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BOSTON — Adrian Kempe scored twice in the third period to rally Los Angeles from a two-goal deficit, and Trevor Moore scored for the Kings in the seventh round of the shootout.
MONTREAL — John Klingberg scored twice and the Ducks won in regulation for only the second time this season. | 2022-12-16T03:56:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Oettinger makes 45 saves as Stars beat Ovechkin, Caps 2-1 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/oettinger-makes-45-saves-as-stars-beat-ovechkin-caps-2-1/2022/12/15/1b661210-7cf0-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nhl/oettinger-makes-45-saves-as-stars-beat-ovechkin-caps-2-1/2022/12/15/1b661210-7cf0-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
San Diego Katie Lukes (18) spikes the ball against Texas’ Asjia O’Neal (7) and Texas’ Molly Phillips (15) in the second set during the semifinals of the NCAA volleyball tournament, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022 in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/John S. Peterson) (John Peterson/FR171116 AP)
OMAHA, Neb. — Logan Eggleston, the three-time Big 12 player of the year, had the game-winning kill to reach 16 on the match and No. 1 overall seed Texas beat San Diego 26-28, 25-16, 25-18, 25-20 on Thursday night in the semifinals of the NCAA volleyball tournament. | 2022-12-16T03:57:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas advances past San Diego for 9th NCAA title appearance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/texas-advances-past-san-diego-for-9th-ncaa-title-appearance/2022/12/15/fa3b4cb0-7ced-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/texas-advances-past-san-diego-for-9th-ncaa-title-appearance/2022/12/15/fa3b4cb0-7ced-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Democrats and Republicans still hope to achieve a longer-term spending deal that will last into 2023
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) on Capitol Hill in November. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post)
The Senate late Thursday approved a measure to fund the government through Dec. 23, securing a one-week deadline extension that gives Democrats and Republicans one final opportunity to work out a longer-term spending deal.
The 71-19 vote — coming a day after the House adopted it — sends the stopgap to President Biden and staves off a federal government shutdown that otherwise would have occurred after midnight this Friday.
“No drama, no gridlock, no government shutdown this week,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the chamber floor as voting began, hours after he acknowledged there’s still “a lot of work to do” on a broader spending deal.
In an early, encouraging sign, congressional negotiators on Tuesday clinched an agreement on what they described as a “framework” for the omnibus legislation. Two days later, the parties came to terms on funding levels for broad categories of spending, according to a person familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive talks.
Otherwise, though, the architects of the still-forming package — Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), and Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) — have shared no other details as they labor to finalize a massive measure likely to be thousands of pages in length. The bill is also expected to include funding for many lawmakers’ pet projects, colloquially known as earmarks. And Democrats have pledged to include an election reform bill as part of the still-forming legislation.
Even once they broker a deal, Democrats and Republicans still must work together to adopt it in the waning hours of the legislative year. The calendar is especially tricky in the narrowly divided, slow-to-act Senate, where any omnibus will need 10 GOP votes to prevent a filibuster.
Adding to the headaches, some Republicans in recent days have sought to slow down the process at the urging of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the House minority leader now vying to become speaker. Party lawmakers have argued that Congress should not adopt a long-term funding package until next year, when the GOP is set to assume control of the chamber — and hopes to use the negotiations to force spending cuts.
“I don’t know why any Republican, let alone 10, would want to help them do that in those circumstances,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said at a news conference earlier this week.
On Thursday, Lee took to the Senate floor to blast the “corrupt process” at work in pursuit of an omnibus. Stressing that “no one wants a shutdown,” he put forward an amendment that would have sustained federal spending at existing levels into March — though lawmakers ultimately defeated it.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for his part, has sought to put pressure on the delicate talks: While he has praised progress in omnibus negotiations, the GOP leader has said the chamber has until Dec. 22 — a day before funding actually runs out — to reach a deal. Otherwise, McConnell has stress that his party would only accept “a short-term” measure into early next year.
“That is the deadline, and those are the two options,” he said this week. | 2022-12-16T03:57:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Government shutdown temporarily averted after Senate adopts spending bill - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/12/15/government-shutdown-averted-spending-bill/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/12/15/government-shutdown-averted-spending-bill/ |
Miss Manners: How to deal with a loud, belligerent and wrong stranger?
I told her that if she would stay put, I would go try to find her another cart. At the front of the store, there were two or three available, so I got on one with a full charge. Before I could drive away, I was accosted by a belligerent man who loudly admonished me for taking a cart designed for the disabled.
Although it does amuse Miss Manners to think of your driving away and shouting back at him, “It’s not for meeeeeee!,” she agrees that it would be futile. Loud and belligerent people are not generally open to reason and logic.
That Miss Manners, like your wife, has no preference in the matter. | 2022-12-16T05:26:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Miss Manners: How to deal with a loud, belligerent and wrong stranger? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/16/miss-manners-stranger-yelling-wrong/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/16/miss-manners-stranger-yelling-wrong/ |
A gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Okla., on Oct. 9, 2014. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)
Seven botched executions, the emptying of Oregon’s death row and the increasing isolation of the death penalty to just a handful of states marked a tumultuous year for capital punishment in America, where the number of executions, death sentences and public support for the practice continued a decade-long decline.
At just 18, the number of executions this year hit a 31-year low, excluding the two previous pandemic years. And the 22 death sentences imposed mark an all-time pre-pandemic low in the United States, according to figures released Friday in the year-end report by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), which tracks data on capital punishment. Public polling also showed that support for the death penalty continued a steady slide from its peak in the mid-1990s to 55 percent this year — one percentage point up from last year’s 50-year low.
At least some of the public’s continued rejection of the death penalty is fueled by high-profile incidents that highlight its flaws, including death row exonerations of innocent people and executions gone wrong; this year, 35 percent of all executions carried out were botched, according to DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham.
“You can call this year the year of the botched execution, because there are so many executions that were improperly carried out — and so many more that never happened because they were improperly prepared for,” Dunham said ahead of the report’s release.
Austin Sarat, a political science professor at Amherst College who wrote the 2014 book “Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty,” said in an email that while there’s no official definition, he considers an execution botched when it “departs from the state execution protocol or from standard operating procedure for the particular method used.”
A total of seven executions were considered botched in 2022, according to the DPIC, with instances that included executions where corrections staff took longer than 15 minutes to set an IV line or the prisoner required a surgical “cut-down” to an artery in the groin or neck to expose a vein.
Midway through Murray Hooper’s execution by injection in November, the 76-year-old Arizona death row prisoner, fixed with two separate IV lines, asked officials, “What are we waiting on?”
Hooper had been tied down for more than 20 minutes before prison officials inserted IVs, unsuccessfully trying to place a line in his left forearm and ultimately putting one in his right forearm and cutting into his leg to place one in his right femoral artery, according to reporter accounts of the execution. After his death warrant was read, nothing happened for more than five minutes, prompting Hooper’s inquiry.
“Those are things that states are supposed to be able to do properly. And it goes to the question in the mind of a growing number of people about whether [the government] can be trusted to carry out the death penalty,” Dunham said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), whose state carried out five executions in 2022 — the most of any state this year — has called the death penalty “Texas Justice.” Advocates for the punishment regularly note that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment and argue that it’s the most appropriate punishment for heinous crimes like aggravated murder.
Death penalty’s 50-year rise and fall since Supreme Court struck it down
Even where the death penalty remains in law, states have been dogged for years by difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs after most major pharmaceutical suppliers pulled their product from corrections facilities. Some states short on drugs have tried — with minimal success — to revive long-abandoned alternatives and force prisoners to opt for death by firing squad or gas chamber if lethal injection is not available. A South Carolina judge ruled in September that the state’s efforts to execute prisoners by firing squad and electric chair were unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.
Republican governors in Alabama, Ohio and Tennessee all issued execution reprieves at some point this year; Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey last month suspended lethal injections pending review after the state’s second and third botched executions in four years. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued nine death penalty reprieves, citing ongoing issues with lethal injection drugs and their administration, while Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee temporarily halted executions and called for an independent review of the state’s death penalty after a review of state records found that it had not followed its own execution rules since 2018.
Dunham noted that overall support for the death penalty remained flat this year despite rhetoric about violent crime flooding the discourse ahead of the 2022 midterms — a break from the 1990s, when crime rates and support for the death penalty both reached record highs.
Dunham said the poll was taken in the middle of the sentencing phase for Parkland, Fla., shooter Nikolas Cruz and amid “an avalanche of negative ads about the fear of crime.”
“It showed that the [political ads on crime] affected the Republican base,” Dunham added, “but it also showed 1990s-style rhetoric doesn’t work on people who have moved from the 1990s.”
Shifts in attitudes toward the death penalty were evident in Cruz’s trial, Dunham said: He was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison — an outcome that would have been less likely in decades past.
But the most significant indicator of flagging support for the death penalty came just days before the DPIC report was issued, when Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) commuted the sentences of the state’s 17 death row prisoners — the second-largest blanket commutation in history.
“Every year, or every other year, something big happens that shows continued movement away from the death penalty — a state will abolish it, like Virginia did last year, or a governor will implement a moratorium, like California the year before,” Dunham said. “It shows that the movement away from the death penalty continues and has a sense of inevitability.” | 2022-12-16T05:26:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The death penalty in 2022: More botched executions, flagging support - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/death-penalty-2022-report/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/death-penalty-2022-report/ |
In this photo provided by Malaysia's Civil Defense Department, rescue officials search for survivors at a campsite in the state of Selangor. (Malaysia Civil Defense via AP).
At least 12 people were killed Friday after a landslide hit a campsite north of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, according to rescue officials.
Malaysia’s national fire and rescue agency said 94 people were caught in the landslide, with 22 still missing, as of 11.41 a.m. local time. The figures are being updated by local agencies as the search goes on.
The landslide began on a slope about 100 feet above the campsite and affected three acres of land, officials said.
Footage showed cars half-buried under a pile of soil, trees and water, while rescue officials navigated mud and debris in an effort to find potential survivors.
Officials said the first emergency calls from Father’s Organic Farm campsite, located near the popular scenic area of Genting Highlands in Selangor state, had come in about 2:24 a.m. local time. The first rescue officials arrived at the campsite around 40 minutes later, Malaysia’s national fire and rescue department said.
Anti-graft reformer Anwar Ibrahim appointed Malaysia’s prime minister
In a statement posted on Twitter, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim expressed shock at the incident. He said he and senior officials would visit the site. | 2022-12-16T05:29:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Malaysia landslide death toll rises to 12 as rescue efforts continue - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/15/malaysia-genting-highland-landslide/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/15/malaysia-genting-highland-landslide/ |
In early September, I sat down with Argentine Finance Minister Sergio Massa during a visit to Washington. Massa, dubbed a “super” minister for the multiple set of portfolios he holds while running his nation’s beleaguered economy, was in the U.S. capital as part of a broader effort to stabilize a perilous situation. Debt-ridden Argentina, its foreign reserves depleted, was on the brink of hyperinflation. There were trade deals to be brokered and International Monetary Fund negotiations to be hammered out.
At the time, inflationary pressures were swirling around Washington, too, and I asked Massa whether there were any lessons Americans could draw from Argentina’s chronic experience of fiscal crises. “We are always learning,” Massa told me bluntly. “We cannot teach anything to anyone.”
In the months since, Massa has held the line, staving off the worst fears of economic analysts. He is now one of the favorites to take up the mantle of the battered and divided Peronist political establishment in elections next year. But conditions are still grim: Inflation does not appear to be decelerating and almost 40 percent of the country’s population now lives below the poverty line.
“Today the economy is held together by a battery of price and exchange controls,” noted the Economist. “Even so, inflation will be close to 100 percent this year, and in the (tolerated) black market the peso is worth less than a quarter of its value three years ago. The government lives from week to week.”
Enter the World Cup. For the past month, Argentines have themselves lived week to week, day by day, off the fortunes of their beloved national soccer team in Qatar. On Sunday, Argentina faces a date with destiny, going up against France in the World Cup final. Victory would mark a third World Cup title for the soccer-mad South American nation and the crowning triumph in the already peerless career of Argentine forward Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest to play the game.
The prospect of that victory has consumed the national imagination. Though they live thousands of miles away from the Gulf emirate, Argentines comprise one of the biggest blocs of fans who have traveled to Qatar — a reality that is audible to anyone attending or watching Argentina’s matches during the World Cup.
“The World Cup is an opportunity to recover enthusiasm in a country that is enormously frustrated and filled with an overwhelming feeling of failure,” said José Abadi, a psychiatrist in Buenos Aires, to The Washington Post before the World Cup began. “It’s a chance of winning for once and attaining global recognition for how good our soccer is rather than for how much money we owe.”
So great was the mania for the tournament that, in the weeks prior to it starting, a shortage in collectible baseball-card-like stickers generated a genuine political crisis. “The government had to make a special meeting on how to deal with the shortage of stickers because it was affecting the people’s mood,” Argentine journalist Martin Mazur said on a recent podcast. “And now even with the high inflation, thousands of people are trying to be [in Qatar] for the semifinal and finals, literally putting all their money they have saved for many years just to be here and celebrate.”
For Massa and his allies, there’s a clear silver lining. “In Argentina, people are talking about nothing else,” wrote Federico Rivas Molina in Spanish daily El Pais. “Victory over Croatia last Tuesday in the semifinals has shaped the public discourse. Families discuss where they will watch the final against France on Sunday, and politicians are keeping their heads down to avoid attracting attention.”
Soccer, likely more than any other sport, has a capacity for delivering moments of transcendence. Morocco’s run to the semifinals of this tournament triggered an astonishing outpouring of love and solidarity from across the Middle East, the Arab world and Africa, and will be remembered fondly in years to come.
Argentina still sits under the voluminous shadow of its late soccer legend Diego Maradona, who powered his nation to World Cup triumph in 1986 and, by sheer dint of his fame and irrepressible persona, built a legion of Argentina supporters all around the world. To the eyes of fanatics in countries as far away as India and Bangladesh, Messi is only walking in Maradona’s footsteps.
Indeed, Messi has been haunted by Maradona’s legacy. For all the trophies and accolades he won at the club level in Europe, Messi never engendered the same affection at home as Maradona, who achieved something that still eluded the sublimely talented forward. Messi faced crushing defeats, including at the World Cup final in 2014 and an ignominious exit in Russia in 2018. Tormented by failure, Messi even briefly retired from the national team.
But as the 35-year-old Messi nears the twilight of his career — he admitted to reporters this week that this is almost certainly his last World Cup — the fervor around, and love for, him has intensified. In the stadiums in Qatar, Argentine fans sing of their country as the “land of Diego and Leo” and seem almost to be willing him onward to the ultimate victory.
In the press box of the group-stage game between Argentina and Poland, an Argentine reporter put it to me that, for years, his nation waited for Messi to win them the World Cup. Now, he said, it’s the nation that wants to win it for Messi.
In this context, defeat against France, the reigning world champions, may be quite hard to stomach. Some in Argentina are trying to keep perspective. The country’s labor minister, Kelly Olmos, reminded reporters how little changed when they won the 1978 World Cup, hosted controversially in Argentina by the country’s military dictatorship.
“We were under dictatorship, persecuted, we didn’t know what tomorrow held, but Argentina became champions and we went out to celebrate in the streets,” Olmos said. “And then we went back to the reality, which was unrelenting.”
Argentina’s fans may be hoping for a greater reprieve. The magic of soccer is that “it gives us the possibility of a happiness that is both transient and eternal,” Argentine writer Ariel Scher told Agence France-Presse. “No problems will be resolved or eliminated but at the same time, even briefly, it dazzles us with something that leaves a lasting memory.”
How to handle that fleeting moment of grace, the thrill of an overwhelming glory, may indeed be a lesson Argentines want to teach the world. | 2022-12-16T05:29:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Messi's World Cup: Argentina, beset by woes, sees salvation in Qatar - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/argentina-world-cup-domestic-issues-messi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/argentina-world-cup-domestic-issues-messi/ |
By Greg Miller
Members of Russia's 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade, based in the far northern Kola Peninsula, take part in February 2021 drills for an Arctic expedition. (Pavel Lvov/Sputnik/AP)
Pechenga
SWE.
to Russia's Northern Fleet nuclear-armed submarines.
Oskol
UKR.
“I am f-----g tired after one and a half months of these people,” the commander said. He goes on to describe platoons melting away and his efforts to drag soldiers back into battle. In one case, “there were 30 people leaving their positions, and now it is f-----g over 60, 75, maybe the entire platoon,” he said. After listing similar problems in other units, he said, “What the f--- are you doing? Are you going to assemble the battalion or not?” | 2022-12-16T06:23:14Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The war in Ukraine has decimated a once feared Russian brigade - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/russia-200th-brigade-decimated-ukraine/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/russia-200th-brigade-decimated-ukraine/ |
Britain Is Too Cheap for Retail Investors to Ignore
A British Union flag flies near Big Ben at the Palace of Westminster, in London, UK, on Monday, Oct. 24, 2022. Rishi Sunak, former UK international trade secretary, took a huge step toward becoming the UKs next prime minister as former premier Boris Johnson pulled out of the contest after a weekend of vacillation and as he won the endorsement of Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
If I had a hundred pounds for every time over the last few years that I had either read — or for that matter written — a headline announcing that UK equities are cheap (“Bargain Britain!”), I probably wouldn’t need to think about it anymore. I’d be in the Bahamas.
But the fact that this has been true for a long time doesn’t make it less true.
The UK looks, on any measure, bizarrely cheap, particularly when compared with the US. The forward price-earnings ratio for the FTSE All-Share Index is about 10 times. It is the same for the FTSE 100, slightly lower for the FTSE SmallCap Index and only slightly higher for the FTSE 250. Compare the UK’s current forward P/E to its median over the last 15 years, says Duncan Lamont of Schroders, and you will see that it is on a discount of around 20%.
Look to the US and it’s a different story. The US market trades on around 18 times forward earnings and is trading at a 14% premium to the UK. The yield differential is huge too. You can get 4.5% here on a portfolio of reasonably valued equities. In the US, you can get less than 2% on a portfolio of still quite expensive ones.
It is true that the UK has long been a much higher-yielding market than the US, but as the analysts at Berenberg pointed out, this relative dividend yield is still very much “towards the top end of its 50 year history.” You may consider the differential to be completely normal: Most market participants will say that the US always trades at a premium. Always has, always will.
They are wrong. Go back 30 years and you will see the relationship only really kicked off in the late 1980s.
Still, the past is the past, and perhaps it seems obvious why the UK trades on a huge discount now. It’s bleak out there — there are strikes and high taxes as well as high state spending (though not enough to stop the strikes). Chuck in a global recession along with an overlay of Brexit, and clearly the hellhole that is modern Britain is cheap for a reason.
There’s also the fact the UK stock market is old, old, old — jammed not with the whizz bang tech of the US but with banks, insurers, oil, gas, coal and mining. Miserable politics, a miserable economy and no sign of a growth mindset anywhere. Who would want exposure to this mess of a market?
Yet there’s a problem with this easy explanation. All the awfulizing suggests that UK P/E ratios are low because one can expect little growth from the UK. However, look at the actual growth and it’s clear that this is valued differently to that in the rest of the world.
On to the valiant efforts of Panmure Gordon’s Simon French, who has spent much of the last few years delving into what he calls the “persistent undervaluation of UK listed companies.” Look at price-to-growth ratios, he says, and you will see they are consistently lower across most industrial sectors in the UK than in the US and the European Union. It isn’t so much that there is no growth, it’s that UK growth is valued less than growth elsewhere.
What might explain that? French has looked at two possibilities. The first is that UK companies suffer from a deficiency of do-goodery — and so our ESG ratings are lower in the round than those of other countries. There might be something in this: French finds that there is a small premium attached to companies with higher ESG scores for a given level of earnings growth. But this, at best, can only explain a tiny part of the discount.
One that explains more is liquidity. In the UK, it is “thin” relative to the US and Europe. French found the average daily volume across the UK’s largest companies over a 30-day period last year to be $11 million a day — with only one-third seeing more than $5 million a day. In the EU and US, those numbers were $95 million and $443 million a day, respectively.
This matters for the simple reason that lots of large institutional investors around the world work with self-imposed liquidity thresholds. If they aren’t sure they can get in and out of trades reasonably quickly, without moving the price too much, they won’t get in at all. So it might not matter how cheap or attractive UK stocks are or become, the big firms won’t be coming in to scoop their shares up.
Sure enough, French finds that the more liquid a company is, the more their earnings per share growth is valued. However, not even this explains the whole discount. There are, says French, no “clinching pieces of evidence that put the UK valuation story to bed.” What we have is “insufficient by some distance.”
This is fantastic news for investors. The stock market often does most of our work for us — things that are cheap are cheap for a reason, and we can see what that reason is. But sometimes, there is no reason that fully explains the cheapness. Then, and only then, as the late fund manager Ian Rushbrook put it, “the anomaly becomes an opportunity.”
Well, here we are. With an anomaly that is increasingly looking like a very good opportunity — and a particularly good one for retail investors. Why? Because retail investors don’t need to tick ESG and liquidity boxes before we buy (our trades don’t move markets); we have fewer time constraints; and as we are judged only by ourselves, we need not worry about what might trigger change. All we have to do is ask if what we are buying is too cheap, and if we are being paid enough in dividends to wait for that to change.
And here’s the answer: It is, and we are. | 2022-12-16T06:58:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Britain Is Too Cheap for Retail Investors to Ignore - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/britain-is-too-cheap-for-retail-investors-to-ignore/2022/12/16/02ec9878-7d07-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/britain-is-too-cheap-for-retail-investors-to-ignore/2022/12/16/02ec9878-7d07-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
INDIANAPOLIS — Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker will be the next president of the NCAA, stepping in to lead an organization with diminished power amid sweeping change across college sports.
NEW YORK — The New York Yankees added Carlos Rodón to their rotation, agreeing to a $162 million, six-year contract with the left-hander, a person familiar with the negotiations said.
BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox signed outfielder Masataka Yoshida, who won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and twice led Japan’s Pacific League in batting, to a five-year deal that will pay him $90 million.
CHICAGO — The Cubs added bullpen help, agreeing to a $2.8 million, one-year contract with veteran right-hander Brad Boxberger. The deal includes a mutual option for 2024.
DETROIT — The Detroit Tigers have agreed to a one-year contract with right-hander Michael Lorenzen, according to a person familiar with the situation.
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers acquired infielder Yonny Hernández from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for cash.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — One day after Ryan Walters was introduced as Purdue’s football coach, athletic director Mike Bobinski said former quarterback Drew Brees would return as an assistant coach to help the Boilermakers prepare for their Jan. 2 Citrus Bowl game against No. 17 LSU.
NEW YORK — Mount Union quarterback Braxton Plunk was one of the three Purple Raiders on The Associated Press Division III All-America team.
SANDUSKY, Ohio — Hailie Deegan has another full-time ride in the NASCAR Truck Series, this one with ThorSport Racing.
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Los Angeles Kings forward Trevor Moore agreed to a five-year contract extension worth $21 million.
GRAND BAIE, Mauritius — Sami Valimaki of Finland shot a course-record 10-under 62 to take a two-shot lead in the Mauritius Open.
CINCINNATI — The E.W. Scripps Company announced the launch of a sports division as it looks acquire local and national television rights for teams and leagues. | 2022-12-16T06:59:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thursday's Sports In Brief - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/12/16/2378943e-7d0c-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/thursdays-sports-in-brief/2022/12/16/2378943e-7d0c-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The biggest Pinocchios of 2022
It’s time for our roundup of the biggest Pinocchios of the year.
False claims made by President Biden and conspiracy theories about the president dominate the list. Misleading claims about the coronavirus, by a Republican and a Democrat, also made the cut. Former president Donald Trump earned this dubious honor for the eighth straight year by spreading a baseless conspiracy theory about one of his supporters at the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who also appeared on last year’s Biggest Pinocchio list, earned two spots this year, while Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) appears in the tally for the second straight year with a coronavirus claim.
This list has no particular order. To read the full fact check, click on the link embedded in the quote.
“It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested”
— President Biden, Jan. 11
For some unknown reason, President Biden likes to claim he was once arrested. During a speech in Atlanta this year, he did it again — referring to an unverified tale that as a teenager he was arrested for standing on the porch with a Black couple. They supposedly were subject to demonstrations because they bought a home in a White neighborhood near his house. We dug deep into the records and found too many contradictions in Biden’s story, including the fact he lived far from the home in question. Biden landed on the Biggest Pinocchio list in 2020 with a similar false claim — that he had been arrested while trying to meet Nelson Mandela.
“If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than [for Biden] to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl?”
— J.D. Vance, April 29
Sen.-elect J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) made a startlingly false claim shortly after he won the GOP nomination — that Biden was intentionally allowing drugs such as fentanyl to flood the United States with the goal of killing Trump supporters in the “heartland” of the country. But this hyperbolic claim was based on zero facts. Fentanyl seizures have increased, not fallen, under Biden. Overdose deaths jumped sharply under Trump. As for Trump voters being supposedly targeted, people of color die at a higher rate from opioids than Whites.
Biden is “urging children to report their parents to federal authorities if their parents post something called covid disinformation”
— Tucker Carlson, Aug. 29
Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed on his show that the Department of Homeland Security was urging children to report their parents if they post covid misinformation on social media. Blake Masters, then a GOP Senate candidate in Arizona, chimed in: “This is Chinese Communist Party stuff.” It turns out that this tale stemmed from a rather benign video posted in 2021 aimed at adults about how to evaluate coronavirus claims spread on social media. But it was twisted into something much more sinister through a game of telephone tag in the right-leaning media — before emerging as a ridiculous conspiracy theory on Carlson’s show.
“An attorney general who goes after parents and calls them terrorists if they want to go to a school board meeting”
— Kevin McCarthy, April 17
Over and over, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) asserted that Attorney General Merrick Garland called parents “terrorists” because they wanted to attend school board meetings. But McCarthy was relying on a Rube Goldberg artifice to put words in Garland’s mouth. (Garland had received a letter from a school association, later withdrawn, that had said threats of violence against school officials “could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”) Garland has never equated parents to terrorists. In fact, before McCarthy started spreading this falsehood, Garland had told Congress he “can’t imagine” a circumstance under which that would happen.
“My plan would reduce the average family’s annual utility bills by $500”
— Biden, May 30
Biden, in an opinion article, claimed that utility executives had told him his American Rescue Plan would make a dent in inflation by reducing utility bills by $500. But it turned out that the executives said no such thing. The $500-figure had been plucked by White House staff from a research report examining Biden’s climate change policies. The savings was predicted to take place eight years from now — not a lot of help with the current inflation problem, which was the frame of Biden’s op-ed. Moreover, the report said the savings on utility bills was no more than $5. So the president was off by a factor of 100.
“Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia”
— Vladimir Putin, Feb. 21
Russian President Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine with a lengthy, often-bitter televised speech filled with falsehoods. He tried to minimize Ukraine as a recent creation, an obscure entity that came about after what he described as a struggle between Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin over the contours of a national state. The reality is that Ukrainian culture and language have existed for centuries and a Ukrainian nationalist movement sprang up in the mid-1800s, angering the czars. He also claimed that Ukraine wanted to “create its own nuclear weapons” — which is sheer fantasy. Putin’s speech signaled the start of a vast Russian disinformation effort designed to sway world opinion. (In 2014, Putin’s speech on the annexation of Crimea — which included the whopper that the referendum confirming the seizure was “in full compliance with democratic procedures and international norms” — also earned him a spot on this list.)
“A private equity firm run by Hunter Biden funded some of the research into pathogens in these bio labs”
— Carlson, March 24
After Russia invaded Ukraine, its defense ministry claimed that the president’s son financed a bioweapons program in Ukraine — which was catnip for right-leaning media figures like Carlson. But the claim was ludicrous. Not only are these not biological weapons labs — they are civilian biological research facilities — but Hunter Biden was not part of a decision to invest in a company at the center of the Russian allegations, he did not profit from it as he was kicked out of the investment firm over cocaine allegations, and the company made little money from its tiny bit of business in Ukraine.
The CHIPS Act “will create more than 1 million construction jobs”
— Biden, Aug. 11
The Chips and Science Act will provide nearly $53 billion for U.S. semiconductor research, development, manufacturing and workforce development. But Biden was wildly off base when he claimed it would create 1 million construction jobs during remarks at the signing ceremony and in a tweet. The real number was just 6,200 construction jobs, according to the industry-commissioned report cited as the source. Moreover, other experts were skeptical of the way even these numbers were calculated in the report. Yet the White House never deleted the widely shared tweet or corrected the record.
“We’ve heard story after story. I mean, all these athletes dropping dead on the field” from the coronavirus vaccine
— Ron Johnson, Jan. 27
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) kept drawing attention to a claim that has been debunked repeatedly. The story of athletes dropping dead from coronavirus vaccines has its roots in mysterious Austrian websites with ties to that country’s far-right populist party, the Freedom Party. Those stories were then recycled by right-wing media in the United States, where it caught his attention. A kernel of truth — some people have reported an inflammation of the heart muscle known as myocarditis after getting mRNA-based vaccines — had been exploited by purveyors of falsehoods. Medical research shows the risk of getting myocarditis from the coronavirus itself is about 100 times higher than getting it from a vaccine.
“How many of those present at the Capitol complex on January 6 were FBI confidential informants. … How about the one guy, ‘Go in, go in, get in there, everybody,’ [Ray] Epps. ‘Get in there, go, go.’ Nothing happens to him.”
— Donald Trump, Jan. 15
Former president Donald Trump and supporters such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) baselessly suggested that Ray Epps, a Trump supporter from Arizona who joined the crowd at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was actually an FBI informant — part of a “breach team” that set a “booby trap” for unwitting Trump supporters. “Clues” drawn from videos of Epps before and during the attack had been twisted into misleading narratives. But there is no evidence that Epps is a federal agent or informant — and testimony revealed he had sought to calm people, not rile them up.
“We have over 100,000 children … in serious condition and many on ventilators”
— Sonia Sotomayor, Jan. 7
During a Supreme Court hearing on whether the Biden administration’s nationwide rules ordering a vaccination-or-testing requirement on large employers were constitutional, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a wildly incorrect statement about the number of children hospitalized with the coronavirus at the time. As of Jan. 8, there were about 5,000 children hospitalized in a pediatric bed, either with suspected covid or a confirmed laboratory test — much smaller than Sotomayor claimed. The number of total hospital admissions of children confirmed with covid had not yet exceeded 100,000.
Special hypocrisy award
Mark Meadows, as Trump’s last chief of staff, helped spread Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and fanned fears of voter fraud. He asked in one interview: “Do you realize how inaccurate the voter rolls are, with people just moving around?” But the Fact Checker revealed that in 2022, he was simultaneously registered to vote in three different states — North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina. He lost his North Carolina registration after the New Yorker magazine reported he had registered to vote at a home where he did not reside. He then voted in the 2020 election via absentee ballot. In November, state investigators submitted to state prosecutors the findings of a voter fraud probe into Meadows’s actions but the state’s attorney general has not yet announced whether he will bring criminal charges. | 2022-12-16T08:29:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The biggest Pinocchios of 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/biggest-pinocchios-2022/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/biggest-pinocchios-2022/ |
Agnew and SE Louisiana host Troy
BOTTOM LINE: SE Louisiana hosts the Troy Trojans after Christian Agnew scored 22 points in SE Louisiana’s 88-73 loss to the Nicholls State Colonels.
The Lions are 3-0 on their home court. SE Louisiana is ninth in the Southland with 8.0 offensive rebounds per game led by Brody Rowbury averaging 2.1.
The Trojans are 2-3 on the road. Troy is ninth in the Sun Belt with 32.5 rebounds per game led by Nelson Phillips averaging 6.0.
TOP PERFORMERS: Boogie Anderson is shooting 51.7% and averaging 12.3 points for the Lions. Agnew is averaging 10.8 points over the last 10 games for SE Louisiana.
Duke Miles is scoring 14.0 points per game with 2.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists for the Trojans. Phillips is averaging 13.2 points, six rebounds and 2.6 steals over the last 10 games for Troy. | 2022-12-16T08:30:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Agnew and SE Louisiana host Troy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/agnew-and-se-louisiana-host-troy/2022/12/16/050b264c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/agnew-and-se-louisiana-host-troy/2022/12/16/050b264c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Ball State Cardinals and the Illinois State Redbirds square off in Indianapolis, Indiana
Illinois State Redbirds (5-6, 1-1 MVC) vs. Ball State Cardinals (6-4)
BOTTOM LINE: The Ball State Cardinals take on the Illinois State Redbirds in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The Cardinals have a 6-4 record in non-conference games. Ball State ranks fourth in the MAC with 13.7 assists per game led by Jarron Coleman averaging 3.4.
The Redbirds are 4-5 in non-conference play. Illinois State ranks eighth in the MVC giving up 69.8 points while holding opponents to 43.5% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Payton Sparks is scoring 14.8 points per game with 8.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists for the Cardinals. Coleman is averaging 12.9 points and 5.2 rebounds while shooting 37.8% for Ball State.
Kendall Lewis is averaging 12.8 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.7 steals for the Redbirds. Seneca Knight is averaging 11 points and 6.7 rebounds over the last 10 games for Illinois State. | 2022-12-16T08:30:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ball State Cardinals and the Illinois State Redbirds square off in Indianapolis, Indiana - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ball-state-cardinals-and-the-illinois-state-redbirds-square-off-in-indianapolis-indiana/2022/12/16/a74b6ddc-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/ball-state-cardinals-and-the-illinois-state-redbirds-square-off-in-indianapolis-indiana/2022/12/16/a74b6ddc-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Northwestern State Demons (8-2) at Rice Owls (7-3, 0-1 C-USA)
BOTTOM LINE: Northwestern State plays the Rice Owls after Ja’Monta Black scored 31 points in Northwestern State’s 91-73 win against the UL Monroe Warhawks.
The Owls are 6-0 on their home court. Rice is sixth in C-USA shooting 33.8% from downtown, led by Jake Lieppert shooting 41.7% from 3-point range.
The Demons are 4-1 on the road. Northwestern State ranks ninth in the Southland with 19.6 defensive rebounds per game led by Isaac Haney averaging 3.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: Quincy Olivari is scoring 18.0 points per game with 5.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists for the Owls. Travis Evee is averaging 15.6 points and 2.3 rebounds while shooting 41.1% for Rice.
Black averages 3.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Demons, scoring 14.1 points while shooting 37.8% from beyond the arc. Demarcus Sharp is averaging 16.1 points, 4.1 assists and 1.6 steals for Northwestern State. | 2022-12-16T08:30:44Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Black leads Northwestern State against Rice after 31-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/black-leads-northwestern-state-against-rice-after-31-point-game/2022/12/16/ae8b5256-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/black-leads-northwestern-state-against-rice-after-31-point-game/2022/12/16/ae8b5256-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The Colonels have gone 3-1 in home games. Eastern Kentucky is sixth in the ASUN shooting 37.3% from deep, led by Darden Kapiti shooting 100.0% from 3-point range.
The Highlanders are 1-5 in road games. Radford is fifth in the Big South scoring 75.7 points per game and is shooting 48.6%.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tayshawn Comer is averaging 6.2 points, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals for the Colonels. Blanton is averaging 16.3 points and 5.6 rebounds while shooting 46.4% over the last 10 games for Eastern Kentucky.
Kenyon Giles is scoring 12.3 points per game with 1.4 rebounds and 1.4 assists for the Highlanders. DaQuan Smith is averaging 11.5 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting 38.6% over the past 10 games for Radford. | 2022-12-16T08:30:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Blanton and Eastern Kentucky host Radford - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/blanton-and-eastern-kentucky-host-radford/2022/12/16/dccd24d2-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/blanton-and-eastern-kentucky-host-radford/2022/12/16/dccd24d2-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Washington faces the Idaho State Bengals after Keion Brooks Jr. scored 30 points in Washington’s 74-68 win against the Cal Poly Mustangs.
The Huskies have gone 6-1 in home games. Washington ranks sixth in the Pac-12 with 32.2 points per game in the paint led by Brooks averaging 7.6.
The Bengals are 1-4 in road games. Idaho State is 0-3 in games decided by less than 4 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Brooks is averaging 17.8 points and 6.3 rebounds for the Huskies. Cole Bajema is averaging 10.6 points over the last 10 games for Washington.
Miguel Tomley is shooting 40.9% and averaging 14.5 points for the Bengals. Brock Mackenzie is averaging 2.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Idaho State. | 2022-12-16T08:30:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Brooks leads Washington against Idaho State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/brooks-leads-washington-against-idaho-state/2022/12/16/35f35428-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/brooks-leads-washington-against-idaho-state/2022/12/16/35f35428-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Wake Forest faces the Rutgers Scarlet Knights after Andrew Carr scored 20 points in Wake Forest’s 67-66 win against the Appalachian State Mountaineers.
The Scarlet Knights have gone 6-1 in home games. Rutgers ranks sixth in the Big Ten in rebounding with 35.5 rebounds. Clifford Omoruyi leads the Scarlet Knights with 9.5 boards.
The Demon Deacons are 1-1 on the road. Wake Forest is sixth in the ACC shooting 34.5% from downtown. Tyree Appleby leads the Demon Deacons shooting 41.7% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: Cam Spencer is shooting 39.1% from beyond the arc with 1.8 made 3-pointers per game for the Scarlet Knights, while averaging 12.5 points, 3.6 assists and 2.8 steals. Omoruyi is shooting 50.4% and averaging 14.4 points for Rutgers.
Appleby is scoring 18.7 points per game with 3.5 rebounds and 5.4 assists for the Demon Deacons. | 2022-12-16T08:31:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carr leads Wake Forest against Rutgers after 20-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/carr-leads-wake-forest-against-rutgers-after-20-point-performance/2022/12/16/e03b33c0-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/carr-leads-wake-forest-against-rutgers-after-20-point-performance/2022/12/16/e03b33c0-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Sacramento State visits the Fresno State Bulldogs after Zach Chappell scored 25 points in Sacramento State’s 76-74 win against the Long Beach State Beach.
The Bulldogs have gone 2-1 in home games. Fresno State is 2- when it turns the ball over less than its opponents and averages 12.6 turnovers per game.
The Hornets are 2-2 in road games. Sacramento State ranks third in the Big Sky with 31.8 rebounds per game led by Callum McRae averaging 9.4.
TOP PERFORMERS: Isaih Moore is scoring 13.6 points per game with 8.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists for the Bulldogs. Jemarl Baker Jr. is averaging 10.2 points and 2.6 rebounds while shooting 37.9% for Fresno State. | 2022-12-16T08:31:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Chappell leads Sacramento State against Fresno State after 25-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/chappell-leads-sacramento-state-against-fresno-state-after-25-point-game/2022/12/16/0199fc2c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/chappell-leads-sacramento-state-against-fresno-state-after-25-point-game/2022/12/16/0199fc2c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Marquette hosts the Creighton Bluejays after Kam Jones scored 25 points in Marquette’s 79-64 victory over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
The Bluejays have gone 0-1 away from home. Creighton ranks fifth in the Big East shooting 34.4% from 3-point range.
The Golden Eagles and Bluejays face off Friday for the first time in Big East play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jones is scoring 16.4 points per game and averaging 3.8 rebounds for the Golden Eagles. David Joplin is averaging 2.1 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Marquette. | 2022-12-16T08:31:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Creighton hosts Jones and Marquette - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/creighton-hosts-jones-and-marquette/2022/12/16/058b9a0c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/creighton-hosts-jones-and-marquette/2022/12/16/058b9a0c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Dayton faces Wyoming
Wyoming Cowboys (5-5) vs. Dayton Flyers (6-5)
BOTTOM LINE: The Wyoming Cowboys and the Dayton Flyers square off in Chicago, Illinois.
The Flyers are 6-5 in non-conference play. Dayton has a 0-1 record in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Cowboys have a 5-5 record in non-conference play. Wyoming averages 76.1 points while outscoring opponents by 6.1 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Toumani Camara is averaging 11 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.5 steals for the Flyers. Mustapha Amzil is averaging 1.6 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Dayton.
Brendan Wenzel averages 2.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Cowboys, scoring 10.0 points while shooting 50.0% from beyond the arc. Hunter Maldonado is averaging 13.6 points and 3.8 assists for Wyoming. | 2022-12-16T08:31:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Dayton faces Wyoming - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/dayton-faces-wyoming/2022/12/16/592de336-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/dayton-faces-wyoming/2022/12/16/592de336-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Florida A&M visits Louisville after Ellis' 30-point outing
BOTTOM LINE: Louisville faces the Florida A&M Rattlers after El Ellis scored 30 points in Louisville’s 94-83 win against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers.
The Cardinals are 1-5 on their home court. Louisville has a 1-7 record against opponents over .500.
Byron Smith is shooting 23.7% from beyond the arc with 1.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Rattlers, while averaging 8.8 points. Jordan Tillmon is averaging 9.1 points for Florida A&M. | 2022-12-16T08:32:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida A&M visits Louisville after Ellis' 30-point outing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-aandm-visits-louisville-after-ellis-30-point-outing/2022/12/16/52370cec-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-aandm-visits-louisville-after-ellis-30-point-outing/2022/12/16/52370cec-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Florida State faces St. John's (NY)
BOTTOM LINE: The Florida State Seminoles face the St. John’s (NY) Red Storm at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Florida.
The Seminoles have a 2-8 record in non-conference play. Florida State gives up 71.7 points and has been outscored by 4.2 points per game.
The Red Storm have a 9-1 record against non-conference oppponents. St. John’s (NY) is fifth in the Big East with 16.1 assists per game led by Posh Alexander averaging 5.0.
TOP PERFORMERS: Darin Green Jr. averages 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Seminoles, scoring 12.8 points while shooting 41.9% from beyond the arc. Matthew Cleveland is shooting 46.0% and averaging 12.5 points over the last 10 games for Florida State.
David Jones is shooting 40.8% and averaging 15.0 points for the Red Storm. Joel Soriano is averaging 14.5 points over the last 10 games for St. John’s (NY). | 2022-12-16T08:32:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida State faces St. John's (NY) - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-state-faces-st-johns-ny/2022/12/16/4772d368-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-state-faces-st-johns-ny/2022/12/16/4772d368-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Grambling seeks to extend its three-game win streak with a victory over No. 24 Virginia Tech.
The Hokies have gone 7-0 in home games. Virginia Tech has a 1-1 record in one-possession games.
TOP PERFORMERS: Grant Basile averages 2.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Hokies, scoring 14.6 points while shooting 42.6% from beyond the arc. Sean Pedulla is shooting 49.0% and averaging 16.9 points over the last 10 games for Virginia Tech.
Gordon is averaging 13.8 points, eight rebounds and 1.5 blocks for the Tigers. Cameron Christon is averaging 11.7 points for Grambling. | 2022-12-16T08:32:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Grambling faces No. 24 Virginia Tech on 3-game win streak - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/grambling-faces-no-24-virginia-tech-on-3-game-win-streak/2022/12/16/4ea39a82-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/grambling-faces-no-24-virginia-tech-on-3-game-win-streak/2022/12/16/4ea39a82-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Hartford Hawks take on the Saint Francis (BKN) Terriers on 3-game skid
Saint Francis (BKN) Terriers (4-6) at Hartford Hawks (4-9)
West Hartford, Connecticut; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Hartford heads into the matchup with Saint Francis (BKN) as losers of three in a row.
The Hawks are 4-3 in home games. Hartford has a 3-7 record in games decided by at least 10 points.
The Terriers are 0-5 on the road. Saint Francis (BKN) ranks third in the NEC allowing 67.8 points while holding opponents to 44.1% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Briggs McClain is scoring 16.4 points per game with 3.4 rebounds and 1.6 assists for the Hawks. Kurtis Henderson is averaging 9.7 points over the past 10 games for Hartford.
Rob Higgins is scoring 10.7 points per game and averaging 2.0 rebounds for the Terriers. Larry Moreno is averaging 9.5 points for Saint Francis (BKN). | 2022-12-16T08:32:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hartford Hawks take on the Saint Francis (BKN) Terriers on 3-game skid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/hartford-hawks-take-on-the-saint-francis-bkn-terriers-on-3-game-skid/2022/12/16/9c766f42-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/hartford-hawks-take-on-the-saint-francis-bkn-terriers-on-3-game-skid/2022/12/16/9c766f42-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Hawkins and No. 3 UConn host Butler
BOTTOM LINE: No. 3 UConn takes on the Butler Bulldogs after Jordan Hawkins scored 22 points in UConn’s 114-61 win over the Long Island Sharks.
The Bulldogs are 6-0 in home games. Butler ranks eighth in the Big East with 23.9 defensive rebounds per game led by Manny Bates averaging 5.5.
The Huskies are 1-0 on the road. UConn is third in the Big East with 18.8 assists per game led by Andre Jackson averaging 4.6.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jayden Taylor is averaging 14.9 points and 1.5 steals for the Bulldogs. Chuck Harris is averaging 14.5 points over the last 10 games for Butler.
Jackson is averaging 5.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 1.5 steals for the Huskies. Adama Sanogo is averaging 18.3 points over the last 10 games for UConn. | 2022-12-16T08:32:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hawkins and No. 3 UConn host Butler - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/hawkins-and-no-3-uconn-host-butler/2022/12/16/91b735fa-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/hawkins-and-no-3-uconn-host-butler/2022/12/16/91b735fa-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
McCaffery and Iowa host Southeast Missouri State
The Hawkeyes have gone 5-1 in home games. Iowa is 1-1 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Redhawks are 2-4 on the road. Southeast Missouri State ranks second in the OVC with 34.0 rebounds per game led by Kobe Clark averaging 10.0.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kris Murray is shooting 50.0% and averaging 19.4 points for the Hawkeyes. McCaffery is averaging 13.9 points for Iowa.
Phillip Russell is shooting 32.9% from beyond the arc with 2.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Redhawks, while averaging 16.5 points, 4.5 assists and 1.5 steals. Chris Harris is averaging 10.1 points over the last 10 games for Southeast Missouri State. | 2022-12-16T08:33:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | McCaffery and Iowa host Southeast Missouri State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/mccaffery-and-iowa-host-southeast-missouri-state/2022/12/16/e71d33f0-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/mccaffery-and-iowa-host-southeast-missouri-state/2022/12/16/e71d33f0-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Charlotte plays the Monmouth Hawks after Lu’Cye Patterson scored 22 points in Charlotte’s 82-80 overtime victory against the Detroit Mercy Titans.
The Hawks have gone 0-2 in home games. Monmouth is sixth in the CAA with 9.5 offensive rebounds per game led by Myles Foster averaging 2.9.
The 49ers are 1-1 in road games. Charlotte averages 67.7 points and has outscored opponents by 8.4 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Foster is scoring 11.9 points per game and averaging 6.4 rebounds for the Hawks. Jack Collins is averaging 10.5 points and 3.5 rebounds over the last 10 games for Monmouth.
Igor Milicic Jr. averages 1.7 made 3-pointers per game for the 49ers, scoring 10.8 points while shooting 41.5% from beyond the arc. Aly Khalifa is averaging 10 points, 7.6 rebounds and 3.8 assists for Charlotte. | 2022-12-16T08:34:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monmouth hosts Patterson and Charlotte - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/monmouth-hosts-patterson-and-charlotte/2022/12/16/71b7c692-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/monmouth-hosts-patterson-and-charlotte/2022/12/16/71b7c692-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
No. 1 Purdue Boilermakers and the Davidson Wildcats square off in Indianapolis, Indiana
Davidson Wildcats (7-3) vs. Purdue Boilermakers (10-0, 2-0 Big Ten)
BOTTOM LINE: The Davidson Wildcats and the No. 1 Purdue Boilermakers meet at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The Boilermakers are 8-0 in non-conference play. Purdue leads the Big Ten in rebounding, averaging 40.0 boards. Zach Edey paces the Boilermakers with 13.7 rebounds.
The Wildcats are 7-3 in non-conference play. Davidson is 1-1 in games decided by 10 or more points.
Foster Loyer averages 3.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Wildcats, scoring 19.5 points while shooting 41.3% from beyond the arc. Sam Mennenga is averaging 16.6 points and 7.2 rebounds for Davidson. | 2022-12-16T08:34:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 1 Purdue Boilermakers and the Davidson Wildcats square off in Indianapolis, Indiana - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-1-purdue-boilermakers-and-the-davidson-wildcats-square-off-in-indianapolis-indiana/2022/12/16/ef3521ec-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-1-purdue-boilermakers-and-the-davidson-wildcats-square-off-in-indianapolis-indiana/2022/12/16/ef3521ec-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: The No. 13 Kentucky Wildcats take on the No. 16 UCLA Bruins in New York City, New York.
The Wildcats have a 7-2 record in non-conference play. Kentucky leads the SEC shooting 39.2% from downtown, led by Cason Wallace shooting 51.6% from 3-point range.
The Bruins are 7-2 in non-conference play. UCLA ranks sixth in the Pac-12 with 9.2 offensive rebounds per game led by Adem Bona averaging 1.8.
Jaime Jaquez Jr. is scoring 17.1 points per game and averaging 5.5 rebounds for the Bruins. David Singleton is averaging 2.4 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for UCLA. | 2022-12-16T08:34:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 13 Kentucky takes on No. 16 UCLA - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-13-kentucky-takes-on-no-16-ucla/2022/12/16/24aa8ca4-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-13-kentucky-takes-on-no-16-ucla/2022/12/16/24aa8ca4-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
No. 17 Mississippi State takes on Nicholls State, looks for 9th straight home win
BOTTOM LINE: No. 17 Mississippi State hosts Nicholls State looking to extend its eight-game home winning streak.
The Bulldogs are 5-0 on their home court. Mississippi State is second in college basketball giving up 50.7 points per game while holding opponents to 35.0% shooting.
The Colonels are 0-4 on the road. Nicholls State ranks fourth in the Southland shooting 35.3% from 3-point range.
Latrell Jones is averaging 15.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.7 steals for the Colonels. Caleb Huffman is averaging 15.4 points and 2.6 steals for Nicholls State. | 2022-12-16T08:34:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 17 Mississippi State takes on Nicholls State, looks for 9th straight home win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-17-mississippi-state-takes-on-nicholls-state-looks-for-9th-straight-home-win/2022/12/16/0c7e8a72-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-17-mississippi-state-takes-on-nicholls-state-looks-for-9th-straight-home-win/2022/12/16/0c7e8a72-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
No. 18 Illinois hosts Alabama A&M after Peek-Green's 23-point game
BOTTOM LINE: Alabama A&M plays the No. 18 Illinois Fighting Illini after Omari Peek-Green scored 23 points in Alabama A&M’s 78-71 loss to the South Alabama Jaguars.
The Bulldogs are 0-1 on the road. Alabama A&M is the top team in the SWAC shooting 38.7% from deep. Austin Harvell leads the Bulldogs shooting 60.0% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: Terrence Shannon Jr. is shooting 45.9% and averaging 17.8 points for the Fighting Illini. Jayden Epps is averaging 1.6 made 3-pointers for Illinois. | 2022-12-16T08:34:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 18 Illinois hosts Alabama A&M after Peek-Green's 23-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-18-illinois-hosts-alabama-aandm-after-peek-greens-23-point-game/2022/12/16/8adc9558-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-18-illinois-hosts-alabama-aandm-after-peek-greens-23-point-game/2022/12/16/8adc9558-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers play the No. 5 Houston Cougars
BOTTOM LINE: The No. 5 Houston Cougars face the No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers.
The Cavaliers have gone 5-0 in home games. Virginia averages 72.1 points while outscoring opponents by 14.2 points per game.
The Cougars have gone 1-0 away from home. Houston is fifth in the AAC with 13.9 assists per game led by Jamal Shead averaging 5.7.
Marcus Sasser averages 2.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Cougars, scoring 16.2 points while shooting 30.6% from beyond the arc. Jarace Walker is shooting 48.3% and averaging 9.4 points over the last 10 games for Houston. | 2022-12-16T08:34:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 2 Virginia Cavaliers play the No. 5 Houston Cougars - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-2-virginia-cavaliers-play-the-no-5-houston-cougars/2022/12/16/b6a5fdb0-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-2-virginia-cavaliers-play-the-no-5-houston-cougars/2022/12/16/b6a5fdb0-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
No. 25 Miami hosts Saint Francis (PA) following Cohen's 40-point game
BOTTOM LINE: Saint Francis (PA) faces the No. 25 Miami Hurricanes after Josh Cohen scored 40 points in Saint Francis (PA)’s 90-66 loss to the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.
The Hurricanes are 7-0 on their home court. Miami averages 15.6 assists per game to lead the ACC, paced by Isaiah Wong with 3.9.
The Red Flash are 0-5 in road games. Saint Francis (PA) is 2-2 when it wins the turnover battle and averages 12.1 turnovers per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Wong is scoring 16.2 points per game and averaging 4.5 rebounds for the Hurricanes. Jordan Miller is averaging 15.5 points and 6.0 rebounds over the last 10 games for Miami.
Cohen is averaging 21.4 points and 7.7 rebounds for the Red Flash. Maxwell Land is averaging 11.2 points over the last 10 games for Saint Francis (PA). | 2022-12-16T08:34:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 25 Miami hosts Saint Francis (PA) following Cohen's 40-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-25-miami-hosts-saint-francis-pa-following-cohens-40-point-game/2022/12/16/86697126-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/no-25-miami-hosts-saint-francis-pa-following-cohens-40-point-game/2022/12/16/86697126-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Norfolk State takes on Hampton
BOTTOM LINE: The Norfolk State Spartans face the Hampton Pirates at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Spartans are 7-4 in non-conference play. Norfolk State is sixth in the MEAC shooting 33.2% from deep, led by Kris Bankston shooting 100.0% from 3-point range.
The Pirates are 3-7 in non-conference play. Hampton is ninth in the CAA with 7.9 offensive rebounds per game led by Kyrese Mullen averaging 2.3.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tyrese is shooting 60.0% from beyond the arc with 3.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Spartans, while averaging nine points. Joe Bryant Jr. is averaging 15.1 points, 3.3 assists and 1.5 steals over the last 10 games for Norfolk State. | 2022-12-16T08:35:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Norfolk State takes on Hampton - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/norfolk-state-takes-on-hampton/2022/12/16/789ef872-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/norfolk-state-takes-on-hampton/2022/12/16/789ef872-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
North Carolina Central visits Gardner-Webb on 6-game road slide
Bandung, Indonesia; Saturday, 2 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: North Carolina Central hits the road against Gardner-Webb looking to end its six-game road slide.
The Runnin’ Bulldogs have gone 1-1 in home games. Gardner-Webb is seventh in the Big South with 8.2 offensive rebounds per game led by Caleb Robinson averaging 1.7.
Monroe is averaging 10.5 points and 5.5 rebounds for the Eagles. Justin Wright is averaging 15.5 points over the last 10 games for North Carolina Central. | 2022-12-16T08:35:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Carolina Central visits Gardner-Webb on 6-game road slide - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/north-carolina-central-visits-gardner-webb-on-6-game-road-slide/2022/12/16/ebc2ca3c-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/north-carolina-central-visits-gardner-webb-on-6-game-road-slide/2022/12/16/ebc2ca3c-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Northern Arizona visits Southern Utah after Cone's 29-point performance
The Thunderbirds are 4-1 in home games. Southern Utah leads the WAC averaging 89.6 points and is shooting 48.1%.
The Lumberjacks are 1-5 on the road. Northern Arizona ranks fifth in the Big Sky with 22.8 defensive rebounds per game led by Nik Mains averaging 4.8.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tevian Jones averages 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Thunderbirds, scoring 19.2 points while shooting 33.8% from beyond the arc. Harrison Butler is averaging 12.6 points and 6.4 rebounds over the last 10 games for Southern Utah.
Carson Towt is averaging 8.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the Lumberjacks. Cone is averaging 15.6 points over the last 10 games for Northern Arizona. | 2022-12-16T08:35:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Northern Arizona visits Southern Utah after Cone's 29-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/northern-arizona-visits-southern-utah-after-cones-29-point-performance/2022/12/16/4b0a23be-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/northern-arizona-visits-southern-utah-after-cones-29-point-performance/2022/12/16/4b0a23be-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The Tigers are 2-6 in home games. Pacific ranks ninth in the WCC with 7.5 offensive rebounds per game led by Cam Denson averaging 1.6.
The Spartans have gone 2-1 away from home. San Jose State has a 1-0 record in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jordan Ivy-Curry is averaging 12 points for the Tigers. Tyler Beard is averaging 10.9 points over the last 10 games for Pacific.
Moore is averaging 14.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists for the Spartans. Sage Tolbert is averaging 11.0 points over the last 10 games for San Jose State. | 2022-12-16T08:36:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pacific hosts Moore and San Jose State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/pacific-hosts-moore-and-san-jose-state/2022/12/16/82f42586-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/pacific-hosts-moore-and-san-jose-state/2022/12/16/82f42586-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Pepper leads UC Davis against Eastern Washington after 21-point outing
BOTTOM LINE: UC Davis takes on the Eastern Washington Eagles after Elijah Pepper scored 21 points in UC Davis’ 107-55 win over the Holy Names Hawks.
The Eagles have gone 1-0 in home games. Eastern Washington ranks fifth in the Big Sky with 28.0 points per game in the paint led by Tyreese Davis averaging 6.0.
The Aggies are 1-2 on the road. UC Davis is 2-1 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 14.6 turnovers per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Davis is averaging 8.9 points and 3.3 assists for the Eagles. Steele Venters is averaging 14.7 points over the past 10 games for Eastern Washington.
Pepper is scoring 19.6 points per game and averaging 6.8 rebounds for the Aggies. Ty Johnson is averaging 17.0 points and 5.6 rebounds for UC Davis. | 2022-12-16T08:36:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Pepper leads UC Davis against Eastern Washington after 21-point outing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/pepper-leads-uc-davis-against-eastern-washington-after-21-point-outing/2022/12/16/e3aab904-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/pepper-leads-uc-davis-against-eastern-washington-after-21-point-outing/2022/12/16/e3aab904-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
The Ducks are 5-2 on their home court. Oregon ranks third in the Pac-12 with 9.3 offensive rebounds per game led by N’Faly Dante averaging 2.1.
The Pilots have gone 1-1 away from home. Portland averages 82.2 points while outscoring opponents by 10.7 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Dante is averaging 13.4 points and six rebounds for the Ducks. Will Richardson is averaging 14.4 points over the last 10 games for Oregon. | 2022-12-16T08:36:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Portland visits Oregon after Wood's 21-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/portland-visits-oregon-after-woods-21-point-game/2022/12/16/8e26c16c-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/portland-visits-oregon-after-woods-21-point-game/2022/12/16/8e26c16c-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Prairie View A&M Panthers face the Montana Grizzlies
BOTTOM LINE: The Prairie View A&M Panthers take on the Montana Grizzlies at Delmar Fieldhouse in Houston, Texas.
The Panthers are 4-6 in non-conference play. Prairie View A&M is fourth in the SWAC in rebounding averaging 32.5 rebounds. Yahuza Rasas paces the Panthers with 6.5 boards.
The Grizzlies are 5-5 in non-conference play. Montana has a 2-5 record against teams over .500.
TOP PERFORMERS: William Douglas is scoring 14.1 points per game with 5.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists for the Panthers. Jeremiah Gambrell is averaging 13.2 points and 2.2 rebounds while shooting 34.4% for Prairie View A&M.
Aanen Moody averages 2.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Grizzlies, scoring 14.3 points while shooting 35.9% from beyond the arc. Josh Bannan is averaging 14.7 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists for Montana. | 2022-12-16T08:36:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Prairie View A&M Panthers face the Montana Grizzlies - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/prairie-view-aandm-panthers-face-the-montana-grizzlies/2022/12/16/2f0368ec-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/prairie-view-aandm-panthers-face-the-montana-grizzlies/2022/12/16/2f0368ec-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Providence will try to keep its three-game win streak intact when the Friars take on Seton Hall.
The Pirates have gone 4-1 in home games. Seton Hall averages 68.6 points and has outscored opponents by 8.0 points per game.
The Friars have gone 1-1 away from home. Providence is fourth in the Big East scoring 80.3 points per game and is shooting 48.2%.
TOP PERFORMERS: Al-Amir Dawes is scoring 11.3 points per game and averaging 3.2 rebounds for the Pirates. Tyrese Samuel is averaging 10.4 points and 6.8 rebounds over the last 10 games for Seton Hall.
Bryce Hopkins is averaging 14.9 points and 8.5 rebounds for the Friars. Ed Croswell is averaging 11.8 points over the last 10 games for Providence. | 2022-12-16T08:36:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Providence Friars play the Seton Hall Pirates, seek 4th straight win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/providence-friars-play-the-seton-hall-pirates-seek-4th-straight-win/2022/12/16/bd10c1f8-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/providence-friars-play-the-seton-hall-pirates-seek-4th-straight-win/2022/12/16/bd10c1f8-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Sam Houston visits Texas State following Harrell's 20-point performance
BOTTOM LINE: Texas State takes on the Sam Houston Bearkats after Mason Harrell scored 20 points in Texas State’s 71-65 loss to the Mary Hardin-Baylor Crusaders.
The Bobcats have gone 1-2 in home games. Texas State has a 2-5 record against opponents above .500.
The Bearkats are 3-2 on the road. Sam Houston is fourth in college basketball with 13.4 offensive rebounds per game led by Kian Scroggins averaging 2.2.
TOP PERFORMERS: Harrell is scoring 18.5 points per game with 3.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists for the Bobcats. Brandon Davis is averaging 8.4 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting 43.6% over the past 10 games for Texas State.
Donte Powers is shooting 38.3% from beyond the arc with 1.8 made 3-pointers per game for the Bearkats, while averaging 10.2 points. Qua Grant is averaging 12.5 points, 4.8 assists and 2.5 steals for Sam Houston. | 2022-12-16T08:36:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Sam Houston visits Texas State following Harrell's 20-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sam-houston-visits-texas-state-following-harrells-20-point-performance/2022/12/16/bd8af9b4-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/sam-houston-visits-texas-state-following-harrells-20-point-performance/2022/12/16/bd8af9b4-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
South Carolina faces East Carolina
BOTTOM LINE: The South Carolina Gamecocks play the East Carolina Pirates in Greenville, South Carolina.
The Gamecocks are 5-5 in non-conference play. South Carolina is seventh in the SEC with 10.9 offensive rebounds per game led by Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk averaging 2.8.
TOP PERFORMERS: Chico Carter Jr. averages 2.7 made 3-pointers per game for the Gamecocks, scoring 12.0 points while shooting 52.2% from beyond the arc. Gregory ‘GG’ Jackson II is shooting 43.4% and averaging 17.4 points for South Carolina.
Javon Small is shooting 37.5% from beyond the arc with 2.2 made 3-pointers per game for the Pirates, while averaging 18.1 points and 5.7 assists. Brandon Johnson is averaging 11.8 points and 8.1 rebounds over the past 10 games for East Carolina. | 2022-12-16T08:36:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | South Carolina faces East Carolina - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/south-carolina-faces-east-carolina/2022/12/16/b62334ca-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/south-carolina-faces-east-carolina/2022/12/16/b62334ca-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Southern Illinois hosts Corbett and Chicago State
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Southern Illinois -15.5; over/under is 134
BOTTOM LINE: Chicago State takes on the Southern Illinois Salukis after Jahsean Corbett scored 25 points in Chicago State’s 66-65 loss to the Murray State Racers.
The Salukis are 4-1 on their home court. Southern Illinois is 2-1 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Cougars are 0-9 on the road. Chicago State is the top team in the DI Independent shooting 32.4% from downtown. Wesley Cardet Jr. leads the Cougars shooting 36.8% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: Marcus Domask is scoring 16.9 points per game with 5.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists for the Salukis. Lance Jones is averaging 12.6 points, 3.2 assists and two steals over the past 10 games for Southern Illinois.
Cardet is averaging 16.2 points for the Cougars. Corbett is averaging 14.4 points and 8.6 rebounds while shooting 48.6% over the past 10 games for Chicago State. | 2022-12-16T08:37:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Southern Illinois hosts Corbett and Chicago State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/southern-illinois-hosts-corbett-and-chicago-state/2022/12/16/aaede10e-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/southern-illinois-hosts-corbett-and-chicago-state/2022/12/16/aaede10e-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Georgetown -11; over/under is 156.5
BOTTOM LINE: Georgetown hosts the Xavier Musketeers after Amir “Primo” Spears scored 22 points in Georgetown’s 83-64 loss to the Syracuse Orange.
The Hoyas have gone 4-3 at home. Georgetown is 3-5 against opponents with a winning record.
The Musketeers are 1-0 in road games.
TOP PERFORMERS: Spears is averaging 17.2 points, 4.9 assists and 1.5 steals for the Hoyas. Brandon Murray is averaging 12.4 points and 3.3 assists over the last 10 games for Georgetown. | 2022-12-16T08:37:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Spears leads Georgetown against Xavier after 22-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/spears-leads-georgetown-against-xavier-after-22-point-game/2022/12/16/0ff27b1e-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/spears-leads-georgetown-against-xavier-after-22-point-game/2022/12/16/0ff27b1e-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Syracuse plays Cornell after Mintz's 24-point performance
BOTTOM LINE: Syracuse hosts the Cornell Big Red after Judah Mintz scored 24 points in Syracuse’s 86-71 victory over the Monmouth Hawks.
The Orange have gone 5-2 in home games. Syracuse is seventh in the ACC scoring 74.5 points while shooting 46.4% from the field.
The Big Red are 3-2 in road games. Cornell has a 1-2 record in one-possession games.
TOP PERFORMERS: Joseph Girard III averages 2.7 made 3-pointers per game for the Orange, scoring 14.8 points while shooting 34.9% from beyond the arc. Jesse Edwards is shooting 65.3% and averaging 15.3 points over the past 10 games for Syracuse.
Keller Boothby averages 2.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Big Red, scoring 8.8 points while shooting 32.8% from beyond the arc. Greg Dolan is averaging 13.9 points, 4.3 assists and 1.7 steals for Cornell. | 2022-12-16T08:37:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Syracuse plays Cornell after Mintz's 24-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/syracuse-plays-cornell-after-mintzs-24-point-performance/2022/12/16/f6c9bd46-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/syracuse-plays-cornell-after-mintzs-24-point-performance/2022/12/16/f6c9bd46-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Texas A&M visits Memphis following Davis' 30-point game
BOTTOM LINE: Memphis takes on the Texas A&M Aggies after Kendric Davis scored 30 points in Memphis’ 91-88 loss to the Alabama Crimson Tide.
The Tigers are 4-0 on their home court. Memphis is third in the AAC scoring 75.6 points while shooting 45.9% from the field.
The Aggies are 1-0 on the road. Texas A&M scores 77.0 points and has outscored opponents by 7.7 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Davis is scoring 19.5 points per game with 4.0 rebounds and 4.9 assists for the Tigers. DeAndre Williams is averaging 14.4 points and 7.8 rebounds over the past 10 games for Memphis.
Wade Taylor IV is shooting 41.4% and averaging 14.4 points for the Aggies. Tyrece Radford is averaging 11.8 points for Texas A&M. | 2022-12-16T08:37:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas A&M visits Memphis following Davis' 30-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/texas-aandm-visits-memphis-following-davis-30-point-game/2022/12/16/406b70ac-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/texas-aandm-visits-memphis-following-davis-30-point-game/2022/12/16/406b70ac-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Texas Southern faces N.C. A&T
North Carolina A&T Aggies (4-5) vs. Texas Southern Tigers (2-7)
BOTTOM LINE: The Texas Southern Tigers play the North Carolina A&T Aggies at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Tigers have a 2-7 record in non-conference play. Texas Southern is eighth in the SWAC at limiting opponent scoring, giving up 75.9 points while holding opponents to 46.7% shooting.
The Aggies have a 4-5 record in non-conference play. N.C. A&T ranks fourth in the CAA shooting 33.5% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: PJ Henry is shooting 35.1% from beyond the arc with 1.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Tigers, while averaging 11.3 points and 1.8 steals. Davon Barnes is shooting 51.7% and averaging 15.1 points for Texas Southern.
Kam Woods is shooting 38.1% from beyond the arc with 3.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Aggies, while averaging 18.1 points and 1.9 steals. Marcus Watson is averaging 13 points for N.C. A&T. | 2022-12-16T08:37:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Texas Southern faces N.C. A&T - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/texas-southern-faces-nc-aandt/2022/12/16/9233448c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/texas-southern-faces-nc-aandt/2022/12/16/9233448c-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
UTEP hosts Louisiana Tech after Williams' 23-point game
Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (6-4) at UTEP Miners (6-3)
BOTTOM LINE: Louisiana Tech visits the UTEP Miners after Cobe Williams scored 23 points in Louisiana Tech’s 80-79 overtime loss to the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks.
The Miners have gone 6-0 at home. UTEP has a 6-3 record against teams over .500.
The Bulldogs have gone 2-3 away from home. Louisiana Tech has a 1-1 record in one-possession games.
The Miners and Bulldogs match up Saturday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tae Hardy is shooting 42.2% and averaging 13.2 points for the Miners. Jamari Sibley is averaging 6.6 points for UTEP.
Keaston Willis is shooting 33.8% from beyond the arc with 2.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Bulldogs, while averaging 12 points. Williams is averaging 17.9 points, 4.2 assists and 2.6 steals for Louisiana Tech. | 2022-12-16T08:37:59Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UTEP hosts Louisiana Tech after Williams' 23-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/utep-hosts-louisiana-tech-after-williams-23-point-game/2022/12/16/98ca1948-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/utep-hosts-louisiana-tech-after-williams-23-point-game/2022/12/16/98ca1948-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Cal Poly -5.5; over/under is 127
BOTTOM LINE: Weber State takes on the Cal Poly Mustangs after Steven Verplancken Jr. scored 21 points in Weber State’s 82-58 victory over the Saint Martin’s Saints.
The Wildcats are 0-4 on the road. Weber State has a 2-6 record against opponents above .500.
TOP PERFORMERS: Alimamy Koroma is shooting 56.9% and averaging 12.8 points for the Mustangs. Chance Hunter is averaging 2.0 made 3-pointers for Cal Poly.
Verplancken is shooting 47.1% from beyond the arc with 2.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Wildcats, while averaging 12.6 points. Dillon Jones is averaging 14 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.7 steals for Weber State. | 2022-12-16T08:38:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Verplancken leads Weber State against Cal Poly after 21-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/verplancken-leads-weber-state-against-cal-poly-after-21-point-game/2022/12/16/5ca7b7da-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/verplancken-leads-weber-state-against-cal-poly-after-21-point-game/2022/12/16/5ca7b7da-7d16-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Villanova Wildcats (5-5) at Saint Joseph’s (PA) Hawks (4-5)
BOTTOM LINE: Villanova seeks to build upon its three-game win streak with a victory against Saint Joseph’s (PA).
The Hawks have gone 3-1 at home. Saint Joseph’s (PA) has a 2-5 record in games decided by 10 or more points.
The Wildcats have gone 0-2 away from home. Villanova scores 71.0 points and has outscored opponents by 3.2 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Erik Reynolds II is shooting 44.3% and averaging 19.0 points for the Hawks. Charlie Brown is averaging 12.7 points for Saint Joseph’s (PA).
Caleb Daniels is scoring 16.8 points per game and averaging 4.7 rebounds for the Wildcats. Eric Dixon is averaging 15.9 points for Villanova. | 2022-12-16T08:38:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Villanova Wildcats play the Saint Joseph's (PA) Hawks, look for 4th straight win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/villanova-wildcats-play-the-saint-josephs-pa-hawks-look-for-4th-straight-win/2022/12/16/a3d437e2-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/villanova-wildcats-play-the-saint-josephs-pa-hawks-look-for-4th-straight-win/2022/12/16/a3d437e2-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Wood leads Murray State against Austin Peay after 24-point game
BOTTOM LINE: Murray State takes on the Austin Peay Governors after Jacobi Wood scored 24 points in Murray State’s 66-65 victory against the Chicago State Cougars.
The Racers are 3-0 on their home court. Murray State is 2-2 in games decided by 10 points or more.
TOP PERFORMERS: Rob Perry is scoring 16.0 points per game and averaging 4.3 rebounds for the Racers. Wood is averaging 13.6 points and 4.7 rebounds while shooting 39.4% for Murray State.
Carlos Paez is averaging 7.8 points and 3.4 assists for the Governors. Elijah Hutchins-Everett is averaging 13.5 points and 6.8 rebounds over the past 10 games for Austin Peay. | 2022-12-16T08:38:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Wood leads Murray State against Austin Peay after 24-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/wood-leads-murray-state-against-austin-peay-after-24-point-game/2022/12/16/fa7a6774-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/wood-leads-murray-state-against-austin-peay-after-24-point-game/2022/12/16/fa7a6774-7d15-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Apartment fire in French city kills 10, including 5 children
Police officers guard a security perimeter as firefighters and rescuers work in a building where a fire caused many victims, including children, on Friday in Vaulx-en-Velin. (Olivier Chassignole/AFP/Getty Images)
PARIS — Ten people, including 5 children, died in an overnight blaze in a seven-story apartment building near the French city of Lyon, officials said Friday, making it one of the deadliest fires in France in years.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called the incident “a shock,” adding that the children were between 3 and 15 years old.
The cause of the fire, which later appeared to have been extinguished, is not yet known, Darmanin said.
The fire broke out in the early morning hours in Vaulx-en-Velin, one of Lyon’s biggest suburbs. At least four people suffered serious injuries, and officials said 10 others — including two firefighters — were slightly injured.
Around 170 firefighters were deployed to the incident.
Even though officials said they were at the scene within minutes of the first emergency call, officials told local media outlets that the fire quickly spread from the ground floor of the building to the third floor.
An eyewitness told the BFM television channel that he was woken up by “children screaming.”
“When we opened the windows, we saw smoke coming out,” the eyewitness recalled. | 2022-12-16T08:38:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Apartment fire near France's Lyon kills 10, including 5 children - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/lyon-fire-france-apartment-deaths/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/lyon-fire-france-apartment-deaths/ |
Ex-Texas police officer convicted of manslaughter for shooting Black woman
Former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean, center, was convicted of manslaughter. (Amanda McCoy/AP)
A former Fort Worth police officer was convicted of manslaughter Thursday for the 2019 killing of Atatiana Jefferson, a 28-year-old Black woman, in her home.
The deadly shooting by Aaron Dean, who is White, had inflamed racial tensions and set off local protests against law enforcement’s profiling of communities of color, months before the high-profile killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor sparked national outrage. The sentencing phase of Dean’s trial begins Friday; he faces up to 20 years in prison.
“If you can’t feel safe in your own home, where can you feel safe?” Tarrant County prosecutor Ashlea Deener said in her closing arguments before the jury.
“All of the evidence in this case is demanding a guilty verdict,” she added.
Dean’s lawyers argued that he had acted in self-defense as Jefferson had a firearm. Her 11-year-old nephew, Zion Carr, testified that she did not aim her gun at the officer, though the Associated Press reported that Zion also said he did not remember the events in their entirety.
The push to remake policing takes decades, only to begin again
The former officer was charged with murder, but the jury did not convict him on that count, which in Texas carries a much higher sentence of up to 99 years imprisonment.
An attorney for Dean could not immediately be reached for comment early Friday.
Supporters of Jefferson gathered in the courtroom and said a prayer before the verdict was read out. Writing on Twitter, Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.) called Dean’s conviction a step toward “accountability,” but added that police reform was necessary to keep all communities safe. The NAACP said on Twitter that “years of systemic issues that have robbed our communities of Men and Women” and urged changes to how policing is conducted.
Body-camera footage released on Oct. 12, 2019, shows a White Fort Worth police officer fatally shooting a Black woman in her home while responding to a call. (Video: Fort Worth Police Department)
On Oct. 12, 2019, Dean and a colleague visited Jefferson’s home after a neighbor called a non-emergency police hotline upon noticing the house’s door was open and the lights were on at night. Body-cam footage released by the police showed an officer shining a flashlight on a closed window before raising his gun.
“Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” the officer yells in the footage. Very shortly thereafter, he fires a shot through the window.
Deener said the officer did not give Jefferson enough time to comply. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
One of the prosecution’s main witnesses was Zion, who said that his aunt was playing video games with him in the bedroom when she heard a noise outside. She grabbed her gun from her purse and went to the window holding it to her side, he said.
Moments later, she was on the ground “crying and shaking,” he said. Dean’s attorneys highlighted discrepancies between Zion’s statement in court and an earlier interview in which he said Jefferson had held up her gun. Later, during cross-examination, Zion said his aunt did not hold up the gun and that he did not recall saying that the firearm was raised in his initial interview.
The verdict, which comes three years after the deadly shooting, was delayed several times due to the coronavirus pandemic and a change of judges. The trial began earlier this month.
Jefferson’s killing came the same month that Amber Guyger, a White ex-police officer in Dallas, was convicted of killing her unarmed black neighbor, Botham Jean, whom she shot after mistaking his apartment for her own.
Jefferson was a graduate from Louisiana’s Xavier University and worked in pharmaceutical equipment sales. A crowdfunding campaign for the family said that they had to leave their homes and take time off their jobs to live near the courtroom so they could attend the trial.
Black Americans are killed by police at more than twice the rate of White Americans, according to The Washington Post’s police shootings database.
Derek Hawkins and Paulina Villegas contributed reporting. | 2022-12-16T10:01:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aaron Dean found guilty of manslaughter in Atatiana Jefferson shooting - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/atatiana-jefferson-manslaughter-aaron-dean/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/atatiana-jefferson-manslaughter-aaron-dean/ |
Trump reinvents ‘rigged’ election myth around Twitter allegations
Republicans are now following Trump in claiming foul play in the 2020 election took the form of social media censorship, replacing debunked claims of fraudulent ballots
Donald Trump announces his new bid for president last month at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
Instead, Trump was now advancing a new theory of how the election was “stolen” from him: a supposed scheme among social media companies, the FBI and the Democrats to suppress information that might have helped Trump’s campaign. The claim is fueled in part by new Twitter owner Elon Musk’s decision to release internal documents about the platform’s brief suppression of a 2020 news story about then-candidate Joe Biden’s son amid concerns it might be the result of disinformation efforts.
This new spin has quickly won the backing of many Republicans and right-wing media sources. Those reinforcements come at a critical time for Trump, as he attempts a political comeback amid increasing isolation from other party leaders. Several recent surveys show Trump trailing Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in early presidential primary polling.
Many Republicans have faulted Trump for dragging down the party’s midterm election results with his focus on election denial, and his 2024 campaign announcement speech on Nov. 15 conspicuously lacked his usual false claims of fraud in the 2020 election results. But now, seizing on the recent Twitter disclosures, Trump is pounding away at 2020 again. And though some Republican leaders denounced the suggestion of suspending the Constitution, many Republicans have joined Trump in demanding investigations into the Twitter controversy or alleging election manipulation.
“The reason this is happening right now is because they had some defeats, and there’s, like, a crisis where many people are turning away from Trump and splitting the movement,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University and the author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.” “Think about how much he and others have invested in indoctrinating people with this language of a ‘rigged election.’ You can’t just give all that up. You have to keep the conspiracy mentality going.”
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung emphasized the new theme in a statement. “President Trump has been proven correct time and time again, and the latest revelations about how woke liberals at Twitter meddled in an election and suppressed important information is further proof that Big Tech put their thumb on the scale to benefit Democrats,” he said. “If they can do this to President Trump, imagine what they are doing to everyday Americans.”
Even before Musk started releasing company communications this month, complaints of social media censorship had become a fixture of Trump’s repertoire. In midterm rallies, Trump repeatedly claimed that Twitter’s suppression of the New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop cost him 17 points at the polls. It was not clear where he derived that estimate.
Other Republicans were also shifting to emphasize social media. In a debate in a U.S. Senate race in Arizona, Republican candidate Blake Masters moved to modify his earlier proclamation that “I think Trump won in 2020” by acknowledging he hadn’t seen evidence of vote tampering but claimed the federal government “forced” social media companies to block information that would have helped Trump win. At that time, Trump took exception to that reframing.
“I heard you did great on the debate, but a bad election answer,” Trump told Masters in a phone call that was recorded and released as part of a Fox News documentary. Trump added, “You gotta go stronger on that one thing.”
In addition, a lawsuit by the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana alleging that government officials “colluded” with technology companies to censor social media has generated depositions, including one from an FBI agent who coordinated regular meetings with social media companies about election misinformation. The agent testified that the Hunter Biden story was not discussed.
In the newly released Twitter documents, some company officials expressed caution or uncertainty about whether the laptop story violated Twitter’s policy against hacked materials. While some of the laptop information has since been authenticated, it remains uncertain how it was obtained.
“I think there are all kinds of questions that need to be answered, and we’re determined to get there,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who is poised to lead the Judiciary Committee, said at a November news conference. “We know that had an impact on the election.”
Jordan referenced surveys “where thousands and thousands of voters across this country say that might have impacted their decision in the election in 2020.” His spokesman provided a poll by a right-leaning outfit published in the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, claiming that more than half of 501 adults following the story said knowing the material was “real and not ‘disinformation’” would probably have changed their vote.
Another survey shortly after the election by a right-wing organization claimed to find that “full awareness of the Hunter Biden scandal” would have flipped the electoral college. The group posed the question in a way that misrepresented the facts of the case.
Notwithstanding Twitter’s actions, the Hunter Biden story was well publicized before the election, as demonstrated by Google search traffic. Trump also raised the claims during the first debate, viewed by an estimated 73.1 million people.
The Trump campaign has been sending fundraising emails with subject lines such as “FRAUD” asking supporters, “Did you see the BIG story about Twitter and various forms of government fraud, specifically Election Fraud?” The campaign has also been promoting articles from Fox News, the New York Post and other right-wing media outlets emphasizing Twitter, the FBI and the Hunter Biden story.
“The last election was influenced by the FBI,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a Dec. 7 prime-time appearance. “If this were happening in another country, in a third-world country, the State Department would declare the election illegitimate, because it would have been … That’s absolutely election interference.”
In a video announcement released Thursday to the New York Post, Trump said as president he would issue an executive order banning federal agencies from “colluding” with businesses to censor Americans or label domestic speech as misinformation or disinformation, and would root out “every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship — directly or indirectly.”
No evidence has emerged that the federal government, which was led at the time by Trump, controlled what social media companies allowed to circulate. In the course of weekly consultations with Twitter, federal law enforcement agencies warned that foreign countries might try to hack people involved in political campaigns and release damaging material over social media, according to a declaration by a Twitter official as part of the company’s defense to a Federal Election Commission complaint. The official (whom Musk has since fired) said he learned from these meetings “that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden” before the New York Post’s story was published.
“Twitter was just a tool in the hands of the deep state in attacking President Trump and doing all they can to prevent President Trump from being reelected,” Trump campaign senior adviser Boris Epshteyn said in a recent interview on former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast. “The crime is the stealing of the 2020 election from President Donald J. Trump.” | 2022-12-16T10:23:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump reinvents ‘rigged’ election myth around Twitter allegations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/trump-twitter-election-rigged/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/trump-twitter-election-rigged/ |
Commanders safety Darrick Forrest, center, celebrates with cornerbacks Benjamin St-Juste, left, and cornerback William Jackson III after a crucial interception late in Washington's win over Jacksonville in the opener. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Benjamin St-Juste caught the attention of the Washington Commanders at the 2021 Senior Bowl, where the Canadian showed his skills at cornerback and safety. That week, St-Juste quickly became a familiar name among NFL scouts and executives who coveted a defensive back with his size (6-foot-3, 200 pounds) and length (80-inch wingspan). For Washington General Manager Martin Mayhew, it was St-Juste’s aggressiveness at the line and his physicality as a tackler, two traits Washington’s defense has grown to prioritize.
The Commanders drafted St-Juste in the third round that year and, perhaps unknowingly at the time, found his running mate in the fifth. Darrick Forrest, a big-hitting safety and special teams ace out of Cincinnati, was dubbed a “culture” guy.
“One of the guys that I spoke to was Luke Fickell, his coach at Cincinnati,” defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio said. “He talked about how [Forrest] was a program-changer. He was the right kind of guy. So the speed and the physicality that he brings and being the kind of character, we thought at worst we’re going to get a really good special teams player, and we hoped to develop him into more.”
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The Commanders got much more.
After trying rookie seasons for both players, St-Juste and Forrest have become starters and transformative players for a well-balanced defense that has become a strength of an emerging team making a playoff push entering Sunday night’s crucial home game against the New York Giants. The line still stars for the defense, but the secondary has become just as disruptive and productive.
Better yet: It has become a foundational piece of the team, with both youth and versatility.
Kam Curl, a seventh-round safety turned do-it-all defender, is the prize of the group, but St-Juste and Forrest have formed a young core around veterans Kendall Fuller and Bobby McCain.
“Having them communicate and play the way they have, it’s really helped us as a whole in terms of defensively,” Coach Ron Rivera said. “They’re in sync with the pass rush, and they seem to have a feel for how each other works. . . . It’s important, also, having those young, fresh bodies out there because you know they’re a little different — they’re athletic, they’re fast, they’re twitchy, and they’re more than willing.”
Rivera has lauded the players’ versatility, especially as they have compensated for injuries late in the season. With cornerbacks and safeties who can play almost interchangeably, the Commanders (7-5-1) have a luxury few teams can claim.
St-Juste spent the offseason preparing to play in the slot, but after filling in for William Jackson III at cornerback in Week 3, he impressed enough to warrant a longer stay. Jackson was later traded, and St-Juste took over on the boundary.
Curl nursed a thumb injury at the start of the season, so Forrest was tabbed to start in his place — and made his mark almost immediately with a forced fumble and game-sealing interception in the opener.
Forrest’s knack for big hits and big plays prompted Washington to find more ways to get him on the field. The solution: Move McCain, a former cornerback turned safety, into the slot because of his ability to play the run; continue to use Curl as a do-it-all guy; and make Forrest the strong safety (and occasional free).
“I don’t know what he ran in the 40,” ESPN analyst and former Washington safety Matt Bowen said of Forrest, who ran a 4.6-second 40 at the combine. “I don’t really care because I look at him on tape and he plays fast. There’s a sense of urgency to his game, and that allows him to create range to the football with his feet or make plays down the field. … He has a lot of on-the-ball production, which you want at the safety position.”
Washington plays the majority of its defensive snaps in nickel as most NFL defenses do nowadays, but the Commanders especially like their three-safety sets (and this year have played more dime, with six defensive backs) with Curl almost always on the field. Like Landon Collins last season, Curl has played more than 50 percent of his snaps near the line of scrimmage, up from 27 percent in 2021.
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But classifying Curl as simply a drop-down safety would be an injustice; the third-year player has moved around to all three levels of the defense.
“A great player in terms of what he can do as a zone defender and as a man defender,” Bowen said. “ … He’s listed at 6-2, 198, but he plays much bigger at the point of attack, which is something you have to have at the safety position to be able to get into the dirty areas of the field, in high-traffic areas with a lot of bodies around, to be able to take on lead blocks, get over the top of blocks, tackle in space and tackle at the point of attack. He can do things as a zone defender, as a second-level player or as a third-level player.”
After years of struggling to limit big plays, get off the field on third downs and create takeaways, Washington is now third in the league in third-down defense and has amassed 12 takeaways since Week 7, the second most in the league in that span.
In Week 12, Fuller intercepted a pass in the fourth quarter that defensive tackle Daron Payne tipped at the line, ensuring Washington’s victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
A week earlier, against Houston, Fuller recorded his first career pick-six to spoil the Texans’ opening drive. In the fourth quarter, after Washington’s line created pressure, St-Juste tipped a deep pass that Forrest intercepted to all but seal the win.
In the locker room afterward, Forrest celebrated with his running mate and said Fuller “set the tone.”
This season, Washington’s remade secondary has set the tone for possibly much more.
“When you take guys late in the draft, you’re not projecting them to be starters,” Del Rio said. “You’re hoping you can develop them, have a role for them and then if they earn their way and develop, great.
“What I talk about is always working to develop and improve. I had a coach once describe it — it’s like you’re on a grease board and you got to keep trying to climb and you don’t keep trying to climb, you’re going to slide down. That’s what it is. Those guys are working hard, and I’m really pleased with the way they’re developing.” | 2022-12-16T10:49:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Commanders’ young secondary, full of disrupters, has become a strength - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/commanders-secondary-st-juste-forrest/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/commanders-secondary-st-juste-forrest/ |
How did you spend the past 13 years? They spent it waiting for an ‘Avatar’ sequel.
Fans await the premiere of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in Los Angeles on Monday. (Frederic J. Brown/Afp/Getty Images)
To most people, Valerie’s tattoo looks like a tiger print rendered in an otherworldly blue. Or the indigo lines undulating gently down her arm on a cornflower background look like water. But once in a while, the 32-year-old, Iowa-based software designer locks eyes with someone who gets it. At a movie theater this fall, a guy came up and told her, “Something tells me you really like ‘Avatar.’”
On Friday afternoon, Valerie — who spoke on the condition that only her first name be used because she would like to avoid unwanted publicity — will attend a matinee showing of “Avatar: The Way of the Water,” wearing blue-on-blue striped pants and a tank top (yes, even in December temperatures in Iowa) to show off her tattoo, which emulates the skin of the franchise’s Na’vi people. For years, Valerie has joked that she is “like, one of two fans” of the original “Avatar.” But for once, she’s hoping, she won’t be the lone die-hard. For once, she hopes, she will be surrounded by people who know instantly what the ink on her shoulder is all about.
James Cameron’s “Avatar,” released in 2009, followed disabled Marine Jake Sully as he explored a lush, gorgeous alien world called Pandora by brain-linking with a member of its native species, the Na’vi. The film raked in nearly $3 billion globally, partly thanks to people like Valerie, who saw it six times in theaters while in college. And 28-year-old Seth Wright in Charlotte, who saw it eight times. (“Five of those were in 3D, and three of them were in standard.”) And TJ Hedges, a 30-year-old in Central Texas who went a whopping 10 times.
Then, it became something of a joke — maybe because of the long, fits-and-starts wait for a sequel. Back in 2010, it was coming in 2014. 2014 came; 2014 went. Then 2015. Then 2016. Then, in 2017, it was announced that four more sequels would be arriving, the first in 2020. 2020 came, and … well, you know what happened to everything that was supposed to happen in 2020. In the meantime, the general public’s wide-eyed wonder at the original’s ambitious world-building curdled into cynicism; by the time Valerie grew up and got co-workers, she quickly learned it was a film many of them loved to hate.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” finally arrives in theaters on Friday, a reality common wisdom held would never materialize. But the Avatar faithful never doubted. They have been unwaveringly hopeful as they have waited (and waited) for this particular Friday to arrive.
One in-person Kelutral meetup was featured in 2021 on HBO’s “How To with John Wilson”: A handful of fans in New York got together to talk about aspects of the movie and practice speaking Na’vi. (A functional constructed language, thanks to linguistics consultant Paul Frommer.) One segment showed the fans, Wright among them, comforting each other in the depression that sometimes results from finishing the movie and having to engage with the real, non-Pandora world again.
For Hedges, a part-time eBay reseller, the “Avatar” community has been a crucial social tool. “In kindergarten, you could be like, ‘I have this Avatar toy,’ and someone else would be like, ‘I like Avatar, too,’ and you could make friends that way,” Hedges says. “But as an adult, that’s a lot harder. That’s why I like Kelutral — there’s a bunch of people with the same interest.”
Fan communities like Kelutral had a heyday in 2009, some fans say, then stagnated when the sequels failed to materialize. Mark Miller, a 59-year-old solutions engineer from Houston, is an administrator for the online fan group Learn Na’vi. In its first iteration, back in 2010, “we may have had as many as 4,000 or 5,000 people on there,” Miller says. “Now, obviously, it’s slowed.”
Thirteen years later, movie goers now have a second installment to “Avatar.” Will it live up to the hype? (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post)
Kelutral originated there, before it declared independence five years ago. It still uses the language-learning resources that Learn Na’vi members developed, eventually with the help of Frommer himself. (In Na’vi, “Kelutral” means Hometree — a reference to one tribe’s ancestral home in the first film.)
Now, membership is ticking back up again, and the fan sites’ administrators are bracing themselves. Wright and the leadership of Kelutral have been streamlining community rules, making sure enough moderators are in place — essentially troll-proofing what he calls “the open, welcoming, inclusive culture we’ve fostered over the last 13 years.”
Later this month, several Kelutral members will make a pilgrimage to the Pandora park at Disney World after Christmas. Then, in January, Kelutral will host its yearly virtual fan convention, OmatiCon (a reference to Omaticaya, another Na’vi tribe). But until then, much of the celebration of “Avatar 2” will happen on the individual level. “I’m going to see the sequel at least three times, mostly because I’ve gotta drag family and friends,” Laing says.
Some have high expectations, especially given all the time they have had to think about it. They fully expect the special effects, a Cameron specialty, to dazzle. Many hope the franchise continues to drive home its environmentalist message. Valerie hopes the story will stay self-contained as the franchise moves forward, and “not like a Marvel movie” — that is, a movie requiring hours of auxiliary viewing to follow one plot line.
But to others, it barely matters whether the movie is any good.
“I’m not gonna lie, I cried when I saw the trailer,” Hedges says, and when he puts his hand to his chest, it lands on what he explains is a promo shirt from the 2009 theatrical run, Papyrus font and everything. It’s a delicate garment by now.
Hedges says he never doubted that Cameron would eventually deliver “Avatar 2.” He would have waited until he was 80. But when the first real glimpse arrived, he says, “I was just like” — his voice goes quiet and reverent for a moment — “‘I’m going back. It’s time to go back to Pandora.’” | 2022-12-16T11:28:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Meet the ‘Avatar’ fans who never stopped thinking the movie was cool - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/16/avatar-way-water-fans-sequel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/16/avatar-way-water-fans-sequel/ |
Pussy Riot arrives in Iceland, urinates on a Putin portrait
The first Pussy Riot retrospective reveals the Russian artists at their defiant best
Perspective by Sebastian Smee
Maria Alyokhina, member of Pussy Riot, on opening night of the exhibition “Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia” at Kling & Bang gallery on Nov. 24 in Reykjavik, Iceland. (Heiða Helgadóttir)
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — For more than a decade, Pussy Riot — a feminist, anti-Putin art collective — has been staging brilliant, disruptive and often poetic political stunts. These “actions,” as the group calls them, have been part of its ongoing attempt to expose the absurdity and cruelty endemic in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
For their efforts, Pussy Riot members have been subjected to government harassment, surveillance, beatings, detention, forced labor and now exile. They have also been championed by pop stars, including Madonna, and defended by human rights groups such as Amnesty International. They have been the subjects of documentaries, books and segments on “60 Minutes” and have graced the cover of Time magazine. All the while, as Pussy Riot’s fame has grown, their urgent warnings about Putin have come to seem increasingly prescient.
“Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia” is the first overview of what Pussy Riot has been up to the past 10 years. Improvised, anarchic and viscerally intense, the exhibition — at Kling & Bang, an artist-run gallery on the Reykjavik waterfront — may just be the most important of 2022.
The first work you encounter as you enter the show is a short, sensationally provocative video. Filmed only days before the opening in the studio of Ragnar Kjartansson, Iceland’s most famous contemporary artist, the video shows Pussy Riot member Taso Pletner, in a red balaclava, standing on a table over a propped-up portrait of Putin. Pletner hikes up their black smock and proceeds to urinate on the portrait, before kicking it to the ground.
This is political art at its most courageous, least ambiguous and most devastatingly heartfelt.
Revisting 'The Visitors'
When I arrived at Kling & Bang, it was 3 p.m. in Reykjavik, and the sun was already fading. In two hours, the doors would open. Among the expected guests would be Iceland’s prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir. The first thing she and her entourage would see? The video of Pletner urinating on a portrait of … oh, just the nuclear-armed leader of a belligerent country not all that far from Iceland.
If this was going to be awkward for the prime minister, the show’s curators — Kjartansson, his wife, Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir, and Dorothee Kirch — seemed unconcerned. This was Iceland. They were free. Besides, they counted the prime minister as a personal friend. In fact, earlier in the day, Jakobsdóttir and the visiting Finnish prime minister, Sanna Marin, had met with Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina, one of Russia’s most famous dissidents, to discuss Ukraine.
Alyokhina, known to her friends as Masha, was now crouched on the gallery’s floor, writing text in black marker on the wall. Her friend Kjartansson was standing on a nearby stool, using silver masking tape to write a title. None of the screens were switched on. The digital file of one video was still missing (it was eventually uploaded two minutes before the opening). People scurried back and forth as the clock wound down.
Pussy Riot is used to flying by the seats of its pants. The group’s members improvise. They agitate. If they hit an impediment, they pivot and push in another direction. They all but define urgency. Although known to many as a punk band, they are best understood as artists working in the tradition of performance art. More specifically, they’re political performance artists.
Of course, there’s political art and there’s political art. The first kind preaches to the converted. It usually involves arcane allusions to the grievances of an identity group and rarely reaches an audience outside the art world. The other kind dares to engage in the actual political arena. It is oppositional, offering clear statements grounded in personal conviction. It understands, through bitter experience, what’s at stake. And yet it’s made with exuberance, an embrace of the absurd and antic, undaunted joy.
The idea of a Pussy Riot retrospective hadn’t occurred to Alyokhina until about six months ago. The 34-year-old has an astringent, understated charisma. An unlikely amalgam of Sid Vicious, Greta Thunberg and Harry Houdini, she has been resisting Putin’s regime with humor, smarts and an indefatigable brand of radical innocence for most of her adult life.
Kjartansson first suggested the idea of mounting a retrospective in December, 2021. When, the following May, he and Sigurjónsdóttir showed her Kling & Bang, Alyokhina had only just escaped Russia, where she had been living under so-called “restriction of freedom,” a kind of house arrest. She got out disguised as a food courier, with help from Kjartansson and an undisclosed European government.
“I was quite skeptical,” said Alyokhina, sitting in Kling & Bang’s back office two days after the opening. Pussy Riot, she explained, performed street actions; a retrospective might kill their spirit.
But the war in Ukraine had changed her outlook on everything. “We gradually understood that we don’t want to just show the videos [of Pussy Riot actions]. We wanted to tell the history behind the actions and to explain how we came to this point of war.”
A mash-up of order and anarchy
The action that first brought Pussy Riot to international attention was “Punk Prayer,” a 2012 guerilla-style performance of an anti-Putin song in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. That chaotic, clumsily filmed 51-second eruption of indignation led to a show trial and convictions on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. Alyokhina and her friend Nadya Tolokonnikova spent two years in penal colonies. (A third participant, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released after an appeal court hearing after eight months in jail.)
The retrospective traces the stages of Russia’s descent, in the wake of “Punk Prayer,” into state-sanctioned violence and authoritarianism. (“We didn’t receive all the hell in one moment,” Alyokhina told me. “There was a road that led to it.”) The show’s layout is a deliberate mash-up of order and anarchy.
After the video of Pletner urinating on Putin’s portrait, the show introduces audiences to each of Pussy Riot’s actions in the order they happened, beginning with 2011’s “Kropotkin Vodka,” which took aim at conspicuous consumption in the new Russia, and “Death to Prison, Freedom to Protest,” a punk-style performance on the roof of a building in front of a Moscow detention center holding political prisoners.
Text written directly onto the exhibition walls explains not only the actions, but also who did them, the context and the consequences. In a kind of conceptual jujitsu, Pussy Riot has successfully turned every arrest, detention and beating into new proofs of the absurdity of the authorities.
The show moves from “Punk Prayer” to “Putin Will Teach You How to Love the Motherland,” a series of actions (some of them thwarted) at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, just after Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova had been released from the penal colonies. During one action at Sochi, Pussy Riot members were attacked by Cossacks wielding whips. Another display revisits “World Cup: Policeman Enters the Game,” where several Pussy Riot protesters dressed as police ran onto the field during the 2018 World Cup final in Moscow between France and Croatia.
Sigurjónsdóttir, who designed the Kling & Bang exhibition, deliberately created a kind of labyrinth. “I wanted to make the space unfamiliar,” she said, so that audiences “lose the security that comes from familiarity.” The gallery windows have been blocked by opaque photographs, in one case of a surveillance car parked on the street below. Meanwhile, sounds from different videos clash and compete, generating a kind of punk energy rarely experienced in art museums.
Despite Pussy Riot’s abrasive, in-your-face audacity, many of its actions have a distilled, poetic, almost childlike quality. For “Paper Planes,” in 2018, Pussy Riot threw colorful paper planes at the building housing the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s principal security agency, after Russia banned the Telegram app. For “Rainbow Diversion” (2020), an action framed as a gift to Putin on his 68th birthday, they placed rainbow flags on important government buildings around Moscow. And for “New Year Tree,” carried out on New Year’s Eve 2020, they decorated the Christmas tree outside the FSB building with 36 colorful, balloon-shaped ornaments decorated with portraits of political prisoners.
“I really think that if you do something in art,” Alyokhina said, “you should do it in a way to make all the people of different ages understand it. You should talk to people in a simple way. It doesn’t matter how complicated the thoughts are that you have inside. You should make it possible for people to understand.”
In her 2017 memoir “Riot Days,” Alyokhina wrote, “This is what protest should be — desperate, sudden and joyous.”
‘I don’t want to be silent’
In late 2021, before the invasion of Ukraine, Kjartansson was in Moscow for a survey exhibition of his performance-based works, the centerpiece of which was a live, ongoing reenactment of 98 episodes of “Santa Barbara,” the American soap opera that had captured the imagination of Russians after the fall of communism. Kjartansson’s show inaugurated GES-2 House of Culture, a gleaming contemporary art space in a former power plant across the Moscow River from the Kremlin.
A superstar of contemporary art presents new work in New York
In a curiously inverted foretelling of the Icelandic prime minister’s visit to the Pussy Riot opening, Putin had toured the new Moscow museum immediately before its launch. Several potentially controversial works were taken down to avoid incurring his displeasure.
On the suggestion of his friend, the photographer and journalist Misha Friedman, Kjartansson had invited Alyokhina to the Moscow opening. Over the previous year, she and her partner, Lucy Shtein, had been subjected to intensifying government harassment (Alyokhina was arrested six times) over social media posts calling for street protests in support of political prisoners, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In a spell between periods of house arrest, Alyokhina showed up at Kjartansson’s Moscow exhibition.
“That was the other state visit,” Kjartansson said with a laugh, telling his side of the story in the living room of the Reykjavik apartment he shares with Sigurjónsdóttir. He was amazed, he said, by Alyokhina’s fearlessness. “Masha was the only free person I met in Russia.”
When Kjartansson came back to Moscow in January 2022, it was clear to Alyokhina that war was imminent. Foreshadowing propaganda that the Russians would use against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the authorities had begun to cast her and Shtein (who, like Zelensky, is Jewish) as Nazi propagandists. When he saw that, Kjartansson remembers thinking, “‘Wow, these guys have a sense of humor. They’re hilarious.’ And then they invaded Ukraine.”
By now, said Alyokhina, the political police had started putting “signs on the doors of activists saying, ‘This is an enemy of the state’ or ‘collaborator.’ A sign like this, with a photo of Lucy, went on our door.”
Alyokhina realized that she needed to speak out against the war. “I wanted to write an antiwar song and, together with my collective, shout as loud as possible about what is going on. I don’t want to be silent.” She knew that she could do that only from outside Russia.
Getting out wasn’t easy. Her flat was surrounded by police. Her passport had been confiscated. She disguised herself in the green uniform of a food courier, left her phone behind as a decoy, and had a friend drive her to the border with Belarus, from where she hoped to cross into Lithuania. Two attempts failed. With Kjartansson’s help, Vital assistance came from Kjartansson, who encouraged the officials of an undisclosed European country to issue a travel document giving Alyokhina essentially the same status as an E.U. citizen. The document was smuggled into Belarus and Alyokhina boarded a bus that took her to Lithuania.
In the hectic lead-up to the Kling & Bang exhibition, Alyokhina, along with Pussy Riot’s Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot and Pletner, toured Europe with performances based on Alyokhina’s “Riot Days.” They performed in front of 100,000 people in Prague, headlining an outdoor street festival marking the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the nonviolent movement that ended communism in the former Czechoslovakia.
The final performance of the tour was in Iceland’s National Theater the night after the Kling & Bang opening. In front of a packed audience, the quartet chanted lyrics adapted from “Riot Days.” Burkot, the group’s musical core, thrashed away on drums and keyboard. She wore an orthopedic boot on one leg, having broken it earlier in the tour.
During one song, Borisova, a former police officer who has been part of Pussy Riot since 2015, repeatedly sprayed the audience with water. After an intense crescendo of punk-style screaming, flutist Pletner stood on a table at the back of the stage and again urinated on a Putin portrait. The show concluded with an antiwar, pro-Ukraine coda and a plea to donate money to a children’s hospital in Kyiv.
Back at the gallery the next day, Alyokhina sat scrolling through phone messages, puffing away on her vape pen. Her demeanor was cool, businesslike — hard to square with her ferocious stage presence the previous night. Kjartansson recalled the time someone in Alyokhina’s presence had mentioned Petr Pavlensjy, the Russian activist who nailed his testicles to Red Square. “Masha said, ‘Yes, but the nail only went through his skin.’” Kjartansson erupted in laughter.
“She’s made of something tougher than most of us are,” said Sigurjónsdóttir, who also said she admires the way Alyokhina “almost respects the system. She makes allies of people within it.”
I asked Alyokhina what the prime ministers of Iceland and Finland had said to her during their meeting.
“They were listening,” she said. “I told [Finnish Prime Minister] Sanna Marin about the importance of an embargo. This [war] is all made on European money. It’s so clear that without European money, [Putin’s] machine will not work. If Europe and the U.S. had imposed heavy sanctions in 2014 after the invasion of Crimea, 2022 wouldn’t have happened.
“The basis of European values is the importance of each life. Now Ukrainians are dying. Their whole energy system is collapsing. They are fighting out of pure bravery — it’s not because the sanctions are working.”
Leaders in the West, Alyokhina added, “are all afraid of a third world war. But just imagine one simple thing: If Ukraine loses this war, the Russian army will go again to Kyiv and what will happen next? How will we all live with this?”
Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia through Jan. 15 at Kling & Bang gallery, Reykjavik, Iceland. | 2022-12-16T11:28:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The new Pussy Riot exhibit in Iceland shows the group isn't backing down - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/16/pussy-riot-takes-iceland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/16/pussy-riot-takes-iceland/ |
HOUSE OF THE WEEK | The four-bedroom, four-bathroom house sits on 6.45 acres
The family room has a wood fireplace. (Photos by Upward Studio)
In 1743, Thomas Jefferson was born. This was 14 years before Loudoun County was founded and nearly 40 years before Richmond was named the capital of Virginia. This was also the year the Shenstone Manor House in Leesburg, Va., now on the market for $1.1 million, was built. Maggie Stumpf moved in many years later, during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’d been living kind of in the Leesburg area for quite some time but were looking for something with a little bit of charm,” she says, “and this house certainly fits the bill.”
The pre-Revolutionary War house, according to a Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission architectural form, has a Swedish influence linked to the 18th-century Quaker migration from Pennsylvania. The house seems a bit slanted, Stumpf says, when looking from the older part of the house to the 1950s addition.
The main section of the house is “close to its original condition,” according to the architectural report. Exposed beams in the kitchen, original wood floors on the second level, and the main doorway (although it now enters into the guest bathroom) point to the house’s storied past.
“Everything in the original house is just that: original,” Stumpf says. “There’s so much character, and it’s fun to imagine all of the different people and families who have lived and walked through these doors.”
Stumpf renovated some in the past two years to modernize the house. She installed a new water heater, a washer and dryer unit, and some windows in the addition. The exterior of the house was painted, along with the roof, the bathroom and the kitchen cabinets.
On the first level, an entry leads to a modern kitchen that includes an original fireplace. This level also includes a dining room, mudroom and a kitchen dining area with exposed brick, as well as a hall that leads to ample storage space. According to a 1950 pamphlet on stone homes in Loudoun County, the ground floor was once divided into two parts: Meals were cooked on one side of the original fireplace, which divided two rooms, and the other was used for servants’ quarters or food storage. Original stairs to the second level lead to a family room with a wood fireplace, a sitting room, two bedrooms and a bathroom. On the upper level, the primary bedroom has a reading nook by a window, a private bathroom and two walk-in closets. Another bedroom overlooks the 6.45-acre property.
There are two exterior decks and a terrace that overlooks the patio. The property includes a spring-fed pond and springhouse, two fenced pastures and two barns with a total of 14 stalls.
“In the end of spring, early summer, the front porch is probably my favorite place where my husband and I will go sit outside, because it really blooms,” Stumpf says. “It’s just magical, because the garden just becomes lush and overgrown.”
The property is across the street from Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Trail, where Stumpf says she enjoys hiking and biking with her two children. There are no historic restrictions, easements or homeowners association restrictions on the property.
“It’s just so picturesque,” Stumpf says. “It’s very unique and just a lovely home.”
40873 Canongate Dr., Leesburg, Va.
Features: This 1743 house is one of the oldest Virginia houses on the market. An addition was added in the 1950s. The property includes two barns and two fenced pastures. The exterior has a patio and two porches.
Listing agent: Jennette Taylor, Keller Williams Loudoun Gateway. | 2022-12-16T11:32:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | This $1.1 million farmhouse was built before the Revolutionary War - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/16/historic-leesburg-house-sale/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/16/historic-leesburg-house-sale/ |
Canadian town struggles with climate ambitions as it rebuilds after fire
“It was roaring like a monstrous animal," he said.
“We’ve heard enough about Lytton being a model community,” Denise O’Connor, who was elected mayor in October, told a meeting of the village council this year. “Lytton is not a piece of land that’s ready to be newly developed. ... It’s a village of people who lost everything in that fire.”
“In the wake of trauma, community residents have a strong desire to rebuild as they were before, but this limits opportunities for reducing future risk," noted a report last year by UC Berkeley and others on rebuilding after wildfires in California.
“After the fire, I was so desperate for information, I just started writing letters,” O’Connor said. “I guess I’m vocal. And people encouraged me to just keep asking the questions and sharing the information."
“One of the biggest challenges that we have was that fact that everything burned," said Mike Baker, the village’s chief administrative officer. “So all of our bylaws were destroyed, all of our policies and procedures and everything.”
“If you’re making it fire resistant ... then what is the point of arguing with that?" said Richard Forrest, a resident who chairs the commission of the Lytton Museum and Archives, which also burned in the fire.
She described the fire safety restrictions, however, as “too onerous. I’ve heard the word draconian. I’ve heard punitive." | 2022-12-16T11:33:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After fire wiped out Lytton, the Canadian village has struggled to rebuild - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/15/lytton-fire-canada-climate-change/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/15/lytton-fire-canada-climate-change/ |
A scholarship aims to help students continue their studies despite the war — and spread the word about freedom
American University student Andrii Umanskyi, 19, is one of 20 recipients of a new scholarship program for Ukrainian students. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
When Andrii Umanskyi left in the summer of 2021 to study at American University, his hometown of Skadovsk, Ukraine, was a prosperous seaside resort town. Then Russia invaded. Now Skadovsk and the surrounding area are under Russian occupation, with conditions steadily worsening. Staying in contact with his family has grown increasingly difficult for Umanskyi.
His father was nearly detained and imprisoned, Umanskyi said. His 16-year-old brother has been resisting orders to attend the school overtaken by Russians, trying to continue his Ukrainian education.
And Umanskyi, at 19, feels enormous weight on his own future.
“I feel more responsibility on me now,” he said. “It became apparent that awareness has to be spread.”
Umanskyi is one of 20 Ukrainian students chosen for a year-long scholarship created by chef and humanitarian José Andrés, human rights and pro-democracy activist Garry Kasparov, KIND Snacks founder Daniel Lubetzky and retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.
José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen feed refugees fleeing Ukraine
‘These Events That Are Unfolding Now Will Shape the 21st Century’ Alexander Vindman on Vladimir Putin, the invasion of Ukraine and the dangers ahead
The scholarship’s founders have two goals, Lubetzky said. The first is to support Ukraine during the war. “Ukraine is in the vanguard of the fight for democracy globally, and it is our responsibility as people that cherish democracy and freedom of expression and rule of law try to support those being attacked by totalitarianism,” said Lubetzky, a social entrepreneur.
But they also want to remind Americans not to take democracy for granted. Each of them was born abroad and deeply appreciate the freedoms that Americans have, Lubetzky said. “We know that it doesn’t exist everywhere.” They say the Ukrainian students can be great ambassadors, not just for their home country, but for the urgency of protecting democracy.
“I think this is actually historic,” said Allan E. Goodman, chief executive of the Institute of International Education, which helped with the application process for the scholars, “because this is the first time that I know of, that in the midst of a crisis like Ukraine … education was part of the immediate emergency response.”
People respond to such crises by providing food — as Andrés has done for Ukraine and elsewhere with his World Central Kitchen — water, blankets, sanitation and efforts to provide basic safety, Goodman said. But with an estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian college students displaced from educational opportunities, because they are now serving in the military, their schools have been destroyed or for other reasons, the risk is of a lost generation, he said.
Aid can solve their immediate problems such as hunger, but education will be essential for solving future problems, he said.
Ukraine has a strong university system, Goodman said, and the Institute of International Education has been working there for many years and was able to help with the scholarship because of their familiarity with the region.
As bombs fall, a Ukrainian professor teaches economics — and survival
There are about 1,900 students from Ukraine in the United States now, Goodman said, but he expects hundreds more will be seeking an education abroad if the war does not end soon. He predicted the total here could double in the next year.
Lubetzky’s formative appreciation for American democracy came from his father, who was forced into the Dachau concentration camp. “The fact that Germany democratically elected Hitler terrifies me,” he said, and reminds him how fragile American freedoms are.
In the United States recently, he said he sees “the trends of rigidity and polarization and the tribalism that’s overtaking our country,” making it important to build common ground among Americans, an appreciation for shared values and shared responsibility to defend those principles.
Ostap Stefak, 22, a junior at Harvard University from Lviv, said many of his classmates don’t realize how important those values are to so much of the world. “Ukrainians now are going through the same fight, the same battle for democracy,” that Americans fought more than 200 years ago, he said. “American democracy is still such an ideal for so many people around the world.”
When he finishes his studies in applied mathematics with economics and computer science, Stefak wants to help Ukraine. “I want to make sure that markets are free and transparent, that peoples’ economic rights are protected,” he said. “Things like property rights, these are very fundamental things — without them it’s very difficult to have economic growth.”
Umanskyi, who is studying foreign relations and started his degree virtually in 2020, has been having more and more trouble making sure his family is safe. Sometimes, there is a good enough connection to talk with them, but mostly they message one another through the Telegram app. It’s hard to concentrate on his studies knowing his family is in so much danger at home, but he tries to focus his thoughts on finding solutions.
While it was difficult to leave for the United States, Umanskyi said he determined it was the most rational course, so he could bring back expertise to help rebuild and strengthen his country. “For me, as a Ukrainian scholar, to promote democracy in Ukraine,” he said, “I think I made the right choice.” | 2022-12-16T11:33:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Scholarship funds Ukrainian students spreading the message of democracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/16/ukraine-scholarship-democracy-college-students/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/16/ukraine-scholarship-democracy-college-students/ |
By Desmond Butler
Over more than four decades, the man who built the world’s premier amateur bodybuilding federation subverted the group’s nonprofit mission by establishing a parallel for-profit company that took over the sport for the benefit of himself and his family, a Washington Post investigation has found.
Many of those who worked alongside Jim Manion have turned against him and accused him of fostering an atmosphere of intimidation and compromising the sport with conflicts of interest and self-dealing. Manion went from an elected president of a small nonprofit to the leader of a company that now dominates a multimillion-dollar industry. He has turned the organization into a family dynasty, appointing his grandson, Tyler Manion, as vice president. Tyler’s father, J.M. Manion, was paid nearly $900,000 over three years by the charity for photography services.
The Post’s reporting is based on interviews with more than 80 people inside the sport, along with lawsuits, emails, tax forms, audits and internal documents dating back to 1978. Among current and former officials and promoters, 15 spoke on the record in hopes, they said, of breaking Manion’s hold on the sport. They include one former top contest judge who has sued Jim Manion in a business dispute and several others who are working for rival organizations in competition with him.
Bodybuilding organization leader Jim Manion, right, with his son, J.M. Manion, at the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio, in March. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Manion’s rise is a story of an audacious takeover that began in the late 1970s when he was tapped to lead the newly created National Physique Committee of the AAU, or NPC. The nonprofit was founded as a charity for the benefit of athletes and the sport “to promote and improve physique competition,” its charter states. Gradually, oversight eroded. Former board members say they stopped receiving audits and financial reports. Elections and term limits went by the wayside, according to internal NPC documents.
Manion dissolved the nonprofit and turned the NPC into a private, for-profit company. Such a change requires a vote by the board, according to the laws governing nonprofits in Ohio, where the NPC was incorporated. Eight board members told The Post that they didn’t know the organization had been privatized until years later. Manion continued holding board meetings as if nothing had changed, board members said.
Steve O’Brien, a longtime NPC vice president, said that he didn’t know the nonprofit had been dissolved until last year. Another board member said she first learned of the privatization when a Post reporter asked her about it in November.
Former bodybuilder and promoter Steve O'Brien, right, was a longtime vice president of the National Physique Committee. He said that he didn’t know the nonprofit had been dissolved until last year. Pictured with him are, from left, Bill Cambra, Joe Weider and Dale Hatcher. (Courtesy of Steve O'Brien)
“I’m amazed about the fact that these guys have stolen this corporation right from underneath our noses,” said O’Brien, a former bodybuilder and contest promoter on the West Coast who competed in the sport’s heyday in the 1970s at Muscle Beach in Venice, Calif.
In general, nonprofit corporations in Ohio are not permitted to transform themselves into for-profit companies, Kelly May, a spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, said.
“Ohio Revised Code Chapter 1702 permits nonprofit corporations to convert to other entities, but not to for-profit corporations,” May said. “In general, charitable assets must always remain charitable.”
Jim Manion, who earned $278,184 in his last known salary at the nonprofit in 2016, took several steps to solidify his control over the NPC and its revenue while his family set up companies that appear related to NPC entities.
Over the course of his tenure as NPC president, Manion signed over control of the NPC’s trademark to himself as an individual, documents show. J.M. Manion and his wife started a for-profit company using the same name as the NPC News website. During this time, the Manions encouraged advertisers at the official NPC News magazine to buy ads on the website, according to interviews.
J.M. also listed himself as co-owner of a clothing company that sold NPC-branded gear, according to his LinkedIn page, which was taken down after The Post asked a spokesman for Jim Manion about it. Jim Manion’s wife started a company whose initials matched the NPC’s data processing vendor three months before that vendor was hired, Pennsylvania corporate records show.
Financial deals by nonprofits that provide an excessive benefit to individuals connected to the nonprofit are generally prohibited under federal law.
The Family: American bodybuilding is led by three generations of men who have created an environment where they rule unchallenged. The main rule is simple – never cross them.
Available NPC records and tax filings do not include enough detail to determine whether the companies linked to the Manion family profited from the NPC. For example, the tax filings and the minutes do not list the names of its vendors. Nonprofits are required to name vendors if they earn over $100,000 and are among the top five highest paid contractors.
In response to Post questions to Jim and Tyler Manion, as well as their organization, spokesman Jon Hammond emailed a one-sentence statement.
“The NPC was formed and has always been governed in accordance with all federal, state and local laws,” the statement said.
On Oct. 25, The Post published a story in which 20 women described their experiences with J.M. Manion. Some of the women said he asked them to pose for nude photographs that then appeared on his soft-core pornography sites. After that story was published, an official with one of the two most prominent contests in the sport, the Arnold Classic, said J.M. would not be photographing the event in March.
J.M. did not respond to requests for comment. Following publication of The Post’s story, Brian H. Simmons, a lawyer representing Jim Manion, the NPC and the IFBB Pro League, the professional bodybuilding arm that Manion also owns, said his clients “emphatically deny any and all wrongdoing.” Simmons added that some people cited in The Post’s story “possess a clear animus against my clients due to many prior disputes between the parties and/or the fact they are directly competing or seeking to directly compete against NPC and/or IFBB Pro League.”
Exploited for decades, female bodybuilders speak out
A Washington Post investigation found that scores of female athletes were sexually exploited by officials of the two major U.S. bodybuilding federations.
Some high-profile figures in bodybuilding say Manion has been good for the sport.
Lee Haney, an eight-time Mr. Olympia, said Manion has helped with his mentoring program for decades.
“Jim Manion is a man of integrity and we’ve been friends for years. We’ve prayed together over the phone.”
Sandy Williamson, a former vice president of the nonprofit NPC and a prominent contest judge, said the organization has done wonders for women.
“I’ve been working under Jim Manion for 40 years and the guy has always been about the athletes,” Williamson said. “He has helped women get contracts and build businesses, he’s always been about the athletes. The people who you are talking to are not part of this organization anymore because they were never about the athletes.”
While long viewed as a fringe sport, bodybuilding attracts thousands of athletes in the United States and many more internationally. The two organizations run by the Manion family oversee hundreds of contests per year, from smaller regional events for amateurs around the country and abroad to the headline competitions where top male pros can earn more than $600,000, such as the Olympia, which is now underway in Las Vegas. Pro women earn much less than men.
Competitors warm up backstage at the Arnold Classic in March. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
The sport is both art and competition, with athletes working out in weight rooms to sculpt their bodies and following pre-contest diet regimens designed to better show off their muscles onstage. Athletes compete in categories based on the degree of musculature. In contests, they perform a series of poses onstage for judges who score them according to criteria outlined by the federations.
Judges and insiders say the Manions have effectively built an old-fashioned patronage system to reward favored athletes, coaches, sponsors and others. Several former officials and athletes said in interviews that they were ostracized from Manion’s organizations after disagreements with him or family members.
O’Brien said he sold his West Coast shows after Manion, who chooses the promoters, asked him how old he was and suggested a replacement. O’Brien was 70 at the time, and selling seemed the only option. O’Brien said he now regrets not speaking out earlier about the management of the NPC.
At a contest in Phoenix in 2010, O’Brien said he witnessed a judge altering the winning lineup after phone conversations with Manion and his son, J.M. “I got really pissed off,” said O’Brien, who has judged some of the top professional competitions in the world.
Wayne DeMilia worked closely with Manion for more than two decades as head of the NPC’s then-professional affiliate in the United States. He returned to bodybuilding in 2017 after a 13-year absence to run a rival amateur organization, IFBB Physique America, under the auspices of the original worldwide professional bodybuilding organization, now known as the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation (IFBB).
Founded in 1946 in Montreal by the famed Weider brothers, Ben and Joe, the IFBB was the world’s leading federation until Manion split from it in 2017 and later formed his own professional league. Manion chose a similar name for his new federation, the IFBB Pro League, which has surpassed the original IFBB because it runs the two largest events, the Olympia and the Arnold Schwarzenegger-owned Arnold Classic.
DeMilia, who was the first to approach The Post with allegations about Manion’s empire, said he has made it his mission to hold Manion accountable. Many former colleagues told DeMilia that greed was warping it, he said, adding that athletes and others in the business were helpless to do anything but bow to the Manions.
“If you’re making money and you enjoy being part of the sport, that’s what you have to put up with now,” DeMilia said.
Onetime NPC stalwarts are leaving in anger over how the Manions have run the organization.
Pete Fancher, once a board member from Florida, promoted his last contest in 2018, and told The Post that Manion rules the organization “by fear.” He looks back at Manion’s leadership with “disgust, pure disgust.”
Miles Neussle, a former board member, held his last show in July and then resigned because of Manion’s “arrogance, corruption and intimidation,” he told The Post.
Brent Jones ran bodybuilding competitions in Kentucky for decades, but he gave it up in October because of the “sexualization of the sport and the corruption,” he said in a statement he posted on social media.
Ken Sprague, who had been the owner of Gold's Gym in Venice, Calif., known as the center of bodybuilding, says he regrets helping Jim Manion become head of the newly independent NPC in 1978. (Elijah Nouvelage for The Washington Post)
“It was very easy to miscount ... I’m not proud of it. But the calculation was that it was best for bodybuilding at that time.”— Ken Sprague, on how he was able to stuff a ballot box in favor of Jim Manion
Stuffing the ballot box
If Ken Sprague could replay the founding of the NPC, he says, he wouldn’t have cheated to put Manion in the top job.
Sprague was the owner of Gold’s Gym in Venice, Calif., known as the center of bodybuilding. Manion was president of the Amateur Athletic Union’s Physique Committee, which then presided over amateur bodybuilding in America. In 1978, an act of Congress removed the AAU from governance of any sport, and bodybuilders moved to start their own organization.
To head off another candidate whom he didn’t think was up to the job, Sprague says he championed Manion, then a former bodybuilder from Pittsburgh, to lead the newly independent organization, the National Physique Committee of the AAU. The election was by a secret ballot, but Sprague said he was able to stuff the box with a fistful of Manion “votes,” he recalled in an interview from his home in Georgia.
“It was very easy to miscount,” Sprague, 77, said. “I’m not proud of it. But the calculation was that it was best for bodybuilding at that time.”
Once in place as president of the NPC, Manion developed his own power base. In 1981, the organization’s name was changed to the National Physique Committee of the USA.
Many people who were once close to Manion say he adopted some of the mannerisms and vocabulary of mafia films and TV shows, according to several insiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.
Inside his warehouse in Pittsburgh, a poster from the gangster movie “Goodfellas” used to have Manion’s face pasted onto Robert De Niro’s, the insiders said. Manion sometimes greets male associates with kisses on the cheek, others say, and talks about people who make money for him as his “earners,” as if he were Tony Soprano.
Richard Rondinelli, a promoter who knew Manion from the early days and was later convicted of tax evasion charges related to selling steroids, said he found it comical that NPC associates would refer to the Manions as “the family,” as if they were connected to the mafia.
“The family? The family of what? I have no idea,” Rondinelli said. “Is it the Partridge Family?”
But the image Jim Manion cultivated is no joke to many people in the bodybuilding world who spoke to The Post. More than a dozen expressed fear of retaliation for speaking out.
Board members said the drift away from oversight dates back to the 1980s and 1990s, when the sport was booming, gyms were sprouting everywhere and many of the board members were making money running contests.
The NPC’s original bylaws, obtained by The Post, had protections in place that were gradually eliminated or ignored, such as yearly independent audits, term limits and power vested in the voting members, documents and interviews show. The Post also obtained minutes from meetings of the NPC’s board of governors and trustees, spanning the years 1985 to 2017, but was unable to acquire complete records. The NPC declined a request for its minutes.
The board of governors had the power to choose which promoters could run and profit from major events while paying the NPC for the privilege. But over time, the board stopped selecting the promoters, former board members say, and Manion began picking them himself.
Jim Rockell, once an NPC vice president and close friend of Jim Manion’s, says he was cast out of Manion's circle several years ago after ignoring a directive to avoid Wayne DeMilia. He is now executive vice president of DeMilia's organization. (Matt Burkhartt for The Washington Post)
“All of a sudden you get the same promoters for every national event,” said Jim Rockell, who was an NPC vice president, a frequent head judge at top pro events and once a close friend of Manion’s. “And there were no other bids. Bids were already sealed, and they were already determined ahead of time. And that’s how that went.”
Rockell, who now works with DeMilia as executive vice president of IFBB Physique America, says he was cast out of Manion’s circle several years ago. Rockell said he ignored a directive to stay away from DeMilia, an outspoken Manion critic. DeMilia was not working in the sport at the time, and he and Rockell had a friendly dinner. The word got back to Manion, Rockell said, and the two argued.
Rockell said Manion told him: “If you think you can talk to anyone you want, you are mistaken.”
Manion stopped assigning Rockell as a judge in his federations, Rockell said, so he resigned.
Rockell said Manion demanded that promoters pay his way to the contests, sometimes with first-class plane tickets, and put him up in fancy hotels. “It was always a suite,” Rockell said.
The NPC’s revenue became less transparent at some point in the 1980s, board members say, when Manion stopped presenting the charity’s financials to the board. O’Brien and Rockell said they cannot remember seeing the charity’s tax filings during the decades they served as vice presidents, though the forms require an officer to certify that copies were provided to all members of the governing board before filing.
Wayne DeMilia, who now runs rival amateur organization IFBB Physique America, had worked closely with Jim Manion for more than two decades. He said he has made it his mission to hold Manion accountable. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
“If you’re making money and you enjoy being part of the sport, that’s what you have to put up with now.”— Wayne DiMilia, president/CEO of IFBB Physique America
Fancher, the Florida promoter who was on the NPC’s board of governors from the early 1990s until its dissolution in 2018, was asked by The Post whether he ever saw financials. His reply was terse: “Oh, hell no!”
Many of the officials and promoters who spoke to The Post said they noticed that during the nonprofit era NPC-branded clothing and gym gear was being sold by a business connected to the Manions. This is not allowed under rules governing nonprofits unless the board approves a license and the NPC is compensated at fair market value. But the board members were unclear whether the NPC was compensated, and they did not ask.
“All insider transactions are looked at by rules governing excess benefit transactions,” said Benjamin Leff, a professor who teaches the law of charitable and nonprofit organizations at American University’s Washington College of Law. If the insider “paid fair market value, it’s done in a written agreement and the disallowed person does not participate in the decision, it can be okay. All this should be well-documented in the minutes.” Ex-board members say that Manion did not offer information about the clothing business to the board.
“Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing,” said Rockell, who used to carry NPC merchandise in his gym. “You figure as a member of the NPC, you’re buying it to support the organization.”
Some NPC financial documents, including internal audits from the 1980s and early 1990s, show some income from apparel. One year, it was grouped in a category with donations and videocassettes and listed at $31,000.
According to a LinkedIn page for J.M. Manion, he became co-owner of California Active Wear in 1986, in charge of photography, marketing and accounting. J.M. is listed as a co-owner of California Active Wear with John Albert, his uncle, in Experian’s corporate database.
Rockell said he bought the NPC merchandise he sold in his gym from California Active Wear and dealt with Albert on the orders.
Albert could not be reached for comment.
In 1996, a website linked to California Active Wear was registered to J.M. Manion’s personal email. The site, npcwear.com, has been offering NPC branded apparel since at least 1997, archived versions show. Internet domain records show that both npc-wear.com and npcwear.com have been registered since 2000 to J.M. Productions, a company owned by J.M. Manion, corporate business records show. At various times, the clothing sites included links to J.M.’s soft-core pornography sites, The Post found.
Jim Manion, center, with his grandson Tyler Manion, who is vice president of the organization, at the Arnold Sports Festival in March. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Board members say they were not aware of any licensing of the NPC name. In a 2008 lawsuit, however, the NPC stated it had licensed its trademark for clothing but did not name any companies. There is no line item for apparel income reported in tax filings for the NPC from 1998 to 2017 and the filings show no revenue from the licensing of the trademark during that period.
The treasurer
Board members describe Harry Wulff, NPC’s longtime treasurer who became vice president of the private NPC company, as quiet, reserved and often in the background.
Wulff was also busy. According to tax filings made by the nonprofits, he worked 100-hour weeks. Between 2006 and 2009 Wulff was making $108,000 annually from the NPC, and was listed as working an average of 40 hours per week. But that was only his second job — in those years he also earned $88,000 to $112,000 a year from a nonprofit printer’s association he ran. The nonprofit declared he worked an average of 60 hours per week as its president.
Wulff has been deeply involved in the NPC since the 1980s and shared an office with Manion at the Pittsburgh warehouse. Their wives were also in business together, documents show.
On Sept. 24, 1987, Manion’s wife, Deborah A. Albert, and Wulff’s wife, Jane A. Wulff, filed incorporation papers to start a for-profit company called Data Service International, described as “a computer listing service.” State business records list the corporate address for the company as the home addresses of the Wulffs.
Contestants flex and present themselves to the judges at the 2022 IFBB Miami Grand Prix on Aug. 27. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Less than three weeks later, at the NPC board meeting in Atlantic City, Wulff announced that the NPC would begin using a new computer service to keep track of its membership registrations, the minutes show. The service, Wulff said, would have a dedicated operator, just for the NPC.
The minutes did not mention the name of the company. The board passed a motion unanimously to approve the use of the unnamed company. The following year, members were told to mail checks to “D.S.I.”
Finding D.S.I. would have proved difficult for customers. The Post could not find a listed phone or commercial business address for D.S.I. or locate the company in any commercial credit or business database over the 35 years it has been in business.
After the switch to D.S.I., data processing costs for the NPC grew steadily — from $51,000 in 1985 to $425,000 in 2004, NPC audit records and tax filings show. In 2015, the final year data processing is accounted for, the NPC spent $284,000.
Even with the addition of D.S.I.’s services, the NPC continued to rely on an outdated system to register members, according to a case study by Blue Archer, a Pittsburgh-based company hired by the NPC to help transition to online registrations in 2016. In the study, Blue Archer said that the NPC had relied on an inefficient paper system for membership and was “stuck in the past.”
“NPC did all 50,000 memberships by hand,” the study said. Members would print cards off the web and send them to NPC headquarters in Pittsburgh. “The NPC Administration team would then collect each mailed application and check and manually enter all of the handwritten information into a system,” the study reported.
Blue Archer did not respond to requests for comment.
Questions for Deborah Albert and Harry Wulff were provided to NPC spokesman Hammond but they did not respond. Jane Wulff is deceased.
J.M. Productions
For three decades, the nonprofit produced a magazine called NPC News as a benefit to members and funded by their dues. It also ran a companion website, npcnewsonline.com, administered by J.M. Manion and J.M. Productions and registered to NPC News.
In late 2013, J.M. and his wife, Debra Amelio-Manion, registered a for-profit company called NPC News Online.
Carl A. Chiocca, 57, creative director for the NPC News magazine for 15 years, said he started to see advertisers migrate from the magazine to the website. Chiocca said he suggested a reciprocal agreement in which advertisers who bought an ad on the website would get an ad in the magazine as well. He said Jim Manion rejected the suggestion without giving a reason.
“They were heavily pushing the website. It was apparent,” Chiocca said in an interview with The Post. “The advertisers would quit advertising in the magazine, and then I would see them on the website.”
NPC magazine advertising fell from about $869,000 in 2002 to zero from 2014 through 2016, tax filings show. During this period, the NPC’s costs for producing the magazine spiked dramatically, from $979,000 in 2011 to nearly $2.7 million in 2015.
Chiocca said that he was baffled by that increase. “We did not change the process,” he said.
The magazine folded in 2018.
The Post could not determine if money went from the nonprofit NPC to J.M.’s for-profit company, NPC News Online. J.M. did not respond to questions about why he incorporated a company using the trademarked name of the NPC. Board members who spoke to The Post said they were unaware that Manion’s son had created a company using the name of the NPC website.
J.M. Manion at the Arnold Sports Festival in March. After a Washington Post story was published in October, in which women said he asked them to pose for nude photographs that then appeared on his soft-core pornography sites, an Arnold Classic official said J.M. would not be photographing the event in 2023. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Though J.M. worked at the magazine for many years, the NPC did not declare business transactions with him before 2014, records show. That year, the nonprofit listed payments totaling $307,714 to J.M. for photography services. Over the following two years, the NPC paid him an additional $591,493. Federal tax forms for nonprofits specifically ask companies to declare when they are paying relatives of officers.
Rockell said that Manion made clear to him and other promoters that if they were putting on a competition, they had to hire J.M. as the official photographer.
“You had to pay him cash under the table and take care of his food, his lodging, and so forth,” Rockell said.
J.M. and Debra Amelio-Manion did not respond to requests for comment.
A 2016 antitrust lawsuit filed against the NPC by a rival organization alleged, among other things, that Manion owned or controlled companies that profited off the NPC.
“Businesses owned or controlled by Jim Manion — including NPC Active Wear, NPC News Online, and DSI — are involved in publishing, clothes manufacturing, and nutritional supplement distribution and marketing,” the lawsuit stated. “These companies are highly influential within the United States bodybuilding community because they serve as the main conduit between athletes (who are seeking sponsorship) and fitness industry businesses (who are seeking athlete endorsements or other publicity).”
Lawyers for the NPC denied the allegations.
Behind the lawsuit was Lee Thompson, who ran Manion’s Texas operation and served as a chief judge in the IFBB Pro League before publicly splitting with Manion in 2015. Thompson started a competing company called NPC Global and attempted to promote his own bodybuilding events. Manion sued Thompson for using the NPC name. In 2016, Thompson sued Manion and the NPC on antitrust grounds, alleging that they attempted to stifle the competition. The lawsuits were later settled.
Manion declined to comment on the settlement.
Moving the cash
In hindsight, several of the NPC’s board members say they should have asked more questions about the nonprofit charity’s financials, given what they describe as Manion’s preference for cash transactions.
For years, cash flowed from the U.S. contests to the Manion-led NPC and IFBB Pro League. Bodybuilders often bought their required annual membership cards at competitions and mostly paid in cash, promoters and officials say. NPC membership is slated to rise to $150 next year. A pro card costs $275. Manion said the NPC had more than 30,000 members in 2015, according to a filing in a lawsuit. The IFBB Pro League declined to give a number for its membership.
At some events there were cash-only signs for tickets to the shows as well as for the annual membership dues for athletes, multiple promoters said.
Thompson said that Manion or his wife, Deborah, sometimes drove back to Pittsburgh with cash from the contests. When they did not attend, four promoters said, cash or cashier’s checks were shipped or flown back to Manion in Pittsburgh.
Thompson said he would store hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in a safe in his house until he could deliver it to Manion.
O’Brien said that he would sometimes send cash via FedEx to Manion’s office. “I remember one time I had about $25,000 in cash. And no way I was running that through my personal account,” he recalled. “I would bundle it up and send it overnight. Fortunately, none of it got lost.”
An email from Jim Manion’s secretary at the NPC instructs a bodybuilding official in Italy on how to send cash back to the United States: When using a parcel delivery service, “don’t tell them it’s cash.” (Obtained by The Washington Post)
Sometimes, money flowed from Manion to NPC officials. “I don’t remember what year it started, but all of a sudden he was cutting checks to some of our trustees,” Rockell said. “I’d come into the meeting and he’d give me a $5,000 check. And so I’d say, ‘Well, look, what’s this for?’ ‘Well, because you’re doing a good job, you know?’”
Benedetto Mondello runs competitions in Italy for the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation, which the NPC was affiliated with until Manion split from it in 2017. Mondello said that before the break he was sometimes asked to wrap cash in newspaper and mail the bundle to Manion’s Pittsburgh office.
In a 2016 email to Mondello obtained by The Post, Manion’s secretary advised him that he could no longer send payments through MoneyGram or Western Union because the transfer services “have said we have reached our limit.”
“So you either send a money order or another way is to send cash by FEDEX or DHL but don’t tell them it’s cash, say it’s a contract or they won’t allow you to send,” the secretary wrote. “Also, if you have a friend in the US that can send it for you that will also work.”
The NPC’s secretary declined to comment to The Post.
On Sept. 2, 2015, Jim Manion, president of the nonprofit NPC, gave himself the organization’s most valuable asset: its name.
The name had been first trademarked by the NPC in 1990. Twenty-five years later, Manion transferred the trademark to himself, signing the federal trademark document as a “duly authorized representative” of the NPC, “James B. Manion, President.”
When Manion filed the paperwork to take the NPC name, he declared he was authorized to transfer it. But he didn’t ask for approval from the board until weeks later.
International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation President Rafael Santonja, left, and IFBB Pro League President Jim Manion award Ahmad Ashkanani first place in the Arnold Classic 212 as part of the Arnold Sports Festival in March 2017. (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire/AP)
“You’ve made an oath to the trademark office,” said Christine Farley, a trademark expert who directs the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at the Washington College of Law at American University. “If you didn’t have the authority to make that transfer, it could be fraud on the trademark office.”
Although the transfer of the trademark had already happened, Manion called a special meeting of the board’s officers by conference call for Oct. 1, to approve what he had already done.
The meeting was to consider “ratifying and approving” the transfer of “the trademark ‘NPC’ to James Manion, subject to James Manion granting the [NPC] a perpetual exclusive license to use the mark ‘NPC,’” according to a notice signed by Wulff.
According to O’Brien, who was on the call, after a brief discussion that did not touch on the trademark, Manion dropped off the call to talk to some lawyers, and Wulff took over.
After some small talk, the call ended. O’Brien said the assignment of the trademark to Manion was not discussed or voted upon at the meeting. “I thought the meeting was about him turning it over to us, not him taking it for himself,” O’Brien said.
Once Manion acquired the trademark, his new private company would not have to buy it, a costly process that would have required an appraisal of its value and board approval, according to federal and state nonprofit laws.
According to Farley and other experts, the failure to get prior approval could mean that the transfer is invalid — that neither Manion, his family nor his companies own the NPC name today.
Trademark appraisal expert Joseph Kettell, a managing director at Appraisal Economics in Paramus, N.J., said service businesses such as the NPC are usually valued at one times annual revenue. NPC revenue was $6,188,181 in its tax filing in 2016. “A well-known trademark can be 25 to 40 percent of a company’s value,” Kettell said.
Leff, the American University law professor, said the board “would have a duty not to give away an asset without appraising its value and receiving fair market value for it. The person receiving the asset would have to declare any conflicts, and all of this would need to be documented.”
The transfer of the trademark is tantamount to taking the whole company, trademark experts said, including its goodwill and brand equity.
“That is fundamental,” said Brian A. Coleman, an attorney specializing in intellectual property and trademark law at Faegre Drinker. “With that assignment, you are the company.”
Soon, Manion would take over the whole company.
At a 2015 NPC Board of Governors meeting, Jim Manion asked for approval to turn the organization from a nonprofit charity to a for-profit business, according to the minutes of the meeting. But eight former board members said they do not recall the vote. (Obtained by The Washington Post)
Weeks after the call with the officers, the NPC’s board gathered in Miami on Nov. 19, 2015, for an annual meeting that several members recall as unremarkable. But according to the minutes mailed months later, it was the end of the NPC as a nonprofit.
The minutes record that Manion asked the board to “start the process to change the NPC from a not-for-profit to a profit.” It was listed under “old business.” Manion justified the change as “the natural evolution in the success of the NPC,” while noting that contest promoters, which included most of the people in the room, were very successful and already for-profit entities.
The minutes said the motion was approved unanimously.
But several board members who were listed as present for the motion denied that it was either proposed or voted upon. The Post attempted to contact all 35 voting members listed as in attendance that day. Some declined to comment or did not respond. Eight board members said the vote did not occur.
Former board member Michael McKinney said he did not recall any discussion or vote around privatization at the time.
“That’s not really something we approve, it comes from the top,” he said. “My loyalties were always to Jim. I did not believe I was a voting member. The board of governors was more for information as to the way we were operating.”
McKinney, 51, said he was not upset when he later learned Manion had turned the company into a for-profit entity. “If it wasn’t for Jim Manion, the NPC would not be there,” he said. “It started with shows in high school auditoriums and now shows are held in huge venues.”
Taking such a vote at the end of the board meeting might not have sufficed. The law in Ohio, where the NPC was incorporated, requires the leadership of a nonprofit to hold a special meeting to vote to dissolve the organization, and then to inform all board members that the vote has happened.
“The general principle is a meeting has to be called for that purpose,” said Daniel J. Hoffheimer, an Ohio lawyer who specializes in nonprofit corporate law. “That means the notice of the meeting has to state that one of the purposes of the meeting, an item on the agenda at that meeting, will be a vote on or a decision on the dissolution. And if that’s not in the notice, then it’s not properly noticed.”
Only two of the eight board members who spoke to The Post said they remembered the issue being discussed, and they said that occurred at the end of the meeting after most of the members had left the table. None had read the notice in the 2015 minutes when they were sent out months later, they said, though the notes from the following year say the minutes were approved by the board.
“I don’t think I would have supported that,” board member Pam Betz said. When a Post reporter asked her in November if she was just learning in the interview that the NPC had been privatized, Betz replied: “I think so. Wow.”
Tax law experts said Manion would have had an obligation to place the nonprofit’s interests before his own.
“The duty of loyalty says that the officers and directors, again, who are managing this thing have to do shared duty to not operate the organization to benefit themselves,” said Philip Hackney, a law professor from the University of Pittsburgh. “You’re also not supposed to take business opportunities that the organization might have.”
IFBB Pro League judge Steve Weinberger, left, and Jim Manion at the Arnold Sports Festival in March. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
After the vote, it would take more than two years to unwind the nonprofit, with a final dissolution recorded in 2018 with the Ohio secretary of state’s office. Manion had already applied the trademarked name he had taken from the nonprofit, the National Physique Committee of the USA, to a for-profit company registered in Pennsylvania.
In the NPC’s final years as a nonprofit, certain expenses soared. Among them, the NPC spent $1.69 million on management fees in 2016. There had been no such fees recorded since at least the late 1990s.
Several of the board members said in interviews that they were not aware and could not understand the sudden appearance of such large management fees.
“I’m flabbergasted,” Betz said. “I don’t have any explanation for this.”
All of the eight board members at the 2015 meeting who spoke to The Post said they were in the dark when on March 15, 2017, the NPC began giving away its remaining cash assets, a legal requirement when a nonprofit dissolves.
“When a nonprofit dissolves in Ohio, every asset must be independently appraised and a value set,” Hoffheimer said. “That would include things like trademarks, copyrights, any intellectual property that is owned. There’s nothing to prevent a board of directors from dissolving the nonprofit; however, they have to comply with the requirements of the statute.”
All the assets of the nonprofit, he said, have to be distributed for nonprofit purposes. The tax form for 2017 lists donations to Manion’s church, Our Lady of Victory, and to the Pittsburgh YMCA, among others. The donations totaled $214,280. According to an officer at the church, Manion had been making donations for years in the name of the NPC, though three board members who spoke to The Post said they were unaware of them.
One donation for $35,280 went to a nonprofit mentoring program in Georgia called Haney’s Harvest House, run by Lee Haney, the Mr. Olympia champion. He hosts a yearly NPC-sanctioned bodybuilding competition that doubles as a fundraiser for Harvest House.
O’Brien said he didn’t understand what happened to the nonprofit until 2020, when a friend showed him the publicly available 2017 tax filing indicating that the nonprofit had been dissolved. Now, he says, it’s clear that Manion deceived him, since Manion called annual board meetings in 2018 and 2019, behaving as if the company were still a nonprofit.
“They talked about a board. I mean come on, there was no board,” O’Brien said.
When a nonprofit dissolves in Ohio, it must notify the secretary of state’s office, which the NPC did in 2018. And it must also alert the attorney general’s office that the company’s assets have been transferred to another nonprofit, Hoffheimer said.
The spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general said the office has received no notice of dissolution from NPC.
“Our office does not have any evidence that between 1978 and 2018 ‘The National Physique Committee of the USA’ ever registered, filed annual reports, or submitted a dissolution,” May said.
As Manion was privatizing the NPC, he ended his organizations’ affiliation with the world’s biggest bodybuilding organization, the IFBB.
In September 2017, international judges from the IFBB arrived in Las Vegas for the Olympia contest but were barred from judging, according to Pawel Filleborn, one of the judges. Manion brought in his own judges and continued on as the IFBB Pro League.
At the NPC’s annual board meeting, held in November 2017, Manion told the board that the NPC had been separated from the IFBB, according to the meeting minutes. Most of the top professional bodybuilders went with Manion, as did the promoters of the Olympia and the Arnold Classic.
In 2020 he sold the NPC trademark back to his now-private company, the National Physique Committee of the USA.
A filing at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said the company paid $10.
Nick Trombola, Alice Crites, Cecilia Nowell, Jimmy Magahern, Claire Healy and Linda Chong contributed to this report.
Lead editing by Trish Wilson and Jeff Leen. Project management by KC Schaper.
Video editing by Alice Li and Angela Hill. Video animation by Daron Taylor. Executive video production by David Bruns.
Copy editing by Phil Lueck, Wayne Lockwood and Mike Cirelli.
Additional editing, video, production and support by Monika Mathur, Jordan Melendrez and Jenna Lief.
Desmond Butler is a reporter on The Washington Post's investigative unit. He previously reported on climate and environment. Before joining the paper, he worked for the Associated Press, where his work spotlighted unscrupulous military contractors, disinformation campaigns and nuclear smuggling. He served as AP's chief correspondent in Turkey. Twitter Twitter
By John Sullivan
John Sullivan is an associate investigative editor on The Washington Post’s Investigations Unit, journalist-in-residence at American University, and interim editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop. At The Philadelphia Inquirer he led a team of reporters investigating school violence, which earned the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Twitter Twitter | 2022-12-16T11:33:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The undoing of America’s premier bodybuilding leagues - Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/manion-bodybuilding-competition-npc-subversion/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/manion-bodybuilding-competition-npc-subversion/ |
‘There are lots of people who can’t afford a cellphone or a phone bill,’ PhilTel co-founder Mike Dank said
Mike Dank, co-founder of PhilTel, in his suburban Philadelphia workshop with the pay phone he will install at a local bookstore on Dec. 17. ( Mike Dank)
Payphones have been on their way out for decades — ever since cellphones became popular in the 1990s, he noted. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that 97 percent of Americans now own a cellphone of some kind. | 2022-12-16T11:33:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mike Danks brings free public pay phones to Philadelphia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/16/philadelphia-free-pay-phones-dank/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/16/philadelphia-free-pay-phones-dank/ |
Charges of human rights hypocrisy at World Cup are rooted in history
There have been multiple approaches to human rights issues, and the debate has evolved over time
Perspective by Ryan Glauser
Ryan Glauser is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Michigan where he studies the history of human rights and development in the United Nations.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino attends a news conference in Doha on Nov. 19, ahead of the Qatar World Cup football tournament. (Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images)
With the final games looming in the FIFA World Cup, Qatar’s human rights record has slightly faded from the spotlight. Although pre- and post-match media coverage no longer directly reports on the mistreatment of labor migrants, women and LGBTQ people in the country, these themes have been central to how this event is understood.
This pattern — of loud highlighting of abuses in the run-up to an event, followed by relative silence — has been seen during the world cups in South Africa, Brazil and Russia, as well. In 2020, on German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, founding director of FairSquare Nicholas McGeehan commented that “there was a lot of coverage of what was happening [with domestic protests], but that all vanished once the whistles blew” for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Qataris and others from the Global South have taken the opportunity to demand equal respect for “other cultures with different values” and to decry what appears to be opportunistic and selective attention to human rights abuses by Western media outlets and others unwilling to turn a critical eye on themselves. Critiques of World Cup-related human rights abuses can appear shallow and performative, as if designed to assuage global guilt at partaking of a spectacle event that has proved so costly.
But rather than dismissing human rights talk as solely hypocritical, the recent World Cups show that there have been multiple approaches to human rights and how the debate has evolved over time, through the Cold War and decolonization and beyond.
After 1945, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) — chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt — debated the meaning of human rights within an emerging international system centered on the new United Nations. The horrors of the Holocaust diverted attention specifically to the role of the state in human rights abuses — focusing on what states would be permitted and forbidden to do under an international framework.
As Roosevelt, Pen-Chun Chang, Charles Malik, William Hodgson, Hernan Santa Cruz, René Cassin, Alexandre Bogomolov, Charles Dukes and John P. Humphrey drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1946-1948, they also pitted concepts of individual rights, such as freedom of movement, against collective rights such as the right to social welfare. This lack of consensus initially led the drafters to consider two documents — one based on individual rights, and the other on collective rights. Roosevelt disagreed vehemently. As commission chairwoman, she pressured the drafters into writing a single document that subsumed collective rights to individual freedoms.
In addition to silencing ideas, powerful states acted to block and silence the demands of colonized peoples. For instance, the United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands used their power to block Ralph Bunche, an African American delegate who served on the Caribbean Commission, from discussing the “treatment of colonial peoples” at the 1945 meeting of the commission. “Colonial peoples” had been central to the global war against Nazism, which extended to their own backyards, fighting on behalf of European powers and contributing to the broader war effort. Yet when it came to having a seat at the table and defining the meaning of human rights for the postwar world, they were disempowered.
Despite tensions about who and what the UDHR was for, the U.N. General Assembly adopted it on Dec. 10, 1948 — a monumental global framework. Reception of the UDHR varied, though. While Roosevelt proclaimed this document as “the Magna Carta for all of mankind,” Hersch Lauterpacht — a professor of law at Cambridge University — denounced it as “fictitious authority.” Critics charged that the document was more of an intellectual exercise than something that could protect rights and freedoms, and it was clear that key actors prioritized the maintenance of empire in the drafting of the UDHR.
Yet the colonized world steadily liberated itself as the European empires collapsed. The United Nations grew from 51 members in 1945 to 127 members in 1970. Most were former subjects of European imperialism. New postcolonial states steadily took a larger role in U.N. discussions, particularly around human rights.
In the 1960s, internationalizing discussions on race and colonialism gained steam as the UNCHR debated whether to condemn all forms of racism. Israel, socialist states and many postcolonial states supported such a treaty, while the U.S. delegation staunchly opposed it, arguing instead to prioritize freedoms of expression and association. In short, the American delegation defended a person’s freedom to be racist without explicitly stating so. In a 1965 meeting on such a covenant, the Canadian delegation defended the American stance by claiming ownership of “the traditional Western concept of human rights.”
The Tanzanian delegate snapped back by saying that “it was the Western world that had given birth to colonialism and slavery, while the developing countries had suffered as a result.”
Ultimately, Western countries including the United States and Canada were unconvinced and continued to block a covenant against racism. Changes in U.S. domestic politics — the success of the civil rights movement, and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s support for the 1965 Voting Rights Act — ultimately changed the American vote into an abstention rather than a “no.” On Dec. 21, 1965, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It was an expression of postcolonial states demanding and obtaining equality.
In the 1970s, the fluidity and multiple uses of “human rights” were part of a general call for revising the UDHR to include previously ignored subjects like women’s rights. The UDHR in 1945 did not mention, nor did the drafters attempt to address, sexism and gender violence. Feminists challenged this omission unrelentingly. On the last day of the World Congress of Women in International Women’s Year in East Berlin in 1975, a delegate from Women Overseas for Equality vociferously commented that sexism was “a huge obstacle to achieving true equal rights for women … as women adopt the stereotypical roles defined for them by men.” In 1979, the General Assembly enshrined “women’s rights as human rights” in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The decade’s work on human rights helped internationalize human rights beyond what had been adopted in 1945, when the United Nations was much smaller and before a majority of members were postcolonial states.
Unfortunately, the 1980s and 1990s saw limited implementation of this expanded vision of human rights protections. While the 1970s crystallized language to challenge a vision of individual rights that was defined by the West, the rise of neoliberalism shifted discussions away from major structural issues like racism, sexism and economic inequality to individual issues.
For example, discussions on economic inequality and poverty shifted. Rather than framing the issue as a matter of equality being constrained by social and cultural factors, the discussion became more focused on expanding equitable opportunities within markets. Theo van Boven — head of the U.N. human rights division — warned about this trend in 1980 by saying that “we risk the pursuit of an international economic order which neglects the deeper, structural causes of injustice.” Despite these concerns, a sense of optimism and hope emerged in human rights circles as the Cold War ended in the early 1990s. However, skepticism, indifference and hostility became rampant due to perceived U.N. inaction regarding the genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Darfur.
Where does this leave us with situations like that in Qatar during the World Cup? When voices condemn the very notion of human rights as a form of Western hypocrisy and a way for powerful countries to exert power over less-powerful ones, they have a point that goes back to the very creation of these international institutions.
Yet there is more to the history than 1945. Over the decades, postcolonial actors actively contributed to the evolution of human rights, expanding the concept by directly challenging it. Ultimately, though, this expanded understanding of human rights has been only selectively upheld. If we still envision human rights as vital and relevant in this world, then we must, in the words of Samuel Moyn, “remake — or even leave behind” our current framework by adopting a more expansive vision of rights that addresses structural issues while also recognizing the decades of silencing of postcolonial actors by the Global North. | 2022-12-16T11:33:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Charges of human rights hypocrisy at the World Cup are rooted in history - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/16/charges-human-rights-hypocrisy-world-cup-are-rooted-history/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/16/charges-human-rights-hypocrisy-world-cup-are-rooted-history/ |
Liberians in West Fargo trying to dodge racism are deeply woven into American history.
Perspective by Karen M. Masterson
Karen Masterson is an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Richmond. Her first book, “The Malaria Project,” documented the U.S.-Liberia partnership during World War II. She is currently working on a broader public health history of Americans in Liberia.
Fargo police Officer Lane Anderson removes a Patriotic Front sticker from a stoplight outside the Liberian Restaurant in downtown Fargo, N.D. Racial tensions are high in the city after a Liberian man was recently convicted of murdering a white teenage girl in June 2021. (Dan Koeck/for The Washington Post)
For racists, the murder presented an opportunity. One man tried to convince the girl’s father that the killing was an anti-white attack. All the while, a white supremacy group spread fliers and posters warning Fargo residents that the town’s Liberian community was out to “replace” them— spreading the racist “replacement theory” that has been amplified by national figures, including Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson.
Fast forward to today and at least 250,000 Liberians and people of Liberian descent live in the United States. They include NFL superstar Alvin Kamara; U.S. soccer star Timothy Weah, son of soccer legend and Liberia’s president George, Weah; journalist Helene Cooper; Grammy winner India Arie; first Black mayor of Helena, Mont., Wilmot Collins; and comedian Retta Sirleaf, who played Donna Meagle in the hit TV show “Parks and Recreation” and is niece of former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. | 2022-12-16T11:33:53Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The entwined U.S.-Liberia history now shaping a North Dakota community - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/16/shared-us-liberia-history-now-shaping-north-dakota-community/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/16/shared-us-liberia-history-now-shaping-north-dakota-community/ |
Israel’s Religious Zionists gained ground in the November election
What is Religious Zionism, and why is it getting more popular in Israel?
Analysis by Brendan Szendro
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, center, Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, left, far-right Israeli lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich and leaders of all Israel's political parties pose for a group photo after the swearing-in ceremony for Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset on Nov. 15. (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)
Israel’s recent election brought former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu back to power, in alliance with the controversial Religious Zionist Party. As an electoral bloc of several smaller parties, the RZP has attracted criticism for its perceived un-democratic positions. RZP leaders like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, once dismissed as irrelevant extremists due to their roots in the far-right wing Kahanist movement, will now occupy powerful positions within the government.
This suggests Israel has shifted away from Labor Zionism as a unifying ideology, and toward Religious Zionism. What is Religious Zionism — and why has it become so popular?
Israel is a nation where informal arrangements regulate law, religion/state relations and even borders. By using religion as a means of consolidating a national identity, religious Zionists have broken free of this paradigm — and gained political influence by offering a vision for Israel’s future.
Israeli elections have become a referendum on Netanyahu
Religious Zionism rests on the notion of the “three flags” — the Torah of Israel, the land of Israel and the people of Israel. In each of these areas — law, land and people — Religious Zionism proposes to use religion to resolve ambiguities in Israeli law and institutions. Although religion has always played a role in Israeli politics, religious and secular figures alike have abided by the “status quo” agreement — one that the RZP wants to shake up.
The RZP isn’t just another example of ultra-orthodox participation in government, as seen in earlier regimes. To appease RZP leaders, Netanyahu has offered to expand the powers of their offices and reshuffle the chain of command for institutions including the Israeli police and the administration of the West Bank.
Religious Zionism seeks to annex the West Bank
Israel’s role in the occupied West Bank remains undefined. Netanyahu’s Likud party rejected the two-state solution, as have other center-right parties. Some left-wing parties have, in recent months, resumed calls for a two-state solution. But this support comes after years of silence.
This has left the West Bank in stasis. Nowhere is this more evident than in the bill that actually sank the previous governing coalition. Israeli regulations covering the West Bank require reactivation every five years; the coalition faltered when it faced defections over whether or not to extend the law.
The Religious Zionist movement, in contrast, offers a clear path forward: annexation. As part of coalition arrangements, RZP chair Bezalel Smotrich will receive authority to appoint military administrators of the West Bank. While this stops short of transferring West Bank administration from military to civil control — a move that would amount to de-facto annexation — the vaguely worded agreement appears to be a step in this direction.
Some Religious Zionists argue that the Palestinians living in the West Bank can be accommodated even if Israel goes through with annexation. The logic goes that strengthening religious institutions would allow non-Jewish communities to maintain religious autonomy. Although unlikely to appeal to Palestinians, this approach has convinced many Religious Zionists that the path towards annexation is easier than the path toward compromise.
RZP has also challenged the rule of law
Since 1996, Israel’s Supreme Court has claimed the right to judicial review in order to safeguard democracy. This “constitutional revolution” retroactively declared Israel’s Basic Laws as having constitutional status.
Religious organizations and others on the right opposed the move, arguing that a constitution would upend Israel’s long-standing religion/state arrangements. Right-wing parties often talk about passing a law to circumvent Supreme Court rulings, and revert to this non-constitutional approach.
Going a step further, the Religious Zionist movement sees the ideal balance between religious and secular authority as one in which religious institutions have authority over civil matters, and secular institutions have authority over criminal and security matters. For this reason, Religious Zionist Party members call for strengthening courts of “halakha,” or traditional Jewish law.
Although Likud does not share such ideological convictions regarding the role of the court, Netanyahu may have personal reasons for supporting the “override clause.” Allowing the Knesset to override the authority of the court may allow Netanyahu to cancel his ongoing corruption trial altogether.
Who is a Jew?
A third area of ambiguity in Israeli law lies in the classification of Jews and non-Jews. Here, the Religious Zionist template offers a clear criterion, defining Jews according to Jewish religious law.
Candidates for Religious Zionist parties have long argued for closing a “grandfather clause” that allows the descendants of Jews to immigrate to Israel provided they have one Jewish grandparent. As part of Netanyahu’s prospective coalition, the traditional religious and Religious Zionist leaders alike have started to lobby to cancel this clause. This, too, would be a major change in Israel.
Why explains the rise of Religious Zionism?
The parties that made up the RZP only hold 14 seats in the Knesset, but their influence is growing. As Religious Zionism gathers steam, other factions have begun to take on similar policy positions. The traditional Orthodox parties, who long refrained from upsetting the religious “status quo,” have joined with the RZP in demanding stronger halakhic courts and an end to the “grandfather clause.”
The growth of Religious Zionism can be attributed to the frustration Israelis feel towards institutional instability. But where other ideologies have faltered in offering an alternative, Religious Zionism appears to be growing because it offers confidence in the path ahead. A popular song amongst the Religious Zionist crowd states that “the eternal people do not fear the long road” — a message that seems to resonate increasingly amongst Israelis who have grown skeptical of traditional politics.
Professors: Check out TMC’s expanding list of classroom topic guides.
Brendan Szendro is a Faculty Lecturer in Political Science at McGill University. His teaching and research focus on religion-state relations and the global economy. | 2022-12-16T11:34:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Religious Zionists will now oversee key government ministries. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/israel-rzp-religious-zionist-knesset/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/16/israel-rzp-religious-zionist-knesset/ |
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is about to jet off to Qatar for the second time in a week, despite broad concerns about the emirate’s human rights and environmental record. Why? Because France is in the World Cup final, and Macron really is a big soccer fan — as well as a prominent advocate of the longstanding partnership between the two countries. | 2022-12-16T11:34:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Macron returns to Qatar for love of sport, despite criticism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/macron-returns-to-qatar-for-love-of-sport-despite-criticism/2022/12/16/666e41a0-7d28-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/macron-returns-to-qatar-for-love-of-sport-despite-criticism/2022/12/16/666e41a0-7d28-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
After delays, Rocket Lab is set for launch from NASA’s Wallops spaceport
The blast off may be visible from the D.C. area and along the Mid-Atlantic
The Rocket Lab facility under construction in 2020 amid preparations to launch satellites from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
After a years-long wait, one of the most successful space start-ups since SpaceX is set to launch a rocket from the Eastern Shore of Virginia on Sunday evening, an effort to turn a little-known launch site into a flourishing space portal on the Eastern Seaboard.
The two-hour launch window opens at 6 p.m., giving people in D.C. and the Mid-Atlantic region a chance to view the fiery trail of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket as it lifts off from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. The facility near Chincoteague has been around for decades and recently has been the home of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, which flies cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station.
But about three years ago, Rocket Lab moved in, adding a commercial company to what Virginia hopes will become a flourishing roster of space companies operating at the site.
While other small rocket companies have struggled to get off the ground, Rocket Lab has launched 32 missions since 2017 from its facility in New Zealand. And a few years ago, the Long Beach, Calif.-based company started looking for a launch site in the United States. It considered the Kennedy Space Center but chose Wallops because room was available to build a manufacturing and processing site.
“KSC is an amazing range, but I think everybody has to agree, it’s pretty busy,” Peter Beck, the chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in a call with reporters this week. “Whereas we can achieve almost the same trajectories out of Virginia here. The range is not nearly as busy, and there’s a lot of a lot of room to grow.”
With its small size, just under 60 feet tall, Electron is designed to carry small satellites on short notice. That is a capability that is of particular interest to the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community. It is another reason that Rocket Lab chose Wallops; it’s only a little over a three-hour drive from Washington.
Sunday’s launch is intended to put into orbit three satellites manufactured by HawkEye 360, a Herndon, Va.-based company that operates satellites able to detect radio frequencies. Its system was able to detect GPS interference in Ukraine, for example, the company said.
In addition to launching Electron, a relatively small rocket, the company plans to fly its much larger Neutron rocket from Wallops. That rocket is intended to be reusable — after launching to space it would turn around and fly back to its launchpad. Beck said the company would attempt to land Neutron on its first flight, now scheduled for sometime in 2024.
“At this point, we will attempt to both ascend and descend, given that’s what the whole stage is designed to do,” he said. “It’d be kind of like taking off an airplane and not attempting to land it.”
The launch now set for Sunday was delayed as the company and NASA and other federal agencies worked to certify what is known as the automatic flight termination system, which destroys the rocket in case it starts to veer off course and threaten populated areas.
“It’s been a long road,” Beck said. But now “the rocket is ready. It’s on the pad. The team is ready, and it’s time to fly.”
Eventually, Rocket Lab would like to launch rockets as often as once a month from Wallops. During the briefing this week, Beck said the company is “looking forward to a pretty rapid launch cadence out of Virginia right off the bat. There’s been a number of launches that are kind of pent up to be launched out of Virginia. So we’re very excited to release the floodgates on that.” But he didn’t say how often the company expects to launch next year.
Over the past couple of decades, Virginia has invested about $250 million in what it calls the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops. NASA also has made investments, including $15.7 million for a mission operations control center. The hope is that the facility and the region continue to grow.
“We think that with the advent of the Electron with this launch cadence, it’s an opportunity for folks living in the Mid-Atlantic region, from Virginia Beach to Philadelphia, to come to launches,” said David Pierce, the director of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. “And we expect that’s going to have a dramatic impact on the local economy.” | 2022-12-16T11:35:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rocket Lab set to begin regular launches from Wallops Island - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/16/wallops-rocket-lab-launches/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/16/wallops-rocket-lab-launches/ |
The fresh attempts to bring back the Red Line show the complexities of getting the federal government onboard a second time
Those who use the public bus system from the downtown areas of Baltimore are disproportionately African American. After the 14-mile Red Line light-rail project was canceled, many people are stuck riding buses that get mired in traffic. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Maryland Gov.-elect Wes Moore has repeatedly promised to breathe new life into Baltimore’s Red Line, an east-west transit project killed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who called it a “wasteful boondoggle.”
But Moore’s (D) transition team acknowledges that basic questions remain about what the reborn project could look like — including whether it will be light-rail — underscoring the challenges facing the incoming governor as he tries to carry out what he calls a core priority.
In 2013, federal transportation officials approved a key environmental documentation for a 14-mile, 19-station light-rail line stretching from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services headquarters in Baltimore County to the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore City.
That crucial step by the Federal Transit Administration set up Maryland to receive $900 million in federal money and would have allowed state officials to push ahead with engineering and construction. Instead, the Hogan administration asked the FTA to undo that decision in 2015.
Moore is trying to put the pieces back together, with spokesman Carter Elliott saying the governor will “explore every avenue available to revive this project and work to ensure the decades worth of preparation that was canceled in 2015 won’t go to waste.” The fresh attempts at revival show the complexities of getting the federal government onboard a second time, even as Washington doles out billions to transit projects that align with the administration’s priorities.
Elliott would not say whether the project Moore is seeking to restore will be the same 14-mile line that received environmental approval or whether the project will end up being a light-rail line at all. Maryland transportation officials are exploring a mix of bus rapid transit and rail options as part of a broader East-West Transit Corridor study covering Baltimore City, as well as Baltimore and Howard counties.
“We’re going to start with the plan that has already been previously approved. But if that’s not meeting the needs of the community, at the end of the day, we’re going to have to go back and look at it again,” Elliott said. “That last project was approved a decade ago. We really have to go back and assess the needs of the community and see if that previous project is still up to par.”
After battles with Hogan, Baltimore welcomes fresh start with Moore
Transit advocates who have struggled over the vision, location and financing of this and other major infrastructure projects warned that shifting away from a proposal that netted federal environmental approval could end up undermining the project.
“They ought not open the whole can of worms back up, because that is what will delay things for years,” said Ben Ross, chair of the Maryland Transit Opportunities Coalition, which helped to repel efforts to kill the Purple Line light-rail project in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. “There really is a consensus in Baltimore to build that project, and what should be done is simply to look at what has changed that would affect that project.”
Federal rules require reevaluating a project’s environmental documentation if it lays dormant for years after securing key approvals. Shifting the project’s scope could add complications in getting another green light from Washington.
The FTA said in a statement that Maryland can reopen its application for federal funding “at any time,” but the project won’t jump to the front of the line. Instead, it would enter the first phase of assessments and go through a review process to obtain a favorable rating.
That can take years, in some cases, possibly leaving Red Line supporters such as Moore balancing community engagement and striking at a time when Washington looks favorably on such projects. Last year’s infrastructure bill is making the biggest transit investment in the nation’s history, while the Biden administration has cited the equity and environmental benefits of building transit projects in urban communities.
If the newly submitted Red Line project is similar to the version from a decade ago, the FTA said “a significant portion” of Maryland’s design plans might still be applicable.
During Moore’s campaign, he called for “an intermodal Red Line, that is built quickly, cost-effectively, and with community input on stops, disruptions, and impact on local businesses.”
The anger among some who supported the Red Line has yet to subside, while the thought of having to jump hurdles again that were cleared long ago has reignited that ire.
Del. Robbyn T. Lewis (D-Baltimore City) said she’s confident Moore’s team will be able to work with federal officials to push the project forward, adding that Hogan’s decision set the city back years.
“The tragedy of project cancellations is that you literally can’t pick up a canceled plan and start building it,” Lewis said. “The criminal capricious recklessness of that cancellation, we will live with. That’s why it was such a tragedy what was done.”
Hogan spokesman Michael Ricci said the Red Line’s cancellation “freed up resources for priority projects across the state.”
Many across Baltimore bitterly lament Gov. Hogan’s decision to kill the Red Line light rail
As details of the original project were being hashed out more than a decade ago, there also were other pockets of opposition.
The 2013 federal sign-off for the project’s environmental review noted most complaints it reviewed came from the Canton neighborhood, a relatively wealthy and predominantly White part of the city on the waterfront. Residents raised concerns about parking, traffic and flooding, while also questioning ridership estimates.
The document concluded that while there would be some negative effects on marginalized communities, especially those in heavily Black West Baltimore, those same communities would see some of the greatest benefits as the transit line promoted economic growth and access to homes and businesses.
A key part of a new federal review would be the state’s financial commitment to the project. In its previous iteration, federal funds would have accounted for about 30 percent of the project’s cost, leaving the state to cover the rest. Maryland officials said the current estimate for the rail project is $3.8 billion.
Maryland Del. Tony Bridges (D-Baltimore City), a member of the appropriations committee, said state officials would have to take a “hard look” at what’s being proposed and determine what money is available now and in the future. While he would like to see the original 14-mile rail line project restored, “times have changed. It may be Red Line-like,” Bridges said.
The benefits of the Red Line, or something similar, Bridges said, would include speeding up slow commutes, creating construction jobs and spurring retail and housing development around transit.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott (D) said in a statement that “reviving the Red Line light-rail project would be a major boost,” creating opportunities for equity by “allowing for connectivity between communities that have been segregated for generations.”
New bus system revives anger, frustration over lost light-rail in Baltimore
The Red Line also has influential supporters in Washington. Maryland Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen (both D) secured a provision in the infrastructure law their offices say was intended to encourage the FTA to work with the state to revive the project.
“Baltimore lost valuable time, resources and opportunities because of Gov. Hogan’s decision to pull the plug on the project 7 years ago, and I’m committed to getting it back on track ASAP,” Van Hollen said in a statement.
Even if federal funding is secured for a second time, completion of the project would take several more years. A timeline still posted to the website of the Baltimore transportation department listed federal funding approval in 2014, with two years of engineering work and six years of construction. The timeline envisioned the line opening in 2022.
Elliott, the Moore spokesman, declined to say if the goal was to start or complete the project during Moore’s time in office, saying the objective is to get it done as soon as possible.
Samuel Jordan, president of the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition, encouraged the incoming Moore administration to immediately begin working with federal officials to determine where the project stands.
Jordan was part of a group that filed a civil rights complaint with federal authorities alleging Hogan’s decision to cancel the project was racial discrimination. Supporters of the rail line said the cancellation starved the city of investment at a time when it was reeling from the death of Freddie Gray, who was fatally injured in the back of a police van.
“Hogan’s decision did not reflect any product of consultation with the communities most directly affected,” Jordan said.
Ricci said the Hogan administration went on to collaborate with Baltimore leaders to revamp the city’s bus system, while also making record investments in roads and transit.
Supporters of the Red Line project are optimistic about a possible revival, but Lewis said they also need to be realistic about the work ahead.
“For people who think this is a turnkey, they should just be brought to the reality that we still are going to work at this, but we’re ready to work,” she said. “I know it’s going to get done.” | 2022-12-16T11:35:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | In Maryland, Wes Moore eyes Baltimore’s Red Line for revival - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/16/baltimore-red-line-wes-moore/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/16/baltimore-red-line-wes-moore/ |
People don’t always accurately understand when faces are meant to convey such feelings as happiness, anger, fear or sadness, study says
(Alexa Juliana Ard / The Washington Post)
“Many people think they know what other people’s faces should look like when they are happy, sad, angry or afraid,” said Nicola Binetti, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, and a co-author of the study. “We found this is not always the case.”
People don’t always understand when faces intend to convey feelings such as happiness, anger, fear or sadness. Different facial expressions may mean different things to different people. “What one person sees as anger, for example, another might see as fear or sadness,” Binetti said.
He and his colleagues set out to test whether the 336 study participants could agree both in creating and then identifying facial expressions. They developed what they described as a “genetic algorithm” tool inspired by natural selection mechanisms. It allowed the participants to design 3D faces over several iterations that expressed their ideas of happiness, sadness, fear or anger.
“The process was a lot like dog breeding, where a breeder can select traits to add or remove in a dog population,” he explained. “Similarly, our participants took three dimensional faces and progressively evolved them by selecting expressions that were the closest match to the one they were aiming to create.”
“We found that, despite considerable overlap between participants' expressions, each person has a unique take on how each emotion is expressed, like an emotion expression ‘fingerprint’ of sorts,” he added. “These differences carry over to people’s ability of recognizing emotions portrayed by others.”
“People can see expressions differently, especially when dealing with expressions of sadness and fear, which are emotions that frequently overlap,” he said. “One person might see sadness, whereas another person might see fear because they have different preconceived notions about how these emotions should look. These notions may be the result of our genes, our cultural background or social norms, or some combination of both.”
Incorrectly gauging other people’s feelings could have unintended social consequences, particularly on how people interact with others, said Tanja Wingenbach, a lecturer in psychology at the University of Greenwich’s School of Human Sciences who studies how emotions are perceived and expressed. She was not involved in the study.
“The study suggests that it could prove problematic in everyday life when people interpret facial expressions very differently from what is intended,” Wingenbach said. “Interpersonal relationships — marriage, friendships, connections with co-workers — could all be affected.”
But she also noted that, in the real world, most people use additional methods to communicate, such as vocalization and speech inflection, which can make a positive difference. “Research shows that emotion recognition is improved when we combine information from multiple channels,” Wingenbach said.
Visual interpretation works both ways, she said. “When listening to a friend talking about a sad experience they just had, we might display a sad facial expression to be sympathetic without really experiencing sadness ourselves,” Wingenbach said. “The task for us is to show our empathy in a way the other person will understand, even if we aren't exactly feeling it ourselves. That means we have to figure out the most appropriate facial expression to get that message across, which can be difficult when different people interpret facial expressions differently.”
The findings could have implications for health, legal and other settings, Binetti said. A better understanding of facial expressions could help in diagnosing or treating certain conditions such as schizophrenia, depression or autism, since people with these disorders often find it hard to recognize or display appropriate facial reactions. “People with depression have a tendency at perceiving expressions as being sad, even when these are neutral and convey no emotion,” Binetti said.
We can’t assume “a common understanding of what emotions different facial expressions reflect,” said study co-author Isabelle Mareschal, professor of visual cognition at Queen Mary University in London. “This could have important consequences for the clinical understanding of certain conditions, where people appear to have ‘atypical’ responses to a facial expression.”
These differences could also play out in courtrooms where juries must decide the outcome of a case based on witness testimony, Binetti said. “Imagine two members of a jury listening to a defendant making a claim on the stand,” he said. “The jurors might interpret the defendant’s expressions and body language in different ways, leading one to see the defendant as feeling genuine remorse, while the other might see the defendant as afraid but remorseless. These interpretations can color how they judge the defendant’s words, potentially leading to different votes.”
People can agree on which expressions represent certain emotions when they experience them in a certain common social environment, Binetti said. “As a group, we converge on a vocabulary of expressions, just like we agree on words to express concepts,” he explained. “But expressions come in all shapes and forms, sometimes more clear-cut and intense, other times more subtle and ambiguous — and sometimes people will disagree on their interpretation. The question is: what leads someone to misjudge an emotion?”
Cultural distinctions also may play a role, he said, pointing out that people from different parts of the world differ in how they picture various emotions. “Subtle but important aspects of nonverbal communication might be lost in translation,” said Binetti, who is from Italy but lived in the United Kingdom for many years before returning to Italy. “I still occasionally struggled reading British body language to work out whether a joke or a comment of mine is funny or too edgy.”
We can’t rely on reading people’s expressions to understand their intent, he said. “The key is figuring out when we can rely on this information and how to weigh it against other clues of others’ intentions and their state of mind,” Binetti said. “There is no magic formula for this. Common sense and experience go a long way in helping us figure these things out.” | 2022-12-16T11:36:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Facial expressions may be an unreliable way to read emotions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/16/facial-expressions-emotions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/16/facial-expressions-emotions/ |
The Rev. Mick Fleming, a former drug dealer who entered the ministry, is shown outside his church in Burnley, England, this month. The church offers people in need a space to warm up, get hot meals, hot showers and secondhand clothes and laundry services. (Karla Adam/The Washington Post)
BURNLEY, England — “Want a brew?” asked the pastor in dark sunglasses, offering a cup of tea. That’s the only question he puts to the people wandering into his church in Northern England. But many tell him their stories anyway, conveying in vivid detail what Britain’s “cost-of-living crisis” actually means for people living through the worst of it.
“A lady the other day, she put her arms around me, crying, because we put some heating on for her,” said the pastor, Mick Fleming, who runs the church and the associated Church on the Street charity from a space that used to be a gym. He has heard about people stocking up on candles and blankets, refusing to turn on their heat or skipping meals.
Fleming, 56, has a fascinating story of his own. He is a former drug dealer who became a priest. He has been working to help lift people out of poverty for more than a decade. He says the need has suddenly become much more acute.
Fleming is based in the hardscrabble city of Burnley, which, in the context of historic inflation, has earned the notorious distinction of having the highest cost of living among cities and towns in Britain.
Nationally, inflation is at 10.7 percent, near a 40-year-high, according to figures published Wednesday. But because of income inequality, there’s a north-south geographical divide in how soaring food, fuel and energy costs are being felt. Many cities in Scotland, the north of England and Northern Ireland have been hit harder than southern England.
In Burnley — with a population of 90,000 and about an hour’s drive north of Manchester — inflation is estimated to be 12.4 percent, according to the Center for Cities think tank. At the same time, Burnley gets the worst ranking for cost of living because wages here are lower than in most cities, its car-dependent residents have to spend a lot on gasoline, and three-quarters of homes have poor energy-efficiency ratings.
Those drafty, poorly-insulated homes are expensive to heat — as was especially clear this week, when a dusting of snow covered much of Britain and temperatures dropped below freezing.
Rising costs are prompting more and more people to seek out the sort of support offered by Fleming’s church: a space to warm up, a hot meal, a hot shower, secondhand clothes, laundry services.
“We have double the people coming in,” Fleming said. Meanwhile, the church’s own energy bills have doubled over the past year.
About 200 people were there when The Washington Post visited around lunchtime on a recent day.
“I need the heating to keep warm,” said Mandy Cook, 48, who was having a slice of apple pie with a half dozen locals, discussing news of a toddler who died of exposure to mold.
“You shouldn’t have to wear your jacket in your own home — it’s wrong,” Cook said, noting that she was dealing with a respiratory illness.
Britain relies heavily on natural gas for heating homes — 85 percent are heated by gas boilers — and for generating electricity. The government is subsidizing energy bills this winter, cushioning the impact of high gas prices. But the average household’s monthly energy bill is still about $260 — double what people were paying on average a year ago. The monthly figure is expected to rise further in April, when some subsidies end.
Those on prepayment meters, who have to pay for their energy in advance because their landlords insist on it or because of previous debt, usually pay an even higher rate.
Ashley Davidson, 32, a barber in Burnley, said he has taken drastic action to help with his bills. Two months ago, he moved into an RV, which is heated with a wood-burning stove. “It’s cheap, and you can wake up in a new location everyday,” he said. On the downside, he said, “you can wake up freezing cold.”
Davidson, who volunteers his haircutting services once a week at Fleming’s church, said energy bills are a constant theme of conversation with paying and nonpaying customers alike.
“People have been hit hard; it’s a low-employment town,” he said.
In its heyday, in the 19th century, Burnley was one of the world’s most important centers for cotton weaving. Today, it’s a working-class city arguably best known for the Burnley Football Club.
David Allen, 62, a mental health counselor who works at the church, said he has tried to reduce costs by heating just one room at home, wearing a jacket inside and using hot-water bottles. He visits the local library because it’s warm and has free internet, he said, and he sometimes turns to food banks.
“I have to be careful with money,” he said. “The working people are becoming the new poor.”
The Resolution Foundation, a think tank, reports that Britain is facing its tightest living-standards squeeze in a generation. The “toxic combination” of 15 years of income stagnation and growing inequality since the 1990s has meant that middle income households in Britain are now poorer by 8,800 pounds ($10,810) than the average of their counterparts in France, Germany, Netherlands, Canada and Australia.
The British government says it has made efforts to protect the most vulnerable in society, and officials note that while inflation has for the moment outpaced benefits and pensions, those are adjusted again each spring.
But others object that the country doesn’t appear to be in a strong position when National Health Service doctors are having to prescribe heating to help people with illnesses that worsen in the cold and when local governments are having to publicize “warm banks” where people can go to stay warm. The Post visited several such places in Burnley, including a community center and an empty theater.
Fleming, the priest, said there should be a bigger “society and government” response to the crisis, “as opposed to relying on an old-age pastor with a bald head and sunglasses.”
Earlier this year, two government-funded mental health nurses joined his Church on the Street team. But he said more is needed to help move people out of poverty.
He then turned his attention to a man in his 30s who had just walked into the church for the first time.
“Want a brew?” Fleming asked. | 2022-12-16T11:36:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | U.K. cost-of-living crisis has people leaving home to find heat - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/15/uk-cost-of-living-crisis-heat/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/15/uk-cost-of-living-crisis-heat/ |
Members of the Japan Self Defense Forces stand in formation during a review at Camp Asaka in Tokyo, on Nov. 27, 2021. (Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg)
Wary of China’s growing military threats, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Japan is poised to take a tougher stance to defend itself and improve its capabilities to do so.
Among the notable changes is the move acquire “counterstrike” capabilities, or the ability to hit enemy bases with long range missiles and coordinate with the United States in such circumstances, and an increase of its defense budget to 2 percent of gross domestic product over five years, making it the third-largest in the world.
“Each and every one of us must have the awareness that we are protecting our country. This is very important as we have learned from Ukraine,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in a news conference Friday. “We are now at a turning point of our national security policy.”
The new strategy documents released Friday do not name China directly as a threat, but it says Beijing’s diplomatic posture and military activities are of “serious concern” and presents an unprecedented “greatest strategic challenge” in ensuring peace in Japan and the international community. Japanese officials say they still aim for a “constructive and stable relationship” with China through communication at various levels.
In August, after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visited Taipei, an outraged Beijing carried out aggressive military drills near Taiwan, including the launch of a ballistic missile that landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone. This comes on top of multiple incursions by sea and air in the waters surrounding Japan.
In addition, over the past year, North Korea has tested an unprecedented number of ballistic missiles as it pursues its nuclear weapons program, even sending one over Japan for the first time in five years.
Russia’s invasion prompts more assertive foreign policy from Japan
Japan aims to improve its long-range strike capability with both Japan-made long-range weapons and imported foreign ones, such as the U.S.-built Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Japan’s defense policy will remain defense-oriented, and counterstrikes will only be used under certain limited conditions, according to the documents. The new strategy does not allow for preemptive strikes, or first-strike missile launches conducted when an attack is imminent.
The new strategy documents noted that countries surrounding Japan have made major advances in missile-related technologies, in both qualitative and quantitative ways. Missile attacks against Japan are now a “palpable threat,” and Japan needs capabilities beyond existing ballistic missile defenses to protect itself, it said. Japan considers counterstrike capabilities a potentially powerful conventional deterrent.
Over the next decade, Japan aims to develop capabilities that make it “possible to disrupt and defeat invasions against its nation much earlier and at a further distance,” according to the strategy.
Japan will increase defense personnel and strengthen the core capabilities of its Self Defense Forces, according to the strategy documents released, as well as improve its capabilities in space and cybersecurity.
Key Asian nations join global backlash against Russia, with an eye toward China
The Biden administration has welcomed Japan’s moves, as a part of a deepening alliance that bolsters the U.S. strategy of regional cooperation to enhance security. Other aspects of that strategy include a deal involving the United States and Britain helping Australia develop nuclear-powered submarines and lifting limits on South Korea building ballistic missiles.
Kishida “has put a capital ‘D’ next to Japan’s deterrence,” said U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel in a statement. “The Prime Minister is making a clear, unambiguous strategic statement about Japan’s role as a security provider in the Indo-Pacific. He has enhanced Japan’s standing in service of its diplomatic and political engagement with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and in Europe.”
Japan has also been diversifying its security partnerships with partners in the region and in Europe, as a part of an ongoing effort to strengthen its relationships with like-minded countries looking to counter China’s rise.
Under debate is how Japan will pay for the new funding. Kishida said Friday that while three-quarters of the funding can come in by reviewing current expenditures and moving them to defense. But the rest will come in through a mix of corporate, tobacco and disaster-reconstruction income taxes, said the prime minister, who has faced criticisms for passing on some of the new defense spending onto taxpayers. | 2022-12-16T12:25:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Japan boosts defense capabilities in new strategy document - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/japan-defense-strategy-missiles/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/japan-defense-strategy-missiles/ |
The beauty of friendships in parenthood
Perspective by Catherine Newman
“Same” is the most important word in our vocabulary. It’s just a shorthand expression of empathy, I guess, and it means: “I know how you feel.” It means: “You are not alone.” It means: “You are not insane.” Or maybe: “You are insane, but so am I.” Say it when the babies are babies: “I’m so tired I hope I get run over by a truck.” Same. Say it when the babies are children: “I feel like it’s the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ and all I do is wake up and make allergen-free cupcakes for the entire fifth grade.” Same. Say it when the babies leave for college: “I cried in front of the twin XL sheet display she was like, ‘Oh my God, Mom!’” Same.
Try to learn from your mistakes. “Unsolicited advice is the same thing as judgment” is a truth I understood too late in the case of one damaged friendship. We don’t need to be perfect to stay in each other’s lives, though. We can swim toward the shore of longevity through the unnerving shallows of our children not getting along with each other for a day or a month or a year. We can screw up and apologize and be forgiven. We can forgive and reorient and move forward. We can grow apart and set new boundaries and still want to spend time together. | 2022-12-16T12:25:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The beauty of friendships in parenthood - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/16/friendships-adulthood-motherhood-parenting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/16/friendships-adulthood-motherhood-parenting/ |
Peter (Pano) Kanelos, president of the University of Austin. (The University of Austin)
AUSTIN — Western civilization, of which universities once were ornaments and custodians, germinated in Greece. It is, therefore, appropriate that someone of Greek heritage is responding to the fact that many institutions of higher education are infested by unscholarly activists who are chagrined about this civilization.
Jefferson founded the University of Virginia with a political purpose: to produce lawyers unlike his cousinJohn Marshall, whom he detested. “Politics,” Kanelos says, “should be studied at a university. It should not be the operating system of the university.” His objective is a “nonpartisan and politically ecumenical” campus culture of robust argument. This, he thinks, will produce an elite with mental sinews so strengthened by the experience that these UATX graduates will leaven the upper reaches of American society. | 2022-12-16T12:34:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How to build a university unafraid of true intellectual diversity - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/university-of-austin-intellectual-diversity/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/university-of-austin-intellectual-diversity/ |
America is here to save the World Cup in 2026. You’re welcome, world.
American fans at Khalifa International Stadium cheer for the U.S. team following the match between the United States and the Netherlands during the Round of 16 of the FIFA World Cup 2022 on Nov. 29. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Will Leitch, the author of the novels “How Lucky” and the forthcoming “The Time Has Come,” is a contributing editor at New York magazine and the founder of the sports website Deadspin.
Even the timing of this World Cup has been a mistake. Because Qatar is so hot in the summer — and because the organizers were unable to deliver the air-conditioned stadiums they promised when FIFA gave Qatar the World Cup back in 2010 — the 2022 World Cup had to move to November, when the sporting calendar is jam-packed with competing options and everyone’s desperately trying to get their holiday shopping done. Having the World Cup in November is like having the Super Bowl in May or the World Series in a dome. It feels like a violation of the natural order.
Eugene Robinson: This World Cup is thrilling. That’s a problem.
Natasha Iskander: Qatar’s glittery World Cup disguises a dark reality
The saddest part about any World Cup is when it ends, when you realize you have to wait four long years until the next one. But, thanks to the irregularities of this World Cup, you don’t even have to hold out that long this time: It’s only 3½ years until June 8, 2026, when the opening game of the 2026 World Cup — which, I repeat, will not be held in Qatar — kicks off. | 2022-12-16T12:34:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | America is here to save the World Cup in 2026. You’re welcome, world. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/world-cup-qatar-north-america-usa-2026/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/world-cup-qatar-north-america-usa-2026/ |
Why the Dow demolished the S&P 500 this year
Just half a dozen stocks have made most of the difference
Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 15. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
One of the big stock market stories these days is how the Dow Jones industrial average, which has very little investor money tied to it, outperformed the S&P 500, which has trillions of dollars tied to it, by almost double digits for the first 11 months of the year.
If you’re not familiar with how the Dow and the S&P work, which is the case for millions (if not tens of millions) of retail investors, you might be tempted to dump some or all of your S&P-linked mutual funds and ETFs and replace them with Dow-linked investments.
Speaking as a longtime retail investor whose biggest stock investment is S&P index funds, let me tell you why replacing S&P-linked holdings with Dow-linked holdings probably would be a big mistake. I rarely offer specific investment advice because I’m a journalist, not some sort of market genius. But the more I look at where the Dow-S&P differential this year comes from, the more convinced I am that it’s a fluke — and that sticking with the S&P is the right thing to do.
If you take a close look at the numbers, you see that a mere six S&P companies — 1.02 percent of the S&P’s components — accounted for close to 80 percent of the 9.48 percent difference between the Dow and the S&P for the first 11 months of this year.
My numbers — but not my investment conclusions — come from statistics assembled for me by Howard Silverblatt, a senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices. He’s followed the Dow and the S&P for decades and has helped me learn about the difference between them.
Despite all the stuff that you read, hear and see that calls the Dow and S&P indexes, the Dow average is way different from the S&P 500, which is a true index.
The Dow was created in 1896, back when the only way to come up with a quickly computable stock market indicator was to average the share prices of the 12 issues that the Dow originally had. Later on, the Dow was expanded to its current 30 stocks.
By contrast, when the S&P got started with 500 stocks in 1957, it was possible to track the stock market value of all its components, which is how an index works.
The crucial difference between an index and an average is why there are $5.66 trillion of investments tied to the S&P, but only about $40 billion tied to the Dow. It’s also why the S&P is used as a benchmark by investors and money managers, but the Dow isn’t taken seriously.
In other words, the Dow has big mindshare among retail investors — but approximately zero mindshare among investment pros.
When the Dow first started, its value was calculated by adding up the share prices of its component stocks and dividing by the number of components. But to keep things like stock splits and changes in its component stocks from distorting the Dow, its administrators created something called the Dow divisor. (How the divisor is calculated is a story for some other day.)
The divisor is currently 0.1517. This means a one dollar change in the price of any of its 30 components changes the Dow by about 6.59 points — 1 divided by 0.1517.
Should UnitedHealth Group, whose share price was about $528 as of Thursday’s market close, decide to split its stock five-for-one to get its price down to about $100 to attract small retail investors, its weight on the Dow would fall by about 80 percent, the weight of the 29 other Dow stocks would rise and the divisor would change. But there would be no impact on the S&P.
“Over time the Dow and the S&P correlate,” Silverblatt says, “but shorter-term, due mostly to their weighting, they do not. The current historical large variance [for 2022] is a product of that weighting, where a few specific issues had a significant impact.”
Let me show you how different weightings allowed just over 1 percent of the S&P companies to account for almost 80 percent of the 11-month 9.54 percent difference in the Dow’s performance relative to the S&P.
Two stocks that are included in both market indicators — note that I didn’t say “market indexes” — account for a 1.7 percent discrepancy.
Apple, whose weight on the S&P greatly exceeds its weight on the Dow, accounted for 0.72 percent of the difference — it dragged down the Dow by 0.54 percent, but dragged down the S&P by 1.26 percent. Amgen, whose weight on the Dow substantially exceeds its weight in the S&P, boosted the Dow by 1.11 percent but boosted the S&P by only 0.13 percent. That accounts for 0.98 percent of the difference.
Finally, four companies whose stock is in the S&P but not in the Dow — Amazon, Meta (formerly Facebook), the A and B classes of Alphabet (formerly Google) and Tesla — accounted for 5.79 percent of the difference.
The fact that six companies account for so much of the S&P-Dow disparity is why I’m not taking it very seriously. Should the S&P way outperform the Dow next year for similar reasons, I won’t take that very seriously, either. And neither should you. | 2022-12-16T13:04:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why the Dow demolished the S&P 500 this year - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/16/dow-sp500-sloan/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/16/dow-sp500-sloan/ |
Florida Home Insurance Bailout Comes Up Short
Storms are only going to get worse for homeowners. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature has finally taken meaningful steps toward addressing the state’s runaway property insurance crisis. Unfortunately, it waited until the market was on the brink of collapse when good options were impossible to come by. Going forward, the legislature must prioritize forward-looking solutions to forestall future crises before they begin.
The Sunshine State, of course, is where expensive real estate bumps up against ever-intensifying hurricanes, the looming threat of rising seas and the most notoriously litigious insurance market in the country. It’s also a market full of smaller regional insurers with business models that rely on access to reinsurance, effectively insurance for insurers. The rising cost of those policies has been at least one cause of the latest turbulence.
The popular knock on the legislation — which a special session of the Florida legislature just approved and sent to Governor Ron DeSantis for his signature — is that it amounts to a bailout of the insurance industry that won’t immediately address homeowners’ surging premiums. That’s accurate, but more than keeping a lid on premiums, Florida lawmakers needed to make sure that residents retained access to insurance at all.
The legislation would create a $1 billion state-backed reinsurance fund that primary insurers can turn to for coverage. It also addresses companies’ runaway litigation costs by taking away an advantage that homeowners’ had enjoyed against insurers in court. Finally, it took steps to reduce the number of homeowners covered by a state-backed insurer of last resort, which offers below-market premiums that the industry contends hurt its ability to charge fair prices.
The reinsurance fund is, of course, the quintessential short-term fix to tide the market over until, hopefully, the other measures start to pay dividends. It’s clearly not sustainable to imagine a world in which the state is left holding the bag for private insurers’ catastrophic risk.
The change to the litigation outlook may have a more enduring impact, but it comes at a cost. Advocates for the insurance industry have long contended that the problem with Florida is the long tail of claims and lawsuits that has followed every natural disaster. Governor DeSantis claims that the state accounts for more than three-quarters of the nation’s property insurance lawsuits even though it has less than a 10th of the claims.
Part of the issue, as the argument goes, is that the state’s laws made it so attractive to sue. Until now, the law has dictated that defendants (insurers) had to pay the attorney’s fees for prevailing plaintiffs (ostensibly homeowners) — the so-called one-way attorney fee statute. The threat of massive attorneys’ fees incentivized companies to just settle claims, and in recent years, it has devolved into something of a racket. In the most egregious cases, contractors would encourage homeowners to file claims under false pretenses and then help bring the claims to opportunistic lawyers. (Most claims probably fall into more of a gray area and aren’t so obviously fraudulent, but the extreme versions are what you often hear from Republican lawmakers.) There’s little doubt that the lawsuits pushed up insurers’ costs.
To address the matter, the new legislation does away with the one-way attorney fee benefit, a politically difficult move that takes away a benefit to homeowners that — for all its abuse — also helped many people. But the situation had become so dire that it was a necessary step to preserve access to the market.
The final change of note aims to ease the burden of the crisis on Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state insurer of last resort. It may also push private insurance premiums higher, all else being equal.
Homeowners can get a Citizens policy at an implicitly subsidized rate as long as private premiums are at least 20% more expensive, which is increasingly the case. Once they get there, homeowners tend to stick with Citizens, pushing the Citizens portfolio above a million homes this year, including some of the riskiest properties that simply can’t get insured anywhere else. That may be putting an artificial cap on market prices, too, preventing insurers from charging what they deem to be a reasonable price for the risk. Under the new legislation, homeowners will be forced to leave Citizens once they can again find private-sector policies within 20% of the price of those issued by Citizens.
These reforms were largely necessary to address a crisis unfolding in real time, but they have come far too late and address only part of the problem. This back-against-the-wall situation arrived after years of both parties kicking the can down the road on an issue that’s only going to get more challenging as sea levels rise. On balance, the measures could control the litigation costs and allow companies to charge what they view as a legitimate premium. Ultimately, companies will always be happy to write new business if they think they can estimate their exposure and charge a reasonable price for their risk. The reforms to the litigation outlook and the insurer of last resort will help them do just that.
But the underlying risks themselves — intensifying hurricanes, rising seas and climate change more broadly — aren’t going away, and Florida remains woefully unprepared to deal with the costs. Development continues apace in some of the most obviously perilous coastal and barrier island communities. Insurers will surely be pleased that they can better balance risk and return going forward, and homeowners should be pleased that they won’t completely lose access to insurance. But how long they’ll be able to afford the cost is another question, and the Florida legislature has failed to address that fundamental problem of having costly real estate facing a looming storm.
• Band-Aids Won’t Solve Florida’s Insurance Crisis: Jonathan Levin
• After Hurricane Ian, Try Building Back Different: Editorial
• Florida’s Hurricane Blackouts Need a Solar Fix: Liam Denning | 2022-12-16T13:04:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida Home Insurance Bailout Comes Up Short - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/florida-home-insurance-bailout-comes-up-short/2022/12/16/337bc1da-7d3e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/florida-home-insurance-bailout-comes-up-short/2022/12/16/337bc1da-7d3e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
An equity fund, unions and Washington’s governor all wanted to restart an idle factory needed for the auto industry, but a federal power agency has balked
The Alcoa Intalco Works aluminum smelter sits idle in Ferndale, Wash. (Google Maps)
A private equity firm — backed by labor unions, electric-car makers and much of the Washington state political establishment — said it has failed to seal a deal with a federal electricity agency that would have restarted an aluminum smelter that has been idle for 2½ years, and some are questioning why the White House hasn’t intervened.
“The administration has done a lot of work to restart manufacturing,” said Joe Quinn, vice president of strategic industrial materials at Securing America’s Future Energy, a group of business and military officials. “It’s not clear to me why aluminum is not high up on their agenda.”
Blue Wolf Capital and the Bonneville Power Administration have been negotiating all year to revive the plant, which would have become the only aluminum plant west of the Mississippi River. The reopening would also have put about 700 highly paid union employees back to work and supplied the sturdy lightweight alloys that automakers and other manufacturers require.
The sticking point has been the cost of electricity, which aluminum production requires in abundance. Electricity accounts for 40 percent of manufacturing costs in aluminum smelters, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Bonneville Power, which markets electricity from the Pacific Northwest’s huge dams and sprawling transmission lines, says it simply doesn’t have enough dependable, low-cost carbon-free hydropower for the Intalco plant, which is set amid forests and pastureland on the shores of the Puget Sound. And BPA’s position is backed by local electrical utilities who cherish their dependable power supplies — and low rates — from the federal agency, which is overseen by the U.S. Energy Department.
But Bonneville Power said it could offer only a portion of the 400 megawatts of electricity that Blue Wolf said it needed to ensure its roughly $150 million investment would cover the cost of overhauling and then running the plant. Moreover, Bonneville Power spokesman Douglas Johnson said that the agency would supply that electricity only at market prices — rates significantly higher than those paid by the agency’s existing customers.
A factory wants to reopen making ‘green’ aluminum. Now it just needs clean energy.
Union officials hope another investor will step in to revive the plant, “but the outlook isn’t very good,” Luke Anderson, business representative of the local branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said on a Facebook group. While he said a new funding source was “just a few days away,” Anderson said that “no amount of money will make BPA budge.”
Senior labor union officials urged Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to step in because Bonneville Power is a self-funding agency within the Energy Department. But such a move would be highly unusual, and it is unclear whether Granholm tried to intervene. Department spokesmen did not return requests for comment.
In Washington, IAM International President Robert Martinez Jr. said the “inability to find a competitively priced source of power is beyond disappointing.” He said “it remains vitally important to our economic and national security to increase strategic domestic manufacturing and bolster our supply chains.”
Earlier this year, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee had urged Bonneville Power to reach an agreement with Blue Wolf Capital, saying in an email that an agreement would “demonstrate our national commitment to enhancing America’s competitiveness and investing in clean manufacturing technology.” The state also offered to provide $10 million to upgrade the plant.
In the Pacific Northwest, the decline of the aluminum manufacturers has reduced electricity usage, but that has been offset by greater industrial demands; a 15 percent increase in Washington state’s population; computer servers used by big tech firms to store information; and an influx of computers run continuously in a search for digital keys used to unlock cryptocurrencies.
BPA also said that when Alcoa, the plant’s previous owner and operator, closed the facility, it severed the power agreement and lost its contractual right to buy power as a direct industrial customer at special low rates. Blue Wolf Capital disputes that contractual interpretation.
Once Russia invaded Ukraine and disrupted world markets, the price of electric power rose broadly, nearly doubling in the Pacific Northwest. Many aluminum makers around the world have curtailed their operating hours because of it. Before the war in Ukraine, Russia had been a modest exporter of aluminum to the United States.
“The U.S. aluminum industry has been in steady decline for several decades,” said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance. The industry has been “shipping jobs overseas and importing pollution as we purchase foreign goods and primary aluminum made with lower environmental and labor standards, often from countries who are not our allies.”
Overall, however, global demand for aluminum could increase by as much as 80 percent by 2050, according to the International Aluminum Institute. Individual products will be lighter, though; Ford achieved weight reductions of up to 700 pounds in its 2015 model year F-150 trucks by using more aluminum. Given the energy intensity of both aluminum and steel, the company said in November that it would “purchase at least 10 percent near-zero carbon steel and aluminum by 2030.”
The Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed in August, provided some hope for Blue Wolf negotiators. It was targeted largely at climate change issues. It included a tax credit for domestic manufacturers of aluminum (as one of the bill’s “critical” minerals) and a production tax credit, plus a variety of other grants and loans.
But Blue Wolf Capital was dealt a setback on Dec. 9 when the World Trade Organization announced its opposition to steel and aluminum tariffs that had been put in place by President Donald Trump and maintained there by Biden.
Until 2000, the United States ranked as the world’s largest producer of primary aluminum, the Congressional Research Service said. But by 2021, the United States accounted for less than 2 percent of worldwide primary aluminum production; its rank tumbled to ninth among primary aluminum producers.
In 2000, 12 companies operated 23 primary smelting facilities in the United States; by the close of 2021, six primary smelters were operated by three firms, CRS said. One more smelter closed this year.
“Adding new capacity would have been terrific,” said Quinn, the vice president at Securing America’s Future Energy. He noted that the United States “on its best day” would import two-fifths of its 5 million metric tons a year of aluminum.
“In the recent Inflation Reduction Act, Congress supported the development of electric vehicles, solar, and wind power using domestic U.S. supplies,” said Joshua Gotbaum, an adviser to Blue Wolf who has served in five administrations. “All of those require aluminum, and virtually none of it will be U.S.-made without a U.S. aluminum industry.”
Gotbaum said in an email that “unless Congress and the Biden Administration do what virtually every other nation does — provide affordable electricity with government help — the U.S. aluminum industry will vanish and America’s energy transition will be forced to rely on the goodwill of other nations.”
Josh Partlow contributed to this report. | 2022-12-16T13:04:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Biden wants ‘green’ economy, but talks fail to revive key aluminum plant - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/16/biden-wants-green-economy-talks-fail-revive-key-aluminum-plant/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/16/biden-wants-green-economy-talks-fail-revive-key-aluminum-plant/ |
The footage, which has been donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, captured images of a man’s doomed neighbors in Poland
A still image from a home movie made by Harry Roher in his native Poland, in what is now Ukraine, in the mid-1930s. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, gift of Melanie Roher)
The men in the village put on their hats, coats and ties. The women donned pretty dresses. The girls wore braided pigtails tied with ribbons.
Everybody had come out to greet native son Harry Roher, who returned to Mikolajow after 25 years in America, with a car, cigars and his home movie camera.
It was 1936 in this small community near Lviv in what was then Poland, now Ukraine. Most of the people who lived there were Jewish. Grocers, farmers, peddlers, bakers.
And most were probably doomed — to be gunned down by the Nazis, worked to death in labor gangs or murdered in the gas chambers of the Belzec extermination camp soon to be built about 65 miles away.
As Harry Roher’s movie camera rolled, it captured in 23 minutes rare fragments of a world soon to be destroyed, innocent people unaware of the coming disaster and scenes that illustrate the tragedy of Holocaust in World War II.
Over the summer, his film, on a metal movie reel that had been stored in a basement, was donated to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington by his granddaughter, Melanie Roher, 74, of White Plains, N.Y.
The museum, which has separately just launched a project to gather Holocaust-era home movies, will have the film digitized in coming months.
In rare home movies, Harry Roher’s camera captured what life was like for people in a small community in then Poland, now Ukraine, in 1936. (Video: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/gift of Melanie Roher)
The museum has been preserving Holocaust-era films for years, but this is the first time it has specifically asked for home movies, said Leslie Swift, special adviser for time-based media at the museum.
“It’s the intimacy and the individuality” that makes them so valuable, she said in an email. “The fact that we’re privileged enough to view these intimate family scenes of people whose lives are about to be completely upended.”
“It helps to humanize and individualize the vastness of the Holocaust and personalize history that is sometimes only communicated through statistics,” she added.
Melanie Roher, the donor, said in a recent telephone interview: “These people have come alive again … [in] a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“It just gives you chills,” she said.
The Holocaust was the mass murder of Europe’s Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies before and during World War II. An estimated 6 million Jews were killed.
The movies were shot by Harry Roher and someone who was with him during a trip to Europe in 1936. His traveling companion is unknown. Harry Roher died in 1950.
The film was previously enhanced digitally by the donor, but Swift, of the museum, said the new digitized version will be dramatically better. “It’s going to look gorgeous,” she said. It will available later on the museum’s website.
Footage from that era is a relative rarity, she added, especially from that part of Eastern Europe. It was preserved only because Harry Roher brought it home with him and it was kept by his family.
“What good was it doing sitting in my basement?” Melanie Roher said in an email. She said she hopes some people in the film may be recognized and identified.
“At the very least, this window on a community that was destroyed by the Nazis will live on in the museum,” she said. “It is a memorial to all those faces in the film, all those children who were murdered.”
Harry Roher was 21 when emigrated to the United States from Mikolajow in 1910, according to U.S. government documents. His passage on the German liner President Lincoln was paid by his sister, Sally, who sold her pearls to get the money, Melanie Roher said.
Melanie Roher never got to know her grandfather. She was 2 years old when he died. But she said she learned Harry was apparently raised by grandparents and became bored working in the local potato fields where he would often carve figures out of the potatoes.
In the United States, he became a successful dress designer and manufacturer, she said. He and his wife, Yetta, had four children and lived in a brick house in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was in his mid-40s when he went back to Mikolajow.
The silent, black-and-white footage begins with his festive departure from New York, amid much hugging and kissing. He traveled on the luxurious French ocean liner Normandie.
There are scenes, apparently shot by his traveling companion, of Harry on the boat, looking snappy in a white cap, white slacks and white shoes. He is wearing a coat and tie, and smoking a cigar.
There are scenes that appear to be in France and later in Lviv, Melanie Roher said.
Lviv is about 12 miles northwest of Mikolajow, and there were close connections between then two places. (Thousands of Jews in Lviv were also massacred in the Holocaust.)
In Lviv, Harry is filmed embracing some well-dressed people who seem to be old friends or relatives. He has a warm smile and a receding hairline. He is the picture of success, in a three-piece suit, pocket hankie and a white fedora.
Melanie Roher said those who appear in this part of footage are unidentified. They were probably people her grandfather knew. “Why else is he taking their picture?” she said. “I’m assuming they’re cousins, relatives of some kind.”
The next scenes appear to be in Mikolajow, she said. It looks like a rural, dusty place. The footage shows a synagogue, thatched roof buildings and farm wagons in the background. Men in the fields pause with their farm tools.
But other people seem to be wearing their best clothes.
“It’s like everyone got dressed up to be in the movie,” Melanie Roher said.
She added that she had once talked to a former resident of the town who survived the war and recalled Harry’s visit.
“She remembered this big exciting event [when] Roher came from America — in a car,” she said. “They had never seen a car in this village.”
Outside in the sunshine, groups of people walk toward the camera. One man gently herds three children forward to be filmed. A woman walks to the camera with her arm around a young man in suspenders who looks like he could be her son.
In another shot, half the town seems to have come out to see the rich American and his camera. Men with beards. Women in head shawls and aprons. Two teenage girls laugh as they hold hands.
And in another scene, a group of boys is assembled. Several look ragged, and the camera pans over their bare feet.
Glenn Kurtz, whose 2014 book, “Three Minutes in Poland,” is about footage his grandfather shot in another Jewish community in 1938, said “these will be the only moving images” ever taken of the people of Mikolajow.
“Even a second or two of someone gesturing or talking or motioning toward the camera is a precious record of a distinctive life,” he said in an email.
One day this summer at the Holocaust museum’s Shapell conservation center in Bowie, Md., Swift put on a pair of white gloves and took the reel of Harry Roher’s film from its yellow container. She carefully pulled off a strip of film to examine it.
“So this looks like it’s really in pretty good shape,” she said
She said it looked like the film was made up of several bits spliced together. She was not sure how long it was, in feet.
“It’s important to see them as normal people, having normal lives,” she said. Because, “you know what’s going to happen.”
The German army reached the area around Lviv in summer 1941, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi forces invaded the Soviet Union during World War II, according to the Holocaust museum’s Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos.
The Nazis, and many local citizens, were fueled by virulent antisemitism and eager to kill as many Jews as possible, as fast as possible.
Outside Lviv, there were two towns named Mikolajow, about 20 miles apart.
Both had many Jewish residents. But Roher’s hometown was called “the Jewish Mikolajow” because half the population was Jewish, according to a 1996 memoir by the late Aaron Schwadron, who had left the town right before the war.
Oppression began as soon as the Germans arrived in the area. Property was seized. Money was extorted. People were rounded up and forced into slave labor gangs. Many were brutalized by sadistic Nazi soldiers or shot dead.
In the Jewish Mikolajow, “all the elderly were gathered, including my father,” and were sent to a nearby village, Schwadron wrote.
“They were forced to dig their own graves and then stood there while the Nazi machine-guns killed them one by one,” he wrote. “The Germans did not even bother to cover the graves. Only the horrible smell of the victims forced the people of the village to cover the graves after a few days.”
Others from Mikolajow were gassed in the Belzec death camp, according to a Holocaust database in Israel’s Yad Vashem remembrance center. They included Sumer Blaich, who was about 27, and appeared briefly in Harry Roher’s film. He was identified by Schwadron.
In Belzec, people were murdered in gas chambers with carbon monoxide from a diesel engine, author Martin Gilbert wrote in his 1985 history of the Holocaust in Europe. Of the roughly 600,000 people eventually sent to Belzec, only two are believed to have survived, Gilbert wrote.
But that horror was still in the future as Harry Roher puffed his cigars, ran his camera in Mikolajow and tried to get everybody he could on film.
Near the end of the footage, he can be seen urging another group of villagers to walk to the camera. He steers the people toward the lens and then, with a jaunty wave, disappears from the frame. | 2022-12-16T13:05:10Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rare film of rural Jewish life, before it was crushed by the Nazis. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/16/holocaust-nazis-poland-movie-museum/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/12/16/holocaust-nazis-poland-movie-museum/ |
Is Kevin McCarthy okay?
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) attends a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. (Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)
They were only trying to help.
A group of House Republican moderates (yes, a few specimens still survive in the wild) met with Kevin McCarthy this week to help him right his listing bid for the speakership. In a show of support, they passed out pro-McCarthy lapel buttons: stars on a field of blue with a red band in the middle that proclaimed, simply, “O.K.”
The letters were meant to signify “Only Kevin,” CNN’s Melanie Zanona reported, as a rejoinder to the Never-McCarthy hard-liners on the right. But the message had an unfortunate double meaning that highlighted the doubts about the always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride candidate for speaker. McCarthy is just that: Okay. As in: not great. Not even above average. Just okay. One can anticipate future pro-McCarthy slogans as the Jan. 3 speaker election approaches:
“McCarthy is adequate.”
“He’s the best we’ve got.”
“[Shrug emoji].”
The “O.K.” buttons may have been the biggest messaging misfire since McCarthy, called a “moron” by Speaker Nancy Pelosi over his resistance to pandemic safety measures, removed all doubt about the charge by selling T-shirts with large letters proudly announcing: “Moron.”
The “O.K.” buttons fared no better than the “Moron” T-shirts. I watched members vote on the House floor soon after the distribution of the buttons. I couldn’t spot a single member wearing one.
McCarthy has a knack for garbled messages. If he does succeed in his speakership quest (which is likely, if only for the lack of an alternative), he will earn the distinction of being the first speaker in U.S. history not to speak fluent English.
For eight years, I have been attempting to make sense of his sentences and mostly come up empty. Deep in his brain there seems to be a syntax scrambler (I’m guessing it was put there by Hunter Biden, or perhaps the Chinese) that causes violent clashes between subjects and objects, nouns and verbs, singular and plural, and past and present.
In 2014, I wrote that “his words come out as if they have been translated by Google from a foreign language.” Revisiting his “valiant but often unsuccessful struggles with the English language” a year later, I concluded: “The speaker-apparent apparently still can’t speak.”
Now he’s making another lunge for the top job, and words continue to bedevil him. “We’re Christmas season,” he announced this week. We are? He continued: “A talk of the majority right now who wants to put a small continuing resolution to bump all the members up two days before Christmas, to try to vote on a package they cannot read, written by two individuals who will not be here, on spending for the entire government.”
Do not even attempt to diagram that sentence. Nor these:
“Did they learn nothing in the last month election? Did they learn nothing with the American public being harmed? And to walk through to pass the largest bill that we passed throughout the year in the last days before Christmas, where they won’t even tell you what the baseline is now, the two people who will not be here are held accountable to their constituents, that they’re going to determine this?”
Have I answers no to questions pose you, Speaker Mister.
Out tumbled clauses and phrases cruelly severed from their intended meaning: “Now they want to jam the American public in exactly what they want to do … stop the fentanyl coming for killing our children … we wouldn’t have a border that’s run away … we do much stronger in the majority …. What argument did I propose that have anything to do with the speaker? … And if two people who are who deciding it aren’t going to be held up to the voters, do you feel good about that as an American, not about as a reporter?”
In fairness, the zaniness in McCarthy’s caucus would be enough to scramble the most orderly mind. Consider just a few examples from recent days.
Russia’s release of basketball star Brittney Griner in a prisoner exchange prompted the usual denunciations by Republicans and (of course!) calls for President Biden’s impeachment. But Rep. torm of Texas saw a conspiracy afoot. “I find the timing of this interesting,” he told the right-wing outlet Newsmax. “We pass this Marriage Equality Act and it’s interesting — Brittney Griner comes home that day.” So Vladimir Putin and Biden were secretly in cahoots to promote same-sex marriage by sending Griner home to her wife?
Not to be outdone, Rep. James Comer (Ky.), who will chair the House Oversight Committee, suggested the WNBA star’s release was tied to … Hunter Biden. “We fear that this administration’s compromised because of the millions of dollars that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden have received from Russia and China,” he told Fox News. “You look at just what happened yesterday. This bizarre prisoner swap that clearly was in the benefit of Russia, is another example of why we need to investigate to see if, in fact, this administration is compromised.”
But the secret Hunter Biden-Brittney Griner nexus had to compete with many other outrages identified by House Republicans. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, speaking at a New York Republican dinner, announced that “you can pick up a butt plug or a dildo at Target and CVS nowadays.” She further informed the group that if she and Steve Bannon had organized the Jan. 6 insurrection, “we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”
Actually, Jan. 6 insurrectionists were armed. Perhaps the Georgia Republican would have supplied the mob with drugstore sex toys?
We also learned this week that, 11 days after the insurrection, and three days before Biden’s inauguration, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) was still trying to get President Donald Trump to declare martial law. His only problem was he didn’t know how to spell it. In a text to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows just published by Talking Point Memo, Norman wrote: “Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!!”
If this weren’t evidence enough that McCarthy’s incoming majority has gone to the dogs, Politico’s Daniel Lippman reports that incoming Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) hired as his chief of staff one Brandon Phillips, who was arrested last month on a charge of animal cruelty for allegedly kicking a dog and cutting its belly. The would-be staffer had resigned as Trump’s Georgia director in 2016 after his prior criminal history came out.
Congressman, please: Let go Brandon.
McCarthy’s lead tormentor is Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), who is mounting a symbolic candidacy for speaker and is part of a bloc of five Never-McCarthy Republicans vowing to deny Mr. O.K. the job. McCarthy doesn’t have five votes to spare, so he is cutting backroom deals with Republican holdouts that would effectively surrender to right-wingers the power to paralyze the chamber for the next two years.
The latest demand from the holdouts? Immediate impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s secretary of homeland security.
This week, I listened for more than 40 minutes as Biggs and his colleagues (16 White men and two White women, by my count) took turns denouncing Mayorkas. Standing behind a campaign-style Impeach Mayorkas yard sign, they were strikingly personal in their attacks: “Regularly lies.” “Malice against the people of the United States.” “Intentional and knowing disregard for human life.” “Disgusting.” “Despicable.” “Purposefully endangering the American people … for crass political purposes.”
But they didn’t have much in the way of high crimes and misdemeanors. Mostly, they objected to the border policies of Mayorkas’s boss. For example, Norman, of “Marshall Law” fame, claimed that Biden had said the border “is not a problem.” (Biden said no such thing.)
Rep. Brian Babin (R-Tex.) complained that “sixteen thousand illegal aliens were apprehended crossing the southern border in the last 48 hours. Also in the last 48 hours, $97 million worth of narcotics were seized.” Umm, doesn’t that mean that border laws are being enforced?
Before the election, McCarthy said he didn’t think anybody in the Biden administration deserved impeachment. But the Biggs band has forced a U-turn. Two weeks after the election, McCarthy threatened Mayorkas with impeachment. Biggs boasted to me and other reporters that it happened only “after he knew that he was facing somebody who was gonna possibly deny him the speakership.”
McCarthy’s flip-flop on the Mayorkas impeachment is just one of many concessions hard-liners are extorting. Some are parliamentary. Others are oddly specific, such as cuts to food stamps. (Take food from hungry people or kiss your speakership goodbye!) Members of the far-right Freedom Caucus have demanded McCarthy include right-wing poison pills in future debt ceiling increases and must-pass bills — an almost certain prescription for defaults and shutdowns.
Fearing just such an outcome from the House radicals, Senate Republicans have reached out to House Democrats to negotiate an omnibus spending bill for 2023 (an “omni-bill” in McCarthy-speak) before the GOP takeover of the House on Jan. 3. Why? They don’t think McCarthy will be up to the task.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told Politico “it’s too much to ask” of McCarthy to fund the government. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told Semafor that “for Kevin’s sake … some Republicans just feel like we should relieve him of that burden.”
McCarthy initially agreed with his would-be Senate saviors, and encouraged negotiators to reach a deal. But (recurring theme alert) he reversed himself under pressure from hard-liners, and now says the matter should wait until Republicans take control.
A band of Senate conservatives this week tried to rally support behind McCarthy’s latest position, urging GOP colleagues to postpone the negotiations.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said he disagreed with the several Republicans who told him “it’ll be too hard for Kevin McCarthy.”
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) urged a postponement to give “House Republican leadership opportunity to … come up with a plan.”
But the Senate band was small: only four lawmakers. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), billed as a participant, was a no-show. A reporter asked if the sparse attendance meant that Senate Republicans are “tacitly admitting that House Republicans just aren’t ready.”
“Umm,” replied Lee, “those who are making that point are not doing so tacitly. They’re doing so explicitly.”
And they’re doing so because they know that an O.K. speaker of the House is not good enough. | 2022-12-16T13:05:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Is Kevin McCarthy okay? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/kevin-mccarthy-republican-party-leadership-speaker/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/kevin-mccarthy-republican-party-leadership-speaker/ |
“I have complete faith in the guy,” Lions Coach Dan Campbell said this week of quarterback Jared Goff, above. (Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
Among the assets received by the Detroit Lions from the Los Angeles Rams in the January 2021 trade that sent Matthew Stafford to the West Coast, was the Rams’ 2023 first-round pick, which would be in the top five if the season ended today. Los Angeles figured to eventually pay the piper for its all-in approach to roster building, and it simply appears the bill is coming due sooner than many expected.
Yet in a somewhat shocking twist, the quarterback the Rams were so eager to cast off in that trade, Jared Goff, has also started to look like a prized possession for the Lions. The No. 1 overall pick in 2016 has been playing so well of late that it’s fair to wonder if they might just continue to build around him and forgo using the Rams’ pick on a quarterback, despite next year’s draft appearing to have a number of enticing prospects at the position.
If nothing else, it’s clear that Goff has gone from an afterthought to earning the confidence of his coaches in Detroit.
With the 28-year-old enjoying one of the most productive stretches of his seven-year NFL career, his team has turned its season around. After starting 1-6 following last year’s 3-13-1 campaign, Goff’s first with the Lions, they have gone 5-1. Suddenly, at 6-7, Detroit is in contention for its first playoff appearance since 2016 and just its fourth since the turn of the millennium.
“I really just enjoy winning with these guys,” Goff said Wednesday, “and whatever people may have said earlier on in the year, they were probably justified in some ways. We were 1-6 and not playing very well.
“Now we are playing pretty well, and everyone seems to have changed their mind on us, and we try to stay right in the middle. I think that’s the biggest challenge for us now, is show our maturity and show we can handle a little bit of praise.”
If he wants that praise to continue as well as rewrite Detroit’s plans at quarterback, Goff must lead the squad through a difficult closing slate that begins Sunday at the New York Jets. Three of the Lions’ final four regular season games are on the road and all are against teams in the top half of the league in passing defense, including a pair of top-five units in the Jets and Green Bay Packers.
By comparison, Detroit just enjoyed five home games in a seven-game stretch, and its past two foes, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings, are in the bottom five in passing yardage allowed. Lions teams of recent vintage were largely unable to take any advantage of schedule favorability. This group, led by second-year coach Dan Campbell and featuring a stout offensive line, talented skill-position players and an emerging defense, has the look of a growing threat.
To judge from comments this week, Campbell has come a long way in his appraisal of Goff since last October, when he said after a loss dropped the Lions to 0-6, “It’s time to step up and make some throws and do some things.”
When Detroit reached its bye week at 0-8-1, Campbell did something by relieving offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn of play-calling duties and elevating tight ends coach Ben Johnson to passing game coordinator. Goff responded by posting a 107.1 passer rating over his final five starts in 2021 with 11 touchdowns to just two interceptions, not to mention leading the Lions to their only three wins. Johnson has drawn widespread praise this season for his work as the new offensive coordinator, and apart from a two-game October interlude in which Detroit was throttled by the New England Patriots and Dallas Cowboys, Goff has mostly continued that upward trend
“I would say it’s grown as the season’s gone on,” Campbell said Monday of his level of confidence in Goff. “ … There were things early, when we were really trying to outscore, really trying to push the ball, there’d be times where you’re holding your breath. You get the risk, but, man, be careful with it. And it bit us a little bit. …
“It’s been a long time [since then], and I have complete faith in the guy,” Campbell continued. “He’s done an unbelievable job just getting us in the right play, decision-making, his ball accuracy. He made about three or four throws yesterday with pressure right in his face.”
Brewer: Nothing’s more valuable than a franchise quarterback, but at what cost?
Those remarks came after Goff threw for 330 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions or sacks taken and a 120.7 rating in last week’s 34-23 win over the NFC North-leading Minnesota Vikings (10-3). That gave him 3,352 passing yards and 22 touchdowns this season, better numbers in 13 starts than he had in 14 last year. Goff is also posting his best marks since 2018 in notable categories such as touchdown pass percentage (5.0), yards per attempt (7.5), passer rating (97.9) and QBR (61.2).
While the game charters at Pro Football Focus don’t appear particularly impressed with Goff, giving him just the 25th-best grade in passing among quarterbacks with at least 100 attempts, some advanced statistics paint a more flattering picture.
In Football Outsiders’ defense-adjusted yards above replacement, its primary metric for quarterbacks, Goff sits in third place, just behind the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa. Goff is ninth in expected points added per play (via rbsdm.com), just as he is in the top 10 in a number of traditional quarterback statistics.
All of this individual success has begun to alter a narrative that Goff, who was dreadful as a rookie under then-Rams coach Jeff Fisher, was a creation of Sean McVay’s innovative schemes in Los Angeles. Once opponents started to catch on to what McVay’s Rams were doing, possibly starting with an ugly, 13-3 loss to Bill Belichick’s Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, Goff’s many limitations were exposed. Or so it appeared, and perhaps what’s happening now is simply the arrival of the NFL’s next offensive wunderkind in Johnson, who is garnering plenty of buzz as a head coaching candidate.
Still, it’s one thing for an offensive coordinator to scribble down a great scheme, and another for his quarterback to execute it on the field.
“Jared Goff can make pretty much every throw in this league that we’d ever ask him to do,” Johnson said this month after Goff held his own against a tough Bills defense and just before he strafed the Jaguars for 340 yards on 75.6 percent passing. “I’ve got confidence in that.” | 2022-12-16T13:08:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jared Goff is forcing the Lions to rework their QB draft plans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/jared-goff-lions/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/jared-goff-lions/ |
Virginia guard Reece Beekman's status remains uncertain heading into Saturday's game against Houston. (Paul Sancya/AP)
CHARLOTTESVILLE — The second-ranked Virginia men’s basketball team will have gone 11 days without a game when it steps onto the court Saturday afternoon to face No. 5 Houston at John Paul Jones Arena in the Cavaliers’ final high-profile nonconference showdown of the regular season.
Virginia’s longest layoff this season has included players taking a break for exams as well as to rest and, in some cases, to heal before what figures to be one of their stiffest tests in an atmosphere expected to have the feel of later rounds in the NCAA tournament.
The Cavaliers (8-0) are off to their best start since 2018-19 when they won the national championship. Houston (9-1) had been ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll for two straight weeks before losing at home to No. 4 Alabama, 71-65, this past Saturday.
It marks the third time this season the Cavaliers are playing a ranked opponent and the second time they draw the No. 5 team in the country. The first resulted in an 86-79 victory over Baylor in the first round of the Main Event tournament Nov. 18 in Las Vegas.
“You want to put yourself in those spots because you learn a lot,” Virginia Coach Tony Bennett said of the rugged nonconference schedule. “And everyone’s good for the most part in college basketball, but these games create a unique environment that is something you want to get to as the season goes on.”
Virginia is coming off beating James Madison, 55-50, Dec. 6 at home to avoid a second straight loss to its Commonwealth rival. The victory, however, came at a cost as guard Reece Beekman missed the majority of the game because of injury. His status for Saturday is uncertain.
The 6-foot-3 junior played the first 3:47 against James Madison before limping off the court favoring his right leg. The athletic training staff examined Beekman on the bench and in the locker room, determining the best course of action would be to keep him out the rest of the way.
Beekman clutched his right thigh as he sat on a chair immediately following the injury that took place when he stole a pass and swooped in for a fast-break layup. While running back on defense, Beekman pulled up and grimaced in pain.
Beekman did not speak to reporters afterward, but Bennett indicated the issue might be a hamstring strain. Entering the game, Beekman had been nursing a sore right ankle he hurt Nov. 29 in the first half of a 70-68 win against Michigan.
“He rolled his ankle against Michigan, and that was a problem,” Bennett said. “And after that I don’t know if he was favoring it, having some trouble with the hamstring. I was just told after the first media timeout that was it. The docs said, ‘You’re probably going to have to hold him.’ ”
Beekman is the Cavaliers’ most disruptive on-ball defender with 12 steals, the second most on the team, and has emerged as a savvy facilitator. He’s second in assists (37) behind Kihei Clark (40), with whom he shares point guard duties, and first in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.8).
Virginia at times appeared out of sync against the Dukes when Beekman went to the bench, and Bennett was compelled to play guard Isaac McKneely and forward Ryan Dunn, both freshmen, far more than usual.
A 9-1 burst in the second half allowed the Cavaliers to hang on even after James Madison trimmed the margin to 52-50 with 1:01 to play. Dunn’s contested field goal with 35.1 seconds left and a free throw from Clark with 8.6 seconds remaining sealed the triumph.
Virginia again sparkled on defense, extending a trend this season with players having grown more comfortable executing Bennett’s pack line. JMU shot 27.3 percent against the Cavaliers, who lead the ACC in scoring defense (57.9) and are also first in field goal percentage defense (39.4).
The Cougars, meantime, lead Division I in both categories, permitting 49.4 points per game and 31.6 percent shooting. They’re also second in adjusted defense, according to advanced analytics from kenpom.com.
Virginia lost, 67-47, to Houston on the road last season, matching its most lopsided margin of defeat on the campaign. The Cavaliers shot 34.9 percent and went 4 of 19 (21.1 percent) on three-pointers, including missing all seven of their attempts in the second half.
“Next opponent is Houston, and we owe them one, and they’re coming here, so I think it’s going to be a big, giant atmosphere,” said forward Jayden Gardner, who leads Virginia in rebounding (6.4) and is tied for first in scoring (11.6) with Clark. “I know the young guys haven’t experienced what it’s like to play Houston, but they’re very tough and physical.” | 2022-12-16T13:08:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No. 2 Virginia faces No. 5 Houston with Reece Beekman’s status unclear - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/virginia-houston-reece-beekman/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/virginia-houston-reece-beekman/ |
Why is it so hard to bring brutal despots to justice?
In ‘To Catch a Dictator,’ Reed Brody tells the long, tangled tale of reeling in Chad’s Hissene Habre
Review by Steven Levingston
(Illustration by Matt Rota for The Washington Post)
When Hissene Habre, the former dictator of Chad, was arrested early one Sunday morning in June 2013 at his luxurious compound-in-exile in Dakar, Senegal, celebrations erupted across the country he had terrorized some 2,000 miles away. As president of Chad from 1982 to 1990, Habre slaughtered, starved and raped his people and pilfered millions of dollars. In 1992, a national truth commission estimated that he and his political police were responsible for systematic torture and the deaths of 40,000 Chadians.
Now in custody, the despot would finally have to answer for his crimes.
In his book, “To Catch a Dictator,” Reed Brody, an American lawyer who worked on the case for Human Rights Watch, recounts the long effort to bring Habre to justice. It’s an absorbing saga that raises a disturbing question: How do brutal fascists like Habre and other murderous heads of state evade a courtroom reckoning for so long after falling from power? For nearly 25 years, Chad’s former ruler “enjoyed a comfortable exile” with “villas and servants and dazzling views of the Atlantic Ocean,” Brody writes. “One thing we knew … was that Habré would not be going down quietly.”
The evidence against him was stark and indisputable. Yet Habre maintained his freedom by exploiting the complexities of international justice, stirring up remnants of his power base, and capitalizing on the shifting winds of African politics and geopolitics. His case underscores a dispiriting truth: Despots, still fearsome in exile, maintain an outsize advantage over their justice-seeking victims. Institutions for adjudicating the worst offenses of fascist rule are often slow, ineffectual or even nonexistent. As Brody observes, in its first 18 years, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the permanent global tribunal for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, “secured only three final convictions of rebel warlords, not heads of state.” In the absence of robust international action to redress human rights abuses, the victims, lawyers and activists propelling the case against Habre had to pioneer their own path to justice.
Habre, born into a Chadian shepherd family, showed his taste for brutality in the 1970s as a guerrilla commander in the country’s northern desert. But President Ronald Reagan, who came into office in 1981 with a hard line on terrorism, had identified Habre as a counterweight to the unpredictable Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, Chad’s neighbor to the north; to contain Gaddafi, Reagan provided covert cash and arms to Habre, giving him the firepower to take control of Chad in a coup in 1982.
High-ranking Reagan administration officials were aware of Habre’s penchant for violence, but the White House stood firmly behind its man. After an Oval Office meeting with Habre in 1987, Reagan praised him for what he called Habre’s commitment to “building a better life for the Chadian people,” adding that the United States “will continue to do our best, to work with France and other steadfast partners in the international effort to help reach President Habre’s laudatory goals.”
When Brody dove into the case a decade after Habre’s ouster, he had a large profile as a strategist, fundraiser and counsel with a major human rights organization. A longtime activist who sought to uncover atrocities around the world, he coveted the attention of journalists and filmmakers. He concedes, “I can’t deny that I love seeing myself in the media.” But African history and cultural sensitivities demanded that Brody rein himself in. “As an outside actor I needed to tread with humility and avoid reproducing a postcolonial hierarchy,” he writes. Brody knew he had to sidestep coming across as a representative, as he puts it, of “the ‘savages, victims, and saviors’ construct, in which white activists rescue black victims from black perpetrators.” He was also “keenly aware of the contradictions of being an American lawyer seeking to prosecute an American-backed dictator.”
While his instinct was to try to control everything, Brody accepted that he needed to cede the spotlight to his African partners. “Chad was their country, their history, their future,” he writes. “My African partners and I had to figure out ways to spread ownership of the campaign.” That meant putting Chadian lawyers, activists and, most important, victims center stage. Habre’s cruelty would emerge most powerfully through the stories of those who suffered. “The case,” Brody writes, was about “giving the victims a means to claim their dignity.”
Souleymane Guengueng, an accountant who had been locked up in Chad for three years on false charges of aiding the opposition, formed an association of victims to collect their stories and begin efforts to bring the despot to trial. In prison, Guengueng had eaten one meal a day, contracted dengue fever and malaria, could barely stand, and was overwhelmed by the stench of human waste and decomposing corpses in the cells. In 110-degree heat, some prisoners sought relief by using the cold corpses as pillows. Guengueng “took an oath before God that if he ever got out of prison alive, he would spend the rest of his days fighting to bring his oppressors to justice,” Brody writes.
Chadian lawyer Jacqueline Moudeïna, who survived an assassination attempt, filed criminal complaints on behalf of the victims and assumed a prominent role throughout the case. “As soon as Habré fell from power in 1990,” Moudeïna writes in a foreword to Brody’s book, “I started imagining his trial and imagining, too, that I would be part of it.”
Though Habre’s crimes were exposed through the Chadian truth commission of 1992, progress toward prosecution went nowhere. It wasn’t until 2000, a decade after Habre’s downfall, that a judge in Senegal charged the former Chadian ruler with torture and other crimes. Soon afterward, Senegal’s new president, Abdoulaye Wade, appointed Habre’s lawyer as his legal adviser, and the indictment was dismissed. The court ruled that Senegal had no jurisdiction over egregious crimes committed in another country.
But the decision ignored several important cases brought in the 1990s that had proved exactly the opposite. Those cases on the Bosnian and Rwandan genocides, and even the arrest of the former dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet, in London, were brought under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which permits prosecution of perpetrators of the most heinous crimes outside the states in which the crimes were committed. In the same period, progress was underway to create the International Criminal Court to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes when national courts fail to do so.
The significance of universal jurisdiction extends beyond Chad to war crimes occurring today in places such as Ukraine. While Russian President Vladimir Putin may escape justice as long as he’s in office, some perpetrators of Russia’s criminal actions in Ukraine could find themselves in an international court.
The legal trend also augured well for the Habre case. “Together, with the creation of the ICC, the arrest [of Pinochet] seemed to portend a sea change in holding leaders accountable,” Brody writes.
Adding to the grisly personal accounts of Chad’s victims, thousands of documents came to light in 2001 that directly implicated Habre in torture and prisoner deaths. The word “torture” rarely appeared in the records, but the descriptions left no doubt. In all, the documents contained information on 12,321 victims, 1,208 deaths in detention and 1,265 direct communications to Habre on the status of 898 prisoners. Some documents were marked with what appeared to be Habre’s handwriting, indicating that the former president had been fully apprised of the torture and killings. With proof of Habre’s complicity, Brody writes, “we could, in legal parlance, ascribe ‘command responsibility’ to him and use it as a basis for charging and convicting him.”
Still, months turned into years until, in September 2005, a Belgian judge, Daniel Fransen, indicted Habre for the second time. Under the law of universal jurisdiction, he sought the former despot’s extradition to Belgium for trial. The move roiled sensitivities in Senegal, where “the Senegalese did not appreciate the perception that they were being told what to do,” Brody writes. “The idea that a European colonial power would seek to prosecute an African president struck a raw nerve.” On appeal, the Senegalese court denied the Belgian request.
The ruling stirred momentum for a possible African solution under the direction of the African Union, a body of states working to promote unity across the continent, defend sovereignty and eradicate colonialism. When the African Union mandated that Senegal should prosecute Habre, President Wade finally fell into line now that “he had the full weight of the African Union behind him,” Brody explains.
Although the case plodded forward, the book moves along at a good clip in fairly brief chapters recounting the legal and political twists and turns, building suspense, and causing a reader to wonder: Will any of this persistence ever result in justice?
Brody’s obsession with Habre proves a detriment to his marriage, which collapses. As the case drags on into 2010, Brody measures the passage of time with a vivid analogy: “My son Zac was born when Habré was arrested for the first time [in 2000]; he was 5 when Belgium requested his extradition, 6 when the African Union ordered Senegal to host the trial, and so on. Now Zac was 10.”
At last, in 2013, Habre was arrested and indicted to stand trial before a tribunal called the Extraordinary African Chambers, established by the African Union specifically for his case. But the former despot refused to recognize the chambers’ jurisdiction and declared that his initial forced presence in court was a kidnapping. When his trial finally opened, in July 2015, dozens of his supporters swarmed the courtroom chanting slogans. Habre sprang up and shouted with them until guards dragged him out while he cried: “This is a farce! This is a farce!” When he refused to return to the courtroom the following day, Senegalese guards carried him in “kicking and screaming, like a petulant child,” Brody recounts. During the trial, the former president “sat in a trancelike silence,” Brody observes, “never turning to face the witnesses.” His body was wrapped in a white boubou, and a turban hid his entire face, except for a pair of large, dark sunglasses.
The testimony was vivid and unsettling. Mahamat Nour Dadji was 17 when he was hustled off to the political police headquarters. What he saw shocked him: agents using pliers to tear out a man’s fingernails; a prisoner with his arms and legs tied behind his back in a form of torture known as the arbatachar.
Clément Abaifouta, who spent four years in prison, recounted tossing dead inmates onto a truck and burying them in a mass grave that became known as the Plain of the Dead.
Khadidja Hassan Zidane described her ruined life: the execution of her husband, the torture of her mother, the seizure of her family’s property. She pointed to two spots on her head where agents unleashed bursts of electric current and showed electrocution scars on her chest. Zidane also had a long-held secret. Overcoming her shame, she told the court she was enslaved at a desert air base where she and other women were raped repeatedly by Habre’s soldiers — and by the president himself.
In May 2016, after more than two decades of luxurious exile, Habre was found guilty of torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and of being part of a “joint criminal enterprise” to torture and kill opponents. He was also convicted of rape, but that ruling was overturned on appeal because that charge was not included in the original indictment. Every other judgment stood.
“This was it,” Brody writes. “Complete victory. The joy was indescribable.”
Though Brody comes across at times as a man in need of glory, he learned to look beyond his own contributions. “An African court had found an African dictator guilty of atrocious crimes … thanks to a campaign mounted by his African victims,” he notes in the epilogue.
Sentenced to life in prison, Habre kept scheming for his freedom until his death on Aug. 24, 2021.
Convicting Habre was a masterful success. Just as significant was the next step: depositing the murderous dictator in jail. Other despots convicted of crimes against humanity, even after years of evading justice, never spend a day in prison. Consider Mengistu Haile Mariam, who was Ethiopia’s head of state from 1977 to 1991, when he fled the country. Believed responsible for as many as 2 million deaths during his rule, Mengistu was convicted of genocide in absentia in Ethiopia in 2006. The court verdict is unenforced: Mengistu lives free in Zimbabwe.
Guatemala’s dictator Efrain Rios Montt came to power in a coup in 1982, and within three months of his barbarous rule some 10,000 people were slaughtered. He was deposed after 17 months in power. Thirty years later, in 2013, he was convicted of genocide in a Guatemalan court. The verdict was quickly annulled on a technicality, and Rios Montt died before a retrial was completed. The former president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, had been in power for two decades in 2009 when he was indicted by the International Criminal Court for his role in mass killings and rape in Darfur beginning in 2003. Ignoring the ICC, which Sudan didn’t recognize, Bashir remained Sudan’s leader until he was ousted in a coup in 2019.
Though it took long and came at a cost, Chadians tasted justice while many victims in other countries have not. Habre was finally locked away almost 35 years after his bloody reign began. Some victims didn’t live long enough to see the outcome. Today, many survivors live in poverty, suffering physical and emotional scars, and have yet to see any promised compensation from the millions of dollars Habre looted from his country.
Yet lawyer Moudeïna sees a lesson in all the suffering. What she and her fellow Chadians accomplished has set a precedent that “is now inspiring victims of abominable crimes in places like the Gambia, the Central African Republic, and Côte d’Ivoire,” Moudeïna writes in her foreword. “For us, the Habré case is a source of huge pride, the first milestone in a much broader fight.”
Steven Levingston is nonfiction editor of The Washington Post and author of “Barack and Joe: The Making of an Extraordinary Partnership” and “Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle Over Civil Rights.”
To Catch a Dictator
The Pursuit and Trial of Hissène Habré
By Reed Brody
Columbia University Press. 279 pp. $32 | 2022-12-16T14:01:24Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why is it so hard to bring brutal despots to justice? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/16/why-is-it-so-hard-bring-brutal-despots-justice/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/16/why-is-it-so-hard-bring-brutal-despots-justice/ |
Ask Damon: I can’t afford to hang out with my rich friends
Hi Damon! I think you might relate to this one: I'm a journalist and I make a good, slightly better-than-average salary for the industry … but I also have a good amount of debt and the high cost of living in NYC keeps me in the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. I'm not struggling per se … I treat myself often but, coming from a poor background, I admit I do still have a poverty mentality.
I am money-conscious and always on the lookout for cheap options for things that I enjoy. However, my inner circle of friends each have careers that are far more lucrative than mine (all making high six-figure salaries) and they frequently spend $200 on a meal without batting an eye, no special occasion needed. It’s not unusual for them to spend $500 on a bottle of wine. I love fine dining and luxury as much as the next person, but I simply can’t afford/don’t want to do that for every group hang.
They are all generous, approachable people who work extremely hard and deserve every penny they’ve earned, so I’m not begrudging their lifestyle. I just think they’ve forgotten that some people (me) still live on a modest budget. I’m almost embarrassed to suggest things like a game night or budget-friendly meal, because that stuff seems so basic compared to what they usually do and I’m not sure they would show up. How do I tell them that their ideas of a casual hang are outside of my tax bracket without offending them or seeming like a cheapskate? I’m worried that if I start opting out of these expensive friend dates, I’ll see less of them and alienate myself from the people I value most. And in the long term, how do I keep up with them AND save my bank account?
— In THIS Economy?
In THIS Economy?: Ten years ago, while working as a freelance writer and editor for a publication I will not name, a few delayed paychecks snowballed into a financial crunch that led to my car getting repossessed. (Repossession is a deeply disconcerting — and, admittedly, darkly funny — experience. You get up one morning thinking your car has been stolen. You call the police. And they say: “Yeah dude, you’re not a victim of a crime. You’re just broke.”)
I was able to cobble together enough cash to get the car back. But since then, whenever I hear the “beep, beep, beep” of a large truck backing up, I get a little anxious that it’s a tow truck coming to take my car again. Doesn’t matter that the car I drive now is fully paid for. The feeling is still there.
What you’ve experienced, financially, with your “poor background,” is trauma. And what you’re experiencing now — at least, what compelled you to write to me — is shame.
This is nothing to be ashamed of. Nor is it unique. America shames people who are broke, struggling and poor into believing that their financial circumstances are evidence of a moral deficiency. A spiritual rot. I believed this fallacy when I was young and my parents didn’t have much. As I got older, that belief didn’t dissolve as much as it found new and tricky and messy ways to be distributed in places I’d least expect it to be. I’m doing much better now than I was 10 years ago, but I haven’t quite extracted that shame yet. I can locate it better, sure. But it lingers.
What I’m saying is that, if you remove shame, your ask is simple: “Hey, Braydlin and Topanga. Do you mind if we try some more creative and less expensive hangouts, because I just can’t afford these bottomless mimosa brunches every weekend?” But what’s standing in the way, blocking your vision, is your belief that your relative lack of money is so shameful, so … offensive, that it might even repel your friends.
If these are friends worth having, you should trust them enough to be honest with them, and they should be willing to accommodate you. It’s very possible that they assume you’re doing well enough to keep up with them, because, well, you’re keeping up with them. You should also know that your particular situation isn’t uncommon. I would guess that at these expensive brunches, there are other tables full of friend groups with the same dynamic. Some who can safely afford it, and some discreetly checking their bank balance on their phones, silently negotiating if the waffle station is worth the impending overdraft fees. (Depends on the waffle.)
Also, are you certain that Braydlin and Topanga are doing as well as they say they are? One thing I’ve learned, over a lifetime of pretending to have more money than I actually do, is that even some of the people I assumed were doing much better than I was were playing the same game. (And you’d be surprised by how many people making six figures are still living paycheck to paycheck.) There’s a possibility that speaking up might release some pressures to “fake it” that your other friends are feeling, too.
Sometimes solutions for problems are obvious and easy. This is obvious and hard. But you have to find a way to communicate your situation to your friends before you don’t even have enough money to pretend any more. Most important, though, is that you find a path to let go of that shame. If it helps, try to remember that it’s not your fault. | 2022-12-16T14:27:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Damon: I can't afford to hang out with my rich friends - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/16/ask-damon-rich-friends-afford/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/16/ask-damon-rich-friends-afford/ |
Rural universities, already few and far between, are cutting majors
With budgets and enrollment crashing, some schools cut humanities in favor of ‘workforce needs’
Emporia, Kan., was once a busy railroad and cattle hub. Many residents today work in beef-packing or pet food plants or the commercial bakery. (Ji Stribling for The Hechinger Report)
So Witherspoon enrolled at the nearest public four-year higher education institution, Emporia State University, about 60 miles up Interstate 35. She picked a major in earth science and started studying computer coding.
Now, said Witherspoon, “if I was still a high school senior, I wouldn’t come here.”
That means the already limited options available to rural students are being squeezed still further, forcing them to travel even greater distances to college than they already do or give up on it altogether.
“This is just the next in a long line of issues where rural folks are told by people who are not rural what they’re going to have and not have,” said Andrew Koricich, an associate professor of higher education at Appalachian State University and executive director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges.
Henderson State University in Alabama in May dropped 25 degree programs in disciplines including geography, history, political science, public administration, criminal justice, biology, studio art, communication, theater arts, English and Spanish.
Several states are merging universities, many of which serve rural students. Pennsylvania has combined three universities in western and three in northeastern Pennsylvania, consolidating programs and majors into a mix of remote and in-person classes.
North Dakota State University officials warned in October that budget and enrollment shortfalls will require cuts that could affect its “core university mission.” Iowa State University in the spring began a planning process that could end with programs consolidated or eliminated.
“Think about whether people in urban and suburban areas would put up with” cuts like those, Koricich said.
To Sean Singer, another Emporia State student, who is majoring in history and political science — both of which are being cut — “it’s saying to us that they don’t value us, that our towns are doomed to be train stops.”
The universities point to funding shortfalls and dwindling enrollment as among the reasons they’ve been forced to take dramatic action. Emporia State projects a budget gap of $5.6 million this academic year, a spokesperson said, even after cutting almost $9 million in the last five years. Henderson State reports a $78 million deficit; North Dakota State, $10.5 million over the next two years; and Iowa State, $11.4 million and climbing.
Many rural states have also steadily reduced their higher education funding. Spending on higher education fell in 16 of the 20 most rural states between 2008 and 2018, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Higher education funding per student declined by more than 30 percent in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. In Kansas, it went down by nearly 23 percent.
“None of the majors we stopped doing were bad majors,” said Brent Thomas, who was recently promoted to provost at Emporia State. “But when you look at the trends in enrollment, the decision is being made for us by our students. Getting a job has always been an important factor, and with every passing year that ranks higher on their list.”
With rural households earning what the U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates is 20 to 25 percent less than urban ones, “it’s a struggle for many of our students to afford” tuition, Thomas said. “They don’t have the luxury of coming here to do something that’s not going to pay off for them or their families.”
But that assumes employers don’t want humanities graduates, said Megan Hickerson, who teaches history at Henderson State — one of the programs being cut — “and that’s just not true. Humanities graduates have critical thinking, communication skills and a lot of other things that are important in the workforce.”
Many faculty see polarized politics at work. “Classism,” Hickerson called it.
“A lot of this comes down to who speaks for rural students,” said Dan Colson, an Emporia State professor of English whose job has also been eliminated. “You have people who are marginalized, who have much less voice than urban and suburban students, and the right wing is filling that void and saying, ‘We know what you need.’”
Rural students are already much less likely to go to college than urban or suburban ones. Twenty-one percent of rural Americans have bachelor’s degrees, compared with 35 percent who live in urban places, a gap of 14 percentage points that has widened from 5 percentage points in 1970, according to the Federal Reserve.
Students from remote places also feel more comfortable at rural universities that are usually smaller than sprawling flagship schools, said Brenda Koerner, who teaches biology at Emporia State and will also be laid off after next semester.
“The types of students we get here are students who would probably not succeed at a large institution like KU or K-State,” Koerner said, referring to the University of Kansas and Kansas State University. “They feel more comfortable with us.”
Paring down rural universities means those young people lose out on “not just the major they always dreamed of, but all the majors they never knew existed,” said Susan Brinkman, another Emporia State graduate, who got her degree in art and is now a city commissioner in Emporia.
Many will leave to study somewhere else, Brinkman said in the country line-dancing club she owns called Bourbon Cowboy, where mismatched wooden chairs and tables surround a bar that’s flanked by pool tables under low-hanging lamps. And “they’re not coming back when they graduate.”
“It allows one of those schools, which might on its own have had 20 or 30 majors or areas of studies, to offer 100,” said Daniel Greenstein, chancellor of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education, which is leaning on that model.
In a survey of current and prospective Pennsylvania students, most said they preferred in-person classes, but 9 out of 10 said they were willing to take some courses online if that meant having access to more majors.
Advocates for rural students are critical of this trend — most notably Koricich, who called it “cover” for deep program cuts. Another problem: Nearly 1 in 5 people in rural places don’t have access to high-speed internet, compared with about 1 percent in cities, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
But Thomas, the new provost at Emporia State, said, “We can’t afford to be all things to all people. In a perfect world, the state’s investment in higher education would be similar to what it was 30 years ago, and it’s not.”
“They pretty much think the places where we live are already kind of a lost cause.”
This story about rural college-going was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for its higher education newsletter. | 2022-12-16T14:37:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Rural universities, already few and far between, are cutting majors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/16/rural-university-college-major/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/16/rural-university-college-major/ |
Readers critique The Post: Please keep Date Lab
The Post is killing Date Lab? Wha?? I mean, wha???
I need — we need — respite from the crazy. The intense, ubiquitous crazy that has become the stuff news reporting is made of. I want to be informed. I want to know what is going on in the world. And I need to be aware of the crazy. But, for the love of God, don’t take away my little vacations from it all.
Pretty please, keep Date Lab.
Tara C. Woods, Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
This one stumped us
I’ve had it with Evan Birnholz’s crossword puzzles. His metapuzzles were cute at first, but he has slowly perverted his puzzles into trivia contests. The Dec. 4 puzzle included 23 clues asking for the first and/or last name of an obliquely identified individual. I’m reasonably well educated, but I had heard of only three of the 23. That’s not what a crossword puzzle should be.
Either Birnholz should go back to real crosswords or The Post should get a new crossword editor.
Mark Rutzick, Oak Hill
A who’s who
I was struck by the odd caption accompanying the lovely photograph of the Kennedy Center honorees applauding the arrival of President Biden and first lady Jill Biden at the Dec. 4 award ceremony [“All the right notes.” Style, Dec. 5].
The caption failed to identify award honoree George Clooney clearly standing in the left side of the picture, but instead chose to identify the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Paul Pelosi, who is mostly obscured on the photo’s right side. And, of course, consistent with The Post’s editorial policy, there’s no mention of Hunter Biden, who is applauding in the very center of the photograph. With Hunter Biden, there’s always nothing to see there.
J. Patrick Boyle, Arlington
She left the world a better place
“Oscar-winning filmmaker focused on Rust Belt life, labor,” the detailed Dec. 6 obituary for Julia Reichert, a filmmaker and activist, omitted that “A Lion in the House,” a documentary on five families who had children with cancer, won an Emmy Award. I had the privilege of working with her and her amazing team on this documentary. Reichert was an unassuming and humble human being who sought the proverbial tikkun olam (Hebrew), making the world a better place.
Larrie Greenberg, Potomac
This ‘supporter’ deserved better
The Post should have identified the supporter of same-sex marriage in a photograph that accompanied Jonathan Capehart’s Dec. 1 Thursday Opinion column, “Gee, thanks for this tiny step to protect my marriage.”
The individual identified as “a supporter” is Vin Testa, who was then the president of Dignity/Washington, a prominent LGBT Catholic organization. He is still a member and lives and works in D.C.; in fact, he was the subject of the (sadly soon-to-be-canceled) Washington Post Magazine’s Oct. 31, 2021, Date Lab, “Things got hazy by the end of the night.”
This isn’t the 1950s. This image has been floated around the world for years and should be correctly described.
Thomas Bower, Washington
Education saves lives
As a father who lost his son to suicide, I applaud The Post’s continued coverage of this difficult topic [“Mental health issues swamp schools,” front page, Dec. 6]. Understanding the scourge of suicide is complicated by the many possible causes, from physical to psychological, and, as we now know, pharmacological. But too often in reporting on suicide, including two recent articles in The Post [“After 2-year decline, U.S. suicide rates increased in 2021,” news, Oct. 2, and “Veterans’ suicides ‘unacceptable’ despite decline,” Federal Insider, Oct. 8], when listing causes, there is no mention of the pharmacological, or “medication-induced psychosis,” as a possible cause of suicide. Such an omission is itself unfathomable when it is right there in the Black Box warning on certain prescription drugs — antidepressants in particular — that these medications are known to cause “suicidal thoughts and behaviors.”
A serious omission such as this only adds to the fog of misunderstanding suicide. And it perpetuates the blame-the-victim attitude common toward suicide, e.g., “Well, they were depressed.” In reality, already vulnerable individuals are sometimes induced to take their lives by the very thing prescribed to help them. And because of “intoxication anosognosia,” or the spellbinding effect of some medications, they do not even realize that those deadly thoughts are not their own.
Michael K. McLaughlin, Laurel
Teaching Black history is essential
The Dec. 5 front-page article “Embracing an embattled subject” purported to describe and perhaps explain the risks of teaching Black history in our polarized political environment. Unfortunately, the article, while describing a class in Baltimore, failed to discern the forest from the trees, so to say.
The article presented some statistics purporting to show how controversial it is to teach Black history in the United States today. What the article failed to note (except for a brief reference to a recent Florida anti-Black history law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican) was that the movement to suppress and discredit the teaching of Black history in this country is predominantly, if not exclusively, the latest effort by the Republican Party to use race as part of its ongoing cultural wars to divide Americans.
The current, widespread state-level Republican efforts to suppress and delegitimize the teaching of Black history — normally mischaracterized as “critical race theory” — takes its inspiration from President Donald Trump’s 2020 executive order restricting diversity training in the federal workforce. Since then, Republicans at the state level and their right-wing allies have aggressively sought to enact such laws in states across the country and have found success in several Republican-dominated states.
The intent of such laws, of course, is to have a chilling effect on the teaching of Black history. This issue is worthy of serious and in-depth treatment, more than was found in this article.
Edwin Stromberg, Takoma Park
No mention of that infamous day
The Dec. 7 issue of The Post made no mention of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that caused more than 2,400 deaths and the destruction of many naval vessels and airplanes. The event, which triggered the United States’ entry into World War II, occurred 81 years ago, and Dec. 7, 1941, is, in the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “a date which will live in infamy.” Surely The Post could have said something about it on Pearl Harbor Day.
George H. Spencer, McLean
One of many memorials
I was surprised that the caption to the photograph of “the Holocaust Memorial” that illustrated the Dec. 3 letter “It never ends for survivors or their descendants” did not identify which Holocaust memorial was pictured.
There is no “the” Holocaust Memorial. There are many around the world, in addition to the one in D.C.
Significantly, the photo showed the memorial in Berlin, the capital of the Third Reich, near the buildings in which the regime’s leaders planned and orchestrated the decimation of European Jewry. Designed by American architect Peter Eisenman, it is located only a long Hail Mary pass from the site of the Führerbunker, where Adolf Hitler spent his final days.
Also significantly, its name does not use the word Holocaust, a term whose meaning is not necessarily universally understood. Mincing no words, it is called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.
I had the occasion to visit the site this year and was stunned by its power to evoke the horror of what occurred under the Nazi regime. The concrete slabs do not need words to convey the sense of a vast field of tombs representing the millions of Jews killed during the Holocaust. The memorial is not out of public view inside a building but located on a busy street, a constant reminder to the tens of thousands of Germans and others who walk or drive by it every day of the consequences of authoritarian rule by racists and antisemites — something we all need to keep in mind today, 77 years after the fall of the Thousand-Year Reich.
Jeff Liteman, Arlington
Xi probably hasn’t met the head penguin
The Dec. 5 news article “A more pragmatic Xi goes on a charm offensive for China” reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping “has met formally with at least 26 heads of state or government from every continent.” With whom from Antarctica, pray tell, did he meet?
Arthur F. Manfredi Jr., Rockville
It’s all Greek to us
The Dec. 7 Sports headline “A rout sans Ronaldo” apparently wanted to say “A rout without Ronaldo.” Cristiano Ronaldo plays for Portugal, and in Portugal the language is (duh) Portuguese, and the Portuguese word for “without” is “sem.”
“Sans” is the French word for “without,” and French is admittedly one of four national languages used in Switzerland, Portugal’s opponent. But surely, if The Post was trying to show off its language chops, a more appropriate headline would have been “A rout sem Ronaldo.”
Ned Stone, Sandy Spring
Combat sports need additional scrutiny
The Dec. 6 Sports article about boxer Gervonta Davis, “Davis returns to the nation’s capital for a lightweight title bout with H. Garcia,” was informative and well-written but also troubling, for several reasons.
First, though mention was made of Davis’s legal problems (“He’s facing 14 charges stemming from an alleged hit-and-run in Baltimore in 2020”), there is more to the case than just a “hit-and-run.” In fact, he is facing the possibility of serious jail time. In addition, Davis has had other scrapes with the law (including allegedly assaulting his former girlfriend in public), making clear that he is something less than a model citizen and hardly worthy of being glorified as one of “boxing’s all-time luminaries.”
Further, it is questionable whether The Post should even be covering boxing in its Sports pages. Though I’m reluctant to admit that I’ve long been a fervent fan of boxing, I’ve now, at long last, recognized that the long-term effects of being punched in the head repeatedly are even worse than those seen in football. As a result, I’ve given up on boxing and have even begun to (reluctantly) draw away from football.
The growing popularity of “combat sports” is a sad commentary on the level of intelligence (and empathy) of the American sports-loving populace. The sad fact is that boxing, mixed martial arts and ultimate fighting championships are not sports, and their participants should not be glorified in the sports pages. No competition in which the primary purpose (and routine outcome) is to physically hurt or incapacitate your opponent should be classified as a sport. A competition? Of course. Are the competitors skilled? Certainly. But the competition is a barbaric relic of the age of gladiators and should not be touted in the sports pages of any society that considers itself civilized. In fact, with the current and increasing medical knowledge of the harmful effects of blows to the head, these so-called sports should probably be banned.
Harris Factor, Columbia
King Charles III will be crowned
I am looking forward to the coronation of King Charles III and was interested to read in the Dec. 7 news article “Coronation crown sent to be resized” that the purpose of the St. Edward’s Crown is to “coronate a British king or queen in Westminster Abbey.”
This error is becoming all too common. I am not surprised to hear it spoken with some regularity by television news reporters, who are somewhat prone to errors, but I expect more from The Post, and seeing it in the paper was a shock. At a coronation ceremony, a king or queen is crowned, not coronated. Interestingly, several paragraphs later, the article mentioned that “only six monarchs have been crowned with St. Edward’s Crown” since 1661. It was nice to read that these six were not coronated.
Just to make sure that I was not mistaken, I looked up the word “coronate” in the dictionary. It was not there. I must confess that I used Merriam-Webster, not the Oxford English Dictionary. Please do not tell me that the latter dictionary has allowed this new word to enter its lexicon. I have had enough of a shock for one day.
Jo Ann York, Germantown
Though the Dec. 7 article “Coronation crown sent to be resized” noted the absence of diamonds in England’s St. Edward’s Crown, it omitted the unusual and slightly bizarre backstory of this re-created coronation crown.
After the destruction of the coronation regalia in the Commonwealth period, the English Parliament commissioned two crowns in anticipation of the restoration of Charles II: St. Edward’s Crown and a separate state crown. English monarchs had long been partial to diamonds, but the only place these stones were mined in the 1600s was India, and they literally cost a king’s ransom. In supplying the new crowns, Parliament provided for just one crown to be set with precious stones: the state crown. Only the naked gold framework of St. Edward’s Crown was purchased. This economy notwithstanding, the price of the 11-piece full set of regalia, including the crowns, scepters, gold orb and other accessories, was equal to the cost to construct and equip three warships of that era.
The result was that St. Edward’s Crown, being used only once in each monarch’s reign at the coronation ceremony, was temporarily set with diamonds and precious stones rented from jewelers at a cost of 4 percent of their appraised value. After the coronation, these hired stones were unceremoniously removed from the crown, returned to the jewelers and replaced with glass or crystal imitations so that it could be displayed with the other crown jewels at the Tower of London. In at least two of the coronations where St. Edward’s Crown was not used to crown the monarch, but merely placed on the altar during the ceremony, St. Edward’s Crown was carried into Westminster Abbey set with the cheap imitation stones.
Incredibly, this practice continued for more than two centuries. Not until the coronation of George V in 1911 was the crown permanently set with genuine precious and semiprecious stones. Despite that the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in the 19th century made diamonds significantly more affordable, none of the stones in St. Edward’s Crown today are diamonds.
Thomas J. McIntyre, Arlington | 2022-12-16T14:37:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Readers critique The Post: Please keep Date Lab - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/free-for-all-letters-keep-date-lab/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/free-for-all-letters-keep-date-lab/ |
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger, right, and House Chair Boris Kollar, left, meet Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova, after Parliament where a vote expressed no-confidence in Heger’s Government, at the Presidential Palace, in Bratislava, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022. Slovakia’s coalition government has fallen after losing a parliamentary no-confidence vote. In the country’s 150-seat parliament, 78 lawmakers, two more than 76 needed, voted to oust the three-party minority government of Prime Minister Eduard Heger on Thursday. President Zuzana Caputova will have to appoint a new prime minister. (Jaroslav Novak/TASR via AP) (Jaroslav Novák/TASR Slovakia)
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovakia’s president formally dismissed the country’s government on Friday, a day after it lost a no-confidence vote in Parliament, and set the framework for holding an early election by mid-2023. | 2022-12-16T14:37:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Slovak leader sets framework for snap vote after govt falls - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/slovak-leader-sets-framework-for-snap-vote-after-govt-falls/2022/12/16/0e3a159e-7d4c-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/slovak-leader-sets-framework-for-snap-vote-after-govt-falls/2022/12/16/0e3a159e-7d4c-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Jon Robinson, Howie Roseman and Les Snead have taken different approaches to team-building. (Matt Patterson, Chris Szagola and Kyusung Gong)
The wary, conservative ol’ NFL now blesses risk takers. The Los Angeles Rams, so bold that General Manager Les Snead put “F--- them picks” on a T-shirt, are the reigning Super Bowl champions. And this season, the Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills are the current No. 1 seeds partly because they abandoned caution and made aggressive trades to acquire top-flight wide receivers.
The 2022 season has offered the most fascinating ideological warfare. The Miami Dolphins wouldn’t be in position to make the playoffs without trading five draft picks to the Kansas City Chiefs for speedy wide receiver Tyreek Hill — and then giving him a record extension that makes him the league’s first wideout making $30 million a season. And the Eagles would not have the league’s best record without making a trade to get A.J. Brown from the Tennessee Titans, a run-heavy team that chose not to reward the receiver with a $100 million contract. But in the same draft, the Eagles — who had accumulated three first-round selections — also made a long-term decision, with a deal centered around swapping their No. 16 and 19 picks for the Saints’ No. 18 pick and a 2023 first rounder. The gamble turned into a windfall: No. 18 was folded into the Brown trade, and because of the Saints’ struggles this season, the Eagles may add a top-five 2023 draft pick to a team that could win the Super Bowl.
Because the NFL is structured for parity, the concept of a five-year plan never has been an apt representation of how football teams progress, but meandering organizations often have used that concept to inspire fan patience and obscure their ineffectiveness. It may take five years to create a championship team; it only takes a couple to build a viable contender with growth potential.
Then comes the pressure to finish. Completing the task requires something different from every team. The Rams showed a more flamboyant way, shunning the top of the draft to make deals for players such as Jalen Ramsey and Von Miller. They once made a monster trade to move up and draft Goff, only to make a monster trade several years later to upgrade to Stafford. Now, it’s catching up to them, and losing a top-five pick will hurt an aging team. But they wouldn’t have won a championship without Stafford. When they get down, they can look at their rings. Then, when this terrible season ends, they’ll probably keep doing the same thing because they’re jostling for attention in L.A., and they still have top-end veteran talent to justify big, short-term swings.
The Rams are different from the Bills, who are aggressive within reason and operate in a small market in which every decision counts. In 2020, Buffalo traded a first-round pick to Minnesota for receiver Stefon Diggs, who has helped their offense and quarterback Josh Allen access a new level. But the Vikings used that pick on Justin Jefferson, who may be the most gifted wideout in the league. It might prove to be one of the craziest win-win trades in sports history, and it provides an ideal illustration of today’s NFL. | 2022-12-16T15:11:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL teams are embracing risk more than ever before - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/nfl-trades-draft-picks-risk/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/16/nfl-trades-draft-picks-risk/ |
Giant Berlin aquarium bursts, sending 1,500 fish to their deaths
A 1-million-liter aquarium that housed over 1,000 tropical fish burst in a hotel lobby in Berlin on Dec. 16. (Video: Reuters, Photo: AP/Reuters)
A giant aquarium exploded at a Berlin hotel early Friday, releasing 1,500 tropical fish into the lobby and flooding the downtown area of the German capital with debris and hundreds of thousands of gallons of seawater in a scene that the city’s mayor likened to a “veritable tsunami.”
Shortly before 6 a.m. local time, 264,000 gallons of water “burst abruptly” from the AquaDom tourist attraction at the Radisson Blu hotel in the Mitte district of Berlin, the city’s fire service said. Two people were treated for minor injuries due to glass splinters from the shattered aquarium, according to the fire service.
About 100 firefighters responded to a scene that had, police noted, “massive amounts of water” pour into the street. Videos posted to social media from guests inside the hotel show significant damage and cascades of water all over — except in the empty tank. Shards of glass, mangled lamps, bellhop trolleys and tables are shown littered throughout the lobby.
When Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey arrived to assess what Berlin police described as “unbelievable maritime damage,” she expressed relief that no one was seriously injured. About 300 guests and employees were safely evacuated from the building, authorities said.
“Despite all the destruction, we were still very lucky,” Giffey said, according to the Associated Press. The mayor added that “we would have had terrible human damage” had the aquarium burst even an hour later on Friday.
At 82 feet tall, AquaDom was lauded by its creators as the biggest free-standing cylindrical tank in the world. The tank, which was built in the hotel in 2003 and last modernized in 2020, featured a 10-minute elevator ride that allowed guests to admire the fish up close. More than 80 types of fish lived inside the aquarium, including blue tang and clownfish popularized by the animated movie “Finding Nemo.”
“Unfortunately, none of the 1,500 fish could be saved,” Giffey told reporters.
Almut Neumann, a municipal official in charge of environmental issues for Berlin’s Mitte district, told the German news agency dpa that efforts were underway to save hundreds of additional smaller fish in aquariums beneath the hotel lobby that were in danger of not receiving the oxygen needed to survive.
“Now it’s about evacuating them quickly,” Neumann said.
“It’s a picture of devastation with lots of dead fish and broken shards,” she said. “The ones that might have been saved were frozen to death.”
“We ask for your understanding and will announce as soon as we are open again,” the company wrote.
“Everything is destroyed inside,” the guests told dpa. “There are dead fish. All the furniture is destroyed. The windows are destroyed. Shards everywhere.”
Radisson guests documented the scene early Friday. Some guests noted that they woke up due to what they described as “a rumbling beneath us.”
“The tank in our hotel … blew?” one guest tweeted alongside a photo of the destruction. One guest added that she “was admiring the fish and divers just last night!”
“The fish tank of my hotel just exploded in the middle of the night,” one guest said. “WHAT’S GOING ON.” | 2022-12-16T15:59:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Berlin aquarium AquaDom bursts at hotel, releasing 1,500 tropical fish - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/berlin-aquarium-burst-fish-aquadom/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/16/berlin-aquarium-burst-fish-aquadom/ |
Carbon steel cookware, which is lighter than its cast iron counterpart, is popular in Europe and among professional cooks in the United States. (Rey Lopez for The Washington Post/Food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Washington Post )
As much as I love cast iron cookware, I have to admit that it has its downfalls. First, it’s heavy. Second, it’s often wanting in terms of its nonstick capabilities. Lastly, cast iron is slow to heat up and cool down, which can be a plus or a minus depending on what you’re making. Fortunately, there’s an alternative material that addresses all these issues while maintaining cast iron’s durability: The cookware you’ve been missing in your life is made of carbon steel.
The debate between cast-iron haters and loyalists is as enduring as the pan itself
Carbon steel cookware is popular in Europe and among professional cooks in the United States. In addition to skillets, it is used for woks and for omelet, crepe and paella pans. Like cast iron, carbon steel is composed of carbon and iron, but, surprisingly, it contains less carbon. (Carbon steel is roughly 1 percent carbon compared to the 2 to 3 percent found in cast iron.)
This different percentage makes carbon steel less brittle, which allows it to be used in thinner configurations for lighter cookware. For example, the Merten & Storck carbon steel skillet (Food & Wine’s recommendation) comes in a 10-inch size and is approximately half the weight of my Lodge cast iron skillet of the same size. The difference isn’t always as large — the 11 7/8-inch skillet from Matfer Bourgeat (America’s Test Kitchen’s recommendation) is only about a third lighter than my 12-inch cast iron skillet — but it is still significant, particularly for those who struggle to lift cast iron.
While perhaps not as cheap as cast iron — though still affordable — carbon steel is a worthy investment. When shopping for carbon steel cookware, the first thing you’ll probably notice is that some pans come preseasoned and some do not. (Like cast iron, carbon steel requires seasoning to achieve its nonstick capabilities.) In a comparison test, I was shocked by how much a fried egg slipped around on a carbon steel skillet with only an initial seasoning (after minimal help with the initial release). The preseasoned carbon steel skillet was slightly more nonstick in the same test, but both were revelations to me as someone new to the material.
How to season your cast-iron skillet — and keep it seasoned
While seasoning a skillet yourself requires a few extra steps — Matfer Bourgeat recommends sauteing a mixture of oil, potato peels and salt to get the job done — it’s a simple task that shouldn’t deter you from purchasing one. (Before seasoning, take care to wash off the protective coating with which unseasoned pans are often shipped.) Carbon steel cookware that you season yourself may look blotchy or streaky for a while, but will cook wonderfully and develop a beautiful patina over time.
The seasoning on carbon steel pans is much more superficial than that on cast iron cookware, which permeates the material more deeply. While you shouldn’t cook very acidic things for long in either type of pan, you should be more careful with carbon steel or risk stripping the seasoning. (Relatedly, wooden and silicone tools are recommended if you don’t want to risk scratching the coating.) And you should care for and maintain carbon steel just as you would cast iron: Don’t put it in the dishwasher, dry it immediately after hand washing, and re-season it should the need ever arise.
Another consideration with carbon steel cookware is the handles. When made of the same material, they can get hot, but because the handles are fairly long they will be much cooler the further away you get from the skillet. (Watch out for pans with unusually long handles at steep angles that make them hard to store.) If you don’t want to deal with hot handles, look for carbon steel pans with ones made of stainless steel, which will stay cooler longer.
You may also see pans labeled “blue steel” or “black steel,” which refers to the color of the material after surface-hardening treatments, but that doesn’t really impact performance.
How to take care of your cast-iron cookware and make it last forever
One difference of note between cast iron and carbon steel skillets is the slope of the sides: The sides of carbon steel skillets are more angled than those of cast iron skillets, which helps direct moisture away from the bottom of the pan for a better sear and makes them easier to use for sauteing foods. (Carbon steel’s smoother surface also contributes to a better, more thorough sear.) However, I don’t plan to bake cake or cornbread in carbon steel skillets — I’ll need cast iron to achieve an even thickness throughout.
In terms of usage, carbon steel is compatible with all cooktops — including induction — is oven safe at high temperatures and can even be put under the broiler or used on a grill. Cast iron is often praised for its heat retention, but there’s a price to pay in terms of responsiveness, which is a pan’s ability to heat up and cool down with adjustments to the heat source. This is where carbon steel excels: If you find that your pan is too hot and need to turn it down, you’re less likely to burn whatever you’re cooking if that pan is made of carbon steel.
Though I’m still new to carbon steel, I think I’m in love. Does this mean that I plan to replace my cast iron with it? No, the classic material is still preferred for baking and frying. But if you are building out your cooking arsenal or find cast iron too heavy, then carbon steel is definitely the way to go. And after making a batch of scrambled eggs in carbon steel, I’m seriously debating whether I’ll ever buy another nonstick skillet again. | 2022-12-16T16:07:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Carbon steel pans are a lighter, more responsive cast iron alternative - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/16/carbon-steel-cookware/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/16/carbon-steel-cookware/ |
A new survey about teens and social media shows that nearly half of teens say they have been cyberbullied. In a separate survey administered to a parent of each teen, the adults ranked cyberbullying as sixth out of eight concerns about social media. Their top concern was their child being exposed to explicit content.
The survey results, released by Pew this week, aren’t surprising, says to Devorah Heitner, author of “Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World.” “There’s just so much online aggression — aggression because of online disinhibition and the ways that we forget there’s another human being on the other end of the screen.”
Parents might be more aware of the fact that pornography is widely available online than of the explicit harassment that some kids are facing, she said, which could account for the fact that only 29 percent said they were extremely or very concerned about their child being harassed or bullied.
The teen survey found that 46 percent of kids ages 13 to 17 had experienced at least one of six cyberbullying behaviors, while 28 percent have experienced multiple types. The behaviors, and the percentage of teens experiencing them were:
Offensive name calling (32 percent)
Spreading of false rumors about them (22 percent)
Receiving explicit images they didn’t ask for (17 percent)
Constantly being asked where they are, what they’re doing, or who they’re with by someone other than a parent (15 percent)
Physical threats (10 percent)
Having explicit images of them shared without their consent (7 percent)
The report noted that “15- to 17-year-old girls stand out for being particularly likely to have faced any cyberbullying, compared with younger teen girls and teen boys of any age. Some 54 percent of girls ages 15 to 17 have experienced at least one of the six cyberbullying behaviors, while 44 percent of 15- to 17-year-old boys and 41 percent of boys and girls ages 13 to 14 say the same.”
The survey of 1,316 teens, conducted April 14 to May 4, cannot be compared with the last Pew report on this subject, released in 2018, because the methodology and sampling practices were changed for this year’s survey, according to Pew researchers Emily Vogels and Monica Anderson. That means the organization cannot say whether 2022 results reflect an increase or decrease in cyberbullying since 2018.
Heitner thinks the report can be helpful for parents in that it lays out a range of behaviors that some parents might not have been aware of or might not have thought of as cyberbullying. And, she said, all parents should be alert to cyberbullying, even if they think their child is not a victim or a perpetrator, because teens who observe these behaviors can still be affected by them.
“If your kid is on a group text and some other kid is being called a slur, a homophobic slur or a racist slur, your kid is still going to be affected by it,” she said. It’s important for parents to talk to their kids about the climate of the social media sites or group chats they frequent, she added. If a child is going on a new YouTube channel or following someone new on TikTok, parents can ask questions such as, “What is the vibe like? Are the comments mean? Are the comments racist?”
The fact that name-calling is the No. 1 kind of cyberbullying is not unexpected “because there’s so much of that going on in our culture,” Heitner said. She also said that younger teens in particular may be confused about what terms are appropriated because “there’s so much re-appropriation of historically offensive names, whether by the queer community or the Black community or other communities.”
Parents “need to let their own kids know that they can be very accountable for things that they say, that anything you say to someone, even if you feel like you’re joking, could be screenshotted” and shared with others and with authorities. “If in doubt, don’t say it. Don’t share it if you think it could be hurtful, if it’s unsubstantiated, certainly if you don’t have consent to share a picture, don’t share it. And if it’s explicit, don’t share it. Even if you do have consent, just don’t share explicit pictures.”
What parents are getting wrong about teens and sexting
In a separate questionnaire administered to a parent of the teens surveyed, the parents ranked their top concerns as:
Being exposed to explicit content (46 percent)
Wasting too much time on social media (42 percent)
Being distracted from completing homework (38 percent)
Sharing too much about their personal life (34 percent)
Feeling pressured to act a certain way (32 percent)
Being harassed or bullied by others (29 percent)
Experiencing problems with anxiety or depression percent (28 percent)
Experiencing lower self-esteem (27 percent)
A majority of the parents — 57 percent — said they at least sometimes checked their teens’ social media activities, with 49 percent saying they often or sometimes set limits for social media use. Black parents were more likely than Hispanic or White parents to check their teens’ social media activity.
New school mental health days? How parents can make them work for kids.
Heitner suggested that parents worried about the time their children are spending on social media implement a no-double screen rule, meaning kids can’t have their phones with them while working on homework. She also suggested checking in with a child who seems glued to their phone, to make sure they aren’t being targeted. Most important, however, is making sure that kids unplug at night ki even if it means shutting off the WiFi for kids up to the age of high school seniors.
It’s difficult for teens to regulate themselves if they have a connected device in their bedroom, which could affect their sleep. “And if they’re not getting sleep,” she said, “that’s going to hit their mental health. That’s going to hit their physical health, that’s going to hit their school performance of their athletic performance and nothing good ever happens.”
Teens do think their parents are doing a good job in one way: combating online abuse. “What we saw is that 66 percent of teens said that how their parents were handling online harassment, they were doing an excellent or very good job,” said Pew’s Vogels. The percentages of adults that kids thought were doing an excellent or good job at handling online harassment went down from there: teachers (40 percent), law enforcement (37 percent), social media sites (25 percent), and elected officials (18 percent).
Vogels said the team asked several new questions in this survey. “We asked the reasons that teens thought that they may have been targeted for harassment. And … physical appearance topped the list” at 15 percent. Other reasons were gender (10 percent), race or ethnicity (9 percent), sexual orientation (5 percent) and political views (5 percent). Black teens were more likely than Hispanic or White teens to say their race made them a target.
“We also asked about a couple different tactics that teens thought ... would be effective or not in combating harassment online,” Vogels said. “Half of teens thought that criminal charges would be an extremely effective tactic for curbing harassment they might face online. Half also thought that permanently banning users who harass others from their accounts would also help.”
Forty-two percent of teens think that monitoring and deleting posts also would be highly effective. But, Heitner noted, several major social media companies are laying off content moderators. “So we know that things are about to get bad if they weren’t already.” | 2022-12-16T16:08:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Almost half of teens cyberbullied - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/16/cyberbullying-teens-social-media-pew/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/16/cyberbullying-teens-social-media-pew/ |
Actually, for your kids … don’t. (Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images North America)
Millennials are plodding the well-worn path back to their parents’ house amid high rent and economic uncertainty — raising the awkward question of how to share household expenses when your parents are your landlords.
During the early months of the pandemic, the percentage of young adults living with their parents surged to levels that hadn’t been seen since the Great Depression, according to Pew Research. While the situation has moderated, a recent survey from PropertyManagement.com shows that about 1 in 4 millennials (or 18 million people between the ages of 26 and 41) moved in with their parents this year.
Some parents follow a “my house, my rules” attitude, even if an adult child is closer to 40 than 18. Others may be more hands-off but at the very least expect the child to contribute in some way financially. Sure, high rent and economic strain may be the reason an adult child is moving back in, but that doesn’t mean a parent’s home should be a free ride without any expectations or monetary obligations.
The only way to navigate the situation is with lots of discussion, trial-and-error and healthy boundary setting. Parents are justified in asking the adult child to shoulder a portion of the financial burden, either through paying some sort of rent or contributing to household expenses, but adult children should be able to request a significant amount of space and autonomy, too.
I’d encourage parents to ask for rent. Having another person in the home won’t change the base cost of the mortgage or rent payment, but it will increase utilities and grocery budgets. For those living on a fixed income, such as retirees, that increase could be problematic.
Even if you don’t need the money, charging kids rent ensures responsibility and is a sort of forced savings account. Generous parents could return the accumulated monthly rent back to their children when they’re ready to leave.
Regardless of the reason, the conversation about paying rent needs to happen prior to a child moving back home. Parents don’t need to provide a reason about why they’re going to charge rent, but it might be helpful to give some context.
Ideally, the rate should be modest, especially if part of the child’s reason for the boomerang home is due to job loss or being priced out of the housing market. Modest is of course a relative term, but the reason — or goal — behind charging rent should inform the price. Much like a tenant with a landlord, parents should also be open to a child negotiating the price.
Before setting an amount, it’s helpful for parent and child to have an open conversation around the idea of rent and what feels doable. Parents should be ready to explain how the rent money is being used, and the child needs to be honest about what’s affordable based on their current employment and financial situation.
For parents who feel deeply uncomfortable charging their adult children rent, there still should be a discussion around expectations and boundaries. Will the adult child be expected to handle meals on certain nights? Is she buying her own groceries? How much should he be helping with the household cleaning of shared spaces? Will she be expected to walk the dog or care for other pets? Can he invite people over without asking? Is she expected to check in if she isn’t coming home at night? The dynamic shouldn’t just default to the one that existed when the child was younger.
For their part, adult children need to be proactive in having healthy boundary conversations and stating what they think moving back in will look like. Sharing what your life looked like before moving back in could help to establish a baseline of what you’d like to be doing day-to-day. The return home can be particularly fraught if the adult child is actively dating or engages in activities that are legal but may not be Mom-and-Dad approved (like smoking).
There should also be a frank discussion about expectations around a job search if the child is moving home after a job loss. Daily questions about what you did that day aren’t helpful — but it is fair for parents to get some sort of routine update about how a job search is going. Too much pestering could land you back in the realm of dramatic door slamming and eye rolls. No one wants to move back home just to experience a regression to a teenager dynamic with their parents.
One of the toughest challenges may be when elder millennials return to their parents’ home with a partner or little ones in tow. Despite it being the grandparents’ home, the parents of the children set the rules that should be respected by the grandparents. Adult children may elect to parent or discipline differently than they were raised. It’s not an indictment of the grandparents’ parenting style, and it’s critical the parents don’t feel attacked or judged because their children are doing things differently. Still, grandparents should be able to draw boundaries around where and how the children are allowed to interact with certain items in their home.
Ultimately, the most important consideration when parents and grown children cohabitate isn’t financial — it’s mental health. A return to the nest may be in the financial best interest of the adult child — or the boomer parent, if the child provides rent or other support — but is everyone able to have a healthy, copacetic dynamic? Your gut may be the best guide as to whether your new roommate is worth it.
• For Unmarried Couples, Romance Is Like a Business: Erin Lowry | 2022-12-16T16:08:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Roommate? Why You Should Make Your Adult Kid Pay Rent - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-roommate-why-you-should-make-your-adult-kid-pay-rent/2022/12/16/f0941b4a-7d4e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/new-roommate-why-you-should-make-your-adult-kid-pay-rent/2022/12/16/f0941b4a-7d4e-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Simone Ashley poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, in New York. Ashley has been named one of The Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of 2022.(Drew Gurian/Invision/AP)
DETROIT — Simone Ashley was busy working and traveling when “Bridgerton” debuted on Netflix in December 2020 and was an immediate smash with viewers. The Shonda Rhimes-produced series about the romantic pursuits of a large family in Regency-era London wasn’t on Ashley’s radar. So, when the audition for season two came about, she didn’t quite grasp what a big opportunity lay before her. | 2022-12-16T16:08:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | AP Breakthrough Entertainer: Simone Ashley finds her voice - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/ap-breakthrough-entertainer-simone-ashley-finds-her-voice/2022/12/16/9800e37e-7d52-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/ap-breakthrough-entertainer-simone-ashley-finds-her-voice/2022/12/16/9800e37e-7d52-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
85-year-old convicted of disorderly conduct after feeding feral cats
Beverly Roberts and Mary Alston at the Wetumpka City Council on Dec. 13. (Courtesy of Mary King)
Eighty-five-year-old Beverly Roberts felt nervous while walking into court in Wetumpka, Ala., on Tuesday. But by the end of a 5½-hour trial, when the judge found Roberts guilty of criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct, the elderly woman who had been arrested while sitting in her car was no longer nervous. She felt shock and disappointment.
Her friend Mary Alston, 61, had also been found guilty of criminal trespassing and interfering with governmental operations by Wetumpka Municipal Judge Jeff Courtney.
Roberts received a warning from county officials to stop feeding cats in downtown Wetumpka by the courthouse dumpster in March. Three months later, she and Alston were arrested in a wooded area away from the courthouse dumpster while they were discussing how to feed, trap and neuter cats to control the city’s feral cat population.
“A warning, an arrest, and a conviction all because maybe we were about to feed stray cats, and because we were solving a feral cat problem that the city couldn’t solve,” said Roberts.
Body-cam footage from the Wetumpka Police Department, obtained by Al.com, shows three police cars and officers arresting the women.
“I have never seen or heard of a case more absurd than this,” William Shashy, Roberts’ lawyer and a retired judge, told The Post. “I was a lawyer for 20 years and a judge for 21, and I’m completely disappointed and shocked at this judgment.”
Alston’s lawyer, Terry Luck, described the verdict as “a complete overreach of the city of Wetumpka.” He told The Post that the city’s claim that the women were promoting the cat population is “ignorant” given that the women were doing the work the city had failed to do.
Both lawyers believe that the arrest and conviction were motivated in part because Roberts “has created noise in the city for animal rights” and “ruffled many feathers over the years,” said Shashy, who came out of retirement to fight the case for Roberts.
Both lawyers are determined to appeal the conviction. “It doesn’t matter if there are enough funds. We will be filing the appeal in a day or two,” said Shashy.
It wasn’t Roberts’ first run-in with authorities over stray felines. In March, about three months before her arrest, county officials showed up to Roberts’s house and told her that people had complained about her feeding stray cats and that they were accusing her of being a nuisance and adding to the stray cat problem in the city. Roberts was no longer allowed to feed and trap cats by the courthouse dumpsters downtown.
“That’s the most shocked I’ve ever been in my life,” she said. “The arrest and the conviction were shocking, but nothing affected me as much as county officials not understanding that I am helping them solve the very problem they are blaming me for.”
Roberts and Alston were both arrested on June 25 in a steep, wooded area that is close to downtown Wetumpka but away from the courthouse dumpsters.
On the morning of the arrest, there were two cats on Robertss’ mind. She knew she had to feed them and have them neutered as soon as possible, she said.
As she was thinking about the cats, Alston rang up Roberts, who was already at the wooded area with food and traps for the cats. Then the line cut off. Roberts grew worried and immediately drove to find Alston, she said.
When Roberts arrived, Alston told her that three police cars had stopped and told Alston that she should not return to this area.
While Roberts remained in her car, Alston walked over to discuss how to feed the cats and trap the ones who were not neutered without Alston having to “return to this area.” Then the three police cars rushed back with their lights on, according to Roberts.
Last week, during the hearing, Roberts’s lawyer asked a police office on the stand how many cars were on patrol in Wetumpka on a Saturday morning. “He said about three or four, meaning they sent their entire force to deal with two elderly women,” said Shashy.
The police arrested Roberts first. They said county officials had told her to stop feeding cats by the courthouse dumpsters and that she was trespassing, Shashy said. However, the area the two women were arrested is a street and hill away from the original trespass spot.
The disorderly conduct charge came when Roberts grew angry at being told she couldn’t give her car keys to Alston. She slammed the keys in to the police officer’s hands and referred to him with an expletive, according to police body-cam footage of the incident.
Alston was arrested moments later, and both women were taken to Elmore County Jail, staying for at least four hours, Roberts said.
Roberts grew up loving and feeding cats. She remembers that every few months she would go home with a new stray cat and her mother would throw up her hands in frustration. “Please, no more, my mother would say,” Roberts recalled.
Right now, Roberts has six cats in her home and a feral cat she’s trying to tame.
Roberts grew up in Montgomery, but later moved away. She has a master’s degree in criminal justice and worked in the prison system for years. In the 1970s, Roberts was one of the first women to serve in the Alabama National Guard. In 2005, when Roberts moved to Wetumpka, she received the honor of retiring from the Army as a sergeant major.
Once settled in Wetumpka, she noticed the hungry cats and began feeding them. She met Alston while helping with the ordinance against chaining dogs. “Mary taught me so much about trapping and neutering cats, and we teamed up and started doing this together to help the city,” she said.
In the last year, Roberts said, she has trapped at least 23 cats, spent over a $1,000 from her personal finances to have them neutered. Only two of the cats have had to be released to the wooded area. The rest were adopted, she said.
Both Roberts and her lawyer said the experience left them worried about the court system.
“I feel horrible and disappointed about my clients, you know,” said Shashy. “But it also hurts me to think what people will think of the court system after this case.” | 2022-12-16T16:08:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 85-year-old convicted of disorderly conduct after feeding feral cats - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/85-year-old-convicted-disorderly-conduct-after-feeding-feral-cats/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/16/85-year-old-convicted-disorderly-conduct-after-feeding-feral-cats/ |
The D.C. region needs more housing. The time to act is now.
Construction workers walk by Greenleaf Gardens Apartments near Nationals Park in July 2021. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
When the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development this fall released a report on the D.C. Housing Authority, it featured four photos of the decrepit living conditions under the agency’s care: mold everywhere, peeling floors, exposed metal studs — nothing short of a residential hellhole. “These units represent the most extreme examples encountered,” the report noted.
HUD’s 72-page document dinged the housing authority for 82 managerial deficiencies. They included everything from leaving tenants’ personal information unprotected to noncompliance with HUD pet policies to numerous procurement breakdowns to a failure to “properly calculate rent” to being “unable to provide documentation of the number of persons on its Public Housing waiting list,” which hasn’t been updated in 10 years. Overshadowing all these administrative breakdowns is the authority’s occupancy rate. It is the lowest of all comparable agencies in the country. Less than 74 percent of the roughly 8,000 to 10,000 units under its management are occupied. HUD provided about $76 million in funding to DCHA in fiscal year 2022.
Fallout from the report has been extensive. Advocates have slammed the agency; management has produced a response pledging its commitment to reform; and the D.C. Council has been considering approaches to reforming DCHA’s management structure. As it now stands, the authority is a quasi-independent organization with an executive director, Brenda Donald, and a 13-member board, the majority of whom are appointed by the mayor. In response to the HUD findings, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has proposed dissolving the current board and replacing it with a nine-member version, whose members she alone would appoint. As The Post has reported, this plan would knock key DCHA critics off the board — among them Bill Slover, a veteran real estate consultant who flagged his concerns about the authority in a memo to HUD before the federal agency’s review got underway. The board-revision plan has the support of D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, and a vote on it is likely at the council’s final legislative meeting of the year. An alternative plan, from Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto and outgoing At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman, would institute a nine-member board along with reforms aimed at enhanced accountability and transparency.
The Washington region’s housing crunch is pressing enough that the rehabilitation of DCHA management — as well as its substandard units — cannot proceed at the city’s leisure. A crisis of affordability is blanketing area jurisdictions, with difficult policy choices coming for all of them. The median home sales price in the Washington metro area is about $650,000, among the highest in the country. A buyer of a home at that cost needs to earn approximately $150,000, assuming a 10 percent down payment and a 6 percent, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Statistics, however, are scarcely necessary to appreciate the mismatch between housing inventory and buyer income in these parts. Just walk around and eyeball all the gleaming, glass-encased dwellings priced in the seven figures.
At the root of the crisis lies a market in disequilibrium. According to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the region needs 320,000 additional units of housing by 2030 to accommodate burgeoning demand. Current production, said the group’s executive director, Chuck Bean, is about 8,000-10,000 units per year shy of that goal. The result is too many people chasing after too few homes. Literally chasing, too: As prices for inner-ring condos and homes go through the roof, workers with low and moderate incomes are forced to seek housing farther and farther away from bustling regional nodes, a phenomenon known as “driving till you qualify.” A line cook shouldn’t have to commute three hours a day so well-heeled diners can enjoy the appropriate amount of char on their gourmet burgers.
What to do about it all? Everything! Housing subsidies, requirements for affordable units in new developments, promotion of employer-sponsored housing projects — they’re all critical to closing the gap between what the workforce earns and what developers collect. Under Ms. Bowser’s leadership, D.C. has made generous annual investments in its Housing Production Trust Fund, which the city credits with creating and preserving 9,000 affordable units over the past seven years.
Another beacon is Arlington County, where officials are weighing a controversial proposal to loosen the iron grip of single-family zoning rules and allow construction of multiunit dwellings without undue regulatory hurdles. Approval of the initiative — which could occur next spring — would lay the groundwork for more density in close-in neighborhoods, inching greater Washington closer to a sane real estate market.
Montgomery County has incorporated some of these principles into a planning document, though zoning reform appears a long way off. County Executive Marc Elrich (D) has been vocal in opposing higher-density zoning as a solution for housing affordability.
“Other jurisdictions want to see how painful this is for Arlington before deciding whether to jump into it,” says Arlington County Board Member Christian Dorsey. A note to those local officials: No pain, no gain. Much-needed housing supply won’t build itself.
The Editorial Board on D.C. | 2022-12-16T16:08:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | D.C. affordable housing crisis requires action - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/dc-affordable-housing-subsidies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/dc-affordable-housing-subsidies/ |
Who are the GOP’s future leaders? Let’s start with Mike Gallagher.
1Where did the GOP go wrong in the midterms?
2What’s the answer to calls to cut Ukraine aid?
3Did covid-19 change U.S. attitudes toward China?
4What’s China’s strategy against the West?
5Could the U.S. defend Taiwan today?
Many years ago, New York Times columnist Russell Baker conjured up an oracle called the Great Mentioner, who prophesied the rise of future political stars by mentioning their names. Baker passed on his secret source to one of my mentors in newspaper column writing, William Safire, who channeled the Great Mentioner throughout his career, predicting the rise of presidents, vice presidents, national security officials, Cabinet secretaries.
Gallagher is a rising conservative star who is making his mark in the national security field. Not long after this interview was conducted, he was named as the chairman of the next Congress’s House Select Committee on China. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee, where he’s the ranking Republican on the subcommittee for military personnel, as well as on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Before being elected to Congress, Gallagher served with the U.S. Marine Corps and completed two combat deployments in Iraq. He was also the lead Republican staffer for the Middle East and counterterrorism on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a staffer. He has a bachelor’s degree from Princeton, a master’s degree in Security Studies from Georgetown University, a second master’s in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University and a PhD in International Relations from Georgetown — all of which mean he’s deeply overqualified for any national security position.
Use the audio player to hear our full discussion, but below are some of Gallagher’s most interesting answers to my questions.
Where did the GOP go wrong in the midterms?
Gallagher: I think what the message the American people are sending ... is that both parties are kind of on probation right now. They don’t want to hand either [party] the keys to the car, [and are] sort of forcing them to sit in the car and have it idle until they figure it out. But they want less crazy and more common sense. They want more discipline and less just reckless bomb-throwing.
And I think they want a forward-looking approach. If we had a problem on our side, I think it was the idea that relitigating the 2020 election was the most important issue in the 2022 midterm, when it clearly was not, right? They want more winning and less whining.
What’s the answer to calls to cut Ukraine aid?
Gallagher: I think it’s fair for people to say, “All right. If we’re spending this money on Ukraine, we want to know that it is well spent.” And I am fully committed to that effort in transparency. But for those of us who want to continue to support the Ukrainians and deliver a massive loss to the Russians ... we have to do a better job of tying the threat posed by Russia to the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. And it’s really teasing out the fact that for at least a decade, if not longer, these countries, who at times have interests that diverged and at times were outright hostile, at least in the present day, have locked arms to wage a new Cold War against the West, and are aided in that by the Iranian regime as well. And this idea that, “Well, we can be tough on China, but we have to strike some grand bargain with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in Europe because our resources are limited.” I just think that reflects a naive view of the way the world is working right now.
Did covid-19 change U.S. attitudes toward China?
Gallagher: This is the one area where there is a lot of bipartisanship happening. There has yet to be a reckoning with the malfeasance of the Chinese Communist Party. I mean, whether you think it was a lab leak that caused the pandemic, which I subscribe to, I think the evidence favors that hypothesis. I’m not saying it was an intentional lab leak; I think the most likely explanation it was an accidental lab leak. Or whether you think it came from nature, from a wet market in Wuhan, you cannot deny the fact that the Chinese Communist Party covered it up. They did everything to block a [World Health Organization] investigation. It corrupted the WHO. And I think now what’s also becoming clear is that a lot of American taxpayer dollars were funding dangerous research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
What’s China’s strategy against the West?
Gallagher: They won’t say it as such, but to destroy of the capitalist system led by the United States and make way for the ultimate triumph of world socialism with, you know, Chinese characteristics. So part of it is getting us to destroy ourselves. And, so, think of it like this. Think of it like an assisted suicide. You supply the chemicals, fentanyl, coronavirus. You supply the economic downturn in the form of IP theft, pandemic shutdown, general economic warfare. And you supply the self-loathing in the form of ideological warfare that gets Americans to think that America is a neo-colonial racist country.
Could the U.S. defend Taiwan today?
Gallagher: The short answer is no. But I believe we can get there within what’s called the Davidson window, which is basically the next five years. Former [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] commander Phil Davidson, when he left, said this could happen in the next six years at the time. It’s now five years.
You need more assistance directly to Taiwan itself, particularly long-range antiship missiles and smart minds. ... That’s something we could fix in the next two years. That’s step one.
The big opportunity we have here now is we’re no longer bound by something called the INF Treaty. And with all due respect to [President Ronald] Reagan, we love Reagan, we got rid of that in the Trump administration. It opens up enormous possibilities to … basically do to the PLA, what they’ve done to us, what they’ve done to us is they built a rocket force. ...
Opinion|Who are the GOP’s future leaders? Let’s start with Mike Gallagher.
Opinion|Donald Trump has one underrated advantage in the 2024 election | 2022-12-16T16:08:51Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Who will lead the GOP? Rep. Mike Gallagher is a start. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/mike-gallagher-gop-republican-leaders-marc-thiessen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/16/mike-gallagher-gop-republican-leaders-marc-thiessen/ |
Historically illuminating photos of women Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party, one of the most influential responses to racism and inequality in American history, advocated armed self-defense to counter police brutality and initiated a program of patrolling the police with guns and law books. (Stephen Shames)
When he was only 20 years old, photographer Stephen Shames began documenting the Black Panther Party. At the time, he was a college student at University of Berkeley. Despite this, or maybe because of it, he was able to gain the trust of people in the Black Panthers, and they allowed him into their lives to make photos.
Because of the trust that Shames established, he was able to make intimate photographs that are really quite different than a lot of media coverage of the Panthers. In his new book, “Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party” (ACC Art Books, 2022), Shames takes us away from a dominant view of the Black Panthers by focusing on the women, not the men, who were involved at that time.
Most of us know about the Black Panther Party through movies. Some of us (I am too young to fall in this category) were alive when they were a far more visible entity. Most of the media I have consumed about them centers on portrayals of the men like Fred Hampton and Bobby Seale. Just last year the movie “Judas and the Black Messiah” hit theaters, for example.
Interestingly enough, as the book’s publisher says, some six out of 10 people in the Black Panthers were women. This is what Shames’s new book is all about. It peels back the curtain on their lives and contributions to the movement.
While the women of the Black Panther Party were definitely working alongside their male counterparts agitating and protesting, they also were instrumental, according to the publisher’s description of the book, in, “building communities and enacting social justice, providing food, housing, education, health care, and more.”
This is precisely what Shames’s photos show. You see women providing free food, health care education and more. As the publisher’s description of the book continues:
“Some know the Party’s history as a movement for the social, political, economic and spiritual upliftment of Black and indigenous people of colour — but to this day, few know the story of the backbone of the Party: the women.”
That backbone provided for by the women of the Black Panther party helped establish free breakfasts for schoolchildren. They also helped form the Intercommunal Youth Institute, the People’s Free Medical Clinics, the Free Ambulance Program and the Oakland Community School.
Shames details one of these efforts a full-time liberation day school, dubbed the Children’s House, that would eventually be renamed The Interconnunal Youth Institute:
“Directed by Majeda Smith and a team of BPP members the Children’s House became the way in which sons and daughters of BPP members were educated. Staff and instructors were Black Panther Party members. In 1971 this school moved into a large building in Berkeley and then to the Fruitvale area of Oakland. The Children’s House was eventually renamed the Intercommunal Youth Institute (IYI). Under the leadership of Brenda Bay, the IYI served families of the BPP and a few nearby families nearby. This day school program was sustained for two years.”
The actor Angela Davis sums up Shames’s remarkable book in these words she wrote in a foreword to the book:
“This stunning collection of historical photographs, complimented by contemporary conversations with women members of the Black Panther Party, reminds us that women were literally the heart of this new political approach to Black freedom.”
The Black Panther Party’s enduring legacy is its programs like Free Breakfast for Children, which helped to inspire a national movement of community organizing for economic independence, education, nutrition and health care. Seale believed “no kid should be running around hungry in school,” a simple credo that led FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to call the breakfast program, “the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for.” | 2022-12-16T16:08:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Photos of women Black Panthers - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/12/16/historically-illuminating-photos-women-black-panthers/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2022/12/16/historically-illuminating-photos-women-black-panthers/ |
SRINAGAR, India — Violent protests erupted Friday in a town in Indian-controlled Kashmir after two civilians were killed and another wounded in what the Indian army called a “firing incident by unidentified terrorists.” But locals in southern Rajouri district said the men were shot by soldiers at the entrance of a military base. | 2022-12-16T16:09:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Violent protests after 2 civilians fatally shot in Kashmir - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/violent-protests-after-2-civilians-fatally-shot-in-kashmir/2022/12/16/35be1cb0-7d5a-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/violent-protests-after-2-civilians-fatally-shot-in-kashmir/2022/12/16/35be1cb0-7d5a-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
FILE - Musical artist Kelly Clarkson smiles on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during a ceremony in her honor on Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, in Los Angeles. Clarkson will host the 12th annual NFL Honors awards show Feb. 9 in Phoenix, recognizing the league’s best players, performances and plays from the 2022 season. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File) | 2022-12-16T16:10:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFL Honors awards show to be hosted by Kelly Clarkson - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/nfl-honors-awards-show-to-be-hosted-by-kelly-clarkson/2022/12/16/cc13f142-7d52-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl/nfl-honors-awards-show-to-be-hosted-by-kelly-clarkson/2022/12/16/cc13f142-7d52-11ed-bb97-f47d47466b9a_story.html |
Student stabbed at Accokeek Academy during fight outside school
An Accokeek Academy student was stabbed during a fight outside the building Friday morning, Prince George’s County police said.
Police said they were “notified of an incident involving several” students at around 8:45 p.m.
One student stabbed another and the victim has injuries that do not appear to be life threatening, police said. | 2022-12-16T16:29:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Accokeek Academy student stabbed with injuries not life threatening - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/accokeek-academy-stabbing-student/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/16/accokeek-academy-stabbing-student/ |
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