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FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Drake -5.5; over/under is 130
BOTTOM LINE: The No. 15 Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Drake Bulldogs meet at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Drake Bulldogs are 7-2 in non-conference play. Drake ranks eighth in the MVC with 12.3 assists per game led by Roman Penn averaging 3.8.
The Mississippi State Bulldogs have an 11-0 record in non-conference games. Mississippi State ranks third in college basketball allowing 52.1 points while holding opponents to 35.8% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Penn is averaging 10.4 points and 3.8 assists for the Drake Bulldogs. Tucker DeVries is averaging 18.8 points and 5.5 rebounds while shooting 47.9% over the last 10 games for Drake.
Tolu Smith is scoring 16.2 points per game and averaging 8.9 rebounds for the Mississippi State Bulldogs. D.J. Jeffries is averaging 10.2 points and 5.4 rebounds over the last 10 games for Mississippi State. | 2022-12-20T08:44:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Drake plays No. 15 Mississippi State - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/drake-plays-no-15-mississippi-state/2022/12/20/02b6edea-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/drake-plays-no-15-mississippi-state/2022/12/20/02b6edea-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: East Carolina hosts the High Point Panthers after RJ Felton scored 21 points in East Carolina’s 64-56 victory over the South Carolina Gamecocks.
The Pirates are 5-1 in home games. East Carolina ranks fifth in the AAC with 9.3 offensive rebounds per game led by Brandon Johnson averaging 3.1.
The Panthers are 1-2 in road games. High Point leads college basketball with 22.1 fast break points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Javon Small is scoring 17.6 points per game with 4.5 rebounds and 5.8 assists for the Pirates. Felton is averaging 12.5 points and 4.1 rebounds while shooting 44.4% over the past 10 games for East Carolina. | 2022-12-20T08:44:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Felton and East Carolina host High Point - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/felton-and-east-carolina-host-high-point/2022/12/20/b09a5902-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/felton-and-east-carolina-host-high-point/2022/12/20/b09a5902-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Florida Atlantic hosts Warrick and Northern Kentucky
BOTTOM LINE: Northern Kentucky visits the Florida Atlantic Owls after Marques Warrick scored 26 points in Northern Kentucky’s 81-41 win against the Miami-Hamilton Harriers.
The Owls are 7-0 in home games. Florida Atlantic ranks second in C-USA shooting 38.6% from downtown, led by Isaiah Gaines shooting 100.0% from 3-point range.
The Norse are 0-1 on the road. Northern Kentucky has a 3-4 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
TOP PERFORMERS: Alijah Martin is shooting 48.9% and averaging 15.0 points for the Owls. Vladislav Goldin is averaging 10.8 points over the last 10 games for Florida Atlantic.
Warrick is scoring 19.9 points per game and averaging 2.8 rebounds for the Norse. Xavier Rhodes is averaging 9.2 points and 2.0 rebounds over the last 10 games for Northern Kentucky. | 2022-12-20T08:44:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida Atlantic hosts Warrick and Northern Kentucky - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-atlantic-hosts-warrick-and-northern-kentucky/2022/12/20/a9c1cb56-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-atlantic-hosts-warrick-and-northern-kentucky/2022/12/20/a9c1cb56-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Florida State hosts Notre Dame after Green's 30-point performance
BOTTOM LINE: Florida State takes on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish after Darin Green Jr. scored 30 points in Florida State’s 93-79 loss to the St. John’s (NY) Red Storm.
The Seminoles have gone 3-4 at home. Florida State gives up 73.3 points to opponents and has been outscored by 4.9 points per game.
The Fighting Irish play their first true road game after going 7-4 to begin the season. Notre Dame is 3-3 in games decided by 10 or more points.
The Seminoles and Fighting Irish match up Wednesday for the first time in ACC play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Cam’Ron Fletcher is averaging 10.8 points and 7.5 rebounds for the Seminoles. Green is averaging 14.2 points over the last 10 games for Florida State.
Nate Laszewski is averaging 15.4 points and 7.9 rebounds for the Fighting Irish. Cormac Ryan is averaging 2.1 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Notre Dame. | 2022-12-20T08:44:57Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Florida State hosts Notre Dame after Green's 30-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-state-hosts-notre-dame-after-greens-30-point-performance/2022/12/20/fbd9905e-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/florida-state-hosts-notre-dame-after-greens-30-point-performance/2022/12/20/fbd9905e-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Little Rock hosts the Central Arkansas Sugar Bears after Myron Gardner scored 20 points in Little Rock’s 72-62 loss to the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.
The Trojans have gone 3-0 in home games. Little Rock ranks eighth in the OVC with 22.5 defensive rebounds per game led by Gardner averaging 6.6.
The Bears have gone 0-4 away from home. Central Arkansas is seventh in the ASUN with 33.3 rebounds per game led by Eddy Kayouloud averaging 6.5.
TOP PERFORMERS: Gardner is averaging 13.3 points, 9.2 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.9 steals for the Trojans. Chris Walker is averaging 2.0 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Little Rock.
Kayouloud is averaging 15 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.5 steals for the Bears. Camren Hunter is averaging 16.9 points over the last 10 games for Central Arkansas. | 2022-12-20T08:45:03Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Gardner and Little Rock host Central Arkansas - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/gardner-and-little-rock-host-central-arkansas/2022/12/20/0d179abe-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/gardner-and-little-rock-host-central-arkansas/2022/12/20/0d179abe-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Howard hosts Mount St. Mary's for cross-conference contest
BOTTOM LINE: Jalen Benjamin and the Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers take on William Settle and the Howard Bison in a non-conference matchup.
The Bison are 3-1 in home games. Howard gives up 74.0 points to opponents and has been outscored by 4.9 points per game.
The Mountaineers are 3-4 in road games. Mount St. Mary’s is fifth in the MAAC allowing 65.4 points while holding opponents to 42.6% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Elijah Hawkins is averaging 12.5 points, 4.3 assists and 1.5 steals for the Bison. Settle is averaging 12.6 points and 6.9 rebounds while shooting 38.6% over the past 10 games for Howard.
Benjamin is shooting 39.2% and averaging 16.1 points for the Mountaineers. Malik Jefferson is averaging 10.9 points over the last 10 games for Mount St. Mary’s. | 2022-12-20T08:45:23Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Howard hosts Mount St. Mary's for cross-conference contest - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/howard-hosts-mount-st-marys-for-cross-conference-contest/2022/12/20/87fb87c8-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/howard-hosts-mount-st-marys-for-cross-conference-contest/2022/12/20/87fb87c8-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Incarnate Word visits Florida International on 5-game road skid
BOTTOM LINE: Incarnate Word visits Florida International looking to break its five-game road losing streak.
The Panthers are 4-2 on their home court. Florida International is eighth in C-USA with 13.2 assists per game led by Nick Guadarrama averaging 2.7.
The Cardinals have gone 0-5 away from home. Incarnate Word is 3-3 in games decided by 10 points or more.
TOP PERFORMERS: Denver Jones is scoring 17.4 points per game with 3.7 rebounds and 1.9 assists for the Panthers. Arturo Dean is averaging 12.0 points and 3.9 rebounds while shooting 48.6% for Florida International.
Jonathan Cisse is scoring 11.8 points per game with 3.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists for the Cardinals. Trey Miller is averaging 9.1 points and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 42.6% over the past 10 games for Incarnate Word. | 2022-12-20T08:45:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Incarnate Word visits Florida International on 5-game road skid - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/incarnate-word-visits-florida-international-on-5-game-road-skid/2022/12/20/c187e9b4-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/incarnate-word-visits-florida-international-on-5-game-road-skid/2022/12/20/c187e9b4-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Idaho visits the Long Beach State Beach after Isaac Jones scored 29 points in Idaho’s 76-73 win against the CSU Northridge Matadors.
The Beach are 2-1 in home games. Long Beach State leads the Big West with 17.6 fast break points.
The Vandals have gone 2-3 away from home. Idaho is 2-1 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
TOP PERFORMERS: Aboubacar Traore is averaging 8.6 points and 8.8 rebounds for the Beach. Joel Murray is averaging 14.6 points over the last 10 games for Long Beach State.
Jones is shooting 71.1% and averaging 19.3 points for the Vandals. Divant’e Moffitt is averaging 16.8 points over the last 10 games for Idaho. | 2022-12-20T08:46:00Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Long Beach State hosts Jones and Idaho - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/long-beach-state-hosts-jones-and-idaho/2022/12/20/9578cd3e-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/long-beach-state-hosts-jones-and-idaho/2022/12/20/9578cd3e-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Mercer visits Troy after McCreary's 21-point showing
Mercer Bears (6-6) at Troy Trojans (8-4)
Troy, Alabama; Wednesday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Mercer plays the Troy Trojans after Jalyn McCreary scored 21 points in Mercer’s 79-52 win over the Morehead State Eagles.
The Trojans are 4-0 on their home court. Troy is eighth in the Sun Belt at limiting opponent scoring, allowing 65.3 points while holding opponents to 43.4% shooting.
The Bears are 0-4 in road games. Mercer has a 1-3 record in games decided by less than 4 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Duke Miles is scoring 14.0 points per game with 2.5 rebounds and 2.3 assists for the Trojans. Nelson Phillips is averaging 12.7 points and 5.8 rebounds while shooting 44.6% over the past 10 games for Troy.
Luis Hurtado is averaging 10.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists for the Bears. McCreary is averaging 14.7 points over the last 10 games for Mercer. | 2022-12-20T08:46:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mercer visits Troy after McCreary's 21-point showing - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/mercer-visits-troy-after-mccrearys-21-point-showing/2022/12/20/703014b0-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/mercer-visits-troy-after-mccrearys-21-point-showing/2022/12/20/703014b0-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Monsanto and Wake Forest host No. 14 Duke
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Wake Forest -8; over/under is 141.5
BOTTOM LINE: Wake Forest takes on the No. 14 Duke Blue Devils after Damari Monsanto scored 22 points in Wake Forest’s 81-57 loss to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
The Demon Deacons have gone 6-0 in home games. Wake Forest averages 75.1 points while outscoring opponents by 4.3 points per game.
The Blue Devils play their first true road game after going 10-2 with a 3-2 record in neutral-site games to begin the season. Duke averages 73.2 points while outscoring opponents by 14.5 points per game.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tyree Appleby is scoring 18.0 points per game with 3.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists for the Demon Deacons.
Kyle Filipowski is shooting 43.2% and averaging 14.8 points for the Blue Devils. | 2022-12-20T08:46:29Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Monsanto and Wake Forest host No. 14 Duke - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/monsanto-and-wake-forest-host-no-14-duke/2022/12/20/8b5d8088-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/monsanto-and-wake-forest-host-no-14-duke/2022/12/20/8b5d8088-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
New Hampshire takes on Brown after Daniels' 30-point performance
The Bears have gone 2-2 in home games. Brown ranks seventh in the Ivy League with 8.1 offensive rebounds per game led by Kalu Anya averaging 2.5.
The Wildcats have gone 1-4 away from home. New Hampshire is 3-5 against opponents with a winning record.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kino Lilly Jr. is averaging 14.7 points and 1.5 steals for the Bears. Paxson Wojcik is averaging 2.0 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Brown.
Daniels is averaging 17 points, 11.5 rebounds and 1.6 steals for the Wildcats. Matt Herasme is averaging 10.1 points over the last 10 games for New Hampshire. | 2022-12-20T08:46:42Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Hampshire takes on Brown after Daniels' 30-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/new-hampshire-takes-on-brown-after-daniels-30-point-performance/2022/12/20/6cafed60-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/new-hampshire-takes-on-brown-after-daniels-30-point-performance/2022/12/20/6cafed60-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
North Carolina Tar Heels and the Michigan Wolverines meet in Charlotte, North Carolina
BOTTOM LINE: The North Carolina Tar Heels face the Michigan Wolverines at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Tar Heels have a 7-3 record in non-conference play. North Carolina has a 0-1 record in one-possession games.
The Wolverines are 6-3 in non-conference play. Michigan ranks sixth in the Big Ten shooting 35.7% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: Armando Bacot is averaging 17.5 points and 11.6 rebounds for the Tar Heels. Caleb Love is averaging 2.1 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for North Carolina.
Jett Howard is shooting 40.0% from beyond the arc with 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Wolverines, while averaging 15.5 points. Hunter Dickinson is averaging 19.1 points, 8.4 rebounds and two blocks for Michigan. | 2022-12-20T08:47:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | North Carolina Tar Heels and the Michigan Wolverines meet in Charlotte, North Carolina - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/north-carolina-tar-heels-and-the-michigan-wolverines-meet-in-charlotte-north-carolina/2022/12/20/be2986a6-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/north-carolina-tar-heels-and-the-michigan-wolverines-meet-in-charlotte-north-carolina/2022/12/20/be2986a6-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Stephens leads Chattanooga against Georgia after 32-point performance
BOTTOM LINE: Chattanooga plays the Georgia Bulldogs after Jake Stephens scored 32 points in Chattanooga’s 83-79 overtime loss to the Belmont Bruins.
The Bulldogs have gone 6-0 in home games. Georgia is fifth in the SEC with 24.9 defensive rebounds per game led by Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe averaging 3.3.
The Mocs are 3-2 on the road. Chattanooga leads the SoCon shooting 39.6% from downtown. Ashton Smith leads the Mocs shooting 75.0% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: Terry Roberts is averaging 13.8 points, 4.5 assists and two steals for the Bulldogs. Kario Oquendo is averaging 13 points over the past 10 games for Georgia.
Stephens is averaging 22.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.5 blocks for the Mocs. Jamal Johnson is averaging 11.3 points over the last 10 games for Chattanooga. | 2022-12-20T08:48:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Stephens leads Chattanooga against Georgia after 32-point performance - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/stephens-leads-chattanooga-against-georgia-after-32-point-performance/2022/12/20/849b3e20-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/stephens-leads-chattanooga-against-georgia-after-32-point-performance/2022/12/20/849b3e20-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
BOTTOM LINE: Norfolk State visits the Nevada Wolf Pack after Dana Tate scored 24 points in Norfolk State’s 70-66 victory over the North Carolina A&T Aggies.
The Wolf Pack are 5-0 in home games. Nevada is sixth in the MWC in rebounding with 32.7 rebounds. Darrion Williams leads the Wolf Pack with 7.2 boards.
The Spartans are 2-4 on the road. Norfolk State is sixth in the MEAC shooting 33.3% from downtown. Kris Bankston paces the Spartans shooting 100% from 3-point range.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jarod Lucas is averaging 16.8 points for the Wolf Pack. Kenan Blackshear is averaging 14.0 points over the last 10 games for Nevada.
Joe Bryant Jr. is scoring 15.5 points per game and averaging 4.3 rebounds for the Spartans. Daryl Anderson is averaging 1.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Norfolk State. | 2022-12-20T08:48:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Tate leads Norfolk State against Nevada after 24-point game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/tate-leads-norfolk-state-against-nevada-after-24-point-game/2022/12/20/364d35b0-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/tate-leads-norfolk-state-against-nevada-after-24-point-game/2022/12/20/364d35b0-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Taylor and Oregon State host Denver
BOTTOM LINE: Oregon State hosts the Denver Pioneers after Glenn Taylor Jr. scored 20 points in Oregon State’s 65-56 win over the Green Bay Phoenix.
The Beavers are 6-1 in home games. Oregon State is 3- when it turns the ball over less than its opponents and averages 13.2 turnovers per game.
The Pioneers are 3-3 in road games. Denver is seventh in the Summit with 30.2 rebounds per game led by Tyree Corbett averaging 8.7.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jordan Pope is averaging 13.8 points and 3.3 assists for the Beavers. Taylor is averaging 12.2 points over the last 10 games for Oregon State.
Tommy Bruner is averaging 15.7 points and 4.5 assists for the Pioneers. Justin Mullins is averaging 12.5 points over the last 10 games for Denver. | 2022-12-20T08:48:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taylor and Oregon State host Denver - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/taylor-and-oregon-state-host-denver/2022/12/20/ad3bda4c-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/taylor-and-oregon-state-host-denver/2022/12/20/ad3bda4c-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
UNC Wilmington Seahawks face the Campbell Fighting Camels, aim for 9th straight win
BOTTOM LINE: UNC Wilmington will try to extend its eight-game win streak with a victory over Campbell.
The Fighting Camels have gone 3-1 in home games. Campbell averages 70.7 points and has outscored opponents by 3.8 points per game.
The Seahawks are 1-3 on the road. UNC Wilmington is second in the CAA allowing 63.0 points while holding opponents to 41.5% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Ricky Clemons is scoring 12.7 points per game with 3.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists for the Fighting Camels. Joshua Lusane is averaging 11.6 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 47.6% over the past 10 games for Campbell. | 2022-12-20T08:48:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UNC Wilmington Seahawks face the Campbell Fighting Camels, aim for 9th straight win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/unc-wilmington-seahawks-face-the-campbell-fighting-camels-aim-for-9th-straight-win/2022/12/20/921a49b0-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/unc-wilmington-seahawks-face-the-campbell-fighting-camels-aim-for-9th-straight-win/2022/12/20/921a49b0-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
UTEP plays N.C. A&T, looks for 8th straight home win
BOTTOM LINE: UTEP will try to keep its seven-game home win streak intact when the Miners take on N.C. A&T.
The Miners have gone 7-0 at home. UTEP is seventh in C-USA scoring 72.3 points while shooting 46.8% from the field.
The Aggies have gone 0-4 away from home. N.C. A&T is third in the CAA scoring 71.0 points per game and is shooting 41.8%.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tae Hardy is shooting 28.3% from beyond the arc with 1.3 made 3-pointers per game for the Miners, while averaging 13.4 points. Mario McKinney Jr. is shooting 49.3% and averaging 11.3 points for UTEP. | 2022-12-20T08:48:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | UTEP plays N.C. A&T, looks for 8th straight home win - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/utep-plays-nc-aandt-looks-for-8th-straight-home-win/2022/12/20/2f817b38-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/utep-plays-nc-aandt-looks-for-8th-straight-home-win/2022/12/20/2f817b38-803b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Vanover and Oral Roberts host South Dakota
South Dakota Coyotes (5-8, 0-1 Summit) at Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (10-3, 1-0 Summit)
BOTTOM LINE: Oral Roberts faces the South Dakota Coyotes after Connor Vanover scored 21 points in Oral Roberts’ 79-40 win over the South Dakota State Jackrabbits.
The Golden Eagles have gone 8-0 in home games. Oral Roberts averages 15.8 assists per game to lead the Summit, paced by Max Abmas with 3.5.
The Coyotes are 0-1 in conference games. South Dakota ranks sixth in the Summit giving up 72.8 points while holding opponents to 44.7% shooting.
The Golden Eagles and Coyotes match up Wednesday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Abmas is averaging 19 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists for the Golden Eagles. Vanover is averaging 13.3 points, 6.8 rebounds and three blocks over the last 10 games for Oral Roberts.
A.J. Plitzuweit is scoring 11.9 points per game with 2.6 rebounds and 2.4 assists for the Coyotes. Paul Bruns is averaging 10.8 points over the past 10 games for South Dakota. | 2022-12-20T08:49:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Vanover and Oral Roberts host South Dakota - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/vanover-and-oral-roberts-host-south-dakota/2022/12/20/8ebcfa92-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/vanover-and-oral-roberts-host-south-dakota/2022/12/20/8ebcfa92-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Watkins and VCU host Navy
BOTTOM LINE: VCU hosts the Navy Midshipmen after Jamir Watkins scored 22 points in VCU’s 90-63 win over the Northern Illinois Huskies.
The Rams are 7-1 in home games. VCU scores 68.2 points and has outscored opponents by 4.1 points per game.
The Midshipmen have gone 2-4 away from home. Navy is 2-0 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
Tyler Nelson is shooting 49.1% and averaging 13.1 points for the Midshipmen. Daniel Deaver is averaging 9.4 points over the last 10 games for Navy. | 2022-12-20T08:49:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Watkins and VCU host Navy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/watkins-and-vcu-host-navy/2022/12/20/65b4cb8e-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/watkins-and-vcu-host-navy/2022/12/20/65b4cb8e-803a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
People watch Sony’s robotic dogs, known as Aibo, during Sichi-Go-San, a Japanese custom that celebrates the healthy growth of children, at the Kanda Myojin Shrine in Tokyo last month. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)
TOKYO — For a country where emoji were invented, Japan’s bureaucracy remains steadfastly analog.
Official documents are often submitted via fax (a machine that sends messages over the phone line) or floppy disk (a precursor to the USB drive). In fact, thousands of government regulations insist on the use of such 20th-century stalwarts.
The Japanese government wants to make a technological upgrade and move the 1,741 local municipalities and the central government systems into a government cloud platform. But it’s a massive undertaking. Taro Kono, Japan’s new digital minister who began the role in August, is tasked with the daunting effort and getting bureaucrats to change their deeply set ways.
“If it’s something from the 20th century, maybe we should leave it in the 20th century and do something new,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post. “When automobiles came in and they wanted to pave the road, and those people with horse carriages opposed paving the road, you just still had to do it anyway. Same thing.”
The limitations of this approach became woefully clear during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when medical professionals were required to submit handwritten reports about each new infection and fax them to the public health office. It overwhelmed doctors and public health offices with paperwork and created delays in updating the public about new cases and sending pandemic subsidies to businesses.
It’s not just government services. Bank transactions and housing contracts often require the use of hanko, a personal seal, in lieu of signatures.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy and home to humanoid robots, this year ranked a record low in an annual measure of global digital competitiveness by the International Institute for Management Development, a leading business school in Switzerland. Japan ranked 29th out of 63 economies measured by knowledge, technology and “future readiness,” lagging behind other Asian economies. In four of the categories, Japan came dead last.
Last year, Japan established a new Digital Agency to digitize the bureaucracy and the Japanese society. The agency had a slow start, faced with resistance from local governments and even a technical glitch with the rollout of its website.
In August, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida appointed Kono as the new digital minister to carry out the country’s digital overhaul. Kono previously was Japan’s foreign minister, administrative reform minister and a 2021 candidate for prime minister.
A Twitter-savvy Japanese politician speaking impeccable English, Kono ruffled feathers in 2021 as administrative reform minister when he pushed to get rid of the bureaucracy’s dependence on fax machines. Now as digital minister, Kono has been as staple figure on television shows, at public events and on Twitter to more than 2 million followers, hailing the efficiencies of going digital.
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Among Kono’s priorities is integrating Japan’s My Number system, which is similar to the American Social Security card. The system launched in 2016 so that Japanese residents can connect their health insurance, bank accounts and other services, including purchasing alcohol. It requires people to obtain the physical card, but sign-ups have been slow because residents are worried about security concerns and find the registration process a hassle.
A 2020 survey of 480 government employees by a Japanese consulting firm that supports remote work found that during covid, 86 percent of exchanges with politicians were done by fax and 80 percent of briefings to politicians were done in person.
“It’s not like a big ideology. It’s practical application,” he said.
For rivals Japan and China, the new space race is about removing junk
The Japanese government’s salaries can’t compete with the high-paying engineering jobs in private companies, so the agency offers a revolving-door model for private-sector employees to work part-time two days a week. To prevent brain drain, employees from local governments and other central government ministries also can work stints at the Digital Agency, which Kono compared to a “missionary system.”
The Digital Agency is also looking to make the government’s complex procurement process for contracts more accessible for start-ups that could introduce new technologies and ideas to the way current work is done.
“When you renew your driver’s license, you have to go to the police station to watch a half-an-hour video. But why do you have to show up? Why can’t you do that online?” Kono said. The same concept applies to taking necessary government exams, he said, and start-ups offering remote-testing technology have begun bidding for government contracts under the regulatory overhaul.
Earlier this year, a government ministry asked the public to submit their thoughts about the future of metaverse platforms and challenges that prevent people from accessing them. Yet the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication’s effort to gather feedback on the emerging technology was extremely analog: People were required to write their ideas into an Excel spreadsheet, then email the spreadsheet as a file attachment, adding layers of hurdles in the submission process.
The feedback mechanism went viral on Twitter, drawing ridicule from Japanese residents. Kono retweeted the viral post, adding his own comment: “We will use a form [online] next time.” | 2022-12-20T09:24:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taro Kono wants to update the technology of Japan’s bureaucracy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/20/japan-digital-taro-kono-modernize/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/20/japan-digital-taro-kono-modernize/ |
In a period of personal grief, producer Jimmy Iovine enlisted a range of pop stars for a good cause. And unto us “A Very Special Christmas” was born.
(Washington Post photo illustration is based on images by Ilpo Musto/Shutterstock, Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images, Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/Shutterstock, Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images, John Redman/Associate Press, Special Olympics)
Jimmy Iovine was sitting on the floor of his sister’s house in Staten Island, on the phone with Bruce Springsteen, when he made the decision. It was 1985, and Iovine’s father, Vincent, had died suddenly on what the legendary producer says is “still the worst day of my life.”
Springsteen had called to offer his condolences, Iovine recalls, and “at that moment, I just said, ‘I’m going to make a Christmas album for my dad.’”
“And I got off the phone, and I put all the energy that I’ve ever put into anything, and I said, ‘I’m gonna make this album,’” Iovine says.
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The Pointer Sisters — “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”
Whitney Houston — “Do You Hear What I Hear?”
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band — “Merry Christmas, Baby”
Pretenders — “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
John Mellencamp — “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”
Sting — “Gabriel’s Message”
Run-DMC — “Christmas in Hollis”
U2 — “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
Madonna — “Santa Baby”
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band — “The Little Drummer Boy”
Bryan Adams — “Run Rudolph Run”
Bon Jovi — “Back Door Santa”
Alison Moyet — “The Coventry Carol”
Stevie Nicks — “Silent Night”
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“I said, ‘What? Okay, now I got another reason,’” Iovine says. “I’m gonna try to help make this cool. It’s already cool. I want people to know it’s cool.”
“Ten years later, I was sitting with Tupac, and he saw the [“A Very Special Christmas”] album cover and he goes, ‘I bought that album!’” Iovine remembers. Tupac, who was 16 when it came out, told Iovine that he bought it specifically for the sole hip-hop track. “It was things like that make the record so special to me,” Iovine says.
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“We thought it was just be this hip-hop song on the album with these great artists,” McDaniels says. “We felt very humbled and flattered to have some good company. We had no idea we were going to steal the show.”
McDaniels is convinced that people will still be discovering — and dancing — to “Christmas in Hollis” 100 years from now. “For the rest of the existence of the universe, we have an official Christmas song like Bing and Nat,” he says, sounding awed. “We’re as much a part of Christmas as Rudolph and Santa and the Claymation holiday specials.”
For Bobby Shriver, Whitney Houston’s session in North Carolina stands out. “She looked like a kid,” he recalls. She was chewing gum while she listened to the track for “Do You Hear What I Hear?” She removed the gum, strolled into the booth, put the headphones on and sang it, then walked back out and looked for her gum to pop back in, while “everyone in the group had their jaws on the ground. [Her] voice was just so big and bold and beautiful, and she sang the whole thing in one take.”
One night, he was in Los Angeles for Stevie Nicks’s session and needed to get to the airport to fly back to his job in New York by morning. As he reluctantly headed out the door, “this kid — this guy changed my life, I don’t even know who he was — comes up to me and says, ‘Do you want a cassette of the session?’”
Shriver hopped in his rental Ford Taurus. He popped in the cassette. “And of course, bingo, there was the whole session. Stevie singing ‘Silent Night.’ And I was driving there listening to that, and I thought, ‘I’m quitting the finance business. This is the f---ing real thing right here, man.’ To hear the song ‘Silent Night’ in her iconic voice at 2 in the morning on Sunset Boulevard. It was just like, ‘Oh my God,’” he says.
Finishing the album often required 80-hour workweeks for Iovine, Vicky and Shriver. Eventually, the 15 songs were recorded and polished. Keith Haring, the art world’s celebrated graffitist, drew the distinctive red-and-gold album cover, featuring a haloed figure cradling a child. “After we finished this thing, and it came out and was very successful, I was very scared it would be copied,” Shriver says. “And I can very vividly remember Jimmy telling me, ‘It’ll never happen because no one will do the amount of work we did.’”
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Then there was the reemergence of Eartha Kitt’s cheeky and seductive 1953 song “Santa Baby,” performed here by Madonna in a bubble gum voice, which was loved by some and loathed by others. Nevertheless, Sheffield says, “‘A Very Special Christmas’ made ‘Santa Baby.’” He adds, “It’s funny that this is a song people now talk about as an old classic, but it was completely forgotten, completely unheard at any point in the ’70s or ’80s. It was not on any stations, any Christmas rotations.”
“Santa Baby” particularly stands out “because it was a funny change of pace,” he says. The slightly goofy, fully joyous “Christmas in Hollis” has a similarly interesting album placement, sandwiched between Sting’s somber “Gabriel’s Message” and U2’s heartfelt yearning. The album is “designed to have something for the kids, something for the old folks, something for the grandparents, something for the weird drunk uncle who just sits by himself at the punch and hums along with Bob Seger singing ‘The Little Drummer Boy,’” Sheffield says. A little something for everybody.
“Almost all charitable organizations and foundations, private companies focused all their help on supporting the Ukrainian army now. Our organization was able to receive stable financial help only from ‘A Very Special Christmas,’” Pidvarko says. “For now, we can’t train and compete due to constant rocket fire, but our athletes work as volunteers in hospitals, weave protective masking nets for the army, pack humanitarian aid in warehouses and sing along to the albums.”
“I’m just so glad that it has had the legs and longevity that it’s had, and I hope it just continues on and on and on and on,” Pointer adds. All these years later, a listener can still hear the dedication Iovine and his artists brought to “A Very Special Christmas.” | 2022-12-20T10:12:20Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How ‘A Very Special Christmas’ changed the way Christmas sounds - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/20/very-special-christmas-album-history-1987/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/12/20/very-special-christmas-album-history-1987/ |
How Putin’s Spooking Japan Further Away From Pacifism
Analysis by Isabel Reynolds | Bloomberg
A Japan Ground Self-Defense Force battle tank fires ammunition during a live fire exercise on May 28. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/AFP/Getty Images (Photographer: TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/AFP)
Bombed-out and poverty-stricken after surrendering in World War II, Japan disbanded its military and renounced war, devoting its efforts instead to economic development under a pacifist constitution. More than seven decades later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spooked Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government into approving a 60% hike in defense spending over five years. Increased tension with China over Taiwan has only added to the sense of urgency.
1. Does Japan have a military?
Yes and no. The country spends more than 5 trillion yen ($36.2 billion) a year on what it refers to as the Self-Defense Forces. The SDF has about 231,000 personnel and impressive equipment including fighter jets and ballistic-missile defense systems. But there are strict rules about what it is allowed to do, and its right even to exist under the constitution drafted after World War II by the victorious US has been questioned by legal scholars. One of the founding principles of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party was to revise that document, which it still hasn’t done despite being in power almost continuously since 1955.
2. How does Japan defend itself?
Japan and the US became formal allies after the war, meaning Japan has been shielded by the US “nuclear umbrella” amid threats from neighboring China and North Korea. Tens of thousands of US troops remain based in Japan and are subsidized by the Japanese taxpayer. In 2022, relations with nearby Russia worsened after Japan joined the US and Europe in imposing sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Tokyo and Moscow have been at odds for decades over four small islands that lie between their countries.
3. What does the SDF do?
Its role was initially limited to fending off any invasion. Japan began making changes after it was accused of “checkbook diplomacy” during the 1990-91 Gulf War for contributing $13 billion but no troops to the US-led effort to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. It subsequently took part in UN peacekeeping operations in Cambodia and sent noncombat troops to Iraq in 2004 on a reconstruction mission. Each step toward normalcy has been met with unease at home and abroad because of Japan’s past aggression. In 2015, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe overcame a summer of protests that sank his popularity to push through legislation allowing Japan to send troops overseas to defend an ally under attack and to take a bigger role in international peacekeeping. But Russia’s actions seem to have changed domestic views. Kishida’s decision to send military equipment, albeit nonlethal, to Ukraine met little resistance. Since then he has repeatedly warned about the threat Taiwan faces from China, saying, “Ukraine today could be East Asia tomorrow.”
Under a new national security strategy approved in mid-December, Japan will expand its defense budget, setting aside its spending cap of 1% of gross domestic product. Together with some items not previously counted as military expenditure, the total could reach the 2% level established for members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to which Japan does not belong. Japan’s military could move up six spots to become the third-largest in the world in terms of spending, behind the US and China. The defense ministry is looking at new hardware including Tomahawk cruise missiles and has plans to develop a new fighter jet with the UK and Italy. (Japan’s wartime ally Germany, which also nurtured a pacifist streak afterward despite joining NATO, made a radical shift as well after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by deciding to drastically raise its defense spending.)
5. Can Japan afford it?
As the world’s most heavily indebted nation, Japan may struggle to pull together the resources, given the ballooning cost of supporting its aging population. Kishida has said most of the amount required for the next five years can be covered from surpluses and asset sales, but that taxes will eventually need to rise — an idea that polls show is unpopular with voters. Former Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera has called for an improvement in pay and conditions for SDF members, as the government struggles to find enough recruits.
6. What will the neighbors say?
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has accused Japan of advocating an arms race and has said the country should reflect on the “untold suffering” it inflicted. (China’s own defense budget has soared in recent years.) While Japan, which started World War II in Asia, has apologized for past misdeeds, some Japanese officials have triggered periodic diplomatic flare-ups by playing down or denying wartime abuses such as the 1937-38 Rape of Nanking or the imperial army’s conscription of Korean women to work in brothels. South Korea, which was colonized by Japan even before the war, is in a more complex position as a fellow US ally now. While its president has sought reconciliation, his government has urged transparency in Japan’s defense spending.
7. Will Japan change its constitution?
Abe reinterpreted the constitution to allow Japan to defend other countries and hoped to enshrine the legitimacy of the SDF in an amendment to the pacifist Article 9. The hurdles to that remain high, and Kishida, a Hiroshima native who campaigns for the abolition of nuclear weapons, hasn’t treated constitutional change as a priority. A 2022 survey by the Asahi newspaper showed 51% of respondents were in favor of Abe’s proposed amendment and 33% were against. | 2022-12-20T10:12:26Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Putin’s Spooking Japan Further Away From Pacifism - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-putins-spooking-japan-further-away-from-pacifism/2022/12/20/74d146b4-8045-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-putins-spooking-japan-further-away-from-pacifism/2022/12/20/74d146b4-8045-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead speaks to reporters in New York in May. (Mary Altaffer/AP)
On Sunday, Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead wore an Adidas tracksuit and bejeweled watch as he addressed his congregation via live stream from his home. During the over two-hour service he titled “What Are You Made Of,” the “Bling Bishop” talked about his collection of Fendi, Gucci and Louis Vuitton items.
“It’s God’s design,” the New York-based preacher with Leaders of Tomorrow International Churches said in a clip posted to Instagram. “Wear what you want to wear because it was designed for you.”
Miller-Whitehead was arrested on federal charges less than 24 hours later. A grand jury alleged that some of the bishop’s designer items weren’t a product of faith, but rather the result of bilking a member of his church. He is also accused of attempting to extort a businessman and of lying to federal investigators, according to an indictment.
“His campaign of fraud and deceit stops now,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a news release.
On Monday, Miller-Whitehead pleaded not guilty to the four charges he is facing, including wire fraud, attempted extortion and deceiving the FBI. His attorney, Dawn Florio, told The Washington Post that Miller-Whitehead “is not guilty of these charges.”
“He feels that he is being targeted and being turned into a villain from a victim,” Florio said.
Preacher and his wife robbed of $1 million in jewelry during sermon
Miller-Whitehead made headlines in July when three masked gunmen entered his church and made away with $1 million worth of jewelry from the bishop and his wife during a live-streamed service. Two suspects were arrested two months later, while a third remains at large, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York announced in September.
The incident garnered international attention, but in its aftermath, questions began swirling about Miller-Whitehead’s flamboyant lifestyle — and soon, some of the bishop’s previous legal battles were put under the spotlight.
One of the incidents to resurface in the robbery’s wake: a 2021 lawsuit claiming Miller-Whitehead had promised to help a parishioner buy a home.
“I am a man of integrity and you will not lose,” Miller-Whitehead texted the woman, who was recovering from “life-threatening surgery,” after she liquidated her savings account in 2020, according to court documents.
Instead, he’s accused of using $90,000 the woman had withdrawn from her retirement account as part of the down payment toward a $4.4 million New Jersey property, according to the lawsuit.
After months passed without a home purchase, the woman confronted Miller-Whitehead, who allegedly said he had no obligation to repay her since the money she provided counted as an investment in his unsuccessful campaign for Brooklyn borough president in 2021. A year later, the woman’s lawsuit became part of the indictment against Miller-Whitehead.
The indictment also claims Miller-Whitehead made “threats of force” to get $5,000 from a businessman’s company earlier this year. Then between April and May, the bishop allegedly tried to persuade the same unnamed businessman to lend him $500,000 and give him a “stake in certain real-estate transactions.” In exchange, prosecutors said, Miller-Whitehead promised to “obtain favorable action from the New York City government” in a move that would enrich both the bishop and the businessman with “millions.”
It’s unclear why Miller-Whitehead would purportedly receive special treatment from government officials, but the indictment’s allegations have cast light on the bishop’s relationship with New York Mayor Eric Adams, who as former Brooklyn borough president took Miller-Whitehead under his wing, according to the pastor’s online bio.
A spokesperson for Adams didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post. However, in a statement to the Gothamist, the mayor said he’d refrain from commenting until the case is resolved.
“I’ve spent decades enforcing the law and expect everyone to follow it,” Adams told the outlet, calling the allegations “troubling.” “I have also dedicated my life to assisting individuals with troubled pasts.”
Three charges Miller-Whitehead is facing — two counts of wire fraud and one of extortion — carry a maximum 20-year prison sentence each. The bishop is also accused of making material false statements to FBI agents, who were executing a search warrant, about the number of phones he possessed — a charge that carries a maximum five-year sentence.
After previously being found guilty of identity theft and larceny, which he maintains were “illegal” convictions, Miller-Whitehead turned to “the power of transformation through God’s love and grace” to found the Leaders of Tomorrow Ministry, according to his bio. A preacher of prosperity gospel, the bishop’s sermons often profess that a mix of God’s will, unwavering faith and financial donations will result in personal wealth — his “Gucci, Fendi and Louis” outfits are a testament to it, Miller-Whitehead said a day before his arrest.
“Everybody thought that I was a villain,” Miller-Whitehead said during his Sunday sermon, reflecting on the reactions to the July robbery. “But now they’re seeing I was anointed by God.” | 2022-12-20T10:12:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead arrested and accused of fraud, extortion - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/20/bishop-lamor-whitehead-arrested-fraud/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/20/bishop-lamor-whitehead-arrested-fraud/ |
A study found that longer use of statins, such as the one above, was linked to a lower risk of experiencing an intracerebral hemorrhage, the deadliest type of stroke. (Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)
People taking cholesterol-lowering statins also may be reducing, by up to 38 percent, their chances of having a life-threatening brain-bleeding stroke, according to research published in the journal Neurology.
The study found that longer use of statins was linked to a lower risk for experiencing an intracerebral hemorrhage, ranging from a 16 percent lower risk for shorter-term use to a 38 percent lower risk for those who had taken statins for five years or more. The researchers also found that the location of the bleeding in the brain did not affect the risk reductions.
Previous research had found that statins can lower a person’s risk for a stroke caused by a blood clot. The new findings came from analysis of medical data on people 55 and older — including 2,164 who had, for the first time, experienced an intracerebral hemorrhage and, for comparison, roughly 40,000 people who had never had this type of stroke. | 2022-12-20T10:13:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Statin use may help head off deadliest type of stroke - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/20/statins-stroke-prevention-study/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/20/statins-stroke-prevention-study/ |
Joe Burrow celebrates with Bengals fans after Sunday's comeback victory over the Buccaneers in Tampa. (Julio Aguilar/Getty Images)
TAMPA — They’re no one’s feel-good, out-of-nowhere, rags-to-riches story anymore. For quarterback Joe Burrow and his Cincinnati Bengals, this season has been about figuring out what to do for an encore — and attempting to confirm a new age of on-field prosperity indeed has taken hold for a longtime laughingstock.
They are doing quite well. The Bengals are back in the mix of leading contenders in the AFC the season after their rapid ascent from woebegone to Super Bowl participant. Staying at — or near — the top presents a set of challenges different from those associated with getting there in the first place, and the Bengals are showing signs of being a built-to-last upper-tier team.
“We fight,” said wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase as music blared in a cramped but celebratory locker room at Raymond James Stadium following the Bengals’ 34-23 triumph over the host Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. “This is a good team. We’ve got a great defense — great everything, honestly. We do a good job of fighting and not giving up.”
Ready for the next challenge.
Locker Room Celly | @KetteringHealth pic.twitter.com/Yo4ETNHxL9
The victory moved the Bengals (10-4) into sole possession of first place in the AFC North, a game ahead of the Baltimore Ravens (9-5). They are the AFC’s No. 3 seed, trailing the Buffalo Bills (11-3) and Kansas City Chiefs (11-3). And they are playing as well as anyone, with wins in six straight and eight of nine. The Bengals erased a 17-0 deficit Sunday by scoring 34 straight points as Tom Brady and the Buccaneers came unglued during a mistake-filled second half.
“It was an exciting game but an ugly one that we were able to pull out,” Burrow said. “That just goes to show you that teams like we have, they just find ways to win games.”
Before last season, the Bengals hadn’t made a playoff appearance since the 2015 season, hadn’t recorded a postseason victory since January 1991 and hadn’t reached the Super Bowl in 33 years. They went 4-11-1 two years ago for their fifth straight losing season.
Their quarterback just turned 26 and is only in his third season. Burrow played his 44th NFL game Sunday, including the postseason. Yet this is a team that seems to be rapidly developing its championship mettle. Burrow has undeniable swagger and unwavering self-belief. That was clear in Sunday’s stay-the-course performance, by Burrow and the team around him.
“I think when we were down 17-0, we had no rhythm on either side of the ball,” Coach Zac Taylor said. “And our guys really just at halftime took a deep breath and said that we can take over this game. And the first half wasn’t what we’re about. ... It was probably one of those games that we needed, to be quite honest with you — kind of smacked in the mouth a little bit in the first half and then responded the right way.”
It was Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl winner, who came undone in the second half, throwing two interceptions and losing two fumbles. Cincinnati defensive players noted afterward that Brady had said during his weekly podcast that the Bengals had a “fairly tough” defense, although Burrow said he had been unaware of the remark and didn’t think Brady meant anything disparaging by it. Burrow threw second-half touchdown passes to four different receivers, including one to Chase.
“We’re never out of it,” Burrow said. “We’ve been in these situations before, and we always come back and make it a game. Today we were able to come back and really put them away there in the second half.”
During last season’s Super Bowl run, Burrow made the point that while the Bengals were surprising others, they were not necessarily surprising themselves because they knew they were a worthy team. On Sunday, he said the team’s confidence level and its resolve amid seemingly dire on-field circumstances are not heightened these days. Such traits became ingrained long before Sunday, he suggested.
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“No,” Burrow said, “it’s really been the same. We felt really good about our coaches, our players and our scheme, really, both years. And so when we get in these situations, we never panic. We know somebody’s going to make a play to put us right back in it.”
Said Taylor: “We’re going to play good teams from here on out. We always want to possess the lead and be able to play from the front. But there’s going to be times where things just don’t go your way. And for this team to feel that again — because we haven’t had to feel that in a while — that there’s still plenty of time left on the clock, no need to panic, just take a deep breath and step up, I saw that from everybody.”
This season has had its issues. The Bengals lost their first two games. They were 2-3 after an Oct. 9 defeat at Baltimore. Chase missed four games with a hip injury. The defense was shorthanded Sunday, with pass rusher Trey Hendrickson and cornerback Mike Hilton sidelined by injuries. Another productive pass rusher, Sam Hubbard, left with a calf injury.
“We’re going to count on every guy on the roster at this point,” Taylor said. “And they keep stepping up over and over. No one wants to be the weak link in the defense. I haven’t found a weak link yet, which is a good thing.”
These Bengals don’t feel like a one-hit wonder, not as long as they have Burrow throwing to Chase. Burrow is the NFL’s sixth-rated passer. And while his name is not mentioned regularly in the MVP conversation, perhaps it should be. He is eligible for a contract extension in the offseason and should command one of the next quarterback megadeals. There is every reason to believe he has joined the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and the Bills’ Josh Allen as the AFC quarterbacks who will keep their teams in Super Bowl contention for the next decade or so.
“It’s really felt like the last four weeks have all been tough wins, playing some really good teams and some really good defenses,” Burrow said. “And we’ve risen to the challenge just about every week, continue to play well in big spots, guys making plays in big spots. So that’s exciting.”
The Bengals face the New England Patriots and the Bills in the next two weeks. They host the Ravens in a Week 18 showdown that could determine the division title. Surprising no more, the Bengals are demonstrating their staying power and have the loftiest of expectations.
“We’re [headed] in the right direction,” Chase said. “We’re not done yet. Like Zac said, we don’t have a [championship] shirt and a hat at the end of this game. So we still have room to go and to improve.” | 2022-12-20T10:38:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Surging Bengals are right back in the Super Bowl mix - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/bengals-super-bowl-hopes-joe-burrow/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/bengals-super-bowl-hopes-joe-burrow/ |
Students are behind in math and reading. Are schools doing enough?
Retired teacher Darrell Shives leads a math tutoring session with students in Greensboro, N.C. From left are Bram K, Jose Lopez-Madrid, and Alex Espitia at Jackson Middle School. (Ted Richardson for The Washington Post)
GREENSBORO, N.C. — In a small classroom with bright walls, three children gather for a lesson about blended sounds and rhyming words — material that the second graders did not fully grasp as they learned to read during the pandemic. Mary-Anne Welch, their tutor, holds up a card that shows a letter combination with a related picture.
S-T, the children sound out. Then: “Stool!”
S-N, they start again. “Snake!”
“Oooh,” worries Jayden Beal, jumping back as if he is scared.
So begins another session in Guilford County, where Welch works to recover lost learning with high-fives and a whirl of activities. The hope here is that “high dosage” tutoring — frequent and intensive — helps fill in for what children missed when covid-19 upended education.
The North Carolina district, with 68,000 students, is among thousands across the country coming up with ways for students to reclaim the skills and learning they need to succeed academically. But even with billions of federal relief dollars, many districts are slow to tackle a problem unprecedented in its magnitude.
“What districts have been doing is the equivalent of launching bottle rockets at the moon — directionally correct but not sized to the task,” said Thomas Kane, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education and director of the Center for Education Policy Research.
Kane and other researchers at Harvard and Stanford recently used state and national test scores in 29 states to create a district-by-district picture of achievement loss from spring 2019 to spring 2022. Their work shows that Virginia students, for instance, lost more than a school year’s worth of growth in math in Fairfax County and nearly two years in Richmond. Nationally, students from higher-poverty districts fared worst.
A related analysis found that roughly two-thirds of students who need support for missed learning are located in districts that may not have enough pandemic relief money to fully fund it, said Sean Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford University and a project co-leader. “We may need to think about ways to help provide extra resources, particularly to those districts that were hard hit,” he said.
School districts are required to spend at least 20 percent of the $110 billion in federal relief dollars that they get on learning recovery. While many were slow to start — for an array of reasons — they are now on pace to meet federal spending deadlines. Still, other imperatives drew funds away as schools worked to improve buildings, award employees bonuses and raises, train teachers, improve security and confront the mental health crises, said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.
Schools need to move quickly, scholars say. If they wait to see the next wave of national testing results, they could run up against government deadlines in 2024 and 2025.
“We can’t let the pedal off the gas until we have liftoff,” said Dan Goldhaber, director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at the American Institutes for Research. Without progress, Goldhaber warned, fewer kids will go to college, they’ll fare worse in the labor market and “inequity in society” will deepen.
Staff shortages plague summer school
School districts had big ideas last school year for catching kids up. But many ran into practical trouble. Research released in November said that, in the districts studied, staffing shortages and student absences got in the way. Other research released this month added scheduling difficulties and limited parent engagement to the list of impediments.
Most kids nationally are not on track to recover in the next three years, said Goldhaber, one of the authors of this month’s study.
The most common tool to regain lost ground is summer programs: More than 90 percent of school district leaders surveyed this year reported summer school plans — a jump of 34 percentage points from 2020, according to Rand.
Intensive or “high dosage” tutoring is also on the rise — a practice that often involves one to four students meeting regularly with a tutor over an extended period. Like summer school, intensive tutoring is backed by research. But to get the best results, programs must be well-designed and well-executed.
The problem with summer school and tutoring is simple: Not all of the kids who need it get help, scholars say. Sometimes, too, districts are limited by staffing shortages.
There are other ways to help students rebound: small-group instruction, virtual programs, additional school days and double periods in key subjects like math. Many schools have moved away from classic “remediation” — retaking a course — and instead adopted “acceleration” practices that keep struggling students on track with grade-level material while filling in learning gaps as needed.
Some school systems use multiple strategies: An aggressive plan might include high-dosage tutoring for 10 percent of a district’s students and double-period math for 30 percent, while tripling summer school enrollment from 6 percent to 18 percent, said Kane, from Harvard.
In central Connecticut, Meriden Public Schools Superintendent Mark Benigni said his district of 8,500 students confronted the issue with multiple approaches: summer school, limited class sizes and more than 50 tutors. He believes learners in kindergarten to second grade had the toughest time, especially those who chose to stick with virtual school longer. “Remote learning is very difficult at that age,” he said.
Now, as 2022-23 is underway, researchers say there is no time to waste for the covid generation. National test scores showed “historic” drops in performance.
In North Carolina, Guilford County Schools drew up recovery strategies focused on tutoring, summer programs and the creation of “learning hubs” in the district’s 15 comprehensive high schools; teachers mill around the hubs to help students. The district provides dinner and bus transportation home.
“I get all my missing work done,” said Tadarius Johnson, a 10th-grader who has become a regular at his school’s after-school hub and noticed a difference. “It’s pulled my grades up,” he said.
Whitney Oakley, the superintendent, said the school system, focused at first on middle and high school math. “We used an algorithm to identify students who had multiple risk factors of not graduating,” she said. Early data is promising, she said — with gains at a faster rate than the state’s.
The school district also expanded summer school classes and added school days at certain high-needs schools. But Oakley said she is clear about the enormity of the task and knows it will take many years to recover.
“It’s not going to be something that we’re done with in 2024 when the funds expire,” she said. “We have a long runway ahead.”
Guilford’s interventions have grown, boosted by $10 million in relief funds. It tutors students three to four times a week for at least 30 minutes, always during school hours. It has provided more than 74,000 tutoring sessions as of Nov. 30, compared to 9,200 sessions for the same period last year. And it served more than 6,500 students, compared to roughly 1,300 students last year.
Among this year’s 670 tutors are graduate assistants from University of North Carolina at Greensboro and University of North Carolina A&T, a historically black university. Other tutors are undergraduates, high school students, teachers and community members. Each is trained and paid to confer with teachers for 30 minutes a week.
Mary-Anne Welch, who was tutoring the second graders in blended sounds, rhyming words and other aspects of literacy, was a kindergarten teacher before retiring in 2017. In Guilford, 63 percent of students are economically disadvantaged, and more than 70 percent are children of color. All of her students lost ground during the pandemic.
In her session with the second-graders at Foust Elementary School, she leads the children from one literacy activity to another — working with color-coded cubes, using word tiles on a magnetic whiteboard, listening skills for syllables and rhyming sounds at the end of a word. Near the end, they form their fingers into cameras and pretend they are snapping photos of high-frequency words.
She asks them to close their eyes and try to see the word in their minds as they spell it aloud. Londyn Deberry, 8, starts off.
T-H-E-Y, the girl says.
“Nice work,” Welch tells her. “And what happens to the E and the Y? It turns into a whole new sound, doesn’t it? It makes a long A sound.”
Second-grader Bryson Mills spells S-H-E.
Then Jayden Beal, who has needed extra help, spells his word from memory. W-E. This is the part of today’s tutoring he likes best, the 7-year-old tells Welch. He asks for another word. | 2022-12-20T11:13:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Academic interventions may not be enough to catch kids up - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/20/school-catch-up-academic-intervention/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/20/school-catch-up-academic-intervention/ |
Built & Broken
Coached until she collapsed, an aspiring bodybuilder is now on life support
Neggy Shelton’s coach has no medical background and has been accused of misconduct. He also produces winners. She trusted him completely.
Negar Shaltouki, left, and their mother, Sedighe Mousavi, tend to Neggy Shelton, who is on life support at a health-care facility in Alexandria, Va., on Dec. 18. While Shelton's eyes sometimes open, she remains largely unresponsive with an extensive brain injury. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
A 36-year-old female bodybuilder who collapsed days before a November competition is on life support after following an aggressive conditioning plan from one of the industry’s most controversial coaches.
Neggy Shelton had been struggling to finish her 2½-hour workouts, subsisting on performance-enhancing drugs and an 890-calorie meal plan detailed by her coach, James Ayotte. “I’m very low energy and sometimes I have dizziness,” she messaged.
“No problem Do ur best,” Ayotte responded. “Just dont cheat on diet!”
Two days after the exchange, Shelton was found unconscious in her Ashburn, Va., apartment with a dangerously low blood glucose level, according to medical records reviewed by The Washington Post.
Doctors at Inova Loudoun Hospital concluded that Shelton’s hypoglycemic state was “likely [related to] diet, supplements, and extensive workouts” and likely led to her brain injury. They have warned her family that she may never recover, according to relatives and medical records. She is now in a health-care facility in Alexandria.
Shelton, an Iranian immigrant who dreamed of competing professionally, is a stark example of how bodybuilders are risking their lives, and sometimes dying, because of extreme measures that are encouraged by coaches, rewarded by judges and ignored by leaders of the industry, according to a recent investigation by The Post.
Ayotte denied any role or responsibility for what happened to Shelton. He said that from what he understood, if someone had found her sooner, “she would have been perfectly fine.”
“No way on me and anything I’ve done,” Ayotte said.
Shelton’s story underscores the perils of a sport with scant oversight, and no qualifications required for coaches, who often dictate every aspect of an athlete’s food and water intake, workout regimen and drug plan as they prepare for months to compete. But when something goes wrong, the athletes suffer the consequences — with few, if any, repercussions for the coaches, The Post found.
Shelton was getting ready for a contest in Virginia run by the National Physique Committee, the country’s premier amateur bodybuilding federation. There is no widespread testing for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs at hundreds of shows around the world sanctioned by the NPC and its professional counterpart, the IFBB Pro League. Federation officials have declined to answer specific questions from The Post, but in a previous company statement said, “The health, safety and welfare of all our competitors has, and always will be, of utmost importance to us.”
When Shelton first found Ayotte on Instagram last year, he had already built a large social media following, posting dramatic transformation photos of his clients, whom he refers to as “eggs.” He runs his company, Team Atlas, out of Montreal, where he lives.
Ayotte, 30, is an entrepreneur with no medical background. He worked as a trainer after battling obesity and did a year of “self-researching” before coaching his first bodybuilding client, according to an interview on a bodybuilding podcast from 2020. The Team Atlas website boasts of hundreds of clients with “unbelievable results” since 2015, many of whom compete as bodybuilders.
Ayotte has become a powerful player in the industry, helping to sponsor contests across the country, including the prestigious Olympia last year. Some of Ayotte’s top athletes, including Olympia competitor India Paulino, have praised him for helping them achieve their goals.
“Having the right coach is crucial to your success and overall health,” Paulino posted this fall on Instagram, about two months before Shelton was found unconscious. “James pays attention to detail and makes you feel like you are the only person he’s coaching even though he coaches hundreds of women.”
Ayotte also has been dogged for years by misconduct allegations. In 2018, two bodybuilding organizations in Canada suspended him for life after multiple athletes accused Ayotte of sexual misconduct, including making requests for nude photos, according to Georgina Dunnington, the former chairperson of the Canadian Bodybuilding Federation. A notice announcing his suspension cited Ayotte’s “words, actions and social media conduct.”
In recent years, Ayotte has been accused by former clients of engaging in sexual misconduct, providing risky contest preparation plans and helping to supply athletes with performance-enhancing drugs, according to interviews with a dozen bodybuilders and coaches, along with a review of emails, messages, videos, police reports and court records.
“I coach thousands of girls, right? And 99.9 percent are super pleased with my service and are happy,” Ayotte told The Post in one of multiple interviews over several weeks.
He dismissed the lifetime suspension as politically motivated and said there is “no merit” to any sexual misconduct accusations. He also denied providing drugs to clients, saying, “I haven’t mailed packages of drugs.”
Drug orders were sometimes allegedly handled with the help of his girlfriend, Hannah Mehregan, and labeled as essential oils or vitamins to evade customs, according to several former clients and messages documenting the transactions.
“Please make sure you order all non natural supplements from Hannah before this Sunday to last you until your show, as we won’t be able to ship anything until I’m back! Make sure you don’t run out of anything, ost, tamoxifen, clen, etc!” Ayotte posted on “Team Atlas Girls,” a private Facebook group, according to a screenshot reviewed by The Post.
The message referenced several drugs that are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency: ostarine, a synthetic drug known as a “SARM,” a selective androgen receptor modulator that mimics the effects of anabolic steroids and is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; tamoxifen, a prescription drug for breast cancer patients that bodybuilders use to try to burn fat more easily; and the fat-burner clenbuterol, a medicine that is approved only for horses in the United States and Canada.
“Sarms are 120 per bottle … The bottle will be labeled as essential oils or vitamin D so that it passes customs,” Ayotte wrote to a client in 2020, according to Facebook messages shared with The Post, along with a PayPal receipt.
Charla Drabant, a former client, said she paid about $270 last year to Team Atlas for ostarine that Ayotte advised her to take, and Mehregan sent a photo of a tracking label: “Please message James once your order was received! The bottle will be labeled as essential oils so that it passes customs.”
The Post reviewed these messages, along with a receipt and photos of the drugs. Ayotte and Mehregan declined to comment on these transactions or their clients’ use of performance-enhancing drugs.
‘Get the f--- out of my gym’
Like Shelton, Drabant was a relative newcomer to the bodybuilding industry. She said she hired Ayotte in 2021 after seeing his name repeatedly on Instagram and noticing the success he had helping athletes get their pro cards, which allow amateur bodybuilders to compete professionally.
Ayotte, on the podcast, described himself as a marketing expert, saying, “I know how to manipulate social media. … I make a joke that, you know, my marketing is even better than my coaching.”
Drabant said she hadn’t heard about Ayotte’s lifetime suspension or the misconduct allegations against him. Ayotte was still welcomed at contests in the United States, and his company regularly advertised with the NPC and the IFBB Pro League.
But Drabant grew alarmed within minutes of meeting her new coach. Ayotte, she said, told her to take off her clothes, then touched her glutes and legs as she posed in a thong and bra. She claims he insisted on massaging her after she said no, and asked her to stay the night. Drabant posted a video on Instagram about the encounter to warn other bodybuilders, and later filed a complaint with police.
Drabant received a “legal notice” from an attorney demanding that she take down the video and remove her comments. But she decided to post a second video after hearing from many other women who, she says, shared similar experiences. She hoped to get the attention of federation leaders, including Jim Manion, who runs the NPC and IFBB Pro League.
She did. When Drabant showed up to the NPC gym in Pittsburgh in September 2021, she said, J.M. Manion, the son of Jim Manion, confronted her, saying she was trying to bring down the family and hurt their business.
“Get the f--- out of my gym,” J.M. Manion barked at Drabant, warning her not to bother competing again. A witness confirmed the encounter on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.
Drabant later emailed the Manions to “apologize for any pain or harm I have caused the NPC/IFBB and the Manion family,” according to a copy reviewed by The Post.
But she urged them to take action: “I am very willing to work with you, and all of the victims who have approached me, to find the appropriate actions/solutions to make the bodybuilding industry a safer place for everyone.”
Drabant said no one ever responded. The Manions declined to answer specific questions about Drabant and Ayotte, but issued a statement that Ayotte’s suspension in 2018 had “no bearing on the NPC or IFBB Pro League. These [other] organizations are not connected in any way and there is no way for the NPC or IFBB Pro League to know about the actions taken by other, foreign-based, organizations against individuals.”
Ayotte acknowledged touching Drabant as he helped her pose, but called her other allegations “100 percent fake, on my mother’s life.” Police did not issue criminal charges.
Ayotte said he has been falsely accused in the past, referencing a lawsuit he filed in Canada against two female athletes. Court records show Ayotte dropped his claim against one woman, and a $25,000 judgment was entered against the other after the matter proceeded by default when the woman did not respond to the claim against her.
Drabant ultimately discovered that the legal threat she had received in response to her Instagram video was not from a lawyer, but Ayotte posing as one. She filed a complaint with the Bar of Montreal. Ayotte was found guilty this year and fined $3,250, according to documents posted by the agency.
Ayotte acknowledged to The Post that he sent the letter to Drabant using “a fake lawyer’s name,” and compared the fine to a parking ticket.
Drabant has since left bodybuilding, no longer willing to participate in a sport that she says prioritizes coaches and sponsors like Ayotte over the health and safety of its athletes.
“How am I supposed to have a voice in this industry when not even the people at the top want to acknowledge me?” Drabant said. “I’m literally just trying to hold this guy accountable for his wrongdoing.”
‘An egg of the team Atlas’
As Drabant was growing more disillusioned with the sport, Neggy Shelton was looking for a bodybuilding coach.
Shelton had moved to the United States in 2018 on her own after winning a visa lottery. She came from a family of athletes – her dad won judo competitions and her brother was a bodybuilder. In 2021, Shelton decided to follow in her brother’s footsteps and competed in her first contest. She dreamed of one day opening a gym in the United States as her family had done in Iran.
But first, she needed to go pro. In November last year, Shelton hired Ayotte, unaware of the coach’s history or the allegations against him, her family said. Shelton paid about $1,200 every three months for coaching, according to PayPal receipts. She trusted Ayotte completely.
“Today I’m an egg of the team Atlas,” Shelton messaged him on Instagram earlier this year. “Sometimes I can not believe that I can achieve my dreams one by one, I’m serious about this journey.”
Shelton, who worked as a freelance graphic designer, spent nearly a year preparing with Ayotte through online check-ins. In the podcast interview, Ayotte said he prefers to work with women, explaining that men have “a bigger ego. … A girl is gonna listen and they want to learn.”
Shelton’s relatives said they started raising questions about Ayotte’s methods as Shelton complained of dizziness, fatigue, blurred vision and constant hunger. Her glowing brown skin faded to a ghostly pale, said Arian Mazloumi, Shelton’s best friend, who lived nearby and tried to persuade her to stray from her strict diet.
Shelton’s sister, Negar Shaltouki, told The Post that Shelton dismissed their concerns and insisted Ayotte knew what was best.
“She thought of James like a god,” said Shaltouki, who recently arrived in the United States with her mother, Sedighe Mousavi, on emergency visas to be with Shelton. Her family gave The Post access to Shelton’s medical records, along with her Instagram and Facebook exchanges with Ayotte to help piece together what happened.
Shelton had planned to compete in the wellness division, which rewards female physiques “that showcase more body mass in the hips, glutes and thigh areas,” according to the NPC’s website.
For months, Ayotte focused on getting Shelton thinner.
By the end of July, the 5-foot-6-inch Shelton reported weighing 134 pounds. When she asked Ayotte if she could reduce how many calories she was expected to burn each day, he rebuffed her request.
“Not yet,” he wrote in a Facebook message with a smiling face emoji. “Lets keep leaning down!”
Ayotte had instructed her in messages to order the fat-burner clenbuterol and two other performance-enhancing drugs, and directed her to a website to purchase them with the discount code “atlas.”
“Really,” Shelton wrote with a loudly crying emoji.
“tell me once received. Will help lean legs,” Ayotte responded.
Nearly every week, Shelton answered an extensive questionnaire for her coach, detailing all the “non natural supplements” she was taking: two types of steroids, human growth hormone, clenbuterol, three kinds of drugs for breast cancer patients and two SARMs. In other messages, Ayotte gave detailed dosages and instructions.
By early August, she hadn’t lost any more weight.
“We need to be a lot Leaner,” Ayotte messaged, then quizzed her on her diet. “What are you putting in your mouth that isn’t directly written on plan?”
Shelton responded that she hadn’t been cheating, but could burn only 550 calories during her workouts instead of the required 750.
“No more sugar free stuff. No gummies too,” Ayotte wrote. “Finish ur cardio.”
By early October, Shelton had dropped to 126 pounds. Her weekly Facebook check-ins revealed that she was on an 890-calorie meal plan while expected to burn nearly 1,000 calories — a task that often took her 2½ hours to complete.
Shelton had her eyes set on the NPC Mid-Atlantic Open on Nov. 12 in Virginia. And as the competition drew closer, Ayotte bumped her cardio up to 1,100 calories and advised her to increase dosages of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, according to Facebook exchanges and a voice message obtained by The Post.
On Oct. 27, Shelton reported weighing 124 pounds. She said her body ached, and she couldn’t get her heart rate up or burn more than 700 to 800 calories during workouts.
When she asked her coach which supplements would get her heart rate up, Ayotte wrote that she could increase her dosage of clenbuterol from 80 micrograms up to as much as 160 micrograms, and stay on the drug until the show roughly two weeks later.
Shelton’s siblings said her health continued to deteriorate as the competition neared. In one of the last messages to her brother on Nov. 4, Shelton wrote: “I’m sick of hunger. I shiver from night to morning and I am drenched in sweat.”
Shelton also confided to Ayotte that she wasn’t able to make it through her workouts.
“Last 2 days I couldn’t finish my cardio. I just did 700 calorie of my cardio,” Shelton wrote on Nov. 7.
The next day, Shelton reported to Ayotte with a heart-eyed emoji: she had dropped five pounds from the day before, to 118.
“Yay Wow 118,” Ayotte responded.
Shelton promised to send photos, but she never did.
When she FaceTimed her sister that day, Shaltouki said Shelton was too weak to hold up the phone and laid it on the bed.
On Nov. 9, Ayotte messaged Shelton and asked for her check-in. She never responded. Ayotte wrote her one last time, but unsent the message so that it was no longer visible when The Post reviewed the exchange.
Shelton’s sister grew desperate as she called and texted Shelton without an answer. A worried friend persuaded the landlord to open her apartment that night. They found Shelton unconscious near the door.
After the bodybuilder’s family shared a GoFundMe site on Instagram last month, Ayotte messaged through his Team Atlas account, “If she come out of coma I will help and give her 10,000$”
Shelton’s sister responded that they needed help now, and Ayotte eventually sent $1,000 through a PayPal account, according to a message he sent through Instagram with a photo of the transaction.
Shelton was hospitalized for nearly a month before being moved into long-term care. While her eyes sometimes open, she remains largely unresponsive and requires a ventilator and feeding tube.
Carla Janson, who worked as an emergency medicine doctor for more than 40 years, reviewed some of Shelton’s messages and medical records at The Post’s request.
Janson said Shelton was starving herself and hyper-exercising, and the drugs would only have worsened her condition. “She was on this cocktail of all these other things that nobody in their right mind would ever put together. … It’s just unbelievable.”
Claude Groulx, a former Olympia competitor who said he once trained Ayotte as a weight-loss client in Canada, described Shelton’s regimen as “dangerous” — and something he would never advise.
Groulx said Ayotte had been kicked out of the gym where they trained clients after he reported allegations that Ayotte was giving people steroids and had taken an inappropriate photo of a client. The gym owner at the time did not respond to messages seeking comment.
“He cares only about winning competitions and doesn’t care about their health risks,” Groulx, who works as a bodybuilding coach, said of Ayotte. “A lot of girls win but they end up sick after the show.”
Ayotte denied Groulx’s allegations, and told The Post he left the gym on his own, adding, “it wasn’t the right place for me.”
Ayotte did not address the health concerns raised by clients and other coaches. But he said that to be competitive, “the level of body fat that these girls need to get to sometimes require higher cardio and lower food.”
“It’s part of the game,” he said.
Lauralie Chapados, once one of Ayotte’s highest-profile athletes, said she was in a “very unhealthy state” last year after following her coach’s plan to severely restrict her calories, do two hours of cardio daily and take a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs.
“My mental capacity was just awful … just not even a human being, like couldn’t laugh, couldn’t talk, couldn’t go to the bathroom,” she said.
Chapados said she didn’t follow Ayotte’s plan last year before the Olympia. When she placed well at the competition and didn’t give Ayotte credit on Instagram, he sued her in Canada. The case is ongoing.
Ayotte told The Post that he had “no other option” because Chapados owed thousands of dollars in expenses, and he lost potential clients and income after she failed to give him credit for the work they did together.
Ayotte and Team Atlas continue to maintain a high profile, with advertisements on the NPC’s website. One of the federation’s top show promoters lists Team Atlas in its directory “to help find the perfect coach.”
At the Olympia in Las Vegas this past weekend, Ayotte stood beaming backstage, surrounded by his female athletes in bikinis. He posted the photo and various others on Instagram: “I can’t believe how good all my girls look it’s unbelievable.”
Back in Virginia, Shelton’s family and friends are trying to raise money for medical and other expenses, because the bodybuilder had no health insurance. They celebrated her 36th birthday late last month in the hospital with cake and balloons. Her sister painted her nails bright pink.
Shaltouki and her mother spend nearly two hours traveling every day to see Shelton in the health-care facility.
Before they left one recent evening, Shaltouki nestled close to her older sister, whispered her full name, Naghmeh, and pleaded with her in Farsi: “Please wake up.”
Amanda Coletta of The Washington Post and Hayden Godfrey and Solène Guarinos of the American University-Washington Post practicum program contributed to this report.
Lead editing by Sarah Childress and Jeff Leen. Project management by KC Schaper.
Photography by Marvin Joseph. Photo editing by Robert Miller.
Copy editing by Karen Funfgeld and Wayne Lockwood. Additional support from Jordan Melendrez and Jenna Lief.
Built and Broken
Bodybuilders dying as coaches and judges encourage extreme measures | 2022-12-20T11:13:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Aspiring female bodybuilder in a coma after extreme conditioning plan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/12/20/neggy-shelton-james-ayotte-bodybuilding/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/12/20/neggy-shelton-james-ayotte-bodybuilding/ |
Strangers constantly stop them to talk about Moore, who died at 100 after raising $45 million for the U.K.’s National Health Service by walking laps in his garden
Celebrating Christmas with family in December 2020. From left are Georgia Ingram-Moore, Benjie Ingram-Moore, Hannah Ingram-Moore, Capt. Sir Tom Moore and Colin Ingram-Moore. (Family photo)
It’s been nearly two years since Capt. Sir Tom Moore died, but his daughter, Hannah Ingram-Moore, still gets stopped everywhere she goes.
“People feel that they know us,” said Ingram-Moore, whose father lived in her Bedfordshire home — about 50 miles north of London — for 14 years before his death in February 2021. He was 100.
Called a “pandemic hero,” Moore raised $45 million for Britain’s National Health Service by walking 100 laps around his garden. The centenarian veteran stole the hearts of people near and far — all who were desperate for a pandemic pick-me-up. They found hope in him.
Now, Moore’s family is working to keep his giving spirit alive. Last week, Ingram-Moore, alongside her husband and two children, launched a website called “A Gift of Kindness.” The goal, she said, is to serve as a message board for sharing personal stories of humanity.
The idea came to Ingram-Moore while sitting with her family around the dinner table on a recent evening. They were discussing how Moore’s fans continue to send warm wishes.
“People stop me wherever I am,” she said, adding that strangers often share their own acts of kindness, and how her father was a source of inspiration to them.
“We talk about my father’s legacy,” Ingram-Moore said, and “the gift of hope and tenacity and positivity he left in the world.”
In addition to recounting touching tales, people have told her tragic stories, too — of loss and grief and suffering.
“Recently, people have stopped and engaged me about how difficult life is at the moment,” said Ingram-Moore, citing the cost-of-living crisis, as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine and other widely experienced woes in today’s world. “It feels slightly reminiscent of lockdown.”
Since Moore is no longer around to offer a dose of optimism, Ingram-Moore is doing what she can to fill her father’s shoes.
“He would want his legacy to continue to be shared with the world,” she said, adding that she brainstormed with her family about ways to do that.
“People keep telling me these lovely kindness stories,” she said to her husband and two children, Benjie, 18, and Georgia, 14. “Maybe we can collect them.”
So that’s what she’s doing, on a public platform that is open for anyone to contribute. Its purpose is to show people that, even in dark times, “fundamental kindness is in humanity,” Ingram-Moore said. “My father really believed that; at people’s core, they’re kind.”
People around the world are proving her point. Since the website launched on Dec. 8, dozens of entries have poured in. Ingram-Moore sifts through each one and posts them herself to the site.
“This message board is a place to relate your kindness stories, to share joy and hope with others by recalling any small gift of kindness towards you, or someone you know, and how that felt,” the site description says.
It also includes Moore’s favorite saying: “Above all be kind. It doesn’t cost you a penny.”
One submission, titled “Brotherly Love,” tells the story of a grieving woman who lost her 38-year-old brother in a car accident. While on her way to collect her brother’s things at his office, she stopped to fill up her car with gas.
“I was crying uncontrollably and the very young attendant asked me if I was ok,” reads the post, which was written by someone based in Plymouth County, Mass. “He listened as I told him about my brother.”
Another entry highlights how a generous friend helped ease the financial burden faced by a U.K. family.
“My husband and I are a hard-working couple with two children,” the post reads. “With costs ever rising we have both taken additional part-time jobs. Our families don’t live near us and it can be a struggle to manage childcare and work and make ends meet.”
“A friend recognised our struggle and left groceries on my doorstep,” the writer, who identified herself as “Nicky,” continued. “My kids were so thrilled, you would have thought we had won the lottery!”
There are many more acts of kindness — large and small — written up in short posts on the site. Initially, “we thought we’d do a big push in the new year,” said Ingram-Moore, explaining that she didn’t expect so many submissions to come in so quickly.
“This has already picked up momentum. It’s traveled across the Atlantic,” she said.
The stories emphasize that “the things we do every day have a huge impact,” Ingram-Moore said.
While Moore is sorely missed, “so much of our life is dedicated to ensuring my father’s legacy lives on,” his daughter said.
“We call ourselves Team Tom.” | 2022-12-20T11:35:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Capt. Sir Tom Moore’s family is doing what they can to fill his shoes - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/captain-tom-moore-family-kindness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/captain-tom-moore-family-kindness/ |
Comedy meets history at President Lincoln’s Cottage in D.C.
A standup performance series salutes the playful spirit of the 16th president, known for his ‘really bad dad jokes’
By Eliza McGraw
Max Wolfson performs during the DC Improv’s Two Faces Comedy Night at President Lincoln’s Cottage in the District. (Shuran Huang/For The Washington Post)
A couple of hours before comedy night at President Lincoln’s Cottage, I learned from Callie Hawkins, the cottage’s programming director, that Lincoln’s sense of humor was “pretty self-effacing, and his jokes were really bad. Like, really bad dad jokes. But people laughed.” Soon, three comedians would perform in the cottage’s drawing room, in front of a fireplace and facing about 60 people primed for a playful evening. The event was part of a series called Two Faces Comedy, an allusion to a comment the 16th president reportedly made after a critic charged him with hypocrisy. “If I had two faces,” he said, “would I be wearing this one?”
The Lincoln Cottage — which is not really a cottage, but a 34-room country home that the Lincoln family used as a summer and fall retreat in 1862, 1863 and 1864 — stands on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Northwest Washington. The idea for the series came after Chris White, a presidential history lover and marketing director of the DC Improv comedy club, met with the cottage’s staff for a podcast. The first comedy evening was held in 2016.
“At the Improv,” White says, “our overall belief is that laughter is a wonderful thing and it helps people in hard times. And Lincoln had more than his share in the time he was staying here.” The Lincolns lost their 11-year-old son, Willie, in early 1862 (4-year-old Edward had died in 1850), and the Civil War raged around them. Lincoln could see both the U.S. Capitol dome and a soldiers’ cemetery, Hawkins notes. “He was out here [at the Cottage] every evening making decisions and watching the effects of those decisions being buried in his front yard,” she told me. “And as a grieving father, none of that was lost on him.”
Lincoln, of course, would go to a comedy performance (Tom Taylor’s 1858 play “Our American Cousin”) on his last night. But the president’s death is not the focus here. “This was a place where Lincoln was alive,” Hawkins says. “He visited here the last time the day before his assassination. And so we interpret this as a place where Lincoln lived, where he spent time with his family. … That’s kind of what all of our programming is really about — activating the space as the Lincoln family did.”
That includes committing to freedom of expression. The staff doesn’t review comedians’ material before performances, says Lincoln’s Cottage CEO Michael Atwood Mason: “We know that Lincoln believed in asking people their opinions and hearing them out and asking follow-up questions. … We didn’t want to interrupt artists in their work. We want to hear what they have to say, and we treat our visitors like Lincoln treated his colleagues and friends.”
It was getting closer to showtime. Outside, the sky darkened. A deer tiptoed along the sidewalk. Program coordinator Joan Cummins bartended on the porch, selling water, hard seltzer and Samuel Adams beer. She told me that Lincoln didn’t drink alcohol but he did like hot beverages. One day at the Willard Hotel, a waiter served him a cup of something warm and brown. “If this is coffee, please bring me tea,” Lincoln said. “And if it’s tea, please bring me coffee.” (Research suggests that this wisecrack may have been recycled, making it a true dad joke.)
Also on the porch was Liz Copeland, who lives in the neighborhood. The night was a “unique opportunity to spend time on the grounds,” she said. Meanwhile in the drawing room, shadows sprawled across the ceiling and a baubled lamp on a marble-topped table shed light that looked gas-produced, as if it had been beamed directly from the 19th century. A long couch faced the performance area.
The setting presents a few challenges to performers. The crowd is close. At most comedy shows, the audience sits in the dark, but here, faces are visible, so comedians see how every crack lands.
Over the years, themes for shows have included immigration, grief, veterans and beards. Tonight’s was the fourth in a series about science. Lincoln was in office at the founding of the National Academy of Sciences, and he is the only president to hold a patent. (It was for “adjustable buoyant air chambers” to raise boats so they didn’t get stuck on shoals.)
Once the show got underway, the comedians — Kasha Patel (who is also deputy weather editor for The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang) and locals Robert Mac and Adam Ruben (who has written for the Post Magazine) — won over the room. Patel joked that beyond theoretical physics, she wished for a theoretical physical education while growing up: “Yeah, I can tell you how many push-ups I could do, but never actually have to.”
Ruben recalled his time as a lab teaching assistant in biochemistry — when he graded reports that said things like, “I spilled every liquid you gave me, and my lab partner caught fire.” Mac joked about the quickest way to lower temperatures: “Convert to the metric system. When we convert to the metric system, temperatures will drop 15 degrees, overnight.”
Also from Mac: “Coming here today, my car actually turns into a time machine a little bit. It’s weird. Space and motion freeze, and time just continues to click through. But you know what they say: If you don’t like the traffic in D.C., just wait five minutes, and you’ll be in the same place.”
The night rushed along with plenty of hooting and clapping. There was some audience participation. As the evening ended and staff members started stacking chairs, it was easy to imagine that Lincoln the jokester would have been pleased.
Eliza McGraw is a writer in Washington. | 2022-12-20T11:35:37Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Improv comedy comes to the historic Lincoln Cottage in D.C. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/12/20/lincoln-cottage-comedy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/12/20/lincoln-cottage-comedy/ |
Prince George's County Council member Mel Franklin attends a council meeting in 2016. Recently he questioned moves by new council members to change zoning rules, saying, “It’s not a great idea to rush this process when they are still trying to find out where the bathrooms are in this building, much less understand the zoning ordinance.” (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
Prince George’s County’s incoming council launched its new legislative agenda last week, halting decisions made by the previous council and eliciting concerns about a changing vision for development.
In some of their first moves in office, members of the self-proclaimed “people’s council” unwound rules established
by former council members for some projects that are already underway. The repeals — targeting text amendments to zoning legislation — will give the public more time to weigh in, supporters say, but dissenting members questioned the pace of change and the potential impact on developers left wondering how to proceed.
The actions, unusual for a council to undertake in a month that new members traditionally use to catch up on complex issues, highlighted competing visions for growth in the county. New council members say they want to see targeted development that area residents support. Some members who sat on the last council see the moves as stifling a more expansive direction from County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D), who has said that more growth is needed to place Prince George’s on the same playing field as neighboring counties.
At-large member Mel Franklin (D) was the most vocal of objectors last week, admonishing the council for its haste and for signaling that the county is, in his words, “closed for business.”
“This is not the way you should do things,” Franklin said about zoning bills going straight into introduction without a reason or deadline. “You have several new colleagues who are just learning about the zoning ordinance. It’s not a great idea to rush this process when they are still trying to find out where the bathrooms are in this building, much less understand the zoning ordinance.”
The repeals come months after the county finished updating a 50-year-old set of rules governing development, a process that took eight years and $15 million to accomplish. The zoning ordinance went into effect in April.
The ordinance updated zoning rules and land usage for the county, eyeing transit-oriented communities and areas with growth potential.
Sydney J. Harrison (D-District 9) credited the old council with seeing the changes through, even as he acknowledged last week that what passed was far from perfect. The development industry has had some issues with provisions in the new ordinance, and, according to council chair Thomas E. Dernoga (D-District 1), some council members wanted to further the interests of developers by introducing last-minute bills, which never took effect. Resolution CR-3-2023 keeps those bills from taking effect until the issues are decided, he said.
Vice Chair Wala Blegay (D-District 6) pushed back on Franklin’s assertion that the repeals sent a disturbing message to developers, saying in an interview that many of the text amendments the new council repealed focused on residential projects.
The purpose of the repeals is to rein in sprawl that has led to newly built communities surrounded by emptiness or increased density in areas where current infrastructure can’t support the growth, Blegay said.
“We don’t need to increase our numbers of our population … where we’re building a home in every community, every place that there’s grass,” she said.
Dernoga echoed Blegay’s statements, saying the new council isn’t anti-development as Franklin claimed but advocates development where it makes sense.
“We will help incentivize development in the right places,” he said.
However, alarm bells went off for some developers and former political leaders in the county who were surprised by the new council’s actions.
An affordable-housing development of more than 100 units in Seat Pleasant was unexpectedly affected by the legislation, said Jacqueline Alexander, regional vice president of development for the Community Builders, a nonprofit developer that is undertaking the project.
“It creates serious challenges because, essentially, our project is on hold,” she said. “It means we cannot go forward. We cannot build the building we’ve been proposing. We essentially lose any resources we contributed to the project.”
Affordable-housing efforts were already curtailed under the zoning code established in April, which limited the density allowed at transportation hubs, Alexander said, restricting areas where low-wage workers could live and access transit.
Alexander noted that the Central Avenue corridor in Seat Pleasant hasn’t had investment for years. In the years ahead, she said, her organization will work with local advocates to help educate leaders about how broad strokes against development can hurt the progress they claim to want.
Council member Krystal Oriadha (D-District 7), who represents Seat Pleasant, told The Washington Post in a statement that the previous council acted against the new zoning ordinance and against the advice of the county planning board.
“Bringing quality development to District 7 is my top priority, but we must follow a fair and proper process that includes the voices of all stakeholders,” Oriadha said. “My door is open to all stakeholders who wish to discuss how we build a better District 7 and Prince George’s County.”
Franklin said he was worried that the new council was sending a message to developers that the county is “closed for business.”
“When I first came into office, I thought I knew a lot, too. And it turned out I didn’t,” he said. “We all have a lot to learn about issues of economic development. They’re complex, and it’s just not as straightforward as you might think it is.”
Blegay rebuffed Franklin’s assertion that the repeals could stifle growth, adding that there is a lot of development in the county that can’t be solely attributed to the items being repealed.
“Frankly, not every development in this county is quality,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. That’s why we got elected. And that’s why we’re doing these repeals, because some of the actions that have been done have been bad for the county, and whether it’s good for some business, it’s not good for the residents, and it doesn’t bring the quality development we need.”
Franklin remained unconvinced that his new colleagues understood the potential outcomes of their decisions:
“Have you read all these bills? … I’m just curious,” he said. “What is your view on the repeal? I’m just curious whether you’ve read it. Anybody know what you’re doing? Do you know what you’re voting on?” | 2022-12-20T11:39:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | New Pr. George's County Council takes aim at development plans - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/prince-georges-repeal-zoning-peoples/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/prince-georges-repeal-zoning-peoples/ |
An election officer lays out “I Voted” stickers. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Just seven days after a pair of Virginia state senators launched their campaigns for Congress to fill the seat of Rep. A. Donald McEachin, voters are headed to the polls Tuesday to determine a winner in the Democratic primary, a race that was over in a flash.
State Sen. Jennifer McClellan (Richmond), who emerged as the establishment favorite, is going head to head with state Sen. Joseph Morrissey (Richmond), a renegade within the party who has largely mounted an outsider’s campaign.
Voters will be casting ballots in a firehouse primary Tuesday at eight locations across the district to select the nominee in the bid to succeed McEachin, who died after a battle with the secondary effects of colorectal cancer treatment.
The truncated campaign — with no TV ads, very little campaign infrastructure and almost no time for anything but getting out the vote — unfolded so rapidly based on the date Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) set for a special election: Feb. 21. Under state law, nominees must be chosen at least 60 days before the special election — so by Friday. Republicans selected their nominee, Leon Benjamin, who has previously lost twice to McEachin by over 20 points, at a party canvas on Saturday.
Richmond (two sites): Dogtown Dance Studio, 109 W 15th St.; Diversity Richmond, 1407 Sherwood Ave.
But because the district is so blue, Tuesday’s Democratic firehouse primary will likely determine the next member of Congress. Two other Democrats, Joseph Preston and Tavorise Marks, are also competing. Liam Watson, a spokesman for the state party, said ballots will not be counted until Wednesday morning starting at 10 a.m.
With just seven days to campaign, he and McClellan took vastly different approaches. The field narrowed after Del. Lamont Bagby (D-Henrico) dropped out of the race just four days into it, saving Virginia Democrats the pain of having to pick between him and McClellan — the top two leaders of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus — and risk splitting the Black vote. Bagby’s exit unleashed more support for McClellan, as many of Bagby’s supporters united behind her at an event Friday — a consolidation Morrissey, who is not popular among the Richmond political establishment, alleged was all part of a plan to block him.
Virginia Democrats are vying to win a congressional race in only 7 days
McClellan, a corporate lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor last year, landed almost every conceivable major endorsement under the sun in Virginia. Every Democrat in the Virginia congressional delegation backed her — Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, in fact, put out a radio ad for her over the weekend — and she has the blessing of McEachin’s widow, Richmond commonwealth’s attorney Colette McEachin.
McClellan held get-out-the-vote canvas launches with high-profile leaders like Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney over the weekend, and with former Del. Roslyn Tyler — who represented parts of Southside until she lost reelection last year — in Emporia. And on Sunday McClellan made abortion rights the focal point of her message, zeroing in on a key area where she and Morrissey, a self-described pro-life Democrat, notably diverge.
Morrissey, meanwhile, took a different tack. The twice-disbarred defense lawyer and former prosecutor held news conferences lambasting the system, living up to his moniker “Fightin’ Joe” — a nickname he received after getting in courthouse fistfights. He accused the state party of seeking to “anoint” McClellan in a process designed to help her — none of the eight voting locations are in the part of Chesterfield County where Morrissey lives — and sought to whip up support among voters who may be riled up by his claims, which Democrats dismissed.
Lacking the endorsement star-power of his rival, Morrissey kept a lower profile as he ramped up his get-out-the-vote efforts, holding pizza parties at low-income high-rises in Petersburg over the weekend and in Richmond on Monday. He’s highlighted his legislative achievements such as abolishing the death penalty, while leveraging his reputation as a maverick who doesn’t always fall in line to try to appeal to Republicans. John Fredericks, who chaired President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 Virginia campaigns, urges Republican voters in one radio ad to come out to vote for Morrissey, despite a party rule requiring voters to affirm they’re Democrats and won’t oppose the Democratic nominee in February. “Sign their stupid pledge,” Fredericks says in the ad.
McClellan, if elected, would be the first Black woman to join the Virginia congressional delegation. And as vice-chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, McClellan has highlighted as part of her campaign some of the caucus’s major legislative priorities, such as expanding voting rights and affordable housing, for example. But Morrissey, who is White, is still popular with Black voters in his district as well, and despite McClellan’s avalanche of endorsements, political observers aren’t counting Morrissey out.
“As far as politics goes, don’t count out a guy who won an election while he was technically in jail,” Rich Meagher, a political science professor at Randolph-Macon College, said last week, referring to the time Morrissey was convicted in 2014 of contributing to the delinquency of a minor — a 17-year-old girl who he later married when she was an adult. He resigned from the House of Delegates, then won the special election to fill his own vacancy. | 2022-12-20T11:39:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | After 7-day campaign, Va. Dems voting to nominate McEachin’s successor - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/virginia-4th-district-voting-mcclellan-morrissey/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/virginia-4th-district-voting-mcclellan-morrissey/ |
LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 22: A ‘for sale’ sign is displayed outside a townhouse style building on September 22, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. The U.S. housing market is seeing a slow down in home sales due to the Federal Reserve raising mortgage interest rates to help fight inflation. (Photo by Allison Dinner/Getty Images) (Photographer: Allison Dinner/Getty Images North America)
And those measures suggest it wouldn’t take much for the housing market to get back into balance with more stable pricing and transactions. It might take as little as mortgage rates falling back to below 6%, or some additional modest declines in home prices combined with a little more wage growth for workers.
The online real estate brokerage Redfin puts out a weekly report looking at a variety of housing metrics, and it was their end of April report that made it clear that the housing market was slowing. That’s when asking prices for homes had risen by more than $400,000, mortgage rates had breached 5%, and monthly payments had risen by the most on record compared with the prior year.
But there’s more than just mortgage rates at work in the market, and when all is considered, the affordability gap has been shrinking in recent months, or at least not getting worse. Sellers have been lowering their asking prices and wage growth continues faster than it was prior to the pandemic. According to Redfin, asking prices have already fallen 11% from peak levels, and from the monthly jobs report we know that average hourly earnings have risen 3% since April.
The rise in mortgage rates has hurt sales activity as many owners decide not to sell at the lower prices needed to move homes when mortgage rates are above 6%. But we’ve also seen that even as mortgage rates remain high, small declines in the rate will lead to more buyer activity. As rates have eased over the past couple of months, mortgage purchase applications rose five of the past six weeks, and Google searches for “homes for sale” have picked up a bit.
But December is the slowest time of the year for home sales. What matters for the market is how things look in the second quarter next year, traditionally the high season for home sales. The luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers noted on its earnings call that while it’s too soon to be sure about the effect of recent rate declines, it’s their view that 30-year mortgage rates of 6% or lower would be enough to change buyer psychologies. We’re not far away from that now, though rates remain volatile and unpredictable.
Given the mortgage math I laid out above, it’s not hard to see why that would be the case. A rate increase to 6% from 5% raises a buyer’s monthly payment by 11.6%. But if wages grow by 5% between mid-2022 and mid-2023, and asking prices are down by 10% versus the peak, affordability is better than it was in April 2022.
We’ll have to continue tracking the data, but pulling together the monthly payments buyers are still committing to, the real-time shift in activity tied to easing mortgage rates and recent commentary from homebuilders, even a 6% mortgage rate early next year might be all it takes to restore some balance to the housing market, contrary to the more negative scenarios favored by some.
• Apartment Builders Didn’t Get the Housing Slump Memo: Justin Fox | 2022-12-20T11:44:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Housing Market Doesn’t Need Much for Buyers to Return - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/housing-market-doesnt-need-much-for-buyers-to-return/2022/12/20/4138b2f4-8056-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/housing-market-doesnt-need-much-for-buyers-to-return/2022/12/20/4138b2f4-8056-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who may have torched her own political career by upholding the rule of law and the Constitution, didn’t hesitate during a Jan. 6 committee hearing last fall to identify the primary force behind the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Cheney and other members of her bipartisan congressional panel opted to hold the former president accountable when they recommended in their final public hearing on Monday that the Justice Department prosecute him for a range of crimes — including insurrection, obstruction of a federal proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the government. A 154-page summary of the committee’s findings was unsparing, and it echoed what Cheney said months ago.
“The evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” the report said. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
This is, of course, entirely true. And the Justice Department would do well to bring the full weight of the law to bear on Trump and his merry band of co-conspirators and thugs. All of the hand-wringing about the political implications of the committee’s decision — anxiety that stems as much from a clash of vastly different values as it does from concerns about fair play — can now make way for the wheels of justice.
As the indispensable and instructive Jan. 6 hearings made plain over the last year, the siege at the Capitol was hardly an isolated incident. It was just one facet of a premeditated and sweeping attack on the pillars of democracy and was months in the making.
“Even key individuals who worked closely with President Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th ultimately admitted that they lacked actual evidence sufficient to change the election result, and they admitted that what they were attempting was unlawful,” the committee noted in its summary.
In service of the Jan. 6 putsch, Trump routinely insisted that the 2020 election he lost had been rigged, even though his own advisers routinely told him otherwise. He pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, to sabotage the electoral count. His lawyers filed dozens of groundless, unsuccessful legal challenges to the election results that undermined public trust in the outcome. His political operatives tried submitting false elector slates as part of their attempted coup.
Trump was warned repeatedly that violence would take place at the Capitol, and he ignored the alarms. He stoked the violence in a televised speech on Jan. 6, and he was slow to do anything about the calamity once it erupted. Why would he? Weeks before Jan. 6, he tweeted an invitation to his acolytes that the committee and Justice Department investigators have said ignited a groundswell of extremist activity focused on the electoral count at the Capitol: “Be there, will be wild!”
There are 17 findings of wrongdoing in the committee’s summary; 15 of them focus on Trump’s machinations. No Trump, no Jan. 6 insurrection.
Trump’s unwillingness to cede power after losing the 2020 election has set a number of personal and public reckonings in motion that are equally necessary and uncertain. Trump, after all, survived two impeachments and a special counsel’s investigation. Trump also regarded the presidency as a get-out-of-jail-free card, and he interpreted the powers that Article II of the Constitution granted his office as absolute and monarchical: “I have an Article II, where I have to the right to do whatever I want as president,” he said in 2019.
It was inevitable that Trump would bring that perspective to the Oval Office. He was born into great wealth, and his father’s resources protected him for decades from the consequences of his own financial and personal debacles. He became a media and TV star, and celebrity insulated him from accountability as well. Then he landed in the White House and quickly found ways for the presidency to provide cover, too — for actions with more far-reaching and damaging repercussions than any of his earlier predations.
Now Trump is mired in civil and criminal fraud investigations in Georgia and New York and a federal espionage probe, among other legal actions. His company, the Trump Organization, was recently convicted of tax fraud. The Justice Department has also charged about 900 people with crimes linked to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently appointed a special counsel to examine both the siege and Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Sure, Trump has climbed out of quicksand before, but he’s never had such a daunting pile of existential legal threats on his doorstep, either. And the Jan. 6 committee has, quite appropriately, made him the centerpiece of any legal examination and repercussions related to the insurrection. Its work has made it impossible for the Justice Department, voters and Trump’s party to overlook him.
The public portion of this reckoning is also straightforward: Presidents are not allowed to engineer coups, and they don’t exist beyond the reach of the law — even if they are wealthy, powerful and much beloved by their political supporters. The Supreme Court affirmed that Trump’s tax returns are likely to see the light of day for that very reason, but financial transparency is just table stakes in all of this. How presidents wield the powers of their office, and the degree to which they honor democracy, are more pivotal matters.
In that context, the Jan. 6 committee’s work — and the challenges its members have placed before law enforcement and voters — is as much about rooting out Trumpism as it is about calling its progenitor to account. The country is fortunate the committee rose to this occasion. Others should take up the mantle.
• Jan. 6 Committee Is Right to Defend the Law: Noah Feldman
• Trump Reminds Republicans He’s Not Going Away: Timothy O’Brien | 2022-12-20T11:44:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jan. 6 Committee Makes Trump Prosecution Imperative - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jan-6-committee-makes-trump-prosecution-imperative/2022/12/20/41807d96-8056-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/jan-6-committee-makes-trump-prosecution-imperative/2022/12/20/41807d96-8056-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
The internet titans spent hundreds of millions of dollars, sent their chief executives to Washington and deployed trade groups and sympathetic scholars to quash two antitrust bills co-sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican. The companies treated the bills like an existential threat.The years-long US legislative effort, which harnessed outrage over tech companies’ power and dominance, would have cracked down on the practices of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc. for the first time in the nearly three decades since the internet was unveiled to the public.
The closely-watched bills advanced farther than any other antitrust overhaul in decades and emerged from an 18-month House investigation led by Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline. The American Innovation and Choice Online Act would have prevented the tech giants from using their platforms to disadvantage competitors, while the Open App Markets Act would have pared back Apple and Google’s control over app stores.Despite an aggressive eleventh-hour push, the bills were not included in the end-of-year spending package released Monday, the final shot this year.
The companies have been forced to make significant changes in Europe to comply with similar European Union laws set to take effect in the coming years. US advocates believe that will happen here, too — but it will take time.
“There has been very forceful lobbying against this legislation,” Coons said in an interview. “Every one of us has seen dozens and dozens of TV ads, emails, social media posts.” He added that he sympathized with some of the tech leaders’ concerns, including arguments that the bills could harm US competitiveness with China. | 2022-12-20T11:44:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Big Tech Divided and Conquered to Block Key Bipartisan Bills - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/big-tech-dividedand-conqueredtoblockkey-bipartisan-bills/2022/12/20/529255b6-804f-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/big-tech-dividedand-conqueredtoblockkey-bipartisan-bills/2022/12/20/529255b6-804f-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
You might forgive people puzzling over the political turmoil that has overtaken Peru. By standard economic metrics, the country was an undisputed regional success. Its economy grew by 4.5% a year, on average, in the decade before being walloped by the coronavirus. That is almost four times the average across South America.
Until the advent of the pandemic, poverty declined consistently and even inequality abated somewhat. Though the economy suffered a disastrous 2020, it rebounded sharply last year, growing by a whopping 13.6%.
And yet former president José Pedro Castillo is now sitting in prison, having been impeached and removed from office by a Congress that he had tried to dissolve just hours before. Police have been deployed to suppress street protests by Castillo’s supporters while his successor and former vice president, Dina Boluarte, has put the country under a state of emergency.
It’s the “Peruvian puzzle, very high growth rates combined with rock-bottom levels of trust in institutions and political leaders,” said Georgetown University’s Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue. “Politics are totally uncoupled from the economy,” noted Sebastian Edwards, a professor of economics at UCLA and former chief economist for Latin America at the World Bank. “There’s an attempted coup d’etat and the stock market goes up.”
The upheaval is reverberating across Latin America, not always as one might expect. The presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico — Alberto Fernández, Luis Arce, Gustavo Petro and Andrés Manuel López Obrador — lamented the “antidemocratic harassment” of Castillo, a rural teacher and union leader from Peru’s hinterlands who 16 months ago joined the crop of self-described presidents of the left that has come to power in the region.
But neither Brazil nor Chile, leading members of the Latin American left, joined in the condemnation. Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva noted that Castillo’s removal hewed to Peru’s “constitutional framework.” He wished Boluarte well in the pursuit of national reconciliation.
Perhaps Peru’s remarkable upheaval is not a harbinger for what awaits the broader Latin American left. The country has endured six presidents in four years. Castillo, a political neophyte, was clearly a victim of the racism and classism of Lima’s political class. But he was also a fairly incompetent authoritarian — running through cabinet ministers like water; incapable of articulating a national project; prone to monarchical outbursts. “His multiple mistakes and corrupt behavior made the situation unsustainable,” Shifter said.
But what is cause for wider concern is the broader story that ultimately led to Castillo’s ouster, a story that does resonate across Latin America. It has been decades — centuries — in the making. It is the story of an abysmal, impenetrable inequality that has cleaved Latin American societies in two and destroyed the legitimacy of political systems which — whether of the right or the left — have done next to nothing to fix it.
It is a story of economic models that failed to deliver broad based prosperity — from the inward-looking import substitution strategy of the 1960s and 1970s to the push for market solutions under the banner of the Washington Consensus that followed. Edwards left the World Bank in 1996. Other than runaway inflation, which was pretty much tamed across the region, he says, “the problems are the same since I was there.”
Intractable inequality helps explain the rise to power of the populist Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and the populist Lopez Obrador in Mexico. Discontent with inequality fueled the unrest that coursed through Chile in 2019, which propelled student leader Gabriel Boric to the presidency two years later. It helped deliver the Colombian presidency to Petro, a former left-wing guerilla, in 2022.
Peru suffers perhaps the highest concentration of income in Latin America, one of the world’s most unequal regions. Its economy grows, but as notes Gaspard Estrada, executive director of the Latin American Political Observatory at Sciences Po in Paris, “it’s not the kind of growth people see in their quotidian experience.”
Why is frustration cresting now? The wallop of Covid-19, perhaps. Or maybe it’s the litany of corruption scandals that have raked the region’s political classes over the last five years or so. But it is surely cresting. Though it may have delivered some of the most recent left-leaning governments into power, now it represents a threat to their permanence.
As Estrada has pointed out, of the 14 presidential elections in Latin America since 2019, 13 have gone to the opposition. This time, the shift favored the left. Next time, it would favor the right.
Political systems have been blown up. In Colombia, where liberals and conservatives divided power for decades, there are now 13 parties in Congress. In Peru there are 10, even after excluding 16 — including those that governed the country from 2006 to 2018 — for not reaching minimum vote thresholds. Eighteen candidates showed up for Peru’s first round of presidential elections last year. Ecuador’s first round featured 16.
This partisan efflorescence complicates governance, setting big political hurdles for policy reform, whether from the left or from the right. “Majorities are what is most scarce in the region today,” wrote the editors of Latinobarometro, the pan-regional polling consortium, in a 2021 report. “Minorities flourish in Latin America and majorities are not to be found.”
Most worrisome is the hit to democracy itself, which was only established more or less firmly in the region some three decades ago. Latinobarometro polling finds that support for democracy has fallen to 49% since peaking at 63% in 2010.
“The biggest democratic deficit in the region is among the young,” noted the Latinobarometro report, pointing out that support for democracy among those under 25 years of age is 15 percentage points less than among people older than 65. “Living in democracy is not producing democrats in Latin America,” it concluded.
The unseating of Castillo in Peru is unlikely to strengthen the case for democratic governance in Latin America. But leaving him in place, to suspend Congress and rule by decree, would not have done so, either. The fate of democracy in Latin America rests on the ability of the democratically elected political classes to deliver. So far, they haven’t.
More From Bloomberg Opinion’s Eduardo Porter on Latin America:
• Chile Bets Big on the Hydrogen Revolution
• Brazil’s Middle Class Isn’t Buying What Lula’s Selling
• Latin America’s ‘Pink Tide’ Can’t Revive Past | 2022-12-20T11:44:27Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Peru’s Turmoil Doesn’t Have to Be Latin America’s Future - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/perus-turmoil-doesnt-have-to-be-latin-americas-future/2022/12/20/756a0cae-805a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/perus-turmoil-doesnt-have-to-be-latin-americas-future/2022/12/20/756a0cae-805a-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been caught up in a scandal almost five years after he took office with a pledge to fight corruption. The bizarre case revolves around the theft of cash that robbers found stuffed into a sofa at his game farm. A panel headed by the nation’s former chief justice said there may be grounds for impeaching the 70-year-old leader because of the way he handled the matter. The panel’s findings were rejected by parliament and Ramaphosa comfortably won a second term as head of the governing party. But the drama has blotted his distinguished political career and compounded the woes of a country contending with unprecedented power outages, rampant unemployment and surging living costs.
The furor erupted in June, when former chief spy Arthur Fraser laid criminal charges against Ramaphosa, accusing the president of concealing the theft of more than $4 million from the farm in the northern Limpopo province in February 2020. The suspected thieves were also illegally detained and interrogated by presidential security staff, according to the charge sheet. Fraser is a close ally of Jacob Zuma, Ramaphosa’s predecessor and political nemesis, and the source and accuracy of his information remain unclear. The police, the graft ombudsman, tax authorities and the central bank all instituted investigations. Parliament appointed the three-member advisory panel headed by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo to determine if lawmakers should consider Ramaphosa’s dismissal.
In a 138-page submission to the panel, the president denied violating his presidential oath or breaking the law. He said he sold 20 buffalo to a Sudanese businessman for $580,000 and it was stolen while he was abroad. The farm manager put the cash in a safe, but later transferred it to a sofa in a spare bedroom in the president’s private house because he thought that was the safest place to keep it. The theft was reported to the head of the Presidential Protection Services, according to Ramaphosa. He initially considered quitting, but later backtracked and asked the nation’s top court to set aside the panel’s report on the basis that it overstepped its mandate and based its findings on hearsay. The governing African National Congress’s lawmakers used their parliamentary majority to reject the panel’s findings and the party then elected Ramaphosa as its leader for a second five-year term. That means he’ll be its presidential candidate in national elections in 2024 bar any unforeseen developments.
The probes by the police and other authorities remain ongoing, and under ANC rules Ramaphosa would be forced to quit if criminal charges are laid against him. The ANC’s integrity committee has also conducted its own investigation into whether the president brought the party into disrepute and could recommend that he step aside, although its top leadership will probably make a final call and they aren’t likely to force him out.
The initial uncertainty around the president’s future unnerved investors and financial markets. The rand tumbled in early December after the release of the panel’s report, but rebounded after parliament rejected the findings. Ramaphosa is one of the country’s most experienced politicians. A former labor union leader who made a fortune after going into business, he helped to negotiate an end to White-minority rule in the early 1990s and led a panel that drafted the country’s first democratic constitution. Since taking office in 2018, he’s made some headway in tackling the graft that became endemic during Zuma’s nine-year rule and spearheaded a drive to attract billions of dollars in foreign investment.
--With assistance from Paul Vecchiatto and Gordon Bell. | 2022-12-20T11:44:33Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Scandal Embroiling South Africa’s President - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-scandal-embroiling-south-africas-president/2022/12/20/550b340a-8051-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-scandal-embroiling-south-africas-president/2022/12/20/550b340a-8051-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Energy developers want to build a ton of wind and solar — they just can’t get it connected to the grid
Vapor rises from a geothermal power station along the coast of the Salton Sea near Calipatria, Calif., in December 2021. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)
To achieve America’s goal of shifting 80 percent of the country’s electricity away from fossil fuels by the end of the decade, there will have to be a massive transformation. That means solar farms peppering the landscape from California to New York; offshore wind turbines standing high above the waves off the coast of New Jersey; nuclear power plants emitting steam in rural areas. Together, these projects would have to add around 950 gigawatts of new clean energy and 225 gigawatts of energy storage to the grid.
And right now, projects accounting for at least 930 gigawatts of clean energy capacity and 420 gigawatts of storage are waiting to be built across the country.
They just can’t get connected to the grid.
These roadblocks — known as “interconnection queues” — are slowing America’s energy transition and the country’s ability to respond to climate change.
“It’s a huge problem,” said David Gahl, executive director of the Solar and Storage Industries Institute, a research group affiliated with the solar industry. “If we don’t make changes, we’re not going to meet state and federal targets for climate change.”
To understand the lines blocking the U.S.’s progress on climate change, you first have to understand a bit about how the electricity grid works. It’s easiest to think about the grid — which carries electrons — like the country’s roads carrying cars.
Electrons are produced by a power plant, sent to a substation (those big systems of crisscrossing wires and transformers often near a big city center), and then connected to huge, high-voltage transmission lines that carry power across the country. Transmission lines carry electrons long distances across the country, much like interstate highways. Those electrons then pass into the “distribution” system, which is much like the smaller side streets, expressways, and roads that lead to individual homes and businesses.
When an energy developer wants to build a new power plant, they have to submit an application to see how adding that facility will affect the grid — sort of like trying to build an on-ramp onto a big interstate highway, according to Joe Rand, a senior engineering associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Regional authorities have to check to make sure that the highway can accommodate a new on-ramp without causing traffic pileups. In the same way that an authority might ask the road-builder to pay for the construction of the on-ramp — or, if the highway is really congested already, to pay to add an extra lane — regional authorities ask energy developers to pay to connect their solar or wind farms to the grid.
Biden wants to expand offshore wind energy, but choppy seas lie ahead
Getting the okay to connect has gotten harder and harder. According to Rand’s research, between 2000 and 2010 it took around two years for a project to make it through the queue. Now, it’s taking almost twice as long. At the end of 2021, there were 8,100 projects sitting in line, waiting for permission to get connected. Together, they represent more than the combined power capacity of all U.S. electricity plants.
And 93 percent of those projects are solar, wind, or battery storage. One transmission authority, PJM — which covers Pennsylvania, West Virginia, D.C., and other areas on the Eastern Seaboard — accounts for nearly a third of the delays.
Asked about the matter, PJM spokeswoman Susan Buehler said the authority has recently improved its process, and that the changes will reduce the backlog.
Part of the reason for the backlog is that clean energy is booming. In the past, most of the power plants connected to the grid were coal or natural gas — big, fairly centralized power plants that had a set way of connecting to the larger grid. But now, with the rapid increase in wind and solar, there are different kinds of projects trying to connect to it, and they are much more widely scattered across the landscape.
“The system just wasn’t built to handle this kind of volume,” Gahl said.
At the same time, the country’s high-voltage transmission lines — again, a bit like a bunch of interstate highways — are almost at full capacity, jammed with tons of electron traffic. “Limited transmission capacity is really the root cause,” said Rob Gramlich, president and founder of the consulting group Grid Strategies. When transmission is jammed up, developers may have to pay more money to get their connection to the grid. That may cause a developer to rethink their plan, or potentially cancel their wind, solar, or geothermal plant entirely.
To fight climate change, environmentalists may have to give up a core belief
Rand, the researcher at Berkeley Laboratory, says that not all projects that enter the queue ultimately get built. Developers may decide to focus on other projects or try to get permits later on. But, he added, the projects that withdraw from the queue “have drastically higher interconnection costs” — indicating that some wind and solar farms may not be getting built because it costs so much to connect to the grid. In one study, Rand and a team of researchers from Berkeley Lab found that connecting a wind farm to the grid between 2019 and 2021 in areas of the Midwest and Canada cost about double what it did from 2000 to 2018.
Some experts and developers have offered solutions. Gahl says that some of the problem can be solved simply by making more data available to developers about the costs of connecting to the grid at different locations. Right now many companies throw a lot of applications in, hoping one will stick.
“When a developer goes into the process, they go into it kind of with a blindfold on,” he added.
Changing the order that transmission authorities receive and manage applications could also speed up approvals. Most of the time, the queues operate as “first-come, first-served” — meaning that they assess the projects in the order they were received. But some regional authorities already plan to shift to a “first-ready, first-served” model, where wind, solar, and other power plant proposals are clustered into groups and then approved in batches.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — the agency that regulates transmission across the United States — also plans to create a new rule that it says will help streamline the process.
But experts say the United States needs to radically expand transmission lines — now spanning 700,000 miles across the country — to accelerate the energy transition. Scientists estimate that transmission will have to increase 25 percent over the course of the decade to meet U.S. climate goals.
That will make it easier and cheaper for new projects to connect to the grid, and for all the country’s electricity to get to where it needs to go.
Even as money flows into the development of renewable energy, those transmission lines have lagged behind. “If you look over the past decade, you’re actually seeing fewer miles of high-voltage transmission builds per year than we used to in the past,” Rand said. “That trend line is going in the wrong direction.” | 2022-12-20T11:44:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | This little-known bottleneck is blocking clean energy for millions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/20/clean-energy-bottleneck-transmission-lines/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/20/clean-energy-bottleneck-transmission-lines/ |
Tuesday briefing: Jan. 6 committee’s criminal referrals for Trump; winter storm; Harvey Weinstein; ‘Titanic’ study; and more
The Jan. 6 panel said Donald Trump should be charged with four crimes.
What crimes? Inciting or assisting an insurrection, among others. The House panel formally referred the former president to the Justice Department yesterday.
What this means: It’s an unprecedented move but has no legal weight. It’s up to the Justice Department to decide what, if any, charges to bring.
What else to know: The committee’s investigation into the 2021 attack on the Capitol is about to wrap up. Its final report should come out tomorrow.
A massive storm is expected to hit the U.S. before Christmas.
What to know: Storm watches have been issued for more than 32 million people from Kansas to Wisconsin so far.
The forecast: The storm will probably start in the Midwest on Thursday and turn into a blizzard in some areas that night. If you’re traveling this week, this could cause chaos.
U.S. lawmakers announced a $1.7 trillion deal to fund the government.
What to know: Congress has until the end of Friday to approve the deal or federal funds will run out, triggering a shutdown.
Will it pass? It should. The package, unveiled early this morning, was negotiated by both Democrats and Republicans.
What’s inside? Proposals to extend some Medicaid benefits, help Americans save for retirement, change the way the U.S. counts presidential electoral votes and more.
Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape in his second criminal trial.
What to know: The former Hollywood producer, already serving a 23-year prison sentence, faces a further sentence of up to 24 years after yesterday’s verdict in Los Angeles.
Why it matters: The allegations against Weinstein, 70, sparked a surge in the #MeToo movement in 2017. He is one of the few high-profile accused figures to face legal repercussions.
Sam Bankman-Fried will return to the U.S. to face charges.
Who is he? The 30-year-old founder of FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges before it collapsed last month. He was charged last week with defrauding customers.
What’s new? Bankman-Fried yesterday agreed to be extradited from the Bahamas, which could speed up the cases against him.
There’s a bottleneck blocking clean energy for millions of people.
What’s going on? Energy developers want to build a ton of wind and solar facilities, but it’s taking longer and longer to get the okay from authorities to connect to the power grid.
That’s a problem: The U.S. aims to shift 80% of its electricity away from fossil fuels by 2030, but these roadblocks are slowing that transition.
The “Titanic” director paid for a study about that infuriating raft scene.
Why? There’s debate over whether both of the 1997 movie’s main characters, Jack and Rose, could have survived the shipwreck using their makeshift raft.
The result: The study, using stunt people and hypothermia experts, showed only one of them could have lived. Is that the last word? James Cameron hopes so.
And now … if you need to find last-minute gifts: Here’s how to nail holiday shopping at airports and gas stations. Plus, digital presents that are actually good. | 2022-12-20T11:45:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The 7 things you need to know for Tuesday, December 20 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/12/20/what-to-know-for-december-20/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/the-seven/2022/12/20/what-to-know-for-december-20/ |
The only certain way to avoid a hangover is to not drink. But there are some things you can do before, during and after drinking that can lower your risk.
Tis the season for eggnog, mulled wine, champagne — and hangovers. So, what can you do to prevent the morning-after misery as you enjoy your end-of-year festivities? | 2022-12-20T11:45:40Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How to cure (or prevent) a hangover - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/20/hangover-cures-prevention-science/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/20/hangover-cures-prevention-science/ |
How the South Carolina primary gained primacy
From first in the South to first in the nation
Perspective by Gibbs Knotts
Jordan Ragusa
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at a primary night election rally in Columbia, S.C., Feb. 29, 2020, after winning the South Carolina primary. (Matt Rourke/AP)
Earlier this month, acting on the recommendation of President Biden, the Democratic National Committee’s rules subcommittee approved a proposal to make South Carolina the first presidential nomination contest in the country. Under the plan, South Carolina would hold its primary on Feb. 3, 2024, followed three days later by Nevada and New Hampshire. Primaries in Georgia and Michigan would occur later in February, before a large group of states holds contests in early March.
If the proposal is approved by the full DNC, it would be a historic change in the waquiet Democrats pick presidents — one that will almost certainly alter the race for the White House. Not only would South Carolina be elevated from the first southern primary to the first in the nation, but Iowa — previously the first contest in the nation, holding its caucuses before New Hampshire — would be entirely absent from the group of early states.
This new schedule will upend 50 years of tradition, in which the Iowa caucuses kicked off the Democratic presidential primary season. Iowa began holding the first contest after the tumultuous Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. But in recent years, shifts across the country have made Democrats rethink the wisdom of putting Iowa first. South Carolina’s racial diversity, ideological moderation and predictive ability — the winner of its primary typically becomes the party’s presidential nominee — prompted Democrats to consider giving the state the first spot on the calendar. However, Republicans also deserve credit for making the South Carolina primary what it is today.
Iowa first came to the forefront following the 1968 Democratic National Convention — an event remembered for antiwar protests outside of the convention hall that quickly devolved into violence at the hands of overzealous law enforcement. In the months before the convention, 14 states held primaries, and in those contests, Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy won roughly 40 percent of the popular vote, largely because of his stance against the Vietnam War. New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, who joined the primary late and also ran against the war, came in second place, winning just over 30 percent of the vote total.
Despite the results of the popular vote, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was linked to the unpopular war, secured the party’s presidential nomination. Back then, the Democratic nominee was officially chosen by convention delegates, who tended to be older White men — usually party insiders and union officials who, in 1968, supported the Vietnam War in far greater numbers than the American public at large.
Young staffers from McCarthy’s antiwar campaign sought to prevent something similar from happening in the future. As all eyes were on the antiwar protests outside the hall, McCarthy staffers advanced a rules change to democratize the party’s selection of delegates in the future — with the aim of having future convention delegates look more like the American public that opposed the war.
Another result of this rules change was the creation of the current system of binding primaries and caucuses held in every state in the nation. Under this system, voters participate in primaries and caucuses to select delegates pledged to a presidential candidate, and as a result, the party’s nominee is known before the convention. Primaries existed before 1972, but they were never the determining factor in who won the nomination. As part of this change, state legislatures and parties were given considerable freedom to choose when to hold primaries or caucuses.
Recognizing the opportunity provided by the new system, and knowing the time it takes to complete caucuses, Iowa scheduled its 1972 caucus to be the first Democratic contest. Republicans followed suit in 1976, shifting power from party bosses to rank-and-file voters and elevating the importance of Iowa in both major parties.
Republican leaders in South Carolina also jockeyed for a prime spot in the primary calendar. In 1979, Palmetto State Republicans proposed hosting the first southern presidential primary to help increase the party’s competitiveness there. At the time, there were just 16 Republicans in the 120-member South Carolina House and only four Republicans in the 46-member state senate. Though ideologically conservative, many southern voters continued to have strong ties to the Democratic Party, which had been the party of segregation and slavery in the South. Yet in the wake of the national Democratic Party leading the passage of federal civil rights and voting rights legislation in the 1960s, Republicans saw an opportunity to grow their ranks by appealing to disaffected Democrats across the South — a shift that took decades to complete.
The inaugural First in the South Republican primary in South Carolina in 1980 ended up being a resounding success. The contest helped propel Ronald Reagan to the Republican nomination and increase voter turnout in GOP contests in the state and region. Indeed, party building was a frequent justification for the primary, and over the next three decades, many White conservatives who had been lifelong Democrats cast ballots for Republicans like Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. And while the primary was not the main cause of the state’s Republican realignment, it facilitated the change and helped establish the well organized and politically dominant Republican Party that exists in South Carolina today.
Since 1980, the state’s Republican voters have correctly selected the eventual nominee seven times out of eight. In fact, South Carolina has the third highest predictive ability among Republican contests in the nation — which can be attributed to the state’s balanced GOP voting blocs, with a good mix of economic and social conservatives, veterans and college graduates.
For Democrats, the path to creating a presidential primary and hosting the first contest in the South was much lengthier. For example, Democratic leaders initially opposed holding a primary election in South Carolina in 1976 and advocated for a caucus system instead, in part out of concern that segregationist George Wallace would win if voters went to the polls. By the 1990s, however, the success of South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary was undeniable and, in 1992, the state’s Democrats attempted to position themselves alongside Republicans as the First in the South state. Despite support for the early primary, Georgia leaped past South Carolina to host the first primary in the South that year as its governor, Zell Miller, worked with Georgia’s state legislature to secure the coveted position. Later that decade, the DNC prevented South Carolina Democratic leaders from holding an early primary alongside the state’s GOP contest because of national rules prohibiting primaries from occurring before the first Tuesday in March. Only two states had waivers: Iowa and New Hampshire.
Eventually, the DNC conceded, and South Carolina Democrats held the inaugural First in the South primary in 2004. Since then, the state has played a critical role in the race for the White House, often serving as a decisive vote after mixed, and often controversial, results in Iowa and New Hampshire. In particular, the Iowa caucuses have been the subject of substantial pushback. Critics point out that the state’s Democratic voters are out of step with the party’s demographic makeup and prioritize different issues. According to 2020 exit polls, Iowa’s Democratic electorate is 91 percent White, 3 percent Black and 4 percent Latino. Further criticism poured in when Iowa’s results were delayed in 2020 due to the state’s complicated delegate math and the failure of a new vote reporting app.
South Carolina voters look more like the Democratic electorate nationwide. According to 2020 exit polls, 56 percent of the state’s Democratic primary voters were Black. And South Carolina’s Democratic voters are ideologically moderate, unlike their counterparts in Iowa and New Hampshire. In recent cycles, South Carolina has backed the party’s eventual nominee. After poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, Joe Biden rebounded in 2020 by winning the South Carolina primary and several contests that followed. Before Biden, South Carolina Democrats picked Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
From a historic vantage point, it is nothing short of remarkable that the Democratic Party will be replacing Iowa with South Carolina. Not only did Democrats initially oppose the creation of the primary, but this move elevates the power of Black voters — in the party once known in the state and nation for slavery and Jim Crow. This is a substantial change, indeed. | 2022-12-20T11:46:05Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How the South Carolina primary gained primacy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/20/how-south-carolina-primary-gained-primacy/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/20/how-south-carolina-primary-gained-primacy/ |
PTSD affects those who fight, even when they fight in ‘good wars’
PTSD has long been associated with unpopular wars and not noble causes — but history shows that any war can inflict mental trauma
Perspective by Stephen G. Rabe
Stephen G. Rabe is the author of "The Lost Paratroopers of Normandy: A Story of Resistance, Courage and Solidarity in a French Village" (Cambridge University Press). Rabe served in the U.S. Marine Corps.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, on behalf of the National Center for PTSD, recently released an advisory to veterans, especially to those who had served in Europe, on “coping with current events in Ukraine.” According to the warning, as they followed Ukraine’s struggle to survive, veterans might experience “an increase in mental health symptoms of PTSD or depression.”
VA deserves acclaim for being proactive on a serious mental health issue, particularly because post-traumatic stress disorder has long been associated with unpopular wars and not noble causes, such as Ukraine’s current war against Russian aggression.
To be sure, doctors long understood that war experiences could trouble veterans, estimating that 20 percent of battlefield casualties were of a psychiatric nature. But it took a controversial war, Vietnam, for the disease to finally be taken seriously, and now all combat veterans will benefit from an acknowledgment of the trauma caused by war, which may lead to more resources devoted to treating it.
In World War I, the common term was “shell shock,” and in World War II, the term was “battle fatigue.” The symptoms, such as nervousness and depression, were the same, but the medical and popular presumption was that the trauma of combat was short-lived or easily curable. As demonstrated in John Huston’s documentary, “Let There Be Light” (1946), U.S. Army doctors claimed a nearly 100 percent cure rate, usually with hypnosis. After all, the veterans helped the United States achieve its military goals, which had broad public support as “good wars.”
But the persistent official and popular emphasis on the noble cause of the war’s mission allowed PTSD to ravage the lives of those who fought in the world wars. Consider the case of 160 paratroopers, most from the 82nd Airborne Division, who landed hopelessly off-target near the French village of Graignes, Normandy, on D-Day. The villagers, about 900 citizens, asked the paratroopers to stay in Graignes to defend them from German occupiers. In turn, the men and women of Graignes served the paratroopers, finding their equipment in the surrounding marshes, conducting reconnaissance missions and organizing a cooking campaign that provided the paratroopers with two hot meals a day. On June 11 and 12, 1944, superior forces of the 17th Waffen-SS Panzergrenadier Division attacked the village. When they ran out of ammunition, the paratroopers withdrew from Graignes. They had suffered about 30 battlefield deaths. The battalion surgeon and medics stayed behind with wounded paratroopers. The Waffen-SS murdered wounded Americans, prisoners and medical personnel. The Nazis also slaughtered four villagers, including the parish priest, for the crime of ministering to wounded paratroopers.
Over the next 11 months, the surviving paratroopers fought in the Normandy campaign, participated in the wintertime Battle of the Bulge, jumped over the Rhine River on March 24, 1945, and liberated thousands of enslaved Eastern European laborers in the Rhineland area. Remarkably, most of the 110 veterans of Graignes made it to victory, although many suffered serious wounds. Some paratroopers also pulled occupation duty in postwar Berlin, and most carved out successful postwar lives for themselves and their families.
But they also endured PTSD. Excessive drinking characterized the lives of too many of them. Their friends and relatives thought the veterans drank in response to disturbing memories. One Silver Star winner ended his days running up and down the halls of an assisted-living facility, warning the staff that “the Germans are coming.” An officer, who won the Silver Star for inspired leadership at Graignes, declined to discuss the war or attend reunions and experienced recurring nightmares. The wife of a noncommissioned officer told her son that the man she married was not the same man who returned from Europe. She declined to elaborate. The children of an aging paratrooper took him to see “Saving Private Ryan” (1998), which has been lauded for realistically re-creating the sounds of war. The veteran audibly sobbed and cried during the movie.
In his 40s, S/Sgt. Rene E. Rabe, my father, who had been an avid swimmer, became afraid to put his head underwater after watching paratroopers drown in the marshes surrounding Graignes. He told his youngest son that, whenever he saw a body of water, a drowning paratrooper appeared in his mind’s eye. Reflecting sorrow and possibly guilt, Rabe also lamented seeing hungry German children scrounge through the paratroopers’ garbage. Soldiers were prohibited from befriending Germans during the war. In his 80s, Sgt. John Hinchliff built a log cabin near a pond in Webster, Wis., where he lived alone because he feared that he would hurt someone with his bouts of uncontrollable anger. Journalists who interviewed Hinchliff were “amazed and shocked” when he recounted the horrors of the battlefield.
But if World War II veterans suffered PTSD that went largely unseen and unacknowledged, the Vietnam War spawned both widespread PTSD and a new narrative to explain it. The United States did not accomplish its political and military objectives in South Vietnam, and veterans routinely expressed uncertainty and confusion about war aims. When Vietnam veterans returned home, political and military pundits characterized their mental struggles as “post-Vietnam syndrome.” Public narratives of Vietnam veterans’ struggle to reenter civilian life centered not on what they saw during the war, but rather on what they experienced coming home from an unpopular conflict. Vietnam veterans did not have a parade down New York City’s 5th Avenue; rather, they struggled with finding meaningful employment and being disdained as “baby-killers.” Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) in “Taxi Driver” (1976) and Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) in “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989) came to epitomize the distinctive struggles of Vietnam veterans.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam debacle, the medical profession recognized the depth of the mental trauma. In January 1980, the American Psychiatric Association defined PTSD as a legitimate disease or syndrome. People with the syndrome “have intense, disturbing thoughts and feelings related to their experiences that last long after the traumatic event has ended. They may relive the event through flashbacks or nightmares; they feel sadness, fear or anger; and they may feel detached or estranged from other people.” Whereas PTSD has been defined, it remains a challenge to persuade everyone — the federal government, the medical community and the public — to accept that the experience of combat exacts an inevitable mental toll.
Perhaps it would be best to be more clear-eyed about war and to invest in resources to support those that fight in them. To do so would be in the spirit of VA’s advisory on PTSD. | 2022-12-20T11:46:11Z | www.washingtonpost.com | PTSD affects those who fight, even when they fight in ‘good wars’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/20/ptsd-affects-those-who-fight-even-when-they-fight-good-wars/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/12/20/ptsd-affects-those-who-fight-even-when-they-fight-good-wars/ |
CNN correspondent Drew Griffin talks with Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin after an interview in 2008. (Max Whittaker/Getty Images)
Drew Griffin, a CNN journalist who won a Peabody Award for an investigation into fatal delays at veteran hospitals, prompting legislative reform, died Dec. 17, according to a CNN spokesperson. He was 60.
He had been battling cancer, the network said.
Mr. Griffin spent nearly two decades at CNN, joining the network in 2004. His deeply reported, months-long investigations often led to policy changes. In 2018, he and his colleagues uncovered sexual assault and abuse cases against more than 100 Uber drivers, leading the company to bring in new safety features and revamp its background-check protocols.
Two years earlier, Mr. Griffin won an Emmy Award for uncovering the fraudulent moneymaking practices deployed by Trump University.
In April 2014, after six months of sustained coverage on delayed medical appointments for veterans leading to late treatment and even deaths, CNN aired “A Fatal Wait,” in which Griffin and his team revealed how a Veterans Affairs hospital in Arizona falsified records to hide the prolonged waiting times. The coverage of the issue led to the resignation of Veterans Affairs secretary, Eric Shinseki.
Mr. Griffin’s recent work focused on the challenges to American democracy in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection; his coverage was cited in court filings by the Justice Department and the committee investigating the riots.
CNN CEO Chris Licht called Mr. Griffin’s death a “devastating loss” for the network and the journalism community. “He cared about seeking the truth and holding the powerful to account,” Licht said in a newsroom email. “He was hard-hitting, but always fair.”
Licht praised Mr. Griffin’s “unparalleled” work ethic and said he was working on an investigation right until the day he died.
Mr. Griffin’s reporting took him around the world. In Somalia, he covered a devastating famine, in Singapore he reported on illegal drift net fishermen and in El Salvador he narrated stories of L.A. gang members. While reporting on Hurricane Harvey in Texas in 2017, he rescued a man from a sinking truck.
“CNN This Morning” anchor Don Lemon broke down while announcing Mr. Griffin’s death on-air. Calling him the network’s “heartbeat,” Lemon said, “I could not have met someone who was more kind to me, more welcoming to everyone.”
Licht shared in his email that Mr. Griffin hand-wrote thank-you notes to people who appeared in his stories. But Mr. Griffin was also known as a dogged interviewer, chasing hard-to-get sources, getting them to reveal difficult truths and asking unwavering questions.
In 2008, then vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin gave CNN her first interview, with Mr. Griffin pushing Palin on a report that found she had made an ethics violation in her handling of the firing of her estranged brother-in-law, an incident that became known as “Troopergate.”
His exclusive interview with a former Trump University instructor revealed how the institute focused on luring participants to pay for more seminars rather than teaching them real estate strategies. “We were bringing in the money,” the instructor shared with Mr. Griffin.
In an obituary published by CNN, his colleagues remembered him as a private person who made sure to spend time with his family after finishing work. He is survived by his wife, Margot, three children, Ele, Louise and Miles, and two grandchildren.
Andrew Charles Griffin was born in 1962 to Michael James Griffin and Judith Griffin. His father, a civil engineer, served in the U.S. Army and retired from the Cook County Highway Department. His mother, a lawyer, served as a lead attorney in the Illinois state appellate research division.
When he was awarded the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress in 2015, Mr. Griffin joked that it was rare to be welcomed in Washington — a nod to the tough questions he was known for asking lawmakers. A compilation video prepared by CNN showed subjects slamming doors in his face, or walking — or even running — away to avoid him. He kept asking anyway. | 2022-12-20T11:46:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | CNN journalist Drew Griffin dies after cancer battle - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/20/drew-griffin-death-cnn-journalist/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2022/12/20/drew-griffin-death-cnn-journalist/ |
What made these leaders effective? We interviewed politicians, journalists, doctors and others in New Zealand and Iceland to find out.
Analysis by Katie Tyner
Farida Jalalzai
Iceland’s prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir. (Roman Koksarov/AP)
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and the first woman to hold the position, recently ranked first on the Forbes 2022 list of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.” Forbes credited von der Leyen’s rise from the No. 8 spot in 2021 to her handling of the war in Ukraine and the covid-19 pandemic, two crises that have tested the leadership of political executives around the world.
Our research speaks to how female leaders like von der Leyen deal with big crises such as covid-19. It suggests that leadership traits that have often been stereotypically associated with female leaders — such as building consensus and communicating openly — are very effective in managing such crises. Their successes stand out in stark contrast to the covid-19 responses of global leaders like Donald Trump or Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
Von der Leyen’s success matches what we would expect
When von der Leyen launched the E.U. covid response team on March 2, 2020, she described the pandemic as a crisis that required both “very swift action” and “strong coordination at all the levels and all the different sectors — not only on the European level but of course on the national level.” Von der Leyen heads an organization representing 27 member nations, and this role requires her to be particularly adept at consensus-building. Forbes identified this trait as one of the contributing factors in the effectiveness of her crisis management.
This point harks back to an early media narrative during the pandemic that women-led countries were more successful in responding to covid-19. Are women better leaders than men during public health crises? Not necessarily. But our research shows how stereotypically female leadership style traits — which can be adopted by men or women — help explain many of the successes experienced by global leaders during the pandemic.
We conducted interviews with 45 leading politicians, civil servants, medical professionals and local journalists in New Zealand and Iceland to investigate how decision-making unfolded at the most senior levels in these women-led countries during the covid-19 pandemic.
We identified six elements of leadership and crisis management, in particular, that helped lead to success in these two countries: consensus-oriented governance; honest and frequent communication; enabling agile and adaptive institutions; deference to the advice of scientific experts; collective and decisive action; and guiding policies through empathy and humility. While these governing tools are not necessarily gendered, people often associate them with female leadership.
Other leaders displayed the same characteristics
Von der Leyen wasn’t the only coalition executive to make it to the top of the Forbes list. Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank and also the first woman to hold her role, is ranked No. 2. In a year marked by crises, it’s no coincidence that the leaders who rely on consensus-building (whether out of necessity or desire) have proven to be among the most effective.
How New Zealand and 5 other nations gained majority-female legislatures
Of the heads of government listed on this 2022 Forbes list, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern comes in at No. 3. In our interviews, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson described Ardern’s leadership as “decisive, inclusive and practical,” and characterized her communication as “wearing facts, openness and compassion.”
Iceland Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir shared with us that her approach to managing covid-19 was to be “ready to admit mistakes and do things differently” if the evidence on the table presented the need to change course. “Obviously we really didn’t know a lot about this virus in the beginning and so we just tried to admit that,” she explained. “We were faced with an unknown … and we had to be ready to say OK, if this isn’t working — we are going to change our strategy.”
Are women leaders better at fighting the coronavirus?
Good leaders are willing to correct mistakes
Crises often require leaders to pivot — and pivoting requires self-awareness, humility and a strong team around the leader who can call them out when it’s time to change course. These were some of the trademark characteristics of Ardern and Jakobsdóttir’s leadership, we found. These were also the traits that were noticeably lacking in administrations that stumbled in responding to the pandemic, including the responses of President Trump and Brazilian President Bolsonaro.
As governments around the world, including in the United States, begin to turn their focus away from covid-19 and toward other pressing domestic and national security concerns, they might look to the last two years for lessons on leadership. What are the big takeaways?
Crisis management, whether related to public health, national security, the economy or something else entirely, requires a diversified toolbox of leadership traits, our study found. This certainly includes decisiveness, strength and resolve — characteristics that von der Leyen, Jakobsdóttir and Ardern have in spades — but it also includes consensus-building and other often-overlooked leadership approaches stereotypically associated with female leaders. Some research suggests that the entrance of women into executive office historically has initiated a change in leadership style for their successors, prompting a shift toward what we define as good leadership — during a crisis or otherwise.
Of course, both men and women can apply these leadership traits. The entrance of more women into top political positions around the world can encourage a diversification of leadership styles, expanding the toolbox for best practices during a crisis — for all global leaders.
Katie Tyner is a senior associate at The Cohen Group in Washington, DC. Her research focuses on political leadership, democratic backsliding/decay, gender and politics, and political institutions.
Dr. Farida Jalalzai is associate dean for global initiatives and engagement in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and professor of political science at Virginia Tech, focusing on the role of gender in the political arena including women national leaders. She is the author of Shattered Cracked or Firmly Intact: Women and Executive Glass Ceiling Worldwide (Oxford University Press, 2013) Women Presidents of Latin America: Beyond Family Ties (Routledge, 2016), and Women’s Empowerment and Disempowerment in Brazil (with Pedro A. G. dos Santos, Temple University Press, 2021). | 2022-12-20T11:46:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Jacinda Ardern and Katrin Jakobsdóttir provided strong leadership. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/women-leaders-covid-new-zealand-iceland/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/women-leaders-covid-new-zealand-iceland/ |
Mothers today have it hard. A new book shows just how hard.
In ‘Screaming on the Inside,’ Jessica Grose explores the challenges faced by mothers in America, including herself
Review by Vicky Hallett
On her second day of a new job, Jessica Grose found out she was pregnant. Within a week, she was vomiting uncontrollably. Because she had gone off her antidepressants to conceive, she was also quickly consumed by dark thoughts. Her new employee status meant she didn’t qualify for unpaid parental leave. She had been bestowed with many privileges — White, in a stable marriage, no debt — but given her health, how could she work? How could any of it work?
Short answer: Grose quit. But she got her career back on track postpartum, and a decade later, she writes a column and the Parenting newsletter for the New York Times. Grose, who wrote two novels before she had her two daughters, is now the author of a new book, “Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood.”
4 books offer advice on raising decent humans in our topsy-turvy world
If there’s a through-line in the newsletter and Grose’s latest book, it’s that American mothers are held to a too-high standard. “In our current era, the perfect mother is a woman who seamlessly blends work, wellness, and home,” she writes. “She is often blond and thin. Her roots are never showing, and she installed that gleaming kitchen backsplash herself.” She keeps her boss and kids happy at all times by staying on top of all the things. Plus, she’s up at 5 a.m. to meditate.
That sure is a high bar, though it is also a very specific one. To her credit, Grose tries to expand her lens wider, to capture the experiences of many different kinds of mothers. She attempts to unpack outsize ideals of motherhood in a variety of circumstances and examine how they took hold. The book is part memoir, part history lesson, part sociological study, part parenting advice guide and part call to action. In other words, like most moms, Grose is trying to do more than is humanly possible.
More articles and advice on Parenting
The most engaging material comes from Grose’s interviews with dozens of women at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Although these tales are tied to unusual circumstances, they illustrate deeper problems mothers in America face. Grose shares the story, for instance, of one woman who had a “secret baby” she never mentioned to her boss because she worried she’d be kicked off a big project. A fast-food worker in Georgia recounts the saga of having to get permission for her 11-year-old to do remote school from the restaurant lobby. And there’s the single mom who waited a year to get her son into a day care only to have it permanently shutter during the pandemic, forcing her to scramble to find a spot somewhere else.
Grose shows that even before the pandemic, mothers — particularly minority moms — were operating in a world without adequate services and safeguards. She points to common work scheduling practices like “clopening” shifts, where an employee must close a business late at night and then reopen it early the next morning, and “just in time” scheduling, which means employees don’t have set, predictable hours. That’s simply not compatible with the scarce child-care options that exist. Add a pandemic to the mix and of course “Everything Falls Apart” (the title of chapter 6).
It’s unfortunate, then, that Grose undermines this valuable research with distracting anecdotes from her own life. For instance, of her understandable decision to give up on breastfeeding, she explains: “I recalled the many books I had read about Queen Victoria and her wayward son, the future King Edward, that implied their relationship was damaged from the start, in part because breastfeeding him made her feel ‘insurmountable disgust.’” I’m guessing that’s baggage most moms aren’t struggling with. At least that’s a smidgen more relatable than her complaints about feeling “less than empowered” as the editor in chief of a start-up feminist newsletter while pregnant with daughter No. 2.
Grose also has a tendency for lengthy digressions. A chapter on social media dives into a detailed history of mom blogging that obsesses over the outsize influence of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and “sponcon” (a.k.a. sponsored content). Apparently, it’s not easy to make money off posts unless you have a perfect blowout and fake eyelashes. Of course. But also, who cares?
Even as someone who fits Grose’s demographic profile almost exactly, many of her notions of “ideal” motherhood just don’t ring true to me. Every mom has her own individual insecurities and perceived shortcomings. What’s truly universal is the need to be kinder to ourselves and other moms. As she wraps up, Grose encourages readers to stop trying to live up to some fanciful, preposterous standard, and instead channel that energy into fixing the structural problems that hurt so many families. We need to be screaming on the outside to achieve a more practical ideal: paid leave and affordable, quality child care for all.
Vicky Hallett is a freelance writer in Washington.
The Unsustainability of American Motherhood
Mariner. 304 pp. $28.99 | 2022-12-20T12:32:08Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Book review: Screaming on the Inside, by Jessica Gross - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/20/jessica-grose-parenting-book/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/12/20/jessica-grose-parenting-book/ |
Cast in 1981’s ‘A Soldier’s Play,’ Eugene Lee reenlists for 2022 tour
The actor plays a pivotal role in the national touring company of the Pulitzer-winning play’s 2020 Broadway revival, now at the Kennedy Center
Eugene Lee as Sgt. Vernon C. Waters in the national tour of “A Soldier’s Play” at the Kennedy Center. (Joan Marcus)
“A Soldier’s Play” writer Charles Fuller may have been a master wordsmith, but as actor Eugene Lee describes it, the true power of his Pulitzer Prize-winning script was its ability to bring a room to silence.
Lee, 69, was a cast member in the original 1981 production of “A Soldier’s Play,” produced off-Broadway by the Negro Ensemble Company and directed by Douglas Turner Ward. When the actors sat down on the first day of rehearsal and read through the play — about the investigation into the murder of an all-Black Army unit’s sergeant in 1944 Louisiana — he recalls a hush that washed over the room as the cast processed Fuller’s incisive depiction of identity, military duty and race in America.
Charles Fuller, who won a Pulitzer for ‘A Soldier’s Play,’ dies at 83
“It was like everybody knew,” Lee recalls. “Doug broke that silence and he said, ‘That’s it. If you don’t ever do anything more with it, that’s it.’ And from that moment on, we were champing at the bit to share this play with the rest of the world.”
Four decades later, Lee is still sharing “A Soldier’s Play” — now as a cast member in the touring production onstage at the Kennedy Center through Jan. 8. After playing Cpl. Bernard Cobb in the off-Broadway production and Pfc. Melvin Peterson in its subsequent tour, Lee takes on the role of Vernon C. Waters — the volatile sergeant whose death looms over the play — in the touring production of director Kenny Leon’s 2020 Broadway revival.
Speaking by phone from New Haven, Conn., where the “Soldier’s Play” tour had a brief run earlier this month before officially opening at the Kennedy Center, the actor and playwright (“East Texas Hot Links”) discussed playing a third character in the show, reflected on the original production’s resonance and gave his take on the endurance of Fuller’s message.
Q: The original production of “A Soldier’s Play” included a young Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. What do you remember about working with them and the rest of that ensemble?
A: Oh, what’s the word? Fellowship, brotherhood, camaraderie, ensemble — it’s never been more represented, I think, in any production that I’ve ever experienced than in this play. It was a tightly knit group of people who watched out for each other, who cared about each other, who loved each other. The families, we’re still connected. When I lived in LA, so much of my extended family was people that were involved with the Negro Ensemble Company and, in particular, those soldiers — people like Sam and Denzel and Jim Pickens. We were all out in LA, and we’d spend the holidays at each other’s homes. You know, I’m “Uncle Gene” to most of these guys’ children. So it was a special time.
Norm Lewis commands the stage in ‘A Soldier's Play’ at Kennedy Center
Q: How would you describe the dynamic of returning to this play four decades later?
A: It’s really great to revisit this play as a slightly more mature actor, with a slightly more finely tuned instrument, if you know what I mean, and as a more mature playwright to rediscover the nuance in this play, the contradictions, the resonance that it still has in American society today. To revisit it and see how much it still resonates and still echoes is really kind of special. That’s what I love about what we do. It can have healing power, but it also communicates ideas so well.
Q: What does it say about the timelessness of Fuller’s writing that the themes he touches on still remain so relevant?
A: It says volumes. I really feel that Charles, in his work, sought a couple of basic things, and that’s truth and clarity. This play has both those things, and those things are eternal. The truth is forever, and if you present it with a level of clarity that’s poetic, it makes it resonate that much more.
Q: Waters is a remarkably complicated character whose death drives the story forward. How do you approach playing him?
A: Honestly and, hopefully, with clarity. This man only exists as a memory for these soldiers that are being interviewed. So there’s a strange obligation — spoiler alert or whatever — but there are lies that are told in these interviews, and I have to play those lies. I have to be what they say I was, which is very interesting. But to also be able to find the contradictions in this man, the vulnerabilities as well as those strong points, the sensitivities that this man has, to find a way to make him a complete human being are part of the challenge. And there’s plenty there to work with.
Q: Do you find yourself channeling Adolph Caesar, who played the role off-Broadway in 1981 and in the Oscar-nominated 1984 film adaptation “A Soldier’s Story,” or David Alan Grier, who played the part on Broadway in 2020?
A: I do think there’s a part of me that channels a piece of Adolph. He was paradigm, he was the original, so in fact, I find myself trying to work against parroting Adolph, to make it mine. As Kenny reimagines this play, I think it’s important that I do so as well and not bring expectations of this play related to what I did or what anyone did in the original or any other production.
Q: What are the emotions that come to mind when you reflect on your long history with this play and the opportunity to circle back to it on this tour?
A: Well, elation, glee, honor are the emotions. I’m as excited now about doing this play as I ever was. I loved getting there early and doing this play every night and sharing this play with whoever sat out in the audience, so I’ve got that same kind of joy and enthusiasm about sharing it with this new cast and about sharing this across the country as well. This is a much bigger audience than just New York, and that’s exciting. I feel like a kid in a candy store. This is big fun.
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F St. NW; 202-467-4600. kennedy-center.org. | 2022-12-20T12:32:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Cast in 1981′s ‘A Soldier’s Play,’ Eugene Lee reenlists for 2022 tour - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/12/20/kennedy-center-a-soldiers-play/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/12/20/kennedy-center-a-soldiers-play/ |
Ghana is learning the hard way why oil can be a blessing and a curse. The onset of commercial crude production helped turn the West African nation into one of the continent’s top investment destinations, but also prompted successive governments to borrow to the hilt. Skittish investors offloaded Ghana’s bonds and currency, the cedi, amid doubts over its ability to settle its debts. The concern proved to be well-founded: In December, the government caught bondholders by surprise by unilaterally suspending interest payments on its external debt ahead of restructuring talks aimed at pinning down a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
The government abandoned fiscal discipline and opened the spending taps in anticipation of an oil windfall. But energy revenue wasn’t enough to cover a succession of expensive flagship projects, and it borrowed more to plug the gap. Overspending was particularly rife in election years. President Nana Akufo-Addo’s administration has scrapped fees for senior high school students. In 2021, the government spent $1 billion on refinancing loans owed by private power producers, a move that was intended to reduce the state’s electricity bills. A plan to strengthen a banking industry weakened by bad loans has cost more than 25 billion cedis ($2.8 billion), and an estimated 8 billion cedis more is needed to complete the process. Covid-19 dealt a further blow to the state’s already stretched finances. After selling eurobonds for each of the previous nine years, Ghana was shut out of international capital markets in 2022 as investors lost faith in its ability to service its loans.
State debt ballooned to 467.4 billion cedis at the end of September, representing 75.9% of GDP, up from 68.3% five years earlier. When it could no longer tap international markets, the government resorted to taking out domestic loans, paying annual interest rates of almost 30%. The central bank stepped in to provide the government with funding after it risked defaulting on the local debt, but it plans to limit further support to stay within its legal lending threshold. Opposition lawmakers wanted Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta to take the fall for the economic crisis and have called for his dismissal, but the ruling party refused to back a motion to censure him.
4. Why did the IMF step in?
The government shunned an initiative that would have enabled it to suspend interest payments and vowed not to ask for further support from the IMF, before changing its tune in July 2022. In late October, Akufo-Addo dismissed speculation that a funding deal could translate into losses for any of Ghana’s creditors, but a month later his administration said it would enter into restructuring negotiations. The nation secured a staff-level agreement with the Washington-based lender for a $3 billion, three-year extended-credit facility in December, but final sign-off from its executive board is contingent on a deal with external creditors.
5. What’s the government been telling investors?
In late November, it said it would ask holders of its international bonds to accept losses of as much as 30% on their principal debt and forgo interest payments for three years. It also appealed to domestic debt investors to voluntarily exchange existing securities for new ones that will offer a zero coupon in the first year, 5% in the second and 10% in the third, but that proposal attracted little interest. Then in mid-December, the government suspended interest payments on $13 billion of eurobonds, as well as commercial loans and most bilateral obligations pending the conclusion of a restructuring deal. The president has pledged to restore financial discipline by reducing total public debt to 55% of GDP by 2028 and peg external debt-servicing costs at no more than 18% of annual revenue by that year. The Bank of Ghana raised its key lending rate by 12.5 percentage points to 27% in 2022 to support the currency and help tame runaway inflation.
6. How have the markets responded to the meltdown?
There’s been an exodus from Ghana’s currency and bonds. The cedi’s decline of more than 37% between January and mid-December 2022 made it one of the world’s worst performers, although the currency regained some lost ground after the in-principle funding deal was reached with the IMF. The premium investors demand to hold the country’s dollar bonds rather than US Treasuries exceeds 3,200 basis points, well above the 1,000 level that signals distress.
--With assistance from Moses Mozart Dzawu and Yinka Ibukun. | 2022-12-20T13:15:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Why Ghana Went From Hero to Zero for Investors - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-ghana-went-from-hero-to-zero-for-investors/2022/12/20/98eb2932-8065-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/why-ghana-went-from-hero-to-zero-for-investors/2022/12/20/98eb2932-8065-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Buy less, give more. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
The research is clear: Americans are becoming less generous over the holidays. Not to sound too much like a Scrooge, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.
In 1999, Americans said they planned to spend $1,300 (converting to 2020 dollars) on holiday gift giving. In 2020, that amount was about $800. These numbers are based on Gallup data, but retail sales figures show a broadly similar pattern. From 1935 through 2000, gift-giving tended to rise with disposable income. Since 2000, gift-giving has fallen as national disposable income has risen.
In economics lingo, gifts have become an “inferior” good: Their quantity falls as income rises. Other examples of inferior goods include instant noodles or low-quality beans. Now — speaking strictly as an economist, of course — maybe Christmas sweaters and fruitcake should be added to the list.
These social changes are all the more puzzling with the continuing rise of online shopping. It is easier to buy and send people presents than it used to be, at least if you are so inclined.
One hypothesis is that Americans are simply getting less generous. Yet charitable giving is robust, so that’s probably not right.
An alternative possibility is that Americans are too rich for gifts to make sense. It’s not only that billionaires are hard to buy for; the rest of us are, too. You might think your friends already have most of the important things they need, so how can you buy them something meaningful at the margin? This logic doesn’t hold for all Americans, but perhaps the higher earners account for a big enough share of the gift-giving total that it exerts a downward pull on the numbers.
The cheeriest scenario — again, speaking strictly as an economist — is that Americans are realizing that gift-giving often doesn’t make much sense. If you give me a gift and I give you a gift, neither of us is quite sure what the other wants. We might both be better off if we each spent the money on ourselves. Under this hypothesis, Americans are not becoming less generous, they are becoming more rational.
Another rationale for gift-giving is that it tightens familial and social bonds. Perhaps it does, but it is not the only means for doing so. More and better communication — which has also become cheaper and easier over the last two decades, with email, texts and cheaper phone calls — may make gift-giving seem less essential.
There is also the possibility that we, as a society, have lost that “Christmas spirit,” whatever that might mean. After all, secularization is rising and churchgoing is declining. Christianity is less central to American life. Whether this social development is all good or bad will of course depend on your point of view.
In any case, you probably needn’t fear that less gift-giving will hurt the economy. Americans may be spending less in December, but that gives them more money to spend the rest of the year. As it stands, advanced economies typically exhibit a seasonal business cycle: There is a boom as the gift-giving season approaches, and a downturn in the new year as consumers contract their spending. As expenditures become smoother across the seasons, so does economic activity.
There is no obvious downside to this development. Maybe it will become somewhat harder to get a retail job in December, and somewhat easier in January. In some cases, Americans might save more rather than spread their spending out. But that doesn’t hurt the economy, and it might even help many people deal with their retirements.
At any rate, to get back to the subject I started with: I am not sure if the decline in holiday spending is good for society, but I don’t mind it. I do not need or want much in the way of gifts; I would much rather spend time with friends at a nice holiday meal. (Which is also a gift, I realize, though what marketers call “experiential.”)
In the meantime, I am trying to think of a some good deeds and thoughtful gifts I can make in the third week of June next year. Marking the winter solstice may be a vestige of an outdated, agriculturally oriented society, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look for new sources of meaning and charity — wherever on the calendar, or on the globe, we may find them. | 2022-12-20T13:16:06Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Spending Less on Gifts This Year? Congratulations - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/spending-less-on-gifts-this-year-congratulations/2022/12/20/07af473a-8067-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/spending-less-on-gifts-this-year-congratulations/2022/12/20/07af473a-8067-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
The collapse in the personal US saving rate to near a record low has fueled a narrative that consumers are clearly strapped heading into 2023. This is worrisome because consumer spending accounts for about two thirds of the economy. Heck, one widely shared analysis by Federal Reserve analysts estimated that by this past June, households had run through half the savings buffer built up during the pandemic.
But it could it be possible that the saving rate is sending a misleading message? Or at least not telling the whole story? The more important figure might be how much of a cash buffer households have on hand. Here, the signal is more reassuring. According to the Fed’s quarterly Flow of Funds that was just released, checkable deposits for households and nonprofit organizations – our best proxy for cash-on-hand – rose to a record $5.12 trillion at the end of the third quarter, rising from $4.28 trillion at the end of 2021. To understand just how big that figure is, consider that checkable deposits were only about $1.2 trillion heading into the pandemic, after peaking at $1.43 trillion in 2018.
What’s stands out is that the saving rate and checkable deposits largely told the same story up until the first quarter of this year. Analysis using the personal saving rate pegged excess savings, or the amount of savings above what would be normally expected, at $2.2 trillion early in the year. Checkable deposits, meanwhile, were about $2.4 trillion above the expected level based on the pre-pandemic trend. It’s only over the last two quarters that the two measures have diverged sharply. Excess savings have fallen by some $500 billion while checkable deposits have expanded by more than $800 billion. This leads to a few ideas as to what might be going on with the data.
The first is that the data used to compile the savings rate is simply misleading. The savings rate is estimated as a part of the same government analysis that produces the gross domestic product report. The GDP report showed that the economy had contracted in the first two quarters of 2022, which meets the technical – though unofficial - definition of a recession. But the main measures, such as job growth, manufacturing output and retail sales, showed continued strength. So, the official score keeper on recessions, the National Bureau of Economic Research, declined to designate one. If the GDP data was an outlier -- possibly due to the effect of shipping delays on estimated imports and exports – then it stands to reason that the savings rate estimation may have been skewed as well.
The second is that checkable deposits rose because households were cashing out of stocks and bonds during a horrible year for both assets. Indeed, the same Fed report on household wealth indicated that total holdings of corporate equities and mutual funds fell by a whopping $11 trillion over the first three quarters of this year. Of course, it’s impossible to tell how much of that decline is a result of households getting out of the markets versus a decline in values for those who remained invested, but it’s safe to say it’s probably a bit of both.
One important clue that cashing out is a significant contributor is that household holding of US Treasury securities grew by more than $1 trillion in the first three quarters of the year, despite the value of Treasuries declining over the same period. Another is the distribution of checkable deposits. It shows that, at least through the beginning of 2022, cash balances for the top 80% of households by income steadily rose while the bottom 20% saw a sharp drop. That’s worrying from the point view of income inequality, but mitigates concern that consumer spending as a whole is set up for a crash.
What we do know is that asset values of all types are under pressure as the Fed continues to raise benchmark interest rates, while the cost of big ticket items such new cars, home renovation and travel have all risen sharply. That could explain why consumers have been more reluctant to save overall, but more eager to hold cash.
If that’s the case, it’s likely that consumer spending will weaken early next year as result of declining net worth, but it’s unlikely to face a sudden, sharp drop because of cash constraints. That’s good news for those hoping the economy will avoid crashing.
• This Holiday Season Buy Now, Worry Later: Leondis & Miranda
• Consumers Are Starting to Crack Under Inflation: Andrea Felsted | 2022-12-20T13:16:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Collapse in the US Saving Rate Is Misleading - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-collapse-in-the-us-saving-rate-is-misleading/2022/12/20/a6a46ab8-805e-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-collapse-in-the-us-saving-rate-is-misleading/2022/12/20/a6a46ab8-805e-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Review by Emily Heil
(Emily Heil/The Washington Post)
5 ways to cook and bake with mayo, for lovers and haters alike
The very name, “mayo-nog,” induces cognitive dissonance. Mayonnaise is salty and savory. It’s for tuna salads and cheeseburgers. Eggnog, on the other hand, is sweet and boozy, an accompaniment to visions of dancing sugarplums and holiday cookies and cinnamon sticks. Their unlikely portmanteau is all but certain to trip the wires of mayo-haters, a vocal subset of folks who find the stuff vile — and that’s before you combine it with three types of liquor and a bunch of nutmeg.
Although it’s difficult to wrap one’s brain around the mash-up, if you really consider it, eggnog actually isn’t a big stretch for mayo. The condiment is made up of eggs and fat, which are some of the main components of a good nog, after all. (Beloved recipes for chocolate cake made with mayo operate on this same principle.) Maybe this alliance wasn’t as unholy as it might have seemed at first? To test it out, I tried both the restaurant’s version and the recipe at home — the former because I happened to be in New York while it was on offer. At Amy Fontaine’s, a cheerfully wallpapered Midtown East watering hole, I ordered the “Mayo-nog” with trepidation. “Have lots of people been ordering them?” I asked the bartender. “Actually, you’re my first,” she gamely replied. I didn’t ask how long she’d been there.
Yes, Hellmann’s has frozen over. Mayonnaise ice cream is here.
The problem with it wasn’t the mayo, I decided, but merely that it wasn’t a great eggnog. I prefer mine unfrozen, for one thing — I like my blender drinks in the summer, and it’s easier to keep a batch of non-frozen nog in the refrigerator for visiting friends. The sweetness and cold also masked the sharpness of the liquors — in this case, bourbon, apple brandy and cognac — which is a feature I enjoy in my festive holiday quaffs. | 2022-12-20T13:16:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Hellmann's 'mayo-nog' is the holiday drink no one asked for - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/20/hellmans-mayo-nog-mayonnaise-egg-nog/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/12/20/hellmans-mayo-nog-mayonnaise-egg-nog/ |
Terry Hall, lead singer of the Specials and of ‘Ghost Town’ fame, dies at 63
Terry Hall of the Specials performs during the Isle of Wight Festival in Newport, England on June 14, 2014. (John Phillips/John Phillips/Invision/AP)
LONDON — Terry Hall, the British musician and lead singer in the late 1970s’ ska-punk band the Specials, has died at the age of 63, the group announced Monday.
The songwriter — who left school at 15 and became a global icon of the British punk scene by the age of 22 — died following a short illness, according to the band’s statement. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Hall’s best known hits with the second-wave ska revival group include “Gangsters” (1979), “Too Much Too Young” (1980) — and “Ghost Town” (1981), a track whose bleak lyrics came to embody the sense of alienation gripping England’s postindustrial towns and cities, and a haunting soundtrack to the summer of riotous unrest that gripped the country’s inner cities one month after its release.
As well as his role as the Specials’ front man, which disbanded in 1981 before reforming in 2009, the British lyricist and singer performed with Fun Boy Three, the Colourfield and Vegas.
In a statement announcing his death, the Specials described Hall as “one of the most brilliant singers, songwriters and lyricists this country has ever produced.”
“His music and his performances encapsulated the very essence of life … the joy, the pain, the humor, the fight for justice, but mostly the love.” The statement continues, “Terry often left the stage at the end of The Specials’ life-affirming shows with three words … ‘Love Love Love’.”
“This news has hit hard and must be extremely difficult for Terry’s wife and family,” bandmate Neville Staple said, according to a statement shared by his manager. “In the music World, people have many ups and downs, but I will hang onto the great memories of Terry and I, making history.”
“Ghost Town,” which catapulted the Specials to global recognition, was recorded over 10 days in April 1981 in central England’s Leamington Spa, according to a history of the band shared on its website.
“It captured how we were feeling — not just in Coventry, but we were touring in the north and saw all these factories closing down, all these people becoming unemployed,” Hall told the Big Issue magazine in a 2021 interview.
The track, which spent three weeks as United Kingdom’s No. 1 in July 1981, was ultimately what led the band to breaking up — a decision made its members in a dressing room following a live musical appearance on the television program “Top of the Pops,” the Specials said.
“We were expected to get a gold disc for that record but I found that pretty horrible. Why do we need that reward?” Hall recalled in the 2021 interview. “Our country’s in a mess, do you like my gold record? It felt like the perfect moment to stop.”
“We’d gone from seven kids in the back of a van to being presented with gold discs and I never felt massively comfortable with that.”
English musician Elvis Costello also paid tribute to Hall, whose voice he described as “the perfect instrument for the true and necessary songs on ‘The Specials’. That honesty is heard in so many of his songs in joy and sorrow.”
The Specials fused elements of 1950s-era ska — with its roots in Jamaican dance music and imported American R&B — with British punk. The resulting 2-Tone movement, which took the country’s radio stations by storm in the late 1970s, became known as ska’s “second wave.”
As well as creating a soundtrack that captured the mood of the late 1970s, the Specials were one of Britain’s most prominent multiracial music groups, with many of their songs grappling with contemporary racist violence.
British musician Billy Bragg described the Specials as “a celebration of how British culture was invigorated by Caribbean immigration,” in a Twitter tribute posted to Hall. The musician’s onstage demeanor, he added, “was a reminder that they were in the serious business of challenging our perception of who we were in the late 1970s.” | 2022-12-20T13:16:43Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Terry Hall, singer and songwriter front man of the Specials, dies at 63 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/terry-hall-the-specials-death-ghost-town/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/terry-hall-the-specials-death-ghost-town/ |
A prayer for the longest night of the year
Sunrise on the winter solstice in Belfast, Maine, on Dec. 21, 2021. (Justin Grieser/FTWP)
The school bus stopped in front of our house, and my daughter clomped down the steps, lugging her three-quarter size tuba. Thick snow drifted down from the dark sky. I clicked on my flashlight, and together we began the long walk up the driveway, a voyage that at the time seemed not unlike Capt. Scott’s 1912 trek to the South Pole.
It was a December afternoon, in Maine.
The days are short everywhere at this time of year, but Mainers are certain that we bear a heavier burden than those of you who live in the “Lower 47.” The sun — which rises before 5 in June — doesn’t show up now until after 7 a.m. It hangs there, low in the sky, for a few hours — and then starts to disappear.
The reason for all of this is, in part, how far north we are. The punishing, dark winter followed by the glorious, all-too-short summer is a fact of life if you’ve made your life in Maine.
But there’s another reason for our dark afternoons: Eastern Standard Time.
Because it’s important to be on the same time as Boston, New York and Washington, we are in the Eastern time zone. But there are days — like now — when we wonder whether it really makes sense for us to be in the same time zone as, say, Indianapolis.
Every few years, one of our legislators proposes that Maine move to Atlantic time, the same time zone used by Nova Scotia and Qaanaaq, Greenland. The most recent initiative, proposed in 2019, would have essentially given us daylight saving time year-round.
The measure failed. These measures always fail. The one before that, in 2017, passed the state House but died in the Senate. That one was a little more tenuous; it held that Maine would join Atlantic time only if Massachusetts and New Hampshire did so, too; it also required a statewide referendum. None of that happened.
Darkness isn’t just an issue for Mainers. This year the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent. The legislation stalled in the House.
Jonah Ryan, the vice president in HBO’s “Veep” — who had made opposition to daylight saving a centerpiece of his presidential campaign — released a triumphant real-world statement after the Senate’s action. “Our long national nightmare and daymare is over,” he said. “No longer will innocent Americans show up hours late or hours early to their jobs, their J-dates or their court-ordered counseling appointments for weeks on end just because of the whims of ‘Big Clock.’”
But in Maine, the resistance to Atlantic time is not a joke. Nor is it a refusal to remember that Americans hated permanent daylight saving time when we tried it in 1974. The reason we can’t secede from Eastern time is that Mainers, fundamentally, don’t want to think of themselves as having more in common with Nova Scotia than Florida.
And yet. With everything that has happened to American politics since 2016, Nova Scotia has started to look pretty good to me.
Would it be so wrong, I sometimes wonder, if, instead of being one of the northernmost states in the Union, we were one of the southernmost provinces of Canada?
In that new world, Maine might become Canada’s Florida, the “Sunshine Province.” Perhaps the antics of a “Maine man” could provide moments of online hilarity for Canadians.
Yes, I know this is a fantasy. Maine is about as likely to join Canada as Jonah Ryan was to become president.
But these short days are not without their charms. When the snow flies, I like to build a big fire and lie on the couch, reading a book. My wife makes things in the slow-cooker: chocolate chili, pulled pork, Irish stew with parsnips and Guinness and Maine maple syrup.
At night the world is absolutely silent, except for the occasional scrape of the plow guy’s truck as he works his way down our dirt road.
These are the days when I’m reminded that, even at 64, I am not without resilience. “In the midst of winter,” Albert Camus once wrote, “I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. No matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger — something better, pushing right back.”
My daughter gave up the three-quarter size tuba more than a dozen years ago. She and her brother are in their late 20s now. One of them lives outside Boston, the other in Ann Arbor, Mich. It breaks my heart, how infrequently I get to see them, now that they are grown.
But on this, the shortest day of the year, they are coming home. There is a tree in my living room covered with lights. There’s a star at the top.
Our shadows are long. So is the story of our lives together. | 2022-12-20T13:16:49Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Why Mainers want to secede from the Eastern Time Zone - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/maine-winter-solstice-atlantic-time-darkness/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/maine-winter-solstice-atlantic-time-darkness/ |
To protect lobstermen, spending bill might speed whales’ extinction, advocates say
Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Today we’re reading about this very good dog that has collected more than 1,000 discarded plastic bottles. 🐶♻️ But first:
A provision in the spending bill could undermine the fight to protect right whales, advocates say
Lawmakers from Maine have inserted a provision in a massive government funding bill to buffer lobstermen from new regulations, but environmental groups warn it could push the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales to the brink of extinction, Maxine reports this morning.
The language in the legislation released Tuesday sets up a clash on Capitol Hill over the species’ survival just days before government funding runs out at midnight Friday. Congress is racing to pass a package of bills, known as an omnibus, that would fund federal agencies through the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30.
“You know what kills most whales? Ships,” King said in an interview Monday evening. “Why aren’t we banning all ships all along the East Coast of the United States if we’re saying we can’t do anything that remotely threatens the whales? Instead we’re picking on 5,000 small-business people in Maine. It’s unfair and wrong.”
A whale of a legal fight
The provision comes after a complex legal fight that pitted environmentalists against Maine fishermen and their allies on Capitol Hill.
The battle began in September 2021, when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration unveiled a regulation aimed at preventing fishing gear from ensnaring right whales.
In addition to blocking the new regulation, the omnibus bill also authorizes $20 million “to support the adoption of innovative fishing gear deployment and fishing techniques to reduce entanglement risk to North Atlantic right whales.”
The policy rider also directs the National Marine Fisheries Service to submit an annual report to Congress on the status of right whales, including the “amount of serious injury and mortality by fishery and country.”
Wildlife bill left out
Meanwhile, the omnibus spending deal does not include a big bipartisan wildlife bill, further disappointing conservationists.
Advocates had pushed for the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, an ambitious bill aimed at conserving the nation’s wildlife and habitat, to hitch a ride on the omnibus.
But the bill’s sponsors, Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), had struggled to identify how to offset the nearly $1.4 billion in new spending. The lack of a pay-for may have doomed the measure’s inclusion.
When approached outside the Capitol on Monday evening, Heinrich declined to comment, saying only, “We still don’t have text.”
Thousands of renewable energy projects have been waiting for years to get connected to America’s power grid, despite their potential to help the Biden administration reach its goal of shifting 80 percent of the nation’s electricity away from fossil fuels by 2030, The Washington Post’s Shannon Osaka reports.
The hurdles facing these projects, which account for at least 930 gigawatts of clean energy capacity and 420 gigawatts of energy storage, are known as “interconnection queues” in the energy industry. Before the projects can be built, they need to secure approval from regional authorities who can evaluate how the added connections might affect the reliability of the country’s transmission lines, which are already near capacity.
According to experts, part of the reason for the wait is that clean energy is booming and the grid is struggling to handle the volume of new and scattered renewable projects. In the past, coal or natural gas power plants connected to the grid from a centralized location in an established way. But now, various kinds of renewable projects across the country are trying to connect to the grid in unique ways.
Nearly 200 countries on Monday reached a landmark agreement to stem the loss of species worldwide, pledging to protect about one-third of Earth’s land and oceans as a refuge for wild plants and animals by 2030, The Post’s Dino Grandoni reports.
The deal marks the culmination of the United Nations biodiversity summit, known as COP15, in Montreal. It comes as about 1 million species face the risk of extinction because of human-caused climate change, the destruction of habitats and other factors.
The deal also puts wealthy countries on the hook for sending $30 billion annually to small island nations and other developing countries by the end of the decade. The money would help protect landscapes and guard against poaching and illegal logging.
However, it is unclear whether nations will follow through on these commitments, with few legal mechanisms in place for enforcement.
Energy Dept. to phase out fluorescent lightbulbs, boost LEDs
The Energy Department on Monday unveiled a proposed rule aimed at phasing out compact fluorescent lightbulbs and boosting the sale of energy-efficient ones such as LEDs, Ella Nilsen reports for CNN.
The proposal seeks to more than double the current minimum standard for common lightbulbs, bringing it from 45 lumens per watt to over 120 lumens per watt. It comes after the Biden administration in April unveiled a final plan to ban the sale of incandescent lightbulbs by summer 2023.
The agency, which is planning to finalize the rule by the end of President Biden’s first term, estimated that the proposal could cut nearly 131 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and 903 thousand tons of methane over the next 30 years. White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi told CNN that the draft rule will accelerate a “shift in the marketplace toward LED lighting” while lowering energy costs for consumers.
How Denver used e-bike vouchers to get thousands out of their cars — Ian Duncan for The Post
This bird is extinct, the government says. Not everyone is so sure. — Dino Grandoni for The Post
European energy ministers agree to emergency natural gas price cap — Kim Mackrael and Joe Wallace for the Wall Street Journal
In the Southeast, power company money flows to news sites that attack their critics — David Folkenflik for NPR and Mario Ariza and Miranda Green for Floodlight | 2022-12-20T13:17:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | To protect lobstermen, spending bill might speed whales’ extinction, advocates say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/protect-lobstermen-spending-bill-might-speed-whales-extinction-advocates-say/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/protect-lobstermen-spending-bill-might-speed-whales-extinction-advocates-say/ |
Recent WTO rulings may complicate green industrial policies
Will the WTO framework discourage countries from decarbonization plans that prioritize their own workers, supply chains and producers?
Analysis by Todd N. Tucker
Stockpiles of raw ore at a PT Sulawesi Resources laydown area in Morowali Regency, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, on March 16. (Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg News)
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala made history in March 2021, when she became the first woman and first African to serve as the World Trade Organization’s director general. Just as significantly, she pledged to push the WTO to support environmental initiatives that activists had long criticized the body for undermining.
But Okonjo-Iweala has faced head winds in her efforts to align climate and trade. The WTO is trying to keep industrial policy from eroding the global trade regime — even if that undermines the political bargains that could help decarbonization.
Okonjo-Iweala wants governments to fight climate change by making carbon-based economies more expensive. Although trade economists and lawyers like this approach, the U.S. government has opted for a more politically attractive route. The United States is using industrial policy to build up U.S. manufacturing, along with subsidies to try to create a greener economy. Major trading partners in Europe are now facing pressure to follow suit.
Two recent rulings reveal the added challenge to the WTO, whose rules were largely designed to forbid industrial policy that favors domestic producers.
There’s a big new headache for the Green New Deal
The WTO wants Indonesia to stop blocking nickel exports
In 2019, the European Union brought a dispute with Indonesia to the WTO. The E.U. disagreed with Indonesia’s policy of banning the export of raw nickel ore, and instead requiring the commodity to be processed domestically. Nickel is a key component in electric vehicles and batteries, and Indonesia is the world’s leading nickel producer, which should position it well for the green economic transition. Indonesia wants higher value-added activities like processing to create jobs at home, rather than offshore. However, WTO rules require members to refrain from restraining exports and imports in all but the most exceptional circumstances.
Indonesia argued that it did indeed have exceptional circumstances, since its restrictions were essential to economic development and maintaining green supply chains in accordance with its climate change mitigation plans. However, in November the WTO found in favor of the European complaint, on the basis that WTO rules don’t allow countries to protect or promote a domestic industry or create an industry that doesn’t yet exist. WTO panelists didn’t buy Indonesia’s argument that it was trying to prevent critical shortages.
And the WTO pushed back on Trump’s national security tariffs
The WTO’s second report, released Dec. 9, ruled against the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed in 2018 by the Trump administration. China and other countries had brought a complaint, and the Biden administration had mostly maintained these tariffs. The Biden administration defended its predecessor’s policy by claiming that nothing in WTO rules is meant to prevent a member country “from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests … in time of war or other emergency in international relations.”
The Trump administration imposed the tariffs in response to the “China Shock” — shorthand for the relatively rapid displacement of domestic production in the United States by imports following China’s 2001 accession to the WTO. In the case of steel, the Chinese government subsidized production, leading to a global glut that cut into the profitability of U.S. producers, who are key suppliers to the U.S. military and government more broadly. As longtime Monkey Cage readers might recall, I predicted in 2019 that the WTO might rule against the Trump tariffs, when panelists showed a willingness to second-guess Russia’s national security-motivated restrictions on trade with Ukraine — long before the current war escalation in 2022.
5 things to know about Trump's massive aluminum and steel tariffs
In the wake of the ruling, U.S. trade officials pointed out that the United States has maintained for over 70 years that a country can invoke the security exception when “it considers necessary,” and that the WTO has no business second-guessing that judgment. The WTO’s panelists could have avoided challenging the security exception, since the United States took action under Section 232, a legal statute that links traditional defense concerns to the health of the broader civilian economy. But instead, the WTO panelists ruled against the U.S. position, finding that U.S. law offered no protection from the requirement to refrain from trade discrimination.
Could these rulings dampen climate mitigation efforts?
In both cases, the WTO interpreted trade rules in ways that minimize the ability of governments to claim exceptions to global trading rules. WTO panelists suggested that countries could only invoke the security exception under emergency circumstances, such as war. Under this standard, protecting domestic industries in response to the “China shock” doesn’t count. Similarly, WTO panelists suggested that Indonesia could only block exports in acute crises like mass starvation — and not in response to the needs of economic development.
Both rulings seem to suggest the WTO won’t leave much room for countries to manage economic transitions for the benefit of their own workers and producers. However, the practical implications of these rulings may be limited. The WTO’s dispute settlement process has been hobbled for years, making it harder to enforce rulings. And, in fact, countries had already started retaliating against the Trump-era steel and aluminum tariffs.
Still, other cases could build on these rulings in awkward ways. A new E.U. complaint is challenging the green subsidies in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, while China may soon challenge the U.S.-E.U. “carbon club” for steel and aluminum. While these disputes are more straightforwardly climate-related than either the Indonesian or U.S. cases, they present similar conflicts with the trade regime — namely, trade lawyers impose a high bar for justifying distortions in global commercial flows.
Countries like the United States are trying to fight the climate crisis by offering industries green incentives, rather than simply taxing industrial emissions. That’s likely to require some assurance that the WTO will permit exceptions for what countries deem to be nationally appropriate decarbonization pathways.
If WTO trade panelists don’t offer more deference to national policymakers than these two recent cases suggest, we are likely to see greater calls by environmental groups for a substantial paring back of trade rules for the duration of the climate emergency.
Todd N. Tucker (@toddntucker) is the director of industrial policy and trade at the Roosevelt Institute. | 2022-12-20T13:17:19Z | www.washingtonpost.com | WTO rules could discourage green subsidies for U.S. firms - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/recent-wto-rulings-may-complicate-green-industrial-policies/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/recent-wto-rulings-may-complicate-green-industrial-policies/ |
Russian expatriate investors are under investigation
Analysis by Aaron Schaffer
Good morning and happy Tuesday. I’m filling in for Tim this morning. You can send me feedback, tips and documents (I love documents) at aaron.schaffer@washpost.com.
Below: Mobile voting critics call on D.C. lawmakers to hold off on internet voting, and a top U.S. official gives his assessment of this year’s midterm elections. First:
Western investigators scrutinize Russian emigre executives over Moscow links
Western intelligence officials are investigating whether wealthy and well-connected Russian expatriate investors have been part of a covert attempt to help Russia develop bleeding-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
The probes have even ensnared Russian emigres working in the cybersecurity space, my colleague Joseph Menn reports.
Some of the expatriates were linked to one of three high-tech Russian technology initiatives:
The Skolkovo technology area, which the government subsidized and aimed to rival Silicon Valley in suburban Moscow.
The Russian Venture Company, a government investment vehicle to help Russian businesses build innovative technology that was sanctioned by the U.S. government in February.
And the Russian Quantum Center, a nonprofit research administrator that runs 12 laboratories near Moscow and was sanctioned in September.
But it’s not clear what the investigations, which have been demanding, have yielded. Here’s more from Joe:
It’s not clear what counterintelligence and other officials have found. The FBI declined to comment.
Some of the expats have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and many say they had already reduced or ended their ties to Russia. But people familiar with the inquiries say those claims aren’t being taken at face value.
In 2014, the FBI publicly warned the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) over an alliance with Skolko and founding president Viktor Vekselberg. He was sanctioned in 2018 and this year, and he’s of particular interest to investigators.
Vekselberg had two U.S. properties raided and a yacht seized this year; authorities said he committed money laundering and bank fraud. Vekselberg, who hasn’t been publicly charged with a crime, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Another Russian executive at the center of the network — cybersecurity founder and investor Serguei Beloussov — is being tracked, according to an official at an intelligence agency. But the U.S. government hasn’t found proof of a major security breach like the one that Kaspersky Labs disclosed in 2017. The federal government banned use of Kaspersky software that year.
U.S. and Swiss officials have made inquiries about Beloussov, a Soviet emigre who has led major companies like Acronis — a firm that won government contracts through at least 2017 and was spun off from his first big company, Parallels.
Beloussov helped start the Russian Quantum Center and became chairman of its board of trustees. He said he wasn’t paid for his work and helped because “at the time, it seemed to everyone that scientific collaboration was a good thing.”
Beloussov, who has Singaporean citizenship and changed his name to Serg Bell, founded a firm called Runa Capital, which has invested in firms that are working on key cybersecurity issues like building quantum computers, working to develop encryption capable of withstanding quantum computers’ power and making software for industrial devices.
In 2019, Russia’s special envoy for digital development Dmitry Peskov blessed Beloussov’s move abroad, saying he could do more for Russia outside of the country.
Beloussov says he hasn’t been to Russia in five years and that he spoke out against the invasion of Ukraine.
Groups urge D.C. lawmakers to hold off on internet voting measure
More than a dozen groups say members of the D.C. Council should hold off on moving forward with legislation to expand voting by phone in D.C., according to a letter exclusively obtained by The Cybersecurity 202. The bill has stalled since April, when council member Charles Allen (D), who chairs a key committee, said he opposed the measure, which would have required the District to give voters the option to vote electronically by 2024.
“If an online voting system were to be implemented and hacked, we fear that it would undermine perceptions of D.C.’s ability to self-govern,” the groups write in the letter. “We all believe that it should be as easy to vote as possible in the District. Many of us work to protect and expand voting rights daily. But internet voting is the wrong way to increase access.”
The bill faces an uncertain future in D.C. Next term, Allen may not chair the committee that has jurisdiction over the bill, which could enable a council member supporting the bill to advance it. Council member Brooke Pinto (D), who introduced the measure, said in a statement that it’s not ready for prime time.
“Expanding the right to vote is a core value of our city and our nation, and a value that I will continue to pursue on behalf of our city’s residents,” Pinto said, touting legislation to mail ballots to all residents. “When voting rights are under attack around the country, I am proud of the steps my colleagues and I have taken to make voting more accessible in D.C.”
“The mobile voting bill that I introduced aimed to do just that — make voting more accessible to more District residents[,] many of whom are underrepresented in elections,” Pinto said. “Since introducing the bill, I have had many more conversations with residents and experts and my staff and I have read additional reporting on the issue. At this time, mobile voting is not ripe to move forward as additional security protections are likely needed to be considered in the event we do adopt a mobile voting option in the future. Accordingly, I will not be moving forward with this piece of legislation next Council session. I will continue to work with my Council colleagues to ensure that voting is accessible and fair elections are held in the District.”
Lawmakers include cybersecurity measures in massive omnibus package
Lawmakers added a ban on the use of TikTok on government devices and funding for cybersecurity offices across the government in the spending package, which Congress is racing to pass by a Friday deadline. If the bill passes as written, federal officials would have two months to come up with “standards and guidelines” requiring federal officials to remove TikTok from most government devices.
The bill, which totals 4,155 pages, also includes nearly $2.9 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. It would slash CISA’s funds by $50,000 for every day that the agency doesn’t give congressional appropriators quarterly briefings. The bill would also fund National Cyber Director Chris Inglis’s office to the tune of around $22 million.
This year’s midterms saw less foreign influence activity than previous elections, U.S. cybersecurity official says
Gen. Paul Nakasone, who leads the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, told reporters that “there were plenty of foreign influence operations that were ongoing and continue to be ongoing up to Election Day. But compared to previous elections, I estimate that unlike 2018 and 2020, there was a lessened degree of activity.” Nakasone also said U.S. officials had a plan through the certification of elections, and that they targeted infrastructure belonging to “foreign adversaries.”
Nakasone’s assessment appears to line up with a new report from cybersecurity firm Mandiant, which concluded that “detected operations were limited to moderate in scale” and that all the operations it detected “appeared to be somewhat limited in the level of effort dedicated to election-related messaging and/or in potential reach to mainstream audiences based on observed activity.”
Events D.C. data published online in apparent ransomware attack (Michael Brice-Saddler and Aaron Schaffer)
Microsoft finds macOS bug that lets malware bypass security checks (Bleeping Computer)
Cyber National Mission Force elevated in fight against foreign hackers (The Record)
DHS seeks ideas for automated cyberattack detectors in annual notice (NextGov)
National Cyber Director’s preview of strategy highlights federal software procurement (NextGov)
This is Larry. I don't think he wants to come inside. 14/10 pic.twitter.com/DPEHbhuw6U | 2022-12-20T13:17:25Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Russian expatriate investors are under investigation - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/russian-expatriate-investors-are-under-investigation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/russian-expatriate-investors-are-under-investigation/ |
Post Politics Now Another headache for Trump as House panel weighs release of tax returns
Noted: Electoral Count Act, crafted as response to Jan. 6, is in omnibus bill
The latest: Deal funds key parts of Biden’s agenda, boosts defense spending
Take a look: The final Jan. 6 committee hearing, in 4 minutes
The latest: Democrats call for probe into GOP congressman-elect
The latest: Chief justice temporarily keeps Title 42 border policy in place
Former president Donald Trump announces his 2024 bid for president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 15. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)
Today, the House Ways and Means Committee is meeting to decide whether to publicly release six years of former president Donald Trump’s federal tax returns that it obtained after a lengthy court battle. The move by the Democratic-led panel could be the latest headache this week for Trump after the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol voted unanimously Monday to refer four criminal charges against him to the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican negotiators early Tuesday unveiled a roughly $1.7 trillion deal to fund the U.S. government through most of 2023, setting up a late-hour scramble on Capitol Hill to approve the sprawling package and avert a potential shutdown on Friday. President Biden has no public events scheduled Tuesday.
2:45 p.m. Eastern: Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, speaks to reporters ahead of the panel’s meeting.
3 p.m. Eastern: The House Ways and Means Committee meets to discuss the potential release of Trump’s taxes.
Just seven days after a pair of Virginia state senators launched their campaigns for Congress to fill the seat of the late Rep. A. Donald McEachin, voters are headed to the polls Tuesday to determine a winner in the Democratic primary, a race that was over in a flash.
The Post’s Meagan Flynn reports that state Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan (Richmond), who emerged as the establishment favorite, is going head to head with state Sen. Joseph D. Morrissey (Richmond), a renegade within the party who has largely mounted an outsider’s campaign. Per Meagan:
Almost two years after President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election culminated in a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, Congress is set to wrap up its two main responses to that deadly day.
Writing in The Early 202, The Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell and Theodoric Meyer relay that, first, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack has completed its investigation into the insurrection and plans to release its full report Wednesday. Committee members voted Monday to refer four criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department. Per our colleagues:
The House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled Tuesday to meet with one weighty item on its agenda: What to do with former president Donald Trump’s tax returns?
An individual’s tax returns are generally shielded by privacy laws, but the committee, led by Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), obtained Trump’s returns by arguing they were needed to guide possible changes in tax laws.
A bipartisan bill that would make changes to how members of Congress could object to electoral votes is included in the omnibus spending bill lawmakers need to approve in the coming days.
The Post’s Amy B Wang and Liz Goodwin report that the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), would amend the Electoral Count Act of 1887 and reaffirm that the vice president has only a ministerial role at the joint session of Congress where electoral college votes are counted. Per our colleagues:
The Post’s Tony Romm reports that the 4,155-page measure, known in congressional parlance as an omnibus, included funding for key elements of President Biden’s economic agenda, new boosts to defense programs and an additional $44.9 billion in emergency military and economic assistance for Ukraine. Per Tony:
On Dec. 19, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection wrapped proceedings and made criminal referrals for former president Donald Trump. (Video: Blair Guild/The Washington Post)
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol unanimously agreed to refer criminal charges against former president Donald Trump to the Justice Department on Monday, concluding an 18-month examination of the insurrection that shook the country’s free and fair election system.
If you missed the panel’s final hearing, we offer you a four-minute recap above, courtesy of The Post’s Blair Guild.
You can read more here about the committee action from The Post’s Jacqueline Alemany, Marianna Sotomayor and Josh Dawsey.
RELATED7 things we’ve learned from the Jan. 6 committee report so far
The story by the New York Times cast doubt on Santos’s claims about working for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and about the basis of his reported wealth as he loaned his campaign more than $700,000 before notching a surprise win that helped provide the GOP with a slim majority, The Post’s Michael Kranish, Hannah Knowles and Azi Paybarah report. Per our colleagues:
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Monday temporarily left in place a pandemic-era policy that allows the government to quickly expel millions of migrants from U.S. borders. It had been set to expire Wednesday.
The Post’s Ann E. Marimow and Maria Sacchetti report that Roberts’s brief order was an “administrative stay” that allows the court to consider an emergency application from Republican state officials who want the Title 42 policy to remain while litigation continues. Per our colleagues:
The action follows a ruling by a federal appeals court in Washington on Friday that paved the way for the Biden administration to terminate the policy on Wednesday, and to once again allow migrants who cross the southern border illegally to seek asylum without the risk of being expelled.
Roberts, who reviews emergency requests from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, gave the Department of Homeland Security and immigrant advocates until 5 p.m. Tuesday to respond to the request from Republican state officials, which was submitted on Monday. The call for responses typically means that the full court will be involved in deciding the matter. | 2022-12-20T13:17:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Another headache for Trump as House panel weighs release of tax returns - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/trump-tax-returns-omnibus-congress-spending/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/trump-tax-returns-omnibus-congress-spending/ |
Langley hockey repeats late-game heroics; St. John’s jumper PRs
Noah Scheinerman skates with his teammates on Dec. 10 against Broad Run. (Neil Krysinski)
The Langley hockey team looked a bit different than usual Friday night. Missing five starters, the Saxons pulled up five freshmen — three of whom have never played on varsity before — to fill those gaps.
But in one big way, they looked the same.
Last February, Langley won the Northern Virginia School Hockey League championship over Briar Woods on a game-winning goal by Noah Scheinerman in the third period. And in the rematch Friday at SkateQuest in Reston, Scheinerman again scored the winner, this time with four seconds left in the Saxons’ 5-4 come-from-behind victory.
A shaky start and defensive errors by Langley helped Briar Woods build a three-goal lead before freshman Cole Samburg scored a shorthanded goal to put the Saxons on the board. Capitalizing on two penalties, Langley came back to tie the game at 4-4 going into the third period.
“When we scored the fourth goal [to tie the game], I was like ‘All right, this game is ours now,’ because you could see the wind get sucked out of them,” Coach Patrick Keough said. “I looked down at the other bench and you could just see their coach is pissed and their kids are dejected, so the thing that you got to not let them do is get back in the game.”
Langley (5-0) held firm defensively, and then Scheinerman became the hero with assists from senior captain Kam Khazai and Samburg.
Keough praised his team’s composure and its depth, which is somewhat a product of the team’s developmental junior varsity program that focuses entirely on skill and strength enhancement. That depth came up big Friday with the team a bit shorthanded.
St. John’s senior jumper Roman Mills has shown what he can do in the air. Now he’s just hoping for good health.
Mills is coming off a spring season in which he placed sixth in the triple jump at the Adidas Outdoor Nationals, despite competing with a wrapped hamstring. Feeling fit this winter, he set a personal record in the long jump at the Howard County Winter Festival meet on Saturday, jumping 20 feet, 0.25 inches to place seventh.
Mills said he has been focusing on building hip strength and mobility to help with the timing of his strides and landing with proper form in the triple and long jumps.
“It’s a pretty hard event to do on your body,” Mills said of the triple jump. “If you don’t get the mechanics stuff down, then you’re going to end up getting hurt like I did, and then you might miss part of your season. It’s good to fix things early on, especially in triple jump, just so you don’t hurt yourself in the future.”
Mills is betting his work on jumping fundamentals will pay off as the season continues, and as the rest of the boys’ team recovers from a hard-hitting flu season. The Cadets will get their next test at the Holiday Invitational on Dec. 28 at Prince George’s Sports Complex.
“I know that there’s still a lot of work to be done,” Mills said. “I know I’ve gotten a lot stronger since last year, and I know that the minor improvements that I can make now can help me translate that to the runway.”
Rafael Hipolito knew he needed to bounce back after falling to top-seeded Alessio Perentin of Delbarton (N.J.) in the quarterfinals at the prominent Beast of the East meet in Newark, Del., on Saturday. The first Virginia Class 5 champion in Independence High history, Hipolito went on to win his next four matches and take third among 157-pounders, one of the highest finishes of any D.C. area wrestler.
“His success on the mat goes a long way because it allows our guys to see it actually happen — someone they know, someone they train with, someone they’re friends with accomplish these big goals,” Coach Paul Grinups said. “And he has a great mentality — as a coach, that’s the best thing you can have.”
In March, Hipolito won the 160-pound title at the National High School Coaches’ Association Nationals; the Virginia Tech commit was the last one standing in a bracket of more than 100 wrestlers from around the nation. Over the summer, he took fourth place to achieve all-American status at Fargo, N.D., Junior Nationals, becoming the second Loudoun County wrestler to accomplish that feat.
This past weekend in Delaware, St. Mary’s Ryken led 13 D.C. area schools with eight wrestlers in the meet, including Mekhi Neal’s second-place finish at the 150, followed by Westfield (six wrestlers), Skyline (five), Landon (five) and Spalding (four).
There’s a friendly competition brewing between La Plata’s boys’ and girls’ relay teams.
Led by junior Addy Donnick, the girls’ side brings back three of its four swimmers who set the state record in the 200 freestyle relay a year ago — one of two Maryland state championship wins, the other coming in the 200 medley. A University of North Carolina-Wilmington commit, Donnick never lost a race last year and set the state record in the 100-yard backstroke.
The boys bring state title aspirations of their own. Coach Mary Jane Cupples said that the boys have to be 22 seconds or faster to be a part of the 200 freestyle relay this season, and they are vying to win the 200 and 400 freestyle relays at states.
“Those boys are looking at the big picture, too,” Cupples said. “They’re not letting the girls get all the attention.”
The shared goal of bringing home state titles has sparked a lighthearted rivalry. The swimmers share lanes with one another during practice, where Cupples sees this competition come to a head.
“There’s times I do see them pulling each other underwater and holding each other back when they’re kicking,” Cupples said lightheartedly. “They’re very competitive in that water.”
The boys have yet to unveil their full relay this season, with one of their legs out due to an illness. But the girls showed promise against Northern, breaking the Lackey pool record in the 200 freestyle, which helped them eke out a 140-134 dual meet win. | 2022-12-20T13:18:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Langley hockey repeats late-game heroics; St. John’s jumper PRs - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/langley-hockey-repeats-late-game-heroics-st-johns-jumper-prs/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/langley-hockey-repeats-late-game-heroics-st-johns-jumper-prs/ |
Justin Trudeau has a gun-free Canada within his reach
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces new gun-control legislation in Ottawa on May 30. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press via AP)
Are there any comparable “long games” being played in Canadian politics? Aside from schemes to dissolve the country itself, the goal that most readily springs to mind is the progressive dream of a gun-free Canada — an achievement Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might come close to achieving before his time in office is up.
As Canadian politicians on both sides are fond of repeating, there is no Second Amendment in Canada, no constitutional right to gun ownership. There is not even a clearly articulated constitutional right to property in Canada — meaning that the ability to possess guns has never been any more legally secure than the right to own any of the random consumer goods Ottawa might feel the need to regulate, restrict or ban.
Trudeau’s government has come under growing fire for the sloppy nature of the arguments it has used to rationalize a sweeping ban that seems mostly ideological in motive. But the sort of patriotic-but-nervous suburbanite voters who form the backbone of the Liberal Party will likely care little about a government blunt-forcing its way toward a Canada with almost no legal-to-own guns at all, given the degree to which they associate firearms with crime and the United States — two consistently crowd-pleasing targets for Canadian politicians.
The only possible sticking point remains Canada’s estimated 3 million legal gun owners, most of whom live in the country’s vast rural stretches who often own firearms for hunting or self-defense. Even if gun ownership is not a right, the sheer size of Canada’s gun-owning community — one of the largest in the world — has long been viewed as a moderating force on how aggressively government can move in good conscience against firearms. It’s a caution born less of fear than of a sort of lingering reverence for the idea of “rural Canadians” as an identity group deserving of respect on their own terms.
Trudeau’s grand gun-banning campaign ties up the loose ends of a decades-long effort. His government’s halfhearted, condescending assurances to rural voters that their hunting rifles aren’t being targeted when they very obviously are offers a glimpse of a country that has fulfilled a destiny of another sort. Twenty-first century Canada is now quite unambiguously run by and for the residents of its major population centers, captive to their anxieties, passions and biases at the expense of those of others. A nation that once sought great meaning from being a land of the untamed wild now has little interest in an identity that’s anything other than urban. | 2022-12-20T13:18:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Trudeau looks to make Canada gun-free at last - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/justin-trudeau-canada-gun-free-nation/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/justin-trudeau-canada-gun-free-nation/ |
Ronna McDaniel is not to blame for the GOP’s election failures
Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, at an event in Las Vegas on Nov. 6, 2021. (Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg News)
Many Republicans are seeking to oust Ronna McDaniel as chair of the Republican National Committee chair after the party’s poor performance in this year’s midterm elections.
This is silly. McDaniel is not the reason for the GOP’s hardships. The real reason comes down to two words: Donald Trump.
It is true that the GOP has consistently lost elections during McDaniel’s tenure. The GOP lost the House in 2018 and the presidency and the Senate in 2020. And yes, it flopped against one of the most unpopular presidents in history this year.
It might make sense to drop McDaniel if the RNC had run the party’s election efforts. But it doesn’t — and hasn’t for many decades.
Individual candidates and PACs run by the leaders of the House and Senate finance the lion’s share of campaign spending. The two primary Senate Republican super PACs, for example, spent a combined $530 million in the midterms on top of the hundreds of millions spent by its candidates. House Republicans also spent more than half a billion dollars above their candidates’ expenditures.
The RNC, by contrast, raised only about $325 million for the cycle, including money to assist GOP candidates for governor and other offices. And that money rarely went to direct voter contact. The RNC’s main role in modern elections is to help build databases that candidates can use and help state parties with their ground games and get out the vote activities. These projects are important, but they do not determine whether individual candidates win except in rare cases.
Nor does the party chair determine what issues a party runs on or act as the party’s main spokesperson. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) issued his chamber’s own agenda, the Commitment to America, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) offered no agenda at all. The former president’s endorsements and rallies also helped define the Republican brand for the midterms. McDaniel was not a player in any of these determinations, nor was she ever expected to be.
The modern party chair is not the equivalent to a company’s chief executive. At best, she is the managing partner — the person who is in charge of making sure the back office runs efficiently, not whether it succeeds. It’s misleading, then, to blame her for the party’s election defeats when she does not pick the candidates, define the party’s image or run its campaigns.
By essentially all accounts, the person who did perform the CEO role was Trump. Thus, the battle for the hapless RNC chair’s job is a proxy battle over his continued influence within the party.
Viewed through that lens, it’s no coincidence that McDaniel’s two declared foes, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and California RNC member Harmeet Dhillon, are well-known Trump acolytes. Victory by either would keep the RNC firmly in Trumpist hands. That would forestall any effort to de-Trumpify the national party before 2024.
Their elevation to RNC chair would also matter in the one arena where the committee does have decisive influence: preparation for the 2024 nomination season. The RNC sets the rules that govern the awarding and allocation of delegates as well as the preliminary rules that govern the party’s convention itself. It also influences matters such as the staging of the Republican primary debates and the order in which states will vote to select their delegates. The chair will heavily influence these decisions, each of which could tip the scales in — or against — Trump’s favor.
This power, not McDaniel’s purported losing streak, could be the real motivation behind her challengers. She has pledged the party will remain neutral between contenders, as party organizations traditionally do. Her firmly Trump-aligned challengers would presumably say the same thing, but a chair can do many things behind the scenes to favor one candidate in a nomination fight. The brouhaha over Hillary Clinton’s campaign and its alleged capture of the DNC before her nomination in the 2016 battle against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demonstrates this clearly.
The identity of the next RNC chair will not determine whether Republicans win the next election. It could, however, influence whether Trump continues to exert an outsize influence over party affairs. That could make all the difference in the world. | 2022-12-20T13:18:47Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | RNC chair Ronna McDaniel is not to blame for GOP’s failures - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ronna-mcdaniel-rnc-chair-republicans-elections/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ronna-mcdaniel-rnc-chair-republicans-elections/ |
Ask Elaine: I’m 28 and have never really dated. How do I start?
Hi Elaine: How do I start exploring the dating world as someone who was never interested in dating before but wants to try now? I’m a 28-year-old Black woman living in the Washington, D.C., area. Growing up, I never really had a boy crazy period of my life and never pursued any romantic relationships, even when opportunities presented themselves through college and adulthood. I always just focused on friends, family and reaching my academic and career goals.
I’ve had the mind-set that you should already have what you would want in a potential romantic partner when it comes to career and education. I finally feel stable in that sense but now, with many friends married and having kids, I feel like I skipped a big part of exploring dating. I worry that I am passing the age where it is acceptable to have huge dating mishaps and not know what I’m doing. How do I start to explore this world without prior experience that my peers might have in this area and not be naive or out of touch with the realities of dating?
— Clueless About How To Kickstart My Romantic Life.
Clueless: As someone who has been a serial monogamist since the age of 14, I can tell you: You didn’t miss much. The dating scene before your late 20s is pretty trash. Don’t get me wrong, you learn a lot. But there’s no rule that you must learn those lessons the hard way, when you can learn from your friends’ experiences and pitfalls. Now that you are interested in pursuing a romantic partnership, you get to apply all the wisdom, self-trust and confidence you’ve gained from navigating the world as a single Black woman to picking a partner who adds value to your life.
The path you’ve chosen has a lot of upsides. And very few downsides, as I see it. Release the pressure you’re putting on yourself, along with the false notion that you’re somehow running out of time at just 28. Relationships come with and often leave behind baggage. It sounds refreshing to round the corner into your 30s with a clean slate. You did not waste time. You invested it wisely. You took advantage of the opportunity to get where you wanted to be in life without the distraction of dating. And you didn’t fall into the trap of coupling up for fear of simply being alone, which so many do. You know what it is to find fulfillment on your own. And I believe this will all serve you well in any romantic relationship. The better you know yourself, the better your discernment is in dating.
Finding a partner is a process and unlike building your career — which requires focus, precision and as much control over as many variables as possible — dating successfully is more enjoyable when you take the pressure off it.
Don’t worry so much about being new to the dating pool. Try to have fun with it. If dating apps sound dreadful to you, call up a friend and have them help you set up your profile — it instantly becomes 100 percent more fun. When you go out, take a good wing woman along who can help suss out potential meet-cute opportunities. Ask the people who know you best to set you up and rely on reference checks from mutual friends if you can. Don’t rule out meeting new prospects in group settings until you feel more comfortable being one-on-one with someone new. Start out with low-pressure, zero-expectation dates. And remember: The only goal is to just have fun.
Consider pre-scheduling a follow-up friend date to process these new experiences in a low-pressure environment. These friends will be the ones to tell you “hell no, you’re trippin’!” when you’re overlooking “the one” because of some superficial B.S.
If it helps ground you, start a list of your desires in an ideal mate (superficial B.S. allowed!). Revisit and revise the list as you go from date to date. Don’t view it as a rigid list of qualifying credentials but more as a self-reflection exercise to help identify what brings out the best in you. Looking at each date as a learning experience or, better yet, a social experiment can turn even the most disappointing dates into useful information-gathering missions.
Contrary to what the world tells women about how “finding the one” “completes” you, I will share the truth my mom told me when I started dating: When building a relationship, two halves don’t make a whole. You have to be whole on your own. Finding a partner is a bonus.
So, stop comparing yourself to other people’s trajectories. Have fun. Take your time. And most importantly, take the pressure off. Life is only still just beginning. And it sounds like you’re off to a great start. | 2022-12-20T14:43:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Ask Elaine: I'm 28 and have never really dated. How do I start? - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/20/ask-elaine-how-to-start-dating-28/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/12/20/ask-elaine-how-to-start-dating-28/ |
A visitor to an Apple store wears a T-shirt promoting TikTok in Beijing in July 2020. (Ng Han Guan/AP)
A sweeping spending bill calls for federal government employees to be banned from using TikTok on government-owned devices, the latest in a series of steps by governments to try to curb the reach of the popular Chinese-owned short-video app.
The provision was included in the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill to fund the U.S. government through most of 2023. Top Democrats and Republicans unveiled the bill early Tuesday, and Congress needs to pass the measure by Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown.
The inclusion of the TikTok provision underscored the growing bipartisan support for clamping down on the social media app and stood as a remarkably quick action by a hidebound Congress. Just last week, the Senate unanimously backed a bill to prohibit TikTok on government devices. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who introduced the legislation, called TikTok “a Trojan Horse for the Chinese Communist Party.”
“It’s a major security risk to the United States, and until it is forced to sever ties with China completely, it has no place on government devices,” he said in a statement last week. “States across the U.S. are banning TikTok on government devices. It’s time for Joe Biden and the Democrats to help do the same.”
Leaders on both sides of the aisle, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), backed the legislation.
TikTok is already banned from government devices at a number of federal agencies, including the White House and State departments. And a growing number of states, particularly Republican-leading ones, have banned the app out of fear that Chinese companies could be tracking Americans.
TikTok has repeatedly pushed back on the charges.
A TikTok spokesperson told The Washington Post last week that Hawley’s legislation “does nothing to advance U.S. national security interests.”
And Vanessa Pappas, chief operating officer of TikTok, a subsidiary of Chinese company ByteDance, told Congress in September that the company’s Chinese employees abided by strict access controls over U.S. data and did not provide information to China.
Congress plans to vote this week on the omnibus bill, which includes a number of President Biden’s economic priorities. The White House Office of Management and Budget has 60 days “to develop standards and guidelines for executive agencies requiring the removal” of TikTok from federal devices, according to the bill.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023, which consists of all 12 fiscal year 2023 appropriations bills, listed “keeping our nation and our communities safe by … defending global democracy from Russian and Chinese threats” among the bill’s key provisions.
“This process was far from perfect, but ultimately it allowed Republican red lines to be adhered to and because of that I will urge my colleagues to support this package,” Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday. “We need to do our job and fund the government.” | 2022-12-20T14:48:38Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Lawmakers propose a ban on TikTok on government devices - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/tiktok-ban-spending-bill-china/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/tiktok-ban-spending-bill-china/ |
This file photo taken on June 28, 2022, shows defendant Irmgard Furchner, a former secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp, prior to the continuation of her trial in a courtroom in Itzehoe, northern Germany. (Marcus Brandt/AFP/Getty Images)
A 97-year-old former secretary at a Nazi concentration camp was convicted Tuesday by a German court for her role as an accessory to more than 10,000 murders during the Holocaust, concluding what could be one of the last trials of its kind against Nazi staff.
“I’m sorry for what happened, and I regret that I was at Stutthof at the time,” she said during her closing statement, according to the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. “I can’t say any more.”
More than 60,000 people total died at the Stutthof camp near Gdansk, according to data from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. At the concentration camp, Polish and Soviet victims including Jews were encircled by electric barbed-wire fences in a wooded, secluded part of northern Poland’s Baltic coast. Many of the victims at Stutthof died by lethal injection or by the camp’s gas chamber. Others died from starvation or disease.
A 96-year-old former Nazi camp secretary was supposed to stand trial. She tried to flee instead.
The conviction Tuesday was celebrated by Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who called the outcome “the best that could be achieved, given the fact that she was tried in a juvenile court.”
“In view of Furchner’s recent statement to the court that she ‘regretted everything,’ we were concerned that the court might accept her defense attorney’s plea for an acquittal,” Zuroff said in a statement to the Associated Press. “Yet given her claim that she had no knowledge of the murders being committed in the camp, her regret was far from convincing.”
Ellen Francis and Sofia Diogo Mateus contributed to this report. | 2022-12-20T15:13:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Nazi secretary Irmgard Furchner convicted for role in 10,000 murders at Stutthof death camp - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/20/nazi-irmgard-furchner-secretary-holocaust-stutthof/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/20/nazi-irmgard-furchner-secretary-holocaust-stutthof/ |
Analysis by Ewa Krukowska and John Ainger | Bloomberg
Trees and an electricity transmission pylon near vapor rising from the Belchatow coal powered power plant, operated by PGE SA, in Belchatow, Poland, on Wednesday, April 28, 2021. Poland’s plan to carve out coal-fired power plants, which would free up state-owned companies to invest in clean energy, sparked a rally in the country’s biggest utilities. Photographer: Bartek Sadowski/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
The European Union has a bold plan to make sure its own strengthened pollution standards aren’t undermined by trading partners with weaker ones. It’s introducing a levy known officially as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to combat so-called carbon leakage, which happens when companies shift production to places with laxer policies to reduce costs. The aim is to level the playing field and protect European manufacturers while prodding other regions to follow the EU’s lead on taxing emissions. The idea has triggered a hostile reaction from trading partners including Russia and China, and added to tensions over green subsidies with the US.
It will initially target steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizers, hydrogen and electricity, all carbon-intensive goods. The CBAM will start with a data-collection stage in October 2023, when importers will monitor and report the number of metric tons of carbon dioxide released from making the goods they bring in from abroad. After that, importers will need to buy a new type of pollution certificate to reflect that discharge in line with prices on the bloc’s Emissions Trading System, its cap-and-trade market for permits. The fee could be at least partially waived if a carbon levy has already been paid in the country where the goods were produced. That’s important, because it prevents the plan from being considered an illegal tariff under regulations drawn up by the World Trade Organization.
The 27-nation bloc, which sees itself as a pioneer on climate action, is tightening rules to meet a binding goal to be climate neutral by 2050 (meaning any greenhouse gas emissions are offset by removals). In July 2021, it rolled out the biggest overhaul to date of its 16-year-old emissions market: Permits will be harder to come by and the program will be extended to include shipping. The moves have helped send the price of permits on the ETS soaring more than 10 times in five years to reach a record of just shy of 100 euros ($106) per ton in 2022.
Less than 4% of global emissions are currently subject to direct carbon pricing in line with 2030 goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, according to the World Bank, and environmentalists say most levies aren’t high enough to change the behavior of polluters. In the EU, the risk of carbon leakage became a hot topic after emissions prices soared. The issue will become more challenging as free permits that manufacturers now get from governments are phased out.
Trading partners resent Europe’s efforts to force them to match the bloc’s climate ambitions. The EU’s pioneering plans on reducing carbon emissions can be used “almost as a trade weapon,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said during the COP26 climate conference in 2021. China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has attacked the CBAM as a trade barrier, though it’s also planning to broaden its own emissions trading market. Russia, the second-biggest exporter of steel to the EU, has said the mechanism could drive up the price of key commodities such as rolled steel and aluminum, though its exports to the bloc have decline because of the war in Ukraine. The prospect of the CBAM has already pushed Turkey, the largest source of EU steel imports, to finally ratify the Paris Agreement. Perhaps most critically, America doesn’t have a carbon market and so would have to pay for carbon-intensive exports to the EU. The US government has been skeptical of the idea, while European nations led by France have criticized a cornerstone of Washington’s own green agenda — a package of subsidies for green investments that EU officials say could break WTO competition rules.
The US has kicked around its own version, potentially as part of a national carbon tax, which American businesses increasingly favor over new restrictions on emissions. So has Canada. Environmentalists and economists, including Nobel Prize winner William Nordhaus, have long advocated the approach because it allows countries to band together into a sort of “carbon club” to eliminate the problem of “free-riding” on the efforts of other nations. Germany has pitched its own idea for such a union alongside the Group of Seven. The EU’s plan is seen as a test of whether such a levy can be used to advance carbon pricing around the world. A local program is operating in California.
In short, no. EU governments and the European Parliament have now signed off on the plan and it’s deemed to be in line with WTO rules. There are still technical challenges, including how to measure the amount of carbon embedded in a product and determining how to credit carbon fees paid in countries outside the bloc. The CBAM will end — or at least phase out — the free carbon allowances currently given to European industries seen as most likely to leave the bloc, potentially setting up a battle with its own steel and cement producers. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, will regularly review the mechanism and has the option of making tweaks if “an unforeseeable, exceptional and unprovoked event” harms its operation. | 2022-12-20T16:19:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The EU Has Found a Way to Police Carbon Emissions Beyond Its Borders - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-eu-has-found-a-way-to-police-carbon-emissions-beyond-its-borders/2022/12/20/f6304c56-807b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/the-eu-has-found-a-way-to-police-carbon-emissions-beyond-its-borders/2022/12/20/f6304c56-807b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
They’ve used Title 42, a public health order dusted off under Trump to curb migration at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. In about 1 million of the 2022 apprehensions, authorities used the rule to quickly send individuals back to their homeland or to the country from which they entered the US. The alternative is to process apprehended migrants under regular immigration law. That gives migrants a chance to remain in the US at least temporarily in order to make long-shot bids at gaining asylum, available to people who can show they have a legitimate fear of persecution at home. On Nov. 15, a federal judge ruled against the continued use of Title 42, raising the prospect of exacerbating the backlogs in processing migrants that in the past have led to overcrowding and other poor conditions in border holding facilities. To prepare for handling the migrant crush without the rule, the Biden administration requested and received a delay in implementing the judge’s decision. Then, on Dec. 19, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily blocked the scheduled ending of the restrictions while the Supreme Court considers a bid by Republican state officials to keep the rules in place during a legal fight. | 2022-12-20T16:19:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How Title 42 Is Complicating Biden’s Border Policy - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-title-42-is-complicating-bidens-border-policy/2022/12/20/3fe6a184-807b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-title-42-is-complicating-bidens-border-policy/2022/12/20/3fe6a184-807b-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
The new policy is designed to cut deadly air pollution. It is less stringent than California’s rules, disappointing some advocates.
Smoke pours from the exhaust pipes on a truck in November 2019 in Miami. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Manufacturers would have to reduce harmful tailpipe pollution from new trucks, delivery vans and buses under a long-awaited regulation the Biden administration finalized Tuesday — a rule that could protect public health in poor communities but does not go as far as many advocates hoped.
The regulation marks the first time the federal government has tried to crack down on emissions from these diesel-powered vehicles in over two decades, and it is aimed at improving the lives and health of Americans who live alongside highways, ports and sprawling distribution centers. Exposed to heavy diesel exhaust, these predominantly poor, Black and Latino communities suffer higher rates of asthma, heart disease and early death.
“This is a very aggressive action to protect the health of 72 million Americans and people living in these truck freight routes,” Michael Regan, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in an interview with The Washington Post. Regan said the EPA rule is the first part of a three-step plan to cut pollution and planet-warming emissions from trucks and buses. In spring, the administration plans to release a separate set of greenhouse gas rules for heavy-duty vehicles.
The new tailpipe rule — which will take effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register and apply beginning with model year 2027 — was the focus of heavy lobbying by vehicle makers, and it reflects the Biden administration’s struggle to crack down on pollution without inviting a legal backlash.
The regulation is likely to result in real health benefits, but it is sure to disappoint many public health advocates and liberals, who had pushed the EPA to be far more tough. It is not as stringent as California’s pollution regulations, which activists had held up as a model for federal policy.
Diesel big rigs have belched smog for years. California may soon ban them.
The EPA said the new rule would require truck makers to reduce vehicles’ emissions of lung-damaging nitrogen dioxide 80 percent below the current standard. California’s rule calls for a 90 percent cut.
In a setback for California’s ability to set pollution standards that are tougher than the federal limits, the EPA also announced that it would postpone making a decision until early next year about whether to grant the state’s request for the waivers it needs to enforce its own policies. The delay leaves the state’s truck pollution rules in limbo and affects the other states that have already signed on to follow California’s regulations.
Tuesday’s finalized rule differs from one the EPA proposed earlier this year, and in writing it, the agency appears to have leaned into compromise.
Its proposal last March detailed two possible paths — one closer to California’s rule and a weaker alternative favored by truck makers. In an interview, Regan said the final regulation has pieces of both “to ensure the final standards are as strong as possible, take effect as soon as possible and will last as long as possible.”
EPA officials said the new pollution limits would prevent up to 2,900 premature deaths, 6,700 hospital admissions and emergency department visits, and 18,000 cases of childhood asthma by 2045.
The agency estimated that the new rule would deliver significant economic benefits, outweighing its costs by about $29 billion each year.
An analysis by the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation found that while tighter truck pollution standards would help people across the nation, Midwestern and Southern states stand to benefit the most, relative to their size, because of their busy highways and large concentrations of people living nearby.
Exactly what the new rule will mean for neighborhoods exposed to heavy diesel exhaust is uncertain. Experts said that whether the regulation makes deep cuts to emissions depends in large part on whether it closes some of the loopholes that have weakened previous federal rules.
The new rule does include an important change: For the first time, it regulates the pollution emitted from diesel-burning engines at low speeds, while idling, and in stop-and-go traffic. These emissions, which are most likely to affect people living in neighborhoods choked with truck traffic, were previously excluded.
But truck makers and their lobbyists have pushed the EPA to grant them other allowances that would make it easier for them to meet the new standards on paper, even if they exceed them in the real world.
The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, an industry group, warned the Biden administration against setting the bar too high, arguing that compliance would increase trucks’ cost, causing buyers to delay making new purchases and leaving older, dirtier, diesel-burning vehicles on the road for years.
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint
The United Auto Workers had also expressed concerns. The union urged the administration to adopt a less strict standard for nitrogen dioxide out of concern that higher truck prices would cost its members jobs.
If the EPA grants California’s waiver requests next year, giving the state the ability to enforce its own limits on truck pollution, truck manufacturers are expected to sue. Industry representatives have said they would prefer to follow one national standard, and they have tried to discourage other states from adopting California’s tougher rules.
Diesel-burning trucks and buses are major polluters. Although their emissions have declined over the decades as technology improved, of all the vehicles on the nation’s roadways, they are still the single biggest contributor to unhealthy air. The nitrogen dioxide they release reacts with chemicals in the atmosphere to create other pollutants, such as ozone and fine particles, that harm human health.
Earlier this year, an American Lung Association report estimated that switching to zero-emission trucks would prevent 66,800 premature deaths over the next 30 years.
Environmental justices advocates said they had hoped for a rule that would accelerate electrification by pushing fleet owners to replace their diesel-burning trucks and buses with zero -emission alternatives.
The new pollution policy is a “short-term solution,” said José Miguel Acosta Córdova, senior transportation policy analyst for the Chicago-based Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. Little Village, a predominantly Latino neighborhood in the city’s southwest, sits near major highways and railroads and has some of the dirtiest air in Chicago.
“There’s no amount of pollution that’s good — any exposure is bad — even if they’re cleaner trucks than they previously were,” Córdova said. | 2022-12-20T16:19:32Z | www.washingtonpost.com | EPA announces tougher tailpipe pollution rule for trucks, vans and buses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/20/epa-truck-pollution/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/20/epa-truck-pollution/ |
How India can sell hundreds of government-owned businesses
By Dhiraj Nayyar
A woman walks past an Air India facility in Mumbai in October 2021. (Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)
Dhiraj Nayyar is the director for economics and policy at Vedanta Resources.
Until last year, Air India was a chronically underperforming government-owned airline. It hadn’t made a profit in almost two decades and was saddled with $8 billion in debt. Its planes continued to fly only because the government spent billions to keep them operational.
Finally, one year ago, Air India was sold to the Tata Group, the country’s largest diversified business conglomerate, and now it is set to place orders for 500 aircraft worth $100 billion to help it tap into India’s booming aviation market. Its turnaround should encourage the government to privatize the 250-plus other operations it owns.
These include an array of businesses: defense equipment manufacturing, energy generation, telecommunications, oil production, textile making and many more. In almost every sector, except perhaps nuclear power, more efficient private businesses exist, and they are weighed down by the government competition.
Certain government-owned enterprises make a decent profit, but only those that are either protected from competition or given special preferences. Coal India, for instance, had a monopoly on coal mining until last year. And even these companies’ value is eroding over time. A cursory comparison of the benchmark BSE Sensex index with the benchmark index of Public Sector Undertakings (government-owned companies) listed on the BSE India stock exchange shows how government operations have stagnated over the past decade even as private businesses have grown 300 percent.
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, has often said that the government has no business being in business. Yet after eight and a half years of his tenure, Air India is one of only two enterprises that have been successfully privatized. (The other is a stand-alone steel plant, closed for operations, also sold to the Tata Group.) Efforts to sell Central Electronics and Pawan Hans (a helicopter service) were blocked by courts and the government after questions were raised about the buyers’ credentials.
The challenge here is more practical than ideological. Any proposed sale of government assets raises suspicions about their prices and whether they are being sold to ”cronies” or “oligarchs.” Air India was an exception because the company was owned by the Tata Group before it was nationalized in 1953. Its sale was viewed as justice, not a giveaway.
The only way to determine the right valuations and buyers is to first list the businesses on India’s booming equity markets. At present, about one-third are so listed. These are also the best performing, highest valued and most likely to become more efficient. They include the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, NTPC (formerly known as the National Thermal Power Corporation), the Container Corporation of India and the Steel Authority of India. Stock markets lend transparency to pricing and valuation.
And to ensure that no single individual or firm takes control of any one government business, a cap of, say, 10 percent should be imposed on equity ownership.
All of India’s government-owned companies can become independent, high-performing and highly valued. Privatization will also provide revenue that the country can invest in infrastructure. At a time when many avenues for growth are constrained by a difficult global economy, privatization can provide the economic momentum that India needs. | 2022-12-20T16:20:02Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | How India can sell hundreds of government-owned businesses - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/india-modi-government-business-equity-markets/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/india-modi-government-business-equity-markets/ |
Wanted: More livestock veterinarians in rural communities
By Cindy Hyde-Smith
Cows are checked by veterinarians in Davis, Calif., on Nov. 1, 2018. (Christie Hemm Klok for The Washington Post)
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) is the former Mississippi commissioner of agriculture and commerce and serves on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, rural development, Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies.
Veterinarians are a critical link in the food supply chain. They are on the front lines of treating and preventing the spread of animal diseases, keeping our food safe and helping ensure that diseases don’t jump from animals to humans.
Private-sector veterinarians work with individual farmers to protect the health of the farmers’ livestock, enabling them to maintain strong businesses. Public-sector veterinarians work across a number of government agencies where they inspect meat and poultry products, monitor for foreign animal diseases and enforce animal welfare laws.
A new report commissioned by the Farm Journal Foundation, however, found that only 3 to 4 percent of new veterinary graduates focus on food animal medicine, a significant decline from 40 years ago when about 40 percent pursued this area of study. As a result, more than 500 U.S. counties face a shortage of food animal vets. In my home state of Mississippi, as in many other states, we now have counties without a single large animal veterinarian.
Veterinary students today see higher earning potential in working with companion animals, such as dogs, cats and other pets. Faced with paying off high levels of student debt and equipping a veterinary business, they opt for these better income prospects in urban and suburban areas over the lower incomes and more demanding workloads that come with rural veterinary work.
To help protect our food supply, we must do more to support veterinarians, including strengthening incentives for work in rural areas. As part of its work on the Farm Bill, Congress should expand the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program, the flagship federal grant program to help pay off the educational loans of veterinarians who agree to serve in rural shortage areas. Today the VMLRP helps fill positions in only a fraction of the nation’s underserved areas. Its impact is diminished because awards are subject to a federal withholding tax, meaning that 37 percent of the dollars appropriated to this program go right back to the U.S. Treasury instead of toward relieving the student debt of rural vets.
The bipartisan Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Enhancement Act (S. 2215), which I co-sponsored, would eliminate taxes on programs that encourage vets to practice in rural and underserved areas, just as medical doctors are exempt from withholding on federal grants linked to their working in rural health-care shortage regions.
Congress should also adequately fund and administer programs that offer business support to veterinary practices in rural communities. We should look at how to improve the Veterinary Services Grant Program, which supports education, training and practice enhancements such as equipment purchases for veterinarians in shortage areas.
Finally, Congress needs to work with veterinary schools to enroll more students from rural backgrounds who have an interest in serving their own communities. Supporting training opportunities for rural and underserved students would help increase student retention and mirror successful medical school programs that benefit rural applicants.
As we’ve seen in the past year, every link in our food supply chain is important, and challenges that affect one part of the system can create negative consequences for everyone — farmers, producers, processors and consumers. We need to act now to maintain safe, affordable food supplies for all Americans by ensuring a healthy pipeline of rural food animal vets.
Opinion|A dog’s ability to perceive emotion is a gift — and a two-way street | 2022-12-20T16:20:15Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | U.S. livestock veterinarians are in short supply - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/veterinarians-livestock-shortage-food-safety/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/veterinarians-livestock-shortage-food-safety/ |
Trump’s Jan. 6 enablers in Congress can now exhale
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) sports a Trump Won mask at the U.S. Capitol on the first day of the new congressional session Jan. 3, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
The House select committee investigating the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, concluded its work on Monday, releasing part of its report on its findings and a clutch of referrals to the Justice Department for possible criminal investigation. It also released a less explosive set of recommendations: that four members of Congress should be investigated by the House Ethics Committee for failing to comply with the committee’s inquiry.
With that, the door apparently closed on one of the most titillating aspects of the riot, that members of Congress might have been somehow directly involved in the day’s violence. But the door also seems to have closed on another aspect of the post-election period: accountability for members of Congress who eagerly worked to assist Donald Trump’s effort to retain power despite his election loss.
That group had already sidestepped one mechanism for accountability. As The Washington Post reported last week, nearly every member of the House who voted in opposition to recognizing electors from Arizona or Pennsylvania in the hours after the riot — trying to effect through their votes what the mob had been trying to achieve through force — were reelected in last month’s midterm elections. In fact, there’s no obvious evidence that they suffered any political effect for their participation in the effort to block those electors.
But not all of those members of Congress were equivalently invested in preserving Trump’s power. A smaller group, generally closer to the caucus’s right-most fringe, worked directly with outside groups on promoting the idea that the 2020 election had been stolen and worked with the White House on boosting Trump’s bid to derail his election loss.
Reporting from Talking Points Memo indicates that more than 30 Republican members of Congress communicated with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to offer moral or structural support for Trump’s effort. They passed along unfounded claims of fraud, sent messages of encouragement to the president or, at times, called for a more forceful response to block Joe Biden’s inauguration. In many cases, those legislators were also amplifying false claims about the election to their supporters.
On Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, the Twitter account of Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was flagged 19 times for sharing false or baseless claims about the election results. She continued to make similar claims in the months that followed; she continues to do so to this day. Greene also participated in a briefing at the White House about the election results (despite not yet serving in Congress) on Dec. 21, 2020, along with a number of other House Republicans including Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Brian Babin (R-Tex.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Andy Harris (R-Md.), Jody Hice (R-Ga.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Organizers had planned a series of events centered on Jan. 6 in the weeks before the Capitol riot. One, scheduled for Capitol Hill just as the counting of electoral votes began on that day, was put together by fringe activists working under the “Stop the Steal” banner. The lead organizer, Ali Alexander, identified Greene as a friend who was engaged in trying to prevent Biden’s inauguration.
He also claimed that Biggs, Brooks and Gosar had been involved in planning his event. Alexander is not a trustworthy source of information, and the Capitol Hill rally never materialized as planned. (Greene denied involvement in planning an event, as did Biggs and Brooks.) A potential lineup of speakers submitted with the group’s permit application, though, lists Greene, Gosar, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and others as speakers. Another organizer of the combined event program for the day (including Trump’s speech) offered a similar list of elected officials as having participated in the discussions: Biggs, Boebert, Brooks, Gosar and Rep.-elect Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.).
(In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, there was an enormous amount of attention paid to tours of the Capitol complex given by Republican legislators in the days prior to the riot. There’s no evidence that this was nefarious; it appears to have been primarily a function of unlucky timing.)
These details, though, distract from the broader effort to bolster Trump’s rhetoric. The post-election period offered Republican leaders a choice: build political capital with right-wing voters by siding with Trump’s obviously false and baseless claims of fraud or challenge the sitting president’s rhetoric — including by refusing to amplify it. The elected officials listed above had no qualms about sharing misinformation about the election. In fact, their messages to Meadows often indicate that they may actually have believed the quickly debunked claims they were spreading. Even on Jan. 6 itself, Greene and at least one other elected Republican tried to blame the riot on the political left.
While we talk about the House select committee as being focused on the Capitol riot, the committee’s work covered much of the post-election effort by Trump to retain power. The preliminary report released on Monday explores not only the immediate triggers for the riot but other parallel efforts by Trump and his allies to keep him in office.
Which makes the committee’s limited condemnations of other elected officials more notable. Despite those legislators both having been actively involved in the broader effort and serving in positions that require an oath of fealty to the Constitution, the committee only offered formal objections over the failure of four legislators — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Biggs, Jordan and Perry — to comply with the committee’s requests for information. Instead of doing so, several of them were explicit in casting the committee as illegitimate or partisan, intentionally weakening the potency of the committee’s work.
It’s unlikely that the Ethics Committee will offer much of a slap on the wrist if any, particularly since that bipartisan committee will soon be chaired by a Republican. Those members of the House who amplified Trump’s false claims, worked to assist with his efforts to retain power, voted to block electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania and then blocked or minimized the investigation undertaken by their colleagues will simply continue to serve in Congress.
On Jan. 3, they will once again take a sworn oath to defend the Constitution, as they did on the same day two years prior. | 2022-12-20T16:20:21Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Trump’s Jan. 6 enablers in Congress can now exhale - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/trump-jan-6-house-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/trump-jan-6-house-republicans/ |
2022 Fall All-Met: Football offense first team, second team, honorable mention
Check out this year’s picks for the Washington D.C. area’s top offensive performers in football
Tony Rojas of Fairfax is the All-Met Offensive Player of the Year for football. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
All-Met Players of the Year | Football (defense) | Boys’ soccer | Girls’ soccer | Golf | Field hockey | Boys’ cross-country | Girls’ cross-country | Volleyball
The following student-athletes were selected to The Washington Post’s 2022 All-Met team for football offense:
Tony Rojas, RB, Sr., Fairfax
He had plenty chances to leave Fairfax for an established football power. Instead, he stuck with the program, helping build the Lions from perennial also-rans into one of Virginia’s most feared teams. The future Penn State linebacker was the best player every time he took the field this fall, accounting for 2,239 rushing yards and 35 rushing touchdowns (to go along with 13 sacks and five forced fumbles on defense), all while leading his Lions to a 13-1 record, a state semifinal appearance and arguably the best season in school history.
A two-time all-Washington Catholic Athletic Conference selection, the 6-foot-4, 290-pounder was an integral part of the Falcons’ high-powered running game this fall.
The U-Mass. commit was a cornerstone for the unstoppable Cougars offense, helping lead Quince Orchard to a second consecutive undefeated season and Maryland 4A title.
The ultra-athletic Rough Rider played all over the field for the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association champs. He was most dangerous as a return man, scoring 11 touchdowns on punt and kickoff returns.
The Furman commit did a little bit of everything for the 12-win Bulldogs, tallying 15 touchdown receptions, nine rushing scores and 1,579 all-purpose yards.
A two-way star for the Interstate Athletic Conference champions, Jock went for 814 yards and nine touchdowns as a receiver and nabbed four interceptions as a defensive back.
A three-year starter for the Eagles, Link yielded zero sacks in his senior season. Committed to Michigan.
Jeff Overton Jr., RB, So., Freedom (Woodbridge)
The engine of the highest-scoring offense in Virginia state history, Overton exceeded 40 touchdowns and 2,500 rushing yards for the Class 6 state champions.
Isaiah Ragland, RB, Sr., Centreville
A two-time first team selection, Ragland continued in his role as the prolific Wildcats’ workhorse this season. He finished with 235 carries for 2,024 yards and 34 touchdowns.
A two-time first team selection, the skilled junior helped the Cadets navigate a tough WCAC schedule and win a second consecutive title.
It’s hard to imagine football was an afterthought in Woodbridge before Overton arrived. In his eighth year at the helm, Overton led the Eagles to one of the most dominant seasons in state history, ending with the team’s first Class 6 title. The 15-0 Eagles shattered the state scoring record (by 133 points) and won every one of their games by at least three touchdowns (and, on average, by almost eight touchdowns) with one of the younger varsity teams in the area.
Christian Rawlings, RB, Sr., Wise
Adrian Crespin, OL, Sr., Freedom (Woodbridge)
Aaron Fields, WR, Sr., West Springfield
Marcel Gaskins, RB, Sr., Potomac School
Cody Hobson, RB, Jr., Gonzaga
Tyrone Hudson, RB, Sr., North Point
Gideon Ituka, RB, Jr., Gaithersburg
Aidan Johnson, OL, Sr., Good Counsel
Sean Johnson, QB, Sr., C.H. Flowers
Macky Langsam, RB, Sr., Rockville
Elliot Meine, RB, Sr., Lake Braddock
Elijah Moore, WR, Jr., Good Counsel
Matthew Ogunniyi, TE, Jr. C.H. Flowers
Carson Petitbon, QB, Sr., St. Mary's (Annapolis)
JuJu Preston, WR, So., Freedom (Woodbridge)
Brenton Toles, QB, Jr., St. Mary's Ryken
Frankie Weaver, QB, Jr., Good Counsel
Sean Williams, WR, Sr., St. John's | 2022-12-20T16:21:16Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 2022 Fall All-Met: Football offense first team, second team, honorable mention - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/2022-fall-all-met-football-offense-first-team-second-team-honorable-mention/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/2022-fall-all-met-football-offense-first-team-second-team-honorable-mention/ |
Check out this year’s picks for the Washington, D.C. area’s top fall girls’ soccer performers
Emely Rubio of St. John’s is the All-Met Player of the Year for girls' soccer. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
All-Met Players of the Year | Football (offense) | Football (defense) | Boys’ soccer | Golf | Field hockey | Boys’ cross-country | Girls’ cross-country | Volleyball
Rubio led the Cadets through an undefeated season that included Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and D.C. State Athletic Association championships. The WCAC player of the year tallied 15 goals and 17 assists against one of the D.C. area’s toughest schedules. Rubio set up the game-winning goal in the WCAC final with a long cross, and she scored in the DCSAA title game. After tying its season opener, the Northwest Washington private school finished with 19 consecutive victories.
Asia Mickens-Perez, F, Sr., Bishop McNamara | 2022-12-20T16:21:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | 2022 Fall All-Met: Girls’ soccer first team, second team, honorable mention - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/2022-fall-all-met-girls-soccer-first-team-second-team-honorable-mention/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/2022-fall-all-met-girls-soccer-first-team-second-team-honorable-mention/ |
Tony Rojas of Fairfax is the All-Met offensive football Player of the Year. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
Football (offense), Fairfax | He had plenty chances to leave Fairfax for an established football power. Instead, the senior stuck with the program, helping build the Lions from perennial also-rans into one of Virginia’s most feared teams. The future Penn State linebacker was the best player every time he took the field this fall, accounting for 2,239 rushing yards and 35 rushing touchdowns (to go along with 13 sacks and five forced fumbles on defense), all while leading his Lions to a 13-1 record, a state semifinal appearance and arguably the best season in school history.
Football (offense): First team, second team and honorable mention
Football (defense), DeMatha | A game-wrecker on the defensive line, Moore is often avoided by running backs and quarterbacks. Facing some of the best offensive lineman in the area, the Ohio State commit still looked as if he was in a league of his own, finishing with 12 sacks, 17 tackles for loss and an interception as a senior. At 6-foot-6 and 270 pounds, he was the terrifying face of a Stags defense that allowed just five points per game.
Football (defense): First team, second team and honorable mention
Daniel Bollman
Boys’ soccer, Gonzaga | A dangerous striker, Bollman was the not-so-secret goal-scoring weapon of a Gonzaga team that will be remembered on Eye Street for a long time. The skilled and shifty junior scored 18 goals as the Eagles went undefeated for the first time in two decades, winning both the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference and D.C. State Athletic Association titles.
Boys’ soccer: First team, second team and honorable mention
Emely Rubio
Girls’ soccer, St. John’s | The senior led the Cadets through an undefeated season that included WCAC and DCSAA championships. The WCAC player of the year tallied 15 goals and 17 assists against one of the D.C. area’s toughest schedules. Rubio set up the game-winning goal in the WCAC final with a long cross and scored in the DCSAA title game. After tying its season-opener, the Northwest Washington private school finished with 19 consecutive victories.
Girls’ soccer: First team, second team and honorable mention
Benjamin Siriboury
Golf, River Hill | The junior repeated as the Maryland 3A/4A boys’ state champion with a state record-setting 10-under-par 132 across the two days of competition at the University of Maryland. His career-best round of 64 on the first day of the tournament led the Hawks to a 14-stroke lead that couldn’t be beaten.
Golf: First team, second team and honorable mention
Leah Morrison
Field hockey, St. John’s | The two-time Washington Catholic Athletic Conference player of the year led St. John’s to its second straight title. Morrison scored 36 goals as a senior, shattering her own WCAC record for most in a single season, and added 12 assists. The Syracuse commit has both a backhand and forehand shot, which, combined with her elusive speed, made her one of the most dangerous attackers in the area. Her stellar four-year career with the Cadets ends with her as the record-holder for most goals in both school and conference history.
Field hockey: First team, second team and honorable mention
Charlie Ortmans
Boys’ cross-country, Potomac School | Ortmans put himself on the map with convincing September wins at the Monroe Parker and Oatlands invitationals and improved as his senior season progressed, winning all but one of his local races by at least five seconds. With those wins came superlatives, including a a 14-minute 40-second mark at the MileStat.com Invitational for the fastest 5k time from a Virginia runner in seven years. His triumph carried into the postseason, with victories at the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference and Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association championship meets.
Boys’ cross-country: First team, second team and honorable mention
Leah Stephens
Girls’ cross-country, Good Counsel | The senior had an immaculate fall in local competitions, earning four of her five wins by a 20-plus second margin. It didn’t matter if the starting line featured runners from nearby schools, such as in the WCAC and Maryland private school state championships, or if they were nationally ranked competition, such as at the Adidas XC Challenge and MileStat.com XC Invitational. Her 16-minute 54-second performance at the latter meet was Maryland’s fastest 5k time since MileStat began tracking in 2000. She was one of three local girls who qualified for the Champs Sports Cross Country National Finals, finishing seventh and qualifying for the all-American second team.
Girls’ cross-country: First team, second team and honorable mention
Volleyball , Holy Cross | The Ohio State commit used what she learned playing with USA Volleyball’s under-19 training team to lead the Tartans to a regular season finish atop the WCAC. The junior accounted for more than half of her team’s offense throughout the season and was the go-to player to put the ball down.
Volleyball: First team, second team and honorable mention | 2022-12-20T16:21:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Washington Post All-Met Player of the Year Fall 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/fall-2022-all-met-players-year/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/fall-2022-all-met-players-year/ |
Michael Rubin's Fanatics is synonymous with sports apparel. He wants it to be synonymous with sports betting. (Joe Carrotta/For the Washington Post)
PHILADELPHIA — It was halftime of a 76ers game, and the owners’ lounge, in the bowels of Wells Fargo arena, was humming: Bartenders poured Opus One wine into plastic cups; Pat’s cheesesteaks lined the buffet table; and those lucky enough to have courtside seats for the game filed in to mingle.
Sixers co-owner David Blitzer lamented that the Phillies hadn’t forced a Game 7 of the World Series. Eagles safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson, wearing an Allen Iverson Mitchell & Ness throwback jersey and green-tinted dreadlocks, shared a hug with the rapper Meek Mill. Meek Mill, then, went looking around for someone else.
“You gotta meet Mike,” he said.
Michael Rubin, the billionaire CEO of sports apparel and e-commerce giant Fanatics, soon materialized wearing a black hoodie, black jeans and Nikes. He quickly noted Gardner-Johnson’s Iverson jersey.
“We just bought Mitchell and Ness!” he said.
“I’ll put it on my IG,” Gardner-Johnson said.
With a smile, Meek Mill added: “Everybody’s working on direct-to-consumer.”
Rubin, 50, is a former minority owner of the 76ers. He sold his shares in the team this year to focus on Fanatics, which for the last decade has been the go-to website for sports fans to buy licensed gear ranging from jerseys and hats to car magnets to onesies. Over the last two years, Rubin has expanded Fanatics’ reach, acquiring Mitchell & Ness and investing in the hat retailer Lids; buying up trading-card rights; and signing up dozens of NBA players as investors. Fanatics recently completed a $700 million round of fundraising. Investors valued the company at $31 billion.
Rubin, though, has his eye on something bigger: sports betting.
“People say that I’m nuts saying I think we’ll be the number one player in the space a decade from now,” he said before the game. “But I do think that.”
Rubin speaks in a raspy voice with a Philly twang. He’s of that breed of billionaire that seeks out visibility rather than cocoon himself in his fortune. His Instagram feed is plastered with photos of famous athletes (Joel Embiid) and musicians (Jay-Z), which has made him a bona fide celebrity in his own right, part Gatsby and part Bezos.
New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft compared him to a tech mogul. Magic Johnson said he’s the only person who has ever reminded him of famed Lakers owner Jerry Buss. Noah Garden, an MLB executive, called Rubin an “a--hole.” “That’s what I thought when we first met, but we’re great friends now,” Garden quickly added.
“A lot of people with money are awkward,” said Sixers star James Harden, who considers Rubin a friend. “Michael’s so normal.”
The question is whether that can all help Rubin turn his e-commerce behemoth into a successful sportsbook, and whether that pivot can propel Rubin’s Fanatics into a brand that is as meaningful to sports fans as, say, ESPN. If he can, he’ll make sports merchandise the latest frontier, joining TV advertising, media companies and star personalities, set to be conquered by betting.
It won’t be easy. Four years in, the sports betting industry is already littered with well-positioned companies that are licking their wounds. Many operators spent billions of dollars acquiring customers. DraftKings’s stock price is a quarter of what it was two years ago. Wynn’s digital business was on track to lose $200 million in the third and fourth quarters this year. FanDuel, the only gambling operator to turn a quarterly profit this year, spent $1 billion on marketing last year.
Rubin, who knows a thing or two about parties, has either missed this one or has perfectly positioned his array of businesses for the moment. Instead of spending millions on marketing, Rubin said, he can lure his customers with … free T-shirts.
“I’m gonna tell you this right now with no fear of people copying me because they don’t have the businesses,” Rubin said. “I’m going to create the greatest cross-loyalty program in sports? Do you know how much we can do?”
Hunting for a hustle
Rubin grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, the son of a veterinarian and psychiatrist. He was a lousy student and an even worse athlete, he said, but he was always hustling. His first business was a snow-removal operation. He’d charge neighbors $20 to shovel a driveway and then hire other kids to do the work, paying them a couple of bucks an hour. “It was a high-margin business,” he said.
He dropped out of Villanova after just a semester, but in the late 1990s, he saw Amazon making moves in e-commerce. He thought he could do something similar for companies and, calling his firm GSI Commerce, signed up brands like Ralph Lauren and Toys R Us to run their websites and process their online orders. He got the major sports leagues, too. E-Bay bought GSI in 2011 for $2.4 billion.
Rubin took his money and bought Fanatics. If he could partner with all the leagues and make his own merchandise, he reasoned, he could own his supply chain and have exclusive products. He’s spent the last decade building that business, and turned his league partners into Fanatics investors, too. Because of their deals with leagues and apparel companies, no one else has the same ability to make products as quickly and get them to market as Fanatics.
It is an admirable feat of vertical integration, though a rival has filed antitrust suits against the NFL, MLB and Fanatics, arguing the leagues have given Fanatics preferential exclusive rights that undermine competition. (Rubin declined to comment on the cases.) Fanatics was also sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after an employee filed a racial discrimination case. That case settled in 2019.
Those who have done business with Rubin talk about him as a “relationships guy,” but that undersells the creativity and grit that bonds those relationships. At GSI, he once rented a truck, wrote a message on the side begging a CEO to get a deal done and parked it outside the CEO’s house.
Friends talk of waking up at 6 a.m. to phone calls from Rubin when he gets interested in a subject or has a deal to close. Jeff Shell, the NBCUniversal CEO, recalled a morning in Atlantic City when he went for coffee and found Rubin in line with his clothes on from the night before. “It’s not that he was partying," Shell said. “But after I went to sleep, he got to know everyone there. He had a different gear.”
Nick Khan, the co-CEO of WWE, said Rubin also has a knack for solving problems big and small. When Chinese tariffs threatened to interfere with the manufacturing of WWE gear, the company struck a new licensing deal with Rubin to solve the problem. At Rubin’s famous Super Bowl party one year, Khan remembered arriving to find 100 valet parkers. “It’s 100 degrees, you don’t want to be outside, you don’t want to wait," Khan said. “Michael thinks of these things.”
“I work with much smarter people than me every day," Rubin said. “But if you have good street smarts, and if you’re just unrelenting, you get things done.”
A hat with every bet
It was an hour before tip-off, and Rubin was in pitch mode.
“Say you make a bet on Russell Wilson," he said, describing his vision for the Fanatics mobile sportsbook that is expected to launch next year. "And we said you get his jersey on top of that if you win. Or you go online and we say, 'Hey, open up a [betting] account and we’ll give you this order for free. Would you give us a shot?”
He didn’t wait for the answer, musing instead about how every bettor might get a percentage of every bet returned to them, win or lose, to buy merchandise. Or how anyone at a Lids store might get a free order if they signed up for a gambling account.
The possibilities, he explained, are endless. He said Fanatics is in the process of signing marketing deals with some 3,000 athletes, mostly to autograph collectibles for now, but they could also be recruited for rewards experiences. High-roller bettors or card collectors could win the chance to play one-on-one with an athlete or get a follow on Instagram.
Harden said he was game for whatever Rubin asked of him: “As a partner in the business, whatever makes the business and the brand, I’m with it."
If other operators have to go buy their customers, Rubin believes he already has his: the more than 95 million sports fans who he said have shopped on his website. He has their data, he said, and most have taken the most important step with any would-be gambling operator: giving him their credit card numbers.
To Rubin, the online sports business is a good one if you look at the mature markets in Europe and not at the last four years in the United States, where the market has been overheated. “People are hemorrhaging money here,” he said. “Market access has been too expensive, I want to be patient. We don’t want to be in a business we can’t make a billion dollars in.” (Rubin does not bet on sports, but he enjoys action. Harden said he first met Rubin at a casino in the Bahamas, when he noticed him playing cards — and betting a lot. Asked how much, Harden laughed and said, “I don’t want to put his business out there, but it was a lot.”)
Indeed, the gambling market has proved trickier to conquer than early optimists envisioned. Since 2018, operators have spent billions — on commercials, signing up famous spokespeople, buying media companies — hoping to attract customers. But profits have proved elusive.
FanDuel and DraftKings have cornered big chunks of the market, leaving another 60 or so companies to consider their options. Caesars announced this year it was planning to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars from its marketing budget. Further, there is industry research that shows there is reason to be first to market. According to Betting Hero Research, the average bettor is only actively using between one and two apps to place bets. And, according to a McKinsey analyst, the first sportsbook app that anyone downloads gets twice as much action as other apps. A DraftKings investor deck says the company’s customer retention rate is higher than 80 percent after a year, and 96 percent by year three.
“It’s not necessarily specific to Fanatics,” said Chris Grove, a co-founding partner of Acies Investments, which focuses on gambling, sports and technology. “They have an interesting way to natively reward players, but the objective negative counterweight is the macro trends of the industry. You can look at a lot of folks who have not been able to make a dent in the market."
Added Yaniv Sherman, CEO of Bragg Gaming Group: “It would be business suicide if anyone without the advantages Fanatics has were doing this.”
'I want to make LeBron James money’
Back in the owner’s lounge at halftime, Rubin and Gardner-Johnson were deep in conversation. Rubin offered advice on how to gain leverage in a contract negotiation, and Gardner-Johnson shared with Rubin his journey to discovering his Black identity. Rubin later turned to his other side and kibitzed with Josh Harris, another 76ers owner.
He moves seamlessly from the C-suite, which is mostly White, to the power centers of sports and culture, which are mostly Black. At the NBA All-Star Game this year, Rubin made a presentation to the NBA Players Association about investing. Together with Jay-Z, Rubin also spearheaded a campaign that got Meek Mill released from prison in 2018 for a simple parole violation. The effort spawned a foundation that advocates for criminal justice reform around the country.
Asked about the way he plays up his friendships with players on social media, Rubin said, “I’m in the sports and entertainment business, operating a sports entertainment platform," Rubin said. “Do you not think that if I sell lots of LeBron James jerseys, he’s not strategic to me? So I want to make LeBron James money.”
Perhaps the best case for Fanatics’ gambling strategy is that the company has so many other ways to make money from its customers. Rubin doesn’t necessarily need his sportsbook to overtake FanDuel or DraftKings to help in its quest to become elemental to sports fans. Indeed, where the company is headed is a much-debated topic across sports. The ultimate goal is to take the company public, but the road map and timeline remain undetermined. Some wonder if Fanatics will one day have aspirations in media. Rubin said Fanatics did look at the Regional Sports Networks group that was for sale a few years ago but decided against bidding. For now, he said, Fanatics is focused on its three core businesses: merchandise, collectibles and gambling.
Before the second half started, the 76ers owners delivered a gift to Rubin, a farewell for selling his shares. Rubin opened the box to find an action figure of himself in a 76ers jersey. It came with his own trading card. | 2022-12-20T16:21:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Michael Rubin’s next gamble: Turning Fanatics into a sportsbook - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/fanatics-sportsbook-michael-rubin/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/fanatics-sportsbook-michael-rubin/ |
GOP’s looming Afghanistan probe worries Biden aides
Attention has focused on Hunter Biden probes, but Afghanistan could be more politically difficult for the White House
U.S. Marines oversee the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport as U.S. forces pull out of Afghanistan in 2021. (Victor Mancilla/AP)
Kabul airport bombing: For U.S. troops who survived, guilt and grief endure
“From the moment the events of August 2021 happened, there was a knowledge at the moment that investigations would happen ... because it got so much public scrutiny,” one former White House official said. “It’s also an issue where they look back to 2021, and the point at which the president’s approval rating dropped was around Afghanistan, so it brings back the worst moment.”
Biden’s pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after more than 20 years of war fulfilled a major campaign promise and a longtime goal. The president argued that the Afghanistan operation, launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had lost its original purpose and become a costly, futile exercise in nation-building.
Two weeks of chaos: A timeline of the pullout
White House officials also cite the recent killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri — one of the world’s most wanted terrorists and a key planner of the Sept. 11 attacks — in a U.S. drone strike. The administration’s ability to carry out such an operation, despite no longer having troops on the ground, was a vindication of the decision to withdraw, White House officials say, though it also highlighted a new world in which Zawahiri could live in downtown Kabul a short distance from the former U.S. Embassy.
Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Austin and other Defense Department leaders “have testified extensively in open and closed hearings about the war in Afghanistan, including the U.S. drawdown and evacuation.” The department, she said, “respects the important oversight role that Congress plays, and will continue to work with the Congress on important national defense issues and to respond appropriately to legitimate Congressional inquiries, just as we always do.”
One White House official said the administration has spent months preparing for a potential Afghanistan probe and is confident that officials can answer any potential questions. Some likely to be called to Capitol Hill — including Austin, Blinken and Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — have answered questions before and know what they are likely to be asked.
“I would hope that Democrats defend the president’s decision to leave Afghanistan, and I would hope we push back on this completely false, made-up narrative that there was a way to leave Afghanistan amidst the unanticipated overnight collapse of the Afghan government in a way that was neat and tidy,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), an ally of the White House.
Murphy said Biden’s critics imagine a mythical scenario that was never in the cards, an “unrealistic, fantastical belief that withdrawal, under the circumstances, could have been done in a way that didn’t involve some really tough negative outcomes.”
In August, the Republican minority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released the findings of its own inquiry, concluding that a failure of planning left American leaders with only bad options once the Taliban took control. Biden disregarded the concerns of senior U.S. military officials that withdrawing American forces could lead to Taliban gains, the report concluded, adding that he “lied” about the advice he received.
Generals tell Congress they recommended leaving some troops in Afghanistan
Administration officials rejected the report’s findings, saying they conducted extensive planning and pre-positioned U.S. troops in the Middle East to be ready in the event of a crisis. They also note that it was President Donald Trump who struck a deal with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw U.S. troops, saying that if they had not followed through, the Taliban would have stepped up its attacks, leading to a deadly intensification of the war.
Democrats also warn that if Republicans make their investigation overly partisan, they will overreach and their efforts will backfire. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and supports a broad investigation, said that while many Republicans understand the importance of a neutral, bipartisan accounting, he fears it is “the partisans who are going to run the place.”
As Republicans mull their options, one possibility is a joint investigation by the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees. That would let investigators question all the relevant agencies, said Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), rather than conducting “siloed” investigations in which each committee speaks only with the agency it oversees.
Waltz, who served in Afghanistan with the Army and is now on the Armed Services Committee, said a joint investigation of some kind would “probably be the only way” to go, though he added that the decision is in the hands of House Republican leaders.
While administration officials have highlighted the grueling evacuation as a “historic achievement” that removed more than 120,000 people in 17 days, it also put thousands of U.S. troops and diplomatic personnel in peril as throngs of desperate people tried to reach the airport and armed Taliban fighters posted security just outside. About 170 Afghans, as well as the 13 U.S. troops, were killed in the suicide bombing attributed to the Islamic State on the airport’s outskirts; that attack was followed days later by a botched American drone strike that killed 10 civilians.
U.S. military documents released to The Washington Post in February detailed an internal conflict between the Defense and State departments over how to carry out the withdrawal. Military personnel would have been “much better prepared” to mount an orderly evacuation if “policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground,” Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top U.S. commander during the evacuation, later told Army investigators.
Documents reveal U.S. military’s frustration with White House, diplomats over Afghanistan evacuation
“I think that’s a deliberate effort to dilute the amount of time that can be spent on the withdrawal decisions,” Waltz said.
But Democrats, including some who have criticized the Biden administration, said there is value in reminding Americans that the war stretched for 20 years under two Republican and two Democratic presidents. Moulton, for example, said he supports an investigation that scrutinizes the “entirety of the conflict.”
“Look, there’s a lot of accountability to go around here,” he said. “There will be a lot of Republicans and Democrats who don’t want to examine this issue and say it’s just consigned to the past, because they don’t want to get their own party in trouble. But this is about doing right by our troops and ensuring that the mistakes in Afghanistan aren’t made again.”
Moulton said that the American effort in Afghanistan “didn’t go to hell in a handbasket with the withdrawal” and that the country does not need a “narrow investigation focused on just President Biden.” Problematic decisions were made before then, he said, including Trump’s choice to sign a deal with the Taliban that undercut the Afghan government and called for all U.S. troops to withdraw in 2021.
“If this just becomes an effort to score political points,” Moulton said, “we all lose.” | 2022-12-20T16:53:55Z | www.washingtonpost.com | GOP’s looming Afghanistan probe worries Biden aides - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/gop-afghan-probe-worries-white-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/gop-afghan-probe-worries-white-house/ |
Masters will allow LIV golfers to play in the 2023 tournament
As a past Masters champion, Dustin Johnson will be invited to play in the 2023 Masters despite his presence on the LIV Golf tour. (Matt Slocum/AP)
Qualified players competing on the Saudi-sponsored LIV circuit that has roiled professional golf will be invited to compete in the Masters based on its previous criteria, the tournament announced Tuesday.
The announcement seemingly puts an end to the possibility that golfers on the Liv Tour would be banned from the year’s first major tournament, and opens the door for at least 16 of the LIV players to play on golf’s most prestigious stage.
“We have reached a seminal point in the history of our sport,” Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley said in a statement, in which he lamented that the divisions in golf are diminishing the virtues of the game. “At Augusta National,” he said, “we have faith that golf, which has overcome many challenges through the years, will endure again.”
Former Masters champions Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Patrick Reed and Charl Schwartzel are among those who will be included in the field for this year’s tournament, which runs from April 6-9.
Mickelson, a three-time Masters winner, did not play at Augusta last year as controversy swirled around his dalliance with LIV and his comments about the circuit’s Saudi sponsors. Ridley said that Mickelson had not been disinvited.
LIV Golf 's first season consisted of eight events and ended in late October, with none of the sport’s four major tournaments banning LIV golfers. However, the PGA Tour will keep LIV players from participating in its marquee event, the Players Championship.
Cameron Smith, the highest-rated player to join the breakaway circuit, qualified for the Masters by winning the 2022 British Open, while Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka will be invited because they have been U.S. Open champions in the last five years. Although Joaquin Niemann left the PGA Tour in September, he qualifies because he finished in the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings, as did Talor Gooch.
In addition, any player who is in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings on Dec. 31 would also receive an invitation. Harold Varner III, Jason Kokrak, Kevin Na, Abraham Ancer and Louis Oosthuizen would all qualify under that standard.
LIV players Paul Casey, Marc Leishman and Cameron Tringale won’t be at the Masters because they dropped out of the top 50 and won’t receive points needed to be ranked.
LIV Golf has pushed for recognition from the OWGR, which serves as a gatekeeper for the sport, helping decide entry into golf’s biggest tournaments. If LIV players can’t accumulate points, they’ll continue to slide down the rankings, eventually putting more of them at risk of missing golf’s biggest events.
“Through the years, legends of the game have competed and won at Augusta National Golf Club,” Ridley said in the statement. “Champions like Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have become heroes to golfers of all ages. They have inspired some to follow in their footsteps and so many others to play and enjoy the game. They have supported the sport and, thus, all who benefit from it. They have shown respect for those who came before them and blazed a trail for future generations. Golf is better because of them. | 2022-12-20T17:28:52Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Masters will allow LIV golfers to play in 2023 tournament - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/masters-liv-golf/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/masters-liv-golf/ |
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts runs for one of his three touchdowns in Sunday's win over the Bears. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AP)
The Philadelphia Eagles lowered their magic number to clinch the NFC’s top spot and a first-round bye to one with a win at Chicago, but the victory came at a cost. Quarterback Jalen Hurts sprained his right shoulder in the third quarter, and while Eagles Coach Nick Sirianni doesn’t expect the injury will sideline the MVP front-runner long term, his status for Saturday’s game at Dallas is in doubt.
Dak Prescott and the Cowboys clinched a playoff spot Sunday, but it was hardly worth celebrating. One week after needing a late touchdown to avoid a loss at home to the league-worst Houston Texans, Dallas blew a 17-point second-half lead in a 40-34 overtime loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. And in a prime-time showdown featuring the largest playoff probability swing of any game this year, the New York Giants defeated the Washington Commanders at FedEx Field.
All four NFC East teams would make the playoffs if the season ended today. Luckily for Hurts and the Eagles, it doesn’t. Here’s a look at where things stand with three weeks remaining in the regular season.
Hurts made up for his two first-half interceptions with 17 carries for 61 yards and three rushing touchdowns. A.J. Brown (nine catches for 181 yards) and DeVonta Smith (five catches for 126 yards) both had huge games, as Hurts didn’t miss a snap after his shoulder injury and still managed to throw for 315 yards. Gardner Minshew will start at quarterback if Hurts can’t play Saturday.
Haason Reddick, Jason Hargrave and Josh Sweat had two sacks apiece, as the Eagles limited Chicago to 4.3 yards per play. Assuming Hurts is close to 100 percent by the time the playoffs begin, Philadelphia looks like the team to beat in the NFC, but the San Francisco 49ers could present a serious challenge.
Remaining schedule (record in parentheses): at Dallas (10-4), vs. New Orleans (5-9), vs. N.Y. Giants (8-5-1)
Playoff outlook: The Eagles can clinch a first-round bye with a win or a Cowboys loss over the final three weeks of the regular season.
Prescott threw two interceptions Sunday, including one in overtime that bounced off wide receiver Noah Brown’s hands and was returned for the game-winning touchdown. He’s thrown seven interceptions over his last four games and 11 this season, which is two shy of his career high set in 2017.
The Cowboys, who took a 27-10 lead with 5 minutes remaining in the third quarter, sacked Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence only once and allowed Jacksonville to convert eight of its 12 third downs. Jaguars running back Travis Etienne rushed for 103 yards and wide receiver Zay Jones scored three touchdowns.
Remaining schedule: vs. Philadelphia (13-1), at Tennessee (7-7), at Washington (7-6-1)
Playoff outlook: The Cowboys will most likely finish as the fifth seed, which would mean a first-round matchup with the NFC South champion. Entering Week 16, that’s the Tom Brady-led, sub-.500 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who at 6-8 are a game up on the Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons.
The Giants shook off a rout by the Eagles last week to pull off a gutsy win in prime time behind a steady performance by quarterback Daniel Jones and a defense that forced two key turnovers. Rookie edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux had a game-high 12 tackles, including three for a loss. He gave the Giants the lead for good in the second quarter by forcing a fumble on a sack of Taylor Heinicke and returning it for a touchdown.
Jones was 21 of 32 for 160 yards. Saquon Barkley had his best game in weeks, with 18 carries for 87 yards and a touchdown. Despite being limited offensively — Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins led the team with 42 and 37 receiving yards, respectively, against Washington — first-year Coach Brian Daboll has the Giants closing in on their first playoff berth since 2016.
Remaining schedule: at Minnesota (11-3), vs. Indianapolis (4-9-1), at Philadelphia (13-1)
Playoff outlook: The Giants’ playoff chances increased to roughly 90 percent after Sunday night’s win. New York can clinch a playoff spot as early as Saturday with a win over the Minnesota Vikings and any combination of two losses by the Detroit Lions, Seattle Seahawks and Commanders.
Hail or Fail: Officiating didn't help, but Commanders beat themselves
Washington wasted a golden opportunity to increase its odds of clinching a playoff berth for the second time in three years. Heinicke struggled, particularly in the first half. He was under pressure throughout the game and lost his second fumble in the red zone with Washington driving for the potential go-ahead score in the fourth quarter. The Commanders were 1 of 10 on third down and scored on only one of their three red zone trips.
Rookie running back Brian Robinson Jr. was effective, finishing with 89 yards, but he had only four carries after halftime. Ron Rivera said Heinicke will start against the 49ers on Saturday, but acknowledged that making a move to Carson Wentz is something he will “have to think about at some point.”
Remaining schedule: at San Francisco (10-4), vs. Cleveland (6-8), at Dallas (10-4)
Playoff outlook: Washington is clinging to the NFC’s seventh and final playoff spot and still controls its own destiny. The Commanders will have a roughly 80 percent chance to make the playoffs if they go 2-1 over their final games. If they go 1-2, they’ll need some serious help. | 2022-12-20T17:28:54Z | www.washingtonpost.com | NFC East: Eagles, Cowboys, Giants, Commanders fight for playoff berths - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/nfc-east-playoff-watch/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/nfc-east-playoff-watch/ |
Parents want Santas who look like their kids. Finding them isn’t easy.
Robert Payne, as Santa, poses for a photo with Easton Williams, 4 months, and his grandmother Edwina Williams at the Meeting House in Columbia, Md. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
Shortly after noon on a winter Friday, a group of families line up to see one of the Washington, D.C. area’s most sought-after celebrities, a superstar they tracked to the center court of a suburban Maryland shopping mall.
That luminary, enthroned on a bright green couch and surrounded by giant red-and-gold packages, is Black Santa.
This particular Black Santa — at the Mall at Prince George’s, in the majority-Black county of the same name — was “the only one I could find,” said Erin Heard. She traveled there from neighboring D.C. with her husband, Correll Heard, and their 3-year-old son, Micah, who turned out to be a bit trepidatious of the jolly old elf.
Correll said that when he was young, Santa was “just an old White guy with a beard. I don’t think I really thought about it.” But after you become a parent, he said, “you want to see your child see someone who looks like him doing the same things other people do.”
Although the D.C. metropolitan region is incredibly diverse, with Caucasians making up less than half the population, there is a serious dearth of non-White St. Nicks. Victoria Clark, marketing director for the mall said that Black Santa has been a staple there for decades, attracting a lot of returning families. “It’s a big draw to have an African American Santa,” she said.
Kiaira Reeves, there with her almost 1-year-old son, Kalani, remembers visiting White Santas at this very mall when she was a child. “Representation is very important to me,” she said. “We even went to Target and got wrapping paper with Black Santa.” (Parents have noted that in the past couple of years or so, there has been an uptick in Black Santa decorative items from retailers.)
There has long been a push for more diversity in children’s book and television characters, so children of all races can see themselves in the entertainment they absorb. The same goes for the most famous toymaker in the world. Research into diversity in media suggests that minority children who see Santas who look like them can feel increased self-confidence and self-esteem, said Nekeshia Hammond, a clinical psychologist in Brandon, Fla., while White children benefit by experiencing cultural diversity. “Representation does positively affect children,” she said.
But there is a long way to go until Black Santas are easy to find. Parents pursue Black Santas through online groups, their network of friends, TikTok videos from parents who have found one. Chichi Solomon, who was at the mall with her husband and 21-month-old daughter, Muna, learned about this Santa from a friend who “was so excited, she sent it on a group chat to all of us who are moms with young kids.”
Edwina Walker thought living in predominantly Black Prince George’s County meant it would be easy to give her grandson the same experience she had as a child, when her own grandmother took her to meet a Black Santa in a mall in New Jersey. “It makes me proud that I do have a photo of myself and a memory of myself with Black Santa,” she said. For too long, representations of “many different and important figures just had one race, which is White.”
But when Walker started to look for a Black Santa near her Oxon Hill home, she came up short. Eventually, she consulted a national Facebook group for people trying to find a Black Santa and drove nearly an hour to Columbia, Md., for the photo. She hopes she won’t have to repeat that trip. “The kids of this community are owed a Black Santa,” she said.
The lack of Black Santas is not limited to the D.C. area, of course. And the lack isn’t just relegated to the man himself. A few years ago, when Lola Keyes Woods of Los Angeles couldn’t find Christmas pajamas that “featured characters that looked like us,” she decided to provide them herself. Her lifestyle brand, Hendrix & Lenox (named after her sons, ages 7 and 4, respectively), now sells pajamas with Black Santas and Mrs. Clauses, elves and toy soldiers, as well as ornaments and coloring books.
To thank her supporters, Woods wanted to throw a Christmas party, complete with a Santa. “And of course I wanted him to be Black,” she said. “But it was incredibly difficult to find and secure a Black Santa.” She also hasn’t seen a Black Santa at a nearby mall. “We’ve always gone to the Grove in Los Angeles, and they have a beautiful Christmas setup, but the Santa was always White.”
There has been progress. Houston and other areas of Texas have Pancho Claus. The Wing Luke Museum in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District offers a visit from an Asian Santa. The Disney theme parks introduced Black Santas last year, to huge acclaim.
The flagship Macy’s department store in New York City has offered visitors the option to see a Black Santa for years; parents in the know would ask for “special Santa” while in line and a Black Santa would be swapped in. The company has since gone to a reservations system at the Manhattan location and a few others. There, parents can note a preference for a White Santa, a Black Santa or a Spanish-speaking Santa. Macy’s is “exploring a number of additional representations of Santa for future holiday celebrations,” a spokesman said.
The Mall of America near Minneapolis — the largest mall in the country — is perhaps leading the charge. This year, The Santa Experience there has had its most diverse lineup ever with six Santas: two Black, one Asian who speaks Cantonese and three White, one of whom speaks Spanish.
“It just makes sense,” said Lando Luther, who owns the two Santa Experience locations at the mall. “There are so many different cultures that celebrate Christmas. And we believe that representation matters, and for a child to see themselves in such a positive figure is important.”
With the encouragement of customers who had been asking for a Black Santa, Luther hired Larry Jefferson for the job after opening his second location in 2016, a move that made national headlines and sparked an online backlash. Luther’s original Santa, Sid Fletcher, had found Jefferson at a Santa convention where he was the only Black St. Nick.
Santa Larry, who sleighs his way up every year from Dallas (where Asian Santa Allan Siu lives, as well), said the experience has been “phenomenal. We get a chance to make some children happy and parents happy and make Christmas memories. That’s what it’s all about.”
As with Macy’s, there is a reservation system, and Santa Larry says he is visited by kids of all races. “When they see Santa Claus, they see Santa Claus. They see the red suit, the white beard and the jolly Santa… And sometimes they just run and leap into my arms, whether a White child, Black or Hispanic child.”
But, he acknowledges, “My African American children, when they see me, they really do light up. I’ll have to admit. Representation does matter.”
Luther said he thinks more diverse Santas will be available in the future. “Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, this is just commonplace, and it isn’t newsworthy.”
Joseph McGrievy, president of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas (as opposed to those who wear costume beards), said he has seen a slight increase in the number of diverse Santas in their organization, mostly among Black and Hispanic Santas. Both he and the group’s chairman, Ric Erwin, said they aren’t aware of an Asian Santa member.
While some customers seek out diverse Santas, McGrievy said, sometimes “even other races want a White Santa because that is the stereotype. … We are open to any race or religion for Santas as long as they have a white beard, are overweight and jolly.”
Diana Rohini LaVigne, a mother of two from Fremont, Calif., said that it would take a diverse Santa to get her to bring her multiracial daughters, ages 7 and 11, to see Santa.
Visiting Santa Claus has never been part of their holiday tradition but, LaVigne said, “I could see that being a very meaningful activity where we go and we explore a different view of Santa. The idea would be someone that is Asian and, in particular, Indian, because their dad is Indian.”
“Why not an Indian Santa Claus? That would make it more meaningful for me,” she said. “And, quite frankly, I would love to find one.”
Back in Prince George’s County, there are efforts to further diversify the Santa offerings. This year and last, Black Santa visited Hilltop Plaza shopping center in Bowie for a day. “People really want to embrace their culture,” said Kellen Hunte, director of marketing for the commercial real estate firm Rappaport, which manages the center. He described the effect of Black Santa as “similar to what Black Panther did … in creating this superhero that looks like the community.”
Hunte says Rappaport hopes to increase the number of days Black Santa will be at Bowie and other parts of the D.C. area. “We really want to set the standard for Santas moving forward, especially in a county that’s predominantly Black,” he said.
Montrese Ham, Hilltop’s Santa, sees his mission as making the kids who sit on his lap walk away feeling confident. “With the young brothers and sisters, I crack jokes [like], ‘Man, that’s a big head you have. You’re going to have quite an engineering career coming up.’”
He also talks to the kids about how Santa Claus represents the spirit of Christmas. “Whether you’re a Black Santa or a White Santa, it’s all about family, community, children, love — and that has no color.” | 2022-12-20T17:51:17Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Parents search for Black Santa - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/20/black-santa-children-diversity-parenting/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2022/12/20/black-santa-children-diversity-parenting/ |
No, the Jan. 6 committee didn’t make Trump stronger
Former president Donald Trump is displayed on a screen during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Dec. 19. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)
Soon after becoming the first president in American history to be the target of a criminal referral for having abetted an insurrection, Donald Trump insisted that, actually, this was a good thing.
“These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me,” Trump said in a statement. “It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” He then tacked on false claims about his efforts to curtail the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — the aforementioned insurrection.
Setting aside the statement’s dude-who-quotes-Nietzsche vibe, the former president raises an interesting point. He’s made a political career out of parlaying criticism into support, casting himself as the eternal target of devious, desperate hubs of power. Was it true, then, that the House select committee’s investigation actually bolstered his standing among Republicans or Americans more broadly?
It remains to be seen whether the criminal referrals have that effect. But since the committee’s formation in mid-2021, it’s pretty clear that the immediate result of its actions haven’t been to bolster Trump’s standing.
That said, they haven’t often had a negative effect on perceptions of Trump either.
A good measure of how Trump is viewed comes from favorability polling. Asking Americans how they view Trump personally doesn’t tell us whether they might vote for him, but it does allow us to separate what he does from who he is. It’s clear that a lot of people who don’t like Trump voted for him anyway; about 3 percent of the electorate in 2020 had a negative view of Trump but still supported him according to exit polling.
So the question then becomes: How did the House committee’s actions affect Trump’s favorability? Using polling from YouGov, generally published every week or so, we can track the evolution of opinions both overall and among Republicans, his base. Since individual polls can jump around a bit, the charts below use running averages of opinions of the former president.
We can start with two key points from 2021. The first was the vote to instantiate the select committee in early July. Within three weeks of that vote — before the committee conducted any hearings, obviously — Trump’s favorability did, in fact, tick upward. Then, later that month, the committee held its first hearing, featuring members of law enforcement. The effect on Trump’s favorability was negligible.
This year, the committee’s work entered high gear. A series of carefully presented hearings began in early June with a prime time broadcast. Republican views of Trump, already down slightly from the prior summer, didn’t move much. A hearing later that month featuring Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Trump’s chief of staff, led to a more obvious decline — but still a small one.
Then there was the last hearing before the midterm elections. Within three weeks of that hearing, Trump’s favorability had dropped more noticeably, both among Republicans and overall. But that was also just before the midterm elections, muddying our ability to identify the committee’s work as a central trigger.
But we can evaluate Trump’s point: There’s no indication that he’s viewed more positively now than he was before the committee was formed. There’s no indication, either, that elevating how he contributed to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, helped strengthen his position with his base.
There was one moment when Trump’s favorability declined quite dramatically: in the aftermath of the Capitol riot itself. Before that point, his favorability among Republicans was over 90 percent. It fell more than five points in three weeks.
Trump still retains high favorability ratings from Republicans. It’s likely that members of his party who were willing to give up on Trump because of Jan. 6 did so at the point the riot occurred, rather than once the full extent of his post-election efforts were revealed. It’s also likely that his relatively low favorability ratings of late are a function not of his loss in 2020 but of Republican losses in 2022, for which he’s given a fair share of blame.
Trump has spent more than seven years serving as a totem for a right-wing population that perceives itself as embattled. It’s natural he would argue that an investigation into his actions in 2020 and early 2021 would be framed in the same way. But it seems to be the case that he isn’t expanding his appeal by playing the victim. Instead, that appeal seems to have long ago maxed out. | 2022-12-20T17:51:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | No, the Jan. 6 committee didn’t make Trump stronger - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/trump-jan-6-committee-favorability-republicans/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/trump-jan-6-committee-favorability-republicans/ |
For their new book, Susan and Shawn Dilles gathered photos illustrating Northern Virginia's Jewish history. They include this circa 1922 photo of the general store that Menasha and Esther Sher ran at the corner of Walter Reed Drive and Columbia Pike in Arlington. (Courtesy of Ruth Levin and the Center for Local History, Arlington Public Library)
In 1984, a year after their wedding, New Jersey natives Shawn and Susan Dilles prepared to move to the Washington area so Shawn could take a job with the feds. When Susan’s mother heard they were thinking of settling in Northern Virginia, she had a strong reaction: “Jews don’t go to Virginia.”
As Jews, she suggested, wouldn’t they feel more at home in Maryland?
“I can’t tell you how many people I’ve told that story to said, ‘I had that exact same experience,’” Susan said. “It’s so commonplace. It’s not the reality, but it’s totally the perception.”
It’s a perception that the couple — who did move to Virginia; Vienna, to be exact — try to dispel in their new book, “The Jewish Community of Northern Virginia.”
It’s one of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America titles, comprising mainly photos from the past 125 years or so. Here are people like Simon Blondheim, who came from Germany and in 1850 opened a clothing store in Alexandria at the corner of Fairfax and King streets, and Menasha and Esther Sher, who in 1918 purchased a general store where the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse stands today.
“We were very surprised what a rich and vibrant life was here, compared to what we had heard before we got here,” Shawn said. “For the next 30 years, it kept getting more and more so, bigger and more vibrant.”
When the pandemic hit, both the Dilleses had retired — Shawn as a federal analyst, Susan from the pharmaceutical industry. Finally, they had time to research the book, reaching out to local historical societies, synagogues and Jewish organizations.
Virginia’s first Jewish congregation was founded in Richmond in 1789. As with so much of our country’s history, it was strife that brought waves of Jewish immigrants to the United States. In 1848, a series of revolutions gripped central Europe. For Jews, Shawn said, this “tipped the balance from life being difficult to life being perilous. A lot of folks came here.”
A second wave began in the 1880s, after Jews were driven from their homes in pogroms that spread across the Russian empire. “Those areas were rocked by instability and violence,” Shawn said.
From 2018: The D.C. area’s Jewish population is booming
Because of the opportunities provided by the federal government, Washington was an attractive place to be. So was Virginia. Beth El, the first congregation in Northern Virginia, was founded in Alexandria in 1859.
The line that runs through the book is of a community that organized to meet its own needs. Benevolent societies raised money for Jewish cemeteries like Home of Peace, on South Payne Street in Alexandria. When parents were tired of driving their children to Maryland for the closest Jewish summer day camps, they created their own: Camp Achva.
The camp opened in 1969. For the first few years, it rotated among different synagogues. Today, its home is the Pozez Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, on Little River Turnpike. The large JCC itself is emblematic of the growth since the Dilleses moved to the area in 1984.
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The book’s black-and-white photos include snapshots of some of the people who make up the community, such as Sarah Cohen, daughter of the owners of the Tabard Inn who runs Route 11 Potato Chips, based in Shenandoah County, Va. (Cohen seems as surprised as anyone that she wound up in the potato chip business.)
And there’s what Shawn calls the “crazy story” of Irwin Uran, pictured at the 2001 groundbreaking of Loudoun County’s first synagogue: Sha’are Shalom.
Because of the plain way Uran dressed, people thought he was an old farmer — “a poor, old farmer,” Shawn said.
He wasn’t. Uran was a decorated Army veteran who had assisted in the release of Dachau inmates during World War II. Troubled by what he’d seen in the war — and by the antisemitism he’d witnessed in the United States — Uran donated millions of dollars to charities to tell the story of the Holocaust. He wasn’t a poor farmer, but a man who had become wealthy through investment in the stock market.
Though Uran never attended the Loudoun synagogue, his gift funded its construction.
The book’s last chapter focuses on the Chabad, one of the most orthodox Jewish movements. They became active in Northern Virginia in the 1990s, adding to a mix that ranges from the most liberal of Jewish communities to the most conservative.
“They’ve covered the same amount of ground in 30 years that the other denominations covered in 100 years,” Shawn said. “They have now created some infrastructure that makes it possible for even the most religious folks to live down here.”
Shawn said he and Susan hope the book will refute the notion that Jewish people moving to the Washington area shouldn’t consider Northern Virginia. In other words: Don’t always listen to your mother-in-law.
The season of light is the season of giving. One way to give is to donate to The Washington Post Helping Hand. Our annual reader campaign is raising money for three D.C.-based charities: Bread for the City, Friendship Place and Miriam’s Kitchen. | 2022-12-20T18:12:30Z | www.washingtonpost.com | “Jewish Community of Northern Virginia” book tells history in photos - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/northern-virginia-jewish-history-synagogues/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/northern-virginia-jewish-history-synagogues/ |
Magnitude 6.4 earthquake leaves 70,000 without power in Northern California
Earthquake damage is seen outside a building in Rio Dell, Calif., on Dec. 20. A strong earthquake shook parts of Northern California, jolting residents awake, cutting off power to thousands and causing some damage to buildings and roads, officials said. (Kent Porter/Press Democrat/AP)
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake rocked a rural Northern California county Tuesday, buckling roads, cracking a historic bridge and leaving tens of thousands of people without power.
The quake occurred near Ferndale, a small city in Humboldt County some 200 miles north of San Francisco, just after 2:30 a.m. local time, the United States Geological Survey reported. Authorities were assessing the extent of the impact, but the county sheriff’s office said “widespread damages to roads and homes” had been reported.
By midmorning, more than 70,000 customers in Humboldt — 72 percent of the tracked population — remained without electricity, according to the website PowerOutage.us.
The county’s emergency services office warned residents to “be prepared for aftershocks,” the smaller temblors that follow large earthquakes. As of 9 a.m., the USGS had observed at least 17 aftershocks of a magnitude 3.0 or higher, which were strong enough to be felt in the surrounding area.
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No fatalities have been reported and two people were injured, the sheriff’s office said.
“That was a big one,” the Ferndale-based journalist Caroline Titus said on Twitter. “House is a mess.”
Some of the most consequential damage was reported at Fernbridge, a concrete arch bridge that has spanned the Eel River since 1911 and has survived a barrage of floods and earthquakes.
At least one crack was visible on the bridge in a photo from the region’s arm of California’s Department of Transportation. Mike McGuire, who represents the area in the state Senate, said the bridge would be closed “out of an abundance of caution” while engineers assessed the structure.
Humboldt is a county of about 136,000 that sits on the state’s rugged northern coast and is famous for its vast stretches of old-growth redwood forests and its miles of protected parkland. The region is also known for a frontier spirit and has become a capital of the country’s cannabis industry. | 2022-12-20T19:09:12Z | www.washingtonpost.com | California earthquake: 6.4 magnitude temblor shakes Humboldt County - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/20/california-earthquake/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/20/california-earthquake/ |
The stakes are high. (Bloomberg)
The decision by the House committee investigating last year’s riot at the US Capitol to refer Donald Trump for criminal prosecution was unsurprising. The committee had spent nearly a year and a half building its case, which it presented in focused detail at its final hearing on Monday. Issuing criminal referrals to the Department of Justice was within the panel’s mandate. It was a lamentable move nonetheless. | 2022-12-20T19:22:18Z | www.washingtonpost.com | A Lamentable Move by the Jan. 6 Committee - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-lamentablemove-bythe-jan-6-committee/2022/12/20/3e899e9e-8090-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-lamentablemove-bythe-jan-6-committee/2022/12/20/3e899e9e-8090-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
Man washing windows dies after fall in Northwest D.C., police say
A man washing windows died Tuesday morning after he apparently fell at least two stories at a building in Northwest Washington’s Columbia Heights neighborhood, according to D.C. police.
The incident occurred shortly before 10 a.m. at a building in the 1400 block of Newton Street NW, just off 16th Street.
Alaina Gertz, a police spokeswoman, said the man was pronounced dead. His name has not been made public pending notification of relatives. A cause of death has not yet been determined.
Further details of the incident were not immediately available, including whether the man worked for a company and how he might have fallen. D.C. police said they are investigating. | 2022-12-20T19:22:36Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Man washing windows dies after fall in Northwest D.C., police say - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/fatal-fall-window-dc/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/fatal-fall-window-dc/ |
Indigenous people slam Avatar (again) for tropes and inaccuracies
This image released by 20th Century Studios shows Kate Winslet, as Ronal, and Cliff Curtis, as Tonowari, in a scene from “Avatar: The Way of Water.” (20th Century Studios via AP)
The release of “Avatar: The Way of Water” has put the series’ creators under hot water yet again, as Indigenous people criticize what they call the movie’s glamorization of colonialism and racist depiction of Native people and culture.
When the original “Avatar” came out in 2009, the science-fiction fantasy’s robust 3D effects and stunning visuals drove it to become the highest-grossing film of all time. After 13 years and an estimated $250 million budget, die-hard fans had high expectations for director James Cameron’s second installment, which debuted Friday.
But Indigenous critics say the problematic pitfalls of the first “Avatar” movie reappear in the sequel, namely in its portrayal of the Na’vi, the movie’s alien species inspired by several Native tribes around the world. The oceanic Na’vi clan that’s central to the second film was heavily influenced by the Māori, the Indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand.
Cheney Poole, 27, from Christchurch, New Zealand — known as Otautahi, Aotearoa, in the Māori language — calls the film’s portrayal “just another example of the same very upfront and apparent romanticization of colonization.”
“It very much romanticizes the idea of what not only Māori are going through but many Indigenous cultures around the world and almost downplays the suffering,” both from the past and present, Poole said.
Cameron, who could not be reached for comment, in 2012 called “Avatar” a “science fiction retelling of the history of North and South America in the early colonial period.” He said in a recent interview with Unilad that he was listening to marginalized groups and sought to make improvements with the second film.
The plot of the first movie, in which White human outsider Jake Sully infiltrates the Na’vi to save them from a corporation trying to exploit environmental resources from their land of Pandora, raised concern from Indigenous groups. Cameron told Unilad he believes the new movie was able to “sidestep” that “White-savior motif.”
Lailatul Fitriyah, who researches decoloniality as an assistant professor at Claremont School of Theology, said she had no interest in watching the “Avatar” sequel, after she recently watched the first movie for the first time. Fitriyah said she was appalled that Jake became a Na’vi in that film, playing into what she called a colonialist trope that a foreigner can easily “go Native” by looking the part and learning what’s implied to be a primitive culture.
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The second movie was not much better, thought Mana Tyne, a 19-year-old from Queensland, Australia, who is Māori. In it, Jake is now a Na’vi clan leader, and Tyne was offended by how the film reduces ta moko, a type of tattoo that is culturally significant and readable for Māori people, to “abstract, meaningless shapes” that “serve more as an aesthetic” on the characters’ faces and bodies in the movie.
“I would love to see more Māori people and culture represented on screen in cinema, but I want to see Māori people playing them,” Tyne said. “I don’t want to have to sacrifice the significance of our practices that have already lost so much through colonialism.”
Film critics have given “Avatar: The Way of Water” mixed to positive reviews, and audiences have turned out, albeit less than projected. The film raked in $134 million in North America over the weekend, tying it with “The Batman” for the year’s fourth-highest domestic debut, and earned an additional $300 million abroad.
But the mere visibility of Native characters, Poole said, especially when crafted with tropes, doesn’t help address the trauma real Native people have faced in the same way that an authentic portrayal of Native people would.
“We still have elders in our community that bear scars from being beaten in school for speaking their native language,” Poole said.
Autumn Asher BlackDeer, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver, said the “Avatar” movies also add to the monolithic portrayal of Native people commonly used in media. The Na’vi are mystical and solemn noble savages, she said, with stereotypically angular cheekbones and long hair in braids. They also have a physical characteristic BlackDeer’s tribe, Southern Cheyenne, is known for — pronounced noses.
She said that because the movies draw from multiple Indigenous tribes, it can imply that all Native people are the same. It’s a harmful stereotype that has been furthered by “Pretendians,” non-Native people who might use generic Native clothing or accessories to appear Indigenous, BlackDeer said.
Unearthing Native American history on an island in Southern Maryland
“I’m so tired of hearing Indigenous stories from a White perspective,” she said. “We don’t need Hollywood big-budget movies. We could tell our own stories.”
“It’s hard to kind of acknowledge all of these different nuances without vilifying each other or making it or playing against each other,” Jae said. “We have to acknowledge the problematic representation. But in the same vein, we can possibly acknowledge what was done right, because that’s how we make progress in making the media better.” | 2022-12-20T19:22:48Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Indigenous people call ‘Avatar 2’ racist for Na'vi portrayal - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/indigenous-avatar-2-navi/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/indigenous-avatar-2-navi/ |
Fentanyl use exploded while government slept. Here’s what to do now.
An evidence bag containing seized heroin at the Volusia County Sheriff's Office Evidence Facility in Daytona Beach, Fla., in September. (Thomas Simonetti/Bloomberg News)
In 2016, federal agents seized 573 pounds of illicit fentanyl at California ports of entry. A year later, it was 2,099 pounds. This was a clue to a fundamental shift. Instead of fentanyl being sent by mail from China, as in the past, Mexican drug cartels were beginning to manufacture and traffic the drug overland to the United States. A seven-part Post investigation documented a cascade of government blunders and failure to recognize and fight this scourge. Now the country faces the most lethal drug crisis in its history. The government should act urgently to tighten enforcement, reduce demand and expand access to lifesaving treatment.
Fentanyl is an opioid 50 times more potent than heroin, giving users a sense of euphoria but also putting them in mortal peril. Too much in the bloodstream can trigger respiratory failure and ultimately cardiac arrest. Unbeknownst to many people who use other drugs, dealers in the United States are spiking them with cheap and accessible fentanyl. The Post told the agonizing story of five friends in Colorado who died in February after using cocaine they did not know was laced with fentanyl. Last year, drug overdoses in the United States surpassed 107,000, the highest ever. Two-thirds of the deaths involved fentanyl use, which now claims more American lives each year than car crashes, gun violence and suicides — and is the leading cause of death for people ages 18 to 49.
Unfortunately, illicit fentanyl powder and pills are compact and easily smuggled. A U.S. commission on the drug crisis estimated this year that only 3 to 5 metric tons of pure fentanyl would meet the entire annual U.S. consumption of illegally supplied opioids. By contrast, 47 metric tons of heroin and 145 metric tons of cocaine were consumed in 2016. Seizure of fentanyl on the southern border has jumped ninefold in the past five years.
The Post series painted a devastating picture of government failures. President Donald Trump’s $11 billion border wall was virtually useless in stopping fentanyl smuggling, and his administration missed the shift from China to Mexico. “There was so much focus on China, they didn’t look at where the ball was,” a former federal prosecutor, Sherri Walker Hobson, told The Post. “They weren’t looking at the cartels in a serious way. It was all about China, China, China.” A 2017 Drug Enforcement Administration document devoted four pages to synthetic opioids but made no mention that Mexican traffickers were producing fentanyl. The agency hemorrhaged staffers and went through five acting administrators, three of them during Mr. Trump’s tenure. Eighteen months ago, former New Jersey attorney general Anne Milgram became the first Senate-confirmed DEA administrator since 2015.
Mexico also blundered. A decade-long counternarcotics alliance with the United States fell apart after President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in December 2018 and embarked on a policy he called “hugs, not bullets.” The chill in relations has left DEA agents scrutinizing press releases to see what types of narcotics and precursor chemicals Mexico’s military has seized. The partnership was in trouble even earlier than Mr. López Obrador’s rise. Both countries had pledged to tackle crucial underlying causes — Mexico’s weak justice system and surging U.S. demand for narcotics — and neither did so.
There is no simple or easy solution. Enforcement alone cannot dry up the supply of illicit fentanyl. Traffickers have tactical advantages, such as how little of the drug they need to transport, that allow them to “vastly outpace enforcement efforts,” according to the U.S. commission. Even so, efforts to disrupt the Mexican fentanyl pipeline are part of the needed response. The Post series described new detection technology that, if deployed, could help thwart smuggling in vehicles. Making sure U.S. agencies are fully staffed and avoiding the neglect of recent years would also help. Far more serious counternarcotics enforcement by Mexico is essential. “Hugs” are not working.
Just as important is the demand side, which requires expanding access to treatment and harm reduction to save lives. A National Academies study in 2019 pointed out that three highly effective and approved medications — methadone, buprenorphine and extended-release naltrexone — exist to treat opioid use disorder, or OUD, but they are “not available to most of the people who need them.” The study added, “By alleviating withdrawal symptoms, reducing opioid cravings, or decreasing the response to future drug use, these medications make people with OUD less likely to return to drug use and risk a fatal overdose.”
Use of these medications is increasing, but not enough. In 2019, 87 percent of people who could benefit from one of these medications did not receive such treatment. Hospital emergency rooms should make initiating buprenorphine and referral to outpatient treatment a standard of care in overdoses that are not fatal. The continuing failure to do so should prompt the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to act. The pending Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment Act would streamline use of buprenorphine; another bill, the Medication Access and Training Expansion Act, would boost training for treatment of OUD. Both deserve approval. The Department of Health and Human Services should accelerate efforts to make treatment with methadone more accessible.
The immense scale of the fentanyl threat requires more innovative solutions, too. One would be wider use of fentanyl test strips. They can warn unsuspecting users of the presence of dangerous fentanyl hiding in another drug.
As The Post’s series demonstrated, the fentanyl crisis exploded while governments slept. Many overdose victims did not know what hit them. The country is facing a perilous public health and law enforcement emergency. It cannot look the other way. | 2022-12-20T19:23:07Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Shut down the Mexican fentanyl pipeline — and get users treatment - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/fentanyl-drugs-mexican-cartels-treatment/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/fentanyl-drugs-mexican-cartels-treatment/ |
Ron Klain deserves his share of credit for Biden’s success
Ron Klain, White House chief of staff, during a television interview on the North Lawn of the White House on Aug. 8. (Al Drago/Bloomberg News)
Like his boss, White House chief of staff Ron Klain has had his doubters. But as President Biden receives credit for a successful two years, it would be churlish not to also credit the man who has had a hand in practically every significant policy and strategic decision made by the administration.
Aides tell me that Klain’s grasp of policy minutiae is evident. Indeed, it’s rare for Klain to come across an issue that he hasn’t faced in a similar legislative battle at an earlier point in his long career.
"He makes everyone feel like he’s deeply in the weeds on the things you were working on,” says Jen Psaki, who served as Biden’s first White House press secretary. That gives Klain something rare in Washington: perspective informed by detailed policy knowledge.
Former White House counsel Dana Remus tells me, "What [Klain] does internally is to keep everyone focused on the policy priorities and work priorities.” Yes, things go wrong. But as Remus explains: “His eyes are wide open. He understands we’re all human.” Mistakes happen “particularly where people are working around the clock.” The emphasis is on addressing mistakes and fixing them quickly.
Klain is the first to recognize that there will never be a situation in which everyone thinks the administration is doing the right thing. Listen to progressives, and they’ll say Klain has been too quick to accommodate moderates; listen to moderates, and they’ll insist he indulged progressives’ ambitions too long.
Nevertheless, he has managed to shepherd major victories through Congress. Consider the Inflation Reduction Act, which was salvaged from the failed Build Back Better package. Its passage reflected immense patience on the part of Klain, who indicated for months that the bill’s negotiators would get to some sort of deal.
Certainly, the negotiations weren’t perfect. They blew up in a dramatic fashion in December 2021, when the White House accused Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) of reneging on an agreed-upon framework. Psaki concedes this was a “mistake,” since airing out the negotiations “made the process the story.”
Still, they were able to reach a deal by summer. Brian Deese, head of the National Economic Council, credits Klain’s “ability to recognize it’s important to manage the hour-by-hour, and also the longer-term strategy, and longer-term arc.”
Aides emphasize that Biden and Klain deeply believe in the ability to get things done, even in partisan times. That has prompted complaints from the base that Biden has been naive or too “nice” in working with Republicans, though defenders would say it simply reflects Biden and Klain’s faith in compromise.
This might be harder to maintain in the coming years. Biden shifted to a tougher tone in the run-up to the elections, though Jen O’Malley Dillon, Klain’s deputy, says Biden’s criticism of the “ultra-MAGA” element in the GOP was always about a “segment” of the GOP. Biden still intends to push for bipartisan deals, but given the nature of the coming GOP majority, the White House is prepared for a different tone.
Klain also helped implement the effort to fix the White House’s relationship with the media. When Biden came into office, he sought to take the venom out of the press room and regain the White House’s reputation for conveying truthful information. Klain helped carry that out: He understood when the administration needed to give the media “something” to meet the news appetite and when it simply had to say it had nothing to share.
It’s also notable that leaks have become a rarity in the administration, in part because Klain helped created a culture of “collegiality, respect and [staff] having a voice,” as O’Malley Dillon puts it. That’s essential in a town rife with “process” stories. Instead of getting caught up in the cacophony of inside-baseball reporting, the White House has been able to focus on why the president ran, the people he promised to deliver for and the mission of the team.
In talking with White House aides, I get the sense that they view Klain as being “in the foxhole” with them to repair the damage done in the Trump administration. Indeed, aides even on background don’t offer up criticism.
In fact, no Cabinet official left during the first two years. Relatively few staff members did, either. “People don’t want to leave,” Remus says. She joined the Biden campaign when pregnant but was compelled to depart the administration for family reasons. “I was sad to leave this team,” she says.
Of course, there have been plenty of bumps in the first two years. Current and former advisers concede that they are “disappointed” not to have made more progress on guns and voting rights. And certainly it’s fair to say that the White House did not immediately comprehend the extent of inflation (though neither did the Federal Reserve or most independent economists). Still, aides say what has been critical was the ability to respond to the new economic reality and pivot to deficit-containing costs for average families.
They also vigorously defend the administration’s ethics reforms, pointing to Hatch Act training as well as new rules for communication to avoid politicizing the Justice Department. They argue that Klain’s emphasis on voluntary compliance and devotion to restoration of norms — rather than legislation — is the only way to restore respect for the rules.
The two-year mark in an administration is a natural point for White House staffers to leave jobs that infamously demand long hours. Klain has kept up a furious pace, staying longer than many first-on-the-job chiefs of staff. One source tells me that while Biden and staff have urged Klain to stay on, he has yet to make a decision on his own tenure. Klain declined to be interviewed for this piece.
Whenever he does depart, he’s unlikely to add to the torrent of D.C. “process” stories that cause staff to roll their eyes. Knowing Klain, they expect he will let the administration’s results speak for themselves. | 2022-12-20T19:23:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Ron Klain deserves his share of credit for Biden’s success - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ron-klain-biden-white-house/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/ron-klain-biden-white-house/ |
Forecasters say the storm could cause thousands of flights to be canceled or delayed and create treacherous driving conditions
Travelers at John F. Kennedy International Airport ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in New York. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News)
A fierce winter storm that could hit large parts of the Lower 48 states in coming days has the potential to cause massive flight delays and cancellations and create treacherous road conditions during one of the busiest travel weeks of the holiday season.
More than 112 million people are expected to travel more than 50 or more miles away from home between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, according to AAA, an increase of 3 percent over last year but still below pre-pandemic numbers.
The bulk of those on the move — estimated at nearly 102 million — will drive, according to AAA. More than 7 million will fly, while several million more will take the train or use other modes of transportation. According to AAA, 2022 is shaping up to be the third-busiest year for holiday travel since it began tracking the numbers in 2000.
But many of those trips could be disrupted by a massive storm that could bring snow and wind to the Rockies and northern Plains beginning Wednesday before moving east. For airlines, which have spent months preparing for one of the busiest travel periods of the year, the timing could not be worse. The most significant impacts are expected Thursday and Friday.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expecting Thursday to be the busiest travel day of the week, with 47,554 scheduled flights. On Friday, more than 44,300 flights are scheduled.
Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist, said he thinks as many as 5,000 flights could be delayed or canceled if the storm, as predicted, causes blizzard conditions at airports in Chicago, a major hub for United, and in Detroit, a major hub for Delta Air Lines. The storm also could bring heavy rain and gusty winds to major airports along the I-95 corridor, including Washington Dulles International, Reagan National, Philadelphia, Boston and all New York-area airports.
In anticipation of the storm, many carriers have begun issuing travel waivers that allow passengers to reschedule their flights with no change fees.
“American Airlines continues to monitor Winter Storm Elliott, which is expected to impact airports in the midwestern and northeastern U.S. this week,” the carrier said Tuesday. “Critical to our preparations was sizing the airline for the resources we have available and operating conditions we face.” In hopes of preventing last-minute disruptions, the carrier has issued travel waivers for 57 airports that will allow passengers to rebook without change fees. “We’ll continue monitoring Winter Storm Elliott and make any adjustments to ensure the safety of our customers and team members,” American said.
Highway travel across much of the central and eastern parts of the country could also be affected by the blizzard, and some roads could be closed, Porter said.
Matthew Cappucci, a meteorologist with the Capital Weather Gang, said this storm will be especially noteworthy because of its size. Winds topping 40 miles per hour will be common from the Plains to the East Coast, which could cause major issues for air travel and lead to cascading delays and cancellations, he added.
Blockbuster storm, bitter arctic outbreak to blast U.S. before Christmas
Despite continued concerns about the economy, Americans have proved they’re willing to spend on travel, a trend that has fueled record revenue for airlines in 2022. And even as health experts have renewed their push for Americans to get up-to-date on vaccinations in anticipation of another covid-19 winter surge — on top of an early and aggressive flu season and high levels of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) — people are determined to take advantage of the first holiday season in three years that is free of pandemic-related travel restrictions and mask mandates.
“People do want to travel,” said Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president for legislative and regulatory policy for Airlines for America, a trade group that represents the nation’s largest airlines. “Something we all know but bears repeating is the pandemic has changed all of us. And one of the changes is that people value experiences over things, and they’re voting with their pocketbooks by getting back to travel.”
After a difficult summer, the Thanksgiving travel period was relatively trouble-free for airlines, aided in part by good weather across the United States, a massive hiring push and lessons learned from the summer. The Transportation Security Administration reported that it screened more than 2.5 million passengers on the Sunday after Thanksgiving — the most in a day since the pandemic began.
TSA Administrator David Pekoske said the agency anticipates similar passenger volumes during the upcoming holiday and is prepared. He said the agency expects it will meet its wait time standards of 30 minute or less in standard lines and 10 minutes or less for travelers enrolled in TSA PreCheck. However, he cautioned that waits could be longer at busier airports, so travelers should plan accordingly.
After a second summer of travel disruptions that drew scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers, airlines know they are being closely watched.
“We’ve really done three things: hiring, reducing capacity in ... schedules, and building in reserves and buffer in the system,” said A4A’s Pinkerton during a recent briefing with reporters.
But the pending storm will test those efforts. Weather is always the wild card at this time of year, and even the best-prepared airlines may struggle to maintain their operations.
Pinkerton said carriers are adding an average of 4,600 employees a month. Some, such as American Airlines, are deploying new tools to get ahead of possible disruptions. The goal is to avoid a repeat of last year, when a surge of infections fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus exacerbated staffing shortages during Christmas and into the new year. That, combined with severe winter storms, led to massive flight cancellations and delays that took weeks to unwind.
In all, more than 28,000 flights were canceled between Dec. 24, 2021, and Jan. 7, 2022. On social media, travelers shared photos of baggage claim areas clogged with hundreds of suitcases waiting to be reunited with their owners. It was the most severe disruption since 56,000 flights were canceled in a single week at the outset of the pandemic, when people didn’t want to fly.
Last year, Alaska Airlines, hit hard by record snow in Seattle the day after Christmas, encouraged customers to put off travel until after the new year to help reduce the strain on its operations. The carrier also trimmed its 2022 schedule to better align with its resources.
Ben Minicucci, the airline’s chief executive, said those changes, coupled with aggressive hiring, have enabled the carrier to run one of the most reliable operations in 2022. Alaska also is taking a more proactive approach when there is potential for weather-related disruptions.
“When we see a big storm coming, we’re going to scale back our schedule a few days in advance to make sure that we can operate reliably,” he said. If there are changes, he said, the goal is to let customers know before they even leave for the airport.
American Airlines is also preparing.
“We’re definitely better staffed and we learned that lesson in 2021 and that was our rule going into 2022, is that we’re going to have the right resources available to fly the schedule,” said David Seymour, chief operating officer for American Airlines. “Our schedule will match the resources that we have, so we feel really good about that. And that’s across the board, whether it’s flight crews, pilots, flight attendants, our airport or maintenance.”
In addition, the carrier has a new tool that will enable it to get ahead of potential disruptions. The Hub Efficiency Analytics Tool, or HEAT, allows American to adjust its operations for weather or other disruptions at its largest hubs. The goal is to find a solution that reduces the impact on customers and crew using data that examines the number of potential flight cancellations and missed connections and other criteria.
For example, if there are potential storms at American’s hub at Dallas-Fort Worth, the airline can slow operations into the airport during the time the storms are expected to hit and then ramp up again once they’ve cleared. By intervening early, the airline has more control over its operations.
The FAA has tools it uses to slow air traffic in the event of unfavorable weather, heavy traffic volume or other issues that affect national airspace operations. The agency can issue ground stops or ground delays, but often those decisions don’t give airlines enough time to adjust their schedules. With HEAT, Seymour said, the goal is to get ahead of a potential issue, reducing or even eliminating the need for the FAA to put restrictions in place.
American began using HEAT in the spring, and while it won’t eliminate delays and cancellations, it enables the airline to reach out to customers earlier and improves the ability to get them to their destinations as planned, Seymour said.
With strong passenger demand, airlines will finish the year well-positioned for 2023, said Henry Harteveldt, an aviation analyst. As for holiday operations, it’s still too soon to tell. The pending storm could throw a wrench into their carefully laid plans. | 2022-12-20T19:23:58Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Thousands of flights could be delayed or canceled by winter storm - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/20/winter-storm-threat-threatens-holiday-travel-boom/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/20/winter-storm-threat-threatens-holiday-travel-boom/ |
Paul Feig on career in comedy and new book ‘Cocktail Time’
Paul Feig has directed some of the biggest comedies of the last decade, including “Bridesmaids,” “Spy” and “The Heat.” On Tuesday, Jan. 3 at 2:00 p.m. ET, Feig joins Washington Post national arts reporter Geoff Edgers to discuss his career, comedy and his new book, “Cocktail Time: The Ultimate Guide to Grown-Up Fun.”
Director, Producer & Author, “Cocktail Time!: The Ultimate Guide to Grown-Up Fun” | 2022-12-20T19:24:04Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Paul Feig on career in comedy and new book ‘Cocktail Time’ - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2023/01/03/paul-feig-career-comedy-new-book-cocktail-time/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2023/01/03/paul-feig-career-comedy-new-book-cocktail-time/ |
A $25 million budget increase sets the cash-strapped National Labor Relations Board up to deliver on Biden’s pro-union agenda
The sun sets on the Capitol dome on Nov. 14. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Congress is poised to boost funding for the federal agency that protects workers’ rights to organize, at least temporarily averting a staffing crisis that has hampered the Biden administration’s ability to deliver on its pro-union agenda — and that also threatened to cause prolonged labor unrest at the agency.
The funding boost came after the agency’s own disgruntled union and Congressional Progressive Caucus Democrats, backed by chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), pleaded with leaders on Capitol Hill for increased funding as part of an exchange between parties as Republicans pushed for a major increase in defense spending.
“You don’t get a lot of wins in this business. This is definitely something to feel good about” said Michael Bilik, a NLRB field attorney in New York City and a leader in the agency’s union. “But it’s not nearly enough money. It’s the least they could do to keep the lights on.”
The labor watchdog agency’s budget has been frozen at $274.2 million since 2014, a decline from its peak of $283.4 million in 2010. It has lost at least 520 staffers, or 30 percent of its workforce, since 2010, as vacated positions have gone unfilled. Unions, meanwhile, have seen a notable surge in popularity since the pandemic began, with a 53 percent increase in union election filings this fiscal year compared with last year, and workers voting to unionize for the first time at employers such as Amazon, Apple, Chipotle and Trader Joe’s. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The NLRB declined to comment on the new funding on Tuesday. Jennifer Abruzzo, the agency’s general counsel, said in a statement on Monday that the agency was in complete agreement with its union “on the urgent need for additional resources” to ensure that it can fulfill its mandate.
Labor leaders widely acknowledge that the agency needs to be able to move fast to investigate charges and get workers relief because union elections happen quickly and retaliation can have an immediate chilling effect on organizing. Several agency attorneys said that under current caseload levels, many staffers have to postpone investigations of unfair labor practice charges that workers file when they believe they’ve been illegally fired or had their labor rights otherwise violated. They noted that in cities like New York, where attorneys are assigned complex, high-profile cases such as the contested unionization effort at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, other, less flashy cases involving the most vulnerable workers fall to the wayside.
“We are stretched thin,” said Noor Alam, an NLRB field attorney in Denver. “I have cases that I know are really important on union campaigns where lead organizers have been fired and [union] elections are pending, but I’ve been forced to put things that can’t wait on the back burner. Justice is being delayed.”
The administration had asked Congress to approve a $45 million budget increase for the labor board, up to $319.4 million in the 2023 budget. A funding increase for the NLRB was dropped from this year’s budget despite Democratic control of Congress, as were pro-labor provisions in reconciliation bills in 2022 and 2021.
“I would call it a great victory under the circumstances,” said Larry Cohen, the former president of the Communications Workers of America. “The [agency] will have a much better chance to support the tens of thousands of workers who are organizing across the country.” Cohen is now the chair of Our Revolution, a Bernie Sanders-backed group that has lobbied Congress during the lame-duck period to boost funding for the NLRB.
Labor leaders have been thrilled with Biden’s move to install Abruzzo as the top lawyer at the NLRB. Abruzzo, widely praised by union organizers as the most visionary leader of the agency in generations, has recommended banning mandatory anti-union meetings and recently pushed the agency to impose expanded penalties on employers who illegally fire union organizers.
The lawyer who could deliver on Biden’s wish to be the most pro-union president
But the funding crisis exposed tensions between NLRB staffers and the agency’s management, including Abruzzo, over union contract negotiations.
The labor board’s deputy general counsel sent an agency-wide email in November, warning employees of potential cuts if they did not receive a budget increase from Congress before the end of the year. At least 125 members of the NLRB’s union responded with reply-all messages, expressing frustrations about the agency’s work-from-home policy set to expire this Friday, Dec. 23. A proposed new policy would require workers to come in six days every two weeks and for a number of other common legal proceedings, such as taking affidavits from witnesses and conducting union elections, a mandate that staffers said further disrupts their work-life balance.
One trial attorney in D.C., John Mickley, who two former colleagues said was widely respected, announced in November that he was quitting his job because of the agency’s position on telework. “You don’t control the congressional appropriations that would allow you to hire, but you do control our conditions of employment,” Mickley wrote in his email to management. “Seeing you fail to make these concessions pushed me to the breaking point. Bargaining positions matter.”
“What we are asking for is a lifeboat and a ration,” wrote Kristin White, the agency’s sole employee in Alaska, where union representation cases roughly doubled last year. “Nihilism and despair will overwhelm the passion and commitment we share for the [National Labor Relations Act] and for the rights of workers. Our mission is too important to let that happen.”
On Dec. 8, 60 staffers from around the country arrived in Washington, many on one-day round trip flights from as far away as San Francisco and San Antonio, to rally outside the agency’s offices, protesting potential furloughs and telework policies. They held signs that read “NLRB: Pro-Employee on the Outside, Union Busting on the Inside!!!” and “Hypocrisy” next to a photo of general counsel Abruzzo superimposed on an image of Marie Antoinette.
Abruzzo said in a statement that the agency is committed to working with the union on reaching “a new collective bargaining agreement as soon as possible” that increases telework for NLRB employees beyond the plan that is slated to go into effect this week, while ensuring that the agency can “effectively provide the protections workers are guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act.”
Howard Schultz’s fight to stop a Starbucks barista uprising
“We should be setting an example in labor relations,” said Alam, the staff attorney in Denver. “This feels like same old hard bargain. It doesn’t make any sense to us.” | 2022-12-20T19:39:45Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Congress to help avert labor crisis at labor board - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/20/nlrb-budget-understaffing-congress-abruzzo-democrats/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/12/20/nlrb-budget-understaffing-congress-abruzzo-democrats/ |
Mat Ishbia, a billionaire mortgage executive and former Michigan State University basketball player, reached an agreement Tuesday to purchase the Phoenix Suns from disgraced owner Robert Sarver. (Al Goldis/AP)
The agreement comes three months after Sarver, a real estate investor who purchased the Suns in 2004, started the process of selling the teams in the wake of an investigation commissioned by the NBA and conducted by the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz law firm. Investigators concluded in a damaging, 43-page report that Sarver had repeatedly used racist and misogynistic language in the workplace, among other examples of office misconduct.
Ishbia, a graduate of Michigan State, was a walk-on to the Spartans’ basketball team. Listed at 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, the seldom-used guard was a member of Michigan State’s title-winning team in 2000 that featured four future NBA players in Jason Richardson, Morris Peterson, Mateen Cleaves and Charlie Bell. ESPN.com first reported that Ishbia had reached an agreement to purchase the Suns and Mercury.
From September: Adam Silver was the ‘good’ commissioner. Why waste that defending bad guys?
After graduating from Michigan State’s business school in 2003, Ishbia joined United Wholesale Mortgage, which had been founded by his father, when it had a dozen workers. Ishbia became CEO in 2013, and the Michigan-based company, which became the country’s largest wholesale mortgage lender in 2015, has since grown to nearly 7,000 employees.
In a recent HBO Sports feature, Ishbia explained that his corporate philosophy had been shaped by Tom Izzo, Michigan State’s legendary basketball coach.
“This is not that complicated,” he said. “Get the best people to join your team. Right? Just like in sports. Train them, coach them, to be the best version of themselves, like Izzo used to do with us. And then treat them so well that they never want to leave.”
The $4 billion price is the highest sum paid for an NBA franchise, surpassing the $2.35 billion that Joe Tsai paid for the Brooklyn Nets in 2019. By comparison, Sarver purchased the Suns for $401 million just 18 years ago.
The Suns were valued at $2.7 billion by Forbes in October, ranking 13th among the NBA’s 30 teams. Led by star guards Chris Paul and Devin Booker, Phoenix reached the 2021 NBA Finals and posted a franchise-record 64 wins last season. Though the Suns have never won a championship since joining the NBA in 1968, they have reached the Finals three times and have had three MVP winners in Charles Barkley (1993) and Steve Nash (2005 and 2006). Despite the ongoing uncertainty around its ownership group, Phoenix enters Tuesday’s action as the Western Conference’s No. 3 seed with a 19-12 record.
Before Sarver’s decision to sell, the NBA had suspended him for one year and fined him a record $10 million. However, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stopped short of issuing a lifetime ban, a punishment that he had given former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who was caught on tape making racist comments in 2014. Local politicians, civil rights activists and prominent NBA stars, including LeBron James, quickly argued that Sarver’s punishment hadn’t gone far enough, and PayPal, a key sponsor of the Suns, announced plans to end its partnership.
After vigorously contesting a 2021 ESPN report that included many workplace misconduct allegations from current and former employees, the 61-year-old Sarver finally relented amid the mounting pressure in September, saying that he didn’t want to be a “distraction” and that he “wants what’s best” for the Suns and Mercury.
Mark Maske and Nicki Jhabvala contributed to this report. | 2022-12-20T20:14:39Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Mat Ishbia agrees to buy Phoenix Suns, ending Robert Sarver’s tenure - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/mat-ishbia-buys-phoenix-suns/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/mat-ishbia-buys-phoenix-suns/ |
Uranium mining is too risky for Virginia
Land near Chatham, Va., the site of a proposed uranium mining operation. (Ryan Stone for The Washington Post)
Regarding the Dec. 15 front-page article, “Slavery-enriched family eyes a uranium fortune,” that was short on facts and long on speculation regarding uranium in Virginia.
Any mining enterprise has its risks and rewards. In 1982, the Virginia Legislature passed a moratorium on mining and milling uranium in Virginia. The industry has been a disaster in many sites in the arid and sparsely populated West and Southwest, with radioactively contaminated water, air and land and high cancer rates. Billions in taxpayer money have been spent on cleaning up Superfund sites, which are then monitored in perpetuity. With more than 40 inches of rain, hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes in Virginia, you have a disaster ready to happen at our doorstep. The National Academy of Sciences’ study concluded “steep hurdles” must be solved before uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia’s climate.
The reward of making a few rich is not worth the risk to our environment. About 85 percent of the radioactivity is retained in the tailings piles and ponds, which pose threats for hundreds of thousands of years or forever, whichever comes first.
For the safety of our citizens, the moratorium must be kept in place.
In 1979, I owned the most radioactive farm in northern Virginia, according to aerial scintillometer exploration. After visiting mines and mills in Colorado and Utah, and further research, we declined to lease our farm as we could not conscientiously participate in the above risks for our downstream and downwind neighbors.
Bill Speiden, Somerset, Va.
The writer is a dairy farmer on the Rapidan River. | 2022-12-20T20:19:09Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Opinion | Uranium mining is too risky for Virginia - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/uranium-mining-virginia-risks/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/20/uranium-mining-virginia-risks/ |
The Bank of England revealed its design for a new bank note featuring the face of King Charles III on Tuesday. (Courtesy the Bank of England)
Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September after a seven-decade reign, had been the only British monarch to be featured on a bank note, according to Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England. The bank didn’t have permission to use a monarch’s face until a few years into the queen’s reign.
Who is Britain’s new king? A visual biography of Charles III
The United Kingdom Treasury gave the bank permission in 1956 to use the Queen’s portrait in a new series of notes, according to the bank’s website. It wasn’t until 1960 that her grace’s face first graced a bill, which was a 1 pound note. It was followed by a 10 shilling note the next year.
“It was a formal, regal image, and was criticised for being a severe and unrealistic likeness,” according to the bank’s website. People found the portrait used on a redesigned 5 pound note in 1963 and a 10 pound in 1964 much more natural.
The Bank of England announced that new polymer notes featuring king will be printed in denominations of 5, 10, 20 and 50 pounds.
What kind of monarch will King Charles III be? Different from his mum. | 2022-12-20T20:54:13Z | www.washingtonpost.com | King Charles III portrait to appear on Bank of England money - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/king-charles-iii-money-bank-note/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/20/king-charles-iii-money-bank-note/ |
The two U.S. citizens arrived Tuesday in Qatar, according to diplomats familiar with the matter
Afghan students queue at one of Kabul University's gates in Kabul on Feb. 26. (Hussein Malla/AP)
The Taliban have released two Americans detained in Afghanistan on Tuesday in an arrangement U.S. officials described as a “goodwill gesture” from the longtime U.S. adversary.
State Department spokesman Ned Price welcomed the released of the prisoners on Tuesday but declined to identify them, citing respect for their privacy.
He said the release was not done in exchange for any Afghan prisoners or other people of interest to the Taliban.
The two prisoners arrived in Qatar on Tuesday before being reunited with their families, said officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
The Taliban’s release of the Americans came as it announced the suspension of university education for all female students in Afghanistan, the latest crackdown on the rights of women in the country.
Price condemned the Taliban’s restrictions, saying the Afghan government “should expect that this decision which is in contravention to the commitments they have made repeatedly and publicly to their own people, will carry costs.”
Price declined to speculate on whether the release of the prisoners was done to lessen the anger of U.S. and Western governments regarding the clampdown on the rights of women and girls in the country.
The release of the Americans was first reported by CNN. | 2022-12-20T20:54:31Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Taliban releases two Americans detained in Afghanistan - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/20/taliban-united-states-americans-detained/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/20/taliban-united-states-americans-detained/ |
Grants seek to fix inaccessible transit stations across U.S.
Federal officials said hundreds of stations are inaccessible to people with mobility issues, a shortcoming rooted in decades-old construction and struggles over scant funding
A man stands in a heating shelter at the Chicago Transit Authority’s Merchandise Mart “L” station. Announcing new accessibility grants, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said: “Transit is designed to be the great connector. But only if you can physically get aboard is that actually possible.” (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
Hundreds of transit stations across the United States make it impossible, or exceedingly difficult, for wheelchair users or others with mobility challenges to traverse stations and board trains, federal officials said, a shortcoming rooted in decades-old construction and struggles over scant funding.
A new Transportation Department grant program, championed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) — a double amputee and former Blackhawk pilot — and created under last year’s infrastructure law, is sending $686 million to nine states to upgrade 28 of those stations. The projects will raise platforms, construct elevators and ramps, and add raised warning strips for blind riders, among other fixes.
“Transit is designed to be the great connector. But only if you can physically get aboard is that actually possible,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in announcing the first grants Monday under the five-year, $1.75 billion All Stations Accessibility Program, known as ASAP. The program targets “legacy” systems constructed before 1990; some were built a century ago.
The grants include $254 million for New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) — to reduce platform gaps, modify fare gates and install elevators at subway stations in Brooklyn and the Bronx — and $15 million for updating a 1960s-era monorail in Seattle, where officials said staff must currently put down a portable ramp at the Seattle Center station for the safety of wheelchair users getting on and off trains.
Only about a quarter of New York’s 472 subway stations are considered accessible, according to local transportation officials. As part of a legal settlement this year, the MTA agreed to add elevators or ramps “to create a stair-free path of travel at 95 percent of the currently inaccessible subway stations by 2055,” the authority announced in June. Billions of dollars have been dedicated to the effort in recent years, but much more is needed. This week’s federal grants will go toward four of the stations.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will use its $67 million federal grant to retrofit Boston’s 80-year-old Symphony light-rail station, raising platforms to make boarding easier for people with disabilities and seniors, including residents of a nearby assisted-living facility. In Maryland, transportation officials will tap $7 million to upgrade the Martin Airport commuter rail station north of Baltimore, which the Federal Transit Administration said “requires riders to cross multiple tracks to board the train.”
Duckworth said she does not ride the “L,” the elevated train in Chicago, because of accessibility challenges. (The Chicago Transit Authority says 70 percent of its 145 rail stations are accessible.) So she was thrilled to hear a top local transit official promise several years ago to work toward making all the stations on the “L” and on Metra commuter rail accessible. She then asked how long it would take.
“He said, ‘Oh, 25 years,’” Duckworth recalled.
The idea that it would take half a century after passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990 to achieve that goal was a jarring reality check for Duckworth. Local officials told her they wanted to act quicker but lacked the dedicated funding. “That’s when ASAP became my cause at the national level,” Duckworth said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/10/12/bridge-construction-infrastructure-law/
Buttigieg traveled to Illinois to inspect transit lines with Duckworth, President Biden embraced the push for accessibility, and Democratic and Republican colleagues backed the funding, she said.
The hundreds of millions of dollars in grants announced this week will help fund critical improvements on more than two dozen stations nationwide, but that represents just the start of the costly and complicated work that needs to be done nationally, FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez said.
“More than 900 of the total 3,700 rail stations in our country remain inaccessible,” Fernandez said. “That’s about 25 percent. This program aims to change that, one station at a time.”
States, cities and transit agencies had to apply for the new grants. In addition to the grants, Fernandez said transit agencies can use other federal funds, which expanded under the infrastructure law, for accessibility projects.
166 infrastructure projects awarded billions in federal funding
The hefty cost of some of the overhauls — which sometimes require acquiring real estate or other major investments — “has in fact been the reason that those stations were not made accessible over the past 30 years,” Fernandez said.
The Chicago Transit Authority will receive $118 million for major improvements to its Irving Park, Belmont and Pulaski stations on the Blue Line. Illinois commuter rail officials will receive an additional $67 million.
When she’s in Washington, Duckworth said, she can make her way around about 80 percent of the Metro system, making the inaccessibility of the “L” back home even more frustrating and underscoring how much work needs to be done on systems across the country.
“I can’t wait for these projects to get started,” Duckworth said. “And I can’t wait to finally ride the newly accessible ‘L.’” | 2022-12-20T20:56:22Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Transit stations are inaccessible. New federal grants seek to fix that. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/20/transit-station-accessibility-grants/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/20/transit-station-accessibility-grants/ |
De-icing, closed runways and crew schedules can lead to serious delays and cancellations
As if the holidays weren’t stressful enough, a monstrous winter storm is coming and will likely upend travelers’ plans. For airline passengers, this could mean significant delays or canceled flights, missed connections and cold Christmas ham.
If recent events are any indication, travelers should brace themselves. Earlier this month, a winter storm in the Pacific Northwest caused thousands of flight delays and hundreds of cancellations around the country. Tuesday morning, nearly 200 flights at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport were canceled, according to FlightAware, and the day is still young. Most telling, in anticipation of the imminent “bomb cyclone” and blizzard conditions, major airlines are waiving change fees and fare differences for travelers scheduled to fly in the Midwest and Northeast in the days leading up to Christmas.
Air travel “is like a fine-tuned Swiss watch, and you’re throwing sand into when you have winter weather,” said John Nance, a former military and commercial pilot and an aviation analyst with ABC News.
To better understand how winter storms affect flights, we spoke with aviation experts about some of the biggest mysteries surrounding icy and snowy weather and flying.
Planes and ice don’t mix
During winter storms, the biggest challenges are on the ground. Planes, like butterflies and cars, don’t like ice and snow on their wings or under their tires.
For planes to safely take off and land, they must be steady on their wheels.Pilots also need full braking capabilities, to slow and stop the plane after touching down. Without this ability, the plane can overrun or careen off the runway, as a Southwest Airlines tragically did in 2005. During an early December snowstorm, the plane landed at Chicago-Midway airport and skidded into a busy street, killing a young boy.
“Freezing rain terrifies us, and it should,” Nance said. “The principal concern is traction. If you have ice, you have nothing to grip.”
The airport is in charge of clearing the runways, ramps, taxi ways and pedestrian walkways. The treatment depends on the type of precipitation: chemicals to thaw ice, for instance, and plows to remove snow.
“Powder snow, slush, ice — there are different removal systems,” said Hassan Shahidi, president and chief executive of the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit advocate for air travel safety. “The airports test the condition of the runways with special equipment for traction.”
If the airport cannot keep up with snow or ice accumulations, the airport will have to close runways or the entire facility. In early February, for example, icy conditions forced Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to shut down for several hours. The airport eventually reopened one of its seven runways, hampering flight schedules around the country.
“It ripples throughout the system,” Bill Feist, a commercial pilot with more than 30 years of experience, said of the long-tentacled effect of airport and runway closures.
A plane can’t take off if its wings are covered in even a light dusting of snow, ice or frost, which can interfere with the aerodynamics of the aircraft. “Ice and snow on the wings can disrupt the air flow,” Nance said. “It reforms the air flow over the wings.”
To melt the precipitation, the plane must undergo de-icing, a process that involves spraying a heated chemical mixture on the wings, tail, fuselage and windshield. The treatment, which takes several minutes, plus any wait time for the de-icing machine, must occur immediately before departure. If the plane idles on the tarmac for too long, the precipitation can build up again.
“There is a 30-minute window after de-icing,” Shahidi said. “[A second round of de-icing] happens once in a while.”
To streamline the process and reduce potential delays, many airports have installed de-icing complexes. Last month, Memphis International Airport unveiled its Consolidated De-Icing Facility, which is considered one of the world’s largest, with 12 bays for commercial and cargo planes. “They pull up to the pad right before take off,” said Glen Thomas, a spokesperson for the Memphis International Airport.
Memphis is a FedEx hub, which works to passengers’ advantage: The airport has 44 pieces of winter weather equipment, such as plows, salt spreaders and snow grooming machines.
Why your flight may be delayed or canceled
When you see a “delay” notice on the airport’s electronic departures board or receive a message from your carrier that your flight has been canceled during bad weather, you can genuinely thank the airline. The airlines’ primary objective is to keep passengers safe.
“The airlines err on the side of safety and caution,” Nance said. “They do not like to take chances.”
How to get a refund for your canceled flight
To that end, the airlines consult with two main entities: the Federal Aviation Administration and the airports. Like a professional counselor, the FAA doesn’t tell the airlines what to do; its role is to relay information and share communications. “The FAA does not encourage the airlines to delay or cancel flights,” said Greg Byus, the agency’s air traffic manager at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Warrenton, Va. “It is up to each individual airline.”
One of the FAA’s primary responsibilities is to “manage capacity and demand,” Byus said, by regulating how many planes can take off and land in an hour. If severe weather is obstructing the flow of air traffic, the FAA might issue a ground stop (no planes can land at the impacted airport) or a ground delay (a trickle of aircraft can touch down). The agency works closely with National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration when making these decisions. The ground stop and delay directive only applies to departing planes, which might confound passengers who are sitting at the gate watching planes taxi down the runway while their plane is nowhere to be seen.
“Restrictions on arrivals are different than departing. The pilots need to see the runway,” Byus said.
Travelers departing from airports outside the weather system might also wonder why they aren’t boarding. The explanation: The airline will detain planes if there’s a chance that they can’t land at their connecting or final destination. This action will save the pilot from having to fly around the airspace until it is safe to descend or to divert to an alternate airport.
“A low ceiling, low visibility or heavy snow — airlines can’t dispatch to that airport,” Byus said. “The pilots can’t land.”
If the airline foresees runway or airport closures, it may preemptively cancel flights. This could be the situation that unfolds this week: According to AccuWeather, the impending storm could affect two-thirds of U.S. flights. “There are a lot of proactive, prophylactic cancellations,” Nance said.
To save yourself the stress of the unknown, take advantage of the waivers airlines are offering and depart before the storm arrives, if possible.
“I’ll get up at 4 a.m. if I have to, to get out before the storm hits at 9 a.m.,” said Jon M. Nese, a meteorologist and assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University. “I am a firm believer in getting out before the storm begins.”
If you travel after the storm, factor in the cleanup time for both the roads and runways. According to Nese, winter storms in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia or St. Louis typically last from 12 to 24 hours. Storms linger longer — 24 to 36 hours — at destinations on lakes, such as Buffalo, which sits on Lake Erie.
How to avoid getting stuck this winter
It might be too late for this holiday, but winter has just begun. If you’re planning to travel between now and spring, you can take several steps to minimize disruptions.
Avoid connecting flights, so you don’t have to contend with multiple takes-offs and landings and accumulated delays. If possible, choose airports that are well-equipped for winter weather and large volumes of passengers, such as Boston Logan, Chicago-O’Hare and LaGuardia and JFK airports in New York. Conversely, small airports with limited resources and infrequent snowfalls are often less adept at handling the challenges of Arctic weather.
“Denver has a very good plan for removing snow,” said Byus, “and Buffalo prides itself on removing snow. Atlanta shuts down.”
Consider booking a morning flight, when the flight crew has just punched the clock and the risk of their working hours expiring is low. Plus, bad weather can cause a cascade of delays throughout the day. To stay abreast of any changes in your flight, download your airline’s app. Nese also suggests tracking the weather using a radar app or following the National Weather Service. “It doesn’t take rocket science to understand the radar apps,” he said, with a caveat: “They don’t forecast. They are instantaneous.”
Winter storm clouds are not as tall as thunderstorm clouds, so pilots can easily soar above them, a respite from the drama on the ground.
“You can easily fly over a winter storm,” Nese said. “There could be a big blizzard below and you’d have no idea.” | 2022-12-20T20:56:28Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Winter storm will wreak havoc on flights. Here’s why. - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/12/20/winter-storm-air-travel/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/12/20/winter-storm-air-travel/ |
How a group of ‘GTA V’ developers became unlikely motorsports champions
(Washington Post illustration; Wayland Standing/Rockstar)
Ben Lyons, a technical director at Grand Theft Auto creator Rockstar North, isn’t your average video game programmer. Back in 2013, the Scotland-based developer oversaw the physics and handling of all of “Grand Theft Auto V’s” hundreds of cars, ensuring that each felt unique and authentic. But around the same time, he also began thinking: “What if I tried racing these cars in real life?”
A passion project soon emerged as Lyons and a few of his colleagues became hobbyist racers, seeking to prove that their programming prowess could translate to success on the track. It all culminated in a major milestone earlier this year: Under the team name “Rockstar Racing,” they shockingly won the V4 division of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, an endurance race in Germany that’s among the world’s most prestigious motorsport events.
“We had these big Rockstar logos on our car, and most people couldn’t believe it was actually Rockstar — like, the real game developers,” Lyons told The Washington Post with a laugh.
The victory was the result of nearly a decade of hard work and preparation. Lyons and his colleagues had begun tinkering with cars way back when they first started working on “Grand Theft Auto V,” buying a used 2006 BMW 325i with the sole purpose of modifying it to race at Nürburgring. In recent years, that car model has become a popular one in the race’s V4 division, which is exclusive to production sedans with 2.5-liter engines.
“It’s a pretty big achievement for a small team of game developers to build a racecar in a tent in Scotland, and then work up to compete in one of the biggest endurance races in the world,” said Eoin Callan, Rockstar North’s art director of props who served as the team’s crew chief. “Then to go on and win our class on our first attempt — we’re quite humbled by the whole experience!”
Rockstar itself even provided financial support to help the team realize its goal, and executives seem delighted with the outcome.
“What the team behind Rockstar Racing has been able to accomplish is incredible,” said Jennifer Kolbe, head of publishing at Rockstar North. “The passion they bring to motorsports both on the track and in-game is something we’re truly proud of.”
In a sense, art has imitated life: Just as Lyons and his colleagues have become more focused on racing over the years, so too has “Grand Theft Auto V.” The game’s online component, “Grand Theft Auto Online,” increasingly reflects its developers’ love of car culture, particularly with last year’s “Los Santos Tuners” update, which allows players to make in-depth modifications to their cars.
“We’ve been working on [‘GTA Online’] updates for years, and we are always trying to take what we learn and improve on it,” Lyons said. “All the cars are set up to be tuned so that every time you play, these cars [in the game] give that same satisfaction that we get when we race and tune in real life.”
Mission: Improbable
Lyons had always been a fan of car racing, but his participation in the sport had been limited to occasional “autosolos,” a popular form of motorsport in the U.K. that involves driving as fast as you can around cones set up to create a makeshift course. Most participants, including Lyons, used their daily commuter cars for these events.
“I’m not sure it was at all safe,” he laughed, “but it was just an amazing opportunity to learn car control.”
After landing his dream job at Rockstar and meeting his new, car-loving colleagues, the idea for Rockstar Racing was born, and Lyons bought a car more suitable for motorsports. The goal, right from the start, was lofty: to modify a BMW from the ground up, specifically designed to compete at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring — a race that, despite its difficulty, is open to amateur entries.
Lyons scored a deal on a used BMW 325i, and he and his colleagues soon set to work, installing a roll cage — necessary for safety — and making modifications, including stripping it of virtually all unnecessary parts and adjusting its weight distribution. All the while, Nürburgring remained the ultimate goal.
“It felt very far-fetched at that point,” Lyons recalled. “But there was always this underlying thought that if all the stars aligned, we could somehow do it.”
Located in the heart of Germany’s Eifel Mountains, the Nürburgring is the world’s longest permanent racetrack, with 73 corners and a 1,000-foot altitude change throughout the circuit. One lap typically lasts more than 10 minutes, and this year’s endurance race featured 138 total cars competing across a variety of classes.
Over the past few years, the Rockstar Racing team had gotten its feet wet by competing in smaller endurance races throughout Scotland, but Nürburgring, with its wild atmosphere and packed grandstands, was a different beast entirely.
“It’s such a special place,” said Lyons. “Driving in the dark there, you see all the fans with their big bonfires going. They’re playing this German, proper techno — you can smell the bonfires, smell the sausages.”
For Rockstar, the game plan for this year’s race was simple: Instead of trying to set blisteringly fast lap times, they aimed for a steady, measured pace, hoping that consistency would help them avoid crashes and unnecessary pit stops. That plan paid dividends, as Rockstar wound up winning its class comfortably by three laps with no major incidents.
“It may have looked smooth on paper, but it was pretty relentless in the pits,” said Callan, who called strategy for all 24 hours of the race and had to help orchestrate minor repairs on the car during each pit stop.
The make-or-break moment came early in the evening when it started raining hard in the pits. Due to the track’s location in the mountains and its enormous length, the Nürburgring can have deceptive weather conditions, with heavy rain on one side and perfect conditions on the other. As one of the team’s co-drivers (a friend of Lyons’ and not a Rockstar employee) came into the pits, a tough call had to be made.
“Our co-driver got out of the car in an absolute load of rain and said, ‘Ben, I know it’s raining here, but the rest of the track is dry, so do not put wet tires on,’” Lyons recalled.
Ultimately, Callan made the gutsy call — or, as he calls it, the “scary option” — of keeping dry-weather tires on, and it proved to be a winning decision. While Lyons did have to navigate a tricky bit of rain as he first exited the pits, sure enough, the rest of the track was dry, and victory was in sight.
How did it feel to pull off such an improbable victory?
“It was the usual mix of emotions,” said Callan, “but probably shock more than anything.”
‘Grand Theft Auto VI’ leak is Rockstar’s nightmare, YouTubers’ dream
Art Imitates Life
“Grand Theft Auto V” inspired Rockstar Racing to set out on its quest for Nürburgring glory, and the team has taken what it’s learned and put it back into the game. According to Rockstar, last year’s car-focused “Los Santos Tuners” update brought more new players to “Grand Theft Auto Online” than any previous update. Races now account for more than half of its user-generated content. Hundreds of millions of races have taken place online since the game’s launch in 2013, Rockstar said. “GTA Online” even features a Nürburgring racecourse that overlays the German track’s layout on top of Los Santos, the game’s fictional world.
“I just can’t believe the longevity of it,” said Lyons. “We love our community, and it just feels so special to make so many people happy.”
And while Rockstar remains tight-lipped about its next Grand Theft Auto game — especially after a hacker leaked unfinished videos of the project earlier this year — Lyons acknowledged that racing has emerged as a “strong point” of the series.
“Even now, ‘GTA Online’ is constantly evolving with updates filled with new cars, races, and experiences that build on what we’ve learned through our time on the track,” he said. “That’s something we’ll continue to do as we move into the future.”
As for Rockstar Racing, could more endurance races be in its future? Lyons says the team is more focused on game development at the moment, but a return to the track could very well be in the cards at some point down the road.
“It’s always been hand in hand for me: making video games and motorsports,” he said. “It’s amazing to get to this point where I can combine the two. What are the chances, really?”
Gregory Leporati is a freelance writer and photographer covering esports, tech and motorsports. His recent work has appeared in GQ, the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork and Ars Technica. Follow him on Twitter @leporparty. | 2022-12-20T20:56:34Z | www.washingtonpost.com | How a group of GTA V developers became unlikely motorsports champions - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/12/20/rockstar-north-gta-grand-theft-auto-online-motorsports-racing/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2022/12/20/rockstar-north-gta-grand-theft-auto-online-motorsports-racing/ |
The D.C. Council voted to temporarily restructure the city housing authority's governing board at its last meeting of the year. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)
The D.C. Council on Tuesday narrowly voted to temporarily restructure the city housing authority’s governing board amid a contentious public debate on whether problems at the agency could be sufficiently addressed through an emergency measure that was finalized just before the vote, during the legislature’s final meeting of the year.
Though the D.C. Housing Authority has had issues for years, calls to modify DCHA’s board increased drastically after a September report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development illuminated areas of poor oversight and mismanagement that have led to unsafe housing for public housing residents. While lawmakers agree that the 13-member board’s current structure is failing, they have clashed over an emergency bill from Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and D.C. Council chair Phil Mendelson (D) which — in its final iteration — would reduce the board to 9 voting members.
Some council members in recent weeks have objected to the emergency proposal, arguing that it came together hastily and has been muddied by various amendments and changes. Others disliked that the plan replaces many of the current commissioners, including some of the agency’s most vocal critics — arguing that the board needs more independence from the Bowser administration.
Mendelson repeatedly tweaked the bill to respond to various concerns, including moves to increase the voice and representation of DCHA tenants, but he withdrew the proposal two weeks ago when it became apparent he did not have the nine votes needed to pass it.
The latest version of the proposal, which Mendelson introduced Monday, included an additional change: a 10th, nonvoting board member — the president of DCHA’s citywide resident advisory board. Other changes since the original limit the duration of the new board to two years compared to three, and add a requirement for the board to conduct four listening sessions with public housing residents by May 2023. The “Stabilization and Reform Board” will remain in place for two years.
“The council cannot completely control who’s on this board, so there’s no way around working with the mayor,” Council member Robert C. White Jr. (D) said, adding that the need for urgent change outweighs any issues with the legislative process. “What we have done by pushing the mayor and working with colleagues is get this bill in a position where it’s not just better, it’s good.”
Council member Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) was among those who expressed concerns. She praised a separate, non-emergency bill to overhaul the board that was introduced last week by Council members Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) and Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2). Silverman and Pinto say that bill, which will need to be reintroduced next year, would allow for a more inclusive way to address issues at the agency — not just the board — with steps to address concerns about transparency and DCHA’s responsiveness to residents’ concerns.
“Fixing DCHA is urgent, but it cannot be so urgent that we don’t bring tenant voices and dissenting voices into the process to guide decision-making,” Lewis George said, adding that the hastened bill undermines public trust. “Why would we move an emergency without input from the tenants?”
Silverman, who is leaving the council after losing her reelection bid last month, also encouraged her colleagues not to vote for the emergency proposal: “Vote no, let the alarm-ringers stay on the board, and let the HUD report and the council’s accountability requirements actually push DCHA toward rapid corrective actions.”
The council voted 9-4 to approve the measure, just reaching the supermajority required for emergency bills. Lewis George, Silverman, Pinto and Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) voted “no.”
Following the council’s vote, DCHA released a statement thanking Bowser and the council “for their unwavering commitment, support and confidence in us as we work diligently to rebuild the agency. The passing vote to implement a restructured Board of Commissioners allows us to collaboratively govern and stabilize the agency in a renewed commitment to the residents we serve. We have work to do and look forward to doing it!”
The council passed several other measures in its final meeting of 2022, and the last meeting of its two-year council period. Many bills that first received a vote last week — like a measure to make Metrobus rides free in D.C. — were approved on second reading and will now go to Bowser’s desk.
Steve Thompson contributed to this report. | 2022-12-20T21:15:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. Council approves housing authority overhaul in final meeting of 2022 - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/dc-council-housing-authority-overhaul-vote/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/dc-council-housing-authority-overhaul-vote/ |
The Twitter-FBI story relies far more on insinuation than evidence
The Federal Bureau of Investigation seal at its headquarters in Washington. (Al Drago/Bloomberg News)
The third-most important story of Oct. 7, 2016, was a warning from the federal government about Russian efforts to interfere with that year’s presidential election. It was an unusual message and a relatively vague one, focused more on alerting elections administrators to possible intrusion attempts than “the recent compromises of emails from US persons and institutions," something that had been established several months prior.
It was the third-most important story because two other big stories soon buried it. The first was the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape by The Washington Post. The second was the release of material by WikiLeaks of communications involving Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta — material obtained through a compromised email account by hackers working for Russia, as the later investigation by the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III would establish clearly.
If any interference effort by Russia had an effect on the election, it was that one. WikiLeaks dropped a cache of new emails over an extended period, triggering negative news stories about Clinton’s presidential campaign day after day as the election neared. But Russia was also actively trying to leverage social media platforms to stir up dissent, an effort that attracted outsize attention despite not having had any discernible effect. That the WikiLeaks material was shared over social media almost certainly had a far more damaging effect than any ads Russian trolls purchased.
The presidential election had been tainted — perhaps only slightly, but tainted nonetheless — by a hostile foreign actor. It worked because it effectively leveraged American information-sharing systems, including social media sites. As a result, social media companies began implementing more tools aimed at uprooting or disrupting misinformation.
This context is critical for understanding what happened in 2020. By then, companies like Twitter had (imperfect) systems in place aimed at shutting down false claims or abusive behavior. They and federal law enforcement were on the lookout for efforts by Russia or other foreign powers to interfere with the presidential race once again. There were trainings focused on the possibility of “hack and dump” operations — stealing enormous amounts of information and releasing them publicly, letting a deeply bifurcated American public do the hard work of crafting damaging narratives out of the individual emails that were published.
That never manifested, at least not in 2020. Instead, two years later, hostile actors pored over a cache of emails to create a damaging narrative more tangentially linked to politics. That’s the ongoing effort, facilitated by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, to use internal Twitter emails to portray the FBI’s efforts to block potential foreign interference as itself being an intentional attempt to influence the campaign. His goal is political; he wants to reinforce the sense on the right that government actors in the “Deep State” conspire with the American left to hold power.
What’s been presented to date doesn’t show what is alleged by Musk and the writers tasked with picking cherries from Twitter’s email archives. What the actual evidence shows, instead, is an often ad hoc response to what happened in 2016, a response that is at times kludgey or dubious but not one that obviously shows a federal institution trying to reshape an election outcome.
But Musk promised a narrative and the writers working for him have created one, and a huge number of people appear to believe it to be accurate. It’s a robust demonstration both of how framing can affect understanding of a story and of the way in which cherry-picking from a cache of information allows for the creation of nearly any narrative that’s desired.
Here was the front page of the New York Post on Tuesday.
There are three snippets of text focused on how Twitter was working with the FBI. In large bold text, the cover reads, “How the FBI pressured Twitter to censor Hunter story agency knew was TRUE.” In smaller text, a snippet from the story: “... the FBI repeatedly warned the social-media company that ‘misinformation’ about Hunter Biden was coming — even though the feds had been given Hunter’s laptop in 2019.”
The New York Post, of course, sits at the center of Musk’s effort. When that newspaper released a story in October 2020 alleging to contain information obtained from a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter, it immediately triggered concern about Russian interference. After all, here was a cache of emails centered on someone close to the Democratic presidential nominee appearing a few weeks before Election Day — emails with a sketchy provenance, including having been presented to the media by Rudy Giuliani, an ally of Donald Trump who had been repeatedly linked to Russian intelligence.
(The New York Post declined to share the laptop material with other news sources, stymieing efforts to validate what was included. When The Washington Post did eventually receive a copy of the drive, we were able to validate a number of the emails it included, though it was obvious that files had been added or altered. Even the computer repair-shop owner who was Giuliani’s original source for the material noted that files had apparently been added to the collection.)
Information about Twitter’s decision to block sharing of the Post story — a decision quickly reversed — has been published in caches by writers working with Musk.
The New York Post cover story is largely based on a cache produced on Monday by conservative writer Michael Shellenberger. The process isn’t precisely mirroring WikiLeaks’ 2016 document dumps. Instead, Shellenberger and others are given access to documents (it’s not clear whether that access is itself limited) and draw out narratives to present to the public. And the story Shellenberger wanted to tell was the one the New York Post amplified: The FBI tried to cast the Hunter Biden story as misinformation.
But he doesn’t have evidence to that effect. The Post’s story is headlined, “FBI pressured Twitter, sent trove of docs hours before Post broke Hunter laptop story,” capturing the intended narrative. What Shellenberger shows, though, is that the FBI sent documents to Twitter the evening before the first story about the laptop was published — but not what those documents said or even what they dealt with. It’s all insinuation: Hunter Biden’s team had learned about the soon-to-be-released story (as evidenced by an email sent to the repair-shop owner) and, a few hours later, the FBI sent something to Twitter. That’s it.
As for the “pressure”? That’s all framing as well. The FBI repeatedly discussed possible interference efforts with Twitter which, again, makes sense in the context of what happened in 2016. Shellenberger presents various communications between Twitter and the FBI — a cherry-picking that gives someone reading through his Twitter thread a sense of constant communication even though the messages are often months apart.
There are, of course, obvious reasons for the FBI to have a process for working with Twitter. The rise of the Islamic State and its use of social media tools for recruitment made clear the potential national-security issues at stake from instantaneous, global communications systems. Russia’s 2016 efforts made that challenge more directly tangible to American observers.
One of the unintentionally revealing revelations from Shellenberger is that a Twitter executive participated in an exercise aimed at dealing with a “hack and leak” operation centered on Hunter Biden. “Efforts continued to influence” the Twitter executive, Shellenberger writes, as though this third-party exercise was somehow linked to the FBI. But it also makes clear why Hunter Biden might have been a point of concern: He’d become a central point of attack for the right when Trump was first impeached. Trump, you’ll recall, tried to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation of Joe Biden based on Hunter Biden’s work with a company called Burisma. In January 2020, it was reported that Burisma had been hacked. So the exercise focused on a potential dump of emails related to Hunter Biden stolen from the company.
In the context of the moment, that focus made sense. In Shellenberger’s narrative, it is made to seem nefarious. And the New York Post — like Musk, eager to cast Twitter and the FBI as bad actors — is happy to elevate Shellenberger’s presentation.
One of the most important essays assessing the way in which enormous amounts of information are available online was published by the New Republic in 2009. Written by lawyer and activist Lawrence Lessig, it is called “Against Transparency” — itself a provocative title but one that gets at Lessig’s point.
Too much information, he argues, can be a dangerous thing.
“To understand something — an essay, an argument, a proof of innocence — requires a certain amount of attention,” Lessig writes. “But on many issues, the average, or even rational, amount of attention given to understand many of these correlations, and their defamatory implications, is almost always less than the amount of time required. The result is a systemic misunderstanding — at least if the story is reported in a context, or in a manner, that does not neutralize such misunderstanding.”
He predicted situations like the one that emerged in October 2016 and in December 2022: Bad-faith or misinformed actors had enough information at their disposal to tell whatever story they wanted, with average readers unable to recognize what exonerating information might have been left out of the presentation.
“The point in such cases is not that the public isn’t smart enough to figure out what the truth is,” Lessig writes. “The point is the opposite. The public is too smart to waste its time focusing on matters that are not important for it to understand. The ignorance here is rational, not pathological. It is what we would hope everyone would do, if everyone were rational about how best to deploy their time. Yet even if rational, this ignorance produces predictable and huge misunderstandings."
Now inject a motivated audience — the New York Post, Musk’s followers on Twitter, supporters of Donald Trump eager to think the election was stolen from him — and you lose interest in taking time to understand ameliorating information entirely. A recent study found that it’s the favorability of a news story, not the source of the story, that predisposes people to believe inaccurate information.
There are legitimate questions about how Twitter moderated — and currently moderates — its content. And the FBI, of course, has a long history of dubious behavior. But neither of those things diminishes the fact that the allegations Musk is eager to elevate are predicated on an unfailingly ungenerous interpretation of select documents. That there is no evidence to support his most extreme claims, but instead only a narrator’s injected presentation of how nefarious things might be.
The worry isn’t that Musk might nonetheless believe the story he’s presenting the world. It’s that so many other people, unable to know what’s being withheld or unable to take the time to understand the fuller context, are eager to believe it too. | 2022-12-20T21:55:01Z | www.washingtonpost.com | The Twitter-FBI story relies far more on insinuation than evidence - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/twitter-fbi-story-relies-far-more-insinuation-than-evidence/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/20/twitter-fbi-story-relies-far-more-insinuation-than-evidence/ |
D.C. United will open its 2023 MLS campaign against Toronto FC on Feb. 25 at Audi Field. (Will Newton for The Washington Post)
D.C. United will open the MLS season against Toronto FC on Feb. 25 at Audi Field as part of a 2023 slate also highlighted by the All-Star Game’s return to D.C. and a month-long summer break for the newly expanded Leagues Cup.
MLS on Tuesday revealed the 34-game schedules for all 29 teams, including expansion club St. Louis City. The schedules are heavily slanted toward intraconference play, with United facing every Eastern Conference opponent home and away and playing just six matches against Western teams.
The unbalanced schedule means United will not face MLS Cup champion Los Angeles FC, the Concacaf Champions League-winning Seattle Sounders or a Houston Dynamo team led by former United coach Ben Olsen.
D.C. will open the season with 13 straight matches against Eastern opponents before hosting Javier “Chicharito” Hernández and the LA Galaxy on May 20. Including the opening match against Toronto — a meeting of the two worst teams in MLS last season — United will play five of its first seven games against clubs that missed the playoffs in 2022 as Coach Wayne Rooney kicks off his first full season in charge.
United also will have an enviable opportunity to pick up points down the stretch, as it plays five of six matches at Audi Field from Aug. 26 to Sept. 23 and concludes its regular season at home against New York City FC on Oct. 7. In a scheduling quirk caused by the league’s odd number of teams, United will be the lone club not playing Oct. 20, when the regular season comes to a close with 14 simultaneous kickoffs.
All of United’s matches will be played at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time or later, with 28 games on Saturdays, four on Wednesdays, one on a Tuesday (a July 4 trip to face FC Dallas) and one on a Sunday (an Aug. 20 visit to the rival New York Red Bulls).
The league will launch its 10-year partnership with Apple this season, and every match will be streamed via the subscription service MLS Season Pass. The Fox family of networks will also air 34 matches.
As previously announced, United will host the MLS All-Star Game on July 19 at Audi Field, the midseason spectacle’s return to D.C. for the first time since it was held at RFK Stadium in 2004. MLS has not confirmed the format for the match, which has featured the MLS All-Stars facing a squad composed of players from Mexico’s Liga MX the past two years.
The MLS campaign will then go on hiatus until Aug. 20 for the Leagues Cup, the third edition of a tournament with clubs from MLS and Liga MX. After the first two versions of the competition — held in 2019 and 2021 — featured just eight teams, the revamped 2023 iteration will include all 47 clubs from the two leagues in a World Cup-style tournament. United will play from two to seven matches.
After finishing last in MLS with a 7-21-6 record and firing general manager Lucy Rushton, United has bolstered its roster this offseason with the acquisitions of goalkeepers Tyler Miller and Alex Bono and defenders Derrick Williams, Mohanad Jeahze and Pedro Santos.
United’s schedule (all times Eastern):
at Columbus Crew
at New York City FC
at Chicago Fire
at CF Montreal
at Orlando City
at FC Cincinnati
at Philadelphia Union
at Toronto FC
at Inter Miami
at Atlanta United
at Nashville SC
at FC Dallas
at New England Revolution
at New York Red Bulls
at Charlotte FC
at Vancouver Whitecaps
at Austin FC | 2022-12-20T22:16:50Z | www.washingtonpost.com | D.C. United kicks off season Feb. 25 then hosts MLS All-Star Game - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/dc-united-mls-2023-schedule/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/dc-united-mls-2023-schedule/ |
Erasmo Ramirez was an effective multi-inning reliever for the Nationals last season. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Amid their offseason defined by minor moves, the Washington Nationals on Tuesday re-signed right-hander Erasmo Ramirez to a one-year contract. To clear space for him on the 40-man roster, they designated righty Gerardo Carrillo for assignment.
Ramirez received a $1 million base salary but could earn another $1 million in incentives, according to a person familiar with the deal. Last season, his first with the Nationals, the 32-year-old journeyman was an invaluable part of Manager Dave Martinez’s bullpen as a multi-inning reliever who could start if needed. Ramirez finished with a 4-2 record and a 2.92 ERA in 60 appearances (including two starts) as he ate innings when the rotation struggled.
The Nationals also announced that they agreed to a one-year deal with Tanner Rainey to avoid arbitration; a person familiar with the contract said it was worth $1.5 million. Rainey, the Nationals’ closer to begin last season, suffered an ulnar collateral ligament sprain in July and had Tommy John surgery, so he won’t be ready for Opening Day. Rainey, who turns 30 next week, had a 3.30 ERA and converted 12 of 16 save opportunities in his fourth season with the Nationals.
Carrillo, 24, was one of four prospects acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Max Scherzer/Trea Turner blockbuster trade in 2021, joining Josiah Gray, Keibert Ruiz and Donovan Casey. Last season, he topped out at Class AA Harrisburg, where he had an 11.32 ERA in 10⅓ innings of relief. Also Tuesday, the Nationals outrighted infielder Lucius Fox to Class AAA Rochester after he cleared waivers.
Righty Erick Fedde, the Nationals’ 2014 first-round pick who was non-tendered in November, agreed to a one-year contract with the NC Dinos of South Korea’s KBO League. His deal is worth $1 million, people familiar with it told The Washington Post. The 29-year-old will look to revive his career in South Korea after finishing last season with a career-worst 5.81 ERA in 127 innings over 27 starts. | 2022-12-20T22:16:56Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Erasmo Ramirez, Tanner Rainey return to Washington Nationals - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/erasmo-ramirez-tanner-rainey-nationals-bullpen/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/12/20/erasmo-ramirez-tanner-rainey-nationals-bullpen/ |
At least 77 people died homeless in nation’s capital this year
A person experiencing homelessness at Union Station in Washington earlier this year. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
At least 77 homeless people have died in the District so far in 2022, according to D.C.’s medical examiner, perishing by intoxication, hypothermia, homicide and other causes as officials and the White House battle a problem entrenched in American life.
On Tuesday evening — the longest night of the year during which temperatures are set to drop below freezing — advocates in the city will hold an overnight vigil for those who died unhoused, sharing their stories and releasing data that largely tracks the District’s.
If the triple-digit death toll among D.C. unhoused residents in recent years is a guide, the number of dead is likely to dramatically increase as the medical examiner, whose statistics reflect a 90-day delay, completes additional autopsies and releases their results.
More than half of the “undomiciled” deaths in the District were due to intoxication, data show, with cardiovascular disease a distant second. Four killings and three deaths by hypothermia were also recorded.
The numbers appeared on track to easily exceed 100 as in recent years. In 2020, at least 180 homeless people died in the city — a number not far behind the nearly 200 homicides in the city that year — and 138 died in 2021, according to the medical examiner.
On Tuesday ahead of the vigil, Jesse Rabinowitz, senior manager for policy and advocacy at the homeless outreach organization Miriam’s Kitchen, shared a list compiled by advocates of 70 people who died without housing. The individuals were mostly identified by their initials and age.
Rabinowitz said that while detailed data was not available for all the people who died, 60 percent “were matched” to a housing voucher, but died before they could secure housing, and more than half were Black.
“They were in need of supportive housing immediately,” he said in an interview. “The fact that they died before … shows we have to move with more urgency.”
D.C. officials declined to comment.
This is the current list of people who died without housing in DC as well as the list of people who died after moving into housing. May their memories be for a revolution. Join @WashingtonPffc tonight @LutherPlace to honor their lives. pic.twitter.com/P5u7meEa8W
— Jesse Rabinowitz 🔥🌹@jesserbnwtz@universeodon.com (@jesserbnwtz) December 20, 2022
The White House and officials around the country have announced new initiatives to fight homelessness in recent weeks, some that would dramatically change the way unhoused people are treated in encampments and on city streets.
On Monday, the Biden administration released a plan to reduce homelessness by 25 percent in the next two years, focusing on racial equity and affordable housing, among other initiatives.
Biden’s announcement came after New York’s mayor said earlier this month he would institutionalize mentally ill homeless people against their will and Los Angeles’s mayor declared a state of emergency to battle homelessness in a city where encampments are endemic.
D.C.’s efforts to contain homelessness have been no less dramatic. In the past three years, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has cleared encampments around Union Station and in other areas. Federal officials have also cleared encampments on federal land near the station and in parks.
Mayor Bowser promised to end homelessness. Here’s how it’s going.
In April, Bowser said the number of homeless people in the city hit a 17-year low, falling 47 percent since the city announced a plan to combat homelessness in 2015.
Joseph Mettimano, president and chief executive of Central Union Mission, a nonprofit that runs a homeless shelter near Union Station, said he’d known at least a dozen people who “perished on the streets” in his 20-year career. Remembering those who die is important, he said.
“It’s definitely a somber day but a good point in time to raise the profile of homelessness in the city,” he said of the vigil. “There is a whole group of human beings out there who need assistance.” | 2022-12-20T22:25:35Z | www.washingtonpost.com | At least 77 people died homeless in D.C. in 2022, medical examiner says - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/dc-homeless-deaths-vigil/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/20/dc-homeless-deaths-vigil/ |
D.C. sees two percentage-point bump in high school graduation rates
The share of high school graduates increased from about 73 to 75 percent between the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years, officials said
Friends and family celebrate the Class of 2022 of Roosevelt Senior High School Ceremony in D.C. on June 21. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)
D.C. saw a two percentage-point bump in its four-year graduation rate during the 2021-2022 school year, a third consecutive year of growth after years of fluctuation, city leaders announced Tuesday.
The share of high school graduates across the city increased to 74.9 percent, up from about 72.6 percent in 2020-2021, according to data from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education. Both sectors experienced growth — the four-year graduation rate in D.C. public schools rose from 70.6 percent to 72.5 percent between the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. Charter schools saw an increase from 76.9 percent to 80 percent over the same period.
Christina Grant, state superintendent of education, credits the growth, in part, to the return of in-person schooling. The city has also been making investments in college- and career-prep programs, including $9 million on its Advanced Technical Center, where high-schoolers can take courses in cybersecurity, general nursing and health information technology for college credit.
“Knowing we still have work to do, we are really, really pleased that our school systems opened,” Grant said. “Particularly for our high-schoolers, them returning to school and being able to be in-person for their senior year was really important to the work that has to take place in getting them across the finish line.”
D.C.'s graduation rate continued to inch forward between 2020 and 2021, a time when schools had been upended by the pandemic and at least 20 states throughout the country saw declines, Chalkbeat reported. The city’s graduation rate in 2019-2020 was 70.9 percent, data show.
With the most recent data, some districts have also reported graduation rate growth — including Chicago, where 82.9 percent of students graduated in 2022, compared with 80.2 percent the year prior.
In D.C., the share of Black graduates grew three percentage points to 73.6 percent, data shows. Graduation rates for students identified by the city as “at-risk” — those who are homeless or in foster care, whose families qualify for food stamps, or who are in high school and have been held back at least one year — increased by one percentage point, from about 62 to 63 percent.
D.C. school enrollment hits 15-year high, mayor says
Students with disabilities saw the greatest gains: The share of graduates jumped four percentage points, from 54 percent to more than 58 percent.
Meanwhile, however, graduation rates for Hispanic and Latino students dropped, from 69.8 percent to 68.4 percent. Students who are learning English suffered the largest loss, from 59.7 percent to 54.3 percent of students graduating within four years.
In the public school system, Chancellor Lewis Ferebee acknowledged there is room for improvement. But, he said, the system has been working for years to get more students to make it across the graduation stage.
“This has been a slow and steady process for us,” Ferebee said, adding that in 2019, just under two-thirds of students were graduating on time. The district has since made changes, including hiring a graduation manager, introducing a high school, college and career guide for middle-schoolers, expanding opportunities for students to regain credits and providing more academic support to ninth-graders. That first year of high school is critical, research shows, and those who move on to tenth grade are more likely to graduate.
But the district is also one that has faced scrutiny over whether students properly earn their diplomas. A 2018 report, commissioned by OSSE, described a systemic culture within D.C. public schools of passing students even if they didn’t meet graduation requirements. Teachers, the report found, felt pressured to award diplomas.
Ferebee said the system has since tightened graduation requirements, and regularly monitors metrics such as students’ grades and attendance. Those efforts continued through the pandemic, he added.
“Because we’ve been consistent for multiple years, the pandemic was not an opportunity for us to soften our bar or lower our standards,” Ferebee said. “OSSE and DCPS have a high bar for graduation across the city.” | 2022-12-20T22:25:41Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Graduation rates improve for D.C. high school students - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/20/dc-high-school-graduation-rate/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/20/dc-high-school-graduation-rate/ |
Bank of Japan’s ‘Technical’ Policy Change Is Anything But
Analysis by Richard Cookson | Bloomberg
Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), during a news conference at the central bank’s headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022. Kuroda shocked markets by doubling a cap on 10-year yields, sparking a jump in the yen and a slide in government bonds in a move that helps pave the way for possible policy normalization under a new governor. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)
In any case, this is all nonsense and a classic case of the difference between what the Japanese call honne and tatemae, or reality and appearance. In reality, Kuroda is due to retire on April 8, 2023 at the latest. The betting inside the BOJ is that he will be replaced by Hiroshi Nakaso, a former deputy governor of the central bank and current chairman of the Daiwa Research Institute. I suspect his arrival will be warmly welcomed at the BOJ. I’ve known him for 25 years and he is strongly opposed to yield-curve control. Nakaso published a book last year about how the BOJ should stop controlling the long end of the bond market and concentrate only on short-term rates. He will also gradually shrink the BOJ’s huge balance sheet. At 127% of gross domestic product, it is far bigger than any other central bank.
That makes the latest policy announcement a messy compromise in a transition brokered, apparently, by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The finance ministry didn’t want any change in long-term interest rates and why would it? The compromise was for the BOJ to announce more QE at the same time, even though it makes no sense. The bigger point is that all this is merely a fig leaf for a BOJ under a new governor that will pursue a radically different monetary policy. Since markets knew that both Nakaso and the other candidate who had been in the running for governor, current BOJ deputy governor Masayoshi Amamiya, are more hawkish, keeping the yield target at 0.25% would have been increasingly untenable as Kuroda’s retirement date approached. Now we know, it is completely untenable.
It is hard to overemphasize the importance of this policy change. Starved of yield domestically and with the yen on a vicious weakening trend, Japanese investors have turned to bond markets elsewhere where yields are higher. Although offering slightly more yield on JGBs is insufficient in itself to make domestic bonds more attractive, this change in policy is likely to make the yen much less of a one-way bet. As it is, the yen has strengthened the past couple of months, eroding the extra returns offered by US Treasuries and, to a lesser extent, European bonds.
The broader context here is that one-by-one the world’s biggest central banks are reversing long-held policies of manipulating bond yields lower. The BOJ’s move is just the latest but probably the most significant given how long it has been suppressing market yields. This is another way of saying that one arm of governments (central banks) isn’t manipulating as much the rate at which the other arm of the governments (their treasuries) was willing to borrow. Guess what happens when bond investors are given more choice? Yields rise. Japanese yields have a lot more room to rise. I doubt the BOJ’s new target will be credible given that it has scrapped its old target and will soon be under new management. Given current inflation rates, no one in their right mind would lend to the Japanese government at these yields.
Or, for that matter, the derisory yields available in most of Europe. Last week, the European Central Bank announced that it will start shrinking its balance sheet by 15 billion euros ($15.9 billion) a month from March. At some point, the BOJ will do the same. As it is, the combined balance sheets of the ECB, BOJ and Federal Reserve are already contracting at rare of 10% annually, according to Yardeni Research. So, the central bank bid for bonds will increasingly go into reverse, as they will be selling into the market. And they will be doing so at a time when the supply from governments is about to go up markedly. Yields will rise and risky assets will remain under pressure. That’s a main takeaway from the BOJ’s “technical” change. More From Bloomberg Opinion: | 2022-12-20T22:25:46Z | www.washingtonpost.com | Bank of Japan’s ‘Technical’ Policy Change Is Anything But - The Washington Post | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bank-of-japans-technical-policy-change-is-anything-but/2022/12/20/1608c2c8-80aa-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html | https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/bank-of-japans-technical-policy-change-is-anything-but/2022/12/20/1608c2c8-80aa-11ed-8738-ed7217de2775_story.html |
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