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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks in Brussels on Feb. 22. (Johanna Geron/Pool/AP)
BRUSSELS — European leaders who had been emphasizing diplomacy with Moscow rapidly shifted gears Tuesday after Russia deployed troops into two separatist regions of Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Berlin would halt the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project between Russia and Germany, dealing a blow to Russia’s energy sector. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced what he said was a “first barrage” of sanctions, targeting five Russian banks and three Russian billionaires who are members of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc would blacklist more lawmakers and officials and restrict Russian access to the E.U.'s financial and capital markets. And the foreign ministers representing Group of Seven economies agreed to “coordinated escalatory sanctions” against Russia, as well.
But experts described the initial wave of European sanctions — together with those announced Tuesday by the United States — as incremental and unlikely to alter Putin’s calculations in the short term. Instead, the response by the West set the stage for a protracted pressure campaign, with Putin and European leaders all weighing their next moves.
“This is going to be much more of a slow burn,” said Julia Friedlander, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who served as the top White House adviser on the European Union and economic issues from 2017 to 2019.
Even if Western governments impose heavier penalties in the coming weeks, it could take months for any measures to have a significant impact on Russia’s oligarch class or economy.
Still, the hit will not be felt instantly. Even without the suspension, the project faced a long regulatory review process before it was due to come online.
Whether to terminate the pipeline plan had been a sticking point between the United States and the German government as measures to deter Russian aggression were examined in recent weeks. President Biden had vowed that if Russian troops crossed into Ukraine, “there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Scholz — the one in position to end it — had been more evasive, saying only that “all options” were on the table when it came to punitive fiscal measures toward Moscow.
But on Tuesday, the chancellor said his government had withdrawn an Economy Ministry report on the impact the pipeline would have on the security of Germany’s gas supplies.
“Germany did the right thing when it came down to it,” said Brian O’Toole, a former sanctions adviser at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. “It’s a project with huge geopolitical ramifications beyond the narrower economic ones.”
“That’s doesn’t mean that there aren’t material economic costs, even if those are smaller than major bank sanctions,” said O’Toole, also an Atlantic Council senior fellow. “How much did [Russian state-owned gas company] Gazprom spend on this? It’s billions of dollars. There’s certainly an effect there.”
But Peter Beyer, the German government’s coordinator for transatlantic cooperation and a parliamentarian with Germany’s Christian Democrats, criticized Scholz for not making a bolder political decision.
“Chancellor Olaf Scholz continues to hide behind an administrative act due to disagreements within the party,” he said, referring to reported splits within Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats on how to deal with Russian aggression. He accused Scholz of “passing the buck” to his coalition partners the Greens, who run the Economy Ministry.
In Britain, Johnson has offered plenty of tough rhetoric, warning that Putin is planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945.” But analysts and even some lawmakers in the prime minister’s party were underwhelmed by the sanctions announced Tuesday — against well-insulated banks and previously targeted oligarchs who have probably kept their assets out of Britain.
The three billionaires, all involved in the energy sector, have been on the U.S. sanctions list for years. Gennady Timchenko of the Volga Group investment firm and Boris Rotenberg, co-owner of SGM (Stroygazmontazh) Group, were hit with U.S. sanctions in 2014 after the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea. Igor Rotenberg, Boris Rotenberg’s nephew and formerly the majority shareholder in Gazprom Drilling, was placed under U.S. Treasury Department sanctions in 2018.
Gavin Wilde, a former director for Russia, Baltic and Caucasus affairs on the National Security Council who served in the Trump administration, called the British targets “low-hanging fruit.”
“The banks they hit were kind of set up by Russia in expectation that sanctions were coming,” he said, meaning their international exposure is limited. As a result, he said, there will be “more symbolism in the U.K. than impact.”
Similarly, Wilde said, targeting Timchenko and the Rotenbergs may send a message to Putin “personally,” because of their reported ties to the Russian president and their “patronage over some of his own finances.” But Wilde noted the absence of more-prominent figures, including Roman Abramovich, owner of the Chelsea Football Club in England.
Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Financial Crime and Security Studies at RUSI, a London think tank, noted that nongovernmental organizations have identified more than 150 people with connections to Britain that could have been targeted under legislation passed on Feb. 10.
“You don’t take a peashooter to a gunfight,” Keatinge said, expressing his dismay with the sanctions announced so far.
Wilde said Britain’s financial entanglements with Russian oligarchs constrain its options. “The more rocks they kick over, the more of an indictment it is of how lax they’ve been the last couple decades on dirty Russian money flooding their system,” he said.
E.U. comes together on incremental sanctions
While Russian tanks were rolling into eastern Ukraine, E.U. diplomats scurried between calls and meetings to hash out their response. They emerged Tuesday evening with agreement on an initial round of penalties, suggesting there would be more to come.
The E.U. sanctions will target people and entities linked to Russia’s latest moves, including 351 members of the State Duma, the lower house, who voted to recognize the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.
The bloc will also target the ability of the Russian state to access the E.U.’s capital and financial markets and services, “limiting the financing of their policies,” Borrell said. In a tweet — which later appeared to have been deleted — he said there would be no more shopping in Milan, diamonds in Antwerp or partying in Saint-Tropez for Russian officials.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised what she called a “solid” package that “contains a number of calibrated measures.”
Europe and its allies appear to be opting for a step-by-step approach, said Edward Hunter Christie, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
“It is incremental,” he said. “The measures are not the strongest from an economic-impact perspective, but they do have high symbolic value and they are important as a first signal of resolve or credibility.”
Christie said he expects Europe and the United States to meet further Russian moves with tougher measures, such as export controls.
But the E.U. remains split on what counts as an escalation or invasion by Russia, as well as what specific measures the sanctions should include.
Over the weekend, Ukrainian officials urged Europe to impose sanctions on Putin before he acted. “We don’t need your sanctions after the bombardment will happen and after our country will be fired at, or after we will have no borders and after we will have no economy or part of our country will be occupied,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with CNN.
But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States and its allies did not want to lay out their plans “until the tanks are actually moving, the planes are actually flying, the bombs are actually dropping.”
Now, U.S. and European leaders may face questions about why they did not act sooner or do more.
“These are strong sanctions, but they are survivable,” Christie said. “My suspicion is that if the situation escalates much more seriously, there will be additional measures that have not been announced yet or even discussed.”
Adam, Booth and Miller reported from London. Morris reported from Przemysl, Poland. Quentin Ariès in Brussels and Rick Noack in Paris contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
Heavy artillery is loaded onto a Russian army transport about 19 miles from the border with Ukraine in Rostov Oblast, Russia, on Feb. 22. (Photo for The Washington Post)
On Monday evening, after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the legitimacy of the breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent, he ordered what he called “peacekeeping” troops into the region, only parts of which are controlled by pro-Moscow separatists.
Vladimir Putin admonished his head of foreign intelligence during a carefully orchestrated, prerecorded meeting of the Russian Security Council. (The Washington Post)
After that meeting, Putin aired an angry, prerecorded speech that recognized the sovereignty of the regions, where fighting first broke out in 2014, and rejected Ukraine’s legitimacy as an independent nation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later responded to Putin’s speech in a televised address calling for a “peaceful, diplomatic solution” to the situation. “We are on our land,” he added. “We owe nothing to anybody.”
Meanwhile, leaders of the separatist areas announced a mass evacuation of civilians, saying they knew of plans for an imminent attack by Ukrainian forces. Buses were escorted by the head of police from Donbas to Rostov, a city in southwestern Russia.
A Washington Post photographer captured images of a badly damaged kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska. No children were harmed, but three adults were injured, according to the Ukrainian military. The kindergarten director describes hustling the children to hide from the shelling in this video.
Although they have increased in intensity, clashes between Ukrainian soldiers and the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine are nothing new. More than 3,000 civilians have been killed there since 2014, according to the United Nations.
Despite military aid from Western countries and newly delivered equipment, the 209,000 active-duty Ukrainian fighters face a potential battle against Russia. In the trenches, the soldiers acknowledge the challenges ahead, should Putin launch a full-scale invasion.
“Our defense is our job,” Oleksander, a battalion commander, told The Post. “But whoever helps us, we’ll be grateful for it.” He took The Post into the trenches where his troops were preparing for a possible Russian invasion.
Both countries said Russian troops would withdraw when the exercises ended Feb. 20. When that deadline arrived, both announced that Russian forces would stay in Belarus indefinitely.
The strains between Russia and Ukraine involve land borders and strategic influence. Ukraine once was a part of the Soviet Union, a fact that Putin used to question the legitimacy of the country’s independence. He sees Ukraine, which has been an independent nation since 1991, as an integral part of greater Russia.
PAK.
In 2014, Russian military forces annexed Crimea on the Black Sea, after Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution ousted a pro-Russian government for a Western-leaning one. Putin backed separatists in the eastern industrial regions that are the flash point of the current actions. On Tuesday, forces entered those eastern regions, and Putin called on Ukraine to accept that Crimea is Russian territory, a continuation of his long push to return Ukraine to Russia’s fold.
Ruby Mellen reported from Washington. Whitney Shefte and Michael Robinson Chavez reported from Novotroitske, Ukraine. Whitney Leaming and Salwan Georges reported from Stanytsia Luhanska, Ukraine. | null | null | null | null | null |
When the prosecution detailed how the defendants repeatedly denigrated Black people in their social media, in casual conversations and in agitated rants, the nastiness was vivid and free-floating. There was no way to take the edge off the words by couching them as good ol’ boy jokes or politically incorrect misunderstandings or locker room talk. All that racist vulgarity was piled up right next to Arbery’s lifeless body in the middle of the road. | null | null | null | null | null |
Appeals court upholds decision blocking S.C. abortion law
Court upholds decision blocking abortion law
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that temporarily blocks the enforcement of South Carolina’s fetal heartbeat law, which would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
South Carolina’s law requires doctors to perform ultrasounds to check for fetal cardiac activity, which can typically be detected about six weeks into pregnancy. Once activity is detected, the abortion can be performed only if the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest or if the mother’s life is in danger.
Gov. Henry McMaster (R) signed the law last year, but it was immediately challenged in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood.
In its ruling Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Mary Lewis, who suspended the law on its second day in effect.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) said he is considering all legal options.
South Carolina’s law has been blocked, pending the outcome of that case.
If the court simply upholds Mississippi’s ban, other Republican-governed states would probably enact similar measures, while any demise of Roe could prompt more sweeping bans.
2 helicopters crash near ski resort
None of men and women aboard the helicopter or the dozens of skiers nearby were injured, authorities said. Utah National Guard spokesman Jared Jones said the crash occurred during a standard training exercise on U.S. Forest Service land just outside the boundaries of Snowbird Ski Resort, about 28 miles from Salt Lake City.
Joseph Schafer, a 23-year-old from Provo, Utah, heard the thud. He said it sounded similar to the blast noise from the explosives ski patrols set off to control avalanches, but he realized it was a crash when he saw a helicopter’s rotor fly out of the cloud of powder.
The skiers and snowboarders were taking advantage of fresh snow and clear skies after the Presidents’ Day weekend. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber” with Brian Koppelman, David Levien & Beth Schacter
MS. PASSARIELLO: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Christina Passariello, technology editor here at The Washington Post.
Today we are going to focus on a new Showtime series, "Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber." It's a fascinating story of a very successful Silicon Valley unicorn and the rise and fall of its CEO. The first installment airs this Sunday.
My three guests today are the showrunners and executive producers of the program: Brian Koppelman, Beth Schacter, and David Levien. Welcome to all of you.
MR. LEVIEN: Thank you.
MR. KOPPELMAN: Our pleasure.
MS. SCHACTER: Thanks.
MS. PASSARIELLO: And a reminder to the audience, we want you to join our conversation today. So please tweet your questions and comments to the handle, @PostLive.
All right. Let's dive on in. Brian, I'll start with you. Your show is based on the excellent book, "Super Pumped," by Mike Isaac. So why is the story of Uber and its troubled CEO, Travis Kalanick, so gripping that Showtime wanted to transform it into a TV series?
MR. KOPPELMAN: Well, first of all, it's great to be here. Thanks for having us.
I mean, you know, you kind of answered the question in your question, which is Mike Isaac crafted the narrative of this story in a way that the moment you started reading it, you understood this was a story you had to try to amplify and tell for an even bigger audience, and it lent itself‑‑you know, as the book was constructed, it lent itself to being crated as drama.
You know, there's these amazing parts: Travis, Ariana, and Bill Gurley. We felt like we could get actors to portray them who we really wanted to work with, and we felt it was a really important story. You know, this is a story of what happens with the revolutionaries become the fascists, in a way, and it felt like really a story for our time. And we never hesitated, and neither did Showtime. This was, from the moment we read the book, a story we were determined to tell because also it's an incredible ride, very entertaining, funny, and absurd with a capital A.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Yes. Sometimes it's even hard to believe that it's real, and yet it is the important book we know.
So, David, you and Brian wrote the first script for the series. What did you want to convey about this story right out of the gate?
MR. LEVIEN: Well, right out of the gate, we thought it was important, and that's why it's in the first scene, the idea of these people who are running this company not being necessarily on the up and up but being so bent on achieving their goals of growth and domination of this sector that they are willing to cut corners.
That's why in the first scene, they're talking about a safe ride's fee that they're going to institute and charge all the riders. That wasn't going to really result in any safety. It was just going to result in profit. We thought that was important so that people understood the footing that they were on and the way that they should look at these characters right from the start.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Well, that's great.
Beth, the three of you worked on "Billions" together. I'm curious, how is it different to adapt to this true story versus fictionalizing wealth and excess?
MS. SCHACTER: Well, I mean, so Brian and David obviously created "Billions" and brought me on in Season 5. So I'm new to the partnership, though we've all been friends for about 15 years, which is about half as long as these guys have been friends with each other. But I was just very happy to sort of be asked along for the ride.
You know, it's a similar muscle in terms of creating a show from a book or creating a show from the ground up, and you just are exercising in a different way. So there's a real joy in having a blank page and kind of being able to do anything with it, and there's a real joy and fun in having a book as great as Mike Isaac's book and putting it up on the board and seeing what pieces of it really hit you in the gut and really make you want to dig into that part of the story. And they're both‑‑they're related and both really delightful.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Well, it's fascinating. Let's take a look at a clip from the first episode, which gives us a sense of Kalanick's power of persuasion. Let's roll that now.
MS. PASSARIELLO: David, what's your reaction to that scene? You know, we see a really excited and talented and passionate leader in Travis Kalanick. What does it tell us about him‑‑or TK, as he's called in the show?
MR. LEVIEN: Well, yeah, that's the thing. You know, Joseph Gordon‑Levitt did an amazing job embodying this character. So I was just appreciating watching his performance.
But one thing we wanted to establish early on is his effectiveness running this company. You know, he got hundreds and thousands of people to follow him and to enlist in his vision, and he was charismatic, and he got people‑‑he got people on board, and it was amazing. So we needed to set that table, if you will, and the viewer sort of jumps on board also. And it's only later that they realize that they might have signed on for things that weren't as they appeared in the beginning.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Yeah, it's so interesting.
Beth, I mean, Kalanick is portrayed in your series as both like the hero and antihero. How do you square both of those things in the storytelling process?
MS. SCHACTER: We don't really think of it that way. We think of it more as he's someone who was determined to change the world and did change the world. We don't spend a lot of time talking about is he a good guy or is he a bad guy. What we really want to ask ourselves is what is the cost of disruption and of this kind of disruption and of successful disruption. Unlike some other tech disrupters who are being portrayed in the press right now or in TV shows right now, Travis was incredibly successful.
We all have Uber in our pocket. So we're really asking what's the cost of that and what happens when someone who sees opportunity, and as they say in the show and we say in the show, "wheels" an entire sector into being when he finishes that process and gets to the top, what does it do to him and what does it do to the people around him?
MS. PASSARIELLO: That's so interesting.
Let's see. Brian, tell us a little bit about how you guys worked with Joseph Gordon‑Levitt who plays the role of Travis Kalanick. Tell us a little bit about what that process was like.
MR. KOPPELMAN: We worked very closely with Joe. As soon as we finished the script, we sent it. We finished the script on a Friday, and by Sunday, we had‑‑he was in New Zealand. So we got on the phone, and we shook hands and agreed to do this show together.
I want to go back to, you know, that moment as we're talking about Joe and him embodying this character. I mean, one thing that's fascinating and I think for readers of the Post, you know, what Kalanick was trying to do or what he was holding up as a corrupt, entrenched power, in general, which were the taxi and limousine commissions in these cities. They were, in large part, entrenched powers who had incredibly favorable arrangements with local governments and incredibly, like, restrictive convenance over how many cabs there could be, how many medallions there could be, and they [audio distortion] monopolistic.
And so what Joe and we were all interested in was, well, if you unseat people like that and create a vacuum and you fill it, can you resist the temptation to become like the people in power before were? And for us, that's what kind of elevates this.
And Joe in that moment as he's galvanizing the troops, he's able to tap into a very real grievance, a very real insight into what was happening. The problem is perhaps the character of Travis lacks the self‑knowledge to know that he ain't going to be any better if he gets in that position, but maybe the audience watching him and watching the way he loves the adulation of his troops maybe will sense, oh, this might get even worse. And that for us is part of what's super exciting about the show.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Yeah. I mean, it was really interesting to watch and just have these reactions where sometimes, you know, you're really rooting for him, and other times, you're kind of like cringing. You hear these discussions or watch what he's doing.
Beth, you mentioned, you know, other executives who are being portrayed on the big screen. I mean, Silicon Valley has been portrayed in a number of shows in recent years. What is it about the tech industry and Silicon Valley that is interesting to people?
MS. SCHACTER: I think one of the things we really like about this space is that, much like "Billions," they're kind of modern kings, and in that Shakespearean way of wanting to examine what makes a king and what brings a king down, it's kind of where many of the kings are, either in the high finance area or in Silicon Valley. And many of those kings are willing themselves into existence, and so those two things together, I think, are really fascinating for people to create television because that's something we don't get to write about sort of in modern times right now.
MS. PASSARIELLO: That's so interesting. I mean, this is a story that is so recent. As the little tag said, you know, Kalanick led Uber from 2010 to 2017.
So, you know, Brian, can you speak to some of the challenges that that has created to shooting a series where the events have happened so recently?
MR. KOPPELMAN: Well, lucky for us, Mike Isaac did so much of the work of researching it and finding this story, and he was also amazing about bringing some of his sources to the writers' room. And Mike was in the writers' room every day with us or 99 percent of the days.
So I will say we didn't find that part‑‑yes, what you lack is a historical perspective. There's no doubt you lack really knowing where the story ends long term, 25 years later.
That said, because the research was so thorough and because technology and Silicon Valley move so fast, it is almost like we do have perspective because four or five years in Silicon Valley time is a long time, and you see the iterations that have happened afterwards. You see the effect dynamic pricing has had on every industry. So we were able to have as much perspective as you could, given the calendar, but more than that, we had this expert guiding us through the process in Mike.
You know, he‑‑we are also going to protect any of the sources Mike brought in, but we did feel like through his reporting, we had a very good look at what happened.
David, can you speak to a little bit of the other research that was conducted for the series like just in terms of the setting and just the sort of broader context for Silicon Valley?
MR. LEVIEN: You know, as Brian said, we started in this great place with this book that was so comprehensive. We were able to talk to some of the characters portrayed in the book, not Travis Kalanick but other people. We were able to talk to some of Mike's sources, and because as you said, as you point out, it's pretty recent, there was a lot of news coverage of this that we were able to delve into. You know, it was all there. All of this stuff was on the internet. So there was a wealth of material for us to dive into.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Can you speak a little bit to how it came about that you got Quentin Tarantino as the narrator for this series as well?
MR. LEVIEN: Yeah. I mean, Brian should speak to that because it came out of a moment when they were going to‑‑when Quentin was going to come on his podcast.
Brian, do you want to take that?
MS. PASSARIELLO: Tell us about it, Brian.
MR. KOPPELMAN: Sure. Well, David and I had‑‑Quentin had sent a note to somebody and asked them to forward the note to us about a year and a half ago or two years ago, and it was an incredibly kind note about "Billions." And the longer context for that is Quentin has long known how much his work means to David and me‑‑and Beth too, though he didn't know at the time, but how much his work has meant to David and me.
And so, when he knew that getting a note from him that talked about why he loved "Billions" and how he watched the show and the way in which he understood all the references and allusions, he knew that would mean quite a bit to us.
And so, when he sent us that note, you know, we thanked him and kind of filed it away, and as we were writing this and realized that we wanted his voice in the show, I wrote him an email, and I asked him to come on my podcast because his book had just come out. And the book, it was the novelization of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," and I also described this show to him and asked him if he would narrate, and he immediately wrote back and said yes to both. And I wrote back, like, "You know you said yes to narrating our TV series and not just coming on my podcast?"
MR. LEVIEN: "Yeah, I know what I say yes to, and I know what I say no to," and‑‑but I will say the moment that he first walked into a studio to record with us was pretty‑‑a pretty high watermark of our‑‑a career that's had a lot of incredibly lucky and amazing moments. I would put that really right up near the very tippy top of it.
Wouldn't you, Dave?
MR. LEVIEN: Absolutely. I mean, it was surreal, and it was incredible. The only people that were as shocked as us about the experience were the engineers who were in there recording it. They were just freaked out by it too.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Tell us a little bit about how did he‑‑did he influence the production in any way?
MR. KOPPELMAN: No. No.
MR. LEVIEN: Well, no, he's amazing. Yeah, he's so generous. He come‑‑he came in as a real performer, not in a directorial way where he wanted to call the shots. He put himself in our hands, and he deferred to us. Like, he was prepared and he understood it, but he was really interested in delivering it the way we wanted it, which was‑‑which was great, you know. I think he must have liked the opportunity to not be the arbiter and to allow himself to be directed and steered a little bit, and I say a little bit because it didn't take much. He's pretty good at being Quentin Tarantino.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Tell us a little bit about the role of the narrator that he plays. It's such a‑‑you know, it's not a passive narrator. Tell us a little bit about how you envisioned that role and why he was perfect for it.
MR. KOPPELMAN: You know, I'll be honest. I just want people to discover it as they watch the show. I don't want to overtalk Quentin's role in the show. I mean, he's incredible. It's a dream, but I think part of the fun of the show is discovering him in the way in which he‑‑if we could have kept it a secret until the show aired, we would have so that people would have that surprise. And I don't want to talk about it.
MS. PASSARIELLO: All right. That's fair enough.
Tell us a little bit about, you know‑‑tell us a little bit about how your partnership worked on "Billions." You know, you've worked together a lot both on that and now on "Super Pumped." So what are the‑‑what are the roles that each of you play in this partnership?
Beth, maybe we can start with you.
MS. SCHACTER: Oh. The roles we all play. Well, you guys have been there.
MR. LEVIEN: Actually, this is [audio distortion] so well, Beth. Beth ran the writers‑‑
MS. SCHACTER: Will you tell it? Because now I need this. [Laughs]
MR. LEVIEN: Beth ran the writers' room.
MS. SCHACTER: I actually didn't see anything but the ocean.
MR. LEVIEN: Yeah. Beth ran the writers' room on both shows this season. She ran the writers' room on "Billions," and then we'd switch over, and she would run the writers' room on "Super Pumped." And we were all in the New York area in the beginning, and we started prepping "Billions." But at some point pretty early on, Brian had to go out to California and start doing preproduction there. So it was a real tag‑team effort.
So Beth and I were doing the "Billions" preproduction and then the beginning of production, and then at some point, I went to L.A. and joined Brian. Beth was on her own. We were constantly communicating, and then we started rotating back home through "Billions" set and into "Billions" postproduction. And then when we got close to the end of "Super Pumped" production in California, Beth came out and did a shift on that. It was really like‑‑in the old days before they had the firetrucks with the hoses when people had to pass the buckets. You know, the bucket‑bailing relay to throw on the fire, that's basically how we did it.
MR. KOPPELMAN: Yeah.
MS. SCHACTER: One thing as‑‑I was going to say, like, though the pandemic has sucked and truly, like, made things really hard for production, the benefit of the pandemic has been the adaptation and creation of all these systems where you can do a lot of the work remotely.
So we have, like, systems now where our screens are the monitors that are on set so we can watch takes, and so there's an entire, like‑‑so we were able to kind of keep track of everything, and you just sort of‑‑we just created a space where all three brains could carry a third of the information at all times over two shows.
Sorry, Brian. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Brian, do you want to add something to that?
MR. KOPPELMAN: The other anchor is what Beth said at the beginning of this, which is David and I have been like brothers since we were 14 years old, and Beth has been our dear friend for 15 years. So a lot of it is that we don't have clearly defined separate roles. We just do it together, all the things.
MS. SCHACTER: Yep.
MS. PASSARIELLO: That's really‑‑
MS. SCHACTER: And you have two other people to ask and check and‑‑yeah. It just works.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Absolutely. Beth, you mentioned a little bit earlier that, you know, everybody has got Uber in their pocket, but of course, most people, you know, will know Uber just as riders or drivers. So how did that‑‑how did that affect how you tell this story? What did you think people kind of knew about Uber or Kalanick coming into it?
MS. SCHACTER: I had to assume that most people knew as little as I did, which is I knew it had something of a troubled past. I vaguely remembered the safe rides fee, and I remember the Susan Fowler blog post. But I had not put it together the way Mike had done it in a linear story and looked at the totality of it, and so we had to assume the audience had not either and take them on the same journey that they would go on if they had read Mike's book and then try to amp it up and make it more of a TV show while sticking to all the pieces that were real and true and honoring all the people that went through that experience.
So, yeah, but I assume that most people don't really know until they get into it the way the show will take them into it, which is a great way to find out about this thing that's in your pocket.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things about this thing that's in our pocket is that it's technology, and it's often, you know, hard to understand, maybe hard to depict. You know, it's algorithms and greyballing and all kinds of things like that.
So, you know, how did you guys convey‑‑how did you guys think about conveying those things that are often technical and not necessarily visual?
Brian, do you want to take that one on?
MR. KOPPELMAN: Sure. I mean, that's an example of where you're thinking as a maker of TV or film about form, about what form, you know, in a formal sense, like what form should the presentation of this take that will serve this particular content and this particular idea best. And so a lot of that has to do, if you're making something about disruption, it opened up for us this idea that the show itself should be disruptive, that the show itself should in a‑‑from a standpoint of form should be able to do anything that you can possibly do on this screen as a way to illustrate the things you're asking about.
So whether it's a voiceover and address the camera, whether it's zooming in on something, whether it's the use of green screen, writing on the screen, we will use whatever it is that we need to, to convey the feeling of the speed and outrageousness with which Uber marched forward. And so we're trying to use the form to accomplish that.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Interesting. And, you know, you talked about how, you know, even though this story is so recent in Silicon Valley, there's so many iterations, and so it is‑‑you know, it is now history in Silicon Valley. And now we, you know, are in this era of cryptocurrency, for instance, and Web3 and the blockchain. So where do you see this Silicon Valley story going now? What do you think that the‑‑you know, the impact has been of the rise and fall of Uber as you guys have depicted it?
MR. LEVIEN: I mean, that's a very‑‑that's a big question.
MS. PASSARIELLO: David, you can try for it.
MR. KOPPELMAN: Post, what do you think?
MR. LEVIEN: He's throwing it back to you, Christina.
MS. PASSARIELLO: Oh, throwing it back to me.
MS. PASSARIELLO: I mean, we write about cryptocurrency a lot, and in fact, one of the things that's so interesting about, you know, something like cryptocurrency is actually the widespread adoption of it. You know, I think last year, it was like a sixth of all Americans, you know, traded or participated in the crypto markets in some ways. So, as you guys spoke about, you know, what do people know about Uber, it's in a similar‑‑I feel like maybe we're at kind of a similar place with this next wave of technology, but of course, what we see now is very much shaped by the tech generation that came before it, Kalanick and others, so‑‑
MR. KOPPELMAN: And when I read about‑‑when I read about Sequoia launching this half‑billion‑dollar fund about crypto and other coins, of course, it's fascinating, but as writers and as artists, luckily, we don't have to‑‑and we're not futurists. We don't have to predict it, but what we can do is track it, read about it, interview people, and see what story hits off of us emotionally.
I mean, ultimately, we want the viewer to have an emotional reaction to the journeys that these characters are on, and to‑‑we hope to evoke some empathy for some figures throughout this story, and we hope that the viewer will start asking about what's next. And maybe we'll start to understand what's happening now.
I mean, it's hard‑‑if you think about it, most folks, us included, don't really know everything that's going on behind closed doors on Sand Hill Road, but what's going on behind closed doors on Sand Hill Road is determining the future we're all going to live in. And I think we're really‑‑we are quite animated by telling stories about that.
MS. PASSARIELLO: That's really interesting. Well, that brings us very well to our last question, which is there are seven episodes comprising "Super Pumped," which will air this year, but give us a preview of the next installment of this anthology, which I understand is about Facebook.
Beth, would you take that one on?
MS. SCHACTER: I would love to, but we're not really going to plant our flag yet. Mike Isaac is writing a book, and we know what the basic idea is going to be, but because we were so‑‑I'm going to say blessed by this‑‑his first book, his Uber book, we're going to wait to see what he uncovers and brings us because what we've discovered is that the truth is going to show us where the story is. So come back in six months, and we can talk about it more.
MS. PASSARIELLO: That sounds like a deal. Clearly so many stories to tell out of tech and Silicon Valley.
MR. KOPPELMAN: I don't think there will be a dearth of stories is what I will say.
MS. PASSARIELLO: [Laughs] Yes. Well, that's good news for all of us storytellers then.
Unfortunately, we are out of time. So we are going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us, Brian Koppelman, Beth Schacter, and David Levien.
MR. KOPPELMAN: Thank you so much.
MS. SCHACTER: Thank you.
MS. PASSARIELLO: And I’m Christina Passariello. As always, thanks for watching. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find more information about all of our upcoming programs, and remember we always want to hear from you, our audience. You can share your thoughts and questions for guests on Washington Post Live by tweeting at @PostLive. Thank you again. | null | null | null | null | null |
Yesterday at 6:00 a.m. EST|Updated today at 12:49 p.m. EST
Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University who co-authored the Nature Medicine study, describes the pandemic as an earthquake. “When the earth stops shaking and the dust settles, we will have to be able to deal with the aftermath on heart and other organ systems,” he said.
In the long covid group, he found that they had normal lung function and at peak exercise, their oxygen levels were normal even as they were short of breath. What was abnormal was that some arteries and veins did not appear to be transporting oxygen to and from the muscles efficiently.
The overall message from providers is that “covid by itself is a risk factor for heart disease” like obesity, diabetes, or high blood pressure, according to Saurabh Rajpal, a cardiologist at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
“People experiencing what appear to be heart issues should have “a low threshold for seeing their primary care doctor,” she said. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Slack icon on a computer screen in 2020. (Kiichiro Sato/AP)
Neither company has specified a cause of the outages, and it’s unclear whether they are related.
Slack acknowledged loading issues at 9:25 a.m., after some users posted about them on social media. Updates over the next three hours signaled that some customers were still experiencing problems, until a 12:07 p.m. update stated: “We’re seeing signs of improvement,” without offering any information about the cause. By mid-afternoon the company said it was continuing to see improvements.
Many large businesses and organizations have embraced Slack as a more nimble and less formal means of in-house communications than email. Peloton’s at-home workouts ― attached to a stationary bike and orchestrated remotely by a network of coaches ― offer a personal-fitness equivalent.
Both outages were resolved after a few hours. The Slack outage appears to have started shortly before 9 a.m. and grown at least to tens of thousands of users, according to the outage-tracking website Downdetector, which aggregates user-reported tech outages.
The Peloton outage started later and appeared to affect thousands of users. Downdetector reported smaller outages Tuesday morning for Amazon Web Services and the coding website GitHub, but those platforms were not acknowledging service outages Tuesday morning. An Amazon Web Services spokesperson said the cloud service provider was not seeing any problems originating from AWS services. | null | null | null | null | null |
When the prosecution detailed how the defendants repeatedly denigrated Black people in their social media posts, in casual conversations and in agitated rants, the nastiness was vivid and free-floating. There was no way to take the edge off the words by couching them as good ol’ boy jokes or politically incorrect misunderstandings or locker room talk. All that racist vulgarity was piled up right next to Arbery’s lifeless body in the middle of the road. | null | null | null | null | null |
Let’s start with a tragedy: Since the 2020 election, 37 states have introduced legislation designed to limit how Black history can be taught, especially in its relation to institutional racism, and 14 states have successfully imposed such laws, according to Education Week.
Efforts to suppress Black history deprive us of stirring examples of Americans overcoming adversity and courage under fire. Rather than making anyone feel guilty or uncomfortable, these true-life stories should inspire us all. They are testaments to the resilience and human spirit found in people of all races. | null | null | null | null | null |
For the vast majority of the past decade, the Virginia men’s basketball team has removed virtually all doubt about its NCAA tournament credentials by this stage of the season.
But such assurances are far from certain heading into Wednesday night’s rematch with seventh-ranked Duke in Charlottesville despite the Cavaliers (17-10, 11-6 ACC) having won five of six, including amassing a pair of Quadrant 1 victories, to boost what had been a spotty résumé.
So the final visit to John Paul Jones Arena for Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski presents Virginia with one last crack, at least before the ACC tournament, at another convincing triumph, given the underwhelming body of work from its final two opponents.
“We’ve had some struggles, but I think we continue [to] use the words ‘chase’ and ‘pursue’ quality, and I think we know how airtight we have to be,” Virginia Coach Tony Bennett said. “Not perfect but really good from a defensive standpoint, to be in a lot of competitive games and continue to try to improve offensively.”
The Cavaliers’ upswing this month has included two of their most robust offensive showings, most recently when they outlasted Miami, 74-71, on Saturday night in Coral Gables, Fla., while matching their second-most points in an ACC game this season.
Senior forward Jayden Gardner sparked the season sweep of the Hurricanes with a game-high 23 points on 9-for-14 shooting, including a turnaround step-back jumper from the foul line as the shot clock expired to expand the lead to 65-57 with 1:39 to play.
Gardner has finished with at least 23 points in two of the past three games and leads the Cavaliers in scoring (15.3 points per game) after transferring from East Carolina and immediately joining the starting lineup.
Gardner is averaging 18.7 points over the past six games, with a season high of 26 in a conference game on 10-for-19 shooting during a 63-53 victory over Georgia Tech on Feb. 12. The performance was the most points by a Cavaliers player against an ACC opponent this season.
The Blue Devils (23-4, 13-3) entered this week in first place in the ACC, one game in front of Notre Dame, and have won nine of 10. Their only loss in that stretch was to visiting Virginia, 69-68, on Feb. 7 when Reece Beekman made a three-pointer with 1.1 seconds left.
Gardner scored 17 points against the Blue Devils and defended freshman sensation Paolo Banchero with more success than most. Banchero leads Duke in scoring (16.9) but managed nine points, a season low, on 3-for-9 shooting against the Cavaliers.
It remains the only game this season in which Banchero, a 6-foot-10, 250-pound forward and projected lottery pick in this year’s NBA draft, has failed to reach double figures.
The Cavaliers also forced 15 turnovers that led to 20 points and committed just five, equaling their second fewest this season and fewest against an ACC opponent.
A victory Wednesday would deliver Virginia its first two-game regular season series sweep of the Blue Devils since 1994-95 in addition to keeping the Cavaliers in the mix to finish among the top four in the conference and secure a double bye in the ACC tournament.
Six of the past eight games between the schools have been decided by one or two points.
“Almost all the last few have been down-to-a-possession games,” Bennett said. “That’s what we try to hope for against them and Coach K and that talent. But we’ve got some really good players too, and it’s just been exciting — and that’s why it comes down to who can execute, can you take care of the ball, can you execute down the stretch.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement on Tuesday that the department is analyzing a request from U.S. Capitol Police and the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency for the National Guard to “provide support at traffic control points” in and around the city to “address potential challenges stemming from possible disruptions at key traffic arteries.” This request has not yet been approved or denied.
Although these demonstrations are billed as protesting vaccine mandates, researchers said the conversations are much broader, encompassing a range of right-wing culture grievances. They include baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former president Donald Trump, falsehoods about the coronavirus vaccine, pushback related tohow students are taught about race and racism, and myths about human trafficking. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mickelson did express misgivings about who called the “scary motherf------” representing a regime with a “horrible record on human rights.” But his comments also included describing the venture as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates,” which immediately drew condemnation from fellow players and in other sectors. His bluntness about the Saudis and his arguably cynical reasons for aiding their venture seemed to backfire quickly, with other top players linked to the nascent league pledging loyalty to the PGA Tour. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Mark Lanegan performs at the Sonic Temple Art and Music Festival in Columbus, Ohio on May 18, 2019. Singer Mark Lanegan, whose band Screaming Trees was an essential part of the Seattle grunge scene in the early 1990s, has died. Lanegan’s twitter account says he died at age 57 Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022 at his home in Ireland. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
The United States and its allies have relied chiefly on the threat of severe economic pain to prevent Russia from launching an invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian leader may not care
Russian President Vladimir Putin signs documents, including a decree recognizing two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent, at the Kremlin on Feb. 21. (Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images)
When Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech to the nation Monday night, setting the stage for a new Russian military intervention in neighboring Ukraine, he characterized sanctions as a weapon Western powers would use against Moscow no matter what.
“They have one goal: to restrain the development of Russia,” Putin said, arguing that the West will always find a new false pretext for sanctions. He then signed orders recognizing the independence of two separatist regions in Ukraine and sent Russian forces onto their territory for “peacekeeping” purposes — in what President Biden called the beginning of an invasion.
The defiant actions by the Russian leader demonstrated the limits of relying on the threat of economic pain to change behavior by a government such as Putin’s — a highly personalist regime that has weathered Western sanctions for eight years, elevated hard-liner members of the security services to its most influential positions and clamped down on domestic dissent.
For months, top U.S. and European officials have warned the Russian leader he will face severe economic consequences should he invade Ukraine. But as the crisis escalates, raising the risk that the 190,000 Russian troops and enabling forces around Ukraine will mount a large-scale invasion, Washington is facing the reality that even the harshest sanctions may have limits.
Peksen said research indicates that “issue salience” — or the amount of importance a government attaches to a certain matter — is a major determining factor in how well sanctions will work against a nation-state target. The more importance a government assigns to the issue in question, the less likely it will be to respond to any kind of international pressure, he said, noting that Putin considers Ukraine central to Russia’s national security and his country’s foreign policy.
The situation shows the dilemma that the United States and allies face in seeking ways to influence Russia without taking direct military action, which would risk a confrontation between two nuclear-armed powers. Early on in the crisis, Biden ruled out the possibility of deploying U.S. troops to Ukraine, later saying that even sending in U.S. forces to evacuate Americans could result in “world war.”
U.S. foreign policy has come to rely more heavily on sanctions in recent years. A U.S. Treasury report published in October described sanctions as “a tool of first resort to address a range of threats to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
But while sanctions can be particularly effective when targeted at a narrow issue — for example, to stop a country from developing a nuclear weapons program — they may not be powerful enough in many cases to achieve more ambitious aims.
“Sanctions have their place, and it’s obviously appropriate that they be employed at this point, because Russia has crossed a red line, but the expectation that even the most brutal economic sanctions are going to stop a great power from trying to obtain territory that its leader seems hellbent on acquiring is a fiction,” said Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
Drezner said the Biden administration perhaps should have placed more emphasis on the other main threat against Putin — that an invasion of Ukraine would result in the very sorts of NATO troops and weaponry on his borders he claims to not want. While top officials in the Biden administration regularly delivered that message in public, they haven’t said what exact steps the U.S. military would take to bolster allies or add additional weaponry to NATO’s eastern flank.
The threat of sanctions can work as a tool of foreign policy, said T. Clifton Morgan, a political science professor at Rice University. Morgan said out of 1,412 cases he and his colleagues analyzed, the threat of sanctions worked to achieve a policy result about 50 percent of the time, but in the case of Putin, effectiveness depends on “what value he puts on the issues at stake.”
Previous sanctions have come at a cost to the Russian economy but appear to have done little to curb the Kremlin’s actions or threaten Putin’s rule. Top Russian officials regularly dismiss the impact of harsh economic measures against the country, displaying a confidence that Moscow can survive the punishment.
“Excuse my language, but we don’t give a s--- about Western sanctions,” Russia’s ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, said in an interview this month with the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. He said that Russia has already faced so many sanctions, and that they have often ended up having a positive impact on the Russian economy and agricultural sector.
“We have become more self-sufficient and have been able to increase exports,” Tatarintsev said. “We do not have Italian or Swiss cheeses, but we have learned how to make the same good Russian cheeses according to Italian and Swiss recipes.”
In a recent article in the Economist, Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said the hard-liners in Putin’s war cabinet are already under sanctions and would stand to benefit from a greater schism with the United States and Europe.
“If anything, further sanctions wouldn’t just fail to hurt Mr. Putin’s war cabinet, they would secure its members’ place as the top beneficiaries of Russia’s deepening economic autarky,” Gabuev wrote. “The same logic is true of domestic politics: as the country descends into a near-permanent state of siege, the security services will be the most important pillar of the regime.”
Still, even if they fail to prevent Putin from invading Ukraine, sanctions are still important for “signaling to people in Russia he is taking Russia in the wrong direction,” as well as “constraining and strangling Russia’s capacity for future aggression,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
“I think it is incumbent on the West and the United States to ensure the external environment is punishing — that we are playing our part in not facilitating and enabling this type of regime,” Kendall-Taylor said.
Kendall-Taylor said Putin’s speech seemed to indicate economic costs weren’t going to be an overriding factor in his decision-making. “If he is thinking about his legacy and doesn’t want to be the leader who lost Ukraine, I don’t think there was anything there that could deter action besides the threat of military force — and that was not in the cards,” she said.
It isn’t clear to U.S. officials what, if any, economic measures would have been strong enough to change Putin’s calculus on Ukraine, which is a personal and emotional issue for the Russian leader.
“The U.S. and NATO have worked really hard to make sure the signal is really clear — that there are going to be real sanctions and they are going to be really costly,” said Amanda Licht, a political science professor at Binghamton University who studies sanctions. “The problem is the costs just are not big enough.”
John E. Smith, a former head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control who is now a partner at the law firm Morrison & Foerster, said economic sanctions could play a role in tempering Putin’s territorial ambitions or deterring future military adventurism.
“Will the sanctions prevent him from invading eastern Ukraine, particularly the breakaway republics? Probably not. In much the same way, the sanctions in 2014 did not mean that he turned around the troops and they left Crimea,” Smith said. “But the sanctions can have an impact in terms of just how far he’s willing to go into Ukraine. Because if you’re sitting in Kyiv, you want sanctions that will prevent him from occupying the entire territory of the country.”
Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mr. Beckel career in politics began in 1968 during Robert F. Kennedy’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sixteen years later, as Mondale’s campaign manager, he helped the former vice president secure the party’s nomination after overcoming an early loss to Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) in the New Hampshire primary. | null | null | null | null | null |
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement on Tuesday that the departmentwas analyzing a request from U.S. Capitol Police and the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency for the National Guard to “provide support at traffic control points” in and around the city to “address potential challenges stemming from possible disruptions at key traffic arteries.” On Tuesday night, the D.C. mayor’s office said the “DC National Guard traffic support request” had been approved.
Although these demonstrations are billed as protesting vaccine mandates, researchers said the conversations are much broader, encompassing a range of right-wing culture grievances. They include baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former president Donald Trump, falsehoods about the coronavirus vaccine, pushback related to how students are taught about race and racism, and myths about human trafficking. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mickelson did express misgivings about representing a regime with a “horrible record on human rights.” But his comments also included describing the venture as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates,” which immediately drew condemnation from fellow players and in other sectors. His bluntness about the Saudis and his arguably cynical reasons for aiding their venture seemed to backfire quickly, with other top players linked to the nascent league pledging loyalty to the PGA Tour. | null | null | null | null | null |
(Sony Interactive Entertainment)
For the second iteration of PlayStation’s virtual reality headset, the PlayStation VR2 (PS VR2), Morisawa didn’t have the luxury of going bigger. He needed the new design to rest comfortably on your head, and he needed the headset to weigh less than the last, not more.
“This is the hardest product I’ve worked on in my life, actually,” Morisawa said. “There’s a lot to it. You’re actually wearing the product. So, it’s a headband, it could be eyewear, and it’s also a game console.”
In an interview with The Post last week, Morisawa, the senior art director for Sony Interactive Entertainment, explained his process behind designing the PS VR2. Originally announced in January, Sony’s second iteration of the virtual reality headset boasts better graphics, added sensory features and four cameras on the face of the headset to track your movement relative to the space around you to better position you in-game. Morisawa said the headset is “a bit lighter” than the previous model, but Sony did not provide a specific weight for the new device.
“It’s actually hard for me to work on the PS VR [2], because the PS VR before was almost perfect,” Morisawa said. “It was really hard for me to refine the total design of the headset.”
Morisawa’s favorite part of the design is a new ventilation system, which circulates the air inside the console to prevent the lenses from fogging up. And inside the frame, looking back at you, is an eye tracking system that can measure what direction your eyes are pointing and reflect that in the game. Sony has said that this feature will allow players to “interact more intuitively in new and lifelike ways.”
Morisawa said the team at Sony wanted the new headset to be as approachable as possible. The result, he said, is simpler, easier to wear and more comfortable. There’s a dial on the side of the headset to adjust the width of the lenses to fit the bridge of your nose. The buttons from the original headset are in the same place again, to avoid confusion. And Morisawa shaved off “unneeded mass” where possible, to make the headset a bit lighter to wear.
The design for the PS VR2 is intended to play off the concept for the PlayStation 5; both are two-tone white and black. But, while the PlayStation 5 forms between two sharp lines, Morisawa said the headset and controllers are orbs, modeled off the device’s 360-degree immersion.
Sony’s second iteration on the virtual reality headset comes at an interesting time. According to Google, Meta (formerly Facebook) and Microsoft, these headsets are the harbinger for the metaverse — or the future of the Internet. Meta lost more than $10 billion in 2021 investing in virtual reality and the metaverse. | null | null | null | null | null |
Man is fatally shot in Southeast, D.C. police say
Slaying Tuesday was on Bruce Place, authorities say
A man was fatally shot Tuesday morning in Southeast Washington, the D.C. police said.
Marcquael Chambers, 22, of Southeast, was found in the 2700 block of Bruce Place about 11:15 a.m., after a shooting was reported there, the police said.
He died at a hospital, the police said.
No information was available about a motive or suspect. | null | null | null | null | null |
Texas Tech’s Kevin Obanor (0) passes the ball around Oklahoma’s Jalen Hill (1) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022, in Lubbock, Texas. (AP Photo/Brad Tollefson)
LUBBOCK, Texas — Davion Warren scored 16 points, Bryson Williams had 13 and ninth-ranked Texas Tech won its 20th consecutive home game while avenging its only loss this month with a 66-42 victory over Oklahoma on Tuesday night. | null | null | null | null | null |
Woman fatally shot in Northeast D.C.
Daytime slaying was reported near P Street NE.
A woman was fatally shot Tuesday afternoon near P and North Capitol streets, NE, the D.C. police said.
The shooting was reported about 3:30 p.m. in the 1500 block of North Capitol Street NE, said Officer Hugh Carew, a police spokeswoman.
No information was available about a suspect or motive.
The woman’s name was being withheld until her relatives could be notified.
The site is between Florida and New York avenues and about a mile and a half north of the U.S. Capitol. | null | null | null | null | null |
Smith, who according to the affidavit is White and lives in Portland, confronted the demonstrators between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday, “yelling at them and demanding they leave the area.” Initial statements by the police described the shooter as an “armed homeowner.”
Smith had a history of ranting about Black Lives Matter, homeless people and covid-19 regulations including mask mandates, his roommate, Kristine Christenson, told the Oregonian. | null | null | null | null | null |
Belmont Bruins (24-5, 14-2 OVC) at Murray State Racers (26-2, 16-0 OVC)
BOTTOM LINE: Belmont takes on the No. 19 Murray State Racers after Ben Sheppard scored 20 points in Belmont’s 73-62 victory over the SIU-Edwardsville Cougars.
The Racers have gone 14-0 in home games. Murray State averages 79.8 points and has outscored opponents by 17.6 points per game.
The Bruins are 14-2 against OVC opponents. Belmont scores 80.4 points while outscoring opponents by 11.9 points per game.
The teams play for the second time this season in OVC play. The Racers won the last meeting 82-60 on Jan. 15. Justice Hill scored 36 points points to help lead the Racers to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: K.J. Williams is averaging 17.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 1.6 steals for the Racers. Tevin Brown is averaging 9.9 points over the last 10 games for Murray State.
Nick Muszynski is averaging 16.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.8 blocks for the Bruins. Sheppard is averaging 17.4 points over the last 10 games for Belmont.
Bruins: 10-0, averaging 79.5 points, 31.2 rebounds, 19.3 assists, 10.3 steals and 4.2 blocks per game while shooting 49.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 63.0 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Arizona State Sun Devils (10-16, 6-10 Pac-12) at Colorado Buffaloes (18-9, 10-7 Pac-12)
Boulder, Colorado; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Colorado is looking to build upon its five-game win streak with a victory against Arizona State.
The Buffaloes have gone 11-4 in home games. Colorado is 4-3 when it turns the ball over less than its opponents and averages 13.4 turnovers per game.
The Sun Devils are 6-10 in Pac-12 play. Arizona State is 5-4 in one-possession games.
The teams meet for the 10th time in conference play this season. The Buffaloes won 75-57 in the last matchup on Jan. 16. Jabari Walker led the Buffaloes with 18 points, and Jalen Graham led the Sun Devils with 16 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Walker is averaging 14.5 points and 9.2 rebounds for the Buffaloes. Keeshawn Barthelemy is averaging 7.3 points over the last 10 games for Colorado.
DJ Horne averages 2.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Sun Devils, scoring 12.3 points while shooting 36.3% from beyond the arc. Marreon Jackson is averaging 8.2 points over the past 10 games for Arizona State. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: Idaho State takes on the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks after Jared Rodriguez scored 27 points in Idaho State’s 77-70 loss to the Northern Colorado Bears.
The Lumberjacks have gone 5-8 at home. Northern Arizona is 5-13 against opponents over .500.
The Bengals are 4-13 against Big Sky opponents. Idaho State gives up 71.6 points to opponents while being outscored by 7.4 points per game.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Lumberjacks won 73-70 in the last matchup on Dec. 5. Jalen Cole led the Lumberjacks with 24 points, and Robert Ford III led the Bengals with 13 points.
Tarik Cool is shooting 41.2% and averaging 12.0 points for the Bengals. Rodriguez is averaging 12.6 points over the last 10 games for Idaho State. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: Milwaukee will aim to stop its six-game road losing streak when the Panthers face IUPUI.
The Jaguars have gone 2-9 in home games. IUPUI has a 0-3 record in one-possession games.
The Panthers are 7-13 in Horizon play. Milwaukee gives up 71.0 points to opponents while being outscored by 6.2 points per game.
The teams play for the second time this season in Horizon play. The Panthers won the last matchup 89-54 on Jan. 15. DeAndre Gholston scored 21 points to help lead the Panthers to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: B.J. Maxwell is scoring 12.6 points per game with 5.0 rebounds and 0.9 assists for the Jaguars. Bakari LaStrap is averaging 11.6 points and 3.2 rebounds while shooting 38.5% over the past 10 games for IUPUI.
Gholston is averaging 14.1 points for the Panthers. Donovan Newby is averaging 7.9 points over the last 10 games for Milwaukee. | null | null | null | null | null |
Nicholls State Colonels (18-9, 8-2 Southland) at Northwestern State Demons (8-20, 4-7 Southland)
BOTTOM LINE: Nicholls State takes on the Northwestern State Demons after Jitaurious Gordon scored 28 points in Nicholls State’s 84-70 win against the Houston Baptist Huskies.
The Demons have gone 5-4 at home. Northwestern State has a 1-13 record against opponents over .500.
The Colonels are 8-2 in Southland play. Nicholls State is third in the Southland with 11.3 offensive rebounds per game led by Emanuel Littles averaging 2.8.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. The Colonels won the last matchup 69-58 on Jan. 21. Pierce Spencer scored 20 points to help lead the Colonels to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kendal Coleman is averaging 15.5 points and 9.6 rebounds for the Demons. Carvell Teasett is averaging 3.1 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Northwestern State.
Gordon is shooting 45.9% and averaging 20.2 points for the Colonels. Devante Carter is averaging 11.2 points over the last 10 games for Nicholls State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ohio State Buckeyes (17-7, 10-5 Big Ten) at Illinois Fighting Illini (19-7, 12-4 Big Ten)
Champaign, Illinois; Thursday, 9 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: No. 15 Illinois hosts the No. 22 Ohio State Buckeyes after Kofi Cockburn scored 27 points in Illinois’ 79-74 victory against the Michigan State Spartans.
The Fighting Illini are 11-2 on their home court. Illinois ranks fifth in the Big Ten in team defense, allowing 66.7 points while holding opponents to 40.6% shooting.
The Buckeyes are 10-5 in Big Ten play. Ohio State averages 74.2 points while outscoring opponents by 7.4 points per game.
The Fighting Illini and Buckeyes square off Thursday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Cockburn is scoring 21.7 points per game and averaging 11.2 rebounds for the Fighting Illini. Alfonso Plummer is averaging 7.9 points and 1.5 rebounds over the last 10 games for Illinois.
E.J. Liddell is averaging 19.5 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2.4 blocks for the Buckeyes. Malaki Branham is averaging 9.0 points over the last 10 games for Ohio State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Eastern Washington Eagles (14-13, 8-8 Big Sky) at Northern Colorado Bears (16-12, 11-5 Big Sky)
BOTTOM LINE: Eastern Washington faces the Northern Colorado Bears after Angelo Allegri scored 23 points in Eastern Washington’s 83-80 loss to the Idaho Vandals.
The Bears are 8-3 in home games. Northern Colorado ranks fifth in the Big Sky in rebounding with 31.9 rebounds. Kur Jockuch leads the Bears with 8.4 boards.
The teams square off for the second time this season in Big Sky play. The Bears won the last matchup 87-83 on Jan. 22. Daylen Kountz scored 29 points points to help lead the Bears to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kountz is scoring 20.5 points per game with 4.0 rebounds and 2.7 assists for the Bears. Matt Johnson is averaging 14.6 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 55.8% over the last 10 games for Northern Colorado. | null | null | null | null | null |
Montana Grizzlies (17-10, 10-6 Big Sky) at Southern Utah Thunderbirds (17-9, 11-5 Big Sky)
BOTTOM LINE: Montana takes on the Southern Utah Thunderbirds after Cameron Parker scored 22 points in Montana’s 82-76 loss to the Idaho Vandals.
The Thunderbirds are 10-3 in home games. Southern Utah is seventh in the Big Sky at limiting opponent scoring, allowing 72.9 points while holding opponents to 43.3% shooting.
The Grizzlies are 10-6 against Big Sky opponents. Montana scores 72.7 points and has outscored opponents by 7.1 points per game.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Grizzlies won 78-67 in the last matchup on Feb. 8. Josh Bannan led the Grizzlies with 26 points, and Tevian Jones led the Thunderbirds with 23 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jones is averaging 15.5 points for the Thunderbirds. John Knight III is averaging 12 points, 4.4 assists and 2.7 steals over the last 10 games for Southern Utah.
Bannan is scoring 14.6 points per game and averaging 8.1 rebounds for the Grizzlies. Robby Beasley III is averaging 2.4 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Montana. | null | null | null | null | null |
UCSB Gauchos (12-10, 4-5 Big West) at UC Davis Aggies (11-7, 4-3 Big West)
BOTTOM LINE: UC Davis hosts the UCSB Gauchos after Elijah Pepper scored 24 points in UC Davis’ 81-79 victory against the CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners.
The Aggies are 6-4 on their home court. UC Davis is eighth in the Big West with 23.4 defensive rebounds per game led by Caleb Fuller averaging 4.6.
The Gauchos are 4-5 against Big West opponents. UCSB ranks third in the Big West giving up 64.8 points while holding opponents to 40.6% shooting.
TOP PERFORMERS: Pepper is shooting 41.3% from beyond the arc with 2.4 made 3-pointers per game for the Aggies, while averaging 15.7 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.6 steals. Ezra Manjon is averaging 16.6 points and 3.3 assists over the last 10 games for UC Davis.
Amadou Sow is averaging 15 points and 8.1 rebounds for the Gauchos. Miles Norris is averaging 2.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for UCSB. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: Elijah Hutchins-Everett and the Austin Peay Governors visit Shaun Doss and the SIU-Edwardsville Cougars on Thursday.
The Cougars have gone 7-4 in home games. SIU-Edwardsville ranks third in the OVC in rebounding with 33.9 rebounds. Deejuan Pruitt leads the Cougars with 7.0 boards.
The Governors have gone 6-10 against OVC opponents. Austin Peay is sixth in the OVC with 13.7 assists per game led by Carlos Paez averaging 3.4.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. The Governors won the last matchup 68-63 on Feb. 1. Hutchins-Everett scored 20 points to help lead the Governors to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Courtney Carter is averaging 7.3 points and 3.4 assists for the Cougars. Ray’Sean Taylor is averaging 17.6 points and 1.8 steals over the past 10 games for SIU-Edwardsville.
Hutchins-Everett is shooting 51.5% and averaging 12.6 points for the Governors. Tariq Silver is averaging 7.1 points over the last 10 games for Austin Peay. | null | null | null | null | null |
South Dakota Coyotes (17-10, 10-6 Summit) at UMKC Kangaroos (18-10, 11-5 Summit)
BOTTOM LINE: UMKC faces the South Dakota Coyotes after Evan Gilyard scored 33 points in UMKC’s 85-71 victory over the North Dakota State Bison.
The Kangaroos are 10-3 on their home court. UMKC ranks fourth in the Summit shooting 37.4% from deep, led by Justus Peuser shooting 50.0% from 3-point range.
The Coyotes are 10-6 in conference games. South Dakota is sixth in the Summit with 32.0 rebounds per game led by Hunter Goodrick averaging 7.2.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Kangaroos won 68-57 in the last matchup on Dec. 23. Gilyard led the Kangaroos with 31 points, and Mason Archambault led the Coyotes with 14 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Gilyard is averaging 16.8 points and 3.3 assists for the Kangaroos. Marvin Nesbitt Jr. is averaging 15.6 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals over the last 10 games for UMKC.
Kruz Perrott-Hunt is averaging 15.3 points for the Coyotes. Archambault is averaging 17.1 points over the last 10 games for South Dakota. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: New Orleans visits the SE Louisiana Lions after Derek St. Hilaire scored 27 points in New Orleans’ 88-75 victory against the McNeese Cowboys.
The Lions are 8-2 in home games. SE Louisiana leads the Southland shooting 36.1% from downtown, led by Gage Larvadain shooting 50.0% from 3-point range.
The Privateers are 9-1 in conference games. New Orleans scores 77.3 points while outscoring opponents by 5.2 points per game.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Privateers won 78-72 in the last matchup on Jan. 21. St. Hilaire led the Privateers with 19 points, and Gus Okafor led the Lions with 18 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Okafor is shooting 44.2% and averaging 15.0 points for the Lions. Jalyn Hinton is averaging 15.3 points over the last 10 games for SE Louisiana.
St. Hilaire is shooting 45.9% and averaging 20.8 points for the Privateers. Kmani Doughty is averaging one made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for New Orleans. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: St. Thomas hosts Denver looking to stop its six-game home slide.
The Tommies have gone 4-7 in home games. St. Thomas is seventh in the Summit at limiting opponent scoring, giving up 74.8 points while holding opponents to 48.5% shooting.
The Pioneers are 5-11 in Summit play. Denver is seventh in the Summit with 11.9 assists per game led by KJ Hunt Jr. averaging 3.5.
The teams square off for the second time this season in Summit play. The Pioneers won the last meeting 75-74 on Dec. 22. Coban Porter scored 22 points to help lead the Pioneers to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Parker Bjorklund is averaging 12.8 points and 6.3 rebounds for the Tommies. Riley Miller is averaging 2.6 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for St. Thomas.
Hunt is scoring 15.5 points per game with 4.6 rebounds and 3.5 assists for the Pioneers. Porter is averaging 13.9 points over the past 10 games for Denver. | null | null | null | null | null |
Tennessee State Tigers (12-16, 7-9 OVC) at Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles (9-19, 6-9 OVC)
BOTTOM LINE: Tennessee Tech hosts the Tennessee State Tigers after John Pettway scored 22 points in Tennessee Tech’s 73-69 win over the Austin Peay Governors.
The Golden Eagles are 6-6 on their home court. Tennessee Tech has a 6-7 record in games decided by at least 10 points.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. The Tigers won the last meeting 80-64 on Jan. 17. Carlos Marshall Jr. scored 19 points to help lead the Tigers to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jr. Clay is scoring 13.0 points per game with 2.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists for the Golden Eagles. Kenny White Jr. is averaging 10.5 points and 4.2 rebounds while shooting 40.2% over the past 10 games for Tennessee Tech.
Marshall averages 1.8 made 3-pointers per game for the Tigers, scoring 12.5 points while shooting 38.5% from beyond the arc. Kassim Nicholson is shooting 51.4% and averaging 10.8 points over the past 10 games for Tennessee State. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: UT Martin visits the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks after K.J. Simon scored 24 points in UT Martin’s 62-60 loss to the Murray State Racers.
The Redhawks have gone 7-4 at home. Southeast Missouri State has a 5-9 record in games decided by at least 10 points.
The Skyhawks are 4-12 in conference play. UT Martin allows 72.9 points to opponents while being outscored by 4.2 points per game.
The teams play for the second time in conference play this season. The Skyhawks won the last matchup 84-63 on Feb. 3. Simon scored 19 points to help lead the Skyhawks to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Nygal Russell is averaging 8.2 points and 6.7 rebounds for the Redhawks. Eric Reed Jr. is averaging 2.2 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Southeast Missouri State.
Koby Jeffries is averaging 6.3 points and 1.5 steals for the Skyhawks. Simon is averaging 16.0 points over the last 10 games for UT Martin. | null | null | null | null | null |
UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros (7-20, 2-13 WAC) at Tarleton State Texans (12-15, 7-7 WAC)
Stephenville, Texas; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: UT Rio Grande Valley visits the Tarleton State Texans after Justin Johnson scored 20 points in UT Rio Grande Valley’s 67-61 loss to the Sam Houston Bearkats.
The Texans have gone 8-5 in home games. Tarleton State has a 6-14 record against opponents over .500.
The Vaqueros are 2-13 in WAC play. UT Rio Grande Valley is ninth in the WAC with 12.5 assists per game led by Ricky Nelson averaging 4.4.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Texans won 79-64 in the last matchup on Jan. 30. Freddy Hicks led the Texans with 29 points, and Johnson led the Vaqueros with 23 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Montre’ Gipson is averaging 15.2 points and 3.1 assists for the Texans. Hicks is averaging 14.9 points and 5.6 rebounds over the last 10 games for Tarleton State. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: Utah Valley takes on the Seattle U Redhawks after Justin Harmon scored 23 points in Utah Valley’s 80-75 overtime loss to the Dixie State Trailblazers.
The Wolverines have gone 9-2 in home games. Utah Valley leads the WAC with 28.0 defensive rebounds per game led by Fardaws Aimaq averaging 10.3.
The Redhawks are 12-3 against conference opponents. Seattle U ranks fourth in the WAC shooting 34.2% from 3-point range.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. The Redhawks won 71-65 in the last matchup on Jan. 13. Cameron Tyson led the Redhawks with 25 points, and Aimaq led the Wolverines with 16 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Blaze Nield is averaging 7.7 points and 4.2 assists for the Wolverines. Aimaq is averaging 19.2 points and 13.5 rebounds over the last 10 games for Utah Valley.
Darrion Trammell is averaging 16.8 points, 5.3 assists and 2.6 steals for the Redhawks. Tyson is averaging 13.3 points and 5.4 rebounds over the last 10 games for Seattle U. | null | null | null | null | null |
BOTTOM LINE: Louisiana Tech visits the Rice Owls after Keaston Willis scored 30 points in Louisiana Tech’s 95-71 win against the UTSA Roadrunners.
The Owls have gone 9-4 in home games. Rice averages 12.3 turnovers per game and is 5-2 when it wins the turnover battle.
The Bulldogs are 10-4 against conference opponents. Louisiana Tech is second in C-USA scoring 78.2 points per game and is shooting 45.8%.
The teams square off for the 10th time in conference play this season. The Bulldogs won the last matchup 80-63 on Jan. 28. Kenneth Lofton Jr. scored 19 points to help lead the Bulldogs to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Carl Pierre is scoring 14.6 points per game with 4.2 rebounds and 1.7 assists for the Owls. Travis Evee is averaging 10.1 points over the last 10 games for Rice.
Willis averages 3.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Bulldogs, scoring 12.6 points while shooting 41.3% from beyond the arc. Lofton is shooting 52.4% and averaging 12 points over the past 10 games for Louisiana Tech. | null | null | null | null | null |
Smith, who according to the affidavit is White and lives in Portland, confronted the demonstrators between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday, “yelling at them and demanding they leave the area.” Initial statements by the police described the shooter as an “armed homeowner," while an address associated with Smith is near the park.
Smith had a history of ranting about Black Lives Matter, homeless people and covid-19 regulations including mask mandates, his roommate, Kristine Christenson, told the Oregonian. Records show that in 2010, Smith was convicted in Multnomah County of harassment and criminal mischief. | null | null | null | null | null |
Strong winds blew through the Washington area Tuesday night
A woman died after a tree fell on a house in Anne Arundel County, Md., on Tuesday night amid strong winds in the Washington area, according to the county fire department and weather data.
Firefighters were sent to the house in the 1500 block of Farlow Avenue in the Crofton area just before 9 p.m. after receiving a report about the tree, the fire department said.
They found that the house had been severely damaged, and an extended effort was required to extricate the woman, said Capt. Jennifer Burrier, a fire department spokeswoman.
The woman was dead when rescuers reached her about 10:45 p.m., Burrier said. Her name and age could not be learned immediately. No cause of death was available.
It was not clear why the tree fell, but strong winds blew through the Washington area Tuesday night. A gust of 40 mph was reported in Washington just before 7 p.m., according to National Weather Service data.
Two hours later, the wind still gusted as high as 37 mph.
The house is on a residential street about 20 miles northeast of the Capitol and about a mile from the eastern boundary of Prince George’s County. | null | null | null | null | null |
President Biden is in the final stages of making his first nomination to the Supreme Court — having completed interviews with at least three leading contenders — and West Wing officials have begun advising outside allies on how to defend the nominee against potential attacks, according to people briefed on the process.
One of the interviews was with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has sat on the federal bench for nine years and has a background as a public defender, according to one of the people. Another was with Judge J. Michelle Childs, a federal judge in South Carolina who is a favorite of House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), an influential Biden ally. Neither interview had been previously reported. Biden also interviewed Leondra Kruger, a justice on the California Supreme Court, according to two other people briefed on the process.
The people, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to more openly discuss a sensitive topic, did not rule out that Biden may have also interviewed other potential nominees. The White House declined to comment. CNN first reported that Biden met with Kruger.
Among them are Jackson, who was elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last year and is a former Breyer clerk; Childs, who has won praise from Republicans in her home state of South Carolina; and Kruger, who has represented the federal government before the Supreme Court and is also a former clerk there. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mark Lanegan in 2018. (Jose Coelho/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Mark Lanegan, American singer-songwriter and lead vocalist of the rock band “Screaming Trees,” who became known as a grunge pioneer, has died at the age of 57, the Associated Press reported Tuesday, citing a statement on his official Twitter account.
“Our beloved friend Mark Lanegan passed away this morning at his home in Killarney, Ireland,” the tweet read, describing the star as a “beloved singer, songwriter, author and musician.”
Born in Ellensburg, Wash., in 1964, Mr. Lanegan formed the group Screaming Trees in the early 1980s, the Associated Press reported. The group released its first album in 1986 and went on to produce six more full-length albums.
During a career in which he released 11 solo albums, Mr. Lanegan collaborated with many artists, including Moby and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain. He was also a member of Queens of the Stone Age, an American rock band formed in 1996.
In his memoir, “Devil in a Coma,” which was published late last year, Mr. Lanegan documented his lengthy — and severe — battle with covid-19, which hospitalized him for months.
“Every attempted breath was a battle, no matter how hard I tried to take a natural one,” he wrote of his ordeal, adding that he experienced “bizarre dreams, strange visions, shadowy darkness, untrustworthy memories and recurring hallucinations,” likening it to a near-death experience.
Tributes to the star flooded social media, with the Welsh rock band the Manic Street Preachers describing Mr. Lanegan as a “huge talent” with “an amazing voice” and “beautiful words,” while punk icon Iggy Pop took to Twitter to declare his “deepest respect” for the singer.
Fans hailed him as a “legend” who had a “monumental live presence,” while rock band Garbage described him as a “gifted artist blessed with honey dipped tones, gone far too soon.”
Mr. Lanegan is survived by his wife, Shelley. | null | null | null | null | null |
The fight for Black freedom transcends national borders
Why thinking globally is important for securing African American rights
A protester stands in front of the U.S. Embassy during the Black Lives Matter protest rally in London on June 7, 2020. (Frank Augstein/AP)
By Shaun Armstead
Shaun Armstead is a history doctoral candidate at Rutgers University and is completing her dissertation on the National Council of Negro Women’s liberal internationalism in the mid-20th century as a pre-doctoral fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia.
At a recent news conference, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that “African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.” While McConnell contended he misspoke, many Black Americans understood his statement as an admission that he sees African Americans as fundamentally outside of belonging in the United States. In turn, many Black Americans defended their claim to American identity online using the hashtag “#Mitchplease,” and affirming their status as full U.S. citizens, with some touting histories of military service or consistent voting to emphasize the point.
Impassioned claims to U.S. citizenship as a rejoinder to white supremacist rhetoric and policies are nothing new. Black Americans have long sought to demonstrate first-class U.S. belonging through patriotic sacrifice and service. Such efforts showcasing Black contributions have been crucial to Black Americans’ struggle to access U.S. democracy as equal citizens. McConnell’s comments, however, and the ongoing failure to secure voting rights, may serve as a reminder that, for many White Americans, Black citizenship is conditional.
This points to the need to recognize that the struggle against white supremacy cannot be won within a national framework. Black Americans have long recognized the global dimension of this project. In fact, African Americans’ visions for racial justice often transcended the fight for first-class belonging to nation. Instead, Black internationalists resisted American racial oppression and imperialist exploitation within and outside the confines of U.S. borders.
National efforts to dismantle racism have often occurred in a global context. For example, abolitionists recognized that systems of slavery transcended borders. To advance abolition, formerly enslaved people often recounted their lived experiences to audiences within the United States and abroad. Britain was a popular stop for those delivering abolition lectures given its prominent antislavery movement, and the entanglement between its empire and slavery. Noted African American abolitionist and minister James W.C. Pennington said in an 1843 address to the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, “What I gain anywhere and everywhere … I gain for every manacled slave in America, and for every benighted African in the world.”
This tradition of courting international public opinion continued after slavery’s end. The rise of lynching in the late-19th century U.S. South spurred Ida B. Wells to travel in 1893 and 1894 to Europe, where she reported on the racial violence White Americans inflicted upon Black people. She anticipated that White U.S. audiences were inured to Black suffering, so she pursued her mission abroad instead. She thought cultivating global support would help effect change within the United States.
Black American internationalists continued to link their struggles within the nation to global politics. The scholar W.E.B. Du Bois declared in 1900 at the First Pan-African Conference in London that “the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line.” His words and the conference connected the ongoing denial of African American political rights to continued European colonial domination in Africa and to global disregard for Haitian, Ethiopian and Liberian national sovereignty.
Another, more radical iteration of pan-Africanism was Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was founded in Jamaica in 1914. Garvey and his first wife, Amy Ashwood, moved the UNIA headquarters to Harlem in 1918. Until 1924 it boasted millions of members in 40 countries, including the United States. Promoting racial pride and rejecting white supremacy, the UNIA encouraged diasporic Blacks to return to Africa to spearhead the continent’s recovery from despotic European rule.
Such ideas survived the decline of the organization, with women such as Chicagoan Mittie Maude Lena Gordon pursuing the cause of Black emigrationism during the mid-20th century. Admittedly exuding an imperialist impulse — the idea that Black American settlers would be welcomed as saviors or peers motivated some proponents — the politics of Black emigration in this era was committed to imagining freedom and racial justice beyond the American nation.
World War II and its aftermath sharpened many Black Americans’ sense that racial injustice was a global issue. The Double V campaign inspired anti-racist activists to link the domestic fight against racism in the United States with the U.S. mission of defeating fascism and colonialism abroad. African American liberals like Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, understood Jim Crow as a dimension of a worldwide oppressive regime targeting people of color. Indeed, when Jan Smuts’s South Africa discussed annexing South West Africa 1945, White likened it to identifying Black Americans in Mississippi as U.S. citizens while “denying them all the privileges of citizenship.”
Internationalism was central to one of the largest African American women’s federations, the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). Mary McLeod Bethune founded the NCNW in 1935 to unite Black women across the United States to acquire political power to improve the socioeconomic conditions of the race. Understanding that working only in the United States was too limiting, they also pursued Black women’s interests at the international level. When applying for consultative status at the United Nations for her organization in 1947, Bethune explained that “the darker women, not only in the U.S., but all over the world have added handicaps” that other women never experienced.
After Bethune died in 1955, her organization continued to address racism and sexism through national and international channels. They raised money to provide meals for children in Johannesburg under apartheid and promoted interracial collaboration in Mississippi during the civil rights movement.
Deep international experience primed the group for organizing an international seminar of Black women for the 1975 United Nations International Women’s Year conferences in Mexico City. Then helmed by Dorothy Height, the NCNW received a $100,000 grant from the U.S. State Department to host its seminar. Opening in Mexico City before moving to Mississippi and Florida, the 28-day seminar involved 23 Black women from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean meeting with their Black American women counterparts. Eventually the seminar supported the passage of the contentious U.S. Equal Rights Amendment in part “to set an example for other nations in the world where such rights have not been legislated for women.”
Yet developments in the United States also gradually diminished Black Americans’ focus on the global. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 bolstered U.S. claims of being an exceptional experiment of democracy during Cold War competition with the former Soviet Union. Cold War geopolitics had catalyzed a federal response to civil rights activism, and in turn legitimized Black people as American citizens. Yet intense anti-communism also required that activists moderate their demands, excluding economic injustice from their agenda. Securing de jure first-class citizenship had its price.
This price was evident after these civil rights successes. In 1965, African American writer Chester Himes published “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” a novel following two Black detectives in New York trying to thwart a fraudulent back-to-Africa scheme swindling unsuspecting hopefuls. The novel and subsequent 1970 film adaptation helped reduce such emigration schemes, formerly a legitimate dimension to Black international politics, to mockery in the aftermath of civil rights successes. Further, as historians such as Benjamin Talton and Brenda Plummer have described, late-20th century gentrification and urban disinvestment fractured many cities that had long been epicenters of Black international politics.
More recently, many have interpreted the historic elections of Barack Obama and Kamala D. Harris and the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin as evidence of racial progress. The idea that U.S. democracy, if not yet fair, is becoming fairer has turned Black Americans’ attention to national issues.
Yet as we can see in the ongoing struggles around voting rights, economic equality, police violence and incarceration, and even how systemic racism is talked about and taught, the ideas of Bethune, Du Bois and White are well worth revisiting today. Each understood how presumptions of the innate inferiority of non-White peoples animated domestic injustices as well as global ones. Equally important was their awareness of the limits of grounding Black freedom only in belonging to the American nation. The continued precarity of national belonging demands recommitting to international solidarity to dismantle white supremacy.
How might we start? One avenue would be acknowledging the relationship between anti-Blackness and unjust U.S. immigration policies. More broadly, Black Americans might ask ourselves the implications of limiting our focus to belonging to a nation with imperialism inextricable from its history. We and our collaborators could pay better attention to U.S. imperial violence abroad and ground responses to white supremacist rhetoric and policies in the language of a shared humanity that transcends nations rather than be defined by them. Indeed, if the inability to reorient international solidarities in the aftermath of civil rights victories and independence weakened Black international politics in the late 20th century, then we may fare better by expanding our horizons beyond national citizenship and sovereignty. Our rich history of fighting racism and imperialism across borders provides lessons and inspiration in this respect. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Sandy Hook settlement could transform the centuries-old marketing of guns
Since the mid-19th century, manufacturers have marketed guns to White men, especially young ones
An image of the weapon used during the Newtown school shooting is displayed while attorney Josh Koskoff speaks during a news conference in Trumbull, Conn., on Feb. 15. (Seth Wenig/AP)
By Tracy L. Barnett
Nine of the victims’ families sued. They argued that Remington violated state consumer laws based on their advertising of the weapon used in the shooting, a .223-caliber Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle. The “Consider Your Man Card Reissued” ad campaign, for example, implied that buying this particular rifle restored masculinity. Bushmaster’s website declared — before the text was quickly removed after the massacre — “In a world of rapidly depleting testosterone, the Bushmaster Man Card declares and confirms that you are a man’s man.” The aggressive marketing strategy used by Remington, the plaintiffs contended, directly targeted at-risk young men like Lanza.
The mid-19th-century economy was highly unregulated, and the federal government placed few restrictions on selling weapons and ammunition. As historian Pamela Haag has explained, “No pangs of conscience were attached” to firearms sales or marketing, and there were “no more special regulations, prohibitions, values, or mystique” relating to the manufacture, marketing or sales of guns than of shovels. As typical 19th-century capitalists, arms manufacturers held little to no personal affinity for guns; they held only a fascination with production, standardization, efficiency and moneymaking.
Samuel Colt exemplified the art of selling guns on unregulated markets. According to one historian, “Colt’s greatest invention was … the system he built to manufacture [repeating revolvers] and the apparatus of sales, image management, and marketing that made his guns … the most popular, prolific, and storied handgun in American history.” Remington and other competitors built upon this profitable system.
While not explicitly named in the Jan. 16, 1861, New York Times editorial, the Hartford-based Colt had deliberately drummed up business below the Mason-Dixon Line in the years before the Civil War and supplied guns to the future rebels. Astoundingly, the company’s last Southern order appears to have shipped from New England to Texas on April 16, 1861 — almost four months after South Carolina seceded and a week after the bombardment of Fort Sumter.
The Winchester Repeating Arms Co. launched the “boy plan,” aimed at American youths and their parents. Corporate executives developed a marketing strategy to reach more than 1 million boys between ages 10 and 16. “When the boys and girls of your town arrive at the age of twelve years old, they become your prospects,” noted the company’s internal sales letter. In the late 1910s, the company’s slogan — “Every real boy wants a Winchester rifle” — became prominent. This marketing campaign informed boys that, to be real men, they needed a Winchester. | null | null | null | null | null |
A wave of anti-LGBT bills may motivate political activism.
Participants with the Alliance for GLBTQ Youth march at the annual Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade on April 9, 2017, in Miami Beach, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP)
Last week, Gallup reported that a record 7.1 percent of the U.S. population identifies as LGBT, or otherwise does not identify as heterosexual. It finds the number in older generations holding steady, while the biggest increase is among Generation Z (people born from 1997 through 2003). One in five people in this group now identify as LGBT. Given that LGBT voters were among those who helped decide the 2020 election for President Biden, what does this news mean for LGBT political power?
Republicans might actually benefit from this increase, especially if social acceptance is the reason more people are willing to identify themselves as LGBT. Social acceptance may lead a greater proportion of LGBT voters to feel cautious about social change and support more conservative policies.
But recent Republican-led legislative attacks on LGBT people are more likely to translate into increased political attention and activism among the LGBT group that favors Democrats. Because Gen Z is where this group is growing, LGBT interest groups and political parties may wish to increase youth get-out-the-vote efforts if they want the increased LGBT population to influence the 2022 election.
Social acceptance may increase support for Republican candidates
Gallup speculates the increase in LGBT identification reflects a shift in acceptance among the general population. That is, more LGBT people feel comfortable identifying as such because they feel accepted by society. It is true that attitudes toward LGBT people have improved since the 1970s; however, attitudes toward transgender people are not as positive as attitudes toward the other three groups in the acronym. Attitudes are also mixed about specific policies like bathroom access for transgender people and religious exemptions to civil rights laws — for instance, whether a bakery can refuse to supply a cake for a same-sex wedding.
If LGBT people do indeed feel more accepted, what does that mean for how LGBT Americans will vote in the 2022 midterms? Here’s what my research found.
From Nov. 4-14, 2016, I surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,100 LGBT people, recruited through Qualtrics Inc. who maintain a panel of LGBT Americans. Although not a random sample, I established survey quotas for race and ethnicity, gender, and sexuality based on two random samples of LGBT Americans. I asked respondents what party they identified with, along with their opinions about the role of government, how incomes should be distributed, and other policies. I also asked if they felt society was accepting of their sexual orientation and gender identity.
In analyzing the responses, I found perceptions of acceptance are associated with more conservative political attitudes about such things as inequality and gun rights, even after controlling for other factors associated with conservative attitudes, like age, urban residency, and religion. In other words, feeling accepted can translate into a political preference to keep society the same. Why? Because when you feel accepted, you have less incentive to see change. This finding is consistent with the LGBT voters’ increase in support for President Donald Trump from 2016 to 2020.
As more LGBT people feel accepted and willing to come out, some will be more willing to support Republican candidates. However, that increase will most likely be limited to those LGBT people protected from discrimination on other grounds, or insulated from acutely feeling discrimination because they are financially secure and/or White.
States are still trying to ban trans youth from sports. Here's what you need to know.
However, increased anti-LGBT legislation will likely mobilize new voters
According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), 2021 saw the largest number of anti-transgender bills ever introduced or enacted in state legislatures. It is feared 2022 will surpass those milestones, and the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) is already tracking hundreds of anti-LGBT bills in state legislatures, most filed within the past two months. This year, South Dakota enacted a law targeting transgender student athletes and the Florida legislature advanced a bill to ban the mention of sexual orientation or gender identity in schools, nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay Bill,” among other measures.
In another analysis of the same LGBT survey respondents, I found that when LGBT people experience discrimination, they become more likely to vote in both primary and general elections and attempt to persuade others to vote. While some LGBT people may feel social acceptance, others likely do not. This will motivate them to engage politically by voting in favor of candidates who support LGBT rights throughout the midterm cycle.
The Supreme Court handed conservatives a narrow religious freedom victory in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia.
Young LGBT people won’t necessarily vote without organization
In many parts of the country, some proportion of LGBT people are still treated poorly by police or encounter other difficulties with public policy. Historically, this has pushed some into political activism. Openly LGBT people continue to be one of the most politically active constituencies in American politics. As in previous elections, in 2020, a larger proportion of LGBT-identifying voters said they went to the polls than was assumed to be their share of the population at the time.
Young people traditionally have the lowest turnout rates of any age group. Since the biggest growth in LGBT identifiers is among Gen Z, the increase that Gallup found may not affect the 2022 election. While younger people have voted in record numbers since 2018, those ages 18 to 24 only represented a small percentage of the electorate in 2020. Some evidence suggests that young LGBT people are more politically active than their non-LGBT peers. But if the growing proportion of LGBT Gen Zers are to vote in the midterms, they will need organizational help from interest groups and political parties.
Many college Republicans didn't vote for Trump in 2020. His racist rhetoric may be why.
Not all LGBT people are politically liberal. Nor do they all vote Democratic, although the vast majority do. Even if major metropolitan areas are likely to go for Democrats, LGBT people also inhabit rural districts. As the number of people who identify as LGBT increases in these areas, they could become an important political constituency.
R.G. Cravens (@actualdrcravens) is an assistant professor of political science at California Polytechnic State University and a Public Fellow in LGBTQ Rights at the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington, D.C. | null | null | null | null | null |
By Kim Tong-Hyung | AP
SEOUL, South Korea — The United Nations’ independent investigator on human rights in North Korea has called for the international community to provide 60 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the isolated authoritarian nation, which has recently showed signs of easing one of the world’s most restrictive pandemic border closures. | null | null | null | null | null |
A man hangs clothes out to dry on a rooftop in August 2019 in the Yau Tsim Mong district in Hong Kong, where more than half of the city's subdivided flats are located. (Nicole Tung for The Washington Post)
Sze Lai-shan, vice-chair of Society for Community Organization, said the group has received 400 calls for help from those self-isolating in subdivided apartments and “cage homes” — bed-sized accommodations that have long been the symbol of Hong Kong’s extreme housing situation. | null | null | null | null | null |
Henry filed an arrest warrant against Goldring, saying she had been carrying illegal substances. Goldring ended up in jail and wouldn’t be released until almost six months later, in March 2016, after prosecutors realized the drug tests in fact had been negative. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations completed its own tests on the sand inside Goldring’s stress ball, more than a month after her arrest, and they were negative, as well. | null | null | null | null | null |
Wednesday briefing: What’s happening in Ukraine; hate-crime verdict; wildfire outlook; Truth Social’s rough launch; and more
The U.S. announced sanctions on Russia.
Why? Russian troops have moved into two regions of Ukraine partly controlled by Russian separatists. President Biden called it “the beginning” of an invasion.
What are sanctions? Essentially, an economic alternative to military force. The U.S. has ruled out sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine, although more are being sent to Eastern Europe.
What the U.S. did: Targeted two of Russia’s largest banks, cutting them off from getting loans from the West, as well as the finances of Russian elites.
Ahmaud Arbery’s killers were found guilty of committing a hate crime.
The verdict: A jury ruled yesterday that Travis and Gregory McMichael and William Bryan chased and attacked Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old, because he was Black.
The evidence: The trial centered on dozens of racist messages on the three White men’s phones and social media accounts.
Why this matters: This trial was the first to ask about the role of race in one of the high-profile killings of Black people in 2020.
Vaccine protection was much weaker against the omicron variant.
What that means: People who were vaccinated got sick, were hospitalized and died at higher rates during the latest surge, according to CDC data.
Why is this happening? Reduced vaccine effectiveness over time, plus increasing contagiousness of variants. However, vaccines are still the most effective defense against the coronavirus.
Biden is close to naming his Supreme Court nominee.
The latest: He has interviewed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Justice Leondra Kruger — all Black women.
The timeline: An announcement is coming as soon as this week. Biden promised to name his replacement for Justice Stephen Breyer, who plans to retire, by the end of the month.
Extreme wildfires will probably become more common around the world.
The data: They may increase by 14% in less than in 10 years and 30% by 2050, according to a new U.N. study.
What's happening? A combination of climate change and land use that’s causing a shift in wildfire patterns.
What “extreme” means: Fires that burn longer or hotter than usual — like ones last year in the Western U.S. — or spread into unusual territory, like the Arctic or wetlands.
Donald Trump’s new social network has had a rough launch.
What’s happening? Glitches, a 13-hour outage and a 300,000-person waitlist has made Truth Social almost inaccessible since going live this week.
What is Truth Social? The former president’s answer to mainstream social networks. It works much like Twitter.
Baseball’s leaders are meeting this week to try to save Opening Day.
What’s happening: Baseball is in a lockout, which means owners have suspended all team activities. Nothing — practice, games, etc. — can happen until a deal is reached.
Why? There’s a labor dispute between the players and MLB. Both sides will continue negotiating today in Florida.
What’s at stake: Spring training has already been delayed, and regular season games could be postponed, if there’s no deal by Monday.
And now ... for anyone as annoyed with these as I am: How to stop getting spam texts. | null | null | null | null | null |
Henry filed an arrest warrant against Goldring, saying she had been carrying illegal substances. Goldring ended up in jail and wouldn’t be released until almost six months later, in March 2016, after prosecutors realized the drug tests in fact had been negative. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation completed its own tests on the sand inside Goldring’s stress ball, more than a month after her arrest, and they were negative, as well. | null | null | null | null | null |
Residents on the rooftop of a residential building in a locked-down part of the Jordon district in Hong Kong. (Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)
For 16 days, Chan, who asked that only his last name be used out of embarrassment, followed the city’s mandatory self-isolation policy, living on the roof of the building in a steady drizzle amid unseasonably cold temperatures. He ate instant noodles and defecated in plastic bags. He slept in three jackets and two trousers with a blanket dampened by the rain seeping under the rooftop door. He said he often woke from a dream that “he was naked and freezing.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Though not reported in the District yet, HPAI appears to be drawing closer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the disease on Feb. 14 among a backyard flock of mixed species birds in Fauquier County, Va. The disease is not an immediate public health concern, the USDA said in a release, and no human cases have been detected. | null | null | null | null | null |
8 VERITY (Grand Central, $16.99). By Colleen Hoover. A writer hired to complete an incapacitated bestselling author’s manuscript learns disturbing secrets.
4 THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE (Crown, $20). By Erik Larson. A look at how Winston Churchill led Britain through World War II that explores his political gamesmanship and his family dynamics.
5 EDUCATED (Random House, $18.99). By Tara Westover. A memoir by a woman from a survivalist family who earned a PhD at Cambridge.
8 MAUS I & II PAPERBACK BOX SET (Pantheon, $33.90). By Art Spiegelman. The award-winning graphic novel series about the Holocaust, combined into a box set.
9 ALL THAT SHE CARRIED (Random House, $18.99). By Tiya Miles. A historian traces the ownership history of a sack embroidered by an enslaved woman.
10 LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I MEAN (Vintage, $16). By Joan Didion. A collection of the essayist’s works from 1968 to 2000.
7 THE NAME OF THE WIND (DAW, $10.99). By Patrick Rothfuss. Kvothe the Kingkiller tells the story of his rise to near-legendary heroism.
9 WOMEN WHO RUN WITH THE WOLVES (Ballantine, $8.99.). By Clarissa Pinkola Estés. An in depth look at myths and stories to help women reconnect with their inner fierce nature.
10 GOOD OMENS (Morrow, $9.99). By Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. A novel imagining the end of the world and the fallout. | null | null | null | null | null |
Though not reported in the District yet, HPAI appears to be drawing closer. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the disease Feb. 14 among a backyard flock of mixed species birds in Fauquier County, Va. The disease is not an immediate public health concern, the USDA said in a statement, and no human cases have been detected. | null | null | null | null | null |
Alexander Zverev, the world’s third-ranked men’s tennis player, apologized for an outburst that led to him being thrown out of a tournament in Acapulco, Mexico, and faces the likelihood of further punishment for repeatedly striking the umpire’s chair with his racket after a loss in a doubles match.
“It is difficult to put into words how much I regret my behavior during and after the doubles match yesterday,” he wrote in an Instagram story. "I have privately apologized to the chair umpire because my outburst towards him was wrong and unacceptable and I am only disappointed in myself. It just should not have happened and there is no excuse. I would also like to apologize to my fans, the tournament and the sport that I love.
“As you know, I leave everything on the court. Yesterday, I left too much. I am going to take the coming days to reflect on my actions and how I can ensure that it will not happen again. I am sorry for letting you down.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Trump Shouldn’t Be Immune From Prosecution
FLORENCE, ARIZONA - JANUARY 15: Former President Donald Trump departs after speaking at a rally at the Canyon Moon Ranch festival grounds on January 15, 2022 in Florence, Arizona. The rally marks Trump’s first of the midterm election year with races for both the U.S. Senate and governor in Arizona this year. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) (Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images North America)
Former President Donald Trump’s legal problems continue to multiply. It’s unclear at this point whether the Department of Justice is seriously considering criminal charges against him for his actions on and surrounding Jan. 6, 2021. But we do know that the House select committee investigating those events seems to be approaching the assignment as if they were prosecutors (which, alas, probably explains why they still haven’t held or even scheduled their long-promised hearings). That committee may anticipate writing a report that makes the case for indictments. And that’s hardly the only trouble Trump is in. Historian Matt Dallek explains:
Bank and tax fraud charges are under consideration in Manhattan. In Fulton County, Ga., a special grand jury is investigating Trump’s interference in the 2020 election. In a Washington courtroom, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta told a convicted Jan. 6 Capitol rioter that he was a pawn in a scheme by more powerful people, and the legal community is debating whether Trump’s seeming incitement of the insurrection has opened him up to criminal charges. The National Archives requested that the Justice Department open an investigation into Trump’s mishandling of top-secret documents that the government recently retrieved from his Florida estate. Trump still faces legal jeopardy for obstructing justice during Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election (remember that one?). During the 2016 campaign, Trump allegedly orchestrated hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels (the charges that landed his handler Michael Cohen in prison referred to Trump as Individual #1). This list is hardly exhaustive and omits the dozen-plus civil lawsuits and civil investigations Trump faces.
Dallek raises the decision by Gerald Ford to pardon Richard Nixon, who had resigned the presidency before virtually certain impeachment, conviction and removal, and who was very likely to be indicted and convicted for his various crimes in the Watergate scandal. For Dallek, Ford’s decision was a mistake that weakened the rule of law, given that “Nixon never had to pay for his crimes.” It’s true, of course, that Nixon was saved from conviction and a prison sentence. But surely resigning from office in disgrace, with almost every member of Congress from his own party ready to vote to impeach and convict, means that Nixon did not get away with it. Yes, Dallek is correct that Nixon returned to a form of respectability over time, but it wasn’t the pardon that gave him that opportunity. While it is likely he would have been convicted, he probably would not have served much longer than the 18 months his White House chief of staff served, and at any rate no more than five years. Nixon was determined to rehabilitate his image, and while a trial and prison time might have slowed the process down, it’s hard to believe that any of those who accepted him as a senior statesman would have acted differently had he been a convicted felon instead of just a pardoned one.
The Trump situation is very different. Nixon never really did act particularly contrite. But he accepted his exile from electoral politics, and while he never entirely gave up spinning the facts and interpretations of Watergate, almost all of his public re-emergence was centered on his policy expertise. He certainly never attempted to be the leader of the Republican Party after August 1974. He did not try to purge his party of those who had opposed him. His presidency had been a threat to U.S. democracy, but his post-presidency really wasn’t. Nixon did once famously say in a post-resignation interview that as president he was essentially above the law. But Donald Trump is practically a walking billboard of contempt for the rule of law, and his post-presidency has been nothing but an argument that he is above the law.
I’m not a lawyer, so I cannot assess the criminal case McQuade makes or the chances of conviction. I can, however, speak about the constitutional system and the rule of law. I think Ford’s instinct was a healthy one. The bar for prosecuting a former president should be a high one indeed. There’s an odor inherent in it, especially when the other party is in office. It should give us pause.
But let’s not kid ourselves. If the decision to prosecute Trump would be necessarily political, so would any decision not to prosecute him if the law and evidence and circumstances make it an otherwise reasonable course of action. If we should be uncomfortable about prosecuting him, we should feel far more uncomfortable about a former president who actively attempted to undermine the Constitution while in office and continues to do so now. If it stinks to prosecute a former president? The stench from Trump’s actions from Election Day 2020 through Jan. 6 and right up to the present day is overwhelming.
None of that is sufficient. A lot of Trump’s misdeeds in office were grounds for legitimate impeachment and removal (and disqualification), but not necessarily violations of law. Any case has to be solid on its own, regardless of what else Trump has done. But if it is, I think McQuade is exactly correct: “A sober and clear-eyed assessment of prosecution must consider that charging Trump criminally could have profoundly negative consequences for our country. The only thing worse would be not charging him.” | null | null | null | null | null |
In this photo provided by the Imperial Household Agency of Japan, Japan’s Emperor Naruhito speaks during a press conference at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, Feb. 21, 2022, ahead of the Emperor’s 62nd birthday on Feb. 23. (The Imperial Household Agency of Japan via AP) (Uncredited/Imperial Household Agency of Japan) | null | null | null | null | null |
Robert Trent Jones Golf Club to host Solheim Cup in 2024
Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., is scheduled to host the 2024 Solheim Cup. (Courtesy of Fred Weston/LPGA Tour)
The Solheim Cup is scheduled to be played at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va., in 2024, the LPGA announced Wednesday morning, marking the first time the Washington region will host the most prestigious match-play event in professional women’s golf.
The dates for the 2024 Solheim Cup between top players from the United States and Europe are to be determined, but the event will probably be scheduled for late September after the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour finalize playing schedules for that season.
Robert Trent Jones will be hosting a major women’s competition for the first time after it hosted four Presidents Cups, including the first two in 1994 and 1996, and the PGA Tour’s Quicken Loans National in 2015.
“RTJ has a strong tradition of hosting world-class international competitions, and we can’t wait to add the Solheim Cup, one of the flagship events in women’s golf, to the list,” LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said in a statement. “Playing the Solheim Cup on this magnificent golf course near our nation’s capital will provide the perfect backdrop for these elite athletes to battle for the Cup.”
Robert Trent Jones is located roughly 35 miles from D.C. and is considered among the most distinguished courses in Northern Virginia. It has counted among its members former president Barack Obama and former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
“It is a tremendous honor to be selected to host this prestigious event and believe our club is an ideal venue for this competition,” said George Cantrell, president of Robert Trent Jones. “Our club and membership look forward to welcoming the top U.S. and European women golfers and fans from across the globe.”
The 2024 Solheim Cup represents the event’s return to an even-year rotation so that it is held in different years from the Ryder Cup, which shifted to odd years after the 2020 event was postponed to 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. It also marks the first time the competition is on track to be held in consecutive years since 2002 and ’03, when the Solheim Cup shifted to odd years in response to a change in the Ryder Cup schedule after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The next Solheim Cup will be played at Finca Cortesin Golf Club in Casares, Spain, from Sept. 22 through Sept. 24, 2023, with Stacy Lewis serving as the U.S. captain and Suzann Pettersen as captain of Team Europe.
Europe defeated the United States, 15-13, in the most recent Solheim Cup last year at Inverness Club in Toledo.
“I have no doubt that the club and its members will serve as wonderful hosts,” Marcoux Samaan said of Robert Trent Jones, “and that fans from around the world will enjoy an experience of a lifetime.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Chasing Cancer: Women & Cancer with Thalie Martini & Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) & Thalie Martini join Washington Post Live on Wednesday, Feb. 23 (The Washington Post)
Every five minutes, a woman is diagnosed with a gynecologic cancer. Coupled with the outsized impact of COVID-19, the burden of cancer on women is only expected to rise in coming years, with breast cancer becoming the most common type of cancer diagnosed. On Wednesday, February 23, join Washington Post’s Yasmeen Abutaleb for conversations with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), a cancer survivor, and Thalie Martini, the CEO of Breast Cancer UK, as they examine the status of cancer around the world, with a particular focus on how women are impacted.
Thalie Martini
CEO, Breast Cancer UK
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)
Content from Novartis
Knocking Down Barriers to Health Equity
Despite significant progress, women continue to face unique barriers in access to cancer screenings and treatment, which have been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Reshema Kemps-Polanco, executive vice president and head, Novartis Oncology US, and Zainab Salbi discuss the challenges and possible solutions for improving outcomes among women—and what more can be done in both the short and long term.
Reshema Kemps-Polanco
Provided by Novartis Oncology.
Reshema Kemps-Polanco is Executive Vice President, US Oncology. In this role she is responsible for all commercial and medical operations covering the United States.
Most recently, Reshema served as President, Cardiovascular & Metabolism (CVM), US, and President, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Puerto Rico.
Before joining CVM, Reshema served as Vice President, Solid Tumor Sales & Marketing in the US Oncology business where she led the expansion of Janssen Oncology’s solid tumor portfolio, with a focus on genitourinary oncology. Reshema previously held multiple leadership roles within the Global Commercial Strategy Organization, helping ensure the long-term sustainability for their prostate cancer business. Prior to Janssen, Reshema spent 15 years at Novartis where she led multiple marketing teams within Oncology and General Medicines. She also served as Assistant to the CEO and Head of North America at Novartis and held other commercial roles of increasing responsibility across multiple therapeutic areas.
Reshema was recognized by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) as a Rising Star and a Top-40-Under-40-Achiever by The Network Journal during her tenure at Novartis.
Reshema is a purpose driven leader with a strong track record of building diverse, inclusive, high-performing teams, as well as leading through adversity and ambiguity. She is inspired by improving healthcare outcomes through therapies and services that deliver advancements in the standard of care, creating equal access to medicines, and decreasing healthcare inequities. Reshema embraces the organization’s curious, inspired and unbossed culture that will enable the team to drive the Novartis mission to reimagine medicine.
In addition to Reshema’s commercial accomplishments, she is a strong believer in servant leadership and a passionate developer and sponsor of talent.
Reshema earned a Master’s in Business Administration from Rutgers University, holds a Master’s Degree in Industrial/Organizational Behavior from Louisiana Tech University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. She also proudly served her country as a member of the U.S. Army.
Moderated by Zainab Salbi
Zainab Salbi is a celebrated humanitarian, author and journalist. Oprah Winfrey identified her as one of the 25 women changing the world to People Magazine, President Clinton nominated her as a “21st Century Heroine” for Harper’s Bazaar; Foreign Policy magazine called Zainab one of “100 Top Global Thinkers”, and Fast Company identified her as “One of the 100 Most Creative People in Business”. Similar designations also include Newsweek, Fortune, and the Guardian. She is the founder and former CEO of Women for Women International, a humanitarian organization that supports women survivors of conflicts rebuild their lives. Under her leadership, the organization mobilized nearly half a million women in 69 countries, raised $120 million in aid and micro loans, directly supported 420,000 women and impacted more than 1.7 family members in 8 countries. Zainab authored four books including the national bestseller Between Two Worlds and her latest Freedom Is an Inside Job. She is also the creator and host of several shows including: #MeToo, Now What? on PBS, The Zainab Salbi Project on Huff Post, The Nida’a Show on TLC Arabia, and Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi at Yahoo News. In 2021, Zainab co-founded Daughters For Earth, a $100 Million Fund aims to mobilize women to actively engage in climate change solutions and launched her new podcast about redefining life in July 2021. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Efforts to silence Virginia’s citizens boards and commissions are wrong
Rufus Elliott, 35, a member of the Monacan Indian Nation, stands at the confluence of the James and Rivanna rivers in Fork Union, Va., in December 2019. (Julia Rendleman for The Washington Post)
By Rebecca R. Rubin
Kenneth R. Plum
Rebecca R. Rubin served on the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board from 2014 to 2018. Kenneth R. Plum, a Democrat, represents Fairfax in the Virginia House of Delegates. Kathy Tran, a Democrat, represents Fairfax in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Virginia’s natural resources are truly amazing — magnificent forests provide habitat to abundant wildlife, and stunning rivers and streams stretch across the entire state. The commonwealth set about protecting these environments decades ago for the benefit of all Virginians with the creation of the State Water Control Board in 1946 and the Air Pollution Control Board in 1966.
We were early leaders in the United States by establishing structured protections for clean air, clean water and our natural treasures. We’ve also had challenges along the way, including air quality that hasn’t always met federal standards, Kepone poisoning the James River, mercury contamination of the Shenandoah River and a Chesapeake Bay with dead zones.
Our ability to revitalize and protect Virginia’s natural resources year after year rests with both our long-standing citizen boards and with our staff at the Department of Environmental Quality, established more recently, in 1993.
Our State Water Control Board and Air Pollution Control Board regulate water and air pollution throughout the commonwealth, providing critical oversight to environmental permitting. Virginia’s citizen boards play an important role in ensuring that Virginians have clean water and clean air. Equally important, the citizen boards encourage and allow public participation in these important decisions.
Transparent and open government is a critical part of the structure and responsibilities of the citizen boards, which deliberate, receive input and cast their up-or-down votes in public. Regularly scheduled public meetings are open to everyone; public comment requirements allow for additional public input on specific decisions; and each meeting typically reserves time for residents to openly communicate with policymakers. All of this ensures that the public has direct access to permitting decision-makers.
Ensuring that community members who are directly affected by permitting requests have a chance to weigh in on these deliberations is paramount. After all, these individuals must directly live with any changes approved through the permitting process, and, ultimately, the pollution. Further, we know that environmental pollution and climate change disproportionately affect low-wealth communities and communities of color.
Now, there is an attempt to turn back the clock on the successes that have been realized in Virginia. Some are now disgruntled that this long-standing permitting framework presents a “hurdle” for applicants seeking to pollute. Their solution: Blow up the current system.
Senate Bill 657 and House Bill 1261, as introduced, would remove the boards’ roles in important decision-making that protects Virginia’s air, water, lands and communities. This will take what has traditionally been an open, public permitting process led by our citizen boards and place it behind the doors of the Department of Environmental Quality.
The current structure provides transparency to the process and ensures that science and community interests are addressed and accommodated in a balanced way. Each permit application requests changes that may have long-lasting and life-changing effects on our public health and environment. We need to ensure that they are considered with full community input. Efforts to minimize and silence Virginia’s citizen boards are wrong. Their role in the permitting process should be protected, not erased. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Good news in Virginia on school construction and parole board reform
A locker room at Binford Middle School in Richmond in March 2019. Students and teachers at the school and across Richmond Public Schools say they've long had building issues in the school system. (Debbie Truong/The Washington Post)
As the General Assembly and the Youngkin administration begin the real work of the 2022 session — dickering over the fine details and political flash points of Virginia’s budget — there are two items that deserve a little more attention.
One is a measure coming out of the Republican-controlled House of Delegates that would create a roughly $2 billion loan fund to help localities tackle the massive backlog of school repair and construction needs.
It’s not the perfect solution to the state’s public school infrastructure crisis, erring as it does on the side of parsimony. It’s not even very novel, considering how it builds off the existing (and ill-used) Literary Fund. The estimated tab for replacing those schools that are well past their safely usable life is $25 billion.
But it’s better than no solution at all. If the Senate agrees to this proposal, then, finally, Virginia will be on the way to addressing a long-standing embarrassment that also posed a threat to health and safety for kids, teachers, and administrators alike.
And I can’t leave the issue there without noting the words of Del. Barry Knight (R-Virginia Beach), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
“I take the approach that schools need to be replaced, but it is not a state function,” he said in an interview. “It has never been a state function. I didn’t want to set a precedent.”
This is wrong. According to the Department of Education’s 2021 report to the Commission on School Construction and Modernization, state government was an active builder of schools until the 1930s, when the state took over road building and maintenance from profligate counties and left the counties in charge of building schools.
The report noted that in the 1940s and 1950s, state government “provided localities with grants for school construction.” Those grants, not surprisingly, faded with the rise of that other ugly chapter in Virginia history: “massive resistance.” The state’s support for construction dwindled even further following the collapse of massive resistance, moving “primarily toward providing loans only.”
As for the other topic worth noting: Remember when the Virginia Parole Board was in the news? The board faced an array of accusations that it broke its own rules and state law in its rush to release violent convicted felons from prison. The Democratic-controlled General Assembly and the Northam administration agreed to an outside investigation, but that taxpayer-funded report landed with an embarrassing thud.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) quickly followed up on his campaign promise to fire the existing board and replace it with new people, which was necessary and essential to help restore credibility to that organization.
But the General Assembly got in on the reforms, too. Or, to be more specific, it was finally able to do so thanks to Republicans taking control of the House of Delegates.
The Senate approved a bill to make votes of the parole board, which are currently secret, subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act. The Senate passed similar bills in 2020 and 2021 only to have House Democrats bury the bills in committee.
The House version passed 95-5.
Bringing the Parole Board under the FOIA umbrella is a small step toward greater accountability. It should have happened a long time ago. If it had, Virginia might have avoided the problems that dogged the board throughout 2020 and 2021 — and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe in the 2021 race.
But just like the school construction measure, it took an Election Day house cleaning to make the right thing happen. Better late than never. | null | null | null | null | null |
“He’s very misunderstood because, throughout the years, some people would question him, like, ‘Is this kid serious?’ ” Bobby, Josh Rogers's father, said. “That’s just who he is.” (Marta Lavandier/AP Photo)
If Josh Rogers can help it, he won’t just be known as that guy with the wacky delivery. But sitting in the Washington Nationals’ dugout last September, he had to admit that, yeah, okay, “the reaction to my windup has been pretty sick.”
Sick is one of the lefty’s favorite words. He considers it a very versatile adjective.
Getting signed by the Nationals in June 2021, in the same week the Baltimore Orioles released him after four minor league appearances following his second Tommy John surgery rehab? “I mean, in my head I’m thinking, ‘Wow, they have Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin, Stephen Strasburg. This place is sick.’ ”
Or what about the surgery itself, performed in 2019? “So there was obviously a huge risk to doing it a second time. But there’s an internal brace with the tendon in there that’s holding it all together. Dr. Keith Meister down in Texas, he was sick. He just jumped in there and my elbow has never felt better.”
And recovering during the coronavirus pandemic, away from any team doctors or facilities because he wasn’t on a 40-man roster? “Oh that was sick, honestly. Throwing with my dad in the front yard, I felt like a Little Leaguer again. That was so sick.”
Rogers’s path back to the majors is a mirror for the times in the world (coronavirus pandemic) and Washington (where the rebuilding Nationals are younger and less experienced than they’ve been in more than a decade).
In February 2020, he arrived in Sarasota, Fla., to begin his throwing program. A few weeks later, he was headed back to his hometown of New Albany, Ind., right outside of Louisville, once the pandemic shut down sports. So Rogers and his dad, Bobby, grabbed their gloves and threw in front of the house, eventually stretching out to long toss. Rogers lifted weights in a makeshift gym in a friend’s garage, the door swung open for proper ventilation.
When he returned, the Orioles yanked on a tight leash. Seventeen and a third innings, 15 earned runs, and he was on the market, there for a Nationals team needing a depth lefty in the minors. And three months after that, after Washington traded a third of its roster at the deadline, the sell-off and injuries leaving the Nationals with one of their five starters on their Opening Day squad, Rogers was called up.
His delivery — shoulders rocking side to side, a few sharp bends of his knees — made him a fan favorite. Some solid starts helped, too. Rogers filled his news conferences with breathless answers and, after his debut, a shout out to his sister that made it seem as if he were accepting an Oscar. He was living a dream that was threatened then revived in the shadows of the sport’s outer fringes. And whenever Major League Baseball’s lockout lifts, Rogers should have a shot to keep it going.
“I mean, they took a chance on me,” Rogers said of getting a second baseball life in Washington. “I got released by the worst organization in baseball, statistically. … It is what it is. It’s a humbling, humbling thing driving home, getting released by Baltimore. It’s like, ‘Holy cow, if I can’t play for those guys, who can I play for?’
“And the Nats were the first team to reach out to me. That's normally a good sign, the first team to reach out, obviously they see something in you.”
A number of questions will help determine if Rogers cracks the Nationals’ rotation to begin 2022: Will Stephen Strasburg make a full recovery from thoracic outlet surgery? Will Joe Ross be ready for a full innings load after suffering a partial tear in his elbow last August? Will Paolo Espino rejoin the staff? Will Washington add a veteran starter once the transaction freeze lifts? And perhaps most importantly for Rogers, are there any young arms — someone such as Joan Adon — whom the club wants to see on the mound right away?
There are many moving parts. Rogers, though, spent last September flashing solid command of a low-90s fastball, slider and change-up. Lacking swing-and-miss velocity, he relies on location, creative sequences and extensive game-planning. And though he acknowledges his slim margin for error, he can only make the most of what he has.
“I’ve been doing it for a while, so it’s like just gaining that confidence to be able to throw strikes and not be scared to challenge guys,” said Rogers, who was drafted by the New York Yankees in the 11th round of the 2015 draft. “And just sometimes say, 'Hey man, how far can you hit this ball? Let’s see how far you can.’ ”
Rogers then shrugged and cracked a wide smile. Homers happen. When he’s going well, he works at a quick pace and induces a lot of soft contact. No matter what, he is high-fiving teammates, dancing to the stadium music and needling Manager Dave Martinez — like when, after pulling off a sweet glove flip in Miami, he told Martinez it was for his Gold Glove résumé.
Martinez laughed and suggested pitching a few more innings first. Rogers kept the bit going for a few days.
“He’s very misunderstood because, throughout the years, some people would question him, like, ‘Is this kid serious?’ ” Bobby, his father, said. “That’s just who he is. He plays better and performs better when he’s more of himself. He’s not going to be the guy that’s ‘Don’t touch me, don’t talk to me, don’t look at me.’ He’s the opposite. He wants to be involved. He’ll get up and chest-bump and high-five with the best of them.”
There is a serious side to Rogers. It peeks through in how hard he critiques himself after starts. It showed, too, following his debut with the Nationals, when he told reporters about losing his grandfather last July and how he wished he could have been there with the rest of his family.
Rogers counted his grandfather, Bobby Rogers Sr., as his biggest fan. So while rehabbing at home during the pandemic, Rogers and Bobby would drive to his grandfather’s house and do part of their throwing routine in his front yard. Rogers Sr., battling cancer then, sat in a chair and watched his son and grandson play catch. Bobby felt like it was all meant to be.
“It all weirdly worked out for a reason,” Rogers agreed. “We were there together every single day … and it was cool. It was sick.” | null | null | null | null | null |
RICHMOND, Va. — Amazon plans to open a new fulfillment center in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, creating 500 new jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Wednesday.
The facility in Augusta County is expected to be operational in spring 2023 and will add to Amazon’s existing workforce of more than 30,000 full- and part-time employees in Virginia, Youngkin’s office said in a news release.
“Virginia’s position as a premier logistics destination is bolstered by continued investments from industry leaders like Amazon, which is catalyzing economic development in regions across the Commonwealth,” Secretary of Commerce and Trade Caren Merrick said in a statement. | null | null | null | null | null |
Some of that extra savings, however, may not be spent anytime soon. Many say consumers are keeping more in the bank as insurance against rising uncertainty. In St. Albans City, Vt., John DeMarinis, 68, owns Boston Tailoring, a dry-cleaning and alterations business that has been in his family for more than a century, but like a lot of dry cleaners, he’s seen business dry up during the pandemic. | null | null | null | null | null |
Hannah Crowley
Whether you’re thinking about getting a rice cooker, Dutch oven, reusable silicone bags, a stand mixer or an Air Fryer, we’re here to help. Tell us:
Joining us on chat is Hannah Crowley, an executive editor for ATK reviews and co-host of ATK’s “Gear Heads” on Youtube. She’s written about and reviewed kitchen equipment and ingredients for more than a decade and is passionate about helping people spend their money wisely.
Let’s work together to help you decide whether an item will be a good fit for you! | null | null | null | null | null |
The start of opening arguments follows several days of questioning to select a jury for the high-profile case. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Ann Bailey Smith twice denied requests from Mathews to move the trial to another jurisdiction where potential jurors might be less familiar with the killing of Taylor, a Black 26-year-old emergency-room technician. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Internal Revenue Service is no longer functioning properly. The agency reported a backlog of about 8 million unprocessed returns at the start of the year; it turns out the actual figure is nearly 24 million, according to data obtained by The Post. About half of that backlog is paper returns the IRS doesn’t have enough staff to process. The other half is a mix of amended returns, cases flagged for more scrutiny and unopened correspondence.
Elizabeth and Will Rodger of Alexandria, Va., filed their tax return electronically around March 15. They are waiting for close to a $9,000 refund since they did not receive their stimulus payments. For months, the IRS website said their return was still processing. Then it said it wasn’t found. They have called repeatedly and contacted their congressman, but still, there is no refund and no word from the IRS on what went wrong.
The IRS was once a leader in innovation. Not anymore. The agency’s inability to conduct basic functions is as much a symbol of American decline as collapsing bridges. Congress recently passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Why hasn’t there been a similar rush to fix the IRS and devote the necessary resources to rebuild it? | null | null | null | null | null |
But his outlier stance on the coronavirus has drawn fire. A former supervisor at UCLA, contacted by the state during Ladapo’s background check, was highly critical of his public statements about the virus. Ladapo signed the Great Barrington Declaration, written by three epidemiologists in October 2020, urging “focused protection” of the most vulnerable to the coronavirus until society reaches herd immunity.
The declaration has been signed by nearly 1 million people, including many doctors and scientists, but it has also been roundly rejected by many others as unrealistic and dangerous.
Ladapo joined a demonstration by America’s Frontline Doctors at the U.S. Supreme Court on July 27, 2020, as they extolled hydroxychloroquine as a cure for covid. In a clip, preserved on Twitter, Ladapo, who comes across as mild-mannered, says the doctors group is trying to “bring more light” to the covid debate. He was drawn to the group because of its stance on “individual autonomy.”
You can also watch Ladapo on Facebook, speaking at the group’s summit, sponsored by Tea Party Patriots Action. He lamented that panic was dictating pandemic policy and prodded viewers to demand an end to shortages and “stop accepting things that don’t make sense.”
Ladapo might have particularly endeared himself to DeSantis with his disdain for wearing masks. In October, visiting the office of state Sen. Tina Polsky (D) to discuss his confirmation, Ladapo refused to wear a mask even after she repeatedly asked him to wear one, explaining that she had a serious medical condition. Polsky later disclosed that she has breast cancer.
Ladapo has successfully dodged many legislators’ questions during the confirmation process. But one is likely to remain relevant throughout his tenure: What ever happened to the medical credo “First, do no harm”? | null | null | null | null | null |
Many people in other countries believe that the entirety of America is a kind of modern-day Tombstone (or at least the Hollywood version of that frontier town), where everyone is armed, shots ring out at all hours and arguments are settled with an exchange of gunfire.
It can be hard to argue against that view, exaggerated though it may be, when our rate of gun homicide is so much higher than any other comparable country and by some estimates there are well over 400 million guns in circulation in the United States.
But it’s not just the number of guns Americans have or the rate at which we kill each other that leave people elsewhere shaking their heads. It’s also the laws that make it possible.
The very name of these laws was crafted by their proponents to evoke principle and courage, to argue without quite saying so is that what real men do when threatened is, they stand their ground and shoot.
By analyzing states that did and did not pass such laws between 2000 and 2016, the authors of the study, a group of U.S. and British public health researchers, attempted to isolate the effects of stand-your-ground laws on homicide rates.
It isn’t just that the South has often had higher rates of violent crime than most other regions. It’s also about a particular explanation of why that might be so, one that relates directly to “stand your ground.”
This has even been demonstrated in experiments. In one oft-cited study, researchers had someone bump into unwitting subjects in a hallway and then insult them. Those raised in the South were more upset, felt a greater threat to their masculinity and were more primed to take aggressive action in response.
What isn’t in doubt, however, is that stand-your-ground laws are explicitly intended to make it easier for people to face no legal consequence, in situations where arguments become fatal due to the presence of a gun. And that’s an idea, you could argue, that is encouraged by all of American culture.
You don’t have to listen to the National Rifle Association’s assertion that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” all you have to do is watch a movie or a television show. American culture is saturated with the idea that shooting people is the very essence of what makes a “good guy.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Spike Lee, 64, is an award-winning filmmaker, cultural icon, social critic and die-hard New York Knicks fan whose career includes directing, producing, writing and acting in feature and documentary films, most recently the HBO documentary “NYC Epicenters: 9/11➔2021½.” His vast body of work — close to 40 films — has won numerous awards, including an Academy Award (best adapted screenplay) for “BlacKkKlansman” and an Emmy Award for the documentary “When the Levees Broke.” Lee’s book “SPIKE,” a career-spanning monograph of his work and life, was released in late 2021. | null | null | null | null | null |
Lima Martinez from Solar Solution installs solar panels on a home in Southeast D.C. on Feb. 23. (Robb Hill/for The Washington Post)
Alex Hillebrand and Clémentine Stip have long dreamed of installing solar panels on the roof of their rowhouse in Mount Pleasant, where sunshine shoots through the leafy canopies of Rock Creek Park, providing an abundant and sustainable source of energy that could heat their home and power their appliances.
But when Hillebrand and Stip, both 31, signed a contract last year with a solar panel installer, they received a startling letter from their utility company that could put that dream in question.
“It was just really strange,” Hillebrand recalled. “I was not planning — and am not planning — to pay nearly $20,000.”
The Washington Post interviewed six Pepco customers in D.C., including Hillebrand, who say that significant electrical upgrade costs from Pepco are thwarting their plans to go solar — even as the District tries to combat climate change through promoting solar energy.
The upgrade fees from Pepco — which everyone agrees the utility has a legal right to charge — have affected around 15 percent of District residents who apply for a permit to install rooftop solar panels, according to a study commissioned by the Chesapeake Solar and Storage Association, which advocates for solar energy in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
Frustrated by the fees, some D.C. residents, such as Hillebrand, are pushing back. On Jan. 3, Hillebrand filed a formal complaint with the D.C. Public Service Commission to compel Pepco to lower the upgrade cost it was charging. The Office of the People’s Counsel, which advocates on behalf of D.C. customers in disputes with the commission, is representing him in the proceedings.
Cary Hinton, a spokesman for the Public Service Commission, declined to comment on Hillebrand’s complaint. But he noted that the commission on Jan. 28 issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to consider whether to require utility companies pay 50 percent of the costs, up to $5,000 per project. | null | null | null | null | null |
To be clear, everyone has the right to criticize the president; having politics end at the water’s edge brings its own problems. Nor is there anything wrong with intra-party differences. But rather than a lively debate over alternative courses of action, what we’re seeing now from the GOP is mostly juvenile name-calling. | null | null | null | null | null |
We can reduce global temperatures faster than we once thought — if we act now.
As important as minimizing temperature rise is to the United States, where last year’s record wildfires in California and the Pacific Northwest illustrated just how deadly climate change can be, all this matters most in the highly climate vulnerable communities throughout the global South. Countless people in Bangladesh, the Philippines, Madagascar, the Sahel, Brazil, Honduras and other low-income countries have already been suffering from climate disasters for decades because their communities tend to be more exposed to climate impacts and have less financial capacity to protect themselves. For millions of people in such countries, limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C is not a scientific abstraction.
The IPCC’s next report, due for release Feb. 28, will address how societies can adapt to the temperature rise now underway and the fires, storms, and rising seas it unleashes. If we want to preserve a livable future for today’s young people, temperature rise must be kept as close as possible to 1.5C. The best climate science most people have never heard of says that goal remains within reach. The question is whether enough of us will act on that knowledge in time. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ukrainians commemorate activists killed at Maidan Square during the 2014 anti-government protests in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 20, 2022. (Zurab Kurtsikidze/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Some history is useful. In 2013, Ukraine’s president was Viktor Yanukovych, a member of a political party called the Party of Regions. He ran for president in 2004 as well, in a contest viewed by international observers as deeply corrupt. Yanukovych was initially identified as the victor over Viktor Yushchenko, but that result was invalidated after widespread protests (dubbed the Orange Revolution) that focused on questions about the validity of the vote. Yanukovych lost a second runoff vote.
Yanukovych appealed to Russia to help return him to power. In eastern Ukraine, geographically and politically closer to Russia (and, therefore, the center of Yanukovych’s support in 2010), protests in support of Yanukovych began. In April 2014, separatists declared two regions of eastern Ukraine independent “people’s republics.” It was those two regions that Putin recognized as independent this week, but Russia was already providing support to military forces opposing the Ukrainian government in the regions.
That he was running a campaign focused on a rejection of business as usual in Washington tied Trump more closely to Russia in two ways. The first was that Russia’s influence efforts soon focused on seeking to boost his candidacy to amplify the threat posed to the established political order. (Messages obtained by investigators from February 2016 indicated that both Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) were being boosted by the Internet Research Agency campaign.) The second was that well-known Republican campaign operatives avoided his candidacy, both because there was a surfeit of better-known candidates and because, at the outset, he didn’t seem likely to win.
Other Trump campaign representatives had contact with Russia through other conduits: Carter Page traveled to Moscow. George Papadopoulos was told that Russia accessed emails stolen from Hillary Clinton. Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked attorney met to discuss sanctions — a meeting predicated on the idea that Russia wanted to aid Trump’s election by providing dirt on Hillary Clinton. (“If it’s what you say, I love it,” Trump Jr. replied to that idea.) Russia used WikiLeaks to release material stolen from the Democratic Party and, later, from Clinton aide John Podesta. Roger Stone repeatedly intimated that he had foreknowledge of what WikiLeaks was going to release. Manafort met with one of his former associates, one understood to be linked to Russian intelligence, and handed over proprietary polling information from the campaign. Trump embraced the WikiLeaks releases and, at one point, called for Russia to publish emails stolen from Clinton. (Within hours, Russia’s hackers tried to access her private email server.)
After Trump’s narrow win, details of the multipronged investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the election emerged. Intelligence indicated that Putin had directly advocated for promoting Trump and undercutting Clinton; details later came out about how that effort was undertaken. One effect of this becoming public was that Trump — concerned about perceptions that he had backed his way into the White House — was prompted to reject the determinations of intelligence officials and, by extension, to downplay the evidence that Russia had wanted to help him win. (Whether it did is a subject of debate; if it did, it was through the WikiLeaks releases and not the social media effort.)
The day after firing the director of the FBI in an obvious effort to derail the Russia probe, he took the unusual step of inviting Russia's ambassador and foreign minister to a meeting in the Oval Office. He questioned America’s participation in NATO during the campaign and, as president, criticized NATO allies and the organization. He demonstrated more interest in becoming friends with autocrats like Putin and only rarely spoke out against Russian interests. Putin wanted an American president who would weaken or ignore U.S. alliances, and he soon enjoyed the benefits of having one.
There has been no evidence to support this claim; it appears to have originated from a vengeful Shokin. But Trump thought that having Ukraine investigate the actions of Joe and Hunter Biden — or, at least, to announce such an investigation — would aid his reelection effort. So, speaking to Zelensky by phone in July 2019, he urged him to announce such an investigation.
Zelensky hoped for a White House meeting to send a message to Russia that the United States was unquestionably allied with Ukraine; Trump and his team delayed it indefinitely as they sought the announcement of the Biden probe. It was only once the government’s failure to provide the assistance drew public attention that aid was actually released — and that attention led to Trump’s eventual impeachment for leveraging his position to try to aid his 2020 campaign.
American intelligence agencies believe that Russia again tried to boost Trump’s candidacy during his 2020 reelection bid, although not on the same scale as four years prior. It was not successful, despite Trump’s claims of victory since then. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE = This image provided by The White House via Twitter shows President Joe Biden at Camp David, Md., Feb. 12, 2022. A new poll finds little support among Americans for a major U.S. role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. President Joe Biden has acknowledged the growing likelihood of a new war in Eastern Europe will affect Americans even if U.S. troops don’t deploy to Ukraine. Just 26% of Americans say the U.S. should have a major role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.(The White House via AP, File) (Uncredited/The White House)
By Nomaan Merchant and Hannah Fingerhut | AP | null | null | null | null | null |
If the U.S. men’s national soccer team is to qualify for the World Cup next month, it’s going to have to do so without standout midfielder Weston McKennie, who on Wednesday was diagnosed with a broken foot.
McKennie was injured late in an UEFA Champions League round-of-16 match Tuesday between his Italian club, Juventus, and Spain’s Villarreal.
In a statement Wednesday, Juventus said he had suffered a compound fracture of the second and third metatarsal bones in his left foot. The initial recovery time, the club said, is about eight weeks — a timetable that rules McKennie out of the U.S. team’s last three World Cup qualifiers.
In a Concacaf region offering three automatic berths, the United States (6-2-3) sits second, even with Mexico (6-2-3) on points (21) but ahead on the goal-differential tiebreaker. Canada (7-0-4, 25 points) is first.
Panama (5-4-2, 17) and Costa Rica (4-3-4, 16) remaining in the running. El Salvador (2-6-3, nine points), Jamaica (1-6-4, seven) and Honduras (0-8-3, three) round out the group.
In his second season with the Italian giants, he has made 28 appearances (21 starts) across all competitions and scored four goals. With the national team, he has started seven qualifiers, scored against Mexico and Honduras, and displayed an all-around game that’s made him perhaps Coach Gregg Berhalter’s most important player.
On Monday, though, Dortmund said it was not as serious as first feared and he could return to training in two weeks. That would put Reyna on track to join the U.S. team for training camp starting March 21. He hasn’t played in a qualifier since the opener in El Salvador on Sept. 2. | null | null | null | null | null |
DEERFIELD, Ill. — Michael Jordan stunned the NBA by announcing his retirement, saying he had lost the desire to play basketball months after his father, James Jordan, was murdered. Jordan also was dogged for months over reports of excessive gambling. Jordan said he thought about retiring after leading the Chicago Bulls to a third straight title earlier in the year. Instead, he announces he will play baseball in the Chicago White Sox organization while leaving the door open to a future return. The Associated Press is republishing verbatim the story of Jordan’s announcement on Oct. 6, 1993. | null | null | null | null | null |
By John Nadel | AP
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Magic Johnson stunned the NBA and those watching his news conference live on TV in 1991 by announcing he had tested positive for HIV and would be retiring from the Los Angeles Lakers. Johnson and the Lakers’ physician both made clear the guard didn’t have AIDS. Johnson said he didn’t know how he contracted the virus. Johnson later returned to play 36 games in 1996, including the playoffs, before retiring again. The Associated Press is republishing verbatim the story on Johnson’s announcement Nov. 7, 1991: | null | null | null | null | null |
Several cities in the Midwest experienced daily record low temperatures, some almost 30 degrees below zero.
Bundled against subzero temperatures, a woman walks a pair of dogs around the lake in Washington Park in Denver on Feb. 22, as the first of a pair of winter storms sweeps over the Intermountain West. Forecasters predict that the frigid temperatures will persist with periods of light snow through the workweek. (David Zalubowski/AP)
A brutal cold blast brought frigid temperatures to the central and western United States, freezing over a foot of snow in some locations. Several cities in the Midwest experienced daily record low temperatures, some nearly 30 degrees below zero.
A second major winter storm is beginning to consolidate. The system has already delivered the first healthy dose of snow to portions the Sierra Nevada since the beginning of the year. It will head northeast through the end of the workweek, spreading significant snow and freezing rain from the Midwest to New England.
Around 500 counties in 14 states are currently under a wind chill advisory or warning, as a fist of frigid air extends from Washington state to Minnesota and south to Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. Wind chills this morning ranged from minus-20 to minus-50 across the Northern Plains.
Wind chill headlines, hoisted by Weather Service offices across the Central and Northern Plains include dire warnings about the probability of frost bite when skin is exposed to such cold.
Temperatures are expected to top out in the single digits above and below-zero degrees today across the Northern Plains, with highs in the teens and 20s further south.
More daily record low maximum temperatures are likely Wednesday, including Oklahoma City and Dallas, where highs will be in the 20s at best. Rapid City, S.D., and surrounding areas only rise to around zero degrees.
In California, low temperature records Wednesday night could be set in San Diego, Los Angeles and Sacramento, where temperatures are likely to range from near 30 to almost 40.
The grip of brutally cold temperatures will loosen and spread east over coming days:,The north-central United States will remain frigid through the end of the workweek and some more records are likely in the days ahead.
About 50 million Americans were under a winter storm watch, warning, or advisory as of Wednesday morning. The immense hazard coverage comes as the second major winter storm of the week threatens a wide swath of the country from the Southern Plains to the Northeast coast with significant ice and snow.
A storm that departed the country last night contributed to as much as 20-30 inches of snow in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Marquette measured 21.6 inches on Tuesday alone, marking the sixth heaviest calendar day snowfall on record there.
Several cities along the West Coast also saw the most one-day rainfall since at least the first week of January — much needed precipitation given the hot and dry pattern that has spread over the area for much of 2022. In San Francisco, the 44-day dry spell that ended Tuesday was the second longest on record in winter.
The very chilly air aloft promoted numerous reports of small hail in California on Tuesday. Several inches to a foot of snow has fallen atop mountains across California and parts of the Southwest, which have seen more melt than snowfall since the New Year.
Icing is also expected from Texas to Missouri through Thursday, as the winter storm develops. In Arkansas, where freezing rain will likely be the most persistent, ice accumulations exceeding 0.5 inches could threaten the large-scale power grid and make travel impossible. Icing at these levels can cause disruptions that last many days or even weeks.
The heaviest icing appears to stay south of St. Louis, which could see some issues as well. Another enhanced zone of iciness may develop Thursday by Interstate 70 in Ohio and across Pennsylvania.
Further north, a wave of moderate to heavy snow will spread over the Midwest and Northeast. Six inches of snow could fall across portions of New York and into New England. Cities like Boston and Albany could see close to a foot of snow in total.
To the south, New York is on the edge of snowier conditions while Philadelphia and Washington will see a wintry mix. Areas to north and west of the Interstate 95 corridor in this region may see icing on the order of 0.10 to 0.25 inches, which could cause some problems. However, warmth leading up to the storm could decrease the extent of icing. | null | null | null | null | null |
Lima Martinez from Solar Solution installs solar panels on a home in Southeast D.C. on Feb. 23. (Robb Hill for The Washington Post)
Alex Hillbrand and Clémentine Stip have long dreamed of installing solar panels on the roof of their rowhouse in Mount Pleasant, where sunshine shoots through the leafy canopies of Rock Creek Park, providing an abundant and sustainable source of energy that could heat their home and power their appliances.
But when Hillbrand and Stip, both 31, signed a contract last year with a solar panel installer, they received a startling letter from their utility company that could put that dream in question.
“It was just really strange,” Hillbrand recalled. “I was not planning — and am not planning — to pay nearly $20,000.”
The Washington Post interviewed six Pepco customers in D.C., including Hillbrand, who say that significant electrical upgrade costs from Pepco are thwarting their plans to go solar — even as the District tries to combat climate change through promoting solar energy.
The upgrade fees from Pepco — which everyone agrees the utility has a legal right to charge — have affected about 15 percent of District residents who apply for a permit to install rooftop solar panels, according to a study commissioned by the Chesapeake Solar and Storage Association, which advocates for solar energy in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
Frustrated by the fees, some D.C. residents, such as Hillbrand, are pushing back. On Jan. 3, Hillbrand filed a formal complaint with the D.C. Public Service Commission to compel Pepco to lower the upgrade cost it was charging. The Office of the People’s Counsel, which advocates on behalf of D.C. customers in disputes with the commission, is representing him in the proceedings.
Cary Hinton, a spokesman for the Public Service Commission, declined to comment on Hillbrand’s complaint. But he noted that the commission on Jan. 28 issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to consider whether to require utility companies pay 50 percent of the costs, up to $5,000 per project. | null | null | null | null | null |
Several cities in the Midwest experienced daily record-low temperatures, some almost 30 degrees below zero
Bundled against subzero temperatures, a woman walks a pair of dogs in Denver on Feb. 22, as the first of a pair of winter storms sweeps over the Intermountain West. (David Zalubowski/AP)
A brutal cold blast brought frigid temperatures to the central and western United States, a bitter follow-up to more than a foot of snow in some locations. Several cities in the Midwest experienced daily record low temperatures, some nearly 30 degrees below zero.
A second major winter storm is beginning to consolidate. The system has already delivered the first healthy dose of snow to portions of the Sierra Nevada since the beginning of the year. It will head northeast through the end of the workweek, spreading significant snow and freezing rain from the Midwest to New England.
About 500 counties in 14 states are currently under a wind chill advisory or warning, as a fist of frigid air extends from Washington state to Minnesota and south to Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. Wind chills this morning ranged from minus-20 to minus-50 across the northern Plains.
Wind chill headlines hoisted by Weather Service offices across the central and northern Plains include dire warnings about the probability of frost bite when skin is exposed to such cold.
Temperatures are expected to top out in the single digits above and below zero degrees today across the northern Plains, with highs in the teens and 20s further south.
More daily record-low maximum temperatures are likely Wednesday, including Oklahoma City and Dallas, where highs will be in the 20s at best. Rapid City, S.D., and surrounding areas rise to around zero degrees.
In California, low-temperature records Wednesday night could be set in San Diego, Los Angeles and Sacramento, where temperatures are likely to range from near 30 to almost 40.
The grip of brutally cold temperatures will loosen and spread east over coming days:The north-central United States will remain frigid through the end of the workweek, and more records are likely in the days ahead.
About 50 million Americans were under a winter storm watch, warning or advisory as of Wednesday morning. The immense hazard coverage comes as the second major winter storm of the week threatens a wide swath of the country from the southern Plains to the Northeast coast with significant ice and snow.
A storm that departed the country last night contributed to as much as 20 to 30 inches of snow in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Marquette measured 21.6 inches Tuesday alone, marking the sixth-heaviest calendar day snowfall on record there.
Several cities along the West Coast also saw the most one-day rainfall since at least the first week of January — much needed precipitation given the hot and dry pattern that has spread over the area for much of 2022. In San Francisco, the 44-day dry spell that ended Tuesday was the second-longest on record in winter.
The very chilly air aloft prompted numerous reports of small hail in California on Tuesday. Several inches to a foot of snow has fallen atop mountains across California and parts of the Southwest, which have seen more melt than snowfall since New Year’s.
Icing is also expected from Texas to Missouri through Thursday, as the winter storm develops. In Arkansas, where freezing rain will probably be the most persistent, ice accumulations exceeding 0.5 inches could threaten the large-scale power grid and make travel impossible. Icing at these levels can cause disruptions that last many days or even weeks.
The heaviest icing appears to stay south of St. Louis, which could see some issues, as well. Another enhanced zone of iciness may develop Thursday by Interstate 70 in Ohio and across Pennsylvania.
Further north, a wave of moderate to heavy snow will spread over the Midwest and Northeast. Six inches of snow could fall across portions of New York and into New England. Cities such as Boston and Albany could see close to a foot of snow in total.
To the south, New York is on the edge of snowier conditions, while Philadelphia and Washington will see a wintry mix. Areas north and west of the Interstate 95 corridor in this region may see icing on the order of 0.10 to 0.25 inches, which could cause problems. However, warmth leading up to the storm could decrease the extent of icing. | null | null | null | null | null |
But Poland, which is already home to as many as 2 million Ukrainians and shares more than 300 miles of border with the country, is expected to bear the brunt of any influx. Officials in Przemysl, a Polish city next to the border, said the city was asked on Monday whether it had space to house as many as 1,000 Americans leaving by land.
As urgency has built, E.U. Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson traveled to Warsaw earlier this week, where she said Europe was “well prepared” for an influx. But in towns along the border, some city officials don’t feel the same as they work on their own to designate gym halls, schools student dorms as potential waystations.
Rzeszow’s mayor, Konrad Fijolek, said: “Right now, it’s difficult to even assess the needs or the scale.” He had selected a few of the city gyms as potential emergency accommodations “just so we feel more prepared.”
Poland’s Interior Ministry said it is “preparing for various scenarios.” Johansson has said contingencies include scenarios of a Russian incursion limited to the east, where most of those displaced would be expected to flee to western Ukraine. But a larger scale invasion could send people spilling into Poland and other E.U. nations.
“We are ready to help all those who will be forced to leave Ukraine,” Poland’s minister of national defense, Mariusz Blaszczak, said last week in a news conference alongside U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. As a nation with traumatic experience during World War II, “we know what support is all about,” he said.
When the first U.S. troops touched down in Rzeszow earlier this month, emotions were mixed, said Fijolek, the mayor. Management at the G2A Arena near the city’s airport called him just 48 hours before the first troops arrived. The message: All the exhibition center’s events would need to be rescheduled.
The 82nd Airborne make up the bulk of a contingency of 4,700 U.S. troops dispatched to Poland in recent weeks to join an existing U.S. rotational force of 4,000 — a deployment that aims to bolster NATOs eastern flank and whose mission stretches far beyond the humanitarian.
While the 82nd hasn’t granted media access to their bases in Poland, officials described the setup at the arena. In addition to thousands of troops based there — living conditions that the official described as “plush for the 82nd” — more than a dozen U.S. Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters now sit on the airstrip in the Polish town of Mielec, where drones could be seen lifting off over the weekend. Curious locals pull up to take a look.
Several hundred more soldiers are based at a “staging area” in the mountains eight miles east of the border with Ukraine. U.S. soldiers make three-mile treks to the nearest shop in a hamlet of 65 homes, stocking up on energy drinks, cigarettes, sausages and potato chips to supplement their military rations.
“Some people are afraid,” Koziolek said. But, in the meantime, they are enjoying the new business.
In Przemysl, a hillside town five miles from the Ukrainian border so packed with churches that it has earned the nickname “little Rome,” one Ukrainian family was put up in a local monastery. But they decided to go home again on Monday as they were fed up with their portrayal in the press as refugees, according to a nun hosting them.
In a hotel on the edge of town, a U.S. Embassy-staffed “welcome center” set up to provide biscuits, coffee and consular services to American citizens leaving Ukraine by land, has seen limited footfall since it opened. A temporary office for the South Korean Embassy set up in another spa hotel was yet to receive any citizens in need.
But it’s unclear how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send forces into two separatist areas of eastern Ukraine — and recognize the region’s independence from Kyiv — could play out in coming days.
“Perhaps not everybody has left,” Lapa said.
The State Department has declined to provide information on how many of its 6,600 citizens based in Ukraine are still there. While U.S. troops in Poland have the capability to airlift out Americans and other foreign nationals, “we’ve moved beyond thinking that will be necessary,” the Defense Department official said.
President Biden has said that the United States won’t be launching operations to rescue any stranded Americans in Ukraine, citing the fact that a direct confrontation between Russian and U.S. forces would risk “world war.”
Lapa said that, as far as he knew, not many Ukrainians had left the country so far, although “several dozen” Ukrainian temporary workers register with the city each day, up about 50 percent. Property prices have also climbed, he said, amid demand from wealthy Ukrainians.
The group plans to convert its building into a help center for newly arrived refugees.
Many Ukrainians have relatives and support networks on the Polish side of the border. The Ukrainian population in Poland has grown significantly since 2014, with conflict, economic factors and visa-free travel meaning many moved to Poland for work. Przemysl has a population of about 2,000 Poles of Ukrainian origin, and thousands more temporary workers cross back and forth over the border.
In 2016, tensions flared in the city, as nationalist groups rallied against Ukrainian immigration. Ukraine and Poland share a difficult history, with massacres of Poles at the hands of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the 1940s still remembered by some.
“Things come out under extreme circumstances,” Komar said. But the city and country rallied around Ukraine in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and war broke out in eastern Ukraine against Russian-backed separatists. The city’s hospitals treated those injured in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
“We are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,” Komar said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Police identify man killed in Centreville shooting
Fairfax County police have identified a man killed in a Centreville shooting as a 37-year-old Leesburg resident.
Amaru Amin Shabazz died after being shot multiple times in a townhouse in the 14800 block of Bodley Square, police said. Officers were called to the scene shortly before 10 p.m. Monday, police said. Shabazz was pronounced dead at the scene.
A preliminary investigation has determined there was an altercation between Shabazz and some individuals while he was visiting the home, police said. Numerous shots were fired inside the home, and officers recovered multiple guns from the scene.
A witness saw a man running from the home after the shooting, police said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ukrainians commemorate activists killed at Maidan Square during the 2014 anti-government protests in Kyiv on Feb. 20, 2022. (Zurab Kurtsikidze/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Some history is useful. In 2013, Ukraine’s president was Viktor Yanukovych, a member of a political party called the Party of Regions. He ran for president in 2004, as well, in a contest viewed by international observers as deeply corrupt. Yanukovych was initially identified as the victor over Viktor Yushchenko, but that result was invalidated after widespread protests (dubbed the Orange Revolution) that focused on questions about the validity of the vote. Yanukovych lost a second runoff vote.
Yanukovych appealed to Russia to help return him to power. In eastern Ukraine, geographically and politically closer to Russia (and therefore the center of Yanukovych’s support in 2010), protests in support of Yanukovych began. In April 2014, separatists declared two regions of eastern Ukraine independent “people’s republics.” It was those two regions that Putin recognized as independent this week, but Russia was already providing support to military forces opposing the Ukrainian government in the regions.
That he was running a campaign focused on a rejection of business as usual in Washington tied Trump more closely to Russia in two ways. The first was that Russia’s influence efforts soon focused on seeking to boost his candidacy amplify the threat posed to the established political order. (Messages obtained by investigators from February 2016 indicated that both Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders [I-Vt.] were being boosted by the Internet Research Agency campaign.) The second was that well-known Republican campaign operatives avoided his candidacy, both because there was a surfeit of better-known candidates and because, at the outset, he didn’t seem likely to win.
Other Trump campaign representatives had contact with Russia through other conduits: Carter Page traveled to Moscow. George Papadopoulos was told that Russia accessed emails stolen from Hillary Clinton. Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked attorney met to discuss sanctions — a meeting predicated on the idea that Russia wanted to aid Trump’s election by providing dirt on Clinton. (“If it’s what you say, I love it,” Trump Jr. replied to that idea.) Russia used WikiLeaks to release material stolen from the Democratic Party and, later, from Clinton aide John Podesta. Stone repeatedly intimated that he had foreknowledge of what WikiLeaks was going to release. Manafort met with one of his former associates, one understood to be linked to Russian intelligence, and handed over proprietary polling information from the campaign. Trump embraced the WikiLeaks releases and, at one point, called for Russia to publish emails stolen from Clinton. (Within hours, Russia’s hackers tried to access her private email server.)
After Trump’s narrow win, details of the multipronged investigation into Russia’s efforts to influence the election emerged. Intelligence indicated that Putin had directly advocated for promoting Trump and undercutting Clinton; details later came out about how that effort was undertaken. One effect of this becoming public was that Trump — concerned about perceptions that he had backed his way into the White House — was prompted to reject the determinations of intelligence officials and, by extension, to play down the evidence that Russia had wanted to help him win. (Whether it did is a subject of debate; if it did, it was through the WikiLeaks releases and not the social media effort.)
The day after firing the director of the FBI in an obvious effort to derail the Russia probe, he took the unusual step of inviting Russia’s ambassador and foreign minister to a meeting in the Oval Office. He questioned America’s participation in NATO during the campaign and, as president, criticized NATO allies and the organization. He demonstrated more interest in becoming friends with autocrats such as Putin and only rarely spoke out against Russian interests. Putin wanted an American president who would weaken or ignore U.S. alliances, and he soon enjoyed the benefits of having one.
There has been no evidence to support this claim; it appears to have originated from a vengeful Shokin. But Trump thought that having Ukraine investigate the actions of Joe and Hunter Biden — or at least to announce such an investigation — would aid his reelection effort. So, speaking to Zelensky by phone in July 2019, he urged him to announce such an investigation.
Zelensky hoped for a White House meeting send a message to Russia that the United States was unquestionably allied with Ukraine; Trump and his team delayed it indefinitely as they sought the announcement of the Biden probe. It was only once the government’s failure to provide the assistance drew public attention that aid was actually released — and that attention led to Trump’s eventual impeachment for leveraging his position to try toto aid his 2020 campaign.
American intelligence agencies believe that Russia again tried to boost Trump’s candidacy during his 2020 reelection bid, although not on the same scale as four years earlier. It was not successful, despite Trump’s claims of victory since then. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mark Lanegan lived a life of pain and never shied away from sharing it
Mark Lanegan, who died at age 57 on Tuesday. (Amy Harris/Amy Harris/Invision/AP)
Because many of its heroes never got to grow old, Generation X has never gotten to watch the grunge icons of its youth surrender to oldies circuits and Glastonbury reunion cash-outs.
It wasn’t just Kurt Cobain and Scott Weiland, frontman of grunge-adjacent Stone Temple Pilots, who died young. Consider the artists on the soundtrack to the 1992 Cameron Crowe romantic comedy “Singles,” which served as an early, hugely successful guide to commercial grunge. Even before the album’s release, it was something of a tragic collection thanks to the presence of Mother Love Bone, whose lead singer Andrew Wood overdosed in 1990. The premature deaths of Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley (overdose, 2002) and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell (suicide, 2017) compounded the tragedy, and now there’s Mark Lanegan, former leader of the psychedelic grunge pathbreakers Screaming Trees and an acclaimed solo artist, who died of undisclosed causes at his home in Killarney, Ireland, on Tuesday at age 57.
Lanegan was one of the genre’s greatest singers, thorniest lyricists and most troubled figures. In December, he released “Devil in a Coma,” a slim volume of prose and poetry detailing his near-death battle with covid-19 in the spring of 2021. It was an unofficial companion piece to his excellent, endurance test of an autobiography, “Sing Backwards and Weep,” released as covid set in the year before. “Sing Backwards” detailed Lanegan’s childhood in an abusive home in rural Ellensburg, Wash. He was a small-time criminal with nascent addictions to alcohol, gambling and porn by the time he was 12 — yes, 12. A few years later, he formed Screaming Trees with brothers Van and Gary Lee Conner, and his life got exponentially worse.
The Trees had one major hit (“Nearly Lost You,” featured on the “Singles” soundtrack) and a life of roiling misery. Nobody hated anything more than the guys in Screaming Trees hated each other; compared to them, the Gallagher brothers are monks on a yoga retreat. The only time in “Sing Backwards” Lanegan seems truly happy is when he is describing the time Lee Conner got accidentally electrocuted. (He lived.) By the time the band imploded in 2000, Lanegan seemed to have outgrown grunge, anyway. His early solo albums “The Winding Sheet” and “Whiskey for the Holy Ghost,” were marvels, spartan and sad. “My idea was I wanted to make music with the feeling of blues, without being blues,” Lanegan later told the Seattle Times. “The Winding Sheet” contained a cover of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” a traditional song popularized by Lead Belly, featuring Cobain and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic; that band would use a similar arrangement of the song for their appearance on “MTV Unplugged.”
Lanegan and Cobain were pre-fame friends. As Lanegan wrote in “Sing Backwards,” the Nirvana frontman called him repeatedly right before he died, asking Lanegan to come over. In what would prove to be one of the most fateful decisions in rock history, Lanegan listened in real time as Cobain left messages on his answering machine — in the ’90s, you could do that — but never picked up. He was trying to avoid Courtney Love, Cobain’s wife.
Lanegan’s post-Trees career occasionally thrived. He became a sometime member of Mad Season, a grunge supergroup co-founded by Staley and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, and collaborated with everyone from Moby to Greg Dulli to Isobel Campbell of Belle & Sebastian. He served as a vital connector between grunge and desert rock when he briefly joined Queens of the Stone Age, whose lead singer, Josh Homme, had once been an adjunct member of Screaming Trees. Lanegan and Homme wrote the theme song for “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” for Bourdain, a fan who plainly adored them.
In Lanegan’s personal life, things were grim. He struggled with a years-long addiction to heroin and crack, and became a dealer to support his habit. He once came close to having his arm amputated and occasionally lived on the streets. Most of his 30s could be considered a near-death experience. “I was the ghost that wouldn’t die,” he writes in “Sing Backwards.” It would take a year in rehab to outrun his demons. Love paid for it.
In his last years, Lanegan seemed older than he was. He appeared careworn and weathered, at once eternally pugilistic and resigned to his fate. He was consumed by his own mortality, worried about government tracking devices and 5G. He was the embodiment of what grunge would have looked like if it had had the chance to grow old.
It got to the point where most interviews with Lanegan included some version of the question: How are you still alive? Lanegan seemed to wonder about it, too. “My days are numbered/ Eternal slumber/ Death is my due,” he sang on “Ballad of a Dying Rover,” the centerpiece of his last official release, “Straight Songs of Sorrow,” the spare, ghostly companion album to “Sing Backwards.”
With Lanegan’s death, most of grunge’s remaining living icons are the no-nonsense guys in the middle, such as Tad Doyle and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, too dependable to die, and dedicated self-preservationists such as Eddie Vedder, hopefully unkillable, and Love. In a pre-covid interview with Spin, Lanegan didn’t like his own chances. “I may have dodged a bullet. For now,” he told the reporter. “But you can’t last forever though.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: For freedom-seeking Ukraine, a home in Georgetown
The Forrest-Marbury House in Georgetown. (Library of Congress)
By James H. Johnston
James H. Johnston is a writer, lecturer and lawyer.
In 2005, I was given a private tour of the Embassy of Ukraine in Georgetown. Today, my memory of that tour is filled with the sadness of hopes dashed.
The embassy is in the historic, salmon-colored Forrest-Marbury House on M Street near the Key Bridge in Georgetown. Full of hope after gaining independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991 and following corruption-free elections in 2005, my hosts were in a celebratory mood. They eagerly shared the house’s history for an article I was writing for a legal newspaper about William Marbury.
Gen. Uriah Forrest built the house. He had been aide-de-camp to George Washington during the American Revolution. He lost a leg in battle. As with other prominent men in Georgetown, Forrest had a close personal and business relationship with Washington after the war. Thus, when Congress gave President Washington the power to decide precisely where the planned seat of the federal government would be, Forrest hosted a dinner for those owning land nearby to meet with the president and cut a deal for the government to buy their land. The men’s motivations were not as altruistic as might be hoped. Some, including Forrest, had purchased their properties on speculation that Washington would decide to buy from them. Still, Forrest’s dinner party was an important steppingstone in the establishment of Washington, D.C., as the capital of the United States.
William Marbury bought the house in 1799 and added his own history to it. He was the son of a struggling tobacco farmer in Maryland and burned to make money. He had a knack for accounting, finance and banking and eventually succeeded. After moving to Georgetown and purchasing the large house from Forrest, Marbury used his wealth to make his mark in social circles, becoming manager of the “dance assemblies.” After attending one of these affairs, the artist Charles Willson Peale, who was related to Marbury by marriage, recorded in his diary: “[T]here was about 3 Dozs. Ladies and not quite so many gentlemen — they danced Cotillion and country dances by the music of a Piana, which was distinctly heard as the company danced on Carpets.”
Marbury, a conservative, also used his wealth to bring a lawsuit against that young, liberal whippersnapper, President Thomas Jefferson, because Jefferson refused to deliver Marbury’s commission to be a justice of the peace. It was one of several, controversial, so-called “midnight appointments” of the outgoing, conservative President John Adams who was trying to pack the judiciary with conservatives before they lost power.
The lawsuit failed to get Marbury his commission. However, writing for the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall used the case to plug up a major oversight in the supposed original intent of the Constitution. Marshall declared that the Supreme Court was meant to be the final arbiter of the Constitution, holding implicit power to declare laws of Congress unconstitutional. For better or for worse, the case, captioned Marbury v. Madison (Madison was Jefferson’s secretary of state) is the reason that nominations to the Supreme Court are so hotly contested today.
At the time of my tour of the embassy in 2005, Ukraine had taken care to refurbish the house to look like it did when Marbury owned it. I saw the same large dance parlor that Peale had written about with its deep, rich carpet. The front door opened onto M Street. An adjacent, smaller room also looked out on the street and held a black, baby grand piano.
And there, on the wall above the piano was a portrait of George Washington as a reminder of the deal he struck to purchase the District of Columbia at Forrest’s dinner party. On the opposite wall hung a portrait of the Bard of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko. Beneath the portrait was a quote in English from his protest of the Russian occupation of Ukraine in 1857. The embassy put it up with optimism, but today it brings a chilling sadness:
You miserable crew, when will you breathe your last?
When will we get ourselves a Washington
With a new and just law?
But someday we shall surely find him! | null | null | null | null | null |
The initiative is intended to counter a rising tide of Chinese economic espionage, cybertheft and influence operations. Some lawmakers and civil liberties groups have criticized the prosecution of academics — often of Chinese descent — who allegedly did not disclose ties to Chinese institutions while applying for federal grants. Their complaints, including that the department was engaging in racial profiling, took on added urgency as some cases failed and as anti-Asian hate incidents mounted within the United States.
With new indictment, U.S. launches aggressive campaign to thwart China’s economic attacks
The China Initiative was unveiled to great fanfare in 2018, during the Trump administration, by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The announcement was accompanied by the unveiling of a major indictment against a Chinese state-owned company, a Taiwan company and three individuals charged with stealing trade secrets of an American semiconductor firm, Micron. | null | null | null | null | null |
Gary Brooker, singer-songwriter of ‘Whiter Shade of Pale,’ dies at 76
Gary Brooker performs in 2020. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
Gary Brooker, an English songwriter, singer and pianist who was a founding member and the lead vocalist of Procol Harum, a rock band best remembered for its enduring 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” died Feb. 17 at his home in London. He was 76
“A Whiter Shade of Pale,” with music by Mr. Brooker and words by Reid, was the group’s first single, and it quickly became a sensation when it was released in the summer of 1967. It went to the top of the charts throughout most of the English-speaking world, selling an estimated 10 million copies and inspiring cover versions by artists as disparate as Hugh Masekela, Joe Cocker and Annie Lennox. There have also been arrangements of the song for full orchestra, string quartet, mariachi band and an ensemble of sitars.
The song’s accompaniment was derived from a classical composition by J.S. Bach and was played on what sounded like a pipe organ, giving it a baroque sound that was instantly memorable. Above this backing, Mr. Brooker wrote a soulful melody to Mr. Reid’s elliptical and mysterious words.
Nobody was ever quite sure what the song was “about” — only that it conveyed a deep and brooding melancholy, with mentions of skipping a “light fandango,” “cartwheels across the floor” and a woman’s face that was first “just ghostly” but then turned a “whiter shade of pale.” It was commonly assumed that the repeated mentions of a miller telling his tale were a reference to Geoffrey Chaucer, but Reid said he had not yet read “The Canterbury Tales” when he wrote the words.
“I don’t think writers should have to explain every line,” Reid told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1991. “The whole song should create a picture. … Actually just that one line, ‘A whiter shade of pale,' had come into my mind. There’s an old theory about writing — if you are given one line, you have to find out what the rest are.”
Reputedly, whenever Mr. Brooker was asked what the opaque lyrics meant, he jokingly replied, “They mean I’ll never have to work for a living again.”
The group was sometimes classified with what has come to be known as prog rock, along with Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Yet there was a distinct lack of ostentation in the Procol records, and whatever virtuosity the musicians possessed was put to the service of the music, rather than the other way around.
What made its music so compelling was its abundant contradictions: the mixture of unadorned consonance from piano and organ (“churchy” or “classical,” as you will) with the refined blues stylings of Mr. Brooker’s vocals; the pained, ferocious, near-atonal shriek of Robin Trower’s guitar, B.J. Wilson’s fierce and immaculately precise drumming, and Reid’s haunted-castle, high-Romantic imagery.
The early Procol Harum albums were particularly admired: “Procol Harum,” its 1967 debut, as well as “Shine on Brightly” (1968), “A Salty Dog” (1969), “Home” (1970) and “Broken Barricades” (1971). (Mr. Brooker took the pensive and unsettled chord that starts “A Salty Dog,” both song and album, from a train whistle he heard in Switzerland.) The band’s later discs were more fitful, although Mr. Brooker prided himself on the fact that none were much like the others.
Gary Brooker was born in London on May 29, 1945, and grew up in Middlesex and the resort town of Southend-on-Sea. His father was a professional musician who played pedal steel guitar in the improbably named Felix Mendelssohn’s Hawaiian Serenaders, which played faux-luau arrangements of popular songs including “In the Mood” and “Whispering.”
“My father sent me to piano lessons when I was 5,” Mr. Brooker recalled in 2019 to the Long Island Press, “but I grew up thinking that all music was Hawaiian.”
He was 11 when his father died, and his mother found assembly-line work in Eastwood, then a leading manufacturing center. By his teens, Mr. Brooker was playing piano, cornet and trombone and beginning to write his own songs.
After graduating from high school, Mr. Brooker attended classes at Southend Municipal College but dropped out to form a band called the Paramounts; it eventually included three future members of Procol Harum — bassist and organist Chris Copping, Trower and Wilson.
The Paramounts didn’t go far — they had middling success with a 1964 cover of the Leiber-Stoller song “Poison Ivy” before disbanding in 1966. Mr. Brooker then began working with Reid and formed Procol Harum, with “A Whiter Shade of Pale” their first offering. Tensions arose — not only with their several record companies (two of which feuded so fiercely that several of their discs were long unavailable) but within the band.
Trower left the band in 1971 and worked as a solo artist for the rest of his career. By the mid-1970s, Mr. Brooker was the clear “leader” of Procol Harum, and he was ultimately the only original member. In 2020, he even broke with Reid over ownership of the band’s name.
In 2012, Mr. Brooker was involved in an incident in South Africa that he first reported as a fall in his hotel room, but later claimed he had been drugged, beaten and robbed by a group of young women in Cape Town. In 2017 he fell from the stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall in mid-performance. Shortly thereafter he received his cancer diagnosis but kept playing through 2019.
In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II made Mr. Brooker a member of the Order of the British Empire for his services to charity.
As a solo act, Mr. Brooker performed with Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. In 1996, he played an Argentine government minister in the film musical adaptation of “Evita,” starring Madonna. Mr. Brooker later said he was paid more for that one small appearance in a singing role than for all of his work with Procol Harum. | null | null | null | null | null |
Extremely cold temperatures will show up every winter, but these events will continue to decrease as the climate warms
This week, much of the U.S. will experience frigid temperatures and stormy wintry weather due to a blast of air from the Arctic. Temperatures have already plunged to below zero across the Midwest, setting records in some locations. As of Wednesday morning, more than 50 million people across the country are under a winter storm watch, warning or winter weather advisory.
For this cold season, we’ve already seen quite a few minimum temperatures below 0 degrees. In the northern latitudes and higher elevations, those coldest temperatures have occurred more frequently. But is this season’s number of very cold days anomalous?
The seasonal total is actually a bit below average. This latest event could possibly get some of those stations closer to their average seasonal total. It’s likely that, for much of the Lower 48 states, this week will be the last time we see those temperatures until the next cold season.
Across the northern Great Plains, and in the far northeast, it’s common to observe about 30 days of temperatures below zero. For some spots, including much of Alaska, there are around 60 days of temperatures below zero.
Unless you live around the southern reaches of the U.S. or along the Pacific Coast, the February average minimum temperatures are still in the teens and 20s for much of the country and even colder further north. While the coldest month of the year is either December or January for the majority of locations, it’s still no surprise that we can get very cold outbreaks in February.
So yes, during the winter, we can still get really cold. But that’s not to say climate change hasn’t had an impact on those colder temperatures.
Climate scientist Brian Brettschneider showed that most of the country is seeing an increasing trend in the coldest temperature observed each year, by an average of about 4.3 degrees.
Additionally, a recent update of State Climate Summaries has found that many states are experiencing a decreasing trend in the number of very cold nights, especially since the 1990s. Despite experiencing the most frequent number of extreme cold temperatures, the decreasing trend in cold temperatures is probably most pronounced for Alaska. (If you’re interested in exploring more temperature statistics for your location, check out this interactive map of climate perspectives from the Southeast Regional Climate Center.)
While we can expect extremely cold temperatures to intrude every winter, these events will continue to decrease as the climate continues to warm. That does not necessarily mean that cold temperatures will disappear completely — at least not in our lifetimes. Regardless of the changes our climate experiences, it’s important to be prepared for the entire range of possibilities. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - The head of Cyprus Orthodox Church Archbishop Chrysostomos II presides over a meeting of other bishops composing the Holy Synod, the Church’s highest decision-making body at the Church’s headquarters in the capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Nov. 23, 2020. An 18th Century icon that a British officer spirited out of war-wracked Cyprus in 1974 has been returned to the island’s Orthodox Church by the officer’s son to reunite it with those “who really appreciate what it stands for.” A representative of the Cyprus Archbishop Chrysostomos II received the icon during a ceremony Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022, at Geneva’s Villa Moynier which houses the Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. The Royal Air Force officer found the icon during a 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and took it back to Britain where his son said it remained locked away “in a box for years.”. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
The initiative, unveiled in 2018 to great fanfare, was intended to counter a rising tide of Chinese economic espionage, cybertheft and influence operations. Some lawmakers and civil liberties groups have criticized the prosecution of academics — often of Chinese descent — who allegedly did not disclose ties to Chinese institutions while applying for federal grants. Their complaints, including that the department was engaging in racial profiling, took on added urgency as some cases failed and as anti-Asian hate incidents mounted within the United States.
Lawmakers and advocacy groups met with Olsen in the weeks before he made his decision to end the initiative, welcomed the news. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, welcomed the change. “I especially appreciate the acknowledgement of the harm that this program caused to our communities and the willingness to adapt the department’s work to focus on economic espionage cases in a holistic way that does not rely on race or ethnicity,” Chu said.
The China Initiative was launched during the Trump administration by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The announcement was accompanied by the unveiling of a major indictment against a Chinese state-owned company, a Taiwan company and three individuals charged with stealing trade secrets of an American semiconductor firm, Micron. | null | null | null | null | null |
To be clear, everyone has the right to criticize the president; having politics end at the water’s edge brings its own problems. Nor is there anything wrong with intraparty differences. But rather than a lively debate over alternative courses of action, what we’re seeing now from the GOP is mostly juvenile name-calling. | null | null | null | null | null |
But James’s office also has partnered with Bragg in the criminal investigation. On Wednesday, her spokeswoman, Delaney Kempner, said the criminal inquiry “is ongoing and there is a robust team in place that is working on it."
Alan Futerfas, a lawyer representing Trump Organization in the criminal matter, declined to comment on the resignations of Dunne and Pomerantz. | null | null | null | null | null |
The petition, filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court in December by education advocacy group the Open FCPS Coalition, accused Cohen of “neglect of duty, misuse of office [and] incompetence” for voting to keep schools closed in fall 2020 to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Like school districts nationwide, Fairfax — whose nearly 179,00 students make it Virginia’s largest system — offered online-education for much of the first year of the pandemic, although it has operated entirely in-person so far this school year.
In his order Wednesday dismissing the petition against Cohen, Fairfax Judge Richard E. Gardiner wrote that “the Petition is not based on facts sufficient to show probable cause for removal.” He dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be refiled.
The Open FCPS Coalition, a parent activist group that formed in late 2020 to hold the school board accountable for its actions during the pandemic, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. Spokesmen for Fairfax County Public Schools did not either.
The coalition is targeting these three members, out of Fairfax’s 12 board members, due to their track record of speaking and voting in favor of school closures, according to the group’s website.
The coalition alleged that Cohen had violated the rights of students with disabilities by voting in favor of closing schools at the same July meeting “without making any dispensations for students with special needs.” Caudill wrote that the allegation is “not factually supported based on the presentations, discussions and testimony at the July 21, 2020 meeting … the consensus of the Board, giving deference to the amount of information provided at the meeting and the unsettled nature of the … pandemic, constituted a well-reasoned and legitimate exercise of discretion and authority.”
In response, Caudill pointed out a key detail of the Fairfax system’s survey design: “If no instruction preference was selected the default response was considered as an in-person instruction response,” he wrote. He added that, of the 186,188 respondents to the survey, 83,548 parents (45 percent) chose in-person learning, 77,442 parents (or 42 percent) chose online learning and 25,198 simply did not respond, leading their answers to be counted as a preference for brick-and-mortar schooling. | null | null | null | null | null |
Iran pushes West for 'realistic' negotiation
Iran urged Western powers to be “realistic” Wednesday in talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal and said its top negotiator was returning to Tehran for consultations, suggesting that a breakthrough in its discussions is not imminent.
After 10 months of talks in Vienna, progress has been made toward the restoration of the pact to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, but both Tehran and Washington have cautioned that there are significant differences to overcome.
Reuters reported last week that a U.S.-Iranian deal was taking shape in Vienna to revive the pact, abandoned in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, who also reimposed extensive sanctions on Iran.
Protesting fishermen end blockade of port
Fishermen protesting lack of access to some waters ended a 34-hour-long blockade of Karachi port, Pakistan’s busiest, on Wednesday night after talks with the government, Prime Minister Imran Khan’s adviser on maritime affairs told Reuters.
The fishermen had blockaded the port in Pakistan’s business capital Tuesday, assembling trawlers across the main channel to halt shipping in and out.
Karachi handles much of the country’s trade in commodities and vehicles. The government said Wednesday that it was negotiating with the protesters.
Mahmood Maulvi, Khan’s adviser on maritime affairs, said the port’s channel had been reopened and normal sea traffic resumed.
Covid-positive queen speaks to prime minister: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II spoke with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday as she continued to carry out official duties days after testing positive for the coronavirus, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said. The palace said Sunday that Elizabeth, 95, was suffering mild symptoms but was expected to carry on with light duties, an indication that the world's oldest and longest-reigning monarch was not seriously unwell.
Forces kill 10 insurgents in Baluchistan, Pakistan says: Security forces in Pakistan's volatile southwest raided a militant hideout Wednesday, triggering an intense firefight that killed 10 insurgents, the military said. The operation took place in Hoshab, a remote district in Baluchistan province, the military said in a statement. It said the militants were involved in recent attacks on security forces. The slain insurgents were believed to be from the Baluchistan Liberation Army, designated a terrorist group by the United States in 2019.
U.K. man hands over Cyprus church icon taken by his father: An 18th-century icon that a British officer spirited out of war-wracked Cyprus in 1974 was returned Wednesday to the island's Orthodox Church by the officer's son to reunite it with those "who really appreciate what it stands for." A representative of the Cyprus Archbishop Chrysostomos II received the icon during a ceremony at Geneva's Villa Moynier. The Royal Air Force officer took the icon back to Britain, where his son said it remained locked "in a box for years." The son, who wished to remain anonymous, said he thought its return would be "best for all concerned." | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Another reason to end solitary confinement
The interior of a solitary confinement cell at New York’s Rikers Island jail. (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)
The Feb. 17 editorial noting the cruelty of solitary confinement, “Solitary confinement is torture,” made a persuasive argument for opposing the practice because of its inhumanity. That alone should be sufficient grounds for ending it in all states. That has not been the case, unfortunately.
In addition to the cruelty of prisoner isolation, another reason for ending the use of solitary, one not cited in the editorial, is the cost. The New York Times reported: “Segregation units can be two to three times as costly to build and, because of their extensive staffing requirements, to operate as conventional prisons are.” The Vera Institute of Justice reported: “The estimated daily cost per inmate at the federal administrative maximum (supermax) facility was $216.12 compared to $85.74 to house people in the general prison population. In 2003, the daily per capita costs of operating a supermax prison in Ohio were estimated at two-to-three times that of regular security units — $149 per day compared to $63 per day, with one corrections officer for every 1.7 prisoners in supermax compared to one for every 2.5 in less restricted housing.”
The cruelty of solitary confinement is unacceptable, as is the cost to taxpayers for funding the cruelty. This year in Virginia, S.B. 108 can end the cruelty of isolating the incarcerated. The bill has passed in the Virginia Senate and is now pending in the House of Delegates.
Robert Stewart, Chantilly
The writer is coordinator of public affairs for Social Action Linking Together and a member of the Virginia Coalition on Solitary Confinement. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: A few words could defuse the Ukrainian conflict
In the Donbas region, refugees that were brought on buses from the Ukraine-Russia border wait at the Taganrog terminal in Russia on Feb. 21. (Arthur Bondar for The Washington Post)
David Ignatius wrote in his Feb. 21 op-ed, “Putin warned the West 15 years ago. Now he’s poised for war.," of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference “denouncing NATO” that “it didn’t make much of an impression.” Not so, for those of us who were also there and who had tried to build George H.W. Bush’s “Europe whole and free” and at peace. I was Bill Clinton’s ambassador to NATO in 1997 when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was concluded. I and other “NATO hands” watched in dismay and disbelief as Washington later concluded that, because the Soviet Union had lost the Cold War, Russia could simply be ignored.
Though what Mr. Putin has been doing the past eight years violates Russia’s sworn commitments, we are also reaping what was sowed. The George W. Bush administration in 2008 tried to fast-track Ukraine’s and Georgia’s admissions to NATO. Horrified at the idea of confronting Russia, most European NATO members rebelled; but to keep Mr. Bush from going home empty-handed, allied leaders said the two countries “will become members of NATO.” Everyone knew that meant “the sweet by and by,” or in a word, never.
Any European country can ask to join NATO, as the United States correctly notes; but it takes consensus approval in the alliance, a willingness of all to see an attack on any ally as an attack on all. Several allies have made clear that will never happen. As one step toward trying to defuse the current crisis, it is long past time to acknowledge that fact.
Robert Hunter, Washington | null | null | null | null | null |
This Dec. 6, 2021 photo provided by NASA shows the International Space Station orbited 264 miles above the Tyrrhenian Sea with the Soyuz MS-19 crew ship docked to the Rassvet module and the Prichal module, still attached to the Progress delivery craft, docked to the Nauka multipurpose module. The former head of the National Space Council tells The Associated Press, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022, that tensions in eastern Ukraine – and heightened Western fears of a Russian invasion – should not have a significant impact on the International Space Station or U.S.-Russia cooperation in space. (NASA via AP) (Uncredited/NASA)
By Alex Sanz | AP | null | null | null | null | null |
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