. The account thus chose to turn off and delete comments that were “so vile and so harassing that it was upsetting other survivors,” Dauber said. Soon after, the account was taken down when users began reporting it.
A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Instagram, said the account was suspended Wednesday night by mistake and none of its content had violated company policies. The account was restored Thursday evening, shortly after The Post inquired about its status.
Heard and her attorneys didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Post. Her sister, Whitney Henriquez, praised Wednesday’s letter, calling it “a much needed breath of fresh air.”
“Finally, the tides are shifting... Finally!” she wrote on an Instagram post.
Depp-Heard verdict will have chilling impact on #MeToo, advocates fear
A counter letter defending Depp, which had garnered over 10,000 signatures by Thursday evening, lambasted the support Heard received as “a kick in the teeth for male victims of domestic abuse.” A spokesman for Depp did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letters.
Dauber is among the activists, academics, advocacy groups and other organizations to sign the letter defending Heard. It was also signed by actress Constance Wu, feminist icon Gloria Steinem, the National Organization for Women, the Women’s March Foundation and Equality Now. Published some five months after the jury reached its verdict, the document notes that the “vilification of Ms. Heard and ongoing online harassment of her and those who have voiced support for her have been unprecedented in both vitriol and scale.” It also blames “disinformation, misogyny, biphobia, and a monetized social media environment” for exacerbating the intimidation and perpetuating a cycle in which “a woman’s allegations of domestic violence and sexual assault were mocked for entertainment.”
After less than two years of marriage, Heard and Depp finalized their divorce in 2017. A year later, Heard wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse,” though she did not accuse Depp by name. The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star sued Heard for $50 million, alleging defamation, and accused her of abuse. She then countersued Depp for $100 million after his lawyer called her accusations a hoax.
For six weeks, the two went head-to-head in a Fairfax County, Va., courtroom, but the proceedings were laid bare for the world to see — on television screens, live streams and viral videos. While both sides fired claims of violence, drug abuse and mistreatment at each other, on social media, public opinion skewed heavily toward Depp, and Heard and her legal team became fodder for countless memes, The Post previously reported. Ultimately, the jury handed down a verdict that favored Depp and awarded him $15 million in damages. However, jurors also found that Heard had been defamed and awarded her $2 million.
Jennifer Freyd, an expert in the psychology of sexual violence, discusses the impact of Amber Heard's testimony in Johnny Depp's defamation trial. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
Many of those who publicly supported Heard faced backlash online — as did organizations that defended the actress, such as the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Some victims of abuse also began reconsidering legal action against their abusers, said Jessica Taylor, a psychologist and founder of VictimFocus, which challenges discrimination against abuse victims.
“Lots of women told me that they were retracting from cases, that they were deciding to drop action or were deciding to not report their abusers at all,” she told The Post. “They all said that it had shown them a side of the justice system that scared them and made them feel as though they would never be ‘the perfect victim.’ ”
Dauber, the professor, said what motivated her to sign the letter was “the chilling effects” the harassment Heard endured could have on others hoping to report domestic or sexual abuse — violent crimes that surged during the pandemic but are also notoriously underreported. The letter, Dauber said, was part of a concerted effort to showcase unity against public victim-shaming — and to bring attention to how social media platforms not only allowed, but incentivized, the mockery of Heard to proliferate unchecked.
“She was treated this way because the biggest players in harassment and vilification are not internet trolls — it’s Big Tech and social media platforms that made a lot of money,” Dauber said. “It’s an extremely dangerous situation when you have content creators competing to get clicks and eyeballs by putting out content that made fun of Heard so that they can make money, which in turn, of course, makes money for these platforms.”
Who won the Depp-Heard trial? Content creators that went all-in.
But some have criticized the timing of the letter, saying the show of support for Heard was “too little and too late,” as Gawker’s Fran Hoepfner wrote Wednesday.
“It is, at best, a show of belated solidarity to bolster the egos of its writers, and at worst, a flagrant and cowardly admission of guilt over further silence,” Hoepfner wrote. “What exactly took so long for something like this to exist?”
Dauber said the belated response was a conflagration of factors, citing the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the need to defend reproductive freedom during the midterms. And whenever groups came forward to defend Heard “they faced enormous vitriol and backlash,” she added.
Still, the lack of immediate action from feminist organizations and advocacy groups disappointed at least one of this week’s letter’s signees.
“There was only a handful of us speaking up, and we were battered with abuse and threats,” Taylor said. “I don’t know whether it was fear, or whether Amber wasn’t the kind of woman they wanted to support, but I don’t think I will ever forget the silence, just as I will never forget the women who stood up.” | 2022-11-18T13:28:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Open letter condemns harassment of Amber Heard during Johnny Depp trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/amber-heard-open-letter-support/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/amber-heard-open-letter-support/ |
A turboprop plane that crash-landed on a golf course in Pewaukee, Wis., while transporting 53 rescue dogs from New Orleans on Tuesday. (Courtesy of Humane Animal Welfare Society)
Tony Wasielewski pulled crate after crate from the wreckage of a plane that was supposed to carry 53 rescue dogs from New Orleans to Waukesha, Wis., on Tuesday morning. Instead, it crash-landed on a snow-covered golf course just outside of Milwaukee.
As the deputy fire chief went to grab yet another crate, one of the rescues — roaming the fuselage after freeing herself during the crash — leaped into his arms and slathered him with kisses.
Wasielewski, 47, didn’t know it yet, but less than 48 hours after leaving the crash site, he would welcome that dog into his family.
It all started around 9 a.m. Tuesday when several employees at the Western Lakes Golf Club in Pewaukee, Wis., watched a twin engine turboprop airplane crash onto the green of the fifth hole, Jason Hoelz, the club’s general manager, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The plane then shot through some trees — snapping off the wings — before plowing through a marsh, skidding across the second hole fairway and ramming into a tree on hole No. 3, where it came to rest.
“This was a relatively catastrophic landing,” Matthew Haerter, assistant chief at Lake Country Fire and Rescue, said Tuesday at a news conference, just hours after it happened.
Everyone and every dog aboard the plane survived, although all three of the people and some of the pups suffered minor injuries. About 300 gallons of jet fuel spilled onto the golf course and into a marsh, triggering cleanup efforts from the state Department of Natural Resources, Haerter said.
For now, it’s unclear what caused the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.
Maggie Tate-Techtmann, a director for the Humane Animal Welfare Society, told The Washington Post that Tuesday’s flight was one of HAWS’s regularly planned trips shepherding at-risk adoptable dogs from southern states to shelters in the Waukesha region. Tate-Techtmann said they usually organize two such trips a month, although most are done by van.
On Tuesday morning, HAWS had assembled a large team of employees and volunteers at the Waukesha County Airport to welcome the incoming dogs discombobulated by a roughly 1,000-mile trip. Learning about the crash, they scrambled to the golf course, about six miles away. Once there, staff veterinarians examined all of the dogs and relayed 21 of them to HAWS and the rest to other shelters in the area, as had been the plan.
“It is a lot of just comforting them and caring for them,” Tate-Techtmann said at Tuesday’s news conference. “Every animal is different just like we are, so we’re all going to react a little bit differently.”
Within hours of the crash, HAWS employees started a campaign to raise money to “help cover the unforeseen medical and other costs that resulted from the incident.” By Thursday afternoon, they’d raised more than $6,500, surpassing their goal of $5,000.
On Wednesday, the shelter started adopting out seven of the 53 dogs “that we’re now affectionately calling the Western Lakes Loves.” By the end of Thursday, they had upped that number to 19, Tate-Techtmann said.
“It is very remarkable that all of them are doing as well as they are,” she added.
At least one has already found a home: Wasielewski’s.
But it took a minute. After the anonymous pooch thrust herself into the deputy chief’s arms and licked him, he held her for a bit. But then Wasielewski handed her off to continue his work pulling crates from the wreckage and carrying them to HAWS vehicles, he told The Post.
About an hour later, Wasielewski saw the dog again. This time, someone was walking her near the golf club’s maintenance shed to the HAWS vans. She spotted him and tried to come over.
That was the first time the thought popped into his head: “Uh-oh, I might be getting another dog.”
After working the plane crash, Wasielewski went home and told the story about the nameless dog to his wife, who went online to help him identify her. They made a Wednesday appointment at HAWS, where workers retrieved the dog he now knew was named CeeCee.
“As soon as the lady opened up the door, she bypassed my wife, jumped in my arms and started giving me kisses,” Wasielewski said.
He teared up.
“It was over,” he said.
He adopted CeeCee, renaming her after his favorite reggae musician. Marley has since joined her two new sisters: Minka, an 11-year-old yellow Lab, and Maci, an 8-year-old Cane Corso mix.
“They’ve basically taken her in like she’s one of them. It’s actually mind-boggling how she’s getting along with everyone,” Wasielewski said.
“It’s like she’s lived here for years.” | 2022-11-18T13:28:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Plane filled with 53 rescue dogs crash-lands on Wisconsin golf course - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/rescue-dog-airplane-crash/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/rescue-dog-airplane-crash/ |
BERLIN, GERMANY - MARCH 08: In this photo illustration Levi’s 501 blue jeans by U.S. clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss are seen on March 8, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to sign into law tariffs on imported steel and aluminum today and the European Commission has vowed to retaliate with tariffs on Levi’s jeans, Kentucky bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Many analysts fear the tariffs could escalate and hence cost jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. The European Union and Canada are the world’s biggest exporters of steel to the United States. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) (Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Europe)
Women currently run 46 Fortune 500 companies — a mere 9% of the biggest corporate enterprises in the US by revenue. That also happens to be a record, even if it is a depressing one.
When you’re talking numbers this small, every single arrival and departure matters. So when news broke last week that Michelle Gass would step down as the chief executive officer of Kohl’s Corp. early next year to become CEO-in-waiting at Levi Strauss & Co., C-suite watchers mourned the shrinking of this exclusive group of women. With $5.8 billion in 2021 annual revenue, Levi’s is about a third the size of Kohl’s. And while an influential and culturally important brand, it doesn’t make the Fortune 500 cut.
The closely watched count of female CEOs is often used as a gauge for measuring the state of women in the workplace. If the number creeps up, progress! If it falls, we’re regressing! But in some cases, like this one, the metric oversimplifies a more complex narrative. Gass’s exit from Kohl’s is in fact not bad news. Yes, the Fortune 500 will lose one of its rarified female CEOs. But Gass’s next gig reflects a real shift in how women who have reached the very top are not only perceived but also valued.
For one thing, there’s the fact that Gass even has a new CEO gig to move to. It’s highly unusual for women to get a subsequent top job at a high-profile company. Since 2004, 22 men have achieved that distinction among S&P 500 companies, according to executive search firm Spencer Stuart. The number of women? Zero. And during the same period, only three women have been repeat CEOs of a Fortune 500 enterprise: Meg Whitman at eBay Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co; Susan Cameron, who had two separate stints as head of Reynolds American Inc.; and Mary Dillon at Ulta Beauty Inc. and Foot Locker Inc. And it’s almost unheard of for a struggling female chief executive — as Gass has been at Kohl’s — to get another shot at the top job. The retailer has slashed guidance as its core customer base pulled back on spending, and Gass’s big bets — like partnering with Sephora and Amazon.com Inc. — failed to turn the company around. Activists had called for her ouster.
If history is any indicator, here’s what was supposed to happen: Gass would have eventually retired — likely not by choice — and from there joined a few more corporate boards, maybe a venture capital or private equity firm. Essentially, she would have “disappeared,” as Jennifer Reingold wrote in Fortune in 2016 when untangling the thorny question of why so many accomplished executive women simply vanish from the corporate world.
The problem is systemic. Women are often tapped to run struggling companies or those in crisis — basically roles men don’t want to touch. Reingold’s piece cited data from Utah State University that found that 42% of women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies through 2014 were appointed during times of crisis, versus 22% of male CEOs. When women ultimately struggle in these precarious jobs, they are viewed as unviable candidates for other opportunities. “There’s not a lot of margin for failure for women CEOs,” Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at the Stanford University’s VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, told me.
Gass stood at the precipice of this so-called glass cliff at Kohl’s. What made the difference for her is that current Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh recognized her impossible position. He told The Wall Street Journal that her time at Kohl’s should be taken within the broader context of the struggles facing department stores. “I came to the conclusion that Kohl’s is in a better place today than if she hadn’t been there,” he told The Journal. What’s rare is that Bergh publicly acknowledged that the glass cliff even exists and seemed to imply that perhaps having led through tumult makes Gass a stronger leader rather than a weaker one.
Also unusual is how Gass is entering the job. She’s joining Levi’s as president and will be in that role for up to 18 months before taking over from Bergh. It’s an unusual setup for an already-sitting CEO. In a statement to Bloomberg Opinion, a Levi’s spokesperson said the period would give the two “ample time to work alongside one another and map a smooth transition while also giving Michelle the opportunity to learn our business and get to know our team.” One could read this in two ways. The first is that Levi’s board or Bergh think Gass needs some extra hand holding. I’ll stop short of saying it’s unlikely this would ever happen to a man in the same position. The alternative scenario is that the up-to 18-month onboarding is an attempt by Bergh and the company’ to make sure Gass isn’t left standing on the edge of another glass cliff. I’m going to hope for the latter, and either way call it progress.
• Hiring a Diverse Team Is About to Get Much Harder: Noah Feldman | 2022-11-18T13:32:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | An Iconic Brand Pulls Its New CEO Off the Glass Cliff - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/an-iconic-brand-pulls-its-new-ceo-off-the-glass-cliff/2022/11/18/ba1692fa-6741-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/an-iconic-brand-pulls-its-new-ceo-off-the-glass-cliff/2022/11/18/ba1692fa-6741-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
The new Amazon.com Inc. Echo devices sit on display during the company’s product reveal launch event in downtown Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017. Amazon unveiled a smaller, cheaper version of its popular Alexa-powered Echo speaker that the e-commerce giant said has better sound. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Slumping stock prices and slowing growth has the biggest technology companies — and investors — thinking about what it will take to reverse their fortunes. Finding new, lucrative sources of growth is the preferred way out, but it’s hard to find opportunities big enough to move the needle when your revenues are already in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars per year.
That makes cost cuts the most obvious way to boost profit, an uncomfortable option for an industry that hasn’t had a major belt-tightening phase in 20 years. After investors showed their displeasure with the lack of cost control demonstrated by tech companies in the third quarter, it appears that management teams have had a change of heart. In the past two weeks both Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon Inc. have begun laying off staff, with plans for about 10,000 job cuts each in various departments. Earlier this week a large investor in Alphabet Inc. wrote to that company pushing for meaningful cost cuts there as well. (Elon Musk cut about half the workforce at Twitter Inc. after his takeover, but that’s a different story.)
Investors are particularly irritated about what one might call the “science projects” that many big tech companies have been pursuing, eating up billions in capital without contributing much in revenue. Examples of this include Amazon’s spending on side projects like Alexa, which is believed to account for more than $5 billion in annual losses, and Alphabet’s investments into its self-driving vehicles unit, which has piled up $20 billion in losses so far. At Meta, Mark Zuckerberg staked the whole company’s future on the development of new virtual and augmented reality products, renaming the company to steer its identity away from its core social-media business. Meta’s Reality Labs unit has lost almost $10 billion so far in 2022. Zuckerberg apologized for increasing investment too much, too soon as he announced the job cuts.To be fair, in the late 2010s when interest rates and inflation were low and tech stocks commanded loftier valuations, these moonshot-type investments made more sense. Investors were valuing tech companies more for growth than profitability. At one point, Alphabet’s self-driving division was seen as being worth $175 billion, suggesting that these large-scale non-core divisions being incubated within the larger companies might pay off. Profit margins in core businesses were generally stable or expanding at a time when revenue growth was strong, suggesting nearly limitless resources to pursue any ideas that could potentially one day become as big and profitable as Google Search, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Amazon Web Services.
A few years later and the world has changed. Interest rates are no longer at zero. Core markets have matured and in some cases are feeling the effects of slower economic growth. Profit margins have come under pressure between the combination of slowing growth and rising costs. The investor bases that these companies now have cares more about profitability and returning cash to shareholders rather than outsize bets on the future.
And perhaps most importantly, after these companies have collectively spent tens of billions of dollars a year on science projects, they don’t have much to show for it in the way of revenue-generating activity. It’s unclear now whether companies that have grown to become massive conglomerates are nimble enough to create something out of nothing. That might be a job best left to startups and more-focused smaller companies, with investor bases more amenable to taking that kind of risk.
Even if these companies technically have the resources to spend endlessly on endeavors that may never pay off, it’s not very macroeconomically efficient at a time when inflation is high and there is still strong demand for tech workers. Meta and Amazon and Alphabet are essentially hoarding engineers at a time when banks, insurance companies and the government need engineers too.
Appeasing investors by winding down these money-losing divisions might also, conversely, be the spark Silicon Valley needs for its next wave of innovation. While it’s hard to quantify, it seems as if the well has run a bit dry there of late; It’s been awhile since the emergence of a startup on the scale of Uber Technologies Inc. or Airbnb Inc. Labor hoarding by big tech may be partially to blame.
In any case, investors no longer care for these non-core pursuits. The companies have a spotty record, at best, of proving that they’re worth doing, and the rest of the economy remains hungry for tech talent. It’s time to admit defeat and move on.
Mass Layoffs in Big Tech Are an Old-Guard Mistake: Stephen Mihm
Tech’s Terrible Week Told in 10 Charts: Tim Culpan | 2022-11-18T13:32:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Big Tech Investors Are Done With ‘Science Projects’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/big-tech-investors-are-done-withscience-projects/2022/11/18/57315826-6739-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/big-tech-investors-are-done-withscience-projects/2022/11/18/57315826-6739-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
By David Moscrop
Facing critical labor shortages, Canada recently released a plan for admitting, over the next three years, an unprecedented 1.45 million foreign nationals as permanent residents. There’s no question that the government’s “Immigration Plan to Grow the Economy” will address that shortage; due to Canada’s aging population and low birthrate, immigrants already account for nearly all the annual growth in the nation’s labor force. But unless the plan is matched with comprehensive strategies for settling and supporting new arrivals, Canada risks perpetuating a history of treating immigrants as grist for the labor mill while largely leaving them to fend for themselves when it comes to the necessities of life.
“You’ve heard 500,000 people are coming,” Refugee 613 director Louisa Taylor told me, referring to the number of immigrants who may arrive in a single year. “We have not heard yet how we are going to scale up to make sure that these folks find the jobs, find the homes and get the support that they need — whether it’s language training, mentorship or community connection.”
Canada does offer “newcomers,” as they are often called, a broad range of settlement services, both governmental and private. But the intersecting and overlapping responsibilities of municipal, provincial and national agencies, as well as nonprofit groups, educational institutions and businesses, mean it’s a complicated system for immigrants to navigate — and for settlement agencies to administer. Meanwhile, the people working in those agencies complain of inadequate and inconsistent funding. “Putting an onus on us to constantly fight for funding … really takes away from the work that we actually do,” one worker told New Canadian Media.
The immigration plan will focus on attracting immigrants in Canada’s “economic category” who can work in sectors facing acute labor shortages, including manufacturing, technology and the building trades. Also important is health care, especially since the aging population that helped create the labor shortage also fuels a greater need for medical workers and caregivers. Addressing the labor market’s needs requires that the country can settle newcomers with relevant education and experience in parts of the country where they are needed, make sure their credentials are recognized and get them hired.
“There is a stigma still around employers hiring folks with limited Canadian experience or who may have immigration status,” Will Tao, an immigration and refugee lawyer, wrote in an email. “I have had many newcomer clients … who came to Canada, but were never able to convert their qualifications.”
He added: “Often times, there is this misperception or myth that Canada is a panacea for a migrant’s problems, but as growing accounts are showing, many are leaving what [were] once middle class/comfortable/family lives for a new environment that fails to recognize their worth or provide opportunities. … I have seen too many families break down during the process.”
There’s often “a lack of culturally competent services,” Tao said, for people facing such mental health problems. “I would say that is the biggest challenge — and I do fear that issues such as depression and suicide may go under the radar without data tracking.”
Settlement of newcomers is particularly challenging because of Canada’s ongoing housing shortage, and many immigrants struggle to find a place to live. A 2018 survey found that 1.4 percent of immigrants were at some point “unsheltered,” and 11.9 percent of immigrants had experienced “hidden homelessness” — defined as “having to live temporarily with family or friends, or somewhere else because the person has nowhere to go.”
It’s true that, compared with other developed countries facing both labor shortages and immigration pressures, Canada offers a relatively welcoming environment. Last month, the government statistics agency reported 23 percent of the country’s population were immigrants. Canadians generally approve of the situation: A study by the Environics Institute, also reported last month, found that 69 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement, “Overall, there is too much immigration to Canada.” The most recent Gallup poll of international attitudes toward migrants called Canada the “most-accepting country” in the world.
But the transactional nature of Canada’s immigration policy is evident from the categories immigrants fall into. More than half of recent immigrants are in the “economic category,” and the new plan aims to increase that figure to more than 60 percent by 2025. Meanwhile, though another stated goal of the plan is “reuniting more families faster,” it commits to a mere increase of roughly 12,000 people a year in the family unification category. And despite promising “a safe haven to those facing persecution,” the plan specifies a slight decrease — about 3,000 people a year — in the number of refugees the country admits.
Canada will continue to use immigrants as economic tools. It always has. It’s what the country does. But it’s an open question whether Canada will at least ensure immigrants can get the jobs, housing, health care and community support that they deserve. | 2022-11-18T13:33:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Canada must support the migrants it’s letting in to fill jobs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/canada-migrants-economy-jobs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/canada-migrants-economy-jobs/ |
The U.S. seeks to support Ukraine, but contain the war
CIA Director William J. Burns during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in April 2021.. (Graeme Jennings/Pool/AP)
If you’ve worried that the conflict in Ukraine might escalate into a spasm of nuclear war — and what sane person hasn’t? — the past few weeks have been chilling. But they have also demonstrated some important U.S. efforts to communicate about risks and avert catastrophe.
The baseline for President Biden is that an overall peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine doesn’t appear possible now. The two sides are simply too far apart, and the United States couldn’t dictate terms to Kyiv even it thought it was time to end the conflict. Instead, the administration has focused its diplomacy on Russia — and averting any escalation into nuclear war.
Let’s review first this week’s travels by CIA Director William J. Burns. He met Monday in Ankara, Turkey, with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, the SVR. Burns was “conveying a message on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and the risks of escalation to strategic stability,” said a spokesman for the National Security Council. U.S. officials believe that Russia took Burns’s message quite seriously.
Burns then traveled to Kyiv for a Wednesday meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “While there, he discussed the U.S. warning he delivered to the head of Russia’s SVR not to use nuclear weapons and reinforced the U.S. commitment to provide support to Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression,” a U.S. official said. This meeting seemed partly an effort to reassure Zelensky that the United States wasn’t operating behind his back with Moscow.
In describing Burns’s travels, officials have stressed he wasn’t on a secret mission to jump-start peace talks. “He is not conducting negotiations of any kind. He is not discussing settlement of the war in Ukraine,” the NSC spokesman stressed. Instead, said the spokesman, “we have channels to communicate with Russia on managing risk, especially nuclear risk and risks to strategic stability.”
Burns has played a crucial role since the crisis began, traveling to Moscow before the war began, and repeatedly to Kyiv since then. He is the character a Hollywood director would cast for the role: Reserved, modest, fluent in Russian, deeply experienced as a back-channel emissary. His demeanor makes the phrase “gray man” a compliment.
Second, let’s look at the U.S. response to the missile that struck Poland on Tuesday, near its border with Ukraine. This was the kind of scenario that U.S. commanders have feared could lead to nuclear war: A NATO ally is attacked; analysts assume that the attack came from Russia; NATO launches a counterattack under its self-defense treaty; and so on, up the ladder to disaster.
The Biden administration instead did what generations of crisis managers have recommended. In a hot moment, it cooled down. Despite pressure for action, the administration realized it lacked reliable information. It waited to gather facts. Poland, too, resisted the urge to immediately blame its historic adversary, Russia.
And it turned out that initial assumptions that Russia fired the missile were probably wrong. “Ukraine’s defense was launching their missiles in various directions, and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Wednesday. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”
Third, let’s think about the delicate relationship between Washington and Kyiv. Zelensky has the power of a brave, charismatic leader to pressure his superpower patron into actions that might not be in the United States’ interests. The Biden administration has tried to strike a balance between strong military support for Ukraine and avoiding anything that might trigger a direct Russian-American conflict.
The United States has pushed back when it thinks Ukrainian actions are too risky, or too rigid. According to an Oct. 5 story in the New York Times, U.S. intelligence decided that Ukrainian operatives were responsible for an August car bombing that killed the daughter of a Russian ultra-nationalist — and warned Kyiv that it strongly opposed such attacks. A Nov. 5 Post article reported that national security adviser Jake Sullivan went to Kyiv partly to press Zelensky to drop his refusal to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Soon after, Zelensky adjusted his public policy.
The administration has been careful not to jam Zelensky and his generals, even as it tried to contain the conflict. The latest example was the statement last week from Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Russia’s withdrawal this month from Kherson might provide an opening for diplomacy. “When there’s an opportunity to negotiate, when peace can be achieved, seize it,” he said. Milley, who has argued that more diplomacy is needed to find a settlement, didn’t retreat. But other administration officials repeated their no-pressure litany: “Nothing about Kyiv without Kyiv.” | 2022-11-18T13:33:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The U.S. seeks to support Ukraine, but contain the war - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/ukraine-war-william-burns-russia-poland-missile/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/ukraine-war-william-burns-russia-poland-missile/ |
Post Politics Now House Democrats await leadership announcements from ‘new generation’
Analysis: The torch has been passed
On our radar: Closing arguments to begin in Oath Keepers Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trial
On our radar: House Democrats await leadership announcements from Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar
The latest: Rep. Lauren Boebert race too close to call; margin inside recount threshold
Noted: Saudi crown prince immune from Khashoggi killing lawsuit, U.S. says
Noted: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she has ‘survivor’s guilt’ from attack on husband
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) embrace Thursday after Pelosi announced she will not seek another term as the Democratic leader. (Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post)
Today, House Democrats are expecting formal announcements from Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) that they are seeking the top three leadership positions in the caucus for the next Congress, when Democrats will be in the minority. Clark was first out of the gate Friday morning, announcing that she is seeking the position of minority whip. Jeffries is expected to announce a bid for minority leader, while Aguilar will seek to be caucus chairman.
On Thursday, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced she would not seek a leadership position, she said it was time “for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect.” Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) are also stepping aside so others can take the No. 2 and No. 3 posts. Clyburn is expected to remain part of leadership in a lesser capacity.
1:30 p.m. Eastern time: President Biden delivers remarks at a White House event with business and labor leaders. Watch live here.
2:45 p.m. Eastern: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre briefs reporters. Watch live here.
After fending off predictions of a red wave in the midterms, Democrats are feeling optimistic that Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) can win the Georgia runoff over Republican Herschel Walker.
The Post’s Dylan Wells, Matthew Brown and Sabrina Rodriguez report that some believe this week’s campaign announcement by former president Donald Trump will energize voters who want to see Warnock, senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, return to the Senate, as well as those who want to move beyond the former president’s polarizing brand of politics. Per our colleagues:
President Biden on Friday is expected to highlight progress taming inflation and otherwise steadying the economy during a White House meeting with business and labor leaders.
The event, which Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen also plans to attend, follows midterm elections in which Republicans sought to make Democratic stewardship of the economy an issue — and picked up far fewer seats in Congress than projected.
According to the White House, attendees will include Greg Adams, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente; Jim Farley, CEO of Ford; David Gitlin, chairman and CEO of Carrier; Ray Curry, president of the United Auto Workers; and Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union.
And on Saturday, the Bidens will host a wedding, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell, Tobi Raji and Theodoric Meyer note in The Early 202. Per our colleagues:
Rep. Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) on Friday made official her expected bid for minority whip, the No. 3 position in the House Democratic leadership in the next Congress.
“Americans have rejected Republican extremism and affirmed our commitment to working people,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues that was also shared with the media. “By standing with women, for democracy, and for everyone’s economic security, we have defied expectations and secured a historically close margin in the House.”
“Now, we must be tough, agile, and united to stop the Republican House Majority’s dangerous agenda and take back the House,” Clark added. “I am ready to guide this critical work as our next Democratic Whip, and I ask for your support.”
The chips appear to be falling into place, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell, Tobi Raji and Theodoric Meyer write in The Early 202 in an analysis that details the expected House Democratic leadership announcements on Friday from Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.).
Per our colleagues:
Our colleagues also note one chip that appears out of place: Rep. Joe Neguse (Colo.) was running for the No. 4 leadership post. But it appears that Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.) may remain in the leadership and take that spot.
The Post’s Spencer S. Hsu, Rachel Weiner and Tom Jackman report that the trial of Rhodes — a former Army paratrooper and Yale Law graduate who has become one of the most visible figures of the far-right anti-government movement — poses a major test of the Biden Justice Department’s strategy of countering domestic terrorism and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s vow to hold “all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.” Per our colleagues:
For House Democrats, Thursday was all about paying tribute to a long-standing leadership team that is stepping down: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.).
On Friday, attention turns to the new team. Formal announcements are expected from Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) that they are seeking the top three Democratic leadership positions, respectively, in the next Congress, when the party will be in the minority.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, a far-right Republican from Colorado, was locked in a race that was too close to call and inside the threshold for an automatic recount, the Associated Press projected Thursday, leaving in doubt the outcome of a surprisingly competitive election in a conservative congressional district.
The Post’s Bryan Pietsch and Amy B Wang write that with nearly all votes counted, Boebert led Democrat Adam Frisch by 0.16 percentage points, according to the AP. Under state law, a mandatory recount must be completed no later than 35 days after the election, which is Dec. 13. Per our colleagues:
The Biden administration has determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom the CIA has held responsible for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, is immune from a civil lawsuit filed in the United States by Khashoggi’s fiancee and a human rights organization he founded.
The Post’s Karen DeYoung reports that in a response to a July invitation by U.S. District Court Judge John Bates to submit a statement of interest in the case, the administration said in a court submission late Thursday that because Mohammed is Saudi Arabia’s “sitting head of government,” he is “immune from this suit” under international law. Per Karen:
Dealing with trauma she likened to “survivor’s guilt,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the aftermath of the October attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi, by an assailant looking for her has left the California Democrat’s family shaken.
The Post’s Mariana Alfaro and Paul Kane report on comments Pelosi made to a group of reporters following her announcement Thursday that she would not seek another term in House Democratic leadership:
RELATED‘I feel balanced about it all’: Nancy Pelosi reflects on two decades at the top | 2022-11-18T13:34:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House Democrats await leadership announcements from ‘next generation’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/house-democrats-jeffries-clark-aguilar/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/house-democrats-jeffries-clark-aguilar/ |
New York voters approved $4.2 billion for climate infrastructure. Now what?
Analysis by Vanessa Montalbano
with research by Maxine Joselow
Good morning! This is Vanessa, the Climate 202 researcher, taking over today. We hope you have a restful weekend, especially if you — like us — were waiting for today’s public sale for Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. But first:
Voters across New York state approved a $4.2 billion environmental bond measure during last week’s midterm elections that is intended to bolster climate mitigation and land preservation projects. But while the act has been applauded by environmentalists, many are calling on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to do even more now that she has won her first full term as governor.
The bond act “is a beginning, not the end. We need an ongoing commitment to funding environmental justice and climate justice and climate solutions,” said Katherine Nadeau, the deputy director of Catskill Mountainkeeper. “If we don't put substantial funding into our communities, the consequences will be dire.”
Known as the Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act, the ballot initiative is the first to come out of the state in 26 years, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public policy think tank.
It passed by a wide margin, with 67.5 percent of voters supporting the ballot measure and 32.5 percent voting against it. Advocates say the approval reflects an urgency among residents to address global warming because it allocates investments for a variety of mitigation projects, including flood risk reduction, clean energy, and land conservation.
“This measure is going to bring projects to communities directly to help meet some of the greatest environmental challenges we're facing,” said Jessica Ottney Mahar, the Nature Conservancy’s New York director of strategy and policy.
Here’s how the money will be broken down:
Up to $1.5 billion for adaptation initiatives and projects meant to reduce pollution, such as zero-emission school buses, green buildings and protections to address sea-level rise. It also specifies efforts, like increased green space and local cooling centers, to help ease the urban heat island effect.
At least $1.10 billion for ecological restoration projects, specifically in flood-prone areas, including the Long Island Sound, New York City and the Great Lakes. This money will also help with forest conservation and upgrades to infrastructure.
Up to $650 million for maintaining fish hatcheries and preserving open land, such as farms.
At least $650 million for water improvement efforts, like wastewater systems and storm runoff.
It mandates that at least 35 percent of the bond goes toward disadvantaged communities, or those disproportionately affected by climate change. Ottney Mahar said the funding for front-line communities will be focused on their individual needs, as opposed to being spread broadly. This way, she said, “there's a lot of flexibility for the communities and for the state to make sure that they're putting that money into communities in a way that they need and that matters.”
The measure was first introduced in 2020 by former governor Andrew M. Cuomo (D) as the $3 billion Restore Mother Nature Bond Act, but it was shelved because of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, the state legislature again passed the measure under a new name and Hochul amended it in this year’s state budget to include an additional $1 billion.
Funding for the bill comes from general obligation bonds, or a type of municipal debt security that allows the state to borrow money to invest in capital projects. Opponents argue that the mechanism will drive the Empire State even further into debt.
“We fear New York State’s reputation for unchecked spending will result in the possibility of the state legislature spending the entirety of the $4.2 billion on projects that should be paid with existing authorized debt, new federal sources, and pay as you go where possible,” New York State Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar said in a news release.
Hochul in the hot seat
Environmental groups are looking to Hochul to advance New York’s climate agenda, which some say was stalled under the Cuomo administration. For example, they want her to make New York the first state to ban natural gas in new buildings.
Pete Sikora, climate and inequality campaigns director with New York Communities for Change, said the bond act’s passage “should not be mistaken for serious progress, because what’s needed is so vastly bigger and this is a time-limited problem.”
He said that politicians like to use such measures to appear as though “they are taking on the climate crisis when they are not.”
Hochul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ottney Mahar said the borrowing plan was never meant to be the ultimate solution to the problem. Instead, she said, its intention is to supplement other state climate laws, including the 2019 landmark climate law, which requires New York to slash economy-wide emissions 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels and created the statewide Climate Action Council to draft a plan to help the state meet its ambitious targets.
The state has also already been successful in stopping new large-scale fossil fuel infrastructure projects, and New York City introduced a bill in 2019 that requires buildings greater than 25,000 square feet to meet strict energy efficiency and emissions limits. That measure is known as Local Law 97.
But, Sikora said, it’s still not enough to manage the worsening crisis.
“New York is big on talk and short on action,” he said, adding that Hochul “has got to change that.”
Frans Timmermans, executive vice president of the European Union, on Friday pitched the 27 nation bloc’s final plan to tie disaster funding with emissions reductions, The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaplan and Timothy Puko report.
It would require all countries to begin reducing their planet-warming emissions by 2025 while funneling money into a designated loss and damage fund, which has been a contentious issue throughout the past two weeks of negotiations and is meant to compensate developing nations for the destruction caused by climate change.
Although the conference is supposed to conclude Friday, many diplomats expected the talks to end late Saturday, with some blaming the Egyptian presidency for its haphazard approach to organizing the negotiations.
“There hasn’t been a real effort to bring this to a consensus,” said a European negotiator who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment publicly. “It’s looking like a really quite challenging next couple of days.”
Here’s what else to know about the final days of the talks:
Climate delegates got a first look at the overarching “cover decision” on Friday when the Egyptian hosts published a document that repeated the need for rapid emissions cuts to meet the world’s warming targets but showed little progress on broad commitment to a loss and damage fund. It also doesn’t include proposals — such as a call to phase out all fossil fuels — that many had hoped for.
In a more promising move on Thursday, Chinese special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua made a surprise appearance at a U.S. event on the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas 30 percent by 2030. Beijing stopped short of formally joining the pledge, but Xie said China has developed a “draft action plan” to curb methane emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday it will require an idled refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands that rained oil onto nearby homes to obtain a new air pollution permit before restarting operations, Maxine reports.
Energy Dept. solicits applications for power grid funding
The Energy Department on Friday announced it is accepting applications for the first round of competitive grants aimed at modernizing the nation’s power grid and building new and upgraded transmission lines.
The grant programs, authorized by last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law, will provide a combined $13 billion in funding — the largest single direct federal investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure, according to the White House.
“We believe that hardening our transmission and distribution systems and investing in smart, efficient technologies will make the grid more resilient against the types of 21st-century threats that we're facing, in particular extreme weather events … often spurred on by climate change,” Maria Robinson, director of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office, said on a call with reporters previewing the announcement.
House Republicans plan to scrap special committee on climate change
House Republicans plan to kill the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis when they take control of the chamber in January, the top Republican on the panel told Bloomberg News’s Ari Natter on Thursday.
“The climate crisis committee will not exist,” said Rep. Garret Graves (La.). “I don’t think that’s really consistent with what we are going to be focused on.”
Instead, House Republicans will promote an energy agenda that calls for boosting domestic fossil fuel production, Graves said, even as climate scientists warn that the world must rapidly phase out fossil fuels.
As of mid-October, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had not decided whether to keep the climate panel, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) created in 2019, The Climate 202 reported at the time.
As the Amazon rainforest goes dry, a desperate wait for water — Terrence McCoy for The Post
Meet the ‘closer’ who finds the right words when climate talks hit a wall — Lisa Friedman for the New York Times
Activists hoped Egypt’s COP27 would bring a focus on Africa. They were disappointed — Ivana Kottasová for CNN
GOP’s House majority complicates Podesta’s climate spending role — Stephen Lee for Bloomberg Law
U.S. to issue more guidance on Russian oil price cap in coming days — Andrea Shalal for Reuters
Did someone order 2 pumpkin spice pandas?
Adira was recently paired with Lucas as part of a Red Panda Species Survival Plan (SSP) breeding recommendation. pic.twitter.com/fcmlp5BYOJ
11:18 AMNoted: Saudi crown prince immune from Khashoggi killing lawsuit, U.S. says | 2022-11-18T13:34:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New York voters approved $4.2 billion for climate infrastructure. Now what? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/new-york-voters-approved-42-billion-climate-infrastructure-now-what/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/new-york-voters-approved-42-billion-climate-infrastructure-now-what/ |
Security in the digital economy is still in sight
Welcome to The Cybersecurity 202! Social media being what it is, you never know what will pop up in your feeds. So here’s a baby “tank pony” protecting its sedated parent.
Below: The Office of Management and Budget issues a memo for agencies to catalogue quantum-vulnerable systems, and Meta fires allegedly malicious insiders. First:
Bad news for a major cryptocurrency exchange isn’t all bad for a digitized economy
The collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX and loss of between $1 billion and $2 billion — a significant amount of which hackers may have stolen — has been huge news over the past week. It makes one wonder about the security of cryptocurrency, or even online financial security in general.
But, as they say in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” don’t panic. That’s what Phil Venables, chief information security officer on Google Cloud, and Tom Robinson, founder and chief scientist at blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, told me at a Washington Post Live event focused on protecting one’s money and data online.
It’s not that there aren’t significant security challenges in protecting money online, they acknowledged. But both espoused a degree of optimism, arguing that we all might be just fine — or even better off in some ways — in a more digitized economy in the long term.
As of last weekend, Elliptic suspected $477 million had been stolen from FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, before it filed for bankruptcy.
“On Friday evening, we noticed some large crypto transactions out of FTX's wallet, and they began to exhibit some of the characteristics of what we see when a large theft has happened, when a hack has happened,” Robinson told me.
“So, for example, a lot of these assets were sent through decentralized exchanges in order to convert them into other assets, and that's something we very commonly see with large hacks because the hacker is trying to avoid seizure of the stolen assets.”
FTX’s security woes have spilled out in court and elsewhere. “Unacceptable management practices included the use of an unsecured group email account as the root user to access confidential private keys and critically sensitive data for the FTX Group companies around the world,” new CEO John Ray III wrote in a bankruptcy filing.
Defenses FTX put in place to keep out hackers have also put Ray, who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy, in an odd position of not being able to even access a list of creditors.
Confidence in crypto and online finance in general
What happened at FTX is sure to have a ripple effect in consumer confidence in crypto, Robinson said, even if he doesn’t believe it should.
“I think this is a big hit for the cryptocurrency industry, and it will take a long time to recover,” he said. “But, personally, I still have the same confidence about the underlying technology and its potential to revolutionize finance. We have been through instances like this in the past. I think the perception with the industry is that a lot of the bad actors had been cleared out of the industry, but obviously the events last week show that that's not entirely the case.”
The digitization of the economy generally has brought some security improvements, Venables said.
“I think it's been great for convenience, and in many respects, it's also been great for security, because some of the online mechanisms, despite some of the challenges of online security, are actually probably more secure than some of the old previous, more kind of manual experiences,” he said, citing features like alerts that tell bank customers when their accounts make a transaction above a certain threshold.
.@philvenables says, “With all of my bank accounts and credit cards and payments is make sure I get an alert when some transaction happens above a certain threshold… Most banks… provide these capabilities… if they don’t that’s probably something you should question.”#PostLive pic.twitter.com/FMb3gYp6vH
— Washington Post Live (@PostLive) November 17, 2022
State of vulnerability
Living our lives more online doesn’t necessarily mean more data breaches and hacks, said Venables, calling himself a “short-term pessimist, long-term optimist.”
Right now, a lot of organizations use online platforms where security has been tacked on afterward, which makes them more vulnerable than the alternative, according to Venables.
More and more organizations are in a transition state, moving toward using things that are designed to be secure from the outset, he said.
On the other hand, new doesn’t equal better. Take blockchain bridges, which allow someone to move crypto assets from one blockchain to another. Funds are stored in cryptocurrency wallets when they’re sent through bridges.
Because it’s an “immature” technology, hackers have found plenty of bugs to exploit and steal billions of dollars from them, Robinson said.
“We've seen a bit of a pivot of cybercriminality away from things such as ransomware toward exploiting the crypto space, and again, I think that's just because of the amounts of money that are hanging around it in wallets out there and there for the taking if they can work out how to exploit that,” Robinson said.
How some U.S. adversaries are exploiting crypto
Different nations are making use of cryptocurrencies in different ways for illicit aims, Robinson said.
Militant groups in Russia-occupied Ukraine are asking for crypto donations to help their war efforts. Some high-level Kremlin officials are using crypto to bypass banking restrictions, but “on a relatively small scale so far,” he said.
Iran has instituted a licensing regime for cryptomining, potentially to evade sanctions. Iran has ample natural resources but can’t do much with it internationally because of trade embargoes. Instead, it can use those resources to generate electricity, then use that electricity to mine cryptocurrency, Robinson said. Iranian hackers even breached a U.S. government agency and installed cryptomining software, although it’s not clear whether financial gain or espionage was the endgame.
The North Korean government-linked hackers known as Lazarus Group are behind a lot of the cryptocurrency thefts. “I think they've simply identified it as the biggest opportunity out there and so have developed their skills to match that opportunity,” he said.
.@tomrobin tells @timstarks: “Some militant groups in Russia controlled areas of Ukraine are using crypto for fundraising. This was actually done by Ukraine as well early on in the conflict.” #PostLive pic.twitter.com/zJsPKAeAL9
To better protect citizens’ data online, governments need to secure the data they hold for public services, Venables said.
Governments also need to serve as messengers for good security, such as advocating for multi-factor authentication, and they need to create mechanisms for sharing information with the private sector, he said. And in Venables’s view, those are all things the U.S. government has been doing better all the time.
Crypto needs more regulations, Robinson said, and legislation to establish regulatory frameworks. While there’s been some cracking down on illicit finance, the biggest gap is in consumer protection, something the European Union is addressing with its forthcoming regulations, he said.
“If they're going to be effective, there needs to be similar regulations in place globally, because what we're seeing in a lot of cases is crypto businesses using regulatory arbitrage to base themselves in a jurisdiction where there is relatively little regulation but then offer their services globally,” Robinson said.
Another big problem?
“I think you need to make it difficult for the criminals to be able to cash out,” Robinson said. “I think there's been a lot of progress in this area over the past decade, but these funds are being stolen because they're able to convert the crypto back into fiat currency at some point and therefore profit from their crimes.”
The Biden administration has been taking a number of steps to tackle illicit use of crypto, such as sanctioning a cryptocurrency mixer that it says has been used to launder billions and forming a global alliance to counter ransomware.
Federal government tells agencies to catalogue systems vulnerable to quantum attacks
The Office of Management and Budget is directing federal agencies in a new memo to list the systems they have that use types of encryption that quantum computers are expected to be able to crack in the coming years, according to a copy of the memo exclusively obtained by The Cybersecurity 202. The memo, which OMB is releasing today, directs agencies to give CISA and National Cyber Director Chris Inglis’s office a prioritized list of systems by May 4 and update it annually until 2035.
“We're going to learn a lot,” Chris DeRusha, the federal chief information security officer and deputy national cyber director, told The Cybersecurity 202. “The first major deadline in the memo is May 2023, so not a lot of time for agencies to do their first analysis and get their inventories back to us.”
“Once we have this data it will enable us to have smart conversations with them, about what they've learned, where there is common hardware and software across federal government environments that we can take an enterprise approach to addressing, versus an agency-by-agency approach,” said DeRusha, who will lead a new “cryptographic migration working group,” according to the memo. “These are the things I'm excited about with this exercise. That's the 'new' here, this is government really leading the charge.”
Facebook parent Meta fires workers who allegedly accepted bribes to take over accounts
The employees and contractors — more than two dozen in all — were fired over the last year amid a long internal investigation at Meta, the Wall Street Journal’s Kirsten Grind and Robert McMillan report. Some workers at Meta allegedly accepted bribes from hackers who wanted access to accounts, they report.
“Some of those fired were contractors who worked as security guards stationed at Meta facilities and were given access to the Facebook parent’s internal mechanism for employees to help users having trouble with their accounts,” they write, citing documents and people familiar with the matter. “The mechanism, known internally as ‘Oops,’ has existed since Facebook’s early years as a means for employees to help users they know who have forgotten their passwords or emails, or had their accounts taken over by hackers,” they write.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone told the Wall Street Journal that “individuals selling fraudulent services are always targeting online platforms, including ours, and adapting their tactics in response to the detection methods that are commonly used across the industry,” adding that Meta “will keep taking appropriate action against those involved in these kinds of schemes.”
Dozens of state AGs ask FTC to consider stronger data security rules
A bipartisan group of 33 state attorneys general told the Federal Trade Commission that private firms’ practices of collection of location data, biometric data and medical data poses risks to consumers, and that the FTC should look to some states that require that businesses limit the personal data that they collect. The attorneys general wrote that they’re “concerned about the alarming amount of sensitive consumer data that is amassed, manipulated, and monetized.”
The letter came in the final days before an agency deadline for comments on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking for commercial surveillance and data security rules.
Google wins Russian botnet hack suit and attorney sanctions (Law360)
Amazon poaches top National Cyber Security Centre exec Levy (Sky News)
Texas signals potential changes to cybersecurity policies (StateScoop)
Elizabeth Kolmstetter is joining the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as its first chief people officer. Kolmstetter previously led NASA’s workforce engagement division.
Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the newly elected secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, and National Archives and Records Administration innovation chief Pamela Wright speak at an American University event today at 8:30 a.m.
Today’s third @washingtonpost TikTok features @elonmusk’s ultimatum https://t.co/InMzcOpDQS pic.twitter.com/2ZRCTIDR9Y | 2022-11-18T13:34:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Security in the digital economy is still in sight - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/security-digital-economy-is-still-sight/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/security-digital-economy-is-still-sight/ |
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker greets supporters at the conclusion of a campaign rally in McDonough, Ga. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
McDONOUGH, Ga. — Connie Beal is still a fan of former president Donald Trump, but she’d rather he keep his distance from the Peach State during the runoff battle between Republican Herschel Walker and Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D).
Beal, a retired teacher from Jonesboro, and other supporters who attended a Walker rally Wednesday said they don’t think Trump, who on Tuesday announced his 2024 bid for president — and gave a shout-out to Walker — would help the Senate candidate, who was the only Republican on the statewide ticket who didn’t win in last week’s general election.
“I don’t think he has it in the bag,” she said, referring to Walker. “It’ll be close.”
Walker finished about 35,000 votes behind Warnock, who fell short of the 50 percent of the vote required to win outright under Georgia law. The two will face off once again on Dec. 6, setting off a frenzied round of rallies, attack ads and endorsements as both parties try to capture the last outstanding Senate seat from the 2022 midterms.
Both sides will work to persuade their base voters to head back to the polls just four weeks after the general election. Warnock will look to pick up support from Republican and independent voters who were turned off by allegations about Walker’s personal life that surfaced during his general election campaign.
Warnock won his seat in a 2021 special runoff election, a victory that helped Democrats gain control of the Senate with 50 seats and the tie-breaking vote in Vice President Harris. This time, Democrats already have maintained their hold on the Senate because, with the exception of Warnock, all of their incumbents were reelected and they picked up a seat with John Fetterman’s victory in Pennsylvania.
A Warnock victory next month would not only give him a full, six-year term, but would deliver a 51st seat to Democrats, offering a cushion and more flexibility as they strive to pass Biden’s remaining agenda during the next two years. Republicans, who won a narrow majority in the House, want the Senate seat to boost their political power and have more ability to block Democratic proposals as they look to 2024.
After fending off predictions of a red wave in the midterms, Democrats are feeling optimistic that Warnock can win the Georgia runoff. Some believe Trump’s campaign announcement will energize voters who want to see Warnock, 53, senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, return to the Senate, as well as those who want to move beyond the former president’s polarizing brand of politics.
“For every person that likes Trump, there are two people that really hate Trump,” said Gabriel Delille, a student at Georgia State University who is voting for Warnock. He said he is “not glad” that Trump is planning another run for president, “but he’s a good tool for Democrats to use to motivate the base, because you can’t have that man in office.”
Walker, 60, is a football legend in the state, having won the Heisman Trophy in 1982 as a running back at the University of Georgia. His campaign has been rocked by allegations of domestic violence and that he paid for two former girlfriends to have abortions, even as he has campaigned as being in favor of a national ban on abortion.
National Republican leaders and politicians stood by Walker during the general election, arguing that the party needed to flip the seat to take control of the Senate.
Democrats have been encouraged by the discord among Republicans after they performed below expectations in the midterms.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, on Wednesday lost his challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) during a closed-door GOP meeting. The two have long been at odds over messaging, strategy and the direction of the Republican Party.
Tensions between Scott and McConnell spilled over into the Georgia runoff on Tuesday as allies of Scott called out the McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund for its lack of spending on ads supporting Walker.
The NRSC, which Scott chairs, was first last week to spend on ads for the runoff, according to the media tracking service AdImpact. The Senate Republicans’ campaign arm has an ad on air that calls Warnock a “great actor” and repeats one of the GOP’s biggest talking points against the senator, saying that he “votes with Joe Biden 96 percent of the time.”
The Senate Leadership Fund later on Tuesday announced it would invest $14.2 million in television, radio and digital ads for the runoff. It comes after the McConnell-aligned super PAC last week announced it was teaming up with Kemp to launch a $2 million ground operation on Walker’s behalf.
Although Kemp and Walker did not stump together ahead of the general election, the Georgia governor is scheduled to campaign with the former football star on the trail this weekend. Kemp won his reelection bid against Democrat Stacey Abrams last week by more than seven percentage points, garnering 2.1 million votes. Walker received 1.9 million votes. Early exit polls showed Kemp won 98 percent of voters who identified as Republicans and 49 percent of independents. Walker won 95 percent of Republican voters and 42 percent of independents.
Greater Georgia, a conservative voter mobilization group founded by former senator Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), also is helping Walker. The organization says it contacted about 2.5 million voters in the run-up to the midterm election and anticipates it can reengage a significant portion of those largely conservative voters for the runoff election.
On the Democratic side, Georgia Honor, a group tied to Senate Majority PAC, which is aligned with Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), last weekend started a $4.7 million ad campaign attacking Walker’s character, and announced on Wednesday it would spend an additional $8.8 million in TV and digital ads in the race.
Without control of the Senate on the line, both parties have worked to drum up enthusiasm for the runoff by emphasizing the stakes of capturing an additional seat.
By ensuring a win for Walker, “we will be able to block some bad legislation because it takes 51-plus to get this stuff done,” Scott said while stumping with Walker in Augusta on Monday. He added that with 50 Republicans, “we’re in a better position to stop something we think is crazy.”
Warnock has sought to keep the stakes of the race focused on Georgia, the same strategy he employed on the campaign trail ahead of the general election.
“To be a United States Senator representing the people of Georgia is to represent the concerns, the hopes, the dreams, the anxieties of 11 million people. That’s an important issue, no matter who controls the Senate,” Warnock told reporters this week when asked about this runoff versus the 2021 runoff.
Schumer this week said he was confident Senate Democrats’ will continue their winning streak in Georgia.
“Since I’ve been majority leader, every incumbent has won their race and we’re going to keep that record going with Raphael Warnock in Georgia,” Schumer said during a news conference on Tuesday hosted by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “He’s going to win because he’s much better for Georgia than his opponent, plain and simple.”
Liberal groups focused on educating and mobilizing voters ahead of the runoff have also gotten new cash infusions. American Bridge PAC has given $50,000 each to Fair Count, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and 1000 Women Strong. More groups, like Black Voters Matter and Care in Action, are expecting large donations from a reinvigorated donor network in the coming days.
“When neighbors bring more of their neighbors into the voting process, we can overwhelm the efforts to suppress their votes and achieve a result we can all be proud of,” said Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor who leads American Bridge PAC, in a statement to The Washington Post.
Bernard Fraga, a professor of political science at Emory University who studies demographics and turnout, noted that while overall turnout was lower in Georgia relative to 2018, he was surprised by dips among specific groups.
“We actually saw the gap in voter turnout between Whites and African Americans grow relative to 2018. Black voter turnout was down substantially, and White voter turnout rates ticked up a little bit,” Fraga said. “So, I think that that’s somewhat surprising, and indicates that for the Democrats there’s a lot of work to do in advance of the runoff and then for democracy, some implications as well.” He said it’s not clear whether the drop was related to people’s behavior or their access to voting.
Ron Lowe, a Democrat and retiree who lives in Flowery Branch, Ga, said he worries that turnout may be lower in the runoff than what Warnock needs. “And I’ll be very honest with you. I’m worried that the Black vote is not going to come out like it should. And it certainly could make a difference this election, I believe,” Lowe said.
But Lowe, who was shopping this week at the Mall of Georgia in Buford, said that he thinks the launch of Trump’s campaign will hurt Republicans in the state.
“While I wish him no harm, I hope Herschel Walker goes away forever,” Lowe said.
Republicans urged Trump to hold off on announcing his 2024 bid until after the Georgia runoff, warning it could divert attention from the race — and, worse, energize Democrats back to the polls.
But on Tuesday night, Trump went ahead and did it anyway. He also gave a shout-out to Walker, who he encouraged to challenge Warnock for the Senate seat. “We must all work very hard for a gentleman and a great person named Herschel Walker,” Trump said in his Mar-a-Lago speech. “Get out and vote for Herschel.”
In Georgia, Trump’s announcement was met with concern among some Walker supporters.
Anthony Leavell, a Walker backer from McDonough, said he thinks Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Kemp could help Walker in the dwindling weeks before the runoff, but not Trump.
“To be honest with you, I think it would hurt him,” Leavell said of a possible Trump visit.
“There’s a lot of people that got turned off with the melee after the election who are still somewhat pissed at Trump,” he said.
As he left his Wednesday rally, Walker did not respond to shouted questions about if he wants Trump to campaign with him.
“I hope he doesn’t. I don’t think he would be helpful,” said Martha Zoller, a conservative radio host who previously worked for Kemp and former senator David Perdue. “As a Republican, I hope he doesn’t come because I don’t think he’s a positive influence right now. I think he’s a negative influence, and I think people are looking forward and wanting to be positive.”
Zoller noted that some of the counties where Walker most underperformed compared with Kemp’s vote share were among the highest pro-Trump areas. She added that Walker needs to be out campaigning with Georgia Republicans, like Kemp, who just won in their statewide races.
“It’s great to have all the people coming in from out of state … but the people that he needs to get behind him right now are the people that just won elections, and I think they all will be,” Zoller said.
Walker was joined this week on the trail by supporters, including Scott and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
No big-name Democrats have come to Georgia since former president Barack Obama held a rally ahead of the Nov. 8 general election.
“I wish that Ron DeSantis, President Trump and Brian Kemp would swallow their humility, figure out whatever beef they have together and be in Georgia on the same stage campaigning for Herschel Walker,” said Liam Gardo, a Walker supporter and student at Georgia State University.
“Is that going to happen?” Gardo added, “Probably not.” | 2022-11-18T13:34:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Walker supporters downplay Trump endorsement, while Warnock touts it in an ad - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/warnock-walker-georgia-senate-runoff/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/warnock-walker-georgia-senate-runoff/ |
As women’s soccer undergoes a historic shift toward gender equity, elite girls’ soccer is still largely controlled by men. The results, women say, are toxic for coaches and players alike.
By Molly Hensley-Clancy
A coach watches his team play during a game at the Elite Clubs National League tournament at the San Diego Surf Soccer Park in Del Mar, Calif. (Sandy Huffaker/For The Washington Post)
DEL MAR, Calif. — One after another, the industry created to empower young girls in soccer has sent a very different message to women coaches.
For Karley Nelson, a former coach for the elite club San Diego Surf, it started when her boss made demeaning sexual comments and touched her in ways that made her uncomfortable on the sidelines, she said. Soon, another male colleague began to call Nelson her boss’s “girlfriend” behind her back. She was the only woman at a leadership retreat when a club executive told her she was “so beautiful,” that he was trying to convince his partner "she doesn’t have to worry” about her. Nelson’s allegations were documented in a lawsuit she filed this year.
It became clear that the culture at Surf, perhaps the country’s most recognizable youth soccer club, would not change, Nelson told The Post. So she left.
For Elizabeth Williams, the message came in a hundred small ways: from the referees who sought out her male assistants to the coaching instructors who said she needed to dress less effeminately to “look the part” of a coach. By the time her club, the Indiana Fire, said she needed to obtain a higher-level coaching license to advance, Williams was convinced she wouldn’t pass the course. She left coaching altogether instead.
For Yolanda Thomas, often the only Black woman in her high-level coaching courses, the message came literally. Thomas, who’d played professionally in Sweden, was a director at an elite club in Oklahoma, Tulsa SC. But that didn’t stop a male subordinate from “charging” angrily at her, she said, when he thought she had encroached on his field space. In front of his team of 12-year-old boys, Thomas said, the coach shouted that she was “just a placeholder.”
“You don’t belong here!” he screamed.
American women’s professional soccer is in the midst of a cultural sea-change, including an influx of female coaches and team owners and a push toward equity and workplace safety. But for women coaches, elite youth soccer remains male-dominated, with a culture that often veers into sexism, discrimination and even harassment, according to interviews with two dozen current and former coaches at clubs that play in the Elites Club National League, the pinnacle of girls’ soccer in the United States.
The ECNL is a stratosphere above typical “travel” soccer teams, selecting just a handful of top clubs in each region to compete their best teams against one another. Every year, ECNL soccer trains thousands of girls from coast to coast, building the pipeline to college, professional and U.S. national teams.
But men control ECNL soccer at nearly every level, from executives to club owners to boards and oversight organizations, according to interviews and a review by The Washington Post of coaching rosters and public filings from across the 129 girls’ clubs in the league. Nearly 90 percent of coaching directors at ECNL clubs are men, The Post found. At many of the country’s most successful clubs, there is not a single woman in coaching leadership.
As a result, The Post found, many women coaches have been systematically shut out of their own sport. They are overlooked by male executives, subjected to difficult and sometimes hostile work environments, and denied basic protections such as maternity leave.
“The current youth structures are toxic, and they reproduce their toxicity,” said Nancy Rosas Asare, a high school soccer coach who said she believed her gender kept her from being given the chance to coach a Surf ECNL team in 2015.
“It’s not true there aren’t women coaches. It’s that the clubs don’t want to hire them, and they don’t want to hire them because they don’t want to change the status quo, because they benefit from it.”
The women’s allegations mirror some of the conclusions of an investigation into the sport released last month by former acting attorney general Sally Q. Yates, who found that the toxic culture of the National Women’s Soccer League “appears rooted” in the youth soccer system, where many NWSL coaches accused of abuse last year also got their start.
In response to Nelson’s lawsuit, San Diego Surf successfully argued that the case should be resolved in arbitration. That process is ongoing, and Surf’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. The club referred questions to Josh Henderson, the club’s national technical director, who was named in Nelson’s lawsuit as the executive who had commented on her appearance. In an interview, he denied her allegations about him, and said the club had appropriately handled her complaint of sexual harassment by her boss.
Perspective: Another ‘report’ on abuse in women’s sports. When is enough enough?
“I believe Surf did our best to provide a nurturing, caring environment for everybody — kids, adults, women, men, trans people. If we fell short it’s not for lack of trying or lack of self-reflection or intent or lack of professionalism or lack of policies,” Henderson said. “Maybe it was a personality issue with somebody. Maybe they just didn’t get along for some reason."
Barry Williams, the president of Tulsa S.C., said the club investigated the Thomas described. He called the male coach’s words “unfortunate" but said Thomas also “provoked" some of the argument by replying that the male coach should “shut up." Williams said Tulsa S.C., which Thomas left earlier this year, has been “at the forefront of diversity” in the ECNL. Officials at Indiana Fire declined to comment.
ECNL executives declined numerous requests for interviews and declined to provide data about gender diversity at its clubs. In a statement, Jennifer Winnagle, the league’s chief operating officer, said the league was founded “in direct recognition” of the need for more women in sports. She noted that more than half of the staff in the league’s front office is female.
The nonprofit U.S. Club Soccer is tasked by the sport’s governing body, the U.S. Soccer Foundation, with overseeing the ECNL. Officials at U.S. Club Soccer declined to be interviewed but said in a statement: “While there is more work to be done, we are proud of what U.S. Club Soccer and our member organizations, including ECNL, have been doing for the growth and empowerment of female youth soccer.”
Post Reports: How U.S. Soccer failed its players
The gender disparity has consequences not just for women who coach but for the girls who play for them, more than a dozen women coaches told The Post. The dynamic deprives girls of important role models, they said, continuing a cycle where girls do not consider becoming coaches — or other kinds of leaders — themselves.
“The lack of representation, it’s like a cycle,” said Briana Russell, a youth coach and the founder and CEO of Girls Leading Girls, a nonprofit that promotes women coaches in girls’ soccer. “If there’s less women out there, you’re not going to draw women and girls. They don’t see themselves represented, they’re not going to want to participate.”
“It’s a systemic problem,” said Ifeoma Dieke, a youth coach who played for the Scottish women’s national team for more than a decade. Dieke, who left an ECNL club in Florida earlier this year, said she experienced sexism from club officials and referees. “If [women] had a seat at the table, it would be better for the players, but they don’t care about the players. They care about their pockets.”
“To even get a seat at the table,” Dieke said, “that is the impossible thing.”
Girl players, male power
Under a screen of early-morning fog in Del Mar, Calif., the first ECNL tournament of the fall season filled the immaculate fields of Surf Sports Park with the bleat of whistles and the thud of balls. Towering banners showed photos of teenagers, named the league’s “players of the year” last season, posing like professionals with their arms crossed or fists pumping. There was an ECNL-branded pop-up store shaped like a giant Nike shoe box.
With the first game of the day was set to begin, hundreds of young women players from 20 of the country’s top girls’ teams took the field, their shoulders emblazoned with teal ECNL badges. All but a few teams were coached by men.
As the girls, between 12 and 15, warmed up in neat lines and made sharp passes, scouts for the U.S. youth national teams dotted the sidelines with clipboards in hand. Soon, Division 1 college coaches will flock to ECNL tournaments by the hundreds: The league said there were 800 at last year’s playoffs.
In the short span of its existence, the ECNL has come to dominate the market for producing the country’s best players. Seventy percent of players drafted by the NWSL since 2017 have come from the ranks of ECNL clubs, the league says, including all of the first seven draft picks last year.
The league’s revenue has skyrocketed since its founding in 2009, growing from $500,000 in 2010 to $3.4 million in 2019, according to public filings, a number that is likely higher after the league’s expansions.
As the league has grown, Christian Lavers, its founder, president and CEO, has amassed enormous influence. He took just a $57,000 salary from the league in 2020, according to filings. But he is also the executive vice president of U.S. Club Soccer, the oversight organization for the ECNL, which did not report paying him a salary. And he is the vice president of a for-profit company, C2SA, that provides management services to U.S. Club Soccer and collected $4.2 million in fees from U.S. Club in 2020, according to filings. Lavers owns the only ECNL club in Wisconsin, too, and in 2021 was made a top executive at an NWSL club, the Kansas City Current. He didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Lavers’s arrangement is a signal of the wealth and power available to the coaches who climb the ranks of youth girls’ soccer on their way to college, the pros or national teams. Two ECNL club executives were hired as interim coaches by the NWSL this year. And Rory Dames, one of the ECNL’s founders, used his sway as the owner of a top youth club in Chicago, Eclipse, to become the NWSL’s longest-tenured coach, before resigning last year amid allegations of emotional and verbal abuse. Dames has denied those allegations.
‘Nobody cares’: NWSL players say U.S. Soccer failed to act on abuse claims against Red Stars coach
“You look at all the clubs — male, male, male," Dieke said. The world she’d entered into as a coach, Dieke said, reminded her of her mother’s experiences running for political office in Nigeria, where Dieke’s mother is from. Club soccer, Dieke said, is “like Nigerian politics. The rich want to get richer, the people in power want to stay in power.”
The Post reviewed the leadership teams of 115 clubs in the ECNL Girls for which information was posted online, out of 129 listed in the league’s directory. Many directors’ bios did not include gender; where possible, The Post cross-referenced the rosters against social media and other online profiles.
The ECNL would not provide any information on the representation of women in its member clubs. The Post obtained data from 16 top ECNL clubs and reviewed the staffs of nearly 100 other ECNL clubs that listed their leadership online. Where possible, The Post also reviewed online coaching rosters and public filings that listed clubs’ boards of directors.
More than 85 percent of top executives at ECNL Girls clubs are men, The Post found, and some 50 ECNL clubs appeared to employ zero women in coaching leadership jobs. In youth soccer, coaching directors are often the only full-time jobs at clubs, overseeing hiring and team assignments. Clubs can have a half-dozen or more directors who oversee individual age groups and leagues.
The data provided by 16 girls’ clubs that were ranked among the best in the ECNL supports The Post’s analysis. Nearly 90 percent of coaching directors at those clubs are men, and a quarter of the clubs told The Post they did not employ a single woman in their top ranks. Thomas, the former professional player in Sweden, said she believed she had been one of just seven women in the country with the title of ECNL director when she was hired in Tulsa in 2020, out of more than 100 positions.
With a fluid, part-time workforce, determining the number of women coaches at any club can be more difficult; many clubs do not post complete rosters online. But nearly all of the women interviewed said they had been one of a small number of women coaches at their clubs.
At D’Feeters Kicks Soccer Club in Texas, which is consistently ranked among the ECNL’s best girls’ clubs, there are no women among six club executives or on the organization’s six-person board of directors, according to a review of the club’s website. And there are just a handful of women among the 50-plus coaches the club lists online. (D’Feeters Kicks did not respond to many requests for comment.)
FC Dallas, an elite youth club affiliated with the MLS team, also employs no women in six full-time director roles, even though it has one of the country’s top girls’ programs, a representative told The Post. Charlotte Soccer Academy, a highly ranked club in North Carolina, has 5,500 players but employs just one woman out of 33 leadership positions, the club confirmed.
Billions flow through youth sports. And some of it keeps disappearing.
The ECNL itself, a nonprofit based in Virginia, has just two women on its board; its founders, tax documents show, were all men. There are only two women on the 10-person board of U.S. Club Soccer.
Keri Sarver, of the top ECNL club Internationals S.C., in Ohio, said she believed she was the only female ECNL club owner. (The league did not respond to questions about how many women owners it had.) She was “blessed and lucky,” she said, that the club’s former owner, a man, had mentored her with the intention of having her take over the club once he left.
“That’s different from a lot of peoples’ experiences,” Sarver said. “The reality is many of the clubs in this country were started by males, and then it becomes a network of who you know, who you’re close to. People promote from within and promote their friends.”
“There are many, many meetings, many days,” Sarver said, “when I’m the only woman in the room.”
A cold reception
As the business of elite soccer has exploded, few clubs have seen growth on the scale of the San Diego Surf.
The club has become the crown jewel of an empire that spans youth soccer’s biggest tournaments and several for-profit companies, like Surf Cup Sports, which owns an expensive slice of land in Del Mar and licenses the Surf name to some 50 youth soccer clubs nationwide.
When it comes to hiring and retaining women, Surf sets a different kind of standard: It is among the least diverse in the ECNL, with an all-male executive team of eleven directors. Four women told The Post they had left their jobs at the club in recent years because of what they saw as a toxic, sexist environment at the youth club that calls itself the “best of the best.”
Their experiences are not isolated: They exemplify, several women told The Post, how the culture of many girls’ soccer clubs can quickly become intolerable for the small number of women who work there.
Nelson left a college soccer coaching job to work at Surf in 2020. She had been at the club for just three days when her new supervisor, Rob Becerra, remarked on her weight loss by saying she had “lost some butter,” she alleged in her lawsuit. “I’m not sure we are going to be able to let you work in the office with all those guys,” she said Becerra told her. “We may need to put you in another office or they won’t get any work done.”
‘He made me hate soccer’: Players say they left NWSL’s Spirit over coach’s verbal abuse
Becerra made degrading sexual comments about her for months, Nelson alleged, commenting on her “walk,” her “nice legs,” and her “little waist.” He hugged her repeatedly after being told she did not want him to touch her, including once during an important game, when Nelson alleged Becerra came up behind her, put his arms around her and laid his cheek against hers to give her coaching advice.
Another woman who coached for Surf at the same time as Nelson, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of professional repercussions, said she had herself been the subject of sexist and homophobic jokes by Becerra. The “boys will be boys” culture at Surf, the woman said, had “fostered” those kinds of comments.
Becerra declined to be interviewed. He denied any wrongdoing through an attorney, who noted that Nelson had not served Becerra in her lawsuit, instead targeting Surf, meaning she no longer had an active legal complaint against him. Henderson, the Surf executive, said he believed the club had adequately handled Nelson’s claims when she reported them.
Asare, who worked at Surf until 2015, said that after she’d found success coaching second-tier girls’ teams, as well as a varsity boys’ team at a local high school, she asked Surf executives for a chance to coach in the ECNL, submitting a proposal about what she would do with the team. But she was turned down by male directors, Asare said, who offered excuses about “reshufflings” that eliminated team openings. She left, she said, because she believed Surf “didn’t have an interest in promoting women coaches.”
“That is a boys’ club,” Asare said. “The men get promoted, the women get overlooked and expelled. [They] habitually get offered the lower-tier teams with hollow promises.”
Surf hired a woman director and ECNL coach, Kate Norton, in 2019. Norton, who was hired by Becerra, told The Post she had had a positive experience with Surf and left on good terms in 2020.
“The most important thing is getting the best person for these kids. We cannot be prejudicial in any way when considering that. Sometimes it’s female, sometimes it’s male. It should always be the best person," Henderson said. "Do I believe that, do I wish that best person, there were more females in that role? Of course.”
Another woman, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity over concerns about professional repercussions, said she left Surf after an incident where Henderson undermined her in front of a group of players and parents. After Henderson offered her a promotion, she said, he told a group of parents that he didn’t know if she would be a good leader while praising a man Henderson had recently hired as “overqualified.”
It was the last in an accumulation of slights, the woman said, including when the club’s new coaching director had stripped her of an older girls’ team, telling her she was “not a good enough 11 vs. 11 coach” after watching her run a single training session. She was reassigned to a younger team that played lower-stakes games, she said.
“Male coaches are hired off potential," she said. "Women coaches are treated and hired and expected to perform off proven experience.”
Henderson confirmed what he said to parents but called it a “huge miscommunication” that he later apologized for. Her story about the new coaching director, Henderson said, was “not true”: the director had been critical of both male and female coaches, he said. “He can watch in five minutes and see this person is not right for this age group right now,” Henderson said. “It’s easy to take a couple of instances and in her mind understand it to be what she thought it was."
By the time the woman quit, at seven months pregnant and without a job lined up, there were zero women coaches left at Surf.
Babysitter status
She coached for a top Division 1 college team and been a top defender at Pepperdine University, but in youth soccer, Diana Alexander never got a chance at her goal.
“I always wanted an ECNL team," said Alexander, a former coach at two clubs that have teams in the ECNL. "I’d say, ‘Let me see what I can do.’”
Instead, Alexander said, her club gave her a team of 8-year-olds, who don’t play in ECNL tournaments. “It was a higher-level team,” she said, “but they kept taking the best players from me, and eventually I had the lower-level team. Then I had to give them up at 12 or 13.”
In interviews, more than a dozen women described the same pattern: They were consistently denied opportunities to coach in the ECNL and relegated to younger, lower-level teams, even after years of coaching and licensing courses.
Black girls are more apt to drop out of sports. This mentorship program aims to change that.
Jobs coaching older and higher-level teams, especially ECNL teams, paid far more than younger ones, the women said. ECNL coaches were also more likely to get a chance to advance into full-time roles, like top directors, which can pay close to $100,000 a year; in 2020, Nelson was offered $80,000 for a high-level role working with ECNL teams at Surf, court filings show.
As contractors coaching lower-level teams, some women said they worked the equivalent of a full-time job but made as little as $30,000.
Ligia Santos, who played soccer professionally in Europe, said she was saddled with several young teams when she coached at the ECNL club Sporting Blue Valley outside Kansas City, including being asked to coach kindergartners.
“I was surprised because I had never in my life coached kindergarten,” she said. “I came from Europe, from real soccer. I was a professional coach ... But they don’t give us the same chance as the men.”
“They wanted the women with young players — the nurturing, and all of that,” said Nancy Schott, who also worked at Sporting. “As soon as you get out of the age where they’re developing into different levels of talent, they were giving it to the guys.”
Sporting Blue Valley’s website lists nine coaching directors, all of whom are men, and an all-male board of directors. The club did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
One woman said she was told she could not coach high-level teams because her college coaching job meant she could not commit the time; at another club, a different woman was told the high-level teams were reserved for people who were coaching at a college level. For every excuse they were given for why they could not advance, the women said, they saw exceptions made for men.
“I would ask why I can’t coach a [higher-level] team, and it’s, ‘Well, he has [a higher-level] license.’ Or if he doesn’t have his license, ‘He’s been here for longer than you.’ But they’d bring in someone from the outside,” said one current coach at an ECNL club, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing professional repercussions. “Once it was, ‘You have to miss one weekend out of the year, and he doesn’t.'”
When the Yates report into abuses in the National Women’s Soccer League was released, several women said, they saw a stark example of that double standard.
The report detailed how male coaches in the league had been allowed to flout U.S. Soccer’s licensing standards for professional coaches. Christy Holly was hired by two different NWSL teams, in 2016 and 2021, despite not holding the required coaching license. U.S. Soccer, Yates found, had discussed holding a special small-group class for Holly. He was fired for sexual misconduct before he could complete the course, Yates’s report said. (Holly could not be reached for comment.)
“That’s literally youth soccer in a nutshell,” said Candice Fabry, a longtime youth soccer coach who now coaches in college and owns a mentoring organization for women in sports careers. “Those jobs are limited, and they’re controlled by men.”
One woman who worked at a top club in Texas, speaking on the condition that she and the club not be named, described how she had fought in recent years to try to get a promotion to coach an ECNL team. When her club’s all-male executive team told her she needed a higher-level coaching license, she said, she went and got one — a grueling, rigorous course, administered by the U.S. Soccer Federation, that took six months and cost thousands of dollars. “They were saying time and time again, ‘We need more females, there’s so few of you.’ So I went and asked for my shot.”
At a three-hour meeting after getting her license, she said, a male executive again told her he didn’t have a job for her in the ECNL. Among the reasons he gave her, the woman said, was that women “were often too emotional to coach at a high level.”
“That was when I stepped back, and I started to pay more attention,” the woman said.
She replayed times when male executives rolled their eyes at one of the few women who spoke up in meetings, sometimes even muting her on Zoom without her realizing. She remembered noticing that female coaches were often given the worst fields, without light towers.
And after being told women were “too emotional,” she said, she remembered watching as one of the club’s top coaches — a man who held the job she wanted — reacted to his team’s missed set piece by ripping a tent out of the ground.
‘They get married’
In interviews, many youth soccer executives lamented that women had left their clubs and, often, coaching altogether. Five top executives at youth clubs offered the same explanation for their departures.
“It’s just tough for them. They get married,” said Walid Khoury, who runs one of the ECNL’s most successful girls’ clubs, Slammers FC, and served on the league’s board of directors. “We did have a number of women on staff, really good young women, and then they got married.”
Even as revenue have grown, and as maternity leave has increasingly been offered in women’s professional sports, elite youth soccer clubs have made almost no inroads toward making it easier for women to stay in coaching, according to coaches and executives across the sport.
Of the clubs where leaders lamented the departures of women coaches, just one, St. Louis Scott Gallagher, had a maternity leave policy. Slammers, Khoury admitted, didn’t. Neither did Surf, Henderson said. He noted that when a transgender coach needed two months off to transition, the club gave it to him, and Surf would similarly accommodate women who needed parental leave.
“Honestly, we have never been in that situation,” Henderson said.
Few women interviewed said their clubs offered maternity leave, even unpaid. Thomas, who was a director at Tulsa S.C. in Oklahoma, said she secured maternity leave only by demanding it, something she worried other women would not be able to do. She recalled having to explain the physical toll of birth on her body to male superiors to get eight weeks’ paid leave, which wasn’t part of the club’s official policy.
“I had to explain that I am healing from stitches,” she said. "I had to lay it all out there.”
Tulsa S.C. has since added a maternity leave policy, the club said.
Many club owners, including Henderson and Khoury, noted that their clubs are nonprofits, with financial realities that they said made offering maternity leave difficult. Slammers reported $2.4 million in revenue in its last filings but $3 million in expenses.
The next youth sports arms race
One club, Pacific Northwest, in Washington, said it offered six weeks of paid parental leave to both male and female coaches. Its top two executives are both women, and women coach the majority of its girls’ teams, including six ECNL teams.
There were other structural barriers that kept women out of high-level coaching roles or eventually led them to leave the profession. The punishing hours — after-school practices and tournaments on many weekends for higher-level teams — made it difficult for anyone, male or female, to have a family while coaching youth soccer, they said, unless a supportive partner could handle child care.
But by boxing women out of director jobs, many women said, the clubs were all but guaranteeing that women would leave once they had to pay for child care. It’s a dynamic that has long existed across the American workforce and was worsened by the pandemic, with men earning higher wages on average than their female partners. But in youth soccer, the gaps between lower-level jobs and club directors are particularly pronounced, since directors are usually the only full-time employees of clubs.
Even the coaching courses that were important to advancing to higher levels and teams were clearly built for and by men, multiple women said, in ways that dissuaded women from moving forward in their careers.
U.S. Soccer issues coaching licenses, beginning with local “grass roots” courses and offering national licenses ranging from D, the lowest, to A and “pro,” the highest. The licensing classes are almost always taught by male instructors, several coaches said, and more than half of the women who spoke to The Post said they’d been the only female students as they progressed to higher levels. The courses are multiday affairs that often require travel costing thousands of dollars, the women said, which also meant an extra burden when it came to child care.
“In my course, I was told, ‘Why are you wasting your money?’” said Lula Bauer, a coach who serves as the chairwoman of Women and Girls in Soccer, a nonprofit that started hosting all-female coaching courses. “We had such horrendous experiences… Not feeling accepted, not feeling respected.”
The federation has made progress toward encouraging more women to get high-level licenses. It hosts all-female coaching courses, and a scholarship fund started by U.S. Soccer and Jill Ellis, the former coach of the U.S. women’s national team, provides financial support to women pursuing high-level licenses. The goal, the federation says, is “doubling the number of elite professional coaches by 2024.” Twenty-two percent of B license recipients in 2022 have been women, compared with 13 percent in 2021. But the proportion of women receiving their A licenses fell this year, to just over 7 percent.
Soccer officials who enabled abuse ‘should be gone,’ USWNT captain says
Elizabeth Williams, who worked for Indiana Fire Juniors, said she left coaching in part because of the roadblocks of male-dominated licensing courses. The classes were unnecessarily physical training grounds, she said, where she was expected to do full-contact drills with men. “I had my shins kicked out from under me,” Williams said. “I got checked so hard I went flying.”
Williams recalled feeling mocked by male instructors for gendered reasons, like when she turned in a color-coded chart that contrasted with the rest of the class’s. She said she was told by the men evaluating her, “We need you to look the part. We like you, but there are things people expect to see.” The message, Williams said, was that with her effeminate clothes, feminine habits and fancy nails, she didn’t belong there. She didn’t take another course.
Stuck in the cycle
Whenever she left jobs in soccer, Thomas, the former professional player in Sweden, found herself worrying about the young women she left behind. It wasn’t uncommon, Thomas said, to hear from players who were struggling after her departure, often with coaches who berated or attacked them, damaging their self-esteem.
“I always know those things will be on the horizon if I’m not there,” Thomas said. “The way that girls in the sport are treated by the adults that are supposed to guide and lead them — it’s behavior we’d never accept out of a teacher.”
More than a dozen women coaches at ECNL clubs told The Post they had concerns similar to Thomas’s. They had witnessed too many coaches and directors at top clubs adopt a mentality that had costs for players’ mental and emotional health. At times, many said, they watched their mostly-male colleagues cross a line into emotional and verbal abuse of young girls.
“There’s a two-prong thing: there’s the issue of more women needing to be in coaching, but it’s also quality in coaching, and that’s a male problem only because there are more men,” said Lesle Gallimore, the commissioner of the Girls Academy league, an ECNL competitor. “There are plenty of negative examples of women who are abusive, too. It’s about what we’re going to tolerate in this space and how we’re going to make it better.”
Still, Gallimore said, girls who grow up playing in clubs made up entirely of men get a clear message: “That men know more about sport and soccer than women do. That they’re the experts, they understand better. That they know what’s better for you, as a girl, than a woman would know.”
“Women and young girls, we’ve been conditioned to not question and to obey, to put everyone else’s needs are put before ours. Any time w’re going to provide an opinion or we’re going to be confident, we’re called a b---,” Fabry, now the head coach at Ottawa University, said. “It’s a perfect environment [for coaches] to come in and invoke fear in youth players."
Yates’s report echoed those concerns, focusing in part on allegations of verbal and emotional abuse against youth players by Dames, including from his time as an ECNL coach. Yates noted that another coach accused of verbal and emotional abuse by NWSL players, Aaran Lines, is now the girls’ ECNL director at a club in New York. Lines did not respond to a message seeking comment.
One young woman’s message has stuck with Thomas. After Thomas left a club where the girl played, the girl reached out to say she was struggling with the man who had replaced Thomas. The coach was “degrading,” she wrote, and made her feel like she didn’t belong on the field or deserve a future spot on a college team. “My mental health and confidence in my game couldn’t be lower,” she said.
The player wrote to Thomas, “I miss you." | 2022-11-18T13:35:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In the ECNL, girls' soccer's top league, male coaches have the power - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/ecnl-girls-soccer-male-coaches/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/ecnl-girls-soccer-male-coaches/ |
A break from the drama may be just what you need
Perspective by Meena Thiruvengadam
(Min Heo for The Washington Post)
When I was 12 or 13, a friend’s mother invited me to join their family for a Thanksgiving road trip. After I convinced my parents to let me go, we piled into the family minivan and hit the road. We stayed at a Howard Johnson, shelled pecans and ate all the traditional holiday foods my family never had at home.
It was the kind of holiday I had always wanted, and one I could never have had at home. It was the first time I skipped a holiday at home, but it wasn’t the last. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
For years, Christmas was a forbidden word around our house. As a Hindu, my father didn’t think we should have a tree or acknowledge the holiday. I learned the truth about Santa Claus when we picked up a Christmas tree on sale at Woolworth’s around closing time on Christmas Eve, decorating into the wee hours of Christmas morning when Santa was supposed to be making his rounds.
Similarly, Thanksgiving was an American holiday, one my father didn’t believe we as Indian Americans should celebrate. As a kid making cornucopias and construction paper turkeys at school, however, all I wanted was turkey, pecan pie and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The closest I ever got to the kind of holiday meals other kids talked about was at a family friend’s house. It was usually a crowd of lawyers, former Texas prosecutors and the occasional medical examiner, a mix that made for interesting conversation. There was turkey for everyone else, and vegetarian lasagna for us.
During college, I regularly skipped holidays at home, opting to spend time with friends and their families instead. Not going home meant I could remove myself from the drama that met me whenever I walked through the front door.
In college, it was my weight that was an issue. Going home would mean hearing about how I was so fat I was unlovable and destined to spend life alone. Down the line, skipping the holidays meant I wouldn’t have to hear about how I was quickly approaching my expiration date of 40 — a time beyond which I would have no value to the world. This conversation began when I was 21.
Not going home for the holidays meant I didn’t have to hear about how I was wasting my life or the awful traditional men my dad was trying to meet online on my behalf. One of those men told me in our families’ native tongue that he wanted a wife to go to his village in India and care for his aging parents while he stayed in the United States. Nope.
Over the years, I skipped trips home to collect holiday pay at work and scheduled vacations over them to make the most of my limited paid time off. Two weeks doesn’t go very far when you’re an avid traveler with a penchant for far-flung destinations or an Indian American who has to travel at least 24 hours each way to visit relatives in India.
A couple of times, I opted to watch the Macy’s parade in person in New York. A cousin and I feasted on Indian food in Brooklyn after the parade one Thanksgiving.
I spent another Thanksgiving in Porto, Portugal, with a new friend made a few days earlier in Lisbon. We spent the day sampling Port wine and wandering charming European streets. We shared a delicious multicourse meal with wine, champagne and Port for less than $100.
It was exactly the Thanksgiving I needed that year and a gift I’m grateful I gave myself. | 2022-11-18T13:36:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Family holidays can be drama. Give yourself the gift of time away. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/holiday-family-vacation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/holiday-family-vacation/ |
FIFA president Gianni Infantino with fans in Qatar. (Yara Abi Nader/Reuters)
In recent weeks, the two American TV rights holders for the upcoming World Cup held press conferences ahead of this most unusual tournament in Qatar. At each, executives from Fox, which holds the English-language rights, and Telemundo, which has the Spanish-language rights, were asked how they planned to cover the human rights record of the host country.
Fox’s executive producer, David Neal, said his network would not be looking to do the work of Real Sports or E:60, the newsmagazine-style shows known for tackling thorny off-the-field issues. “We really believe viewers come to us at Fox Sports for the World Cup to see the World Cup,” he said.
Telemundo Deportes President Ray Warren responded differently. He said he would follow the lead of sister network NBC, which discussed the alleged Uyghur genocide during the opening ceremony during its coverage of the opening ceremony for this year’s winter Olympics in China. “I do think we have to talk about the legacy we leave," Warren said. “By the time the tournament’s over, we won’t be ignoring the geopolitical issues that might arise."
A spokeswoman for Telemundo, which is owned by Comcast, confirmed the network is expecting to air a piece during the pregame show for Sunday’s opening match that touches on the human rights situation in Qatar.
The differing strategies from the two broadcasters responsible for bringing the World Cup to American audiences will be under scrutiny for the next month, as Western journalists, fans and soccer players arrive in Qatar, a theocratic monarchy governed strictly by Muslim laws and customs. The American team unveiled a new rainbow crest that will be on display at its hotel in response to laws preventing homosexuality in Qatar. The Australian team released a video in support of the LGBTQ+ community and workers’ rights.
For Fox, the strategy is identical to the way it handled the World Cup in Russia four years ago. But there is another dynamic at play in Qatar: Qatar Airways, the state-owned airline, will serve as a major sponsor of the network’s coverage, which means Fox’s production in Qatar is essentially being underwritten by the Qatari government.
In June, Neal told Sports Business Journal that Fox will send a “little army” of 150 staffers and announcers to Qatar, and that Fox would be the first American network to have announcers in stadiums for all 64 games, in part because all the venues are so close together. But according to three people familiar with Fox’s plans, the network was initially planning to use mostly remote production and send a minimal contingent of staffers and talent to Qatar. The strategy only shifted after the deal with Qatar Airways was finalized, which included comped flights to Qatar, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reveal private discussions.
The relationship between the airline and network dates to last year, when Qatar Airways announced a partnership with CONCACAF and was the primary sponsor for Fox’s Gold Cup coverage, including signage on its studio set.
The Telemundo spokeswoman said Qatar Airways is not a sponsor of its coverage.
Fox has already unveiled an elaborate state-of-the-art studio located on the waterfront in Doha that includes four stages and more than 20 LED screens.
In a statement, Fox said, “Qatar Airways is a major sponsor of FIFA World Cup 2022 and will have significant presence across our entire coverage of the tournament. They, along with our portfolio of blue-chip sponsors, allow us the opportunity to present unrivaled coverage of what arguably stands to be one of the best World Cups ever with the long-awaited return of the U.S. Men’s National Team.”
Asked if Qatar Airways’ sponsorship had any impact on its coverage, a Fox spokesman said: “Absolutely not.”
Today's WorldView: The political debate swirling around the World Cup in Qatar
The change in schedule from the usual summer World Cup was made to accommodate the extreme heat in Qatar and would be a headache for any American broadcaster. Instead of sharing the summer with just baseball, this tournament will compete against the NFL and college football for viewers. Fox reportedly paid more than $400 million for the four men’s and women’s World Cups between 2015 and 2023. Telemundo is reportedly paying around $600 million.
How the tournament is covered — and how the Qataris react to that coverage — will be closely watched. Before the tournament even began, a Danish cameraman this week had a run-in with Qatari officials who threatened to smash his camera for filming a live report in a public place.
The Athletic published a piece this week by soccer editor Alex Kay Jelski detailing his mixed feelings, both as a gay man and sports journalist, about covering the tournament.
“Some [reporters] will write about great games and goals, others will break stories about line-ups or fallouts," he wrote. "But also many will focus on what’s happening off the pitch, on the fact that some LGBT+ fans are having to stay in safe houses, on the families of the workers who died building the stadiums, on the absurd politics that brought the tournament to Qatar, on the reality of the lives of women who live there, and still will once the circus has packed up and left.”
Qatar Airways has been a visible brand in international soccer for several years now. It was the front-jersey sponsor for FC Barcelona from 2013 to2017 before the club ended the agreement for “social issues.” Today, Qatar Airways is a jersey sponsor for Bayern Munich, though club members have pressured directors to not renew the deal when it expires in 2023. At the team’s annual general meeting last month, Oliver Kahn, the team’s chief executive, said: “There has been progress in Qatar on labor rights and human rights. Nobody suggested that Qatar is a country that meets European standards. But if you want to change and initiate something, you have to meet people, talk to them and exchange ideas instead of excluding them.”
Steven Goff contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T14:07:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Fox will cover Qatar human rights issues during the World Cup - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/fox-qatar-world-cup-coverage/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/fox-qatar-world-cup-coverage/ |
By Dave Sheinin
Daffyd Iwan sang "Yma O Hyd" before Wales played Ukraine at Cardiff City Stadium this June. Wales won the match and advanced to the World Cup. (Huw Fairclough/Getty Images)
The song begins with a strummed acoustic guitar, the tinkling of a harp and a metronomic, minor-key melody line that starts low and slowly ascends, like a primordial vapor rising from deep in the Welsh soil. On the day 39 years ago when Dafydd Iwan first recorded “Yma o Hyd” (“Still Here”), his folk song about the unlikely resilience of the Welsh culture and language, a lone tear streaked down the side of his face — a songwriter’s self-confirmation he had made something lasting and important.
When he sang the song again one Sunday this June, this time in front of a sellout crowd at Cardiff City Stadium on the outskirts of the Welsh capital, the tear returned — and this time brought some friends.
Iwan, now 79, had been summoned by the Welsh national soccer team to serenade the crowd ahead of its critical match against Ukraine, with the winner earning a spot in the World Cup. Over the course of the preceding months, the team had taken “Yma o Hyd” as its unofficial anthem as it fought to secure the country’s first World Cup berth in 64 years.
Standing in a corner of the field, flanked by 33,280 red-clad Welshmen and women, known collectively as the Red Wall, he began to sing. The verses — with their biting references to would-be conquerors Magnus Maximus, the fourth-century Roman emperor, and Margaret Thatcher, the 20th-century British prime minister — were accompanied mostly by mumbles from the crowd. (Less than a third of Wales’s population speaks Welsh.)
But when Iwan hit the first soaring chorus — “Er gwaetha pawb a phopeth / Ry’n ni yma o hyd!” (“In spite of everyone and everything / We are still here!”) — the voices of the Red Wall suddenly joined his in a swaying, full-throated, fist-raising unison.
By the third chorus, Iwan was weeping.
“When they joined in,” Iwan said in a telephone interview, “it was like a powerful force. There was so much passion in the singing, I couldn’t resist crying. … I’ve been singing that song for 40 years, and it’s almost as if I’d been rehearsing for this moment.”
And when the Welsh team went out and vanquished Ukraine, 1-0, on a free kick by captain Gareth Bale deflected into the goal by a Ukrainian defender, Iwan was ushered onto the field to sing the song again, this time with Bale and his teammates swaying and singing behind him.
It was a charming and singular scene — an aging folk singer leading a rendition of his protest song from a bygone era — that wouldn’t have made sense in a larger country. (The American equivalent, one supposes, would be Woody Guthrie walking into Giants Stadium and leading the crowd, plus Christian Pulisic and mates, in a joyous singalong to “This Land Is Your Land.”)
But on that particular day, and in that particular country, it was pitch-perfect.
“ ‘Yma o Hyd’ — that’s a massive anthem for us. The song is very poignant to what we’re about,” Coach Rob Page told reporters. “We’re all passionate Welsh people who love our country.” Playing for Wales, explained Iwan, “means something more than playing for a shirt.”
Indeed, the Welsh team heading to Qatar — where it will face the United States, England and Iran in group play — is less a collection of athletes than the designated representatives of a national movement.
“For a nation of 3 million people to be on one of the greatest sporting stages in the world,” said Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford, the nation’s head of state, “is hugely significant for the people of Wales who have been waiting 64 years for this to happen.”
Wales’s only previous World Cup appearance, in 1958, ended with a loss to Brazil in the quarterfinals, the lone goal scored by 17-year-old future legend Pele. The decades since have brought mostly futility. Now, behind 33-year-old superstar Bale, they’re on the rise, qualifying for the past two Euro Championships and making it to the semifinals in 2016. Making it to Qatar was the next step.
Neville Southall, a legendary Welsh goalkeeper of the 1980s and 1990s considered among the greatest players in the country’s history, never managed to lift Wales to the World Cup. “This is a barrier broken,” Southall said of this year’s team. “There’s a future generation who will believe we can achieve more. It will inspire the whole country.”
But the rise of Wales as a European football force over the past decade or so has also coincided with the nation’s reemergence from decades if not centuries of political and cultural suppression, much of it self-inflicted. The two trendlines are practically interchangeable: As the team’s success embodies the rise of Welsh nationalism, the citizenry’s thirst for outside affirmation of its unique Welshness has become wrapped up in the sporting fortunes of a couple dozen soccer players.
“I can see how from the outside it would seem absolutely astonishing” to attach such monumental meaning to the performance of a soccer team,” said Delyth Jewell, a member of the Welsh parliament, or Senedd, and the chair of its committee that oversees sports, culture and language. “But what has been actually quite revolutionary is that because of the football team’s success and the fact they have embraced that song, it shows that the Welsh nation has matured so much, in terms of being comfortable with itself and embracing the language, as well.
“It’s something that’s really emotional, actually.”
It’s no wonder the acclaimed Welsh actor Michael Sheen (“Frost/Nixon,” “Masters of Sex”), asked during a televised British game show last month to improvise a speech to the Welsh national team, first gathered himself, then unleashed a spirited oration that sounded like it could have been delivered by Shakespeare’s Henry V at the Agincourt battlefield on St. Crispin’s Day:
“One nation, singing with one voice, a song of hope, a song of courage,” Sheen declared in a speech that quickly went viral, leading to his recruitment to deliver a similar oration in person to the Welsh players the following week. “A victory song that floats through the valleys like a red mist, that rolls over the mountaintops like crimson thunder! A red storm is coming to the gates of Qatar!”
Sheen then slipped into Welsh to deliver the punchline: “Yma o hyd!” Sheen roared, rising to his feet for emphasis. “ … We. Are Still. Here!”
‘I really feel we’ve made it now’
Many Americans undoubtedly think of Wales the same way Ted Lasso did. In the pilot episode of the AppleTV comedy of the same name, the newly hired American coach of England’s AFC Richmond soccer team, Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) has learned one of his players is from Wales.
“Is that another country?” he asks.
“Yes and no,” he is told.
“How many countries are in this country?” he asks with a tinge of exasperation.
But of the four countries that make up the UK — the others being England, Northern Ireland and Scotland — Wales seems to have had the most difficult time forging its own identity to the outside world.
“Wales has probably struggled more than our Scottish or [Northern] Irish counterparts to convey to the rest of the world that we are here in that distinctive way,” said Drakeford. “So in that sense, our success on the sporting field and getting to the World Cup certainly does [create] the opportunity to explain to the rest of world [that] we are a very distinct nation with our own language and history.
“I wonder even within the U.S., how many know the largest number of people who signed the Declaration of Independence were from Wales?”
As recently as the late 19th century, the esteemed Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its entry for Wales, directed readers: “See ‘England.’ ”
“For decades — centuries — we’ve [heard], ‘Oh, no. You don’t really exist as a nation,’ ” said Jewell, the Senedd member.
At times, the people of Wales seemed to prefer being England’s charges to striking out on their own, as in 1979, when a referendum proposing devolution — or a separate Welsh legislature with limited powers — was defeated by Welsh voters by a margin of nearly four to one. (A second referendum, in 1997, would pass, leading to the formation of the Senedd in 1999.)
For Wales to forge its own national identity, Jewell said, it required “shackles that had to be removed in peoples’ psyches.” And the success of the Welsh national soccer team this year, she said, has pushed the process along.
“I know that’s a really dramatic way of putting it,” she said. “But it does really feel like a shift.”
Tim Ream, the USMNT’s ‘grandpa’ at 35, never gave up on his World Cup dream By Steven Goff
As Drakeford, Wales’s first minister, put it, “When you’re a small nation alongside a much bigger nation, and the English language being such a global language, in some ways the most remarkable thing about Wales is its survival as its own place and with its own history. We haven’t just been submerged by the size and the reach of a country that we are next door to.”
It is perhaps fitting that Wales was placed in a World Cup group that also includes England — with a head-to-head matchup on Nov. 29 — so that worldwide viewers might understand that not only are the two countries and teams distinct but also distinctive.
“There is a weight of expectation on the English team that is ultimately suffocating and crippling,” said Welsh actor Gwilym Lee (“Jamestown,” “Bohemian Rhapsody”), who was raised in Birmingham, England, by Welsh parents, and now lives in London. “There is a sense of entitlement, an unfounded expectation on English football.
“We don’t really have that in Welsh football.”
But isn’t there a different sort of pressure on the Welsh team if, in fact, it is being asked to play not only for national pride, but for the advancement — perhaps the very survival — of the national culture?
Jewell pondered that question: “The weight of history is on them in lots of ways,” she conceded. “But rather than seeing it as a weight on their heads, I would prefer for them to see it as support beneath them. … I really feel we’ve made it now, and whatever happens from here is a wonderful bonus. I hope the players see that — that in our eyes they’re already winners.”
‘It’s such a proud, wonderful thing’
After King Henry VIII banned the Welsh language in 1536, it would be more than 400 years before it was legalized again. As recently as the 19th century, Welsh was literally beaten out of schoolkids by teachers who overhead it being spoken.
“Even in my grandparents’ time, people within Wales still looked down on the language. My grandparents would think there was something to almost be ashamed of about it,” said Jewell. “To think we have gone from that to being in a stadium full of people — in Cardiff, no less, which is quite an Anglicized city — [with] people singing this song about the resilience and joy in our Welshness, is phenomenal.
“It’s such a proud, wonderful thing for the nation actually to be proud of itself. Lots of your readers would think, ‘Well, of course you’d be proud of yourself as a nation.’ But it’s been a journey for Wales, and it’s a long time coming.”
In the early 1970s, a young leader of the nationalist Welsh Language Society was jailed briefly for defacing road signs — he had painted over their English words with Welsh ones. But the man was also a fledgling singer-songwriter — with influences that tended toward American protest singers such as Guthrie, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger — and he would eventually write the song that encapsulated the unlikely survival of the culture and language.
The singer’s name was Dafydd Iwan. The song was “Yma o Hyd.”
Now, when he drives into Cardiff from his village in the south of Wales, the signs all read in English and Welsh. When he recorded “Yma o Hyd,” he said, one school in Cardiff taught in Welsh; now there are 20.
“The cynical attitude towards the Welsh language as a dying language is gone,” Iwan said. “Where I live, virtually everybody speaks it as a first language. But it’s more than that. There is also the growth of the Welsh parliament and the Welsh education system. There is a growing feeling of pride. … This feeling of belonging to a nation which is determined to survive.”
In the weeks that followed Iwan’s performances in Cardiff in June, “Yma o Hyd” shot up the iTunes UK singles chart, leapfrogging songs by Lady Gaga and Harry Styles and ultimately landing at No. 1 — surpassing another 1980s relic that had been rediscovered by a new generation: Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” from the finale of the Netflix series “Stranger Things.”
A new version of “Yma o Hyd” — featuring Iwan’s original mix blended with the live performance at Cardiff City Stadium, featuring the crowd singing along — was released earlier this month to promote the team’s World Cup appearance.
Iwan said he planned to be in Qatar for group play; though he won’t be able to reprise his Cardiff performances in a stadium setting, he still expected to perform at a designated fan zone for Welsh fans who have traveled there.
And whatever happens, the growth of the Welsh culture and language within the country’s own borders has only one trajectory, heading ever onward. Recently, the Football Association of Wales signaled it expects to change how the name of the country is represented at international competitions.
Beginning in 2023, the national team will no longer be called Wales.
It will be known henceforth as Cymru, which is Welsh for “Wales.” | 2022-11-18T14:07:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wales returns to the World Cup with 'Yma o Hyd' anthem - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/wales-world-cup-yma-o-hyd/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/wales-world-cup-yma-o-hyd/ |
Ask Damon: My boss brought in political signs. I don’t share his views.
Hi Damon: About a month ago, I started a part-time gig at a local franchise food chain. I’m a 46-year-old woman who has found herself working with a mixed group of peers in the 15- to 19-year-old range. I love the work and my teammates. They are hard-working, honest and really nix any stereotypes of “young people these days.” As a married, childless individual, I am also mindful that these are young adults, and I try not to share anything too personal or what I think may be too “mature.”
However, the owner/operator started bringing in political signs (of a particular conservative group) into the shop over the weekend. When I first saw the signs, I think all the blood drained out of my face and my co-workers could tell something was wrong. It really caught me off-guard as I work for a state government agency and thought I wouldn’t have to worry about “politics” at my part-time gig. Lots of opinions were expressed and situations shared (including some expressing that if their parents really knew how they thought/felt, they’d be kicked out of the house), and I think I probably should have kept a few comments to myself.
While they weren’t egregious, what do I do now that I’ve shared a bit more about my views than I intended? And how do I remain neutral in the workplace? You’ve probably guessed that the political views of my conservative owner/manager are not in line with my own and you are absolutely correct. I’ve left employment in the past when the values of the company did not match mine, but can this part-time gig be saved?
— Politically Challenged
Politically Challenged: What does it mean to be an ethical consumer? An ethical worker? These are questions that float in and out of the atmosphere, like summer dandelion seeds — or, better yet, like dust — always there to be felt and grappled with, so ubiquitous that you barely remember they’re there. The reality is that negotiations must be made to be a member of society, which means that what constitutes “ethical” exists on a curve.
Is it ethical, for instance, to buy a composter from a store that contributed to deforestation? The people working at this newspaper are some of the most gifted, rigorous, and conscientious people in this industry, and yet someone could ask, “How can they be so conscientious if they work for the world’s richest man?” and no answer would be great.
What I’m saying here is that if you pulled the curtain back far enough and did research on each of the CEOs and owners and managers and board members where you’ve been employed, I’m certain you’d find political and/or moral justification to leave each place. (Including, of course, your job in the state government agency.) The main difference here is that your boss’s beliefs are too conspicuous to be ignored.
So, what should you do? There are levels of offensiveness, and you must determine where the line is for you. These signs that you saw — did you witness him carry them from his car into his closed-door office, or is the restaurant now littered with them? Or let’s say, for instance, that you’ve learned that your boss is pro-gun. Did you discover that because of an NRA bumper sticker on his truck, or did he come to work one day with a T-shirt saying Black Rifles Matter? Does that distinction, between the more subtle political belief and the intentionally provocative one, matter to you? If so, is that enough to leave a job?
I honestly don’t think it’s realistic, today, to be politically neutral at work. (Even the suggestion of political neutrality is a privilege exclusive to White Americans. For non-White people, something as mundane and innocuous as our hairstyles or even our first names can be considered political statements by employers.) And I don’t think it’s possible to walk back your beliefs or what you shared with your co-workers. Even if it were, I don’t think you should. Perhaps you can add some context to them, to give your teenage colleagues a more nuanced political perspective, but stand firm. Plus, how would the mechanics of walking them back even work? (“Hey guys. Remember everything I said last Tuesday about LGBTQ rights? I was just kidding!”)
If your boss’s expressed beliefs are in direct contradiction to your values, and this is causing you enough spiritual consternation to ask for advice about it, I think you should quit. And, if you have the opportunity, I think you should tell him why. If this were your full-time employment, maybe my advice would be different. But I presume you can get another part-time, food-related job, so why stay at one that compels you to even ask these questions? | 2022-11-18T14:33:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Damon: My boss brought in political signs. I don’t share his views. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/ask-damon-boss-political-signs-quit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/11/18/ask-damon-boss-political-signs-quit/ |
The invitations came on thick, cream-colored stock embossed with a familiar seal and scripted in navy blue calligraphy. “The President and Dr. Biden request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their granddaughter …”
On Saturday, Naomi Biden will marry Peter Neal on the South Lawn of the White House. That much we know. With the White House treating the wedding of President Biden’s granddaughter like a top-secret mission, declining to provide answers to even the most general questions posed by The Washington Post, that seems to be about all it would like the public to know.
Most friends of the couple, sensitive to their life in the public eye, declined to respond to The Post’s inquiries about the wedding as well, or even the basic story of their courtship. That leaves reporters and the curious public to piece together details from the tidbits posted on social media by the couple and their friends. Here’s what we know about the couple and their big day.
Naomi, 28, and Peter, 25, were set up by a mutual friend and met on a date in New York City in 2018, while Naomi was in law school at Columbia University. “These two fell in love after two days,” wrote friend Asha-Kai Grant in a caption for a photo of the couple she posted on Instagram last year.
Now, they live together on the third floor of the White House. Naomi is a lawyer focusing on international arbitration at the D.C. office of law firm Arnold & Porter, and Peter became an associate at Georgetown Law Center on National Security following his graduation this May from law school at the University of Pennsylvania. She went to Penn for undergrad and he attended George Washington University.
Their lives in D.C. aren’t too different from those of many other young professionals, save for the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. home address. They traveled — Austria, Italy, Wyoming, Delaware — and made the party rounds on White House correspondents’ dinner weekend. They share a fluffy, brown dog named Charlie and have bonded with first lady Jill Biden’s cat, Willow. Naomi calls the president “Pop” and the first lady “Nana.”
Naomi is the eldest daughter of the president’s younger son, Hunter, and his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle. Her parents met while working for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Portland, Ore. Naomi was named after the president’s firstborn daughter, who died as a 1-year-old in a car crash, along with his first wife, Neilia, in 1972. Both Hunter and his older brother Beau were in the car and were hospitalized for months.
A post shared by Kathleen Buhle (@kathleenbuhleofficial)
All three of Hunter’s daughters, Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy, went to Sidwell Friends, an elite private school in Washington, while their father ran his own lobbying firm and later became a consultant during the years that Biden served as vice president under Barack Obama. Hunter and Kathleen divorced in 2017, during a tumultuous period in Hunter’s life in which he was a heavy drug user, as he recounted in his recent memoir, “Beautiful Things.”
The bride has been active in her grandfather’s career. She called a family meeting in 2019, where she, her two younger sisters and their cousins urged him to run for president against Donald Trump.
She’s also friends with Tiffany Trump, whose own wedding was last week. They were in the same class at the University of Pennsylvania, and her grandparents attended the same graduation ceremony in 2016 as Trump. Tiffany posted a selfie of herself and Naomi in the Hamptons in 2018, decorated with two entwined hearts.
Peter was raised in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and is the son of two doctors: William Neal and Mary C. Neal. He has a sister, Betsy, and two brothers, Eliot and Willie. Like the Bidens, the Neals have experienced tragedy within their family. Willie died in 2009 when he was struck by a car in Maine while roller-skating. His mother has also had a brush with death — while on a kayaking expedition in Chile in 1999, she was pinned underwater by a waterfall for nearly 30 minutes. Her near-death experience (she says she was technically dead for a number of minutes) is the subject of her two books, “To Heaven and Back” and “7 Lessons from Heaven.”
Peter studied political communications in college. He was later a White House intern while Obama was in office and his fiancee’s grandfather was vice president. Since then, he worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, did a stint at the Atlantic Council and an internship at the Justice Department before landing at his current position at Georgetown.
There will be a South Lawn ceremony at 11 a.m. Saturday, and then a 7:30 p.m. reception with “cake and dancing,” according to the invitations. Some guests were only invited to the dessert portion of the evening. According to one guest, cellphones will be prohibited at the event — so don’t expect anyone to Instagram from the dance floor.
Who’s planning the wedding?
Bryan Rafanelli, who is considered one of the nation’s top wedding planners, and who has staged numerous events for the White House, is doing the nuptials for the Bidens, according to Politico. Expect a blowout: dramatic lighting, lavish floral backdrops and romantic table settings by candlelight make up his magical signature look. Fireworks are a possibility. Rafanelli is no stranger to the White House grounds or protocol, having staged more than a dozen events for the Obamas there, including state dinners and holiday decorations. His Boston firm Rafanelli Events planned Chelsea Clinton’s posh wedding for 450 guests in Rhinebeck, N.Y. and she wrote the introduction to his book “A Great Party: Designing the Perfect Celebration.” Rafanelli, who requires confidentiality agreements from his vendors, would not comment for this story.
Well, we don’t know who designed it, but several designers seem to be in the running. Ralph Lauren is a classic American brand that the president wore to his inauguration. The bride has often worn the designer and attended the brand’s fall/winter 2022 fashion show in New York City with her sister Finnegan in March. Ralph Lauren declined to say if it was involved — which could very well mean the company was involved and delighted by the speculation.
The bride was once an intern for Tom Ford in the public relations department, and wore Valentino to her grandfather’s inauguration. Valentino is known for its bridal collections. She’s also fond of Christian Siriano and Veronica Beard. The first lady is close with Reem Acra, another well-known gown designer.
Gabriella Rello Duffy, editorial director of Brides, says people care about all the details of the Biden wedding. “I definitely anticipate that this will set some trends and whatever Naomi does will have an influence on weddings for the next few years,” Duffy added. Jill Biden’s dress will be copied by mothers of the bride and grandmothers of the bride, she says.
“We think it’s going to be another wedding milestone in history. Like Chelsea Clinton’s wedding or looking back to Grace Kelly and Tricia Nixon,” Duffy says. “This is going to be really, really special.”
Peter proposed to Naomi with an emerald-cut diamond ring created by Shah & Shah Distinctive Jewelers in D.C. Jeweler Colin Shah says the gem is approximately two carats.
When Peter was preparing to propose, “He brought both her sisters down from college, they came and looked at everything,” Shah told The Post. “He was really sweet throughout. He wanted to make sure he was getting a beautiful, high-quality stone. He wanted to make sure it was something she liked. He was excited.”
Peter also brought his grandmother’s gold wedding band, which was melted down and incorporated into Naomi’s band, Shah says. “He wanted part of his family to be carried over into their family.”
Look for close friends of the Bidens and, of course, the entire family. Jill Biden’s special adviser, Anthony Bernal, was key to the planning, alongside the first lady’s communications director, Elizabeth Alexander.
Naomi’s friend Grant — a probable bridesmaid, if their social media closeness is any indication — is a producer for “Saturday Night Live.” Grant and Naomi attended the Sidwell Friends school together, and she has traveled to Jackson Hole with the couple, according to tagged photos on Instagram. On Wednesday, Grant posted an Instagram story of her and fellow Biden friend Mia Seder at a nail salon, and tagged Naomi with the phrase, “Let the festivities begin.” | 2022-11-18T14:33:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Naomi Biden’s White House Wedding - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/18/biden-white-house-wedding/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/18/biden-white-house-wedding/ |
There was nothing soft about Nancy Pelosi
The first female speaker of the House had to play by different rules, and she mastered the game anyway
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) meets with Senate leadership in 2009. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
If you had to consolidate Nancy Pelosi’s entire political career into one image, my vote is for her exquisitely rude applause of Donald Trump at the 2019 State of the Union. The president had signaled that he wanted recognition and technically speaking she had provided exactly what he asked for. She put her hands together and produced a clap that managed to look like a four-letter word, a scalpel made of velvet.
This was her way, her brand, her trademark. Decorum wielded like a weapon, courtesy as a high-art burn. “She’ll cut your head off,” her daughter Alexandra once said on CNN, “and you won’t even know you’re bleeding.”
The House Speaker announced on Thursday that she would be stepping down from Democratic leadership at the turnover of Congress in January. “The hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus that I so deeply respect,” she told her colleagues in a floor speech. She spoke of the wonder she felt upon visiting the Capitol for the first time as a small child, and how she still considered it “the most beautiful building in the world.”
She also said she had enjoyed working with “three presidents” during her tenure. The fact that she had overlapped with four presidents was the entire point. She fondly mentioned presidents George Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden by name. She did not mention Trump, and her silence on the matter was both civil and savage.
“I sort of wish she’d read those GOP men to their faces,” texted a friend who was also watching Pelosi’s speech. “They DESERVE IT.”
And maybe they did, these colleagues of hers who had demonized her and minimized the insurrection that damaged the most beautiful building in the world. But if she had berated them from the House floor, she would have been using a bludgeon instead of her customary needle, and she certainly wouldn’t have been Nancy Pelosi.
I found myself thinking, in the fifth decade of her career in public service, about what formed Pelosi into herself — her insistence on decorum and politeness on protocol even when it must have masked despair or frustration. The kind of woman who, in the middle of the chaotic and terrifying Jan. 6 riot, was captured on camera calmly strategizing how to conduct the business of Congress despite the “poo-poo” that had befouled the Capitol.
She was a woman of a certain age who came into her political life at a certain time, a girl whose father was her introduction to elected office in a time of patriarchal politics, a mother with five grown children by the time she made her own first run for Congress.
The answer to why she couldn’t “read those GOP men to their faces” is that rules were different for women, then and to a lesser extent now. Donald Trump can take a paintball gun to government norms and protocols, but to combat him Nancy Pelosi could only color within the lines, neatly and carefully, always keeping the big picture in mind.
She shepherded through the Affordable Care Act, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay act, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The more she accomplished, the more she was reviled by the right. If you can’t beat her, the thinking seemed to go, then make a bunch of sexist, ageist memes accusing her of witchcraft. A few days after her husband was attacked in their home by a man with a hammer, Trump told attendees at a rally, “I think she’s an animal.”
Pelosi would have never said such a thing from behind a podium. But last month, her daughter released private footage of her mother on the day of the Jan. 6 riots. In the video, shot before the invasion began, Pelosi was told that Trump was planning to come to the Capitol. “If he comes, I’m going to punch him out,” she said. “I’ve been waiting for this. For trespassing on the Capitol grounds, I’m going to punch him out.”
Listening to her say this gave you an inkling of how strenuously this woman, the vast majority of the time, must be French-pressing her rage.
It also gives you an inkling of how deeply she believes in good, orderly government. In this private moment, her rage toward Trump was not because he had offended her, but because he might offend the Capitol grounds.
Pelosi is not giving up her seat in Congress, merely her role in Democratic leadership. But her speech was a functional goodbye, a graceful bowing out. In delivering her speech she provided a model for how to say farewell. To her fellow members of America’s congressional gerontocracy: This is how you do it. This is how you make way for the next generation. To the former president: This is how you do it. This is how you enact an orderly transfer of power.
I will miss seeing her behind the dais come January. I will miss her leading by example, and her unfailing politeness, and I will miss the simmering righteousness underneath. | 2022-11-18T14:33:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | There was nothing soft about Nancy Pelosi - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/18/nancy-pelosi-retiring/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/11/18/nancy-pelosi-retiring/ |
He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his orchestral suite ‘Air Music.’ His diaries offered a ‘worldly, intelligent, licentious, highly indiscreet’ entree into elite gay and artistic circles.
By Tim Page
Composer and author Ned Rorem won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for “Air Music,” an orchestral suite. (AP)
The critic and historian of the voice Peter G. Davis, writing in New York magazine, called “Evidence” “one of the musically richest, most exquisitely fashioned, most voice-friendly collections of songs I have ever heard by any American composer.”
By this point, however, Mr. Rorem was at least as well known for his diaries as for his music. In 1966, he published “The Paris Diary,” which stirred up considerable controversy, largely because of its frank, first-person account of the author’s sex life, which was both gay and many-partnered at a time when neither proclivity was considered a fit subject for conversation.
The book, said New Yorker writer Janet Flanner, was “worldly, intelligent, licentious, highly indiscreet.”
“The Paris Diary” set the tone for the diaries that followed over the next four decades. They combined inspired cultural criticism and purple prose, set down in episodic, anecdotal manner and tempered with an ironic wit.
Of Norwegian extraction, tall, blue-eyed, movie-star handsome and gifted with enormous personal charm, Mr. Rorem was once described by arts critic John Gruen as resembling “a mixture of the debonair and the calculating.”
Mr. Rorem seemed to know everybody in the cultural world — indeed, from 2000 to 2003, he served as the president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Yet acquaintances could never be sure that they would not end up immortalized, for better or worse, in one of Mr. Rorem’s books.
He wrote candidly and explicitly of his love affairs, including what he called his “four Time magazine covers” (John Cheever, Tennessee Williams, Leonard Bernstein and Noel Coward). He published a memoir in 1993 entitled “Knowing When to Stop,” which prompted a comment that was reported anonymously in the London Independent: “The trouble with Ned is that he doesn’t.”
‘A Quaker atheist’
Ned Miller Rorem was born in Richmond, Ind., on Oct. 23, 1923, the son of C. Rufus Rorem, a medical economist whose research helped inspire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and his wife, the former Gladys Miller, an antiwar activist in the Society of Friends.
“We were Quakers of the intellectual rather than the puritanical variety,” Mr. Rorem wrote in his second book, “The New York Diary” (1967). Throughout his life, he would describe himself as a “Quaker atheist,” finding no contradiction in the statement.
Opera composer Gian Carlo Menotti dies at 95
Mr. Rorem graduated in 1946 from the Juilliard School in New York, from which he also received a master’s degree in 1948. To support himself in New York, he served as an assistant and copyist for the composer and critic Virgil Thomson, who paid the young man $20 a week and gave him lessons in orchestration.
Mr. Rorem moved to Morocco in 1949 and then to Paris, where he became the protege and constant companion of the Vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles, a wealthy patron of the arts; he lived with her until 1957, after which he returned to New York, as he put it, “for publication and performance.”
He was always frank about his ambitions: “To become famous, I would sign any paper,” he said, referring to the Faust legend.
By the time Mr. Rorem was in his mid-40s, he was an alcoholic, and a sometimes disputatious one. His early diaries are full of self-pity and self-recrimination for his condition.
“The reason to drink was to get drunk,” he told the Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide in 2010. “I was never not drunk. Nobody believes it, but I was really very shy. If you drink a lot, you’re less shy. Because I was cute, people paid attention to me, and so I drank more than I should have. I stayed out later than I should have. Finally, I said to myself, anyone can get drunk, but only I can write my music.”
He achieved a general sobriety in the late 1960s and, after occasional relapses, took his last drink in 1973.
Although Mr. Rorem always considered himself a “composer who also writes, not a writer who also composes,” his diaries and other autobiographical works have reached a larger general audience. They describe both his early hyperactive love life and then the long period of happy domesticity he shared with the organist James Holmes, who died in 1999.
These books are filled with strong opinions — he disliked the music of Beethoven (who sounded “outmoded,” he said), Berlioz and most of his avant-garde composer colleagues, from Pierre Boulez to Philip Glass (who wrote, he said, in “a musical Esperanto”).
He took regular potshots at authors as diverse as William S. Burroughs (“Hype, the mask of the ungifted, was never more in evidence than on the PBS portrait of [his] charmless ego”) and Truman Capote (who “sold his talent for a mess of pottage”). Mr. Rorem also seemed impelled to share with his readers details they might plausibly have done without — the precise physical location of his herpes outbreaks, for example, and just how many trips he made to the bathroom every night.
Despite such private musings, Mr. Rorem was an inspiring teacher who gave master classes throughout the country and taught for many years at the Curtis Institute, where his students included Pulitzer-winning composer Jennifer Higdon and opera composer Daron Hagen.
In a 2003 profile of Mr. Rorem, Hagen told the New York Times that he was once at an artists’ retreat and wrote his former teacher a letter “that described a doomed love affair, writer’s block, gossip and all sorts of nonsense. I got this beautiful little postcard back just saying: ‘Dear Daron: Colette said no one expects you to be happy. Just get your work done. Love, Ned.’ I put it up in my studio, and I got back to work.”
Mr. Rorem stopped teaching in his late 70s to devote his time to his own composition. In all, he wrote 10 operas of various lengths, large bodies of work for piano and organ, chamber music of all kinds and more than 500 songs.
In addition to his diaries and memoir, Mr. Rorem published books of criticism, including “Music From Inside Out” (1967), “Setting the Tone” (1983), “Settling the Score” (1987) and “Other Entertainment” (1996). He also published a general collection of his letters, “Wings of Friendship” (2005), and a limited-edition gathering of his correspondence with the composer and novelist Paul Bowles, “Dear Paul, Dear Ned” (2007).
He told the Hartford Courant in 1993 that he was shocked at receiving the Pulitzer because he felt the “stuffy” music establishment would rather punish him for his “wicked ways.”
“But it sort of gives you a certain authority,” he added. “My name is now always preceded by ‘Pulitzer Prize-winning composer … So if I die in a whorehouse, at least the obit will say, ‘Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer Ned Rorem Dies in Whorehouse.’ ” | 2022-11-18T15:04:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ned Rorem, Pulitzer-winning composer and noted diarist, dies at 99 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/18/ned-rorem-dead-composer-diarist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/18/ned-rorem-dead-composer-diarist/ |
UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s first budget had to pass one test above all: After September’s fiscal-policy debacle, which crushed the pound and caused bond yields to spike, investors needed to be persuaded that the Tories’ new leaders know what they are doing. Hunt took no chances and did what was necessary. He announced serious tax increases and spending cuts that, in due course, should be enough to get public borrowing back under control.
The bad news is that the forecast attached to the new measures is simply dire. The Office for Budget Responsibility, Britain’s independent fiscal watchdog, predicts a recession lasting more than a year. Aggregate output isn’t expected to recover to its pre-pandemic level until 2024, a far worse performance than that of other advanced economies. Household disposable income, adjusted for inflation, will stay below pre-pandemic levels through 2027. Give Hunt credit for facing reality — but there’s no disguising the gravity of this setback.
The immediate challenge is Russia’s war on Ukraine and the resulting turmoil in global energy markets. (Britain’s economy is heavily dependent on gas.) But this latest shock came on top of others, each severe in its own right. The UK economy was hit especially hard by the financial collapse of 2008 and had recovered only haltingly. Next came Brexit, which throttled the country’s ability to trade, suppressed investment, and amplified economic uncertainty. Then, with energy costs, inflation and public borrowing all soaring, the government led briefly by Liz Truss assaulted investors with a proudly delusional tax-cutting budget. In all, quite an inheritance.
Hunt’s fiscal reforms are, in broad terms, well-judged. His budget maintains emergency spending in the short term to cushion households from higher energy prices and other cost-of-living pressures, but curbs spending and raises taxes substantially in future years to rein in borrowing. Some of the tax increases are explicit (the 45% top rate on incomes will kick in at roughly £125,000 [$148,000], not £150,000), but most are stealthy (personal-tax thresholds will be frozen in nominal terms through 2028). By 2027, the budget measures will be cutting some £60 billion from the projected annual deficit. Public debt is expected to climb to a high of just under 100% of gross domestic product in 2025 and 2026, then fall slowly starting in 2027.
To accommodate these new estimates, the government has had to relax its fiscal targets. It now promises to get borrowing below 3% of gross domestic product and debt on a downward path in five years. (The existing rules, soon to be replaced, require current spending to be covered by taxes and the debt to start falling in three years.) That’s a sensible adjustment: There’s no point in goals that nobody expects, or even wishes under current conditions, to be met. The vital thing is that, for now at least, Hunt has fiscal targets and the policies required to hit them.
After the Truss calamity, few would still argue that fiscal credibility doesn’t matter — and with luck, Hunt’s announcements will help to restore it. But it bears emphasizing that this barely begins to fix what’s wrong with the UK economy. A recession has begun and will have to be endured to get inflation under control. Further ahead, chronic slow growth in productivity, combined with growing disengagement from the labor force, means only sluggish improvements at best in living standards.
Britain’s economic policy needs to turn to promoting skills, investment and trade (above all with the European Union) if there’s to be any hope of restoring its economic vitality. Avoiding the next fiscal meltdown is a start, but only a start. | 2022-11-18T15:04:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hunt’s Fiscal Repairs Won’t Mend the UK Economy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hunts-fiscal-repairs-wont-mend-the-ukeconomy/2022/11/18/bb283f66-6748-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/hunts-fiscal-repairs-wont-mend-the-ukeconomy/2022/11/18/bb283f66-6748-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
If I were a first lady? I’d quit, too.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric, accompanied by first lady Irina Karamanos, in Santiago, Chile, on March 11. (Esteban Felix/AP)
People have been doing some impressive quitting these days, from the quiet kind to the Twitter kind. But I think my favorite recent resignation is that of anthropologist and political organizer Irina Karamanos, who’s now in the process of quitting a job she never really wanted: first lady of Chile.
Karamanos is the partner of Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric. She reluctantly assumed the first lady role when he took office earlier this year — “it seems contradictory to take it on as a feminist,” she said — and promised to reform the position.
But there’s no way to reform the role of first lady. It’s either sexist or antidemocratic or both.
Its responsibilities are somewhat hazy, defined not by statute but by a tradition that dates from Dolley Madison, who, though she was the fourth president’s wife, was the first to do first-lady types of things. Those are essentially a dolled-up package of what sociologists now call “invisible labor” — the work it takes to keep a household going, usually unrecognized and always uncompensated. Typically, this labor is performed by women. So far, in the United States, the role of first lady is, too.
A first lady’s duties are often described as “ceremonial,” but don’t let that fool you. Anyone who has been responsible for Thanksgiving, say, or a child’s birthday party or preparing for school picture day understands that “ceremonial” still means you’re up until 2 a.m. cooking, cleaning, wrapping and ironing, with a to-do list buzzing through your head. It isn’t as fun as it sounds. The Post described the first lady role as “a demanding, full-time job for no pay.” Maybe you’ve had one of those.
Official first ladies at least get a nice ceremonial title to go with their ceremonial duties. And they get a staff. In the United States, for example, the first lady gets a chief floral designer and a White House social secretary. (You know what else is invisible labor? Delegating.)
Karamanos decided ultimately to reject those burdens, on her behalf and on behalf of future spouses of the president. She announced in October that “the institutional role of the first lady as we know it now will end.”
The responsibilities she’s giving up include overseeing a children’s orchestra, a day-care network and a science museum. U.S. first ladies, in addition to hosting state events, redecorating the Oval Office and having hair, also choose a “cause,” often with peppy mottos: “Kids Can Cook” or “Let’s Go Gardening!”
Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug initiative was called “Just Say No.” Michelle Obama’s healthier-kids project was “Let’s Move!” Melania Trump’s slogan was “Be Best.” And Hillary Clinton’s was — let me check — oh, yes: Let’s put a plan in place to provide universal health-care coverage, with mandates for large employers and subsidies for poor people.
In other words, not a slogan at all but an essential policy initiative: the Clinton health-care plan. It didn’t go over so well. Even I, a Democrat who believed the United States desperately needed health-care reform, and a feminist who was happy to have a smart woman figure out how to do that, thought it was odd that Clinton was named chair of the Cabinet-level Task Force on National Health Care Reform simply because she was married to the president.
I don’t blame Clinton for wanting to expand a limited and limiting role, and I’m certain she was more than capable. But the problem with giving the first lady work that’s less ceremonial and more consequential is that it seems a bit … undemocratic. The burden of choosing the crystal stemware may unfairly fall to the first lady, but it doesn’t affect the country. On the other hand, the architect of national health-care reform should be someone who was elected — or at least searched for, vetted and appointed.
When Karamanos moved to detach the science museum from the office of the first lady, she said that role should be filled by someone the minister of culture chooses. “The partner of the president is chosen to be a partner,” she told the museum board, “not to be a president of foundations.”
By quitting her first lady duties, Karamanos is asserting her right to play the lead role in her life rather than a supporting role in her partner’s. But by quitting on behalf of all future Chilean presidential spouses — by officially detaching the role from its traditional responsibilities — she’s doing something far more consequential. She is championing the right to be paid for one’s work. | 2022-11-18T15:04:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | If I were a first lady? I’d quit too. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/irina-karamanos-first-lady-chile-reform/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/irina-karamanos-first-lady-chile-reform/ |
As a Senate staffer and Federal Trade Commission chairman, he played a key role in some of the most significant gains in the consumer protection movement
Michael Pertschuk, a consumer advocate who chaired the Federal Trade Commission during the Carter administration, in 1979.
The son of an immigrant furrier, Mr. Pertschuk grew up on Long Island, graduated from Yale Law School and came to Washington as a young Senate staffer in the early 1960s, just as the modern consumer rights movement began to take shape.
Mr. Pertschuk joined the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee in 1964 as chief counsel, later assuming the duties of staff director. He was among a small coterie of Senate aides, a Washington Post reporter wrote in 1977, who occupied “the top stratum of an invisible network of staff power and influence in the Senate, with impact on the life of every citizen of the United States.”
“Among other things, I spent a good part of my life making life miserable for the tobacco companies,” Mr. Pertschuk would later reflect. “And I’m not sorry about that.”
The FTC, once dismissed as the “old lady of Pennsylvania Avenue,” had already begun under previous chairmen to take a more aggressive approach to oversight. But Mr. Pertschuk took an even more muscular stance, setting out, he said, to make the agency “the best public interest law firm in the country.”
In an interview, Robert Reich, who worked under Mr. Pertschuk at the FTC and later served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration, said that the “kidvid” rule was “not particularly radical” and that Mr. Pertschuk saw it as “very much in the tradition of the FTC’s mandate to protect young children from … advertising directed specifically at them.”
“You have managed to alienate the leading citizens of every town and city in Kentucky,” FTCWatch quoted U.S. Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.), as telling Mr. Pertschuk. “Lawyers, doctors, dentists, optometrists, funeral directors, real estate brokers, life insurance companies and salesmen, new and used car dealers, bankers, loan companies and other credit suppliers, Coca-Cola bottlers …”
Shortly before he left office, Mr. Pertschuk issued, on the request of U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a 273-page report excoriating the commission under its Republican leaders. In their ardor for deregulation, he wrote, they had descended into a “caricature of reform” whose “extremism and ideological blindness led to a new era of regulatory nihilism and just plain nuttiness.”
Michael Pertschuk was born in London on Jan. 12, 1933. His father traveled throughout Europe in the fur trade, the family’s business for several generations, and his mother was a homemaker.
His first job in Washington was as a legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Maurine B. Neuberger (D-Ore.). While on her staff, he assisted with committee legwork that led to the official warning by Surgeon General Luther L. Terry in 1964 linking smoking to cancer and heart disease.
Mr. Pertschuk’s marriage to Carleen Dooley ended in divorce. In addition to his wife of 45 years, of Santa Fe, survivors include two children from his first marriage, Amy Pertschuk of Sausalito, Calif., and Mark Pertschuk of Berkeley, Calif.; a stepson, Daniel Sofaer of Brooklyn; and three grandchildren.
Mr. Pertschuk wrote several books, including “Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership From the Tobacco Wars” (2001) and “When the Senate Worked for Us: The Invisible Role of Staffers in Countering Corporate Lobbies” (2017).
“I have been saddened,” he wrote in the latter book, “by how few look to government as the answer for themselves or for the country. … My fondest hope is that this book will awaken the interest of young people to the potential rewards of working in the federal government.” | 2022-11-18T15:08:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michael Pertschuk, unyielding consumer watchdog, dies at 89 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/18/michael-pertschuk-consumer-ftc-dead/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/18/michael-pertschuk-consumer-ftc-dead/ |
By Niha Masih
Anant Gupta
Activists protest the World Cup in Qatar outside the Qatar Embassy in Paris on Tuesday. The protesters honored migrant workers who died during construction work for the tournament, and decried alleged rights violations in Qatar. (Francois Mori/AP)
NEW DELHI — The last time Ramulu Maraveni’s children saw their father was in March on a grainy video call from Qatar, where he worked. His two daughters, aged 18 and 16, needed dresses, and his 10-year-old son asked for a teacup. They spoke the next morning before school. By the time the children got home, Maraveni was dead.
Eight months later, his family, who live in India, is still not sure why.
Maraveni 51, paved roads around World Cup stadiums and collapsed while on the job, a colleague said. A Qatari death certificate said the cause was “acute heart failure from natural causes.” He had been working grueling hours as Qatar raced to prepare for the tournament, his wife said. A few weeks before his death, he fainted, but a doctor who examined him blamed low blood pressure, and he soon returned to work.
“It was hard work and continuous,” said his wife, Lavanya Maraveni, who estimated he earned between $500 and $600 a month. “But he continued to work for our children’s future.”
The construction company that had employed Maraveni for 15 years sent his family a check for $3,000 to cover back wages and other benefits, his wife said.
Human rights groups say the unexplained deaths of thousands of migrant workers during Qatar’s nearly 12 years of preparations for the World Cup have tarnished the tournament, exposing lax oversight by FIFA and abusive labor conditions in the host country.
For the worker’s relatives, the deaths have left grief and debt, but also a deep and distressing uncertainty over the way they died, and what, in the end, they were owed.
For years, there was no system, and seemingly no will, to vigorously investigate many of the deaths, rights groups said, with the toll obscured by official certificates attributing them to natural causes, which required no follow up under Qatari law.
Qatar has disputed the death toll, in part by insisting that work on infrastructure apart from World Cup stadiums was not related to the tournament. It has also carried reforms that labor and human rights groups say are significant and will better protect workers if they are fully implemented.
Beyond the deaths, watchdog groups said many migrant workers trying to support families back home were trapped in a punishing system that included the payment of exorbitant fees to recruiters, non-payment of wages and appalling conditions in work camps. Many of those conditions persist.
Qatar, the smallest country and first Arab state to host the tournament, has so far rebuffed calls that it, along with FIFA, contribute to a compensation fund for deceased workers and establish an independent body to investigate their deaths. Qatari officials say the country has already provided tens of millions of dollars to workers whose wages were withheld by their companies.
Migrant workers make up the vast majority of Qatar’s population, with many Nepali, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian workers employed in low wage jobs, including construction. They have played a central role in building the architecture of the World Cup — not just the stadiums, but the highways and roads that lead to them, an extensive metro system and hotels for fans.
Indians are the largest migrant group in Qatar. India’s foreign ministry has said that nearly 2,400 of its citizens died in Qatar between 2014 and 2021, without specifying what caused the deaths. The ministry also said in February that Qatar topped the list of countries from which Indians were seeking compensation for worker fatalities, with 81 cases pending.
Rejimon Kuttappan, an Indian journalist who covers migrant rights, said the Indian government has been reluctant to provide more detailed information. “They keep on meddling with the data to maintain the diplomatic ties and the good friendship” with Qatar, he said Thursday, during a briefing hosted by Human Rights Watch.
Because Qatar’s death certificates often cited natural causes or cardiac arrest, it was generally difficult to prove how workers died, he added, even when family members or colleagues believed that “humidity or overtime work or mental stress” were to blame. When bodies were returned to India, families rarely conducted autopsies, he said, because of a desire to quickly hold burials or because they were unaware that such exams were an option.
Maraveni, who hailed from Shivangalapally, a village in southern India, had worked for Boom Construction in Qatar since 2007, according to a copy of a letter that was sent by the company to his co-workers after his death and reviewed by The Washington Post. The letter asked his colleagues to provide “kindness and any assistance to his bereaved family”; they responded by pooling nearly $500 to send to Lavanya and the three children.
The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment or to a detailed list of questions about Maraveni’s employment history or the circumstances of his death. An employee at the company told a Washington Post reporter who visited Boom’s offices in Doha on Thursday that the head of human resources, who authored the letter, was unavailable.
In recent years, Maraveni helped build roads in Qatar as a road roller operator, including those around Lusail stadium, north of central Doha, where the World Cup finals will be held, according to his roommate and co-worker.
Lavanya, 36, said her husband worked 12-hour shifts that often stretched longer. The work alternated between night and day shifts. In the run-up to the World Cup, the pressure grew: Workers were given targets they had to complete, no matter how much time it took, she recalled Ramulu telling her. The heat could be unbearable, often exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
“There is a lot of work happening in Qatar at a very fast pace,” said a worker who knew Maraveni, and spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his job. “I normally work 8-hour shifts but right now I am working 12 hours a day,” said the worker, who is employed by a different company in Qatar.
The pace also meant there were fewer chances to go home to India. Maraveni had not seen his family in two years — he had been hoping to receive a benefit that allowed workers who were away that long to claim a free ticket and two months leave. But his family said the company would not grant his leave because there was too much work.
A month before his death, Maraveni had fainted, a co-worker said. A private doctor told Maraveni the cause was low blood pressure, and he resumed work immediately, said the co-worker, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation by his employer.
On March 19, Maraveni, who lived in the company’s labor camp, woke up earlier than his colleagues and cooked rice for the group, his co-worker said. Hours later at the work site, he vomited and was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead, according to interviews with family members and the co-worker.
The uncertainty over what caused his death, and the lingering questions around so many similar cases, is especially vexing given how forcefully Qatar has moved on other fronts to improve its labor practices — granting migrant workers a minimum wage and the ability to change jobs, limiting working hours during the hottest months, and vowing to punish employers who withhold wages.
In an interview, Mahmoud Qutub, the director of workers’ welfare and labor rights at the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Qatar’s World Cup organizers, repeated the government’s official position that only three worker deaths were related directly to the tournament. But he acknowledged there had been “confusion and misunderstandings” on both sides of the debate, in part because of a lack of government data.
“The lesson learned is transparency,” he said, adding that a 2020 report by the International Labor Organization that found 50 worker-related deaths that year was an “important” step.
For Ramulu’s family, life has changed dramatically. Without the monthly $350 remittance from her husband, Lavanya said they were subsisting on the $80 she earns each month by hand rolling cigarettes.
The three children — one of whom has a congenital abnormality — have been forced to drop out of their private school and now attend public school.
Over the years, Ramulu had been able to pay back the debt he took on to get the job in Qatar and expand their two-room mud home to a four-room brick house. He had even treated himself, buying a motorcycle.
His wife sold it recently to pay for school fees.
“Can you imagine the life of a widow,” Lavanya said. “Life seems meaningless without him, and I often do not wish to live any longer. But I have to, for our kids,”
Fahim reported from Doha. B. Kartheek in Hyderabad, Telangana contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T15:12:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Families of migrant World Cup workers who died in Qatar are waiting for answers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/qatar-world-cup-migrant-workers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/qatar-world-cup-migrant-workers/ |
Admiring the beauty — and beautiful politics — of the Black family home
In ‘AphroChic,’ Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason celebrate homeowners while reminding us of the history behind the tenuous nature of home for Black Americans
Review by Robin Givhan
Alexander Smalls's Harlem home is a portrait of history, style and politics. (Patrick Cline/Aphrochic: Celebrating the Legacy of the Black Family Home)
The photographs in “AphroChic: Celebrating the Legacy of the Black Family Home” are as beautiful and inspiring as one might expect from a coffee-table book focused on interior design. There are grand architectural gestures, carefully curated tabletop vignettes and enviable vistas. But in between the admiring looks at thoughtfully adorned spaces, history intrudes and disrupts any illusion of perfection. That is not a flaw but an enhancement. The result is a richer, more complicated story.
In “AphroChic,” authors Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason acknowledge the bigotry and institutionalized racism — the restrictive covenants, redlining policies — that once made homeownership a near-impossible dream for Black Americans and even made renting a demoralizing endeavor. The book presents once-common race covenants in housing contracts alongside heirloom furnishings and the whimsical art of modern life. Fragile paperwork memorializing an ancestor’s heroic role in the Underground Railroad hangs framed on a wall behind a gleaming banister. A stylized cotton plant symbolizes the sorrows of generations of enslaved people who were forced to cultivate that crop for the benefit of their overlords, but it also stands as a testament to one family’s dogged success.
Each image is a reminder that the authors are telling a familiar story about aspirational homes and tantalizing furnishings, but from a different point of view.
These are beautiful interiors, as well as statements about identity, autonomy and, most important, security. They are inherently personal, as well as political. “Part of being Black, everything you do is political,” Mason says. “But because everything you do is political, everything you do has meaning.”
AphroChic is a brand that Mason and Hays established in 2007. Today, many budding entrepreneurs seeking a creative side gig might launch a podcast or set up a beachhead on the newest social media platform. But 15 years ago, the medium of choice was a blog.
Hays and Mason were living in California. She was a policy attorney with an interest in interior design; he was an academic studying theology, religious doctrine and the African diaspora. “I will admit that my idea of design [was] if a room had four walls, a door and somewhere to sit, I was fine,” Mason says. “But I wanted to be a better conversation partner for Jeanine. I realized I wasn’t holding up my end of the design conversation. So I was like, ‘Well, why don’t we start a blog?’”
The substance of that blog was born out of what Hays didn’t see celebrated in the pages of the design magazines and books she devoured: the homes of Black men and women. More specifically, the homes of Black men and women who weren’t entertainers or athletes. Black homes most often appeared in discussions of extremes — either poverty and deprivation, or the unicorn successes of people such as Oprah Winfrey and LeBron James. The equivalent of a “normal” home — one belonging to an educator or lawyer or business person — was presumed to be identical to a White person’s home. “AphroChic” argues that there are differences, from aesthetic to symbolic. But beyond that, Hays says, Black-owned homes should be celebrated because some of them are simply glorious.
“Black folks love color,” Hays says. “If I’m thinking about when I was a child and my great-grandmother’s home, there was color everywhere. There was art everywhere; and there were objects everywhere.”
“We definitely see it across the board in so many homes. We did have a few that gave sort of respite to the eye, but at the same time, I do think that color is just something that we happily embrace,” Hays says. “In America, a lot of design culture is definitely seen through a Eurocentric lens. Color can be very frightening. People are very much afraid of putting color on the walls. That’s why you see a lot of creams and beiges.”
Indeed, the conventional interior design story has a professional decorator helping a timid homeowner ease into deeply colored walls or furniture by adding a few cheerful throw pillows or tchotchkes here and there. Or it pronounces a singular hue au courant: avocado, hyper blue, millennial pink, Barbiecore pink. Color is considered a daring statement rather than standard practice.
“People go: ‘Americans are afraid of color.’ And we say, ‘well, what Americans are you talking to?’” Mason says. They chose the name AphroChic and its spelling as a nod to culture as well as geography — they are both from Philadelphia.
The interior design world has long been associated with wealth, privilege and Whiteness. The founding mothers and fathers of the field include Sister Parish, Albert Hadley, Elsie de Wolfe, Dorothy Draper and Billy Baldwin. They were often as well-traveled and well-heeled as their clientele. The industry is built on relationships, and those are formed out of commonalities and trust. Decorating a home is a series of intimate transactions that begins with understanding how a client lives — or would like to live. Assumptions are made about who has good taste, whose taste is worth emulating, whose taste is valued.
The ranks of top interior designers, those whose work adorns magazine covers or is featured in show houses, now include Black practitioners such as Darryl Carter, with his mix of neutrals, traditional silhouettes and antiques; Sheila Bridges, who found broad acclaim with her Harlem Toile de Jouy wallpaper; Los Angeles-based Brigette Romanek, whose clients include Gwyneth Paltrow, Misty Copeland and Beyoncé; Corey Damen Jenkins, with his elegant and refined sensibility; Atlanta’s Tavia Forbes and Monet Masters; and veteran Rayman Boozer, for whom grand, colorful gestures are a signature.
Justina Blakeney’s Jungalow brand merges bohemian quirkiness with an obsession with plants, and filters it all through her own mixed-raced identity. The Black Artists and Designers Guild supports people of color in the creative industries. The world of acclaimed decorators has become more diverse. Inclusivity is a work in progress.
But “AphroChic” isn’t a celebration of design professionals, although it gives them their due. It’s a validation of alternative perspectives. It tells stories that aren’t so widely known. “AphroChic” isn’t a book of interior design trends; it’s a peek into homes that are both normal and rarefied.
One of the most striking homes belongs to Shawna Freeman, who lives in Charlotte, N.C. She constructed the cotton tree that stands against a wall in her front parlor from puffs of white cotton blossoms and fig branches. Her family once picked cotton for plantation owners. Later, they became sharecroppers. Finally, they became landowners. The tree tells the story of how Freeman’s family became financially independent. It’s also a compelling artistic gesture. It’s both personal and political.
Another notable home belongs to Alexander Smalls, whose career path has taken him from opera singer to restaurateur to an ambassador for Lowcountry cuisine, with its classic dishes such as frogmore stew and she-crab soup. Smalls lives in Harlem, his home a chaotic scrapbook of his past professions, his travels and his multitude of interests. Every corner emphasizes the conviviality of home: an overstocked bar cart, a collection of glassware, a table setting inspired by the African diaspora.
As Hays and Mason assembled their book, they asked each of their subjects to define home in a few words. Somewhere toward the end of their monologue would be words such as “identity,” “success” or “progress.” But the respondents all began by describing home as a symbol of “security.” Above all else, it was a place of respite.
“For each of them, the home itself was about: ‘When I come in and when I close the door, I feel safe,’” Hays says. “‘I’m enveloped in this space and I feel like no one can harm me here.’”
Mason attributes that commonality to the tenuous nature of home for Black Americans. Despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and a multitude of programs to assist first-time home buyers, the gap between Black and White homeownership has grown over the past 40 years. And even when a Black person has a place called home, they are not always king — or queen — of their castle. Successful Black entrepreneurs saw their homes and businesses burned in the 1921 race massacre in Tulsa. In 1924, a Black family’s thriving resort property in Manhattan Beach, Calif., was seized by eminent domain. (It was recently returned to the family after almost a century.)
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested in 2009 when neighbors called police as he was entering his own home after locking himself out. In 2018, Botham Jean was shot and killed in his home by an off-duty police officer while sitting on his sofa eating vanilla ice cream. In 2020, Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by law enforcement while sleeping in her home. Home is a promise of security; but sometimes that promise goes unkept.
The idea for “AphroChic” was sparked in 2019. But it was born into a world very different from the one in which it was conceived. A global pandemic revealed just what a privilege it is to be stuck at home. Worldwide protests underscored a system of racial injustice. This pretty book heralding Black homes is a reminder of how deeply powerful it is to not merely have a home but to settle into it with certainty and individuality.
“We can dismiss design as pretty things arranged nicely in a room. But for us, it’s a lot more than that,” Mason says. “We look at [design] as sort of this window on history, this window on society and politics and economics.”
“AphroChic” transforms stories about home into reflections on plantations where ancestors were enslaved; a conversation about design into a recollection of the Great Migration that brought a generation of refugees north and west; and a homeowner’s stylish love of color into a rebuke of this country’s efforts to cover over its past with thin coats of beige and gray. | 2022-11-18T15:21:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | "AphroChic" Celebrates the Personality and Politics of the Black Family Home - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/18/aphrochic-celebrating-black-family-home-jeanine-hays-bryan-mason/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/11/18/aphrochic-celebrating-black-family-home-jeanine-hays-bryan-mason/ |
Woody (left) and Wayne Sellers wrote the now-internet-viral “Commanders Song” over the summer. (Courtesy of Dwayne Goodine)
One afternoon in April, Woody “Oh Goody” Sellers, a 58-year-old part-time DJ, was in a recording studio trying to finish the hook for a song he’d been thinking about for three years. He’d written most of the words, bought a beat on BeatStars.com and spent many days behind the wheel of his FedEx delivery truck, radio off, humming along, trying to find a flow.
In the studio, he muttered “Commanders” over and over, hoping to find a punchy, catchy phrase to complete the hook. But nothing seemed quite right. Eventually, for reasons that still mystify him, he blurted out: “Left hand up! Who are we? The Commanders!”
Later, at home in Capitol Heights, he played the demo for his wife, Chaquita. She asked why he’d said “left hand up.” After all, most people are right-handed.
Early on, the Sellerses promoted the song on their personal social media profiles. Slowly, it gained a wider audience, and it was mostly mocked. But throughout the fall, the sentiment shifted. Clips from the music video they made went viral. Talk-show hosts praised the tune for audiences in the hundreds of thousands. The Wizards’ DJ spun it in Capital One Arena. A company created “Left Hand Up” T-shirts for $28 each. Quarterback Taylor Heinicke put his left hand up during an interview. Before a game earlier this month, the Sellerses tailgated at FedEx Field, and many of the fans streaming by had visceral reactions to the song, shooting their left hands into the air or racing over to take selfies.
The reception has stunned the Sellerses. Normally, Woody’s posts on YouTube get about 100 views. The video for “Commanders Song” recently crossed 107,000.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Woody said. “Where we at right now, I had no idea. … This is, like, so amazing. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
During the meteoric rise, the Sellerses said, their dream was for the team they’ve loved their whole lives to play their song at FedEx Field. Recently, the Commanders invited them to perform it at their next home game, Nov. 27 against Atlanta.
The Sellerses will be there. Wayne plans to take the day off from his seasonal job as a concourse security guard at FedEx Field.
‘We done crossed over’
The Sellerses represent a significant portion of the Commanders’ fan base that’s survived the past 20 years: the Black community in the DMV. Their track taps into the nostalgia that’s sustained many fans, but it’s more than a requiem. It provides intergenerational connective tissue for a franchise that’s told fans again and again that, despite its new name, it’s not an expansion team.
The anthem never mentions embattled team owner Daniel Snyder, and its sole agenda is, as Woody sings, is to “tell you something about some good fans.” The result is the first popular piece of grass-roots Commanders culture.
The rappers bridge the rich heritage and complicated present with symbolic verses. Woody raps with an end-rhyme, crowd-engaging style popular in the glory days he references of the Hogs, John Riggins, Doug Williams and Joe Gibbs. Wayne is all modern, breathy autotune, and though he name-checks the great hopes of his childhood, Santana Moss and Albert Haynesworth, the longing for success in his time is palpable in the lines: “You know what I want: Super Bowl on my mind. We got three rings, but I think we need nine.”
“I’m not going to sit here and say, ‘Yeah, that’s what I wanted it to do,’” Woody said, laughing. “It’s just because that’s my time, that’s my era. I can remember the Super Bowl where [Doug Williams threw four touchdowns].” He trailed off, lost in the memory of watching the game with his brother, Wayne’s father, who was shot and killed in 1999. He continued: “I get choked up because it was such a good feeling.”
In late July, the Sellerses recorded their music video. They rented the Glow Bar/Nexxt Gen Event Center in Clinton, hired a photographer and videographer and invited about 50 family and friends. Woody asked the crowd join in when he rapped, “Left hand up!” and “We want Dallas!” He posted the video to YouTube Aug. 3.
For the first few weeks, Woody estimated the video received one like for every 10 dislikes. Cowboys fans led the clowning, but Commanders fans joined in. Some comments were particularly nasty, but the Sellerses said they didn’t mind.
“I loved it,” Wayne said. “A troll is going to draw eyes to the song.”
After Washington won in Week 1, Woody said, the tone of the comments started to change. Each week, there were more views and more fans. On Oct. 4, after a bad loss at Dallas, former NFL punter Pat McAfee played the song on his popular YouTube show, which has more than 2 million subscribers. Three producers in the studio sang along, putting their left hands up.
Woody’s phone started blowing up.
“I said, ‘Uh-oh, this could be big,’” Woody recalled. “When I watched that, and I seen the guys in the background singing the words, I said, ‘Oh my goodness.’”
In days, the video shot to 20,000 views, then 30,000, then 40,000. Woody’s Apple Music artists profile showed listeners in Switzerland and the Bahamas. He noticed the new fans weren’t mostly Black, like they had been in the beginning.
“I noticed the people that was really liking it happened to be Caucasian,” Woody remarked. “I said, ‘We done crossed over.’”
In the next month, the Commanders went on a three-game winning streak, and Snyder announced he was considering selling the team. Fans seemed energized, and the Sellerses’ anthem had found the right audience at the right time. Comments poured in, and a few noted that, though they’d hated the name “Commanders” at first, the song was warming them to it.
Eric Sollenberger, a lifelong Commanders fan better known as PFT Commenter on Twitter, suspects there are two other reasons the song blew up. Its organic origins contrast with the manufactured culture the organization has pushed for years — reflected even by the name Commanders — and the criticism the song received early on galvanized a suddenly optimistic fan base.
In the past few weeks, Sollenberger, who has nearly 1 million followers, has become arguably the song’s highest-profile champion online. He regularly lauds good news by tweeting photos of celebrities and historical figures, from Jesus Christ to George Washington to Miley Cyrus, with their left hands up.
‘I never imagined there was another level’
No matter what happens next, the Sellerses said the song has already given them more than they ever expected. And in a way, it is the culmination of nearly 40 years of practice.
In 1983, Woody was in the Army at Fort Hood in Texas when he met a soldier who was always DJing in his room. He loved listening, loved the art of the turntables, and when he met another DJ while deployed in Germany, he resolved to teach himself how to play.
In the late ’80s, Woody bought a small set. It took him about eight hours to figure out how to get everything hooked up. Over the next decade, hip-hop grew, and when he watched music videos, he looked past the rappers to the turntables. In 1998, he decided to try DJing professionally and went to the pawnshop to buy better equipment. He practiced hard for about a year, bombed the first gig and kept spinning. Over the years, he carved out a side business, playing parties and weddings.
“It’s not even about the money,” Woody said. “Just looking out there, and I got control of 100 people or 200 people or 150 people or 30 people. … That’s very fulfilling for me, just to see people enjoying the music. And then to get the compliments: ‘Do you have a business card?’ Or, ‘We had such a good time.’ I love that. I simply love that.”
In 2019, Wayne had recently returned from college in Arizona, and Woody thought he seemed a little adrift. Wayne worked as a bouncer and at Costco and as a security guard, spending his free time in the studio, rapping, and Woody proposed they do a song together. They put their plans on hold during the two seasons of the Washington Football Team, then resumed in the spring of 2022. What happened next, Wayne could only describe as “God’s plan.”
“I never imagined that there was another level of this,” Woody said. “I just was so happy with where I was at. I didn’t think that this would ever happen.”
Fans slowly embrace Commanders after two-year rebrand
In the Commanders facility, Coach Ron Rivera said he’d never heard the song. Running back Antonio Gibson said he’d heard from a teammate that “it sucks.” Receiver Terry McLaurin said he’d seen social-media posts of “the two guys” but was only vaguely familiar with the song, though he knew it included the line, “Left hand something.”
“That b---- go hard,” safety Kam Curl said, approvingly, and cornerback Benjamin St-Juste nodded. Curl pointed out the song was “way” better than one a group of fans used the day of the rebrand, which substituted “Commanders” in the Farmers Insurance jingle. Recently, when left tackle Charles Leno Jr.’s wife showed him the song, he laughed.
“It’s cheesy, but I love it,” he said. “Left hand up!” | 2022-11-18T15:21:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 'Commanders Song' is a viral anthem for a newly optimistic fan base - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/commanders-song-left-hand-up/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/commanders-song-left-hand-up/ |
Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo appear headed for a divorce
Manchester United is weighing its next move after Cristiano Ronaldo spoke negatively about the club in a television interview. (Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images)
Manchester United on Friday announced it has “initiated appropriate steps” after star forward Cristiano Ronaldo made numerous negative statements about the English club team in a recent television interview.
It’s unclear what those steps might be, and the team said it would not comment further until a resolution is reached. But it seems almost certain Ronaldo will not return to the pitch for Manchester United when Premier League play resumes in late December after the World Cup.
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Ronaldo, 37, joined Manchester United for a second time in 2021 after becoming a global star with the club earlier this century, when he helped the team to three Premier League titles, one FA Cup championship and a Champions League win. The two sides have had an uneasy coexistence, particularly since Manchester hired Erik ten Hag as manager in April. Last month, ten Hag told reporters that Ronaldo refused to enter a match against Tottenham Hotspur as a substitute before he walked off the pitch ahead of the final whistle (he also left early during a friendly in July).
Then, in an interview that aired with Piers Morgan on Wednesday and Thursday, the Portuguese star said he felt “betrayed” by the club, that team officials are trying to force him out, that they lacked empathy after his newborn son died in April and that the team’s American owners — the Glazer family — do not care about the club. He also had harsh words for ten Hag.
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Complicating matters for Manchester United is Ronaldo’s contract, which ends in July and pays him $590,000 per week. Ronaldo’s representatives reportedly tried to shop him to other top-level European clubs during the Premier League offseason but failed to find a team that would pay his sizable salary. Manchester United could conceivably claim that Ronaldo’s comments to Morgan constitute a breach of contract, canceling the deal.
Ronaldo is soon to arrive in Qatar for his fifth World Cup with the Portuguese national team. The next European transfer window is in January, and he seems to accept that he will be on the move.
“Maybe it’s good for Manchester and probably is good for me as well to have a new chapter,” Ronaldo told Morgan. “Probably. But I don’t know.” | 2022-11-18T15:21:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Manchester United and Cristiano Ronaldo seem likely to part ways - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/cristiano-ronaldo-manchester-united/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/cristiano-ronaldo-manchester-united/ |
Hook, line and sinker: How fishing minigames became a video game mainstay
Amid an ever-expanding inventory of interactions in the verb-oriented medium of video games, one has proven itself remarkably enduring: Fishing. More often than not, the casting of a line promises a moment’s respite in a world filled with greater adventures, an opportunity to enjoy your digital surroundings and perhaps, if you’re lucky, bag a tasty treat.
There has been virtual fishing nearly as long as there have been video games. This, of course, is a testament to the real-world activity’s popularity as well as game developers’ enthusiasm for making a game out of even the most uneventful, everyday hobbies. William Engle’s “Gone Fishing,” released in 1977, is generally considered the first, a crude text-adventure take on the sport in which you maneuvered yourself about an abstract body of water by pressing N, S, E, W, F, and B on a keyboard (compass directions and forward/backward). Three years later, Activision’s “Fishing Derby” gave the nascent genre its first graphics.
Since then, virtual fishing has only grown in variety, from the cartoon thrills of 1997’s “Sega Bass Fishing” (which could be played with a bizarre rod controller on the Dreamcast console) to more serious-minded experiences such as “Call of the Wild: Angler.” In 2020’s “Spiritfarer,” a “cozy management game” set aboard a ship containing the souls of the dying, you cast your line and sit back until a bite catches. With the horizon in the background, the sun or moon moving slowly through it, the game deftly conveys the gentle passing of time that is key to the appeal of real-life fishing.
So too has the fishing minigame grown steadily in popularity, seen everywhere from “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” to “Red Dead Redemption 2.” Dog petting aside, it’s as close to a meme mechanic as you’re likely to find.
Fish, and the boss
In video games, fishing falls into what “Spiritfarer’s” creative director Nicolas Guérin calls a “nice chore,” activities that he says alleviate the “burden” of thinking and solving challenges. Farming and life simulators, two closely related genres that include “Stardew Valley” and the Animal Crossing games, as well as “Spiritfarer,” are full of such chores. On a video call, Guérin traces the history of these titles’ fishing minigames (distinct, it should be stressed, from games which are entirely focused on fishing) back to Japan, an island nation with a rich fishing heritage.
“It's a staple of many Japanese video games,” he said, before referencing what’s generally considered the daddy of angling minigames, the Legend of Zelda franchise.
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The very first Zelda game to let players catch fish was “The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening,” released for the original Game Boy in 1993. The minigame was devised by Kazuaki Morita, an avid fisher, who would also work on 1998’s “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,” a game that ushered in a new level of quality for fishing minigames. In a secluded lagoon, Link is able to paddle out on his canoe and cast out using the Z-targeting system, a mechanic for locking onto enemies that Morita transposed to fish. As Links casts his float, the camera swoops overhead before diving below the water as the fish takes the bait. Link’s rod bends under the strain of the fish, the camera zooming out to the regular third-person perspective until the fish is eventually caught. Closing with a celebratory musical motif, it remains a remarkably dynamic action sequence — more so than many modern fishing minigames.
According to Iwata Asks, a Nintendo-endorsed interview series about its most popular games, the fishing mechanic in “Ocarina of Time” was devised by Morita as a means of giving himself a “breather” from working on a boss fight for the game. When Eiji Aonuma, the game’s director, came over to see how work on the boss was progressing, Morita hid his work on the fishing mechanic.
“Aonuma-san came over and I thought, ‘Uh-oh!’ and immediately closed the screen,” Morita told Iwata and Aonuma, also present in the interview.
The group laughed. “Well, you were supposed to be making a boss!” Aonuma replied.
Upon realizing the mechanic’s potential, Aonuma instructed Morita and a small team to work his prototype (an animation of Link swinging his sword was a stand-in for casting) into a fully-featured minigame. From this moment onward, virtual fishing became synonymous with Zelda.
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While the activity was dropped from “Ocarina of Time’s” follow-up, 2000’s “The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask,” it was later included in the 2015 remake. In Gabe Durham’s view, author of a book on the original “Majora’s Mask,” the addition resonated thematically with a game whose world is condemned to a 72-hour loop of apocalyptic destruction.
“ ‘Majora’s Mask’ finds heroics in the mundane. Yes, you’re saving the world, but you’re also solving people’s little problems,” Durham said. “I think it’s telling that when Aonouma had the option to add whatever he wanted, he added a fishing game. Fishing is quiet, meditative, and mundane, but it’s one of the many, tiny human moments that ‘Majora’ exists to honor.”
Crafting the catch
Often, though, the inclusion of fishing minigames stems from a less poetic well of inspiration. According to Guérin, as the trope has grown in popularity over the years, it’s assumed a place of stature among developers.
“I think all devs like to do a simple mechanism — our own take on something that everyone’s tried,” Guérin said. “It’s like when you see cooking shows, and you have that chef who always wants to make a very simple cake that everyone knows and everyone loves. It feels like a measuring tool you compare yourself to others with. It’s become a staple.”
For players, Guérin believes virtual fishing is compelling because it tends to rely on the Pavlovian reward system of pressing a button to get a prize. Often the code of these games randomly determines what you will catch.
“It's a very simple psychological tool, the same idea behind blind boosters when you buy some collectibles, or slot machines and gacha,” Guérin said. “You know you're gonna get something each time but you don't know what. It could be terrible junk. It could be something nice. It could be the tenth version of something you already have. Or it could be that thing that is extremely incredibly rare. It's the most powerful reward system.”
However, not every virtual catch is the product of random numbers. In “Call of the Wild: The Angler,” an open world fishing game, the chance that defines so many fishing minigames makes way for a more robust simulation. Certain fish are more likely to be found in specific types of water — deep ponds or lake shores, for example — with each species programmed to have its own unique bait preferences. You’re more likely to snag a northern pike if redworm, leeches, or minnow are on the end of your line.
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At one stage of development, explained the game’s technical designer Nathan van der Berg, the team saw a content creator seeking out a specific fish in its vast homage to Yellowstone National Park.
“He could tell by the amount of tension on the line, where he was, and what kind of gear he was using, what fish he was going to catch, and its weight, before it even surfaced,” Van der Berg said. “He said, ‘This is going to be a silver lake trout.’ A couple of minutes later, he pulled it out of the water.”
Furthermore, the developers of “Call of the Wild: The Angler,” have even imitated fish behavior in a bid to further make the game “understandable and masterful” — just like the real thing.
“Fish are living, sentient beings. They have a complex range of behaviors and personalities,” said Paul Rustchynsky, the game’s director. “We’re not going to simulate that in complete detail so what we did was boil down behaviors and actions they perform into traits.” As a result, there are fish that thrash and those that deep dive; some are more active at night and others that are easily spooked by human presence. Each trait changes the dynamics of a catch.
The catch aside (these are often stressful tugs of war with your scaled foe), “Call of the Wild: The Angler” otherwise leans into a sense of stillness that is often missing from twitchy fishing minigames. For van der Berg, this is true to real life.
“What really stands out is the peace and quiet,” he says, reflecting on his own fishing trips in Sweden. “Just being there with your thoughts and the water, wind, sun, and rain. That’s what defines the experience for me.”
Lewis Gordon is a video game and culture writer. His work has appeared in outlets such as VICE, The Verge, The Nation and The A.V. Club. Follow him on Twitter @lewis_gordon. | 2022-11-18T16:00:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How fishing minigames became a video game mainstay - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/11/18/fishing-minigame-zelda-genre/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/11/18/fishing-minigame-zelda-genre/ |
LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 17: A view over the City of London on November 17, 2022 in London, England. The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt today announced a plan to cut billions in government spending, while raising billions more in taxes, while also promising to increase benefits for the poorest. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) (Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe)
Inflation in the UK is set to run at close to 10% this year and in high single digits next year — or so says the Office for Budget Responsibility. You’ll want to find a way to outrun that. The bad news is, you will probably find that you cannot.
Pensioners and welfare recipients have discovered this week that their incomes are going to rise with inflation. That’s nice. But the rest of the country is in trouble. Real wages are falling (i.e., wages are rising less than inflation), and going forward you will be keeping less of your income anyway: The freezing of income tax allowances announced in the Autumn Statement will drag huge numbers of people up a tax band. And at the higher end, a good number will end up paying significantly more tax than before, even without a pay rise, as the threshold for 45% income tax is falling from £150,000 ($178,770) to just over £125,000.
Those who think they might be able to keep their real income up via dividend payments are in for a shock as well. Sure, most companies strive to make their payouts rise with inflation (at the least), but Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt has cut the tax free allowance to £1,000, and it will be down to £500 by 2025. It was once £5,000. The levels at which the various tax levels kick in is also frozen.
So what’s left? Ah, you will thinking, I’ll aim for capital gains — that’ll do it. It almost certainly won’t. The Autumn Statement says that the tax-free allowance for capital gains will be cut from £12,300 to £6,000 next year and then to £3,000 from April 2024. In the UK, capital gains tax (CGT) is not indexed to inflation — so you can (and right now probably will) end up paying tax on more than you have made in real terms.
Imagine that you buy an asset for £20,000. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say it is one that does not produce an income, perhaps 25 bars of silver. Over a decade, it goes up by a nice 10% a year — which is what you expected, given that it has both industrial use and some history of built-in inflation protection.
So after 10 years, thanks to compound interest, your silver is worth some £54,000 — a capital gain of £34,000. That’s nice. Except for the fact that your CGT allowance has been cut to £3,000. So you have to pay 20% CGT on £31,000. That comes to £6,200. Now you have a total of £47,800. That looks just fine. But take inflation into account, and it does not. If inflation had run at 10% for those 10 years as well (though the Bank of England forecasts it to fall back towards its 2% target in a couple years), you would need the whole £54,000 to purchase the same volume of goods you could have bought for £20,000 ten years ago. But you don’t have £54,000. You have £47,800. Your real wealth has fallen by 11%. Nasty.
Imagine next that your investment had only returned 5% a year. The sale of the silver brings in £32,940. Your real wealth has fallen fairly dramatically thanks to inflation. But you still get taxed. Your CGT bill is £1,988. You have £30,952. In purchasing power terms, you are down over 40%. (Note that even if inflation had run at 5% a year, you would still be down in real terms.)
There’s long been a clamor for a wealth tax in the UK. Well, while you can of course shelter some assets inside the UK’s pension and ISA wrappers, we already have one — and it’s no joke. | 2022-11-18T16:35:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The UK Already Has a Nasty Wealth Tax - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uk-already-has-a-nasty-wealth-tax/2022/11/18/3034f3d0-6753-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-uk-already-has-a-nasty-wealth-tax/2022/11/18/3034f3d0-6753-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
What It Means to Accept Covid as an Endemic Disease
Analysis by Michelle Fay Cortez | Bloomberg
Most of the world is done with Covid-19, though it clearly isn’t done with the world. Countries with the notable exception of China in 2022 unwound a bevy of restrictions designed to contain the coronavirus that causes Covid, and even China loosened its stern rules a bit. For the most part, political leaders and their constituents were eager to pivot to accepting Covid as an endemic disease, much like seasonal flu, even though the World Health Organization continued to designate SARS-CoV-2 a public health emergency of international concern.
1. What does endemic mean?
An epidemic is a surge of disease in a single location; it becomes a pandemic when it spreads globally. When new case numbers slow and then plateau, typically at a lower level, the disease is considered endemic. There can still be spikes in cases. And endemic diseases can take a serious toll; the flip side of SARS-CoV-2 being accepted everywhere is that nowhere is safe. What is gone is the element of surprise. Instead, an equilibrium is established: Society knows it must live with the pathogen, grapple with a baseline of disease, and prepare for future flare ups. Ideally, infections cease to overwhelm health-care systems, fatality rates decline, and disruptions to daily life, such as the closing of schools and businesses, abate.
2. How does this happen?
Confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained significantly high as 2022 drew to a close. There were nearly 2 million globally in the first week in November, and that was an undercount given that many cases are now validated with home tests and never declared to authorities. Still, two developments enabled most parts of the world to regard Covid as endemic: the spread of SARS-CoV-2’s less-severe omicron variant and a buildup of immunity that further reduced the chances people would get seriously ill from infections. The accumulated immunity is the result of people getting vaccinated and/or getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 and surviving it. As of mid-November, the number of daily confirmed Covid deaths per million people globally had fallen to 0.18, from a peak ten times higher in January 2021. This still meant that a lot of people — some 1,400 — were dying daily before winter set in in the northern hemisphere, posing the risk of a seasonal surge that’s typical of respiratory viruses. If the rate were to settle there, Covid would rank between malaria and Parkinson’s disease as the 17th deadliest malady globally, based on 2019 data for other ailments.
3. What are the precedents for viruses becoming endemic?
The most regularly cited example of a respiratory virus that became endemic is the one that caused the 1918 flu pandemic; elements of that flu strain, called A/H1N1, are still in circulation to this day. The flu strains that caused outbreaks in 1957, 1968 and 2009 (swine flu) all qualify. Four other coronaviruses are endemic. They manifest as the common cold and are thought to be responsible for a large portion of respiratory tract infections in adults and children. The original SARS coronavirus, first discovered in Asia in 2003, never became endemic because it was effectively eradicated using aggressive public health measures.
4. What’s China’s approach?
Far from accepting Covid as endemic, China has pursued a policy of fighting every outbreak with a barrage of targeted testing, contact tracing and quarantines, with citywide lockdowns as a last resort. This has produced the lowest number of confirmed Covid deaths per capita in the world, apart from in Burundi and North Korea. In November, China softened some of its rules, but only modestly. While its approach carries heavy economic costs, ditching it poses enormous challenges. China has restricted Covid vaccinations to home-grown shots that aren’t as potent as the mRNA versions that are the backbone of the global immunization effort. When China’s vaccines first became available, the country’s elderly largely eschewed them for fear they were developed too hastily. By the time the shots were proven safe elsewhere, vaccine hesitancy had been firmly established among China’s most vulnerable cohort. And because infections have been so low, few people have immunity from having caught and defeated SARS-CoV-2. Allowing Covid to enter the country and circulate at levels high enough to reach endemicity could lead to a “tsunami” of infections and 1.6 million deaths, according to a 2022 modeling study from researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University.
5. What’s the outlook for the rest of the world?
Given that most countries have dropped the mitigation measures that had the potential to choke off the virus, the future will depend on how it evolves. The fracturing of the omicron variant into an array of fit new strains could produce more virulent versions capable of evading existing immunity. Some public health experts argue that authorities should prepare for this worst case, for example by thoroughly testing wastewater for signs of the virus and tracking its mutations. It’s also possible that the evolution of the virus could lessen its impact further. So could the development of more powerful vaccines. If a long-lasting immunization is able to go beyond protecting against serious disease to prevent infection altogether, it could tame Covid. Scientists are working on several novel approaches, though they aren’t expected to reach the market for several years. | 2022-11-18T16:36:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What It Means to Accept Covid as an Endemic Disease - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-it-means-to-accept-covid-as-an-endemic-disease/2022/11/18/2377e1aa-675a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-it-means-to-accept-covid-as-an-endemic-disease/2022/11/18/2377e1aa-675a-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Extreme lake-effect snow pummels western New York with 5 feet possible
The National Weather Service is describing the episode as ‘crippling’ and ‘paralyzing’
A person crosses Main Street in Buffalo on Thursday evening during a mid-November snowstorm. (Joshua Thermidor/For The Washington Post)
An extreme lake-effect snowstorm is pummeling the eastern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, plastering western New York with prolific accumulations and grinding commerce to a halt. Over 30 inches of snow have already fallen in some areas just south of Buffalo, and an additional two to three feet are on the way for some, with a few locations expected to approach or exceed 60 inches of snow.
A pair of lake-effect bands formed Thursday night and quickly intensified, cranking out snowfall rates of 3 inches an hour, as well as thunder, lightning, strong winds and near-blizzard conditions. In Hamburg, N.Y., 12 miles south of Buffalo, up to 5 inches fell in an hour early Friday. The Weather Service reported that 34 inches had fallen in Hamburg through 9 a.m. The snow bands are only about 20 miles thick, however, and locations just to their north or south will see a minimally disruptive light snowfall.
Within the bands, “travel will be very difficult to impossible,” warned the National Weather Service in Buffalo. It previously described the ongoing storm as “crippling” and “paralyzing” in online technical forecast discussions.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared a state of emergency for the region effective Thursday morning, and Buffalo schools announced they would be closed Friday. The Buffalo Bills home game against the Cleveland Browns, slated for Sunday, was moved to Detroit.
Lake-effect snow warnings remain in effect downwind of the lakes, with winter storm watches and winter weather advisories for the fringe counties. That’s where there’s less confidence in how much snow the bands — which will waver north and south a bit because of subtle shifts in wind direction — will drop.
As of Friday morning, many areas just south of Buffalo had already seen at least 24 inches of snow, including Hamburg and West Seneca. Twenty-five inches was reported northwest of Eden, N.Y., between Interstate 90 and the lakeshore.
Thursday night into Friday morning, there were numerous reports of thundersnow, as the intense snow bands, fueled by extreme differences between the relatively warm Lake Erie and frigid air above, unleashed thunder and lightning like a summer tempest.
Across the Buffalo metro area, snowfall totals thus far have walked a steep gradient. About 19.5 inches had stacked up near the rail yard in south Buffalo, with 5.3 inches in Kenmore, about 5½ miles to the north-northwest. Conditions vary significantly in lake-effect bands, given their localized nature, which also leads to sharp cutoffs and sudden jackpots in totals.
Off Lake Ontario, the Tug Hill Plateau has been getting hammered with serious snowfall. Two feet have come down in Williamstown, about 40 miles north-northeast of Syracuse along Highway 13. Oswego, where thundersnow was reported, is at 7.3 inches, and Watertown, northeast of the lake along Interstate 81, is just shy of 5 inches.
The snow bands are expected to remain pointed at the east-northeast shores of the lakes through Friday night, but they may drift north on Saturday afternoon in response to a more southerly component of the winds. Off Lake Erie, that may mean a break for places like Blasdell, West Seneca, Lackawanna and the greater Buffalo area, with the same being true for Watertown off Lake Ontario.
The snow bands will shift south again on Sunday as winds become westerly, crossing past their initial positions before targeting areas even farther south that dodged most of the initial snowfall. That could mean 9 to 12 inches for Oswego County, where a winter storm watch is in effect. A pulse of snows will also target New York state’s Western Southern Tier near and especially north of the Allegheny River.
Instigating the snowfall is a stubborn upper-air weather pattern dominated by a sprawling dip in the jet stream, or trough, over the eastern United States. At the high altitudes, a pocket of cold air, low pressure and spin has nestled itself within that southward jet deviation, and it will ebb and flow over the Great Lakes during the coming days. A more concentrated lobe of frigid air aloft will swing directly over Lakes Erie and Ontario on Saturday.
Those features have been directing a perfectly oriented supply of cold west-southwesterly wind down the entire lengths of the lakes; in the case of Lake Erie, that’s a 240-mile fetch. Air temperatures in the teens and 20s are blowing over water that’s closer to 50 degrees. The stark contrast allows pockets of air heated by the lake below to ascend rapidly in the frosty atmosphere.
As a result, snow clouds some 20,000 feet tall have become established in a conveyor belt feeding down the axis of the lake. Within them, ice crystals aloft are contributing to the development of thundersnow. Low-level convergence, or the gathering of air near the surface, meanwhile, could even support a remote waterspout over the lake.
It’s not the first time prolific lake-effect snow has buried Buffalo and surrounding areas. Between Nov. 14 and 21, 2014, a pair of back-to-back lake-effect snowstorms dumped up to 88 inches of snow just south of the city. Twenty-six people died during the storm, mostly of heart attacks resulting from shoveling. | 2022-11-18T16:36:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Buffalo snowstorm: Up to 5 feet possible in western New York - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/buffalo-snow-storm-new-york/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/buffalo-snow-storm-new-york/ |
Mr. President, as a fellow octogenarian, I welcome you to the club
President Biden speaks during a news conference on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit on Monday in Bali, Indonesia. (Alex Brandon/AP)
Dear Mr. President: Allow me to welcome you into the ranks of America’s octogenarians, which you will officially join Sunday. I’m tempted to describe our group as a small but plucky bunch, but that would be wrong: With octogenarians in this country numbering more than 12 million and counting, according to census data, we constitute an army.
What we might rally to fight is hard to tell, having already lost the battle against old age.
That said, “old geezer” stereotyping awaits you, but don’t let it get you down. Millions of us, you will find, aren’t living out our lives in retirement villages dotting the Sun Belt. Or in nursing homes dutifully waiting for the Good Lord to call us home.
For sure, Mr. President, there are those among us who have more than their share of disease and infirmity. But look around and you will see huge numbers of women and men in their 80s who are out and about, leading independent, active lives. And many of us are also enjoying more satisfaction than what life yielded during our 30s, 40s and 50s. Perhaps it’s because we are long past the days of worrying about climbing the next rung on the ladder.
Octogenarians, pure and simple, aren’t looking for something bigger and better. I suspect this is pretty much where you also find yourself after nearly two years into your presidency. You are at the top of your pay scale.
The chief difference between you and most of us is that you still have a full-time job. Which I’ll return to a little later.
Of this, one thing is assured: Regardless of past life experiences, you will gain a different perspective on the surrounding world once you cross the age-80 threshold.
I know that with three years of octogenarian life under my belt, it’s all I can do to navigate our nation’s capital with a straight face. The suffering that younger generations of maneuvering politicians, camera-ready pundits and president wannabes put themselves through to make names for themselves is laughable — falling-down funny, in fact, were it not for the sad toll that it takes on their lives.
I’m sure in your career you have watched bunches of power players strut and fret upon Washington’s stage. But there’s nothing like seeing it from the vantage point of an age when you are beyond it all.
Alert: Some up-and-coming generations like to take out their misery on older people, attributing an occasional stumbled or forgotten word to (tut-tut) advancing mental or physical impairment.
Don’t be surprised, even though you are president, if visitors, and even some staff, start to treat lightly what you have to say. They might even try to leave you out of meetings, for goodness’ sake.
Ageism also seeps into public service, sports, entertainment and, yes, the world of journalism. Ageism, Mr. President, comes with the territory.
An unsolicited piece of advice: Act your age.
Don’t resort to behavior aimed at convincing the public you are younger than you are. Logrolling, dead-lifting or climbing the stairs of the Washington Monument wearing a heavy backpack aren’t exactly things to take up at 80. Do all the stuff your doctors and family tell you to do. Watch your diet, exercise as much as you can, get enough sleep (naps are my favorite). But, Mr. President, aging is beyond your control. Do it with grace.
Which gets us to what to do with the rest of your life.
Think back to the America you inherited on Jan. 20, 2021. You looked out on a country stricken by a once-in-a-century virus. You spoke to an America that had lost jobs by the millions and where businesses posted “closed” signs by the thousands. You stood on grounds defiled by a riotous mob, stoked by a defeated president who tried to crush a foundation stone of U.S. democracy — the peaceful transfer of power.
You promised to get on with the business of governing: fighting the coronavirus, dealing with painful economic and social realities, addressing the moral and fiscal imperatives of the climate crisis, stepping up against the attack on our democracy, restoring America’s role in the world.
Look around, Mr. President. You done good.
Sure, there’s much more left. It is always thus in the world’s strongest nation with its globe-leading economy and dynamic, multicultural population.
Some of us would love to have you in both places: in the Oval Office and on the back porch telling stories while occasionally doling out elder-statesman advice to the rising generation of leaders behind you.
We can’t have it both ways, Mr. President. Neither can you.
We’ll leave a door open, just in case. | 2022-11-18T16:36:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | President Biden, as a fellow octogenarian, let me welcome you to the club - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/biden-birthday-octogenarian-colbert-king/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/biden-birthday-octogenarian-colbert-king/ |
Yale Law School pulled out of the U.S. News rankings. Here’s why.
Law school deans have compared the rankings to a roach infestation and wished that al-Qaeda would target the company
The Sterling Memorial Library on the Yale University campus in New Haven, Conn. (Craig Warga/Bloomberg)
On Wednesday, Yale Law School announced that it is “leaving” the U.S. News & World Report rankings system. This is a big deal for lawyers. For decades, these rankings have shaped legal education and the legal profession. As explained in the book “Engines of Anxiety,” these rankings haven’t just determined which schools are seen as prestigious and which aren’t. They have reshaped legal education, as law schools adapted their admission decisions and internal workings to increase their scores in the ranking system.
As “Engines of Anxiety” explains, law school deans detest the rankings so much that one compared them to a cockroach infestation and another rhetorically hoped al-Qaeda might target U.S. News. To find out the backstory, I conducted an email interview with the two sociologists who wrote the book, Michael Sauder, a professor at the University of Iowa, and Wendy Nelson Espeland, a professor at Northwestern University.
Q: Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken has announced that her institution is pulling out of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, which she describes as “profoundly flawed.” You and your co-author describe how many other law school deans share her opinion. Why are they all so unhappy?
A: Because USN rankings are so visible to prospective students, law schools (just like colleges and universities) worry that these evaluations, though “profoundly flawed,” have an outsized influence on determining the schools that students apply to and choose to attend. Law schools then feel pressure to make decisions — about admissions, about scholarships, about their identity — based on improving their numbers instead of what is, in their judgment, best for the school and its students. This is frustrating and demoralizing for many.
Q: Why, despite their unhappiness with rankings that are “engines of anxiety,” have they mostly been unwilling to pull out up to now?
A: In the past, failing to cooperate with U.S. News has almost invariably led to a marked decline in the school’s rank — which, in turn, has created big headaches for deans and other administrators: unhappy students and alumni; fear of declining enrollment and revenue; and possibly losing one’s job. These are big risks for schools, especially those who are in tight competition with their peers for pools of prospective students.
Soon after the rankings were introduced, some schools did opt out of the rankings. These schools experienced significant drops in rank, and this served as a cautionary tale for schools who considered similar strategies in the future. It became quickly apparent that failing to cooperate with U.S. News could have serious costs in terms of the school’s national reputation.
Q: Gerken says that the rankings discourage schools that want to train lawyers who are interested in public service. Is that true, and are there other ways in which the rankings reshape law schools’ priorities?
A: Yes, it is true that rankings create incentives that can make it harder to train lawyers interested in public service. Schools whose missions stray from the formula that U.S. News rewards — for example, schools dedicated to public service or providing opportunities to underserved populations — are, in effect, punished for their mission as they are forced to make a choice between staying true to their guiding principles or doing better in the rankings.
Likewise, the rankings incentivize schools to focus their admissions decisions on selectivity criteria that emphasize standardized test scores, which also disfavors nontraditional students. In addition, the rankings pressure schools to give scholarships based on merit rather than need as they try to “buy” the students who help them to optimize the selectivity score that is central to determining their rank. These are just a few examples of the many ways in which rankings have reshaped the priorities of schools, a transformation that many within the field of legal education see as harmful.
Q: For a long time, Yale has been the top-ranked law school. Might its decision to pull out destabilize the rankings system, or alternatively, will it keep going strong?
It’s hard to say. On the one hand, this could really draw attention to the problems that the rankings generate and encourage other schools to follow suit. As we write this, Harvard and Berkeley have already announced that they, too, are opting out of the rankings, and these decisions have created a lot of attention in the media.
On the other hand, it will be much more difficult for schools outside of the elite to risk the consequences that could ensue from dropping out. These schools are more likely to rely on the rankings to affirm their standing among prospective students, and they are more likely to suffer if their closest rivals choose to participate (and then shoot up in the rankings) as they fall.
As we know, more schools than ever actively embrace the rankings as a means to improve their standing in a crowded market. With that said, these recent actions might encourage more widespread questions about the legitimacy of the rankings themselves. If this were to happen, we could imagine a domino effect whereby more and more schools choose to opt out. | 2022-11-18T16:37:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Yale, Berkeley and Harvard Law Schools have quit U.S. News rankings - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/collegesrankingsyale/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/collegesrankingsyale/ |
Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) greets Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) after speaking in the House chamber Thursday in Washington. (Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
You can’t really say that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) announcement on Thursday that she would not seek reelection to lead the Democratic Party’s chamber caucus came as a surprise. Pelosi has held the top leadership position for nearly two decades, and her party’s losses in last week’s midterm elections mean that she’d have been relegated to minority leader in the upcoming 118th Congress. As good a time to step back as any.
But there was an unavoidable subtext to it, too. Back in 2020, Joe Biden waved away questions about his age by suggesting that he would be a bridge to a new generation of leadership — something that many in his party were agitating for. Before the midterms, this argument became a way for Democrats in contested races to speak out against both Biden and Pelosi: It wasn’t that they didn’t like the top Democrats, really, just that they wanted “a new generation.”
With Pelosi’s announcement this week, that generational shift is now in play. The Democrats likely to take over the top two positions in the House caucus are quite literally from a different generation than Pelosi, 82, and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), 83, who also announced that he wouldn’t seek to renew his position. The new generation is upon us.
It’s not the case that generations are hard and fast things. People tend to defer to Pew Research Center’s definitions, in part because Pew actually articulates clear boundaries. If we compare the ages of national leaders to those delineations, we can see how power trickles down through generations … slowly.
Here are the ages (and, therefore, generations) of the president, vice president and Senate president pro tempore over the past 40 years. In the 1980s, they were all members of Pew’s “greatest” generation — the generation prior to the generation prior to the baby boom. Over the past 10 years, they’ve all been boomers or members of the silent generation.
Vice President Harris is not the first boomer to hold that position; Dan Quayle was, back in 1993. But she’s the youngest boomer ever to do so, though she’s now older than Quayle was then.
The position of Senate president pro tempore is largely ceremonial and usually goes to the most senior member of the majority party, which is often the oldest member of the party. Hence the gray lines sitting well above the lines for president and vice president.
Now let’s look at the shift in House leadership. Interestingly, the leadership of the Republican Party has been younger than the leadership of the Democratic Party in recent years, in part because the GOP’s leadership has been much more hotly contested in the post-tea party era. (You’ll notice that the lines below are labeled as leader and whip/second-ranking member. That the senior official of the party in the majority usually becomes House speaker means that the “leader” position then goes to the person who would otherwise be whip. It’s all silly, but it is what it is.)
At far right, you can see the generational shift for the Democrats, should Pelosi be replaced by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), 52, as many political observers expect, and should Hoyer be replaced by Rep. Katherine M. Clark (D-Mass.), who is 59. The party would go from two silent-generation leaders to a boomer and one in Gen X.
It’s important to recognize how this shift is particularly important for Democrats. Breaking down partisans by age using national registration data from L2, we see that 2 in 5 Democrats are members of the youngest two generations, the millennials and Gen Z. Only a quarter of Republicans are. In other words, there’s more pressure for Democratic leaders to be younger and represent younger members of the party than for Republicans, about half of whom are boomers or older.
There has not yet been similar pressure on the Senate side. Senate leadership tends to be older since senators tend to be older, both thanks to age requirements to serve in that chamber and because of the House-to-Senate election pipeline. So Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), 71, is a relatively young leader as a member of the baby boom generation — but also older than about 80 percent of Democrats.
Pelosi is older than 95 percent of Democrats, a function of her serving in her position as long as she has, with few complaints from her party’s base. But after rumblings for several years, she and the party seem to have recognized that the time for generational change had, in fact, finally come. | 2022-11-18T16:37:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Democrats see a generational change in leadership — literally - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/democrats-generation-pelosi-jeffries/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/democrats-generation-pelosi-jeffries/ |
Shipping line Maersk, federal cadet resolve sex assault lawsuit
The allegations shook the industry and led the Transportation Department to pause an at-sea training program
Maersk is the world’s largest owner of container ships. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg News)
Maersk Line Ltd., the U.S. subsidiary of the global shipping giant, said Friday that it has resolved a federal cadet’s lawsuit alleging that the company had not done enough to protect her from being raped by a supervisor while at sea in 2019.
The cadet, Hope Hicks, first shared her account of the attack anonymously a year ago in a post on the website of an advocacy group and in a subsequent interview with The Washington Post. She became known as Midshipman X. In June, she came forward publicly, filing the lawsuit shortly before graduating from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
“It is important to me that my case has brought greater awareness of the issue of sexual assault and harassment at sea,” Hicks said in a statement Friday. “The leadership of MLL has expressed the need for change. The changes that MLL has proposed are an important first step, but there is still a lot of work to be done in the maritime industry.”
Both sides agreed to keep the terms of the resolution confidential. They filed in New York Supreme Court on Monday, saying the case would be withdrawn.
U.S. cadets suing shipping company, alleging rape and harassment at sea
Hicks’s account of being assaulted when she was a 19-year-old cadet reverberated through the tightknit U.S. shipping industry, prompting a reckoning with the vulnerability of female sailors. Officials at the U.S. Transportation Department, which oversees the academy, shut down the Sea Year training program for the second time in six years and began an overhaul of safety rules.
Maersk said Friday it had launched a program of training and internal accountability and was collaborating with other companies, labor unions, the Transportation Department and the Coast Guard.
“We want to be absolutely clear that the events Ms. Hicks describes are unacceptable,” said William Woodhour, Maersk Line Ltd.’s chief executive. “No matter who and where you are, those who work with us must feel safe and protected in our work environment.”
Tom Boyd, a spokesman for the company, said it had been approved to receive cadets again under new federal standards and has been taking part in the Sea Year program again since June.
At the same time Hicks filed her case, lawyers brought forward allegations by another cadet, who wanted to remain anonymous as Midshipman Y. She alleged she suffered sexual harassment and unwanted touching on the same ship as Hicks two years later.
The two sides are involved in private discussions to resolve that case, a lawyer for Midshipman Y said, but it could return to court next month if no agreement is reached. | 2022-11-18T16:38:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maersk, cadet Hope Hicks resolve lawsuit over rape allegations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/18/maersk-sea-year-sexual-assault/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/18/maersk-sea-year-sexual-assault/ |
8 ways to be the worst national park visitor
Toad licking and hitting golf balls into the Grand Canyon are definite no-nos
(istock and National Park Service/Washington Post illustration)
Licking psychedelic toads
Chucking items into the Grand Canyon (or anywhere)
Getting too close to the wildlife
Loving nature to death
Taking souvenirs
Chopping down trees
Driving carelessly
National parks evoke memories of summer road trips, hiking adventures and peaceful communions with nature.
But every so often, tales of visitor misbehavior shake that idyllic image: vandals leaving graffiti along a trail, parkgoers getting dangerously close to bison, a TikTok personality launching a golf ball into the Grand Canyon.
“We try very hard at our organization not to shame people and to instead sort of flip it and talk about why everyone should care enough to protect resources,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, which advocates on behalf of the National Park System. “This is why visitor education is so important.”
Bad behavior at the country’s 63 national parks — not to mention hundreds of other historic sites, memorials, monuments, rivers, seashores and other areas — often make headlines. These are some of the actions park officials are asking visitors to avoid.
The National Park Service put out a attention-grabbing warning last month: Please keep your tongues off the toads. Specifically, the request was about the Sonoran Desert toad, which have glands that “secrete a potent toxin.” The toads produce a natural psychedelic, but international research group Drug Science says it is a “popular myth” that licking toads can result in a high.
“It can make you sick if you handle the frog or get the poison in your mouth,” the park service said in social media posts. “As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking.”
“Do we really need to say, ‘don’t hit golf balls into the Grand Canyon?’” the national park said in a plaintive Facebook post last month. Apparently, the answer is yes. A TikTok star posted a video of herself hitting a golf ball into the depths near Mather Point; her club goes flying too.
She now faces charges for littering, creating a hazardous condition and throwing objects over the canyon rim, The Washington Post reported. She’s not alone in her illicit sporting activity: Last year, one man was seen hitting a baseball into the canyon. A comedian also faced charges for hitting a golf ball at Yellowstone National Park last year, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Grand Canyon National Park public affairs specialist Joelle Baird said there’s an inherent public safety issue, not to mention environmental concerns.
“We have trails that descend into the canyons where a lot of visitors are concentrated,” she said. “That’s something that a lot of people don’t necessarily realize when they get to the edge of the canyon, that there might be people below.”
The park’s request applies to other objects as well. Baird said volunteers rappel over the edge of a popular South Rim viewpoint every year and “collect an obscene amount of coins.” Those can be dangerous for wildlife, who sometimes die with foreign objects in their guts, she said.
National Park Service spokesperson Cynthia Hernandez said visitors shouldn’t leave anything behind that isn’t naturally part of a park’s environment.
“It detracts from the experience that other visitors will have in that space and also could negatively impact plants, animals and even entire ecosystems,” she said.
At Yellowstone National Park this summer, bison gored three visitors in the span of a month. The park says people must stay more than 25 yards from the creatures, which are the largest land-dwelling mammals in North America.
Baird, at the Grand Canyon, said the park also has issues with people feeding — and getting bit by — squirrels and approaching elk and deer at a close distance.
Last spring, a grizzly bear charged a woman in Yellowstone who approached her cubs within a distance of about three yards to take photos. The woman was charged with feeding, touching, teasing, frightening or intentionally disturbing wildlife, The Post reported.
“You have to keep your distance from these animals,” Brengel said. “You’re in their home and you have to be very, very careful with them.”
A mother bear rushed a woman snapping a photo of her cubs. The parkgoer now faces federal charges.
So many visitors have trekked to see Hyperion, an out-of-the-way redwood that holds a Guinness World Record for height, that the base of the tree has degraded. Trash and human waste have been found on the way to the tree, which is in a closed area of Redwood National and State Parks.
“Those accessing and viewing the tree have trampled, and in some instances killed, the surrounding native vegetation,” the National Park Service said. This summer, the agency said it was discouraging people from visiting the world’s tallest tree, warning that people found in the prohibited area could be hit with a fine of $5,000 and six months in jail.
Hernandez, the Park Service spokesperson, said parkgoers across the system need to follow directions on signs or from rangers in the field about where they can and can’t go.
“No matter how many times we say to stay on the trail, I think we often see people straying to get a better spot for a photo or something,” she said. “Depending on the location, it damages the environment there by trampling on potentially endangered or threatened plant species or degrading the ecosystem that is important to a lot of wildlife.”
Want to see the world’s tallest tree? You could get fined $5,000.
Federal regulations prohibit taking “pretty much everything” from national parks, Baird said — including “plants, even soil, minerals, wildlife or parts thereof.” Still, she said there’s a common problem of visitors taking rocks or minerals from the Grand Canyon.
In 2019, a child identified only as “Karina” sent a package to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with a picture, note and a heart-shaped rock that she’d taken with her during a trip. “I’m sorry, and I want to return it,” she wrote. A worker took a photo of the rock with a waterfall in the background, then tossed it back into nature.
A girl took a heart-shaped rock from a national park. Then she felt guilty and sent it back.
During the government shutdown in 2019, viral photos showed some of the namesake Joshua trees cut down in Joshua Tree National Park. With limited staffing to deal with misbehaving visitors, the park was temporarily shut down.
“While the vast majority of those who visit Joshua Tree National Park do so in a responsible manner, there have been incidents of new roads being created by motorists and the destruction of Joshua trees in recent days that have precipitated the closure,” the park said in a news release.
‘A travesty to this nation’: People are destroying Joshua trees in Joshua Tree National Park
Zion National Park released a video on YouTube in April showing the impact of graffiti, noting that seven rangers and volunteers had to spend more than 35 hours sanding rocks to remove 150 square feet of spray paint. Blaming “a very small number of visitors,” the ranger who narrated the video said workers were also having to remove stickers, permanent marker and rock and tree carvings.
In May, Yosemite National Park officials asked for help on Facebook identifying people who left blue and white graffiti at 30 sites on Yosemite Falls Trail. Some of the markings were larger than 8 feet by 8 feet.
Brengel said sometimes even touching fragile objects, like a petroglyph on the side of a rock at Big Bend National Park or formations at Carlsbad Caverns, can do damage.
“If we want to preserve these places for other people to enjoy, in most cases seeing with your eyes and not your hands is really important,” she said.
An unidentified ranger at Yosemite National Park wrote a pained post on Facebook last summer describing how they had responded to a report of a bear cub who was struck by a car, only to find its mother nearby calling for her young.
A bear cub was killed by a car. Its mother mourned by its side, a park ranger says.
In 2016, a cub belonging to “the most famous living wild bear on Earth,” a grizzly named No. 399 at Grand Teton National Park, was hit by a car and killed.
And Yellowstone National Park said in 2019 that two wolf pups were hit by a car and killed in 2019, according to USA Today. | 2022-11-18T16:38:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | National park bad tourists: 8 ways to be the worst visitor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/11/18/national-parks-bad-behavior/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/11/18/national-parks-bad-behavior/ |
Transcript: Future of Global Health
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Good afternoon, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Paige Winfield Cunningham, deputy newsletter editor here at The Post, and today we have two segments on how countries can be better prepared for global health challenges.
My first guest today is Dr. Caitlin Rivers. She is an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Dr. Rivers, welcome to Washington Post Live.
DR. RIVERS: It's great to be with you. Thank you.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And before we get started, I have a reminder to our audience. We would love to hear any questions you have. So please tweet at us using the handle @PostLive. Well, let's dive right in. Dr. Rivers, we are nearing the three-year anniversary of the first reported covid case. It's hard to believe it's been that long. If you could go back in time, can you identify one thing you really wish that health experts in the U.S. would have known before cases exploded here?
DR. RIVERS: Well, one of the early revelations of this virus is that asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission is possible, meaning people can spread it without necessarily knowing that they are infected. That is a different attribute than some other infectious diseases where you're not really able to spread until you're clearly infected. That discovery, for me, that asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission is possible really changed my understanding of this virus and ratcheted up my concern about it. And so I think looking forward to preparing for the next outbreak, epidemic, pandemic, being able to quickly understand the epidemiology of the virus is going to be really important to informing our understanding of risk.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And let me ask you that same question when we're thinking back over the last three years and the many policy decisions that were made. Is there one thing that's really clear to you that should have been done differently in terms of the response?
DR. RIVERS: I think there are many opportunities to learn. I can't think of a single thing, but lessons that I will be taking from the pandemic into my career going forward--and of course, I specialize in outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics--is the option to use face masks to reduce transmission. In the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, it was not widely recognized that that was going to be an important intervention. We now understand that it is. I think we have all redoubled a commitment to ensuring that schools are safe so that they can remain open for children for learning and so that children can access the services that schools provide.
And I think one lesson that has been true across outbreaks--this is not a revelation from covid-19--is that it's very important that we act quickly and aggressively before things spiral out of control. And I think that underscores a real need to have the elements in place to do that aggressive response so that we can get ahead of the virus and prevent these kinds of widescale events.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: When I think about the different measures that were used to try to stop the virus, it seems like one that didn't get a lot of attention was air filtering systems. I know that we've had some reporting here at The Post about how there's sort of been an under investment there and oftentimes an underappreciation for the importance of clean air. Can you talk a little bit about that? Do you have a similar sense, or was there adequate attention paid there?
DR. RIVERS: I'm glad you raised that, because ventilation and filtration is another element of emphasis that has been added as we've gone along across the pandemic. It was not prominent early in our response, but I think we've all come to understand that it needs to play a bigger role. Focusing on ventilation and filtration has the benefit of helping against not just covid-19, but all sorts of infectious diseases. We're in the middle of a large wave of RSV. We're likely headed into a bad flu season. Ventilation and filtration can help to prevent those viruses from spreading as well.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And I want to talk about RSV and flu, but first, a little bit more about covid. Of course, one of the biggest problems in the response was sort of the fractured response and different decisions from local leaders versus state leaders versus recommendations from federal agencies. Are there any--do you have any thoughts on how we could have a more unified front next time, assuming we're still going to have the same system we have now of a pretty--you know, not a homogenous public health system? It's very fractured.
DR. RIVERS: That's right. And that is both a feature and a challenge of our public health system. Most of our public health authorities lie at the state level and in some states it's even lower at the county level. And that means each jurisdiction has the option or really even the power to make their own decisions. And as you know, that can lead to a lot of differences in how jurisdictions can respond. That is a strength because public health and what each community needs varies from place to place. But when we have a nationwide event like this, where people look around and say, why am I under these restrictions or why am I benefiting from these decisions, whereas my neighboring jurisdiction is not, I think the federal government's role here is really advisory to provide the kinds of guidance and assistance that can help state and local jurisdictions to make those decisions. But I think there will always be some discrepancies in how things are implemented, and that needs to be something we plan for and recognize going forward.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, and one other thing we found was really fractured was the way that health information was collected, and we know it wasn't collected the same way everywhere. A lot of times there was an inadequate collection of health data. How did that affect the effort to find solutions to the pandemic?
DR. RIVERS: That's right. Many people don't realize that data that is shared from state and local jurisdictions to CDC is done on a voluntary basis, and often a data use agreement, a legal agreement has to be negotiated before any data is shared. And this is true for every single public health issue. Covid-19, monkey pox, influenza: All of those require individual data use agreements from every single jurisdiction.
The problem is, it's very slow. It can take weeks, if not months to negotiate these agreements. And often, even after the agreements are done, the data are not standard. Part of the reason that we were very late to recognize the disparate impacts by race and ethnicity of the covid-19 pandemic is because not all jurisdictions collected race data and not all jurisdictions reported race data. And so I think going forward, one thing I know that the CDC is interested in, is gaining the authority to be able to compel or direct that data reporting in certain public health emergencies so that we can turn the crank on really getting that data flowing faster, be able to analyze it and share it out with both the public and with the public health officials who need it to make decisions.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Of course, one massive success we saw was the rapid development of the vaccines, and you know, the fact that virtually anybody could access a vaccine within months of them being rolled out. And yet, I know that we have still had a problem of people not getting vaccinated, and it seems as though that effort to get those folks vaccinated has really stalled. Can I get your thoughts on that effort? Are we going to see more progress, or at some point, do we just kind of realize that there's going to be a certain population that isn't going to get the vaccine no matter what they hear about it?
DR. RIVERS: I think in public health, we always try, and we always hope. I think that right now many people have--even people who are reluctant to get vaccinated have relationships with their primary care provider, with other medical professionals in the community, and I know that those people are committed to continuing to try to increase vaccination levels. But I think you are absolutely right, that vaccine levels are still not where we want them. Only about 10 percent of eligible people have received the bivalent booster that has been available since September. This is the formulation that protects against the variants that are currently circulating. It's an updated vaccine. Only one in 10 eligible people have gotten it. And so I just want to encourage people to do that, especially as we head into the winter season.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: What about the low vaccination rates among kids? I think those numbers remain pretty low. Why do you think that is, and how much does that concern you?
DR. RIVERS: Children are at low risk of severe illness, and so parents have a low-risk perception. They don't perceive their children to be at high risk of severe illness. And that is largely accurate. It's one of the small mercies, if you will, of this pandemic, that children are largely spared. I am a parent. All three of my children are vaccinated, and so I do strongly encourage it as a means to prevent our kids from getting sick or getting severely sick. But I think that's the reason why parents have been reluctant. They don't see their children getting as sick as they might from a disease like influenza.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And of course, much has been made of the political divisions over the pandemic and a lot of mistrust in public health officials. Any thoughts on how--what health experts can do to try to rebuild trust with the public after all of this?
DR. RIVERS: It's going to be a long road to rebuild, because I think you're right that a lot of trust has eroded. But I think that public health is up for the challenge, and I think it's something that starts today and will continue on for a long time.
One of the primary ways that we think about risk communication comes from a CDC handbook on risk communication, “Be first, be right, be credible.” And I think we need to return to our roots in trying to achieve be first, be right, be credible. And I think by continuing to show up and do that well, that is the way that we will build back that trust. But I don't expect it to happen overnight. I think that we really need to be in it for the long haul.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And I know we briefly mentioned kids, but let's return to that topic, because it's one I know that I wrote a lot about during the pandemic, and that was the approach to schools and the closures. And I know recently, we have seen very troubling test scores. Now granted, it looks like test scores are kind of poor across the board, even in states that tended to keep schools open more than other states. But what's your--what's your overall take on where we're at with kids and education, and did we learn any lessons?
DR. RIVERS: I'm concerned about this as well. Again, I am a parent, and my children were home for a long time during the pandemic. And I think that it does need to be a shared national commitment not only to keep kids in school, but to keep them safe in school. And that was always my policy stance, if you will, around education, that schools are not inherently safe against viral transmission, but they can be made safe. I think earlier in the pandemic, masking was an important strategy. Even now, ventilation and filtration are important strategies. And that is true not just of covid-19 but also the RSV and influenza that we are seeing right now.
But it's not just about public health. Schools are for education. That is their purpose. And I never saw the energy around catching kids up that I saw early in the pandemic when school closures were prevalent. There were a lot of discussions about summer school and tutoring and what are the strategies that we can use to reach kids who have fallen behind, and I'm not sure we've really stayed in touch with that enthusiasm. And so that's something that I would like to see us return to.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: So, the threat now of RSV and the flu, I'm remembering I think two weeks ago, my middle child, half of his class was actually gone, out sick. So, this is definitely going around. Can you talk to us about how serious those threats are this year?
DR. RIVERS: I've been seeing that in my area as well, and it is a very widespread problem. The virus that's circulating the most right now from what I've seen is RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. This is a virus that is very common and spreads very easily both through the air and through contaminated surfaces. For most older children, for working age adults, it causes a cold. But for young babies and for older adults, it can be very serious. In fact, hospitalizations for RSV right now are the highest we've seen in years for children under the age of one year old. And so if you have cold-like symptoms, even if they're not a big deal to you, I really encourage you to stay home when you can and wear a mask if you have to go out, because it's those young babies that we’re thinking about.
Looking ahead a little bit, we're already off to quite a severe flu season. We're about two months ahead of schedule. And the level of flu activity that we're seeing right now is more on par with what we would normally see in January. So, if you haven't gotten your flu shot, I encourage you to do that. And again, think of these strategies that we used during covid-19 to reduce transmission and bring those into this next flu season. As a working parent, I know how disruptive it is to be home with your kids all the time when they're not feeling well, and I know that I'm going to do what I can to avoid that.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Do we have a sense yet of who is most at risk from the flu this year, and also how effective this year's flu shot is? I know that it does vary from year to year because it's sort of a guessing game as to how to formulate it.
DR. RIVERS: That's right. Young children and older adults--this is common across infections--are at the highest risk of severe illness. But really anyone can get severely ill with influenza, and that's why it's important to get vaccinated every year. We don't yet have a sense of how good this year's vaccine matches up with what's circulating. But based on what I'm seeing so far in the data, I feel pretty good about it. Again, we won't know really until January. But the two strains that are most common right now are H3N2 and H1N1, and both of those are in this year's formulation. And so I am hopeful that it will be a good match.
DR. RIVERS: And before we leave the topic of covid entirely for this interview, I did want to ask you about an investigation that recently was released by Senate Republicans, and it concluded that the pandemic was, quote, “More likely than not the results of a research-related incident.” What do you make of that finding?
DR. RIVERS: Well, I think this is a really difficult area that from my perspective will never be settled to the highest evidentiary standard. I don't think we will ever truly know from where the pandemic originated. I think it was most likely originating in animals because most new infectious diseases are. But again, I'm not sure that we'll ever get that final say. But I think it's enough to recognize that it is a possibility maybe that that labs can be sources of leaks, of accidents, of spillover events. And I think that--just that observation enough to know that it's possible is reason to continue to focus on lab safety and lab biosecurity as important strategies for reducing our overall risk.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Let's talk about a little bit of good news for a minute. Over the summer, there were a lot of kind of scary headlines about monkey pox and the threat of that, but now it appears the spread has significantly slowed down. What happened there?
DR. RIVERS: This is a good news story for public health. Monkey pox is a very uncommon virus that spreads right now--during this epidemic--spreads primarily between men who have sex with men. Over the height of the summer in August, there were about 450 new cases every day, and there are now only about 25 new cases every day. And so there's been dramatic improvement over the course of that epidemic.
I think we can attribute a handful of things. It's an all of the above situation. But certainly, education and behavior change in the affected community, vaccination and outreach and contact tracing by public health officials I think have all contributed to what we're seeing is a rapidly declining outbreak.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: I know that you were recently part of an initiative at the CDC that was trying to forecast how bad the next virus outbreak could be and offer some policy solutions to that. And you likened the effort to the National Weather Service. Can you explain a little bit how that worked?
DR. RIVERS: Yes, the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics is the newest Center at CDC. It was founded--we opened our doors, if you will, earlier this year, and its purpose is to bring forecasting and outbreak analytics to public health problems where decision makers are having to make decisions very quickly. And in the past, they haven't always had the data or analyses that they need in order to make those decisions in an informed matter--manner rather. And so the purpose of CFA, the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, is to bring together the best modelers, the best data scientists, epidemiologists, and really create an engine to produce those analyses to support decision making.
The center is just in the hiring stage right now, getting their feet under them. You can see a few of their early successes at cdc.gov/cfa. But I think this effort will really grow into be--into one of the core capacities that we use to respond to outbreaks in the United States.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: So, what's on your radar right now? What are you watching out for in the future, and what should Americans be watching out for?
DR. RIVERS: In addition to influenza and RSV, which are two viruses that are close to home and are causing quite a stir this year, I have my eyes on an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in Uganda. This outbreak of Ebola is caused by Sudan virus, and I note that because it's a different virus than what had caused outbreaks in the DRC and in West Africa in previous years. That's important because none of the vaccines or the treatments that were developed for those other strains work on this strain. And so Ugandan officials are really having to rely on traditional and core public health strategies of contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine to break chains of transmission. And it's been a bit of a struggle. It's been a difficult outbreak to really get their arms around, and so I have my eye on that closely.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, unfortunately, we're out of time, so we'll have to leave it there. But, Dr. Rivers, thank you so much for joining us today. It was a fascinating conversation.
DR. RIVERS: Thank you.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: We'll be back in just a few minutes with our next guest. Please stay with us.
MS. UMOH: Hello, I'm Ruth Umoh, leadership editor at Fortune. The pandemic has illuminated the importance of prioritizing health, whether that's physical or mental wellbeing. Today, Cigna CEO and Chairman David Cordani joins me to discuss critical health measures in the pandemic’s wake, most notably vitality: the capacity to pursue life with health, strength and vigor.
David, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
MR. CORDANI: Great to be with you today.
MS. UMOH: David, you are uniquely positioned to give us a view on the state of healthcare post-pandemic. Can you tell us what you're seeing and how Cigna is responding?
MR. CORDANI: Sure. So, we're over two and a half years, believe it or not, into the pandemic, and we appear to be on the better end of the curve, no doubt. In many ways, the pandemic has changed a variety of things--the way we live, as well as the way we work. It's also increased and amplified the amount of mental health challenges that we see across the globe, whether that's depression, anxiety, stress, or more complex dimensions of mental health. Employers are also grappling with how they manage a new normal through both a virtual workforce, but a workforce that's grappling with the tensions that exist, the stresses that exist coming out of the back of the pandemic. And as an organization, we, as a global health service company, have worked to ensure that we have the services that are requisite to helping our employers who need us more than ever, to help them have healthy, productive, highly engaged workforces, and then to work with our customers and our patients one person at a time to help them get the best quality of life they could have.
MS. UMOH: You mentioned that we're starting to come to terms with covid’s long-term effects on our mental and physical health. CIGNA recently launched the Evernorth Vitality Index. How did this index come to fruition? And more importantly, how does it work?
MR. CORDANI: So as an organization, we set a long-term objective to improve the health and vitality of every life we serve. And from our perspective, we stepped back and said there's a higher order measure or a higher order way to think about someone's ability to thrive and someone's ability to be their best whole person from that standpoint, as opposed to in the covid environment we saw many people were just getting by. And just getting by is the opposite of having high vitality.
So, we partnered with the world's leader, Dr. Ryan, to develop and co-develop an index, a statistically and scientifically valid index that measures vitality to better inform us of the underlying drivers or derailers to vitality. And we were able to extract some learnings as we embarked upon that journey of how to help individuals to improve their overall vitality, and therefore quality of life. And what we learned is, at the cornerstone of that clearly is health. With health, vitality is possible. Without great health, vitality is not possible.
And lastly, we were able to learn, matching it back to our employer clients and community clients, that elevated levels of vitality have elevated levels of engagement, presenteeism, lower levels of turnover, and higher levels of performance. So, we're embarking upon that journey, and the index is a rather exciting way to inform ourselves of specific actions to take to help individuals improve their overall vitality.
MS. UMOH: Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, after a whirlwind few years, many relate to this feeling of just getting by which you alluded to. How was the index being used so far, and what has it unearthed?
MR. CORDANI: So, the index is a means of informing us. And again, it's the start of a journey, so we’ll never be completed. Or when we think about what vitality represents, we're reaching for helping individuals optimize their quality of life, optimize their vitality.
But what the index does tell us is that, first, as I mentioned, at the cornerstone of vitality--so a person's ability to be their best person--is absolutely health. With your health, it's possible. Without your health, it is not. It also informs us in terms of in the workplace, individuals who have elevated levels of vitality are more engaged, more productive, have lower levels of turnover. It also informs us that when vitality is elevated, health increases, individuals eat better, the more active users of their medication, if they're in a chronic care program. They're more actively engaged with their physician partner. So, there's a wonderful circle that is created as we inform ourself through the index around vitality.
And then ultimately, we seek to use it in a consultative way, one employer or one community leader at a time to better understand their current state of vitality, and then to collaborate with them with products, programs and services, be they virtual, extension of home, incentive, mental health and coordinated care capabilities, to help to either maintain or improve overall levels of vitality. So, it's quite exciting. And I think it's a large step forward in the health journey taking you to another level that is vitality.
MS. UMOH: Those insights will certainly be critical for companies and individuals as they reassess the blueprint for how and where they live and work, which has been changed at a rapid clip. What's next for the index?
MR. CORDANI: So, as I mentioned, the index is part of the journey. We are an organization that continues to invest in innovation. We're also an organization that orients around partnering. We seek to be the undisputed partner of choice. So, we will use the index as a learning mechanism. It will continue to evolve. We will apply it as I indicated, employer by employer, community by community. We will use it with our physician partner and our healthcare delivery system partners to expand what the market calls value-based care or better-quality care programs. And we're already using it to evolve new programs and services, be it virtual behavioral health, depression and anxiety programs, coordinated care for individuals dealing with musculoskeletal challenges or otherwise. We're using it as a guide to action. So, it's a step on a journey. It raises the bar. It presents an opportunity to partner and perform very specific actions, all with the objective of improving quality of life for individuals or helping individuals get the most comprehensive vitality.
And what's really exciting about this is, we know--it's proven now--that it's a tool that helps employers get a better overall environment from their employees, and that has never been more important than today, coming out of the back end of the pandemic, as employers are figuring out how to juggle this new normal.
MS. UMOH: Yeah, that objective will resonate with so many of our viewers. David, congratulations on the launch of the index, and thank you for making the time to join us today.
Now back to The Washington Post.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us, I'm Paige Winfield Cunningham, deputy newsletter editor here at The Washington Post. For our next conversation, I am joined by Dr. Seth Berkley. He's the CEO of GAVI, the Global Vaccine Alliance. Dr. Berkley, welcome to Washington Post Live.
DR. BERKLEY: Nice to be with you.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And just a reminder to our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Tweet your questions to us using the handle @PostLive.
Well, Dr. Berkley, let's jump right in. One way that the world was able to respond to covid was by producing vaccines at a record pace. Can you tell us a little bit about GAVI’s role to ensure countries have access to these vaccines, and also what has been your biggest challenge?
DR. BERKLEY: So, in the past epidemics and pandemics that have occurred, wealthy countries, of course, wanted vaccines, bought them, and there weren't very many left for the rest of the world. We wanted to do something this--very different this time. And so right at the beginning of the pandemic, even before people knew there was person-to-person transmission, we began to frame a possible new way of working. And the idea was to try to have vaccines available to those in the developing world at the same time as those in wealthy countries. And COVAX was born. It's a partnership working with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations, WHO, UNICEF. Many other partners joined us, GAVI obviously, civil society, manufacturers, and we were able to deliver vaccines 39 days after the first vaccine was delivered in wealthy countries. But we had many challenges in terms of moving forward: vaccine nationalism, challenges in export bans. At the end, we've delivered now more than 1.85 billion doses. And I think what's really special is, in this pandemic, the global coverage is around 63 percent. In the 92 low- and lower-income countries, the coverage is 52 percent. So not quite equitable, but much better than it's ever been before.
Lastly, I'd say in this pandemic--and it's critical--is that we really have to make sure we reach the high-risk populations. Healthcare workers, we should have 100 percent vaccination. Right now, we're at about 77 percent. That's better than in high-income countries. But for the elderly, we're at about 64 percent coverage. And obviously, we'd like to be as close to 100 percent for that as we could.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And to clarify, when you say 64 percent coverage, you mean the population actually receiving vaccines?
DR. BERKLEY: That's correct. When I'm--64 percent of those in the elderly population being fully vaccinated. So you want to get to as close to 100 percent as you can, because that's the group, if there's other waves of disease, will be most likely to have that severe disease and to, you know, really affect the healthcare system.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: You also mentioned the phrase “vaccine nationalism.” What do you mean by that?
DR. BERKLEY: Well, you know, what happens is, of course, the job of any political leader is to provide vaccines for their citizens, and we saw that happening. But many countries went further than that. They said, we're not going to allow any exports of vaccines. We're not going to any allow exports of the products that are necessary to make vaccines. You know, we're not going to give the knowhow. And what that does is it fragments a system that traditionally is global in terms of supplies, and that really created a problem in terms of being able to, you know, have--the motto at the time was, you're only safe if everybody's safe. And people would say it, but I'm not sure they believed it until after, let's say, the delta wave where all of a sudden, in India, we saw a lot of disease, and within a month, that strain had spread around the world, or with omicron, where we saw a wave occurring in southern Africa, and again having it spread around the world. So, when we think of pandemics, we have to think about this not just on a national basis, but we have to think about it on a global basis.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And what areas of the country have you seen, like, the worst access to vaccines or where we have the most progress that needs to be made?
DR. BERKLEY: Yeah, so in January, there were 34 countries that still had less than 10 percent coverage in the developing world. That now is eight countries that still have less than 10 percent coverage. So, the others have been lifted up. That last eight, seven of the eight are quite fragile countries with very weak health systems. Obviously, it's important to have a resilient health system to be able to deliver product. And when we're not doing pandemics, that's what GAVI is doing. We provide vaccines for more than 50 percent of the world's children, and what we try to do is build out that health system to the last mile. And right now, vaccines are the most widely distributed health interventions in the world. But there's still about 10 percent that aren't in that system, and that's where people are mostly below the poverty line, two-thirds below the poverty line, and 50 percent of the child mortality is still occurring. So, what we'd like to do is extend this health system all the way out to make sure that we leave no one behind. And that's important for healthcare and economic growth in countries but obviously, also to be the frontline of defense for outbreaks going on in these countries.
Yeah, that's a really fascinating point about countries that sort of lack that healthcare infrastructure. In a country like that, what does the distribution effort end up looking like if you don't have, say, the clinics, the doctor's offices, the pharmacies to distribute the shots?
DR. BERKLEY: Well, what happens in those circumstances is you end up doing what we call, you know, campaigns or special immunization activities and you go out with a team of healthcare workers, and you reach populations and you vaccinate them. That is very challenging when you have a product that requires two doses, because you have to not only get that first dose, but then you have to find those same people a month later or whatever the dosing interval is, and make sure they get vaccinated. So, it's much better to have a health system in place where you can reach it through a fixed base system or even an outbreak system where people know every Monday at this particular place there will be health workers with products.
Of course, one of the challenges we had in this particular outbreak was some of the vaccines required extraordinary conditions. For example, the Pfizer vaccine is a vaccine that needs to be stored in minus 80 degrees. We had built cold chain systems across the world. We had put 65,000 new cold chain points in place before the pandemic. But during the pandemic, we had to expand them and then build a whole new ultra-cold chain system, and these added to the challenges that that were there in making this happen.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: That actually also makes me wonder, we do have a number of different vaccines. Which ones are being the most widely distributed? And are there other vaccines that are, say, easier to distribute than the Pfizer one which has to be stored in colder temperatures?
DR. BERKLEY: That's a great question. And it turns out that, you know, with all of the misinformation that you talk to about with Caitlin and some of the factors that have kept people from being fully vaccinated, people have tended to want to go with vaccines that they hear about, that they hear are popular. We have 11 different vaccines in our portfolio. But Pfizer, for example, is one of the most popular products because it's been so widely used across the world.
But we do have other vaccines. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine, you know, is one that's been used as a single dose and is in a normal refrigerator. There's Novavax, which is, again, a normal temperature vaccine. And so, you know, the real challenge here is trying to give choice to populations but to educate them at what might be best. So, in a capital city, in an urban setting, it's much easier to deliver ultra-cold chain vaccines. If you're getting into rural areas, temperature stability becomes more important. And if you're going to areas that are fragile or where there's instability, then really a single dose vaccine would be very helpful.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, and of course, there's also the question of getting people the boosters. How do you weigh those two things--trying to get people the first, you know, double dose, perhaps of shots and then the subsequent boosters?
DR. BERKLEY: Well, of course, you know, the message has got a little confused, because we started out being very focused on high-risk populations. We put a goal out to say the whole world should cover the 20 percent population that was at highest risk. That was healthcare workers, elderly, and people with co-morbidities. And people got confused with that message. They say, oh, you're limiting us to 20 percent? No, the issue was that's the group you should vaccinate first.
When vaccines became more available and people started, you know, vaccinating more broadly, they didn't focus so much on those high-risk groups. And that's why we've now come back and said those are really the groups you have to make sure get covered in addition to everybody else that you can get vaccines to.
The good news for boosters is now that 82 percent of the lower-income countries have a booster program in place, but the numbers are very, very small, even less than the one you described with Caitlin in the U.S, so under 10 percent. And this is something we'll be focused on in '23, is catching up with primary vaccines for those at high risk, and then making sure that there are boosters available for those high-risk populations as their immunity wanes.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: How's the U.S. doing in terms of helping other countries gain access to vaccines? Are we--are we hitting expectations here?
DR. BERKLEY: So the U.S. has been fabulous. They're the single-largest supporter of the effort that we're doing. Its national program has not done so well, as you--as you discussed. I mean, only about two-thirds of Americans are vaccinated and about a third boosted and less than 10 percent now with the new boosters that are directly designed. But on the generosity scale, the U.S. has been generous both in financing, which is important to purchase vaccines and provide delivery finance, but also in terms of donating doses of vaccines when they've had excess. And we work very closely with the U.S. government to get these as widely distributed as quickly as possible.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: I'd like to throw in an audience question here. This one is from Rishi Bhattacharyya from Michigan. And this person asks, is it inevitable in future global pandemics that countries of means will get first access to vaccines before the countries of lesser means, even if the--even if the lesser means countries are more adversely impacted by the disease? How would you answer that, Dr. Berkley?
DR. BERKLEY: So that is really a great question. Of course, we would like to see a world where we can make vaccines available simultaneously or, if necessary, even in places that have greatest need. Now, one of the ways to think about that is to increase the production of vaccines. And what we saw in this particular situation is that vaccines are expensive to produce, and therefore are quite clustered in where they're produced. And so, for example, on the African continent, they consume a lot of vaccines, but they produce less than 0.1 percent of the world's vaccines. So, we're working right now with Africa to try to see if one can do technology transfers to build some facilities there so perhaps, in the next pandemic--and by the way, it's evolutionarily certain there will be a next pandemic--you can add production capacity there that could be helpful to try to make sure that there's vaccines produced locally because, you know, the hope would be that when waves of disease move around the world, they don't necessarily affect every part of the world everywhere at the same time, and therefore you can source vaccines from different sources like we ultimately had to do.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, so as you just referred to, you have said, quote, “In many ways, the covid pandemic was a dress rehearsal for the big one.” Explain what you meant by that. What is coming next?
DR. BERKLEY: Well, I mean, this pandemic, which ended up costing the world, you know, more than $12 trillion, shut down the entire world, I hope it has woken people up to understand that diseases can and are important for everybody in the world. If you don't have your health, you don't have anything. So, you know, that's really the important point. And I think what we have to make sure of in the future is that the world is focused on these challenges and that they--you know, we right now live in a moment of panic and neglect, panic and neglect. So, I remember in the previous Ebola outbreak in West Africa, we worked to rush a vaccine forward, got a vaccine available. You know, I said, you know, we're going to need money to purchase the vaccine. Everybody said no problem, money's no object. And, you know, three months later, people were like, well, Ebola is last problem. We need to be preparing in peacetime for these outbreaks and be in a situation that we can do everything we can to make it available.
And remember, in this case, you know, the disease burden, there's been more than 15 million deaths, but it's a relatively low-fatality disease, you know, compared to something like Ebola, where the fatality rate there is somewhere between 50 and 70 percent. And so there are potentially worse diseases, and that's why we really have to be prepared for whatever comes in front of us.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Would you venture to guess the timeframe here? When are we going to see another pandemic on this scale? Next year, next five years, next 10 years?
DR. BERKLEY: Well, I think it's Einstein that said, you know, it's particularly hard to, you know, predict--do predictions, especially if they're about the future. But the issue here is there was a recent study that suggested that because of global warming, because of population growth, because of movement of people, that we're seeing a 2 percent increase per year in the likelihood of seeing a major pandemic like covid. And the study suggested that somewhere between 38 percent and 76 percent of people's likelihood to see this in their lifetime. So, the answer is, yes, there will be more pandemics. You just heard about monkey pox. You've heard about Ebola Sudan. We don't know what the next one is going to be. And therefore, we really need to prepare for this all the time. And this is something that people who care about this have been talking about for a long time. But it's hard to get attention because people don't focus on it. They want it to be over. You know, right now, the world wants to be done with covid. But unfortunately, I'm not sure covid is done with us.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, that leads right into my next question, which is, you know, I talk to epidemiologists, I talk to folks like you, and of course, you're hyper focused on this and issuing some very important warnings about the pandemic. And yet, you're absolutely right. I don't want to think about the pandemic anymore. I want to go about my life. There's a lot more interesting things to do and pursue. So, what's your advice to your family and friends? Should they go back to their normal lives? What should their level of concern and awareness be?
DR. BERKLEY: Well, of course, one has to go and live one's life. And I would never say anything of that. But you need to be aware of risks. And so, for example, if you're in a very heavy flu situation, it makes sense to wash your hands frequently. It may make sense, if you're in very dense environments, to wear a mask. These are things you can do to avoid disease. And of course, get vaccinated. So, I think what people can do is sensibly adjust their preparations for these types of diseases going forward.
But we have to think about many other things in our society. I mean, you know, we, as part of our defense system, invest, in peacetime, in many, many layers of a defense system for the country. Even though the likelihood of having to use all those different layers isn't there, we as a society value making an investment in peacetime, just in case in wartime we have what we need.
We need to do the same thing in diseases. We need those resilient health systems. We need to prepare vaccines against all of the potential diseases. And even ones we don't have vaccines for, we need to be in a position to rapidly make vaccines for them, and do everything we can to accelerate that so that when the next outbreak occurs, we're better able to do it.
That's really smart work. It doesn't mean we have to focus on it all the time and talk about it all the time. But by not focusing on it and not doing it, what we then is--get caught flat footed in the case of another outbreak and not be able to respond quickly enough, which costs us lives, and in this case 15 million lives.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, our time is growing short, but I would like to wrap things up with a second audience question, because I think this is a good one. And it's on the topic of vaccine hesitancy. Steven Kozel in California asks how can we address the anti-science, anti-vaccine organizations, groups and individuals spreading misinformation and disinformation using the resources from all countries using a consistent messaging? And I would add to that, can you elaborate on the messaging that you use with folks around the world to try to convince them to get these vaccines?
DR. BERKLEY: So, vaccine hesitancy is something that has existed from the beginning. If you go all the way back to smallpox vaccine, the first one, there was fears of people, because it came from cows, of growing horns and all kinds of crazy, crazy messages. But the truth is, we have been able to deal with these with local experts, with religious leaders, with community leaders, and this is something we do routinely around the world.
This particular pandemic has been completely different. For the first time we had political leaders using vaccines and this disease as part of a political rhetoric, as part of, you know, what's happening for other reasons, and we've also seen misinformation coming from other countries using social media, which spreads at the speed of life.
And so the challenge really here is it has now increased the risk dramatically. And the point is, when there's a piece of information in one place, it is across the world and affecting people on the other side of the world just as quickly. And when you have these big, you know, political discussions and countries aren't using products, it spreads to other countries, and it makes it much more difficult. So, what we need to do is return to a world where people trust governments, trust institutions, trust scientists, and use the best science possible. We won't know all the answers early in a pandemic, and we need to be honest about that. But we want to make sure we have the best science information available to move forward.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, that's a--that's a big problem I'm not sure anyone has solved at this point. But we really appreciate your thoughts. We're out of time, so we'll have to leave it there. But, Dr. Seth Berkley, thank you so much for joining us today.
DR. BERKLEY: Thanks, great talking to you.
MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: And thanks to all of you for watching us today. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find out more about our upcoming programs. I’m Paige Winfield Cunningham and thanks for joining us today. | 2022-11-18T16:38:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transcript: Future of Global Health - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/18/transcript-future-global-health/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/11/18/transcript-future-global-health/ |
Netanyahu to address major Jewish Republican conference in rare show of partisanship by foreign ally
Israel's Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu arrives during the swearing-in ceremony for Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on Nov. 15. (Abir Sultan/Pool via AP)
Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s conference Saturday amounts to a display of support for one American political party ahead of a presidential election that is rare for a foreign ally.
Netanyahu, who is set to return to power as leader of the U.S.'s strongest ally in the Middle East, has worked with Democratic presidents in the past. But his close relationship with Donald Trump — who launched another White House bid earlier this week — has now manifested in a degree of partisanship that could make working with Biden challenging if Netanyahu becomes prime minister again, as is expected at the end of Israel’s legislative session.
Netanyahu is scheduled to appear via satellite in a conversation with Matthew Brooks, chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who previously noted that “there’s not much daylight between Netanyahu and Republicans, at least Republican election leaders,” according to Haaretz. This has been a point of criticism aimed at Netanyahu from current Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who has prioritized improving the country’s relationship with Democrats after the Trump and Netanyahu administrations.
“The management of the relationship with the Democratic Party in the United States was careless and dangerous,” Lapid, the former foreign minister, said last year during a ceremony where he handed over his department. “The Republicans are important to us, their friendship is important to us, but not only the friendship of the Republican Party.”
“We find ourselves with a Democratic White House, Senate and House, and they are angry,” he added. “We need to change the way we work with them.”
The conference, which gets underway Friday, has drawn possible contenders for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, with Trump expected to speak by live-stream sometime Saturday.
Biden has known Netanyahu for decades, having worked with him as vice president during the Obama administration and as a senator who once chaired the Foreign Relations Committee. But after Biden’s election, the president did not appear to have made it a priority to work with the Israeli leader who called Trump “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House” during the 2020 presidential election.
To be fair, Netanyahu has a long history of aligning himself with the GOP and the party’s presidential candidates, but recent decisions have displayed a further tilt right that perhaps predicted potential challenges with a Democratic administration. Democrats in the U.S. appear to have responded to this pivot in their view of Netanyahu, with only 14 percent approving of him in a 2019 YouGov poll.
Perhaps as a result, Biden was slow to call Netanyahu after the American president’s inauguration; he spoke with the leaders of China and Russia before having a conversation with Israel’s prime minister. And it remains unclear whether another invitation will be extended to Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, an opportunity he has previously had three times. The White House denied that the decision was “an intentional diss,” but it was interpreted that way by some Israeli leaders.
Yet it wasn’t surprising considering the decisions Netanyahu made that appeared to show his opposition to the potential policies of the Biden administration, including approving hundreds of new housing units in the West Bank during the presidential transition period. And just weeks after the 2020 election, Netanyahu delivered a speech criticizing Biden’s plan to rejoin the international accord limiting Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump had withdrawn the United States from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a move welcomed by Netanyahu.
More recently, this month’s Israeli election results provided a slim parliamentary majority for Netanyahu, and perhaps more surprisingly, a win for the country’s far right. Members of one of Israel’s previously fringe, fundamentally racist and stridently anti-democratic movements could find themselves in some of the nation’s most influential political positions.
Bezalel Smotrich, a self-described “proud homophobe,” has announced plans to drastically change Israel’s justice system. And Itamar Ben Gvir, who supports expelling “disloyal” citizens of Israel — both Jewish and Arab — is expected to be an influential voice in Netanyahu’s administration.
“We’re demanding a change,” Ben Gvir said Tuesday after preliminary results showed that the slate secured about 15 seats, thus becoming the third-largest party in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
Ben Gvir, a leader in the Otzma Yehudit party, spoke to a spirited crowd of young, religious men dancing to music while shouting “Death to terrorists!”
“We’re demanding to make an absolute distinction between those who are loyal to Israel, with whom we have no problem at all, and those who are undermining our precious country,” he said.
Democrats remain steadfast supporters of Israel, while Republicans have a long history of close ties with Netanyahu. In January 2015, unbeknown to the Obama White House, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress on Iran — a major snub of the presidency.
“The Congress can make this decision on its own,” Boehner said at the time. “I don’t believe I’m poking anyone in the eye. There is a serious threat that exists in the world, and the president last night kind of papered over it.”
Netanyahu used the March 2015 speech to warn against a deal with Iran on its nuclear program and economic sanctions. President Barack Obama announced the agreement, reached with European allies, in August 2015. | 2022-11-18T17:49:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Netanyahu to address major Jewish Republican conference in rare show of partisanship by foreign ally - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/republicans-netanyahu-israel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/republicans-netanyahu-israel/ |
Then-President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks alongside then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in the Rose Garden in October 2017. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
With Donald Trump’s electoral track record taking another huge hit in 2022, there are increasing signs that the Republican Party establishment might decide its best course is to break with Trump in 2024.
But deciding that isn’t even close to half the battle. The rest of it — and a big reason the party has never truly tried — is how arduous he could make that process.
Say what you will about Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), but he’s actually been rather transparent about why the party needs to stick with Trump. In Graham’s telling, it’s not so much that Trump is particularly sufficient, but rather that he is necessary — that the party can’t win without him because of his hold on the base. And Graham has pretty explicitly named the nightmare scenario: that Trump sabotages the GOP on his way out.
“He could make the Republican Party something that nobody else I know can make it,” Graham told Axios’s Jonathan Swan last year. “He can make it bigger. He can make it stronger. He can make it more diverse.”
Then Graham quickly added: “And he also could destroy it.”
Swan pressed Graham on the point, suggesting he was stroking Trump’s ego so the former president didn’t go off and form a third party.
Graham didn’t take issue with the premise at all. “A third party would be a disaster,” Graham said.
But a third-party or independent run is hardly the only way in which Trump could hurt the GOP — or the avenue he’d most likely take. Nor has Trump been particularly shy about making Republicans fear that nightmare scenario, leaving the party to decide whether it wants to tempt his vengeance and how hard to try to facilitate a break.
Suggestions like the one Swan and Graham floated don’t come out of thin air. The last time the establishment truly attempted to thwart Trump — in 2016 — Trump repeatedly wielded an independent run as a stick. He signed a pledge to abide by the GOP nominating process, but then he repeatedly indicated that the pledge wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
“If I am treated fairly, that’s the way it’s going to be,” Trump said in 2015. “But I want to keep that door open. I have to keep that door open because if something happens where I’m not treated fairly, I may very well use that door.”
Donald Trump hinted on Feb. 28 that he might run as an independent, because the GOP is treating him "unfairly." It's not the first time he's made that threat. (Video: Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
When some in the party criticized him after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Trump brandished the stick again. He spoke to advisers about creating a Patriot Party or a MAGA Party. The strategy was rather transparently to keep his party in line ahead of the impeachment trial, and Trump ultimately proved successful in doing so. The third party became unnecessary.
There is a real question about whether these gestures were bluster. It certainly suits Trump’s purposes to threaten such a thing, as his impeachment showed. But actually running outside the two major parties involves jumping through a series of hoops — especially if the effort were to be launched after he lost the 2024 GOP nomination (compared to, say, if he had launched a third party back in 2021).
Getting on the ballot can be difficult for independents, depending upon the state, and would involve gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. And some states even have “sore loser” laws which prohibit running as an independent after losing a party’s nomination. These laws generally don’t appear to apply to presidential candidates running as independents, but they might in key red states such as Ohio, South Dakota and Texas. That could severely hamper any real path to victory for Trump and thus could possibly dissuade him.
That said, such a run might aim at goals other than winning. And even getting on the ballot in a handful of states could wreck the GOP’s chances, if Trump’s goal were sabotage. While the number of Republicans who say they are primarily supporters of Trump rather than the party has declined substantially over the past two years, it’s still about 3 in 10. It’s not difficult to picture enough true believers deciding to go down with the ship, particularly if Trump convinces them that he was (and they were) wronged by the GOP establishment, the Justice Department or some other entity.
Perhaps the more likely approach — and the simpler one for Trump — is to subvert the party in other ways. This could take a number of forms, including proactively attacking the GOP nominee, merely declining to support them, or just doing generally unhelpful things like, say, pushing the party’s voters to distrust and disengage from the electoral system.
On this front, Trump has demonstrated more of a willingness to follow through (though in each case it’s debatable how much sabotage was his deliberate aim):
Trump pressed forward with his ridiculous attempt to overturn the 2020 election even as Georgia was holding runoffs that would decide the Senate majority. He would later contend that the GOP lost those races because Georgians “didn’t want to vote” because they didn’t trust the system — something that’s inextricably linked to Trump lies about voter fraud. Indeed, Republicans warned that his quixotic quest might cost the party in Georgia, and some evidence shows that it might have.
In the 2022 election, Trump didn’t appear at all chastened by that experience. He attacked the GOP Senate candidate in Colorado when that candidate tried to distance himself from Trump in a blue state. He also began his 2024 attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on the eve of DeSantis’s reelection bid and on Election Day itself, previewing a new nickname and threatening to dump opposition research.
While many in his party recently suggested hat Trump should avoid launching his 2024 campaign while an important Dec. 6 Georgia runoff is again in the balance, Trump thumbed his nose and pressed forward anyway. Now Sen. Raphael G. Warnock’s (D-Ga.) campaign is using Trump’s announcement speech and its praise for GOP candidate Herschel Walker in a campaign ad.
The problem for Republicans is that Trump cares very little for the party, if at all. To the extent he does, it’s because of what the party can do for him. It’s a codependent relationship, in the truest sense. He’s now cost it not just the presidency in 2020, but arguably the Senate majority in two straight elections — all while disregarding plenty of warnings that his actions could be counterproductive.
There’s a case to be made that Trump could ultimately decide to just fade away, particularly if he loses the nomination and recognizes that his political career is finally, actually over. Would he want to be remembered not just as the former president who lost, but the former president who sabotaged his party in three straight elections?
But the damage needn’t even be deliberate. Pride and ego can cause you to engage in some pretty destructive behavior. And few have demonstrated such a capacity for all three things like the former president.
The latest: RNC members rallying behind McDaniel for a second term | 2022-11-18T17:49:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Trump could sabotage the GOP - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/trump-sabotage-gop-2024/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/trump-sabotage-gop-2024/ |
A blue verification check on the page of Elon Musk, co-founder and chief executive officer of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and Tesla Inc., on a smartphone arranged in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Monday, Nov. 7, 2022. Elon Musk’s agreement to buy Twitter Inc. is sending some users searching for alternative platforms — with mixed success. (Bloomberg)
“RIPTwitter” is trending on Twitter.
Naturally, everyone who complained about the platform being a hellsite are gushing about the joy it brought to their lives and how much they will miss it. That’s pure Twitter for you. Fortunately, Twitter is not going to die today or tomorrow.(1) But there’s a decent chance it’ll go dark for a while at least on Sunday, when the start of the World Cup sparks a surge of tweets from around the globe.
Twitter is now running with a skeleton crew. After half the company was let go a two weeks ago, hundreds more left the firm on Thursday night after Elon Musk set a deadline for remaining staff to agree to “extremely hardcore” conditions or take three months severance. Many took the latter.
Musk likes to surround himself with loyalists and he has revelled in having a rabid fanbase on Twitter, primarily responding to messages of praise. Those who stand up to correct him are shown the door. The thin-skinned billionaire has fired several engineers who openly criticized him. Musk may say that he values excellence, but it stands to reason that many of the smartest people at Twitter have now left.
You could argue that running a global online platform with a skeleton crew is absolutely possible. Let’s assume that between 1,000 and 2,000 staff now remain at Twitter. That is still a lot of engineers, especially considering that WhatsApp had just a fraction of that — 55 — when it was bought by Facebook in 2014, and was maintaining a messaging app for about 450 million monthly active users. Twitter has about 300 million monthly active users.
You could also argue that drastic times call for drastic measures. Musk has taken the reins of a company that was bloated and unprofitable in its latest quarter. To radically bring costs down, he needs to cut staff to a nucleus of “hardcore” engineers who can work at high speed and high intensity.
But neither of these arguments really hold weight if the goal is long-term success. WhatsApp may have ticked along nicely with a few dozen workers, but it also was notoriously cautious about rolling out new features and its founders focused primarily on simply keeping its servers running. Musk has no intention of just keeping servers running. He wants to turn Twitter into the “everything app,” with a host of new features like payments to emulate larger online platforms like China’s WeChat.
That is an especially challenging task for Twitter. After 16 years of operation, its systems are loaded with technical debt, bugs left behind after myriad iterations and upgrades. Its systems are highly complex and distributed across multiple networks. Reshaping them will take time and expertise — but Musk is in a hurry, and he has jettisoned many of the people who know these systems well.(2)
Musk is planning to re-launch his $8 Twitter Blue service on Nov. 29 “to make sure it’s rock solid.” But Twitter itself might not be so solid when that happens.
It’s unclear why Musk’s approach has been so extreme. Perhaps he is desperate to claw back his investment and pay back creditors. But he didn’t need to take such drastic measures. Twitter was not on the brink of disaster when Musk took over. It has been mostly profitable over the past five years and ran a decent advertising business that, until Musk’s takeover, brought in about 90% of its revenues. That business looks increasingly uncertain as advertisers balk at the turmoil at the company.
Musk’s Latest Move at Twitter Can Only Sink Ad Revenue: Parmy Olson
Why Everyone’s Tweeting About the Mastodon in the Room: Tim Culpan
Elon Musk Is Busy With Twitter: Matt Levine
(1) If it did die, Musk could at least claim that he solved the bot problem.
(2) WhatsApp’s tiny staff were also highly incentivised by stock options, and all became millionaires when the app sold to Facebook. It’s unclear what benefits Twitter’s remaining crew will get. Musk has promised a stock plan similar to SpaceX’s, with rewards for “exceptional performance.” | 2022-11-18T18:07:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Whoever Tweets Last, Don’t Forget to Turn Off the Lights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whoever-tweets-last-dont-forget-to-turn-off-the-lights/2022/11/18/4002d9de-6763-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whoever-tweets-last-dont-forget-to-turn-off-the-lights/2022/11/18/4002d9de-6763-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Welcome to The Daily 202! Tell your friends to sign up here. On this day in 1978, Rep. Leo J. Ryan (D-Calif.), and four others were killed in Jonestown, Guyana, by members of the Peoples Temple. Rep. Jackie Speier, then an aide to Ryan, was shot five times. The cult proceeded to commit a mass murder and suicide that claimed the lives of more than 900 of its members.
With the House of Representatives narrowly in GOP hands come January, Republicans and Democrats are seemingly using two different strategies to keep the process of picking leaders in the coming Congress turn into damaging internal conflicts. One, both, or neither may work.
Democrats have embraced a hand-off strategy that seems designed to ensure continuity, even as the party embraces a generational changing of the guard that will see a new crop of leaders who are at least three decades younger than their predecessors.
Republicans have shoveled concessions at their hard-right members in an effort to avoid a mutiny that might endanger, and would certainly weaken, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who remains the odds-on favorite for the speakership come January.
On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the only woman to be second in line for the presidency, said she would not be her party’s leader in the new Congress, saying “the hour’s come for a new generation to lead.”
“Shortly after her announcement, it became clear that a new generation of Democrats was stepping in to take the torch,” Marianna Sotomayor and Paul Kane reported in this deeply researched look at Pelosi’s time as the most consequential modern speaker.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, announced a bid today for House minority leader. If elected, the 52-year-old would be the first Black person to lead a party in Congress. He “has long been seen as a potential heir when Pelosi stepped down,” Marianna and Paul wrote.
Reps. Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.), who will seek the No. 2 and No. 3 positions, respectively. Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.) would stay on as assistant leader, a position that used to be third in line, but will now be fourth in the leadership structure.
Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) “announced he would not seek reelection to leadership and endorsed Jeffries for the top spot,” Marianna and Paul reported.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Democrats’ Progressive Caucus, had been whispered in the Capitol as a possible contender for one of the top jobs. In her statement on Pelosi stepping down, she did not announce a bid for leadership. On Friday, she announced she would seek her current job again.
.@RepJayapal runs for another term as CPC chair pic.twitter.com/LM1odRdpxt
The McCarthy method
On the Republican side, things look a little dicier. McCarthy easily carried the internal party selection of a speaker this week, winning a 188-31 vote. But he’ll need 218 “ayes” in early January, at a time when the GOP may only have 222 or 223 seats.
My colleague Michael Kranish chronicled McCarthy’s rise in this excellent portrait that zeroes in on how the current House minority leader has worked “to unify his caucus even if that meant embracing [former president Donald] Trump’s election falsehoods and supporting the ouster of his onetime loyal deputy, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, after she voted to impeach Trump.”
And that may be why the first big announcements from Republicans this week were not about traditional party goals like lower taxes or industry-friendly deregulation but investigations into President Biden, his administration, and in particular his son Hunter.
It’s the red-meat approach. The House GOP had previewed it in January 2022 with promises of using committee chair powers to open probes into Hunter Biden’s finances, and the White House’s policies on the border, or the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Over at NPR, Deirdre Walsh and Ximena Bustillo wrote up Thursday’s news conference by the likely Republican chairs of the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, Rep. James Comer (Ky.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), who promised all manner of investigations.
“Full steam ahead,” Comer said, according to Deirdre and Ximena, who noted the congressman leveled a lot of charges of wrongdoing at the Bidens but did not provide evidence.
At the Washington Free Beacon, Adam Kredo spoke to the incoming chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, who also promised a range of investigations into the Biden administration.
Possibly on the list, according to Kredo: The origins of the coronavirus pandemic, errors during the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the administration’s dealings with China.
As they proceed, it’s worth noting how McCarthy has described congressional investigations in the past, notably the probes into the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya, when future presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was secretary of state.
At the time, McCarthy’s conservative bona fides were under attack. So he bragged that the GOP-led investigations had damaged Clinton’s presidential aspirations.
Jeffries announces bid for House Democratic leader that would make history
“Today, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries announced a bid for House Democratic leader in a generational shift that would make history. If elected by fellow House Democrats — as expected — the 52-year-old New Yorker would be the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress,” John Wagner and Mariana Alfaro report.
More: Who is Hakeem Jeffries?
“The Biden administration has determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom the CIA has held responsible for the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, is immune from a civil lawsuit filed in the United States by Khashoggi’s fiance and a human rights organization he founded,” Karen DeYoung reports.
Prosecutor uses Stewart Rhodes’s words to close Oath Keepers trial
“Closing arguments began Friday morning in the seditious conspiracy trial of Rhodes and four associates of the extremist group he founded, capping the highest-profile prosecution to arise from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,” Spencer S. Hsu, Rachel Weiner and Tom Jackman report.
“Clark’s move is part of Democrats’ desire to quickly establish a new set of leaders after having the same three members at the top — Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) — for 16 years,” Leigh Ann Caldwell reports.
“North Korea fired a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile Friday, South Korean and Japanese officials said, as tensions between Pyongyang and Washington escalated further amid U.S. efforts to strengthen coordination with its allies in Seoul and Tokyo,” Michelle Ye Hee Lee reports.
“The nation is in a maternal mortality and morbidity crisis that grows year after year and is particularly acute in rural communities, where it is normal for the nearest hospital to be a long drive away and poverty is too often prevalent,” Akilah Johnson reports.
“Each year, tens of thousands of people experience unexpected pregnancy complications — cardiovascular issues, hypertension, diabetes — and about 700 die, making pregnancy and childbirth among the leading causes of death for teenage girls and women 15 to 44 years old.”
“Black women are three times as likely to die as a result of pregnancy as White women, and Native American women are more than twice as likely to die, disparities that persist regardless of income, education and other socioeconomic factors.”
A look at Pelosi’s two decades in leadership
“Her decision to not seek reelection as the top Democrat in Congress’s lower chamber marks the culmination of a political career widely seen as setting the standard for wielding political power. Historians largely agree that Pelosi redefined the speakership, and she made history climbing the ranks of Democratic leadership, becoming the first woman to be second in line to the presidency — twice,” Marianna Sotomayor and Paul Kane report.
'You’ve gotta have a war every five or 10 years’
“It’s not every day that a senator quotes a famous mob movie to describe the state of his political party after a week of infighting,” Politico’s Burgess Everett reports.
“Even from a cynical Wall Street perspective, there are two upcoming challenges that policymakers will need to address decisively: the expiration of the debt ceiling and the threat (and perhaps the reality) of a recession. In both cases, the House Republicans seem likely to sit on their hands, hoping that a bad economy will help them in 2024. The onus to get something done, though, will fall on the Biden White House, and a Washington policymaker who doesn’t face party-political constraints: Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve,” the New Yorker’s John Cassidy writes.
“Business groups applauded Biden and Xi for stepping back from open confrontation and said planned follow-up meetings between senior U.S. and Chinese officials could herald further improvement. But, at least for now, the relationship between the world’s two largest economies seems stuck midway between rupture and rapprochement,” David J. Lynch reports.
“While President Joe Biden and Democrats campaigned to preserve their congressional majorities, a small team of attorneys, communications strategists and legislative specialists have spent the past few months holed up in Washington preparing for the alternative, two administration officials said,” CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, Priscilla Alvarez, Jeremy Herb, Sean Lyngaas, Zachary Cohen and Kylie Atwood report.
“The Biden administration on Thursday released new guidelines that will make it easier for economically distressed student loan borrowers to discharge their student debt in bankruptcy proceedings,” the Wall Street Journal’s Gabriel T. Rubin reports.
How Republican control of the House came into focus, visualized
“Republicans have regained control of the U.S. House following eight days of vote counting. The determination of who would get a majority took four days longer than it took to call the presidential election in 2020,” Adrian Blanco reports.
“Refusing to concede, Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for Arizona governor, said Thursday she is assembling lawyers and collecting evidence of voters having trouble casting ballots on Election Day as she considers her next move,” the AP’s Jonathan J. Cooper reports.
“When Trump announced yet another White House bid from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Nov. 15, 2022, he did so with a speech devoid of overt religious references. It was unclear if the event included an invocation, and while some of Trump’s stalwart evangelical supporters were seen milling about the resort’s carpeted floors Tuesday evening — namely, conservative commentator Eric Metaxas, pastor Mark Burns and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — many of the former president’s longtime religious defenders were nowhere to be seen,” Jack Jenkins writes.
“Instead, most have remained silent about his new campaign, while others have hinted at allegiances to other potential 2024 presidential contenders such as [Mike] Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.”
At 1:30 p.m., Biden will meet with business and labor leaders. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen will also attend.
“When presidential granddaughter Naomi King Biden and Peter George Heermann Neal get married on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday, they will join a short list of couples, including presidential children, nieces and friends, and one president (Grover Cleveland), whose wedding days were celebrated in a residence that is a cultural icon,” Jura Koncius and Roxanne Roberts report.
More: What to know about Naomi Biden’s White House wedding | 2022-11-18T18:07:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House GOP, Dems take two roads to curb leadership fights - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/house-gop-dems-take-two-roads-curb-leadership-fights/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/house-gop-dems-take-two-roads-curb-leadership-fights/ |
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), joined by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), speaks during a news conference at the Capitol on Nov. 17. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
The incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the incoming chairman of the Oversight Committee, James Comer (R-Ky.), and about 10 other members of the brand-new majority walked into the House TV studio first thing Thursday to announce multiple probes into the president’s son.
“Hunter Biden was conducting business with suspected human traffickers,” they asserted, and “Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were involved in a scheme to try to get China to buy liquefied natural gas,” and “credit cards and bank accounts of Hunter and Joe Biden were commingled” and “Hunter wanted keys made for Joe Biden” to his office. They mentioned Hunter two dozen times in their opening statements alone.
Reporters tried to ask questions about other topics. Comer cut them off. “If we could keep it about Hunter Biden, that would be great,” he said, explaining that “this is kind of a big deal, we think.”
“Why make this your very first visible order of business?” one reporter asked.
Comer assured her that other pressing issues would also be addressed: “Kevin [McCarthy] said the first legislation we’re going to vote on is to repeal the 87,000 IRS agents.”
Great idea! After a GOP campaign focused on crime, their first legislative act will be to protect criminals. They’ll try to block the hiring of IRS enforcement personnel (the true number is much less than 87,000) assigned to crack down on the wealthiest tax cheats. Voters who elected Republicans to fight inflation and gas prices might be feeling puzzled, if not swindled.
But, in fairness, the noisiest voices in the GOP have other plans, too: They also want to cut off military aid to Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion.
A few hours after the Comer and Jordan show, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took the same stage to announce plans to force a vote on ending funds for Ukraine. “Is Ukraine now the 51st state?” asked Greene, who alleged an elaborate cryptocurrency conspiracy in which military aid for Ukraine actually funds Democrats’ campaigns.
Not too long ago, the Republican Party stood against Russian aggression. But with the GOP’s single-digit majority in the new House, the oddballs hold all the power. “You’ve heard Leader McCarthy say publicly that he doesn’t see very good odds for much funding for Ukraine going forward in a Republican-controlled conference,” Greene pointed out.
Fellow crank Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) agreed: “I will not vote for one more dollar to Ukraine!”
Greene backed McCarthy for speaker and told McCarthy’s critics (including many of her fellow members of the far-right Freedom Caucus) to bring it on. “I’m not afraid of the civil war in the GOP — I lean into it,” she said on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast.
Gaetz shot back: “Whatever Kevin has promised Marjorie Taylor Greene, I guarantee you this: At the first opportunity, he will zap her faster than you can say ‘Jewish space laser’” — a reference to the antisemitic sentiments that got Greene kicked off her committees. McCarthy has promised to restore her privileges.
McCarthy’s age-old ambition to be speaker is again teetering. Thirty-one House Republicans opposed his nomination as speaker this week — many times the number needed to sink him when the full House votes in January.
Even if he wins the job, he might soon wish he hadn’t. That’s because he’ll only get it by signing an endless pile of IOUs the crazies are demanding: impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Multiple Hunter Biden investigations. A select committee to investigate China. An investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, investigation. Investigations of Anthony Fauci and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And a panoply of probes into the Justice Department and the FBI. McCarthy is going to be held “completely hostage,” outgoing Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) predicted.
The same day Republicans were yammering about investigating Hunter and defunding Ukraine, outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced her retirement from leadership after two decades in charge of House Democrats. She was the first woman to be speaker and one of the most effective ever to hold that role.
Yet, most Republicans skipped Pelosi’s announcement on the House floor (and a few opted for social-media taunts). Among the missing was McCarthy, who explained: “I had meetings.”
One of those meetings McCarthy had Thursday was with Greene, who informed him of her anti-Ukraine maneuver. “I said, ‘I’m having a press conference at 4,’” Greene recounted. “And he said, ‘Okay.’”
Of course he did. The crazies are all knocking at his door. And if he wants to be speaker, there is only one answer to their demands: “Okay.” | 2022-11-18T18:20:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Republicans take the House. Crazies like Greene and Gaetz take the wheel. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/republican-house-majority-crazy-demands/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/republican-house-majority-crazy-demands/ |
Updated November 18, 2022 at 1:26 p.m. EST|Published November 18, 2022 at 12:59 p.m. EST
President Biden speaks about the student loan forgiveness program on Aug. 24 in the White House. He is joined by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
The Biden administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to reinstate its student loan forgiveness program, saying its creation was well within the authority of the education secretary and that a lower court decision putting it on hold “leaves millions of economically vulnerable borrowers in limbo.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit decided 3-0 on Monday to side with a coalition of six Republican-led states that requested that the court table any debt cancellation amid its ongoing litigation. The injunction is to remain in place until further notice from the court or the Supreme Court, according to the order.
White House officials are now considering extending a pause on student loan payments after a federal appeals court blocked President Biden’s plan.
In October, a federal appeals court blocked the imminent cancellation of federal student loans.
The ruling arrives days after a federal judge in a separate lawsuit in Texas declared Biden’s debt relief plan unlawful, effectively barring the Education Department from accepting more applications and discharging any debt. This week, Justice Department attorneys asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to stay the ruling in the Texas case and asked the court for a ruling by Dec. 1 “to allow the government to seek relief from the Supreme Court” if needed.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the Supreme Court that if it chooses not to lift the 8th Circuit’s injunction, it should “set the case for expedited briefing and argument this term to avoid prolonging this uncertainty for the millions of affected borrowers.”
Read the administration's filing to the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court on Friday asked the states to file a response by noon Wednesday.
Biden’s loan relief plan would cancel up to $10,000 in federal student debt for borrowers earning up to $125,000 annually, or up to $250,000 for married couples. Those who received Pell Grants are eligible for an additional $10,000 in forgiveness. To date, more than 26 million people have applied for Biden’s debt relief program, and 16 million of those files have been reviewed, according to the education department.
The Justice Department released a 25-page memo that says the program is authorized by a 2003 law that authorizes the education secretary “to alleviate the hardship that federal student loan recipients may suffer as a result of national emergencies.”
But Republican-led states and other opponents of the program argue that the scale of loan cancellation, at a cost of about $300 billion over 10 years, warrants congressional authorization because of the economic and political significance.
The lawsuit was filed by six states — Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and South Carolina — that sued the administration in September. The states accuse the president of overstepping his authority and threatening the revenue of state entities that profit from federal student loans.
The 8th Circuit decision put the program on hold while those legal arguments proceed. The case is Biden v. State of Nebraska, et al. | 2022-11-18T18:33:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Supreme Court asked to allow Biden's student loan forgiveness plan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/supreme-court-student-loan-forgiveness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/supreme-court-student-loan-forgiveness/ |
Biden marks his 80th birthday, sort of
Previous presidents have held big celebrations, but the age issue is more sensitive for Biden
President Biden leaves the Oval Office as he makes his way to Marine One last month. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post)
It is a day that has been met with a hint of dread. The nation’s oldest president is hitting a new, and most unwelcome, milestone on Sunday, and no one really wants to celebrate. Even President Biden himself.
“Somebody said my birthday is coming up,” he said recently. “And I said, ‘No, that must be somebody else.’”
When he was asked separately during a radio interview what an 80-year-old Biden would tell a 50-year-old Biden, he immediately responded: “That I’m still 50!”
“I can’t even say that number, 80,” he added. “I’m serious. I no more feel that than I’d get out from behind this desk and fly.”
The White House has few plans to mark the landmark birthday in any major public way. Any celebration will be eclipsed, by design or not, by the wedding festivities of Biden’s granddaughter Naomi at the White House on Saturday.
At a time when Biden’s age has come up again and again in focus groups and surveys, the fact that he is now the first Oval Office octogenarian is something few in the president’s orbit are eager to highlight. It comes as he considers whether to run for reelection — which, if he wins, would place him at 82 during his inauguration and 86 at the end of a second term.
At the same time, any appearance of urgently trying to downplay his birthday or ignore it could carry its own peril. Biden’s decision to downplay the occasion runs counter to some of his predecessors, who have embraced such moments while in office.
When Ronald Reagan — until Biden, the nation’s oldest president — turned 70, celebratory moments unfolded throughout the day. House Speaker Tip O’Neill and other congressional leaders sang to him in the Oval Office. Nancy Reagan helped plan a party in the East Room that featured Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Stewart.
Reagan, whose advanced age was a dominant issue during the presidential campaign, took the approach of embracing his age, with a tinge of humor. “I want to thank you for starting out the celebration of my 31st anniversary of my 39th birthday,” he joked.
President Barack Obama marked his 50th birthday with burgers with staff for lunch and a bash at the White House that included performances by R&B artist Ledisi, jazz musician Herbie Hancock and legendary singer Stevie Wonder.
If Reagan’s hosting of Sinatra and Stewart nodded to an old-fashioned America, Obama’s guest list signaled his identification with a cooler, more youthful part of the culture, as attendees included rapper Jay-Z, comedian Chris Rock and basketball icons Charles Barkley and Grant Hill.
Some presidents did not need a milestone birthday to mark the occasion: Franklin D. Roosevelt, for his 52nd, held a toga party at the White House, dressing as Caesar while first lady Eleanor Roosevelt went as the Oracle of Delphi.
When Dwight D. Eisenhower turned 70, he had an outdoor party, planted a commemorative red oak, and listened as a crowd of 6,000 sang, “Happy Birthday, Dear Ike.” “There were times when, stirred emotionally, he could not trust his voice,” reported the New York Times.
By his own account, Eisenhower was moved not only by emotion but also by fear of aging. “The idea of retirement is sometimes terrifying,” he confided that day. (He also said, “No one should ever sit in this office over 70 years old, and that I know.”)
Biden is in a different position from those predecessors. His age — and by implication the notion that he may have lost a step — is a major part of Republican attacks on him as he weighs reelection. It has already played into the private discussions of some Democrats that he should step aside for a new generation.
Even so, Biden is not the first president to shy away from celebrating. Thomas Jefferson is said to have remarked that he only believed in celebrating one birthday — that of the country, on the Fourth of July.
“I have declined letting my own birthday be known, and have engaged my family not to communicate it,” he wrote in 1803.
James K. Polk, the first president to turn 50 while in office, did not even realize it was his birthday until he heard a church sermon that day, historians say.
Biden, in contrast, has found himself fending off questions about his age throughout his presidency. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician, has deemed Biden “fit for duty” but also noted last year that the president’s gait had become “stiffer and less fluid” since the 2020 election, highlighting a case of spinal arthritis and the lingering effects of a foot fracture.
Biden has said it is fair for people to ask about his age, but he also seeks to minimize any concerns by jogging onto stages, touting his accomplishments and telling voters: “Watch me.”
Andrew Bates, the White House deputy press secretary, pointed to that phrase, along with a string of accomplishments during Biden’s first two years, including the better than expected midterm results. “Keep watching,” he said.
Biden has been prickly about the age issue for some time. During an event in Iowa during his presidential campaign, an 83-year-old farmer pointedly questioned his age, telling the then-77-year-old candidate, “I’m 83, and I know damn well I don’t have the mental faculties I did 30 years ago.”
“I’m not sedentary,” Biden said, growing angry. “You want to check my shape, man, let’s do push-ups together here, man. Let’s run. Let’s do whatever you want to do. Let’s take an IQ test. Okay?”
But he also has at times used his age as a punchline.
“The very first president to attend the White House correspondents’ dinner was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. I had just been elected to the United States Senate,” Biden said in April, during this year’s version of that dinner. “I remember telling him, ‘Cal, just be yourself. Get up there and speak from the heart. You’re going to be great, kid.’”
Biden has often told a story of Satchel Paige, the baseball player who pitched a winning game at age 47 and was approached by reporters afterward. He even told the story to Pope Francis last year.
“They come in and said, ‘Satch, no one’s ever pitched a win at age 47. How do you feel about pitching a win on your birthday?’” Biden told Francis, according to video of the event. “And he looked at them and he said, ‘Boys, that’s not how I look at age. I look at it this way: How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?’”
Biden then looked at the Pope, who is nearly six years older Biden.
“You’re 65, I’m 60,” he said. “God love ya.”
Biden likes to mark other people’s birthdays, if not his own. A few weeks ago, he recorded a video excitedly wishing comedian and TV host Joy Behar a happy birthday as she beat Biden to turning 80.
In 2016, when Obama turned 55, Biden tweeted at him, “A brother to me, a best friend forever,” with an image of friendship bracelets.
When they were in office, Biden and Obama often gave each other birthday gifts. “It’s hard, but since we both love golf, we usually give each other something having to do with golf,” Biden told TMZ in 2013. “I gave him a real unique golf bag last time, and he gave me this real cool deal to practice putting. It’s a little gadget. It’s really great.”
When Harris turned 57 last year, Biden walked to her office and presented her with flowers and a framed photo of them together.
As for Biden’s own birthday last year, Biden’s brother Jimmy gave him a purebred German shepherd, which the Bidens named Commander.
During one birthday when he was a senator, he asked the then-majority leader, Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), to postpone a few votes so he could take the Amtrak train back to Delaware and see his family, however briefly.
“My daughter is really upset I’m not going to be able to be home for the birthday cake she made for me,” Biden recalled telling Dole.
So he took the train home, getting off around 6:30 p.m. His wife and daughter were standing on the platform with the cake and candles.
“I blew them out. Gave me a kiss,” Biden recalled last year, while marking Amtrak’s 50th anniversary. “Walked across and got on the southbound.”
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6:17 PMThis just in: Biden administration asks Supreme Court to reinstate student loan forgiveness program
5:56 PMAnalysis: How Trump could sabotage the GOP | 2022-11-18T18:59:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden marks his 80th birthday, sort of - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/biden-age-birthhday/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/biden-age-birthhday/ |
Climate conference serves up lab-grown meat — and a clash over food
At COP27, an acknowledgment that climate change can’t be solved without massive changes to the world’s food systems
The International Convention Center, site of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, at sunset on Monday. (Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — The meat at the center of a meticulously plated meal served recently at the Four Seasons resort here isn’t available for sale right now outside of Singapore. But the company serving it vows it will soon help save the planet.
It was raised not on a farm but in a lab. It tastes exactly like chicken, but no chicken’s life was taken to serve it up as crispy skins, spicy skewers and a grilled boneless thigh — just a chicken cell, grown into food in a very expensive, very sterile factory. Soon there will be beef, pork and fish, too, in this quest to mass-produce edible flesh without cruelty or climate chaos.
“If we really want to stop climate change, we have to stop the farming of animals,” said Josh Tetrick, host of the dinner and chief executive of the “slaughter-free” Bay Area meat company Good Meat. Of the lab-grown meat, he said, “This lets us enjoy real meat without the issues.”
It was just one solution for reducing the food industry’s immense carbon footprint being promoted this week at the U.N. Climate Change Conference here, known as COP27. Also showcased at the summit were a push for new kinds of sustainable, plant-based meat and developments in a large gene bank focused on climate-resilient seeds.
The innovators, venture capitalists and politicians promising climate salvation in the form of technology are confronting exasperation from poorer, rural countries already ravaged by global warming. The nations have demanded more focus on repairing cropland damaged by wealthy nations addicted to fossil fuels and less on investments such as methane-capturing dairy digesters and carbon trading plans.
But any robust discussion about food systems is notable at an annual summit that has long neglected the outsize role they play in propelling climate change and the extent to which warming is increasingly threatening the world’s ability to feed itself.
“No one is more vulnerable to climate change than the world’s farmers, and I firmly believe no one can do more about it in a shorter space of time than the world’s farmers can,” said Theo de Jager, a macadamia-nut farmer in South Africa and the former head of the World Farmers’ Organization. “How could anyone have ever considered not talking about it?”
This is 12th time de Jager has attended a U.N. climate summit. It was not until this year that the organizers put food and agriculture on the agenda in a big way, dedicating an entire day to it, with companies and governments rolling out more funding to help farmers and others in the food supply chain become more resilient to climate change.
It is still slow going. Diplomats are struggling to find solutions that can be equitably and quickly deployed in one of the most complicated and diffuse sectors of the global economy. De Jager has low expectations for any landmark breakthroughs at the negotiating table, where diplomats are stymied by the immensity of the problem.
Even the relatively meager $100 billion per year that wealthy nations previously promised the developing world to help with recovery from extreme weather events has yet to be delivered, while drought and flooding are ravaging crops.
“The choice is between adapting or starving,” Dina Saleh, a regional director for the U.N. International Fund for Agricultural Development, said at a news conference where she called on wealthy nations to honor their $100 billion pledge.
The United States and other wealthy nations instead focused their food efforts on a joint push with the private sector that they insist will create incentives for more climate-friendly agriculture and help the world’s 600 million small-share farmers adapt and thrive. There are a number of nonprofit organizations involved, but the imprint of industrial agriculture is unmistakable. Among the partners in the program are ADM, Land O’Lakes and McDonald’s.
These corporate collaborations are not embraced warmly across the agricultural community. The small-farms advocacy group A Growing Culture speaks for a number of international advocacy groups in charging that such collaborations are designed to “enable the biggest polluters to position themselves as climate saviors, while promoting a newer version of harmful practices, and profiting from these technologies along the way.”
But the coalition behind the push promises that as the technologies trickle down, they could be transformative for even the smallest farms in the most impoverished places.
“The pace needs to accelerate, because our time to reduce the warming of the globe is shrinking,” said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The struggles of farmers hardly seemed connected to the scene at the Sharm el-Sheikh Four Seasons, where a clarinetist performed a private concert inspired by the sounds of sea creatures as a small group of journalists, entrepreneurs and foundation officials dined poolside on three elegant courses of synthetic chicken.
Tetrick argued it is all connected. His pitch: If synthetic meat can be made affordably and in mass quantities, the implications for nourishing the world and curbing climate change are considerable. Raising and feeding farm animals consumes two-thirds of the world’s agricultural land and drives 15 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases.
Transitioning that land to more-sustainable uses is impossible as meat consumption soars. Tetrick, a vegan, said he would be fine with the world cutting meat from their diets. But he doesn’t see that happening.
“People are pretty imperfect,” he said. “You’ve got to meet them where they are.” | 2022-11-18T18:59:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Climate conference serves up lab-grown meat — and a clash over food - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/cop27-food-agriculture-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/cop27-food-agriculture-climate/ |
Amudalat Ajasa
A pedestrian crosses the street during a mid-November storm in Erie County Buffalo, New York on Thursday Nov. 17, 2022. (Joshua Thermidor/For The Washington Post)
How does thundersnow form?
Is thundersnow dangerous?
What areas are most prone to thundersnow?
Lake Erie was electric on Thursday night as flashes of lightning moved from its shores coupled with the pounding snow. Bands of thick snow raged across western and northern New York and will continue deep into Friday, where the worst of the storm is expected to continue. Slabs of snow are falling at more than 2 inches per hour near Buffalo and Watertown, N.Y.
Parts of Erie County, home to Buffalo, have already been blanketed with over a foot of snow. Hamburg, 15 miles south of Buffalo, is leading the charge with reports of almost 34 inches snow as of 8 a.m. Friday morning. As if the snow wasn’t enough, sporadic thunderbolts cracked across the sky.
Residents captured the streaks of lightning illuminating the sky while icy snow plummeted to the ground — a phenomenon known as thundersnow.
Bombogenesis, thundersnow and the polar vortex: Explaining what your favorite winter weather terms mean
Thundersnow is a dramatic weather phenomenon which, as its name implies, is simply snow accompanied by thunder and lightning. It only occurs when specific weather ingredients come together — usually in big and intense storms.
It is relatively rare, and when it occurs, it typically only produces flashes within clouds. The muffling effect of snow makes thundersnow tough to hear even if it occurs. Most of the time, it appears just as a blue flash — blue because of the high concentration of ice crystals in the air.
Buffalo residents observed "thundersnow" over their city on Nov. 17, as lightning and thunder boomed alongside historic snowfall. (Video: John Farrell/The Washington Post)
Ordinary thunderstorms are relatively simple to understand. Like a bubble in a pot of boiling water, pockets of air climb upward. When they become tall enough, the top of the cloud freezes. It’s that vertical momentum into the freezing layer that causes ice crystals to become charged.
That scenario is tough to get in the wintertime; instead, thundersnow typically develops in one of three ways — all of which are rare.
In the Northeast, and in particular New England, thundersnow can crop up in strong low-pressure systems that brew winter storms known as nor’easters. Due to the spinning nature of these sprawling storms, which rotate counterclockwise, pockets of air are forced diagonally upward into the atmosphere. Picture jiggling a bowl of soup and watching the fluid slosh up the horizontal surfaces of the atmosphere. The same is true with so-called “slantwise convection,” during which air climbs and ascends high enough to get charge separation. At that point, BOOM — a surprise, rogue flash of lightning.
Interestingly, cloud-to-ground thundersnow events in nor’easters are oftentimes man-made. That’s because the positive charge in lower regions of the snow cloud is broad and diffuse, often too weak to spark a lightning strike. But tall man-made objects like transmission towers and skyscrapers can focus that positive charge, concentrating it until it’s strong enough to ignite a discharge.
Greatest hits: Jim Cantore’s exuberant thunder snow streak
Other times, thundersnow forms like conventional summer thunderstorms, but obviously in colder environments. This is often the case along strong arctic cold fronts. Instead of squall lines of thundery downpours, snow squalls form, and sporadic cloud to ground lightning accompanies the frigid frontal passage.
It can also form in lake-effect snowstorms, primarily only off Lakes Erie and Ontario. The pair are among the shallowest of the Great Lakes, allowing them to heat up more quickly during the summertime. Into October and November, water temperatures remain mild — currently around 50 degrees — even as air in the teens and twenties blows along it.
In the case of Lake Erie, frigid air traversing the 240-mile fetch of the lake encountered pockets of air warmed by the lake itself. Those air parcels ascend into the cold, dense atmosphere, towering to 15,000 or 20,000 feet high. The vertical convection, or vertical heat transfer, allows for charge separation, and thundersnow can result. It’s not uncommon for snowfall rates in Upstate New York bands to approach 4 inches per hour.
If you happen to catch the roar of thunder, you’re probably within a mile or two of the strike. Even though it may seem harmless and a lot of thundersnow lightning remains within clouds, don’t be fooled — thundersnow can be just as dangerous as a summertime thunderstorm.
During a blizzard on Feb. 9, 2017, a bolt of lightning blasted a hole through a family’s house in Cranston, R.I., while a nearby strike ignited a house fire in Providence.
On Jan. 25, 1990, nine people were injured when lightning struck a light pole during a thundersnow storm in Crystal Lake, Ill.
One of the challenges with thundersnow is that snow acts as an acoustic suppressor — and, as a result, muffles the thunder. That means it can only be heard within a few hundred yards of the lightning strikes. Residents often don’t realize the snowstorm they’re in is charged-up until a bolt of lightning strikes dangerously close.
On Feb. 11, 2003, the National Weather Service in Lincoln, Ill., issued a string of severe thunderstorm warnings for a band of thundersnow squalls. Wind gusts up to 73 mph accompanied the storms.
A similar alert was posted by the National Weather Service in Albuquerque on Feb. 13, 2021.
There is an increased likelihood of thundersnow being observed in the vicinity of high towers and city skyscrapers. The pointed tips of these structures can literally poke into the cloud base and concentrate otherwise low ambient electric fields, building a charge that eventually triggers a lightning strike.
How tall buildings may have ignited a thundersnow assault during the bomb cyclone | 2022-11-18T19:38:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | What is thundersnow and what causes it to happen? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/how-thundersnow-happens-explained/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/how-thundersnow-happens-explained/ |
Garland names special counsel for Trump Mar-a-Lago, 2020 election probes
Jack Smith, currently a war crimes prosecutor at The Hague, tapped to handle politically sensitive Trump cases
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at a news conference at the U.S. Department of Justice on on October 24, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
A special counsel appointment “is the right thing to do,” the attorney general said. "The extraordinary circumstances presented here demand it. Mr. Smith is the right choice to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner.”
Investigators see ego, not money as Trump's motive in keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago
The Post’s Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett explain the Justice Department’s probe into former president Donald Trump holding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. (Video: Mahlia Posey/The Washington Post, Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
“I don’t think I was very talented, but you field a lot of ground balls, you’re a good shortstop,” Smith once told the Associated Press about those early days.
He went on to spend nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, before leaving that job in 2008 to become a war-crimes prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Smith eventually returned to the Justice Department, taking over the Public Integrity Section at a time when it had been battered by an embarrassing reversal of the conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska).
Four years ago, he returned to The Hague to investigate war crimes in Kosovo. Though the special counsel appointment begins immediately, Smith was not at Friday’s announcement, due to a recent bike accident that required knee surgery. | 2022-11-18T19:38:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jack Smith named special counsel for Trump Mar-a-Lago, Jan. 6 investigators - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/18/justice-trump-garland-special-counsel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/18/justice-trump-garland-special-counsel/ |
The burden of peace is not on Ukraine
A military vehicle is towed Nov. 14 past Kherson’s central square in Kherson, Ukraine. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)
In her Nov. 16 op-ed, “It’s time to end the war in Ukraine,” Katrina vanden Heuvel attributed the following to national security adviser Jake Sullivan: “If Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it would be the end of Ukraine.” Ms. vanden Heuvel opined that this statement was “bizarrely equating diplomacy with surrender.”
Mr. Sullivan did no such thing.
Mr. Sullivan’s full statement, for context, was: “If Russia chose to stop fighting in Ukraine and left, it would be the end of the war. If Ukraine chose to stop fighting and give up, it would be the end of Ukraine.”
Ms. vanden Heuvel’s presentation of Mr. Sullivan’s statement unfairly placed the burden of peace on Ukraine. Until Russia unilaterally stops shelling and destroying everything in its path, Ukraine has no reason to sit down and talk.
Walter R. Green, Arlington | 2022-11-18T19:39:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The burden of peace is not on Ukraine - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/burden-peace-is-not-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/burden-peace-is-not-ukraine/ |
Welcome to the Congress of endless investigations
Republican members of Congress announce their plans for investigations of the Biden administration on Thursday in Washington. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
Now that Republicans have secured a House majority, what will they do with their power? Because Democrats control the Senate and the White House, Republicans can’t pass legislation. But there is one thing they can do: mount investigations. Loud, angry, endless investigations, filled with shocking accusations and desk-pounding outrage.
And they are ready. Every soon-to-be committee chair will get in on the action. C-SPAN may have to add a few extra channels to cover it all. Here’s what’s in the hopper:
The border. Expect hearings that solicit lurid testimony about crimes committed by immigrants, but not much actual policy discussion. Many Republicans want to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, not for misdeeds but because they wish the Biden administration’s immigration policies were more like the Trump administration’s.
“Mayorkas deserves [impeachment] for sure, because we no longer have a border,” says Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — a nonsensical claim that shows you the level of sophistication they will bring to this effort. Jordan will probably chair the Judiciary Committee.
The FBI and Justice Department. In a bizarre turn, Republicans decided that the FBI — perhaps the most conservative agency in the federal government — is a hotbed of leftists and Democratic partisans. They’re planning to probe the alleged “politicization” of the Justice Department.
In addition, the New York Times reports that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and other right-wing lawmakers "extracted a promise” from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for an investigation into whether Jan. 6 defendants have been mistreated.
The IRS. Republicans were incensed that the Inflation Reduction Act included a significant funding increase for the IRS, which will allow it to shore up its aging systems and go after wealthy tax cheats. So they are planning to investigate the agency, perhaps hoping to repeat their previous success in using misleading hearings to justify gutting the IRS budget.
The covid-19 pandemic. Republicans are eager to scrutinize the origins of the coronavirus and the possibility that it escaped from a Chinese lab, which has become an obsession on the right-wing fringe. This is not because they are concerned with improving safety protocols in biomedical research facilities, which is not a particularly exciting challenge to tackle.
Their real goal seems to be to create the impression of a vast conspiracy responsible for the virus, one that would implicate Anthony Fauci, whom Republican candidates often say should be imprisoned or even executed. The Biden administration’s chief adviser on the pandemic will probably be targeted for investigations as well.
Afghanistan. This is one probe that could produce something useful. Why did U.S. military and intelligence agencies overestimate the Afghan government’s ability to sustain itself without an American presence? How could the withdrawal have been carried out more smoothly? What lessons might we learn for the future? But if Republicans explore these questions rather than use the opportunity to simply beat up on the administration, it will be a surprise.
Hunter, Hunter, Hunter. President Biden’s son Hunter will be more than a subject of inquiry. He will be the sun around which the new Republican House revolves: its fixation, its passion, its beginning and its end.
At a news conference Thursday, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who will probably lead the Oversight Committee, gave reporters a preview of what’s to come, from Hunter’s laptop to Hunter’s emails to Hunter’s prostitutes. “I don’t want this to be about the prostitute,” Comer told reporters, after bringing up the prostitute.
The real intent was perfectly encapsulated when Comer’s back-and-forth with reporters momentarily turned to the Justice Department, and Comer said with exasperation, “If we could keep it about Hunter Biden, that would be great.”
Yes, congressional oversight of the administration is a necessary part of the checks and balances built into the U.S. system. But it can be used for good or ill: discovering truths the public needs to know, or weaponizing the process for political gain.
Republicans know this well. It was McCarthy who said proudly in 2015 that the Republican Congress’s many investigations of Benghazi had proven a success because Hillary Clinton’s “numbers are dropping.”
As we begin this investigation-palooza, McCarthy and the rest of the GOP leadership will be subject to both internal and external pressure, all pushing in the same direction: away from any responsible or useful work for the public, and toward loony conspiracy theories and wild-goose chases in search of presidential misdeeds.
The pressure will come from a House GOP caucus that is even more extreme than before, and from two key outside sources: Donald Trump and the conservative media. They will demand more chaos, more fights, more invented scandals and more conflict.
The more any investigation touches Biden directly, the more exciting it will be for Republicans; it’s the involvement of the president himself that turns a mundane controversy into a top-tier scandal. They already know he is guilty of something (even if they’re not sure what); now they have to convince the public.
If at first they don’t succeed, they’ll try, try again. And again, and again. The ultimate destination may be Biden’s impeachment, but it’s the journey that matters. | 2022-11-18T19:39:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Welcome to the Congress of endless investigations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/congress-republicans-investigations-hunter-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/congress-republicans-investigations-hunter-biden/ |
The critic was right: New museums belong on an extended National Mall
The National Mall in 2015. (Joseph Victor Stefanchik for The Washington Post)
Lonnie G. Bunch III’s Nov. 14 op-ed, “Women, Latinos museums belong in one spot: The Mall,” attempted to counter the in-depth and well-thought-out discussion presented by Philip Kennicott in his Nov. 7 front-page Critic’s Notebook essay, “Stop building museums on the National Mall. Extend it.”
Mr. Kennicott’s proposal that the new museums should be placed just south of the Smithsonian Castle was startling in its vision and logical in concept for extending the National Mall and integrating parts of the city that for years have been separated from the rest of D.C.. Taking over the forbidding James V. Forrestal Building (at least in part) is so obviously correct that one wonders why anyone would oppose that.
Not only does Mr. Kennicott’s proposal meet the criteria Mr. Bunch set out (to identify space that is “optimal for broadening the American narrative and expanding our civic discourse”), it makes it possible to accommodate future museums and cultural institutions without compromising the Mall.
Mr. Bunch’s proposal would destroy major vistas, taking away open spaces now used and enjoyed by people, and making the Mall just another place where a lot of museums are. It would become nothing special.
Mr. Kennicott’s proposal would open up to the Wharf neighborhood and the newly opened waterfront, making it another “people first” part of the city.
I hope that Mr. Bunch and his supporters open their minds to the infinitely better ideas embodied in the Kennicott proposal and dispense with the destruction of the Mall, museum by museum. We deserve better from the Smithsonian.
Karl K. Kindel, Washington
The bequeath of funds provided in the will of James Smithson was to establish an institution for “the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” While some might quibble about the men part, the Smithsonian Institution was established as a scientific entity for the benefit of mankind. With time that mission morphed and became famously known as the “Nation’s Attic.”
Not all Smithsonian museums and research facilities are on the National Mall, nor do they need to be; consider the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum near Chinatown; the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City; the Renwick Gallery near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building; the National Zoo with research facilities at Front Royal, Va.; the Anacostia Community Museum; the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport; and research facilities at MIT and in South America.
Lonnie G. Bunch III, a historian and longtime museum professional, rose through the ranks to become a secretary with the knowledge and soul to oversee the Smithsonian. But I fear Mr. Bunch now sits on the back of a tiger created by a society that is intent on denying the Founding Fathers and the likes of men such as James Smithson. Unless he can get off the back of that tiger, the Smithsonian is doomed to the infinite creation of special-interest museums and the usurpation of sites on the Mall.
Edward McManus, Washington
The writer is a retired chief conservator for the National Air and Space Museum. | 2022-11-18T19:39:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The critic was right: New museums belong on an extended National Mall - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/critic-was-right-new-museums-belong-an-extended-national-mall/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/critic-was-right-new-museums-belong-an-extended-national-mall/ |
Message to my party: We can do better
Former president Donald Trump walks to the stage Nov. 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
Regarding the Nov. 16 front-page article “Trump ignores party’s pleas, launches his bid”:
With the midterms behind us, the Republican Party should take a good, long look into its future. Quickly. As a longtime Republican, this octogenarian (83) cringes at the thought of how far the once-proud GOP has fallen — largely because we’ve followed a deeply flawed person and clearly failed leader.
Consider: Three failed gambling casinos in New Jersey, a failed airline, a failed university, a failed meat company, a failed attempt at a second presidential term, loss of both houses of Congress and the White House. And we still don’t know for certain the extent of his damage to the Republicans in the recent midterms.
Until the stench of the current leadership of the Republican Party and the sycophantic coterie of enablers around it are expunged, I’m afraid the party will continue to exert only second-tier influence and continue to be a national and international embarrassment. I believe we can do much better.
Grant Heggie, Nellysford, Va.
The once-responsible GOP must put former president Donald Trump behind it and move ahead in accordance with the party’s principles. Surely, there are competent, honorable Republicans qualified to serve their party and our nation.
W.N. Butler, Frederick | 2022-11-18T19:40:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Message to my party: We can do better - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/message-my-party-we-can-do-better/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/message-my-party-we-can-do-better/ |
Qatar has ruined ‘the beautiful game’
Workers walk past a FIFA World Cup sign in Doha, Qatar, on Nov. 16. (David Gannon/AFP/Getty Images)
As a lifelong soccer fan, I’m boycotting the World Cup in Qatar. The human cost has been far too great.
In the “kafala system,” workers pay to be “hired.” Their passports are confiscated. Their paychecks are withheld arbitrarily. Their movements are restricted. They are forced to work in unsafe conditions in stifling heat. Is this not akin to slavery? All in a country that, through oil revenue, has the means to provide the safest work environment for all.
Where do the legends of football come from? They rise from the underclass. Pelé, Ferenc Puskas, Diego Maradona, Roger Milla, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima, Zinho and Zinedine Zidane all grew up in poverty. They are the champions of the barrios, the favelas, the slums. The bitter irony is that the people who have built the stadiums for this World Cup — the underclass — have been the victims of such cruel exploitation.
FIFA and Qatar have forever uglified the beautiful game. The broadcasters and advertisers want fans to look the other way. This condones modern slavery and the dehumanization of the most vulnerable.
Red card.
Rob Summers, Washington | 2022-11-18T19:40:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Qatar has ruined ‘the beautiful game’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/qatar-has-ruined-beautiful-game/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/qatar-has-ruined-beautiful-game/ |
The 1987 musical from Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine is revived by a company that specializes in Sondheim’s canon
The cast of Signature Theatre's “Into the Woods,” directed by Matthew Gardiner. (Daniel Rader)
As the Baker’s Wife sings, in a little “Into the Woods” epiphany: “If life were only ‘moments,’ then you’d never know you had one.” Well, “Into the Woods” is having one of those moments, and it’s intriguing to look at why.
The musical is freshly flourishing, a spurt of popularity that started earlier this year, when an off-Broadway concert version, directed by Lear deBessonet, received glowing notices and leaped in a flash to Broadway, where it’s been playing for months. Now another production, with a radically different look, has started up at Signature Theatre in Arlington, where it has been scheduled for a 12-week run, the longest planned engagement in the company’s more than 30-year history.
The gamble is a smart one, for “Into the Woods” has the feel of a winner for Signature, a troupe that has long staked its reputation on robust revivals of the musicals of Stephen Sondheim. (It was the musical that christened its current headquarters in the Village at Shirlington in 2007.) The new production, staged by director Matthew Gardiner in what looks like the ruins of a forest cottage, adheres to the company’s high standards for musicality and design. What has yet to be expansively embraced by several in the cast of 17 — which includes the recorded voice of Phylicia Rashad as a furious Giant — is the searing emotionality in this story, of wishes granted but hopes dashed.
It’s a tricky duality that animates the work of Sondheim, who composed the spiky, melodic score, and James Lapine, who wrote the book. The 1987 musical is populated by fairy-tale characters — some famous, some newly minted — who exist in a fugue state, caught between their fantastical roles and their ordinary human predicaments. The Baker and his Wife (Jake Loewenthal, Erin Weaver) need artificial intervention to conceive a child. Cinderella (Katie Mariko Murray) seeks escape from a dull existence, in an unsuitable mate (Vincent Kempski). Little Red Riding Hood (Alex De Bard) is a headstrong child, learning of the appetites and responsibilities of adulthood. The Witch (Nova Y. Payton) imposes her smothering grievances on daughter Rapunzel (Simone Brown), whom she’s selfishly locked away.
The musical’s interlocking stories are laced with a wit that borders on callous. The characters are capable of both extreme generosity and extreme cruelty as they are forced to deal with the terror they have unleashed: that Giant wreaking havoc on the kingdom. Like the rest of us, they fight against the notion that they are at fault for the ills that befall them: “No, of course what really matters is the blame, somebody to blame,” Payton’s Witch sings with scathing authority in “The Last Midnight.” “Fine, if that’s the thing you enjoy, placing the blame, if that’s the aim, give me the blame.”
“Into the Woods” is freighted with so many ideas that it can get lost in its own cleverness. At two hours and 45 minutes including intermission, it overstays a bit. But in its central preoccupation with consequences — how our wishes and choices affect ourselves and others — one gets an inkling of why “Into the Woods” seems especially urgent right now. “You may know what you need, but to get what you want, better see that you keep what you have,” the Baker’s Wife declares in a spoken-word production number. One hears in such advice some essential wisdom about the plight of Earth itself.
Gardiner attempts to impose as much order as is possible on the somewhat unwieldy narrative spine of the piece: The Narrator (Christopher Bloch) stumbles upon the overgrown cottage (an evocative rendering of decrepitude by set designer Lee Savage). He fetches a dusty book, the storybook characters emerge from cupboards and fireplaces, and once upon a time begins. We are in a metaphorical woods, as the house becomes the meeting point for the characters to sing, pursue their quests and ultimately explore what happens in the “ever after.”
Of course, one of the pleasures of “Into the Woods” is the fusion of Sondheim and Lapine’s urbane notions, with the seemingly less fraught psyches of characters dreamed up for children’s consumption. So in a resplendent “Agony,” two princes (Kempski and Paul Scanlan) sing hilariously about their irreconcilable missions, of making their brides happy while looking for the next damsel in distress. Murray, in a lovely ball gown by costume designer David I. Reynoso, offers an endearing account of Cinderella’s existential indecision in “On the Steps of the Palace.” And Weaver invests “Moment in the Woods” with all the wistfulness you could want in a character who, like so many of the others, is a victim of her own contradictory impulses.
Only in the ambition to get past the glibness of “Into the Woods,” to allow an audience to experience the poignancy of beings who desperately want to be able to write their own happy endings, does this sometimes cold production come across as a little lacking. That’s because the heart of the show is not so much communing with one’s inner child as with an assortment of recognizable grown-ups as troubled as we are. We look to them for a reflection of our own perpetual searches for serenity, and clarity.
Into the Woods, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine. Directed and choreographed by Matthew Gardiner. Music direction, Jon Kalbfleisch; set, Lee Savage; costumes, David I. Reynoso; lighting, Amanda Zieve; sound, Eric Norris; orchestrations, Jonathan Tunick. With Maria Rizzo, Adelina Mitchell, Chani Wereley, Sherri L. Edelen, Lawrence Redmond. About 2 hours 45 minutes. Through Jan. 29 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. sigtheatre.org. | 2022-11-18T19:41:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Go ‘Into the Woods’ at Signature Theatre. Come out charmed. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/11/18/into-the-woods-sondheim-signature/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/11/18/into-the-woods-sondheim-signature/ |
Disabled people fear Twitter changes under Elon Musk leave them behind
People with disabilities consider Twitter a ‘lifeline’ but worry recent cutbacks will make it unusable
Twitter has long been an essential public space for people with disabilities because of its unique format and broad reach. But now many people worry that recent cutbacks and changes by Elon Musk will disproportionately harm disability communities.
Twitter employees have tweeted that recent layoffs included the entire accessibility engineering team, which helped make the website usable for those with disabilities, particularly those with sensory challenges, mobility issues and visual or auditory impairment.
In addition, several people said they have been experiencing more harassment about their disabilities in recent weeks as Musk dismantled the infrastructure needed to moderate hate speech and abuse. Earlier this week, Musk sent what has been described as an ableist tweet comparing a former employee’s criticisms to “a tragic case of adult onset Tourette’s.”
Amanda Talty, president and chief executive of the Tourette Association of America, said she worries that this type of behavior from the platform’s owner could encourage others on Twitter to follow suit.
“It just perpetuates the misunderstanding of what Tourette’s actually is, but it also minimizes this serious condition and gives a green light to people in the general public to do things like this,” Talty said.
Deaf actress Marlee Matlin tweeted Thursday about the dismantling of the accessibility team, which ensured that the site was compatible with screen readers and provided alt-text and auto-caption support for video and voice tweets.
Matlin said that Twitter has “virtually leveled the playing field” for those with disabilities and evolved into a “barrier-free game changer.” She hinted that she might pause her account in protest of Musk’s decision to fire the accessibility team.
Twitter and Musk did not respond to requests for comment. Twitter laid off most of its communication team.
Twitter has long been uniquely suited for people with disabilities in a way that can’t be easily replicated elsewhere. Because it’s primarily focused on the written word, it’s easier to use for blind people, deaf people and those who struggle with speech or fine motor control issues, compared with social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, which emphasize visuals and audio.
Twitter also has broad reach. Platforms like Reddit and Mastodon group people into specific community spaces or servers, making it harder for posts to gain the attention of the general public. And many people with disabilities use Twitter to organize, fundraise and run businesses.
“Being able to be seen online was a lifeline, it was literally a lifeline for a lot of us,” said Imani Barbarin, a prominent disability rights advocate who has cerebral palsy.
Before Twitter, Barbarin said she often felt isolated and wasn’t easily able to connect with others who had her condition. Now she has amassed more than 173,000 followers and has often used the platform to start awareness campaigns around issues like covid-19 safety precautions.
Stephanie Tait, 37, of Salem, Ore., has been isolating during the pandemic because she is immunocompromised and has health issues associated with Lyme disease. Twitter is the main way she interacts with the world.
She said there is always some ableism and harassment on social media platforms. But since Musk took over, she’s now getting two dozen malicious messages a day. It’s gotten so bad, she made her inbox private.
“I feel like it’s all become a giant joke,” Tait said. “It’s funny to beat down on different marginalized communities because Elon finds it funny. But it makes the site unusable for a lot of us.”
Tait has tried starting a Mastodon account, but so far said she finds the site confusing and potentially inaccessible for those with neurological differences, like herself. A more visual social media platform like TikTok is also not a great option because she isn’t comfortable sharing images and video on days where her health conditions make it difficult to get out of bed, shower or get dressed, she said.
David Radcliff, 40, of North Hollywood, Calif., a writer who has cerebral palsy, said he tried to leave Twitter in 2020, but rejoined a few weeks later. He said without Twitter, it is more difficult to network. Many in-person networking events are in small spaces that are inaccessible for his wheelchair or require him to stand for hours with crutches.
Twitter “gives our voices a place to be reckoned with on our own terms,” he said.
“There are so many places where disabled people aren’t seen,” he said. “Losing Twitter is just another blow to that and increases invisibility.”
Aparna Nair, an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, said Twitter has been a crucial way for people with disabilities to share resources and research. She has epilepsy and does not have the same ability as nondisabled researchers to travel and share her work at various conferences, she said.
If the changes at Twitter lead to fewer users or more technical issues, it could affect some disabled business owners, who use the site to market their crafts, products and services.
That includes Abi Oyewole, 32, of Calgary, Canada, who has multiple disabilities. She uses Twitter, where she has more than 25,000 followers, to sell items from her store, Bibipins, such as compression socks or stickers with her designs. She has tried marketing her business on other platforms, she said, but Twitter is where she has had the most success.
“An abled person can just get a different job if their business fails, but for us, it’s often the only option,” she said.
Many other disabled people rely on the platform to help find ways to pay for basic needs. Victor Manuel, 24, of New York City has used Twitter for online fundraisers to help pay for his housing, medication and health care. He has multiple disabilities and is immunocompromised, but temporarily lost his family’s support when he came out as transgender.
“Twitter has changed my life completely, it’s not even comparable,” said Manuel, who requested to use only his first and middle name to protect his privacy. “Without a platform like Twitter to share these things so easily, I think a lot of people are going to suffer in very real ways.” | 2022-11-18T19:41:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Disabled people fear Twitter changes under Elon Musk leave them behind - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/18/disability-support-twitter-harassment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/11/18/disability-support-twitter-harassment/ |
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers remarks Friday at the Justice Department in Washington. Garland is flanked by Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
He went on to spend nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, before leaving that job in 2008 to become a war-crimes prosecutor at the ICC. Smith returned to the Justice Department in 2010, taking over the Public Integrity Section at a time when it had been battered by an embarrassing reversal of the conviction of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). He left the agency in 2017 and returned to The Hague the next year.
Smith was previously vice president and head of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America, one of the largest nonprofit health-care providers in the U.S. Before that, from February 2015 to August 2017, he served as first assistant U.S. attorney and acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Devlin Barrett contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T20:39:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Who is Jack Smith, special counsel in Trump criminal investigation? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/18/trump-justice-department-mar-a-lago/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/18/trump-justice-department-mar-a-lago/ |
David Lorenz, Maryland director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, speaks at a sidewalk news conference outside the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gathering in Baltimore on Wednesday. (Peter Smith/AP)
The nearly half-million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Baltimore exceed the entire population of Miami, Cleveland or New Orleans, and on Thursday they heard from Maryland’s attorney general that scores of area priests and church officials allegedly abused hundreds of children and young adults over the course of eight decades. The attorney general’s long-awaited report, based on a nearly four-year investigation into clerical sex abuse, promises some accountability, at last. At the same time, there will be no justice in a court of law for the majority of victims. For that the blame lies with the Catholic Church and its lobbying in Annapolis.
The report by the office of Attorney General Brian E. Frosh, who is retiring in January after decades in public service, is the second on clerical sex abuse from a state prosecutor’s office; the first was Pennsylvania’s, released in 2018. The Maryland report found more than 600 alleged victims of abuse at the hands of 158 priests in the course of 80 years. According to the report, the accused clerics included 43 the archdiocese had not previously identified, of whom 30 are dead. Mr. Frosh’s office said there are likely hundreds of additional victims.
To its credit, the Baltimore Archdiocese cooperated fully in the preparation of the report. However, state legislation enacted five years ago included a provision, slipped into the bill by church lobbyists, barring any future extensions of the period adult abuse victims have to seek restitution — even a brief time window for victims of any age to sue their abusers or those who shielded their abusers. That precludes a measure of justice for innocent victims.
The Maryland report weighs in at 456 pages. In a 35-page filing, Mr. Frosh’s office asked a state circuit court to approve the release of the full report, which includes information from grand jury testimony. The court should grant that request; the era of secrecy around clerical sex abuse should be over.
That assertion should not be debatable, but the church’s reckoning with its responsibility for clerical sex abuse is a work in progress, as Pope Francis himself has acknowledged. And this month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops elected as its new president a prelate whose views on the scandal are unsupported by fact, and who served as a top aide to a senior Vatican official notorious for slow-walking investigations of prominent priests accused of sexual abuse.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Military Services, a former Vatican diplomat who will become head of the U.S. bishops’ umbrella group, has embraced the view that homosexuality is to blame for much clerical sexual abuse. That point of view deflects from the reality of pedophilia and the church’s complicity in covering it up. It has been rejected by a range of authorities, including the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in a 2011 study the bishops commissioned. His election, and Maryland’s report, are both signs that the church still has a distance to go. | 2022-11-18T20:44:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Alleged victims need justice after a new report on clerical sex abuse - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/baltimore-maryland-catholic-church-sex-abuse/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/baltimore-maryland-catholic-church-sex-abuse/ |
Ex-boyfriend pleads guilty in killing of pregnant woman who went missing
Bethany Decker had been reported missing in Loudoun County, Va., in 2011
A man pleaded guilty to killing a pregnant woman who went missing in Loudoun County, Va., more than a decade ago, authorities said.
Ronald Roldan, 42, pleaded guilty Thursday to second-degree murder in the disappearance of Bethany Decker in 2011, according to the Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney.
Roldan, formerly of Loudoun County, was Decker’s live-in boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Decker, 21, was five months pregnant when Roldan said he last saw her at their Ashburn apartment, according to the news release.
Decker’s family reported she was missing less than a month after that, according to the sheriff’s office. Her body has never been found.
Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj (D) said she was proud Decker got justice. Decker’s family did not respond to requests for comment on the case.
“On behalf of Loudoun County and our office, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Bethany Decker,” Biberaj said in a news release. “We appreciate their patience and support.”
Roldan’s plea comes after he pleaded guilty in 2016 to shooting another girlfriend in the face in Moore County, N.C., according to WTOP.
Roldan is scheduled to have a sentencing hearing in February. The Loudoun County public defender’s office, which represented Roldan, did not respond to a request for comment. | 2022-11-18T20:57:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ex-boyfriend pleads guilty in killing of pregnant woman who went missing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/boyfriend-guilty-missing-pregnant-woman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/boyfriend-guilty-missing-pregnant-woman/ |
Jackson-Reed High, other nearby schools on lockdown after shots fired
Jackson-Reed High School in the Tenleytown area of Northwest Washington was on lockdown Friday afternoon due to police activity in the area, D.C. Public Schools officials said.
“Gunshots were heard in the vicinity of the school,” officials said. Deal Middle School, Murch Elementary School and Lafayette Elementary School were on alert status as well.
Suspects in two vehicles exchanged gunfire in the 3900 block of Chesapeake Street NW, said a social media post from police. “There is no active threat at this time,” police said.
An investigation is going.
Chesapeake Street, between 41st Street and Nebraska Avenue NW, was closed to traffic in both directions, police said. | 2022-11-18T20:57:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jackson-Reed High School in D.C. on lockdown after gunshots heard - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/18/jackson-reed-school-lockdown/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/11/18/jackson-reed-school-lockdown/ |
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry tests positive for coronavirus at COP27
U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry speaks at the COP27 summit on Nov. 9 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. (Peter Dejong/AP)
U.S. special envoy on climate John F. Kerry has covid, the State Department said Friday, complicating the final hours of negotiations at the U.N. Climate Change Conference underway in Egypt.
Kerry’s illness will derail his intense, personal brand of handshaking diplomacy, forcing him to defer the in-person conversations to others in the U.S. delegation. The negotiations have been stalled for days over questions of whether climate vulnerable nations should receive compensation for the “loss and damages” of global warming, and, if so, who should pay.
Talks had been advancing, though, in intense hours of bargaining on Friday. It wasn’t immediately clear at what point Kerry tested positive for the coronavirus or when he had to duck out of the conversations. At a public appearance on Thursday, Kerry said he had “a cold,” to explain why he sounded hoarse and a little slow at a presentation of a pledge to reduce methane emissions.
“Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. And as you can tell from my profoundly low voice today, I have a cold,” he said Thursday.
Tim Puko in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T21:10:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | John Kerry tests positive for coronavirus at COP27 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/john-kerry-covid-cop27-climate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/11/18/john-kerry-covid-cop27-climate/ |
Inside a ‘wild’ New Hampshire recount with the state House at stake
Observers in Concord, N.H., on Thursday during a recount for a New Hampshire state House race. (Cheryl Senter for The Washington Post)
CONCORD, N.H. – On a recent rainy morning, dozens of people fixed their eyes on Patricia Lovejoy, a senior election official in New Hampshire, as she issued instructions ahead of a key recount.
No food or drink on the tables. No touching or handing of the ballots, except by the people doing the counting. Keep your voices down.
More than a week had passed since voters across the country went to the polls. In Washington, the main outcomes of an unusually tight midterm election were finally clear.
But in Concord, the capital of New Hampshire, the will of the voters was still being parsed.
In this purple state, voters appear to have split the 400-member House of Representatives nearly down the middle. Control of the chamber hinges on 28 recounts scheduled into next week.
What is unfolding in New Hampshire is a microcosm of a closely divided country voting in tightly fought contests, as well as an illustration of the electoral system’s resilience. So far the recounts, which are open to the public, have proceeded calmly.
Longtime observers of the state’s politics can’t remember an election in which the state House – the largest in the country – was so evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. The number of recounts requested by candidates, meanwhile, is among the highest ever.
“We’re in uncharted waters,” said New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan, who has been involved in the state’s elections for four decades and was part of a recent initiative to improve voter confidence.
Scanlan personally oversees the recount process, which takes place inside the State Archives building.
On Wednesday morning, Lovejoy, 68, surveyed the gathered crowd. She had everyone’s full attention: There were two nervous candidates, a handful of lawyers in suits, four recount workers and a slew of party operatives and observers.
“I know this is a very close race,” Lovejoy said.
In a time of distrust, how one state is trying to boost voter confidence
In the contest for the Strafford County District 8 seat, Republican David Walker had narrowly prevailed over his Democratic opponent, Chuck Grassie, on election night.
His margin of victory: one vote.
What followed over the next three hours would not just establish the results of the race. It would also be crucial in determining control of the state legislature. Republicans won a firm majority in the state Senate, but the House was on a razor’s edge. Before the count, Republicans held 201 seats, Democrats held 199.
Scanlan, 66, stepped up to a cardboard box of ballots sealed with red tape indicating that the contents were void if opened. He used a retractable knife to slice through the tape and placed a large pile of ballots on a table. The recount had begun.
‘This is bonkers’
Inside the atrium at the State Archives, observers huddled around two sets of screens across from the four workers. The screens showed every ballot they touched, every movement of their hands.
It’s a truism that every vote counts. But it’s highly unusual that a single vote could swing a contest, let alone a chamber. Among Republicans, the mood was tense. Democrats were slightly giddy. Recounts earlier in the week had flipped two seats in their favor.
The large size of New Hampshire’s House makes it unique in the nation. For some, it’s an infuriating anachronism. For others, it’s an expression of an older ideal of representative democracy. At 400 seats for a population of 1.39 million, each member represents about 3,500 people.
This year’s unusually large number of recounts speaks to a lack of confidence in some aspects of elections, Scanlan said, along with the sheer closeness of the contests.
In New Hampshire’s congressional races, Democrats were victorious. But the state’s voters also resoundingly reelected Republican Chris Sununu as governor. Don Bolduc, a Donald Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, initially a vocal election denier, lost his race to Maggie Hassan, the Democratic incumbent.
In New Hampshire, any candidate in a race where the margin of victory is within 20 percent of the total vote can request a recount. If the margin is between 3 percent and 20 percent, the candidate must bear the full cost of the process. If it is 3 percent or smaller, however, there is only a nominal fee.
Members the public are welcome to witness the process for themselves. In 2008, during a recount for a presidential primary, one candidate’s supporters showed up carrying handguns, Scanlan recalled. “They said it’s our constitutional right to do that, and in New Hampshire, it is,” he said. It did make “some people nervous, especially the workers,” he said.
There were no handguns visible Wednesday. Those gathered for the recount watched the screens intently, some seated, some standing in rows behind them. On the screen: a monotonous succession of identical forms, each bearing the imprint of an individual voter.
It required intense concentration from those watching. Was that oval filled in? Did the voter use Xs or check marks instead of filling in the ovals as instructed? Designated observers for the candidates can dispute ballots, and both sides did. The contested forms were set aside for further review.
After about two hours, it was Scanlan’s turn to look at the challenged ballots, roughly a dozen in all. He sat down at the table with his tools — a pen, a stapler, some slips of paper — and put on his reading glasses.
Some voters had used check marks instead of ovals. Some used check marks and ovals. One person’s oval looked more like the eye of a hurricane. Another made a mark like the imprint of a bird’s foot. As lawyers for the candidates huddled around him, Scanlan explained each decision he reached on what the voter intended.
If they disagreed with his decision, they could appeal it to the state’s Ballot Law Commission, which will meet at the end of November.
One ballot was particularly gnarly. For every office except state representative, the voter had filled in the oval for a candidate while also writing an X over the oval. But for state representative, there was an X for Walker and a filled-in oval for Grassie. Scanlan’s decision: The ballot was an “overvote” and would not count for either candidate.
Paul Twomey, the lawyer for Grassie, said he would challenge that decision to the Ballot Law Commission. Sean List, the lawyer for Walker, said he, too, would challenge it.
“Thank you for creating bipartisanship,” List said, to laughter from the crowd.
At last, the sheets of paper with the tallies were given to the secretary of state’s staff for final tabulation. The noise level in the atrium rose. A large box of doughnuts in a corner was nearly empty.
The wait for the result felt like the commercial break before the announcement of the winner on “American Idol,” said a Democratic operative who spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to comment to the press.
“This is bonkers,” she said. As she had watched the votes being tallied, she checked her Apple Watch. Her heart rate was up to 130 beats a minute.
Matt Wilhelm, a Democratic state representative, echoed the sentiment. “It’s pretty wild,” he said. “It feels like anything can happen.” Someone called out from the next room. It was time to announce the results.
‘It’s just a sign of the times’
Scanlan stood to one side of the main records room at the State Archives, a large space with navy blue carpeting and wooden cabinets holding marriage and death records from before 1950. At the front of the room was a large portrait of William Plumer, a governor of New Hampshire in the early 19th century and a copious record-keeper.
Going into the recount, Scanlan said, Walker, the Republican, had 971 votes to 970 for Grassie, the Democrat. After the recount, both candidates had 970 votes.
A ripple went through the room: Could this be true? A tie? Both sides planned to make further challenges to the Ballot Law Commission, Scanlan added, but if the result remained a tie, then it would be up to the state House of Representatives to decide who the winner is.
There was a wave of laughter mixed with a groan of disbelief. But for one person — Grassie — there was elation. “I’m numb from head to toe!” said Grassie, a 70-year-old wearing an American-flag tie.
Walker came up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder and shook his hand. The two men have known each other for decades and live on the same street. Walker didn’t say anything, merely throwing up his hands in a gesture that seemed to convey, “Can you believe it?”
“It’s just a sign of the times,” Walker, 58, said a few minutes later. Elections are “hard-fought at every level.”
No one could recall the last time there was a tie in a race for the New Hampshire House, but it turns out it has happened before. The last time was in 1992, according to a memo prepared by the House clerk in 2014. It was resolved by a special runoff election.
The recounts continued into the early evening. Outside, the sky grew dark. After nine hours of fastidious, repetitive labor, the counting workers started to head home. Scanlan and Lovejoy began readying the room for the next day of House recounts. They’re scheduled through Tuesday, including an unusual continuation of a recount.
Asked about his reaction to the tie earlier in the day, Scanlan laughed. “I’ve reached the point where nothing surprises me,” he said. “You like to have the races determined convincingly, but these things happen — and there’s a process for dealing with it.” | 2022-11-18T21:10:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Inside a ‘wild’ New Hampshire recount with the state House at stake - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/new-hampshire-legislature-recount/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/new-hampshire-legislature-recount/ |
By Kim Chandler and Jay Reeves | AP
This undated photo provided by Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted in a 1988 murder-for-hire slaying of a preacher’s wife. Smith, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at a south Alabama prison on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (Alabama Department of Corrections via AP). (Uncredited/Alabama Department of Corrections) | 2022-11-18T21:10:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Alabama fails to complete lethal injection for 3rd time - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/alabama-fails-to-complete-lethal-injection-for-3rd-time/2022/11/18/2aa3cfe8-677d-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/alabama-fails-to-complete-lethal-injection-for-3rd-time/2022/11/18/2aa3cfe8-677d-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Merrick Garland was right to appoint a special counsel
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday that he is appointing a special counsel in the investigation of Donald Trump regarding classified materials found in the former president's possession. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday that seasoned prosecutor Jack Smith will serve as special counsel overseeing investigations into Donald Trump. That includes all aspects of the investigations into the former president’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and portions of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 criminal inquiry having to do with him and senior officials in his administration.
The appointment was necessary, Garland said, given the “extraordinary circumstances” of the investigations. Because Trump has announced he will run for president, and President Biden has said he intends to as well, it was in the “public interest” to assign a special counsel.
Advocates of swift action against Trump no doubt will be alarmed by the announcement, but there is less here than meets the eye. For starters, Smith needs no introduction to the Justice Department. He was appointed first assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee in February 2015. Before that, he worked as head of the department’s Public Integrity Section and as investigation coordinator in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. He also worked in the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of New York.
Most important, the attorney general announced that the career staff who have been working on these cases will continue in their roles. That, Garland suggested, will mean the query will “not slow down.” Smith will make a recommendation to Garland on whether to prosecute Trump. Until then, Garland will have no direct supervision over Smith.
Did Garland need to wait until Trump’s campaign launch to make the appointment? Perhaps not, but so long as Trump was not an active candidate, there was little reason for Garland to step aside. Now that Trump is a potential opponent to Biden, Garland believes it is essential to add a layer of separation between himself and the line prosecutors.
Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me, “Looking over Jack Smith’s decades of prosecutorial experience, it’s hard to imagine anyone better prepared to hit the ground running and to sew together whatever loose ends remain as he puts together a comprehensive prosecution of the leaders of the attempted coup, with the former president at its center, as well as a powerful prosecution of the former president for his theft of top secret documents as he absconded to Mar-a-Lago.” He adds that, while he previously “publicly urged that there was no need to appoint a special counsel, my principal concern was the need to avoid delay, and it appears that this appointment will solve that problem.”
Norman Eisen, who served as co-counsel to the House impeachment managers during Trump’s first impeachment, agrees. “I have no concern that a special counsel will shy away from charging, and Jack Smith has outstanding experience,” he tells me. Eisen also thinks the move will not cause much of a delay. He observes: “Mr. Smith should move with alacrity. Here, where any other American who had removed the even one classified document would be subject to likely prosecution, and where the former president took dozens, the rule of law demands fast action.”
Ironically, Trump was betting that his announcement would somehow protect him from prosecution. Instead, it prompted Garland to take an additional step to diminish the argument that the investigations against him are politically motivated. That, of course, will not matter to Trump and his MAGA cultists, but it might provide a measure of reassurance to ordinary Americans that the Justice Department has gone the extra step to prevent the appearance of a political vendetta.
In some sense, this might make prosecution easier insofar as Smith will not let political questions interfere with his work, such as whether it is appropriate to prosecute a former president. Once Smith makes a recommendation, Garland will almost certainly follow it, relying not only on the judgment of career prosecutors who have been working on the case but also relying on Smith’s independent judgment.
In a written statement, Smith said, “I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice. The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch.” He added, “I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”
That’s as it should be. The department will prosecute Trump if the facts and law support such action. In that singular sense, nothing has changed. | 2022-11-18T21:11:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Merrick Garland was right to appoint a special counsel - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/garland-special-counsel-trump-right-call/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/garland-special-counsel-trump-right-call/ |
Now this is how to lose an election: With a smile and a hug
Brittany VanderWall, left, lost her election for town council in Rogers City, Mich., on Nov. 14, but gave American optimists reason to cheer by graciously congratulating her opponent, Timeen Adair. (Julie Riddle/AP)
The most damaging rift of the 21st century has not been the political chasm between right and left; rather, it is the battle between those who profit from anxiety in one way or another, and the larger but quieter group that values a sense of normalcy. The ease of mass communication in the digital age has given the anxiety-mongers and doom merchants the commanding heights in recent years. But the rest of us have been learning, little by little, what they are up to and how they do it, and we are at last growing wise to their ways.
So it was that ordinary Americans cast ballots against madness, and optimists made an internet star of Brittany VanderWall, a candidate for town council in tiny Rogers City, Mich., whom we can all be proud of.
VanderWall, 31, is proof that life is happier in real communities than it appears to be on-screen. Her enthusiasm for Rogers City is infectious even by telephone. “We joke that everything in Rogers City is two blocks away,” she said in an interview, “but that’s how close I am to a downtown that we are making vibrant and exciting, a place where people want to shop and eat and spend time.”
Lured after college to this hamlet on the shore of Lake Huron (at the tip of the index finger of the Michigan mitten), VanderWall came to work as a forester and found she loved the town as much as the woods. She threw herself into a grass-roots effort to win Main Street America designation for Rogers City, which comes with five years of expert coaching on time-tested redevelopment strategies.
Naturally, the experience led to her decision to run for a seat on the town council this year. When the votes were counted, VanderWall had 616 — exactly the same number cast for her opponent, Timeen Adair.
When the two women met at city hall to select a winner, the clerk was waiting with two virtually identical slips of paper folded in a bowl. The candidates could not see that one was marked “elected,” while on the other was written “not elected.” VanderWall was first to reach into the bowl.
She was not elected.
What charmed the internet was the way she reacted — with a hug for Adair! And encouraging words: “Congrats! Do good work — I’ll see you in two years.” VanderWall did not claim the election was stolen or call on her voters to storm the council chambers. Instead, she praised Adair as “a very kind person who will do her best for this town.”
“I won’t tell you it wasn’t sad” to come up short, she said to me a few days later. During the campaign, she said, she thought a lot about the things she could accomplish as the youngest member of the town council, and about the excitement she would experience helping to lead “a new era for Rogers City.”
I ventured that she might have done more to boost the reputation of Rogers City by losing gracefully than she could have done by beating Adair. “I know!” she replied. “Isn’t that bizarre?” In every election year, more candidates fall short than come out on top; doing so with dignity and decency “shouldn’t be news,” she said.
And it’s not news, really — though it is a needed reminder. The United States is full of Brittany VanderWalls and Timeen Adairs whose only real point of conflict is a mutual desire to be of use, to make things better, to have a voice. Their story struck a chord because they represent the large pro-normalcy caucus in its season of victory. We needed a win and we got one, thanks to people like them.
Did the world change in a day? Hardly. But the health of a society pulses from the center, much as any soldier will tell you it’s better to be wounded in the arm than in the gut. America’s heart is beating calmly.
Sadly, we know what history will take away from the 2020 election. Americans have rioted at the U.S. Capitol only once, smashing their way inside, roaming the halls, chanting about murdering the vice president. That would command the notice of future historians even if the president had not egged them on.
But after two years of anxiety that things might get worse, they got a bit better. The nation voted again. Things were just as close, if not closer. A few states still have some work to do on collecting and counting ballots in a timely manner.
Instead of toxic shock, though, the fever broke. We looked up and there stood Brittany VanderWall, doing the right thing — a winner in my book. | 2022-11-18T21:11:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How to lose an election: With a smile and a hug - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/rogers-city-michigan-town-council-brittany-vanderwall-hug/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/rogers-city-michigan-town-council-brittany-vanderwall-hug/ |
Washington Post co-host of "Post Reports" and reporter covering media Elahe Izadi speaks with Kimi Yoshino, editor in chief at the Baltimore Banner, and Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University, about the changing media landscape, strengthening public trust and the future of journalism. Conversation recorded on Nov. 18, 2022. | 2022-11-18T21:11:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Veteran and innovative news leaders on the health and future of journalism in America - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/veteran-and-innovative-news-leaders-on-the-health-and-future-of-journalism-in-america/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-live/veteran-and-innovative-news-leaders-on-the-health-and-future-of-journalism-in-america/ |
Kevin McCarthy’s speaker math
Four GOP members have signaled their opposition and might put him on the cusp of defeat, given the party’s narrow majority. But there’s a lot still to play out.
Republicans have won the House majority back. But if you’re Kevin McCarthy, you’re still paying very close attention to how the final few races break.
That’s because 218 votes isn’t the magic number for McCarthy (R.-Calif.) like it is for his party. Multiple House Republicans are signaling they won’t support him for speaker. And right now they could plausibly number enough to prevent his ascension — just like in 2015.
So far, four House Republicans have said or suggested they’re not supporting McCarthy. And the likeliest 2022 election outcome is that House Republicans will end up with either 221 or 222 votes in the chamber, giving McCarthy around a three- or four-vote cushion in the speaker vote. (You need a majority to be elected speaker.)
Where things go from here largely depends not only on these Republicans’ commitment to opposing McCarthy — which is a valid question, given the pervasive posturing in politics — but also how they would register that discontent.
It’s all very complicated, and it’s worth running through the ins and outs.
Let’s start with the four who have signaled they oppose him. While some have indicated their opposition is firm, others are less clear. To wit:
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), who took 31 votes in a symbolic challenge to McCarthy for GOP leader this week, wrote an op-ed Thursday saying flatly that “I cannot vote for” McCarthy and that McCarthy won’t get 218 votes.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) praised Biggs’s op-ed and said before the vote this week, “I’m not voting for Kevin McCarthy. I’m not voting for him tomorrow. I’m not voting for him on the floor” — referring to the speaker election in early January.
Rep. Matthew M. Rosendale (R-Mont.) has complained that McCarthy isn’t willing to change House rules to sufficiently empower the rank-and-file. “We need a leader who can stand up to a Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden, and unfortunately, that isn’t Kevin McCarthy,” Rosendale said Wednesday.
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) has said McCarthy has “not done anything to earn my vote” and that he isn’t close to 218 votes.
But a closer look at those last two shows the wiggle room here. Rosendale doesn’t explicitly say “I won’t vote for McCarthy” and seems to leave open the possibility that McCarthy could earn his vote by embracing certain changes.
And before Tuesday’s internal GOP vote, Good was asked whether his opposition extended to the vote for speaker in early January — when the matchup will be McCarthy against a Democrat (presumably, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries). On that point, Good was less firm. He echoed Rosendale’s concerns about House rules and merely said, “After tomorrow, we’ll see how close he gets to the 218 that’s required. We’ll see who else wants to be a candidate for the speakership.”
Neither statement is as ironclad as those given by Biggs and Gaetz.
But let’s say all of them do ultimately decline to support McCarthy. Even at that point — and even if the GOP’s majority is just 221 votes (a three-vote cushion for McCarthy) — McCarthy could get across the line.
That’s because it matters how they oppose him. While 218 votes is generally the threshold for winning the speakership, a candidate really only needs a majority of those who actually cast votes.
So if these members both oppose McCarthy and vote for someone else, he’s got problems. For example: If McCarthy gets 217 votes, Jeffries gets 214 votes, and other candidates like Biggs get four votes, McCarthy doesn’t have a majority. From there, the chamber would do further roll calls until someone gets a majority of votes. (Since 1913, there has only been one speaker election with multiple ballots: The 1923 race took nine to resolve.)
But if they don’t vote or vote “present” — and/or if some Democrats are absent — the threshold is lowered.
And there’s very recent precedent for that. In fact, both former speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and current outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) won with 216 votes.
In Boehner’s case, 26 members either weren’t present or didn’t pick a candidate in January 2015. That group was mostly absentees and mostly Democrats, but four Republicans didn’t vote and one voted “present.” That meant that, even if every Democrat had voted for their nominee, Boehner would’ve cleared the threshold by a single vote.
Pelosi got 216 votes in 2021 — when Democrats’ majority was similar to what House Republicans’ new one will be — with two Democrats voting for other candidates, three voting “present,” and one absent. She won the vote 216-109.
Effectively, each opponent would hurt McCarthy half as much if they didn’t support an actual alternative. They could still send a message by not voting for McCarthy — without necessarily preventing him from becoming speaker.
But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that all four vote for someone else — or that enough of them are joined by other Republicans — and McCarthy is left shy of a majority. The question from there is whether they follow through and whether a capable GOP alternative emerges. Indeed, to the extent that their opposition is more than a momentary protest, they could make the party confront the challenge of finding an alternative who can get to 218 votes or a majority.
It seems very unlikely we’d see the likes of Biggs or a fellow Freedom Caucus member emerge. And it’s not clear who the alternative would be. When Boehner retired later in 2015, Republicans had to convince Rep. Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) to become speaker because it didn’t appear any other Republican could put together the votes. And back then, Republicans had a lot more votes.
The most readily available alternative would be the House GOP’s No. 2 leader, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.). Scalise is closer to the conservative wing of the party, declined to challenge McCarthy for the top GOP spot and seems to be biding his time — perhaps, we’ll soon learn, wisely.
But if things get to that point, anything can happen. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) has even floated the possibility of a bipartisan pick who could get enough votes from more-moderate members of both parties. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is cautioning her fellow far-right Republicans about such a possibility, also floating the seemingly very unlikely possibility that outgoing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) could take the gavel. (One needn’t be a House member to be speaker.)
Both Bacon and Greene are supporting McCarthy, and thus have reason to caution the conservative wing about this worst-case scenario — a scenario that suggests their colleagues should simply fall in line and back the party’s nominee. And we should view all of this through the lens of political posturing.
But what’s evident is that McCarthy isn’t on particularly firm ground right now. And what happens next will be very much worth watching over the holidays — starting with us learning precisely how many votes he has to spare. | 2022-11-18T21:11:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Will Kevin McCarthy become Speaker of the House? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-election/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/kevin-mccarthy-house-speaker-election/ |
Social Security left at-risk Americans behind in pandemic, report finds
By Lisa Rein
The U.S. Social Security Administration office is seen in Mount Prospect, Ill., Oct. 12. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
The abrupt halt to almost all in-person operations at the Social Security Administration during the coronavirus pandemic was debilitating for the most vulnerable Americans, a new report has found — undermining President Biden’s pledge to ensure equitable government services.
With its 1,230 field offices closed for two years, millions of disabled and poor elderly people could not get help applying for Social Security benefits, and for many of them, there was no online option, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released Thursday.
Spanish speakers, a growing share of Social Security beneficiaries, hit dead ends on the agency’s website. Overloaded phones crashed. The lack of access caused disability claims to plummet, and claimants who did apply confront still-lingering delays in getting their cases reviewed.
Pandemic struggles still afflict Social Security, a last lifeline for many
“SSA took steps to address a range of challenges with providing services remotely,” the 68-page report found, “but gaps remain in delivering services online and assessing lessons learned.”
The agency’s continued struggles seven months after reopening its field offices to the public prompted auditors to conclude that it “may continue to face challenges delivering services to those populations most in need of them” and to question whether the agency can “fulfill its mission to ensure that its services are equitable and accessible.”
The auditors found that Social Security is unable to track the racial and ethnic backgrounds of those it serves, hampering its ability to understand its at-risk population. Almost two years after the president released an executive order mandating that federal agencies “ensure their missions advance racial equity and support for underserved communities,” the agency has not settled on a strategy to collect this data, the report found.
Nor have officials determined which pandemic changes should be permanent and what they learned from the crisis, auditors concluded. And there is no plan to manage an expected surge in disability claims from those who have contracted long covid or are beginning to apply after finding the process too daunting during the public health crisis.
The report recommends that Social Security address these shortcomings — and offer applications for benefits under its antipoverty programs known as Supplemental Security Income both online and in Spanish.
The conclusions reached by GAO, the research arm of Congress, echo reporting by The Washington Post, which has found that Social Security, a last lifeline for millions of Americans, is still struggling to restore basic customer services and assisting millions fewer of the poor, elderly and disabled people who sought its help before the pandemic.
Two top House Democrats who requested the assessment of the agency’s pandemic response wrote in response that the pandemic “presented unprecedented challenges, and this report shows the Social Security Administration was not immune from them.”
The lawmakers — Ways and Means Social Security subcommittee chairman Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), who leads the subcommittee on worker and family support — concluded that the agency, weakened by years of budget cuts and confronting thousands of staff departures in recent years, “must be more adequately funded” to restore customer service and improve its outreach.
Social Security chief of staff Scott Frey said in a response included in the report that the agency agreed with the findings.
The pandemic prompted dramatic shifts in how Social Security serves the public. As field offices closed, drop boxes were eventually offered for sensitive documents required for new Social Security cards or disability claims. In-person appointments were allowed for limited, “dire need” cases. By mid-2021, faxes were allowed and customers could send alternatives to sensitive documents that were getting lost in the mail. The offices where administrative law judges hear appeals of disability claims that have been denied shifted to telephone hearings and eventually online video proceedings.
But the field office staffs were not equipped at first to easily telework with older laptops that crashed multiple times a day, the report found. Some offices lacked wireless routers, signal boosters and network cables. Staff in rural areas confronted slow internet speeds, low bandwidth and system freezes at home.
“These challenges slowed SSA’s delivery of services to customers, according to multiple groups of staff we interviewed,” the report said. The agency also provided “no guidance” on how to handle the influx of mail at the start of the pandemic, the report found. It often took weeks for the staff to receive and process paperwork, including faxes.
Phone service exploded by 70 percent. But with the increase came long wait times and busy rates and “system instability” caused when a new phone system was rolled out starting in 2021, peaking at an average wait of 36 minutes.
Millions of people filing for retirement benefits went online. But those applying for benefits under Social Security’s two disability programs — the antipoverty program and another for those with work histories — plunged 18 percent and 12 percent, respectively compared to the volume of claims before the pandemic.
“The overall decline … demonstrated that fewer individuals with a disability or very low incomes were accessing benefits,” auditors found.
The decline was precipitous among disabled children and those who do not speak English. Social Security provides a range of Spanish-language resources, but disability applications are not one of them. The agency’s Spanish-language website directs customers to a page where it informs them, in Spanish, that certain online services and information are only available in English.
To promote its benefits to poor elderly people, the disabled, the homeless, those with limited English proficiency, those in rural areas, and those without legal representation, the agency mailed hundreds of thousands of notices to individuals and community groups. It also recruited field office staff for a new role as liaison to vulnerable populations, training community groups to help low-income people apply for benefits. The outreach efforts resulted in 3,131 claims from March 2021 to May 2022, the report said.
But the effort was not robust, auditors found: Many community groups did not have bandwidth to take on the role and attrition was high among many of the Social Security staff assigned to help.
The report found that without a plan to address an anticipated surge in demand for its services as more at-risk people return to the system, “SSA is poorly positioned to make well-informed decisions about its critical functions.”
Those include how many employees will work from home and how the agency will handle disability claims backlogs, among other issues. | 2022-11-18T21:11:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Social Security left at-risk Americans behind in pandemic, report finds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/social-security-at-risk-americans-report/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/social-security-at-risk-americans-report/ |
Ihor stands on rubble in a parking garage in Kherson city that he says was hit by Ukrainian artillery after he and other resistance fighters provided the location of Russian military vehicles. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post)
KHERSON, Ukraine — Ihor didn’t even know the first name of the person who contacted him. The man said he was a member of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces and wanted to know if Ihor was interested in helping fight the Russians occupying his city of Kherson.
“The main thing for me is that people remained alive,” Smoke said. “This worried me the most. But they survived and, thank God, that’s the most important thing.”
There was a time when Ihor wasn’t sure he would.
As Ihor returned to the prison for the first time, accompanied by Washington Post journalists, he struggled to hold back tears. Tatyana, a 74-year-old woman who lived next door to the detention center, said she could hear men screaming every day. “I never wanted to see this place again, but coming back like this is sort of funny,” Ihor said. Some people standing outside asked Ihor if he had been held there.
“I was in there, too,” one man said.
“Who wasn’t?” Ihor responded.
Because Ihor was still in communication with Smoke, who was based outside in nearby Ukrainian-controlled Mykolaiv, the Russians released him and said they would be monitoring any text exchanges between the two. They asked for Ihor to send screenshots of their conversation any time there was an update — and threatened his life if he did not cooperate.
But Smoke and Ihor had agreed on a subtle code that could act as a warning — for example, responding to a message with “ok” instead of “all right.”
One member of Ukraine’s special services, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said he acted as a handler for several informants during the occupation, which required assessing what each could do. A person with a car could drive around and mark locations of troops and weapons. Another with a view of a main road could report on the Russians’ movements.
“If, for example, a bridge or an important communication hub, such as power lines, is blown up, then that might have been with our help,” the handler said.
“We are talking about valuable equipment, not just armored personnel carriers, but about command and staff vehicles, communication vehicles, air defense or electronic warfare,” the handler added. “The destruction of what is expensive and available in small quantities can incapacitate the Russians and give a certain tactical advantage to our armed forces in some parts of the front.”
Some members of this internal resistance were trained and prepared before Russia ever invaded — just in case, the handler said.
Others were unlikely partisans, like Iryna, a 58-year-old woman who worked for the local government. Iryna, who declined to provide her surname out of concern for her safety, had contacts in the SBU, Ukraine’s main internal security service, and regularly passed them information about how occupation authorities were organized and who was working with the Russians. They also had their own code. Once, she even sent a message to her daughter in Bulgaria to forward on to her handlers.
One day, some men Iryna described as “fellow partisans” came to her home and asked to bury some things in her yard. She agreed, covering the spot with tomatoes. When Russian soldiers searched her home, she claimed to be just a woman who was helping cook meals for the neighborhood.
Her SBU acquaintances visited her earlier this week and dug up what had been buried in the yard. “They told me it was everything to make explosives,” she said.
Some of the resistance was more public, but for psychological effect. An organization called Yellow Ribbon regularly spray-painted locations around town — marking Russian establishments with a yellow ribbon symbol or the Ukrainian letter “i.” They targeted Russian banks, places where the Russians were handing out passports, and where referendum ballots on Russian annexation were being prepared. The Russians would cover up the paint, but Yellow Ribbon would just mark it again.
The organizers tagged the home of Kirill Stremousov, one infamous Moscow-installed official in Kherson who recently died in a car accident. They defaced Russian billboards proclaiming that “Russia is here forever” or that “Ukrainians and Russians are one.” And they posted photos of “collaborators” eating at a restaurant around town or walking down the street.
“Then they all started to walk around with bodyguards after that,” said Yellow Ribbon’s organizer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for his safety.
One goal, he said, was to make the Russians paranoid about the resistance that existed around them. Sometimes people would take a photo of two Russian soldiers walking from behind, and then Yellow Ribbon would post it on their Telegram channel, with a warning: “We’re watching you.”
One of Yellow Ribbon’s posters hung in the city made a reference to a weapon system, called HIMARS that the United States has provided to Ukraine. “If HIMARS can’t reach you,” the poster said, “a partisan will.” | 2022-11-18T21:13:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stealthy Kherson resistance fighters undermined Russian occupying forces - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/kherson-resistance-partisans-russia-occupation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/kherson-resistance-partisans-russia-occupation/ |
Uvalde police chief on day of school shooting resigns
This image from video shows police Lt. Mariano Pargas responding to a shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 24. Pargas was the acting chief for the city on the day of the shooting and was placed on administrative leave in July. (City of Uvalde via AP)
The Uvalde, Tex., officer in charge of the city’s police department when a gunman opened fire inside an elementary school, killing 19 children and two teachers, has stepped down, a city spokeswoman said.
Lt. Mariano Pargas resigned Thursday after 18 years as a city employee, spokeswoman Gina Eisenberg told The Washington Post. His resignation was effective immediately.
The city suspended Pargas, who was acting chief on May 24, after a Texas House report found that the nearly 400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers who responded to the scene failed to respond as the shooting unfolded. Pargas was in charge that day because Chief Daniel Rodriguez was out of town.
Pargas is the second law enforcement leader to leave the force months after 18-year-old Salvador Rolando Ramos, who was killed by police, broke into Robb Elementary School to carry out the massacre. Uvalde school officials fired school district police chief Pete Arredondo in August after intense criticism that he failed to promptly act as the gunman continued firing his AR-15 and hundreds of officers waited outside the school for more than an hour. Arredondo has said he did not consider himself the person in charge that day and assumed someone else would take responsibility of the police response.
Pargas’s retirement comes days before a Saturday city council meeting in which members were expected to discuss his termination. Pargas did not immediately respond to a message from The Post.
Texas House report on Uvalde shooting blames all agencies at scene
His departure also comes amid recent criticism that he failed to act quickly despite knowing that there were still some children alive inside the school, according to audio published by CNN. Pargas was aware that “eight to nine” children remained alive and needed rescue but failed to organize help, according to a phone call and CNN analysis of newly obtained videos. Pargas told the network he could not comment based on his lawyer’s advice.
“I want to defend myself. I really do,” Pargas, who was reelected as a Uvalde county commissioner last week, told CNN. “There’s a lot of stuff that I can explain.”
Community members gathered at a Uvalde County commissioners’ court meeting a day before Pargas stepped down and called for Pargas to resign from the panel. He was not present during the meeting, the Uvalde Leader-News reported.
“He was a coward that day and he’s cowardly now, that he couldn’t show face,” Belinda Arreola, whose 10-year-old granddaughter Amerie Joe Garza was killed, said during the meeting. | 2022-11-18T21:58:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Uvalde’s acting police chief Mariano Pargas resigns months after school shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/uvalde-acting-chief-mariano-pargas-resigns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/uvalde-acting-chief-mariano-pargas-resigns/ |
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, discusses the investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings as he faces reporters with other House Republicans during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 17. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
Before we get too far into the incoming House Republican majority’s plans for putting pressure on President Biden, consider this tweet from the party’s caucus on the House Judiciary Committee.
That tweet is now a-month-and-a-half-old, but it has aged far beyond that. It was offered as Ye, the musician born Kanye West, was starring in a lengthy interview by Fox News host Tucker Carlson and with Elon Musk poised to take control of Twitter. In the days that followed, Vice News obtained footage of Ye making explicitly antisemitic comments that Carlson cut from his broadcast. In the weeks that followed, Musk’s takeover of Twitter hit some rough patches, to put it mildly. And former president Donald Trump earned a good deal of attention about a month after the tweet for having helped his party fare unexpectedly badly in the midterm elections.
But why tweet it in the first place? Why is it useful for the minority caucus of a House committee to publish a social media post obviously aimed at ginning up attention from Republican and right-wing users? What’s the point? What’s the value?
The answer, of course, is specifically that it attracts attention — a central focus of the committee’s leaders, if not the preeminent one.
On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee ranking Republican member Jim Jordan (Ohio) participated in a news conference at which his party outlined its plans to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son. The Republican minority on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform published a document that it suggested offered sufficient predicate for a probe, including that “Biden Family Members and Associates [were] Profiting Off Public Office.”
“Republicans’ inquiry quickly established that few in the President’s extended family have failed to capitalize on their relationship with Joe Biden.”
“From Valerie Biden Owens, the President’s ‘sister, confidante, and longtime political strategist,’ penning a book about the Biden family shortly after the inauguration to Francis ‘Frank’ Biden ‘promot[ing] his relationship to the commander-in-chief in an Inauguration Day advertisement for the law firm he advises[,]’ the Biden family’s monetization of the President’s time in Washington is well documented.”
Contrasting that with the activity of Trump family members is left as an exercise to the reader.
Much of the document (titled “A President Compromised: The Biden Family Investigation”) centers on the decision by social media companies to limit a New York Post story about emails and photographs believed to have originated on a laptop owned by Hunter Biden — certainly a tangent to an investigation of the Bidens, if connected at all.
At the news conference, Jordan highlighted that aspect of the story. He suggested that the media’s presentation of the material from Hunter Biden had evolved in a way that increasingly proved him and the GOP right about its significance. That’s not the case. Most outlets were blocked from reviewing the material at the time, making it difficult to report on the contents. (Fox News itself passed on the story.) When The Washington Post obtained the material, we were able to validate some but not all of it. But here was Jordan trying to score rhetorical points on a sidebar issue almost entirely unrelated to the Bidens as he and his party outlined what they were planning when they become the majority in 2023.
But the news conference did do what news conferences are designed to do: get media attention. Specifically, Jordan and Oversight ranking Republican member James Comer (Ky.) were invited onto Fox News’s prime time programming to explain their arguments. Arguments, you will not be surprised to learn, that Hannity and other Fox News hosts have been making for months.
Those investigations got lucky: They discovered that Hillary Clinton, secretary of state at the time of the attacks, had been using a private email server while serving in the Cabinet. That spawned its own obsessive coverage, up until the day that Clinton lost her 2016 presidential bid to Trump.
This wasn’t a coincidence.
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — probably the next speaker — said in 2015. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
Republicans were out of power in the House from 2019 to the present. But Fox News continued hammering themes that were picked up by GOP representatives.
One was that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was contrived or dishonest, something that prompted Fox News to spend a great deal of time talking about special counsel John Durham, tasked with investigating the investigation and proving rot in the Justice Department. He was unable to do so, but gave Fox News plenty to talk about.
The other theme was Hunter Biden and his laptop. (There was also a blip of Hunter Biden coverage back in 2019. This is when Fox News and Republicans — including Jordan — were trying to deflect the impeachment investigation into Trump by suggesting that his demand for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens was valid.) If you are a politician looking to make an appearance on Fox News or get the attention of a Fox News-watching audience, these are subjects that will probably do the trick.
It should go without saying that it is good for Congress to conduct investigations into presidents and other officials. That’s true even if the investigations are nakedly partisan; sometimes the sort of assumption of guilt that accompanies such probes unearths real wrongdoing that might otherwise have been overlooked. And there are legitimate questions about Hunter Biden’s business activities — though the Justice Department is currently looking at his actions, too.
The House Republican effort, though, can’t be separated from the eagerness with which members of the party’s caucus are explicitly appealing to the Fox News/right-wing-media echo chamber. After Thursday’s news conference, numerous observers scratched their heads about the timing: The party had just had that electoral underperformance thanks in part to a universe of rhetoric that mirrored what was being amplified at the news conference. In response, the party was pledging to use its power to double down on the claims from that universe?
Yes. In part because it fits with the pre-2016 and pre-2020 pattern of targeting a presidential opponent. And in part because doing so guarantees that Republican officials will get retweets and Fox News hits and coverage on the network that keeps them at the center of attention.
If they discover something nefarious along the way? Even better. | 2022-11-18T22:19:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | House Republicans announce plans to produce content for Fox News - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/fox-news-republicans-house-hunter-biden/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/fox-news-republicans-house-hunter-biden/ |
I hate to say it, but the chaos isn’t over
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks on the floor of the U.S. House on Thursday. (Elizabeth Frantz for The Washington Post)
In just four years, Trump created an army of locked-and-loaded patriots whose mission was to take back their country. Almost overnight, it seemed, street-corner soap boxes where fevered conspiracists held up signs and shouted slogans gave way to governing seats at the grownups’ table. | 2022-11-18T22:33:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The midterm results won't end the chaos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/midterms-cant-stop-chaos-trump-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/midterms-cant-stop-chaos-trump-republicans/ |
As Pelosi backs away, a new generation of Democrats step forward
Democratic lawmakers both seasoned and new embraced the prospect of a fresh start, while recognizing the massive impact Pelosi has had
Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) greets Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in Washington on Nov. 17. (Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
One day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced she would step back from leading the House Democratic caucus, a changing of the guard began to unfold, led by a crop of Democrats tasked with charting a new path for the party as it reaches a generational inflection point.
Seasoned and newer Democratic lawmakers eagerly embraced the prospects of a fresh start that could usher in a new era for the Democratic Party, as new leaders Friday announced their intentions to fill the vacancies left by Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.). The first major reshuffle of House Democratic leadership in decades will not only affect which policies Democrats pursue, but also bring with it a shifting view of how leadership should function.
Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine M. Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) have emerged as the expected leaders of the next chapter, officially announcing their candidacies for the Democratic caucus’s top three positions on Friday. Besides the appeal of their relative youth — all are younger than 60, while the current top three are all older than 80 — the trio more robustly represents the diversity within the Democratic Party. Jeffries, 52, would break barriers as the first Black person to lead any party in either chamber of Congress. Clark, 58, could become the second woman to ever serve as minority whip, and Aguilar, 43, would be the second Hispanic lawmaker to chair the caucus if elected this month.
There is, however, an overwhelming recognition among House Democrats that no one leader in the new generation can be as powerful as Pelosi, who maintains the ability to achieve legislative results by cajoling members in the direction needed.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who has known Pelosi for almost four decades, acknowledged Pelosi’s style of “tough love” is what forged consensus to achieve historic feats like passing the landmark Affordable Care Act, several priorities of President Biden’s agenda and other bills that required sacrifices from members who may not have fully agreed with all provisions.
Without that tight grip, members privately have mused over the past year, the new reality could create a scenario where no one can control members’ ongoing demands.
“If no one’s living in fear of the speaker of the House, then maybe it’s a complete s---show,” one Democratic lawmaker said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid.
But that is a risk many Democrats see as worth taking. They have grown tired of what several described as top-down governance, and they want to see new leaders engage more often with the ideological factions of the caucus before decisions are made as to avoid last-minute spats over legislation.
Reverence also was expressed toward Pelosi for shattering the marble ceiling, an acknowledgment that without her, Hoyer and Clyburn, members would not have such a structurally strong foundation to build and expand the caucus on.
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a member of “The Squad,” made up largely of liberal women of color, wants to see the new leaders make more inroads with the most progressive members of the caucus, noting that their lived experiences aren’t routinely brought to the table for consideration.
Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar spent much of the past term forging relationships throughout the caucus and acknowledging they would rely on each other’s strengths to bring all viewpoints to the decision-making table. Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) credited the team, particularly Jeffries, for working in an inclusive manner and seeking input from colleagues.
Many older members in the caucus took the passing of the torch in stride, echoing Pelosi’s words read from Scripture during her Thursday speech, that there is “a time and a season” for everything. It’s a realization Budget Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) had this year when he decided to retire after 15 years in the House. Before doing so, he made sure to call Morgan McGarvey, 42, to inquire if he would run because of his skill — and age.
While there is an overwhelming eagerness to start anew, several members were glad to hear that the “old guard” would still be around next term. It served as a relief for several, who had previously expressed worry that the new generation has not had enough time to harness their legislating and negotiating chops. The expected new top three in the caucus have served a collective 27 years in Congress compared with the 58 years combined that Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn have served in leadership alone.
Moreover, Hoyer retains a respectable relationship with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who earned the GOP conference’s nomination to be speaker next term. Both McCarthy and Jeffries have acknowledged not having a solid relationship, as both have often spent the last several years trading barbs at each other.
Several Democratic lawmakers who spoke to The Post say Jeffries has proved himself to be a reliable antagonist against Republicans and their policies, a role he will have to play in the minority. But the ability to legislate and negotiate will be a test for the new trio as Republicans begin to acknowledge they will have to rely on Democrats to successfully approve must-pass legislation to overcome their razor-thin majority.
While the old guard will be around to give advice — particularly Clyburn, who is expected to remain in leadership — Pelosi made clear in an interview Thursday that she does not want to encroach on how Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar choose to lead the caucus.
Instead, her closest confidants are hoping the new guard will allow Pelosi to finally step back and relax.
“What I said to her when I had a chance to hug her and thank her is, I said, ‘Come hang out with us,’ ” Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.) said. “She’s really fun, and I think there’s a side to this that she would really enjoy that she doesn’t get a chance to.”
Leigh Ann Caldwell, Paul Kane and Liz Goodwin contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T22:41:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | As Pelosi backs away, a new generation of Democrats step forward - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/pelosi-backs-away-new-generation-democrats-step-forward/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/pelosi-backs-away-new-generation-democrats-step-forward/ |
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge on Friday sentenced disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes to more than 11 years in prison for duping investors in the failed startup that promised to revolutionize blood testing but instead made her a symbol of Silicon Valley’s culture of audacious self-promotion. The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila was shorter than the 15-year penalty requested by federal prosecutors but far tougher than the leniency her legal team sought for the mother of a year-old son with another child on the way. Holmes, who was CEO throughout the company’s turbulent 15-year history, was convicted in January in the scheme, which revolved around the company’s claims to have developed a medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked.
SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk’s managerial bomb-throwing at Twitter has so thinned the ranks of the software engineers who keep it up and running that programmers who were fired or resigned this week say Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash. Musk ended a very public argument with nearly two dozen coders over how to proceed by ordering them fired. Hundreds of engineers then quit after he gave anyone not “extremely hardcore” until Thursday to abandon ship with severance. The newest round of departures means the platform is losing workers just at it is gearing up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup that begins Sunday, one of the busiest events on Twitter.
NEW YORK — Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in October for the ninth month in a row to the slowest pre-pandemic sales pace in more than 10 years, as homebuyers grappled with sharply higher mortgage rates, rising home prices and fewer properties on the market. The National Association of Realtors said Friday that existing home sales fell 5.9% last month from September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.43 million. Sales fell 28.4% from October last year, and are now at the slowest annual pace since December 2011, excluding the steep slowdown in sales that occurred in May 2020 near the start of the pandemic. The national median home price rose 6.6% in October from a year earlier to $379,100.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is cautioning that “it’s going to take time” for inflation to recede. But he says that legislation he signed in August will soon help limit costs for health care and energy. He made the remarks Friday while meeting with business and labor leaders in his first public event since returning from a trip to Egypt and Asia. Biden was emboldened by Democrats’ stronger-than-expected performance in the midterm elections, but he could be entering a perilous stretch for the economy. The White House has emphasized a strong jobs market to try to allay concerns about a potential recession on the horizon. However, the Federal Reserve has also been raising interest rates to battle inflation by slowing growth.
OSTRAVA, Czech Republic — High energy prices linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine have paved the way for coal’s comeback in some parts of Europe. Many people have turned to coal as a cheaper option than natural gas, , endangering climate goals and threatening health from increased pollution. The trend raises worries in a region of northeastern Czech Republic that has worked for decades to end its industrial legacy as the most polluted area of the country. The country’s production of brown coal — the cheapest form — has risen by more than 20% in the first nine months of 2022 over a year earlier. Officials say that’s the first increase after almost a continuous decades-long decline.
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — As climate-amped disasters ratchet up the suffering, the staid international finance system designed for an earlier age may be on the brink of change, driven by those on the front lines. The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley is leading a charge of developing nations at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt. The countries say they have had enough of high interest rates and borrowing obstacles as they struggle to pay for increasingly frequent and expensive climate disasters. ___
WASHINGTON — The government and two major airlines are giving starkly contrasting views about the impact of an alliance between the airlines. Closing arguments were held Friday in federal district court in the government’s lawsuit to break up a partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue. The partnership lets the airlines coordinate schedules and share revenue on many routes to and from New York and Boston. The government says it’ll reduce competition and cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year in higher fares. The airlines say it’s already leading to new routes without raising prices. The case is an important test of the Biden administration’s aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws. | 2022-11-18T22:41:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Business Highlights: Holmes sentence, Twitter risks - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-holmes-sentence-twitter-risks/2022/11/18/9fd1e440-6790-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/business-highlights-holmes-sentence-twitter-risks/2022/11/18/9fd1e440-6790-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
OKLAHOMA CITY — A scheduled execution in Alabama that was called off Thursday after prison officials couldn’t find a suitable vein to inject the lethal drugs into is the latest in a long history of problems with lethal injections since Texas became the first state to use the execution method in 1982, including delays in finding usable veins. | 2022-11-18T22:42:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | EXPLAINER: Why are states having lethal injection problems? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/explainer-why-are-states-having-lethal-injection-problems/2022/11/18/a8091bc8-678c-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/explainer-why-are-states-having-lethal-injection-problems/2022/11/18/a8091bc8-678c-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
An official match ball is seen during an Argentina training session on Friday in Doha, Qatar. (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
World Cup organizers said Friday that they were abandoning plans to sell beer around match stadiums.
Qatar, a conservative Muslim country, strictly limits the sale of alcohol and bans its consumption in public places. It had made exceptions to those rules for the World Cup, but suddenly reversed course on Friday.
Whether or not fans can have a beer at a game may not seem like a big deal - but some worry about what this signals about other laws and cultural norms that had been expected to be suspended for the World Cup, around protests, press freedoms and LGBTQ rights.
“This is a World Cup that is defined by the controversy around it in many ways,” Ishaan Tharoor told our producer Arjun Singh. There were unexplained deaths of thousands of migrant workers during Qatar’s preparation for the tournament, and their families are still looking for answers.
“The World Cup is never just about the World Cup,” Ishaan explained.
To read more from Ishaan, sign up for his newsletter, Today’s WorldView.
Plus, we go to Chuck Culpepper, who is on the ground in Doha reporting on the tournament. He lays out what teams and players to watch in the coming weeks, and why the biggest strength of Team USA might be its biggest weakness. | 2022-11-18T22:42:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No beer, plenty of scandal: Qatar’s World Cup - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/no-beer-plenty-of-scandal-qatars-world-cup/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/no-beer-plenty-of-scandal-qatars-world-cup/ |
PM Update: Chilly through the weekend as cold snap peaks Sunday
Sunset overlooking downtown D.C. on Thursday. (Alex Huie/Flickr)
Temperatures reached the mid- and upper 40s, which notches us another much-chillier-than-normal day. There will be no change in the cold pattern over the weekend: We’ll see it peak on Sunday into Monday morning, when temperatures may not get out of the 30s during the day and fall into the teens and 20s overnight. All the cold air might make for a good weekend to get out the holiday decorations and plan some indoor activities.
Through tonight: Clouds will grow more numerous through the evening, as a little disturbance passes to our north. There could be a passing shower or snow shower this evening. It won’t amount to much, though. Clearing overnight, with lows in the 20s to around 30.
Tomorrow (Saturday): We’ll see more sun than not on Saturday. It will be fairly similar to today, with highs mainly in the mid-40s. Winds will be from the south-southwest around 10 mph, with higher gusts.
Sunday: It’s going to be very cold for this time of year. Coming off morning lows in the 20s, sunshine will do little to help temperatures rise. We’re talking upper 30s at most, with wind chills to boot. Winds will be out of the northwest around 10 to 15 mph, with gusts near 30 mph. | 2022-11-18T22:44:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PM Update: Chilly through the weekend as cold snap peaks Sunday - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/11/18/dc-area-forecast-cold-weekend/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/11/18/dc-area-forecast-cold-weekend/ |
Man dies after vehicle goes into Potomac River, police say
D.C. police have identified a Maryland man who they said died after a vehicle he was in went off the George Washington Memorial Parkway and plunged into the Potomac River on Thursday night along the border with Virginia.
Kelvin Gunn, 59, of Upper Marlboro died at a hospital in Virginia, according to a D.C. police spokesman. A woman who also was in the vehicle was rescued and survived, police said.
Police said they are awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine how Gunn died. The spokesman, Dustin Sternbeck, said an investigation into the incident is continuing.
Police said the vehicle was found about 9:30 p.m. submerged in the water near the Humpback Bridge, across the Potomac River from the Tidal Basin. | 2022-11-18T22:59:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man dies after wife drives vehicle into water, police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/police-bridge-water-homicide/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/18/police-bridge-water-homicide/ |
This 2015 artist's rendering, provided by Northrop Grumman via NASA, shows the James Webb Space Telescope. (Northrop Grumman /NASA via AP)
NASA’s James Webb telescope will explore the universe. Critics say its name represents a painful time in U.S. history.
NASA releases first images from James Webb Telescope
“This is a moment that we can learn a lot from, this period of history. … It’s an important topic that we shouldn’t forget about,” Odom said. “I just want folks to know that this was done in the most objective way possible.” | 2022-11-18T22:59:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | James Webb Space Telescope will keep its name, NASA says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/james-webb-space-telescope-rename-investigation-nasa/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/11/18/james-webb-space-telescope-rename-investigation-nasa/ |
Police look for pieces of a missile that exploded in Przewodow, Poland, on Nov. 17. (Karolina Jonderko/For The Washington Post)
“Of course, it is necessary to investigate with Polish partners and put an end to this story because to discuss one missile, which unfortunately killed people, is a great tragedy," he said. 'But everyone has forgotten that there were a hundred missiles in Ukraine.” | 2022-11-18T23:20:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ukraine: Missile parts that landed in Poland could have been Ukrainian - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/ukraine-missile-poland-nato-russia/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/11/18/ukraine-missile-poland-nato-russia/ |
Taylor Swift blasts Ticketmaster for ‘Eras Tour’ rollout
Taylor Swift, pictured performing in September. (Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)
Taylor Swift on Friday weighed in on the chaotic rollout of her "Eras Tour” concerts this week for the first time, voicing frustration at Ticketmaster’s handling of ticket sales and saying the experience for fans was like “going through several bear attacks.”
The comments from Swift, one of the most popular entertainers on the planet, come at a precarious time for Ticketmaster, as the Justice Department has launched an investigation into the firm. The investigation was confirmed by a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the situation. The person said the Justice Department’s probe predates the Swift concert drama, and its parameters were not immediately clear.
“It goes without saying that I’m extremely protective of my fans," the singer wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. “It’s really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse.”
On Thursday, following a couple days of glitches and hours-long waits for “Eras Tour" tickets on Ticketmaster’s website, the company announced it would be halting sales on Friday due to “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.” In a since-deleted blog post, Ticketmaster said more than 2 million tickets were purchased for the tour on Tuesday, setting a record for an artist in a single day.
Ticketmaster attributed the malfunctions to a combination of “bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes” upping the number of system requests on its website to 3.5 billion, which it said was four times the previous peak. The company added that only 15 percent of customer “interactions across the site experienced issues,” but that it was still “too many.”
“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward,” Swift wrote in her statement. “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”
Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, has not responded to a request for comment.
The “Eras Tour” fiasco added fuel to long-standing complaints over the conduct of Live Nation Entertainment, which has been accused of operating a monopoly in online ticket sales. In 2010, the Justice Department allowed Live Nation, an event promoter and venue operator, to merge with Ticketmaster, on condition of agreeing to a code of conduct meant to address antitrust concerns. In 2019, the Justice Department alleged that Live Nation Entertainment had violated the terms of the agreement, which was set to expire in 2020; after an investigation, a new agreement was extended through 2025.
The New York Times first reported that members of the Justice Department’s antitrust division had launched a “broad” inquiry into Live Nation Entertainment earlier this year.
Anticipation was high for Swift’s return to stadiums; her last concert tour, promoting the album “Reputation,” was in 2018. Swift has since released four records: 2019′s “Lover”; 2020′s “Folklore” and “Evermore”; and last month’s “Midnights,” the success of which made her the first artist to land all 10 top slots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In her statement on Friday, Swift noted that she has “brought so many elements of my career in house” as a means to “improve the quality of my fans’ experience by doing it myself with my team who care as much about my fans as I do.”
“To those who didn’t get tickets, all I can say is that my hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs,” she wrote. “Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means.”
Julian Mark contributed to this report. | 2022-11-18T23:25:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taylor Swift Ticketmaster chaos brings attention to DOJ Investigation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/18/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-doj-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/11/18/taylor-swift-ticketmaster-doj-investigation/ |
Maryland AG settles with Commanders over ticket-deposit refunds
The Commanders reached a settlement with the office of Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) over allegations related to refunds of deposits to ticket holders. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) announced Friday that his office’s consumer protection division reached a settlement with the Washington Commanders over allegations that the team withheld security deposits from ticket holders.
According to their contracts with ticket holders, the Commanders were required to refund security deposits within 30 days after the seat licenses for consumers expired or were terminated. But according to Frosh’s office, the team did not return the deposits unless the ticket holders requested refunds in writing.
The settlement calls for the Commanders, who did not admit to the allegations as part of the settlement, to refund all security deposits that have not yet been returned to consumers and to pay a $250,000 civil fine.
For years, the Commanders kept money that was not theirs. It belongs to their customers. Our settlement will require the team to return this money to those customers, pay a penalty, and make sure they don't engage in this conduct again. https://t.co/MbH3xXlBKS
— Brian Frosh, Attorney General of Maryland (@BrianFrosh) November 18, 2022
“For many years, the Commanders kept money that was not theirs,” Frosh said in a statement. “It belongs to their customers. Today’s settlement will require the team to return the monies owed to consumers. The Commanders will pay a penalty, and they will be enjoined from engaging in similar practices in the future.”
If any of the repayments cannot be returned to the consumers, the Commanders must turn over the funds to be held as unclaimed.
The settlement also includes an injunction that requires the team not to mislead consumers about its security-deposit practices and to return any future security deposits that it collects from fans within 30 days of the cancellation or termination of the seat licenses.
According to the “assurance of discontinuance” filed with the consumer protection division of Frosh’s office, the team “does not admit, agree with, or concede any allegations.” The document adds that the team denies any violation of Maryland law and is “currently undertaking a similar large-scale effort to send notices to more than 1,800 account holders with an outstanding security deposit balance” to return the deposits.
A team spokesperson issued the following statement: “The Washington Commanders have not accepted security deposits for more than 20 years in the case of premium tickets and more than a decade in the case of suites, and we began returning them to season ticket holders as early as 2004. In 2014, as part of a comprehensive review, team management was instructed to send notices to more than 1,400 customers with deposits and return all security deposits requested.
“Further, the team engaged an outside law firm and forensic auditors to conduct an extensive review of the Commanders’ accounts and it found no evidence that the team intentionally withheld security deposits that should have been returned to customers or that the team improperly converted any unclaimed deposits to revenue.”
The team’s security-deposit practices were first revealed publicly through an investigation by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The committee has been investigating the Commanders’ workplace culture and the league’s handling of allegations of sexual misconduct and financial improprieties for more than a year. Former Commanders sales executive Jason Friedman told the committee that under Daniel Snyder’s ownership, team executives instructed Friedman to withhold security deposits from customers when their lease terms ended and to create barriers to discourage customers from requesting their deposits back. Friedman alleged that the team converted the non-refunded deposits into revenue.
The committee referred its findings to local attorneys general, as well as to the Federal Trade Commission.
D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) has filed two lawsuits in the civil division of the D.C. Superior Court against the Commanders for misleading D.C. fans about an investigation of the team’s workplace to maintain its fan base in pursuit of revenue, and for “implementing an illegal scheme to cheat District ticket holders” out of their deposits.
In addition to the two pending lawsuits by Racine’s office and the committee’s probe into the team’s workplace, Snyder and the Commanders are being investigated by the office of Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares (R). Investigators for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia have interviewed witnesses about allegations of financial improprieties involving the team, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. The NFL is conducting its second investigation. Snyder and the team have denied the allegations.
Earlier this month, the team announced that Snyder and his wife Tanya, the franchise’s co-CEO, had retained BofA Securities, a division of Bank America, to explore “potential transactions” related to the team. It’s unclear if the Snyders intend to sell part of the team or all of it. | 2022-11-19T00:04:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Maryland AG settles with Commanders over ticket-deposit refunds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/maryland-ag-settles-with-commanders-over-ticket-deposit-refunds/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/maryland-ag-settles-with-commanders-over-ticket-deposit-refunds/ |
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday walks out to announce the appointment of a special counsel at the Justice Department in Washington. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday named a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigation into former president Donald Trump’s possible mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club, as well as aspects of the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. Mr. Garland explained that Mr. Trump’s now-official presidential campaign presented “extraordinary circumstances” for which the Justice Department’s regulations prescribe the appointment of a special counsel. In other words, he had no choice but to proceed.
Mr. Garland’s decision to appoint longtime federal prosecutor Jack Smith to lead this politically fraught probe comes as Republicans have attacked it as corrupt, arguing that an attorney general appointed by President Biden cannot be trusted to make a fair call on investigating Mr. Trump. These attacks have always been unfair. The Biden administration has studiously respected the Justice Department’s independence. By contrast, Mr. Trump flouted time after time the norms of separation between the White House and law enforcement, even pressuring then-FBI Director James B. Comey to pledge his loyalty.
Though it is unrealistic to think that Mr. Garland’s move will ever quiet the right-wing conspiracy mill, that’s not where the biggest dangers lie. The first danger is mission creep. Special counsels past and present, from Kenneth Starr in his investigation into the Clintons in the 1990s to John Durham in his probe into the FBI’s 2016 Russia inquiry, have tended to allow their probes to get out of control, spending vast amounts of time and public resources on minor legal issues. Such investigations often leave the unhappy impression that they must find something. Combined with a lack of supervision, special counsel probes are prone to overreach.
Responsibility for avoiding these pitfalls still falls to Mr. Garland, whose judgment in one of the most potentially explosive investigations in Justice Department history will continue to be tested. Mr. Smith will be in charge of the probe’s day-to-day activities, but the attorney general still oversees the special counsel’s work, accepting or rejecting any recommendations. Mr. Garland should guide the investigation so that it is fair, focused and, within reason, fast. Accountability should remain the priority — delivered, as he has taken pains to ensure, according to the rule of law. | 2022-11-19T00:13:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | The new Trump probe special counsel should move quickly - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/special-counsel-garland-trump/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/18/special-counsel-garland-trump/ |
A lawsuit suit claims the Food and Drug Administration lacked the authority to approve the drug mifepristone, did not adequately study the medication and that the drug is unsafe. (Allen G. Breed/AP)
Abortion foes sued the Food and Drug Administration in federal court in Texas on Friday in an effort to reverse the agency’s decades-old approval of mifepristone, the drug used in medication abortions.
The “FDA failed America’s women and girls when it chose politics over science and approved chemical abortion drugs for use in the United States,” the lawsuit said. The suit said the agency erred in approving the drug under an expedited process that is intended to speed consideration of therapies for life-threatening illnesses, not a condition like pregnancy.
“Pregnancy is not an illness, and chemical abortion drugs don’t provide a therapeutic benefit — they end a baby’s life and they pose serious and life-threatening complications to the mother,” Julie Marie Blake, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel, said in a statement.
“For decades, women in this country have had access to FDA-approved medication abortion as a safe and effective option,” HHS said. “As [HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra] said, denying women access to any essential care they need is downright dangerous and extreme.”
Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. The FDA approved the medication in 2002 as safe and effective through the first seven weeks of pregnancy, then later extended it to 10 weeks. The drug is sometimes used “off label” after that. Patients follow the use of mifepristone with misoprostol, which causes the uterus to empty.
Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who has written extensively about the abortion pill, denounced the group’s safety claims as “ridiculous.”
“Mifepristone is one of the safest drugs on the market, safer than Viagra and penicillin,” Donley said. “We have a lot of studies and a lot of data on it.”
Donley said the legal claims in the suit were “really weak.” She said the agency approved the drug under the expedited procedure because it allowed the FDA to impose restrictions on its use — restrictions that she and other abortion rights advocates think should be eliminated.
Donley said she didn’t know of any other suit that has tried to undo the FDA’s approval of abortion medication.
Loren Colson, a family medicine physician in Idaho and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, said mifepristone is “an incredibly safe medication.”
“It’s been well-studied and much safer than a lot of things you can find over the counter,” Colson said. “If they are trying to argue the safety, they have very little ground to stand on. It’s just a clear and blatant attack on abortion.”
Medication-induced abortion — the most common method of abortion in the United States — has become an increasingly contentious issue since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade after nearly 50 years is expected to trigger a new set of legal challenges for which there is little precedent, observers say, further roiling the nation’s bitter political landscape and compounding chaos as Republican-led states move quickly to curtail access to reproductive care.
The Texas suit takes issue with the FDA’s easing of restrictions on the abortion pill through the years, including the agency’s decision in 2016 to say the drug could be used through 10 weeks of pregnancy. Last December, the FDA said it would allow abortion pills to be sent through the mail where permitted by state law. Previously, the pills could not be mailed, though that rule had been temporarily suspended because of the pandemic.
In a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, the lawmakers said, “As states implement new restrictions, it is more important than ever that you take immediate steps to expand access to medication abortion.” | 2022-11-19T00:13:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Conservative group sues FDA to revoke approval of abortion pill - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/18/abortion-pill-lawsuit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/11/18/abortion-pill-lawsuit/ |
FILE - Young Dolph performs at The Parking Lot Concert in Atlanta on Aug. 23, 2020. A man charged with soliciting the killing of Young Dolph pleaded not guilty Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022, one year after the rapper and producer was shot to death while buying cookies at a bakery in his hometown of Memphis, Tenn. (Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-11-19T00:13:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 4th person surrenders in slaying of rapper Young Dolph - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/4th-person-surrenders-in-slaying-of-rapper-young-dolph/2022/11/18/0be95c88-6798-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/4th-person-surrenders-in-slaying-of-rapper-young-dolph/2022/11/18/0be95c88-6798-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
FILE - Actor Danny Masterson appears at the CMT Music Awards in Nashville, Tenn., on June 7, 2017. Jurors at the rape trial of the “That ’70s Show” star said Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, that they are deadlocked, but a judge told them they have not deliberated long enough for her to declare a mistrial. (Wade Payne/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-11-19T00:13:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jury says it's deadlocked in Danny Masterson rape trial - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jury-says-its-deadlocked-in-danny-masterson-rape-trial/2022/11/18/0f73f5ba-6794-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jury-says-its-deadlocked-in-danny-masterson-rape-trial/2022/11/18/0f73f5ba-6794-11ed-b08c-3ce222607059_story.html |
Carol Leigh, who sought greater rights for sex workers, dies at 71
Carol Leigh in 1996. (Frederic Larson/AP)
When Carol Leigh attended an anti-pornography conference in 1982, she was troubled by the way participants described their opposition to the “sex-use industry.”
For Ms. Leigh, the term bothered her personal sense of feminism and empowerment — shaped by a turbulent stretch of years that led her from creative writing studies in Boston to a job at the Hong Kong Massage Parlor on San Francisco’s O’Farrell Street.
“I said, ‘No, we should call it ‘sex work’ because that’s what the women do,” Ms. Leigh recalled in a 2017 oral history. “We’re supposed to be feminists. Why are we calling it ‘sex use?'”
Her off-the-cuff phrase took hold. Within years, “sex work” entered the global lexicon of academics, researchers and writers to describe activities from high-end brothel services to streetside pickups. The term also came to represent the movement, championed by Ms. Leigh, for greater labor rights, health protections and public representation for sex workers.
“I knew we needed a word that was different than prostitute,” wrote Ms. Leigh, who died Nov. 16 at her home in San Francisco at 71.
Over more than four decades, Ms. Leigh established herself — sometimes in the guise of her bawdy stage persona, Scarlot Harlot — as one of the leading advocates for sex workers in the Bay Area and as an important ally for groups around the world on issues such as human trafficking and transgender rights.
Ms. Leigh, with red hair and a firebrand personality, cut a colorful swath. She brought a mix of performance art, civil disobedience and political networking with outreach to the homeless, transgender communities and others. Her style was influenced by San Francisco’s brand of audacious activism such as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a street ministry and outreach group known for its nun-meets-harlequin costumes.
Ms. Leigh debuted her boa-draped, bustier-plumped character in the one-woman show “The Adventures of Scarlot Harlot.” First performed in 1983, it explored her experiences in sex work and revealed the profession to be one that, at its core, was one like any other, with workers focused on safety and security on the job. Ms. Leigh, as Scarlot, shouted: “Sex workers unite!”
“I’d wander into the audience and ask them what they did for a living and sneer, saying they were whores, too,” Ms. Leigh wrote in an autobiographic sketch.
As “Mom,” wearing a headscarf and leopard-print fur, Ms. Leigh appeared on a local-access channel in Arizona amid the AIDS crisis in the mid-1980s to remind sex workers about the importance of using condoms. In 2005, Ms. Leigh (again as Scarlot) set up a booth at a San Francisco Christmas bazaar selling sex toys and other X-rated gifts to help the Exotic Dancers Education Project, a program to help with issues such as filing taxes and ''avoiding sex worker burnout.''
With the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network, a group co-founded by Ms. Leigh, she worked with another former sex-worker, Margo St. James, on initiatives to decriminalize prostitution and protect sex workers from abuse.
There were successes. In 2013, California said that sex workers who were attacked or raped would qualify for help under the state’s worker compensation fund. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law in 2019 that gives sex workers the ability to report crimes without risk of arrest for prostitution.
Ms. Leigh helped dancers at a San Francisco club, Lusty Lady, bargain for their first labor contract in 1997.
“Leigh argued that until sex workers are included in the conversations about feminism, sexuality and legality — conversations from which they have historically been excluded — sex workers will remain fragmented rather than collective, and stigmatization will abound,” said a statement from the Britain-based Sex Worker Advocacy and Resistance Movement.
At times, Ms. Leigh noted she would still see some of her “old clients” for a paid tryst.
“I’m aiming to be the oldest women in the oldest profession,” she once said.
‘Desperate’
Carol Leigh was born on Jan. 11, 1951, in Manhattan and was raised in Jackson Heights in Queens. She recounted feeling insecure about her body image as a child, seeing beautiful women on television and sneaking peeks at her father’s pornographic magazines, stashed under the stairs.
“Then I noticed injustice, classism and the patriarchy,” she wrote.
She graduated in 1974 from Empire State College, part of New York’s state university system, with a degree in creative writing. She enrolled in further writing classes at Boston University with professors including Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton, who took her own life in October 1974 shortly after the semester began.
In 1978, Ms. Leigh moved to San Francisco, first finding work at a restaurant and then noticing options for sex work.
“I saw ads for sex massage girls,” she wrote. “I thought I was desperate, so why don't I just go there and do it? I went to the sleaziest parlor, to make sure I picked one that wasn't selling anything else, like glamour.”
A year later, Ms. Leigh was raped by two men, but did not report the attack because she feared the massage parlor would be closed, she recounted.
“The fact that I couldn’t go to the police to report the rape meant that I was not going to be able to protect other women from these rapists,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle in a 1996 interview. “And I vowed to do something to change that.”
She joined St. James’s group, COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), and soon began establishing her own activist identity. At a meeting of the National Organization for Women, Ms. Leigh arrived with a bag over her head with the message: “This paper bag symbolizes the anonymity prostitutes are forced to adopt.” She carried an oversize purse with the slogan “Be Nice to Sex Workers!” and openly discussed her bisexuality.
In the mid-1980s, Ms. Leigh decided to give Texas a try. “I’d sing about safe sex and educate people who weren’t thinking enough about AIDS,” she wrote. She got as far as Tucson, where her car broke down. She scanned the personal ads and met an artist, who introduced her to the staff at Tucson Western International Telethon, a local-access cable show known by its acronym “Twit.”
Ms. Leigh — or rather her characters Scarlot Harlot, Mom and others — joined the show’s weekly two-hour comedy and variety lineup. Along the way, she picked up video skills used in later work, including a short film on sexual abuse “Yes Means Yes, No Means No” (1990). In 1999, she founded the San Francisco Sex Worker Film & Arts Festival.
Among her literary work was “Unrepentant Whore: The Collected Writings of Scarlot Harlot” (2004) and “Inventing Sex Work,” (2010).
“I’d studied Hemingway, and Hemingway went to war to write about it,” Ms. Leigh wrote. “I decided to do the same with prostitution.”
Ms. Leigh’s papers will be archived at Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, said Kate Marquez, the executor of her estate. Ms. Leigh was battling cancer, said Marquez, who confirmed her death. She is survived by a brother.
“People have spoken about coining a term,” Ms. Leigh said in the 2017 oral history with the AIDS-HIV activist group ACT UP. “I also feel like I helped launch an identity.
“There’s always been that identity of sex worker libertine really, or a sex worker who’s not ashamed and that’s part of it,” she continued. “But to launch it as a contemporary identity rooted in labor is something that hadn’t happened before.” | 2022-11-19T00:14:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carol Leigh, who coined term 'sex work' amid life of activism, dies at 71 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/18/carol-leigh-sex-work-dies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/11/18/carol-leigh-sex-work-dies/ |
Judge allows Saturday voting in Ga.’s Senate runoff after Warnock suit
The ruling is a victory for Democrats and voting rights advocates, who had argued that guidance from the state unfairly disenfranchised voters
Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) at an Atlanta campaign stop Friday. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
ATLANTA — A Georgia judge ruled that early voting can take place on a Saturday in the highly watched Senate runoff election between Democratic incumbent Raphael G. Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.
In a ruling Friday afternoon ruling, Judge Thomas A. Cox Jr. found that a provision of Georgia’s election code cited by the secretary of state’s office as barring Saturday voting “does not specifically prohibit counties from conducting advanced voting on Saturday, November 26, 2022, for a runoff election.”
The court further noted that “there is an absence of settled law on this specific issue” in Georgia but that the intent of the state legislature was “obvious” in omitting any specific reference to a runoff election in the law.
Officials in the secretary of state’s office had initially ruled that Saturday voting could take place in this year’s runoff election before backtracking after discovering a provision of the election code that barred voting in the days after a holiday. The Saturday at issue in the case would be two days after Thanksgiving and one day after a state holiday that until 2015 honored Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
“I am delighted by the judge’s ruling. Obviously, I think it was the right call,” Warnock said at a rally on the campus of the Georgia Tech on Friday evening. “We should want every eligible voter to have an opportunity to vote, and not having Saturday voting disproportionately impacts working-class people in an adverse way.”
“I want to encourage everybody to vote early and make sure your voice is heard,” he added.
“We disagree with the court’s order and look forward to a prompt appeal,” Raffensperger said in a statement.
The decision on whether to appeal the case will be made by Republican Chris Carr, the state’s attorney general. The appeals court could issue a stay order to prevent counties from allowing voting on Nov. 26.
Georgia’s Senate race is in a runoff. Here’s how it works.
The ruling doesn’t necessarily mean that Saturday voting will take place; counties across Georgia must decide whether they will hold early-voting hours on Nov. 26, requiring more time and resources from poll workers and election staffers. More litigation is also possible if the case is appealed.
“The judge very clearly explained that the text, structure, and history of the election code did not square with the state’s tortured, literal interpretation of the law to block Saturday voting,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a professor of constitutional law and legal history at Georgia State University. “It doesn’t make sense to apply the same standards for a short runoff election as we would a general election with multiple weeks of early voting.” | 2022-11-19T00:14:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Judge rules Saturday voting can be held Nov. 26 in Georgia's Senate runoff - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/georgia-senate-runoff-saturday-voting-ruling/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/georgia-senate-runoff-saturday-voting-ruling/ |
Democrats believe they will ultimately benefit from Trump’s decision to embrace claims of a grand conspiracy against him
Former president Donald Trump announces his 2024 bid for president at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Tuesday. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
Former president Donald Trump declared this week in his 2024 campaign announcement that the single gravest threat to “our civilization” was the Justice Department, which has been investigating his alleged mishandling of classified documents and his role in the effort to prevent his successor from taking office.
When Attorney General Merrick Garland responded Friday by appointing a special counsel to take over the Trump investigations — an effort to put to rest claims that they were politicized — the former president simply doubled down. He described Garland’s announcement to Fox News as “the worst politicization of justice in our country” and called on the Republican Party to “stand up and fight” on his behalf.
The decision by Trump to conflate his political ambitions and potential criminal exposure — elevating the issue as a central plank of his campaign — has created a dramatic and bizarre beginning to the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump appears likely to face a large and energized field of rivals for the Republican nomination. Rather than a contest over policy or the direction of the country, Trump’s anger at the investigations of his conduct have framed the first arguments of the race as a debate over his own behavior and the response of federal investigators.
Democrats say they will ultimately benefit from Trump’s decision to embrace claims of a grand conspiracy against him. They point to the results of the midterm elections, which broadly rejected candidates who embraced conspiratorial legal theories pushed by Trump.
“One of the lessons from the election was that voters rejected election deniers, anti-democracy candidates and just kind of crazy in general. There were a certain number of voters who were voting for sanity,” said Democratic pollster Nick Gourevitch, leader of the Global Strategy Group’s research practice. “Trump making his campaign a campaign about judicial prosecution and the Republicans making their focus on investigations of Hunter Biden — all that stuff is very risky for them.”
Several of Trump’s advisers, however, view the Justice Department’s investigations as a potential political asset and a potent rallying cry, especially in a contested GOP nomination fight for voters who identify with Trump’s politics of grievance. They point out that the former president was able to turn the last special counsel who investigated him, Robert S. Mueller III, into a political symbol of his 2020 campaign, and argue many voters will come to see Trump’s legal troubles as an extension of their own struggles.
What is a special counsel, and what does it mean for the Trump investigations?
“If they can do this to the administration’s most formidable political opponent, if they can do this to the former president of the United States, they can do this to any American,” said one Trump political adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about political strategy. Trump’s advisers said they were not given any advance notice about Garland’s announcement Friday.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has sued Trump and his company for financial fraud. Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has convened a separate grand jury to investigate alleged attempts by Trump to subvert the 2020 election result, including a recorded call in which Trump asked a Georgia official to “find” the votes he needed to win.
In his announcement speech at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., Tuesday night, Trump argued that the criminal investigation of his family was the greatest of all the “gravest threats” facing the country.
“We must conduct a top to bottom overhaul to clean out the festering rot and corruption of Washington, D.C.,” he said in his first speech as a candidate. “I’m a victim. I will tell you, I’m a victim.”
The Biden administration has been doing what it can to demonstrate that the investigations into Trump are not political. The White House declined to comment Friday on the appointment of Jack Smith, a former chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity section who has most recently worked in Europe as a war crimes prosecutor.
“The Department of Justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage and investigation and prosecution,” Garland said. “Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”
Republicans reacted to the announcement with disappointment and anger. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) claimed, without evidence, that President Biden had “completely weaponized the Department of Justice to attack his political opponents.”
“3 days ago, Trump announced and now a special counsel,” he tweeted. “This is Trump derangement syndrome but this time with a gun and a badge.”
Even Republican critics of Trump, such as Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is considering announcing a presidential campaign in January, also expressed concern about the implications of a special counsel. “This means the issue will extend way into the 2024 election cycle,” Hutchinson said in a statement. “It will be a distraction.”
The continued investigation of Trump is likely to become a subject of oversight hearings in the House when Republicans take over control next year. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has proposed seeking Biden’s impeachment the moment Republicans take control of the House, tweeted Friday that “Republicans will need to refuse to appropriate any funding to Merrick Garland’s special counsel.”
Trump, in an interview Friday, suggested that he would not engage with the special counsel’s investigation as it moved forward. It was a clear sign that he preferred to handle his potential legal liabilities as a matter of politics.
“I am not going to partake in this,” he told Fox News of the investigation. | 2022-11-19T00:14:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump seizes on special counsel as a rallying cry for 2024 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/trump-special-counsel-2024/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/18/trump-special-counsel-2024/ |
The meeting underscored how far apart the two sides remain on the central demand made by families in a Texas courtroom
Ethiopian relatives of some of the crash victims light candles and gather at an anniversary memorial service at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 8, 2020, to remember those who died. (Mulugeta Ayene/AP)
Families of those killed on two Boeing 737 Max planes met with Justice Department officials Friday, an early result of a federal judge’s ruling last month that the department violated a federal law meant to protect crime victims.
But the emotional in-person and virtual meeting, which lasted five hours and included more than 100 family members around the world, only served to underscore how far apart the two sides remain on the central demand made by families earlier this year in a Texas court: The Justice Department should throw out its deal not to prosecute Boeing if the company meets certain conditions.
After a sometimes-tearful recounting of the devastation caused by crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, representatives of the families voiced frustration that the meeting had been, according to Naoise Connolly Ryan, “a complete disappointment.”
Ryan, whose husband, Mick, was killed on the Ethiopian Airlines flight, said in a statement the Justice Department was “inflicting new wounds” by sticking with its “sweetheart agreement that provided immunity to the company responsible for our loved ones’ deaths.”
During the session, the Justice Department reiterated arguments it made in federal court, including that throwing out key elements of the deal would create uncertainty over similar agreements in the future — ultimately undercutting government efforts to hold defendants accountable. The department has also said it would confer with families on its evaluation of Boeing’s compliance with the agreement.
A department spokesman declined to characterize the meeting, but in a statement said it “will continue to learn from this and other cases to ensure that victims remain at the forefront of our work.” It cited revised guidelines that require going “above and beyond what the law requires with respect to engagement with victims and others significantly harmed by crime.”
Boeing admitted to conspiring to defraud federal regulators as part of a deferred prosecution agreement signed in the final days of the Trump administration. The Justice Department, in turn, agreed not to prosecute the company for that conspiracy if it meets the terms of the deal, including making payments to families, Boeing’s customers and the government, as well as strengthening the company’s compliance with fraud laws.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled last month that the 346 people killed in the two crashes have rights as crime victims under federal law, which include a “reasonable right to confer” with the government in the case. That did not happen before the Boeing deal was reached. O’Connor is deciding the consequences for that violation.
Judge rules DOJ violated rights of Boeing Max victims in prosecution deal
Crash investigators found that a flawed automated system, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, repeatedly forced the planes’ noses down. A congressional probe determined that Boeing allowed its commercial interests to take precedence over safety concerns.
The Justice Department has argued its agreement with Boeing should not be undone, citing safety and other concerns.
“The Government would lose its leverage to ensure that Boeing follows through with the regulatory, compliance, and other reforms that are critical to preventing future violations that could endanger public safety,” the Justice Department argued in a Nov. 11 court filing.
In response, Michael Stumo, whose daughter Samya Rose Stumo was killed in the Ethiopia crash, said, “They get leverage for safety by putting people responsible in jail.” He said the families had pointed questions, including, “Why are you wasting our time if we can’t make a difference in the prosecution of Boeing?”
The Justice Department noted in its filing the agreement “is now two-thirds of the way through its life span, and most of the obligations it imposes on Boeing are now fully or substantially met.” The department declined to describe the resources it devoted to ensuring Boeing’s compliance.
Long before the Max disasters, Boeing had a history of failing to fix safety problems
Boeing, meanwhile, said in a filing it has “honored its obligations under the agreement scrupulously for nearly two years, including making all required payments” and complying with its reporting obligations. The company said is not responsible for the Justice Department’s approach to victims.
Boeing said it has made changes to enhance quality and safety. Despite the families’ “unspeakable losses,” the company added, they are not entitled to overturn the agreement.
“Boeing was and is entitled to rely on that contract,” the company said. | 2022-11-19T00:16:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Families of Boeing Max victims disappointed by Justice Dept. meeting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/18/boeing-max-justice-department/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/18/boeing-max-justice-department/ |
Commenters immediately began feasting on the virtual dish themselves. Some saw it as “imposing.” “Presumptuous.” “Idk how I would feel if a stranger came to my house with a meal I didn’t ask for,” one wrote. And what, some wondered, if they had allergies?
Some took the critique further. One accused her of “coddling” and encouraging “man-child” behavior. One attributed her generosity to a “White savior” complex. And why not, some wondered, ask what kind of help her neighbors really wanted before making assumptions? The outrage flowed in the other direction, too, with people slamming the critics.
Laura Malcolm, the founder and chief executive of Give InKind, a service that allows users to organize meal trains and other support, says that while gift cards for meal-delivery services have become popular, plenty of people still like getting a home-cooked meal from others. The practice of greeting new neighbors with baskets of cookies and a barrage of casseroles might not be as common as it once was, but it’s hardly gone extinct.
Nick Leighton, host of the etiquette podcast “Were You Raised By Wolves?,” notes that what’s deemed normal depends on where you live. “Etiquette is local,” he says. “I live in Manhattan, and people don’t do a pop-in here. It’s not a thing.”
Where possible, you might initiate contact with your intended recipient first. Malcolm suggests avoiding a generic question like, “Can I do anything to help?” because the most typical response is no. “Try something like, ‘Can I drop off dinner for you on Tuesday?’” she says. “Or ‘Can I walk your dog for you?’ if it’s someone who has trouble getting around.” You can then ask about any preferences or dietary restrictions.
And no matter what you make, it’s best to offer it in a container that you don’t need back (which just creates an errand for the recipient). And it’s best if it’s something they can slip in the freezer if they can’t eat it right away.
In big disasters, such as hurricanes, people send packages of blankets and teddy bears that aren’t needed, or a diner leaving a restaurant might give her leftovers to an unhoused person who doesn’t actually want them. But even though the outcome isn’t what the giver intended, those impulses should be nurtured regardless, Malcolm says. “Do we really want to cut that off, just because there might be waste?” she asked. “Altruism can’t always be efficient, and do we want to cut back on well-meaningness?”
“A recipient should accept gracefully, even if it’s not the right thing, like the sweater is the wrong size or ‘I’m a vegan, why are you giving me a steak-of-the-month club membership?’” Leighton says, noting that the giftee should focus on the presumably good intentions in play. | 2022-11-19T01:23:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A woman made chili for neighbors, and outrage ensued. Was she wrong? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/18/chili-neighbors-twitter-etiquette/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/11/18/chili-neighbors-twitter-etiquette/ |
DOJ antitrust challenge to airline alliance concludes in federal court
Antitrust regulators last year sued to stop an alliance between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways
By Douglas Moser
A JetBlue aircraft and an American Airlines jet are at Tampa International Airport. (Chris O'meara/AP)
BOSTON — A month-long antitrust case wrapped up in federal court Friday that could set limits on how and whether domestic airlines can form alliances.
Federal antitrust regulators last year sued to stop an alliance between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways in which the carriers share passengers, jets and revenue in certain routes between New York and Boston, calling it anticompetitive and harmful to consumers. Experts say the case is part of a larger Biden administration plan to tackle consolidation in key industries, coming after years of growing market dominance among a handful of domestic air carriers.
The airlines say their agreement allows the two relatively smaller carriers in the Northeast to compete more effectively against the two largest players there, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.
During closing arguments Friday, Justice Department prosecutors pointed to an economic analysis that predicted between $500 million and nearly $700 million in higher fares for consumers on the routes encompassed in the Northeast Alliance. The analysis said the alliance also could limit competition along other routes across the country.
“The conclusion is very straightforward,” said William H. Jones II, the Justice Department’s lead attorney in the case. “This deal is poised to hit consumers with hundreds of millions of dollars per year in harm, in the form of higher fares and lower quality service.”
Attorneys for the airlines disputed any consumer harm, arguing that the government’s analysis didn’t make sense, that prosecutors couldn’t point to actual fare hikes and that it ignored an increase in airline seats already available.
Biden administration challenges airline alliance as antitrust trial begins
Richard F. Schwed and Daniel M. Wall, attorneys for the airlines, said Justice Department attorneys didn’t prove that competition or consumers would be harmed, pointing to stable fares along the relevant routes and an increase in capacity since the alliance took effect.
“The NEA is a highly pro-competitive alliance that already has produced substantial benefits for consumers,” Schwed said. “I wasn’t talking about hypothetical benefits. I wasn’t talking about future benefits or some other transfers that haven’t happened yet. I was talking about actual, real benefits for consumers in terms of more flights, more choices and more capacity.”
Jones also argued that the alliance harms consumers by turning former competitors in the Northeast, a region that includes 70 percent of JetBlue’s business, into collaborators who coordinate on allocation of flights, scheduling and revenue-sharing.
Looking at individual routes out of New York or Boston, Jones said the American-JetBlue alliance claims more than half the market share. Given constraints on airport gates and slots — federal authorization to take off or land at an airport at a certain time — he said other airlines can’t easily enter the market.
“We’ve heard it’s creative and innovative, but it boils down to a classic antitrust case,” Jones said. “Competition between American and JetBlue is gone in those four NEA airports.”
The alliance covers Logan International Airport in Boston, and John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in the New York area.
Schwed and Wall argued that American and JetBlue joining in the Northeast has combined two “weaker competitors” into a single, stronger competitor to Delta and United, which have long dominated the route.
U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin heard testimony for 17 days during the bench trial and plans to issue a written opinion. He said Friday he will finish reviewing evidence, then would schedule another hearing on any remaining questions. He gave no timeline for issuing an opinion.
The airline industry has consolidated considerably over the past two decades, through both mergers and bankruptcies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. According to the Justice Department, the top-four airlines had 55 percent of the domestic air travel market in 2000, with a dozen smaller carriers competing for the rest. By 2020, the top-four accounted for 81 percent of the market, alongside a dwindling number of smaller competitors.
The Biden administration has set that kind of market concentration in its crosshairs. The case involving the Northeast Alliance is among several that illustrate the administration’s more skeptical stance on partnerships and mergers.
Brian Quinn, a professor at Boston College Law School who specializes in mergers and corporate law, said more aggressive intervention in mergers and consolidation is becoming increasingly common.
“The people who made the argument to the Biden administration that bigness is bad have gotten the ear of policymakers,” Quinn said.
American and JetBlue finalized an agreement with the Transportation Department in January 2021 during the final days of the Donald Trump administration. The agreement established conditions for sharing information about seats, gate usage and other competitive details with the government. For example, the airlines can’t share information with each other about other routes where they compete.
Both airlines also agreed to give up coveted slots at JFK and Reagan National Airport outside Washington to foster more competition in those congested facilities.
The alliance began operating in February. About seven months later, the Justice Department under President Biden, along with attorneys general in Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and D.C., sued to break it up.
Partnerships like the Northeast Alliance are rare among domestic carriers, but are common internationally. American is a founding partner of Oneworld, an alliance of international carriers that includes British Airways, Japan Airlines and others, sharing planes and airport space around the globe.
In the past year, the DOJ has challenged or obtained merger abandonments in six cases. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September, Jonathan Kanter, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said the department had seven pending antitrust lawsuits — the largest number of civil cases in litigation in decades.
Justice Department lawyers have argued cases against mergers in publishing and health care in recent months, with mixed results. Federal Judge Carl Nichols in September ruled against the government’s challenge to an $8 billion merger between health insurer UnitedHealth Group and technology firm Change Healthcare.
But on Nov. 1, another judge handed the DOJ a victory in blocking a merger between publishing giants Penguin-Random House and Simon & Schuster. Judge Florence Y. Pan agreed with the Justice Department, which argued that the proposed $2.175 billion merger would lessen competition in the publishing industry and exert “outsized influence over who and what is published, and how much authors are paid for their work.” | 2022-11-19T01:46:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | DOJ antitrust challenge to JetBlue, American alliance concludes in court - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/18/jetblue-american-airlines-alliance-antitrust/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/11/18/jetblue-american-airlines-alliance-antitrust/ |
McCarthy caps week as speaker-elect after slow trickle of House calls
By Jabin Botsford and Marianna Sotomayor | Nov 19, 2022
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) entered the week of the midterm elections confident that Republicans would regain control of the House after having methodically planned his path to the governing majority over the past four years.
He visited 39 states since August and raised $500 million across his affiliated campaign and recruitment political action committees.
Supporters listen to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during a rally at a restaurant a day before the midterm elections on Nov. 7 in Virginia Beach.
The night before Election Day, he held a rally for House GOP candidates in Virginia.
McCarthy speaks with former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) at the Virginia rally.
Supporters attend the rally in Virginia Beach.
Polls in the final days before the election forecasted Republicans winning voters who said the economy remained their top issue.
Republican lawmakers, aides and strategists, in turn, were preemptively taking a victory lap, touting McCarthy’s political instincts and recruitment success as key to a “red tsunami” in the House.
McCarthy and Hung Cao, Republican candidate for Virginia's 10th Congressional District, greet voters on Election Day in Round Hill, Va.
The morning of Election Day, McCarthy visited Round Hill, Va., in support of House candidates running in the state’s 10th Congressional District.
McCarthy visits Tammy's Diner on Election Day in Round Hill.
Republicans needed to pick up just five seats to win back the House and were well-positioned as they moved aggressively into Democratic territory by tapping into voters’ anxieties about inflation and crime.
Gingrich and McCarthy watch election results from a war room at a hotel on election night.
McCarthy celebrates Republican members winning their races.
McCarthy talks with analysts in early morning the day after the election.
Leaders had prepared scores of news releases outlining their Day 1 priorities, set to deploy around the same time McCarthy would declare victory standing against a “Take Back the House” backdrop before the clock struck midnight at a D.C. hotel.
McCarthy prepares a speech surrounded by staff the morning after Election Day.
McCarthy takes a phone call as hotel staff clean up after Election Day.
McCarthy took the stage hours later than expected Wednesday morning as Democrats clung to a small but not insignificant number of seats, halting Republican celebrations.
McCarthy reads through his speech on Nov. 9.
McCarthy walks out to speak about the results of the election shortly after 2 a.m.
“When you wake up tomorrow, we will be in the majority and Nancy Pelosi will be in the minority,” McCarthy declared in a four-minute speech shortly after 2 a.m. Eastern.
McCarthy watches election results at his office on Capitol Hill the day after Election Day.
The next day, as votes continued to be counted, McCarthy began outreach, asking GOP house members for their support in his bid to be speaker.
McCarthy signs a letter asking for support of his bid to be the next House speaker.
McCarthy makes calls to Republican House members asking for support of his bid to be the next speaker.
The House majority remained uncalled into the following week, as numerous races remained close in districts Republicans believed they would easily win.
With control of the House and Senate still undecided, angry Republicans mounted public challenges to their leaders in both chambers Friday as they confronted the possibility of falling short of the majority.
The lack of a “red wave” marked a devastating outcome for Republicans, who believed they would cruise to a large governing majority in the House and possibly flip the Senate.
McCarthy arrives for a closed-door Republican leadership candidate forum on Nov. 14.
McCarthy with Rep.-elect Rudy Yakym (R-Ind.) in his office on Capitol Hill on Nov. 14.
McCarthy meets with a California delegation in his office on Nov. 15.
McCarthy speaks to staff in his office before a Republican leadership meeting to a vote on House Republican leadership positions on Nov. 15.
McCarthy won his party’s nomination for speaker Tuesday afternoon with 188 votes from the GOP caucus — well past the simple majority needed for victory.
McCarthy talks with reporters as he walks to a closed-door Republican leadership meeting on Nov. 15.
But 31 lawmakers voted for a challenger, presenting a steep obstacle for McCarthy come January, when he will need 218 votes to win the speakership when the 118th Congress convenes.
McCarthy talks with staff on Capitol Hill on Nov. 15.
Republicans on Wednesday were projected to win back control of the U.S. House with a narrow majority, dealing a blow to President Biden and his agenda — even as Democrats defied predictions of a rout to limit the GOP’s power.
Shortly after Republicans secured the victory, McCarthy issued a celebratory message on social media.
“Democrats’ One-Party rule is OVER,” McCarthy wrote on Twitter, adding that he and House Republicans were “ready to get to work for the American people, and fulfill our #CommitmentToAmerica with a GOP House Majority.”
The sun sets on the Capitol dome on Capitol Hill on Nov. 14. | 2022-11-19T01:58:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | McCarthy caps week as speaker-elect after slow trickle of House calls - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2022/mccarthy-election-week-speaker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2022/mccarthy-election-week-speaker/ |
Decision probably ends Washington tenure of 2014 first-round pick
The Nationals opted to non-tender Erick Fedde, probably ending the tenure of their 2014 first-round draft pick. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
The Washington Nationals declined to tender contracts to pitcher Erick Fedde and designated hitter Luke Voit on Friday, severing ties with one of the organization’s longest-tenured players and one of their recent additions, both of whom were arbitration-eligible. They also non-tendered pitcher Tommy Romero, who was not eligible for arbitration. All three are free agents.
Voit, 31, was one of six players the Nationals received from the San Diego Padres for Juan Soto and Josh Bell at August’s trade deadline. For Fedde, 29, the decision probably will end his run with the Nationals, who drafted him in the first round in 2014 out of UNLV.
Aside from Fedde and Voit, the Nationals had eight more players who were arbitration-eligible this offseason. Victor Arano, Carl Edwards Jr., Kyle Finnegan, Hunter Harvey, Tanner Rainey, Victor Robles and Lane Thomas were tendered contracts before Friday’s 8 p.m. deadline. The lone exception was infielder Ildemaro Vargas, who signed a one-year deal Tuesday with a base salary of $975,000 for 2023, according to a person familiar with the terms, to avoid arbitration.
With the moves, the Nationals have 38 players on their 40-man roster. Washington also signed utility man Erick Mejia and infielder Leonel Valera to minor league contracts Friday with invites to 2023 major league spring training.
Perspective: ‘For sale’ means hope for the Commanders, confusion for the Nationals
A tendered contract leaves negotiations open between a club and player for the next season’s salary. The sides have until Jan. 13 to file a salary figure for arbitration if they haven’t agreed on a contract, though they can negotiate until the set court date. A non-tender puts a player on the open market. All three non-tendered players will now have the opportunity to sign with another team, though any could, in theory, sign back with Washington.
Fedde, who debuted in 2017, made 21 regular season appearances during Washington’s World Series run in 2019 but did not pitch in the postseason. He became one of the veterans in the clubhouse following the 2021 trade deadline, but he never made the necessary adjustments to take his game to the next level.
He pitched to a 4.29 ERA in the shortened 2020 season, and that mark only rose from there as he settled into a more stable role in the rotation. The figure jumped to 5.47 in 2021 and then career-high 5.81 ERA last season. Fedde’s inability to put hitters away when he was ahead in counts last season was costly — batters kept fouling pitches off, which, in turn, inflated his pitch count and led to short outings. And with a young set of arms coming up in the organization, Fedde ran out of chances.
Cade Cavalli, MacKenzie Gore and Josiah Gray are budding arms whom the Nationals view as pieces of their future. The Nationals also have reiterated that Patrick Corbin, who has struggled mightily since the World Series, still has a spot in the rotation. That leaves one opening, which could be filled with a free agent at a cheaper price or a younger pitcher who has a strong spring training.
The Nationals also will need to find a new designated hitter to replace Voit, who hit .228 in his two-month stint in Washington but would have commanded a hefty contract after earning $5.45 million last season. | 2022-11-19T02:37:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nationals non-tender Erick Fedde and Luke Voit - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/nationals-erick-fedde-luke-voit/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/18/nationals-erick-fedde-luke-voit/ |
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