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Estonian soldiers take part in a major drill as part of NATO's EFP (Enhance forward presence) operation at the Tapa Estonian army camp near Rakvere, on February 6, 2022. (Alain Jocard / AFP) (Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images)
A. This an open question. We have to answer it.
With Estonia’s President Karas:
A. It’s not only Washington. The whole Western world was a bit naive in that sense. We do have experience from the past, and that’s why we are quite cautious and able to read between the lines. Now the whole Western world does understand what kind of president Putin is. It took awhile, I agree. Luckily now it’s a different situation. | null | null | null | null | null |
The child welfare system already hurts trans kids. Texas made it a nightmare.
The state seeks to punish parents for affirming their children’s gender identities
Dorothy Roberts is the George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is author of four books, including "Killing the Black Body" and "Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families — And How Abolition Can Build A Safer World, which will be released by Basic Books in April.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) speaks during a campaign stop on Feb. 17 in San Antonio. (Eric Gay/AP)
Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) ordered Texas’s child welfare agencies to investigate parents whose children receive gender-affirming health care, and threatened them and professionals who fail to report it with criminal prosecution. This contradicts the position of the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical associations, which strenuously oppose government restrictions on children’s access to these services. In some respects, Texas follows a nationwide trend: Republican lawmakers in at least 27 states have introduced legislation to limit transgender and gender-diverse youth from accessing gender-affirming medical care, participating in school activities and using restrooms that align with their gender identity.
In Texas, several bills to ban medical care for transgender children have failed, and so the government has turned to a more sinister tactic: interpreting the definition of child abuse to encompass gender-affirming medical treatment, and exploiting the child protection system to intimidate and control families. Though state officials claim to be acting to protect the health and safety of children, throwing them into the child welfare system only would endanger them. Child welfare authorities largely stand indifferent to the dehumanizing practices that endanger gay and transgender children in their care, and even implement rules that encourage those practices.
National and state surveys show that LGBTQ children are more likely to be housed in congregate settings like group homes and prisonlike “therapeutic” treatment facilities than their non-LGBTQ peers, because child welfare agencies find it harder to locate foster homes for them. “I had to be placed in a residential facility under emergency shelter because there weren’t any affirming placements available that would want to take a gay Black teenager,” recalled Weston Charles-Gallo, testifying before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in 2021.
Some states’ laws segregate foster children by gender or require that homes and facilities provide separate bedrooms and bathrooms for boys and girls. In these settings, it is typical for transgender children to be misgendered and placed according to their sex assigned at birth, not their gender identity. State child welfare agencies’ attempts to protect cisgender girls in foster care by separating them from men and boys can fail to protect transgender girls (who are grouped with boys and male staff).
Group-home staff routinely use rewards and punishments to force gender nonconforming children to dress and act in ways that don’t match their identities, penalizing them for behavior that violates gender norms. “When I was in a group home, I lost points because I didn’t have long hair or wear dresses,” a former foster child named Captain told the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Another transgender young woman, Kira, reported, “One time I was grounded for two weeks for wearing eyeliner to school.”
Foster caretakers frequently subject LGBTQ youth to inhumane isolation, discipline or rejection for behavior they perceive as offensive; some even attempt to “cure” their sexual or gender identity. State-accredited foster caretakers in a focus group that was part of a 2008 study described bisexual foster youth as “confused” because of assumed sexual abuse, and gay youth as sinful, dangerous and prone to committing sexual abuse.
Youth placed in congregate housing commonly report horrendous accounts of daily harassment and violence — bullying that agency staff ignore, encourage or in some cases inflict. “I had at least two fights a day. The boys used to do stupid things because I was gay, like throw rocks at me or put bleach in my food,” Mariah Lopez, a transgender woman who lived in multiple group homes beginning at age 8, recounted in a story for Represent Magazine. “Once I was thrown down a flight of stairs and I’ve had my nose broken twice. They even ripped up the only picture of my mother that I had.” The staff did nothing to protect Mariah from the violence. “Sometimes the staff would stand there while the kids jumped me. One time a staff member jumped me with the kids,” she recalled. Another LGBTQ youth stated in a 2016 report about his experience living in a group home: “I would always have a butcher knife inside under my pillow because I didn’t trust people. I always felt that someone was going to try to attack me, so the only way I felt safe was with weapons.”
The routine violence and discrimination against LGBTQ children in foster care results in catastrophic harm. A 2015 study of foster care in Los Angeles County reported that LGBTQ youth “are less satisfied with their child welfare system experience, are more likely to experience homelessness, are moved around to more placements, and are experiencing higher levels of emotional distress compared to their non-LGBTQ counterparts.” Many try to escape foster care by running away — either back to their families or to the streets — and, even more tragically, by taking their own lives. A subsequent 2018 analysis of a nationally representative sample of youth in foster care found that those who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual had a substantially higher risk of mental health and substance abuse problems and were more than three times as likely to have run away in the prior six months.
Even if Texas child protection agents never remove trans children from their homes, state investigations can traumatize them and their families. Child welfare investigations can be terrifying experiences in themselves. Identifying children as at risk for abuse gives child protection agencies the authority to probe into every aspect of their family’s life: Caseworkers can make multiple unannounced home visits at any time of day or night, interrogate all household members, strip search children and request personal information from teachers, doctors, therapists and other service providers. Indeed, the threat of investigation is already sending shock waves of fear through the families of trans children, deterring parents from seeking health care for their children and pressuring children to hide their identities. On Tuesday, a 16-year-old transgender girl, her mother and her doctor filed a lawsuit to stop enforcement of the directive, alleging that an investigation that has already begun against them, and has taken a noticeable toll on the family’s physical and mental health. (A state judge has temporarily blocked the investigation.)
Abbott’s move to punish parents who violate the state’s prescribed gender norms reflects the overall design of child protective services and its regulation of families. The directive’s veneer of benevolence, covering for its harmful objective, is not an aberration. Rather, it is a central feature of the child welfare system — a multibillion-dollar apparatus that controls marginalized families, especially those that are Black and Native, by taking their children away. Relying on vague state child neglect laws, investigators often deem conditions of poverty — lack of food, insecure housing, inadequate medical care — as evidence of parental unfitness. Only 17 percent of children enter foster care based on allegations they were physically or sexually abused. With the Texas directive, and in the child welfare system generally, what constitutes child abuse is subject to the interpretation of mandated reporters and caseworkers whose perceptions are influenced by racial and class biases.
Abbott’s deployment of the child welfare system will punish parents for affirming their children’s gender identities, not protect children. And this tactic should cause the public to question more broadly how other struggling families are harmed by a system that polices rather than supports them.
Like many Texas women, I had a safe, legal abortion. What happened to our state? | null | null | null | null | null |
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) speak during a news conference after the passage of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act Feb. 10 in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Biden is poised to sign into law Thursday a bill that ends forced arbitration in workplace sexual assault and harassment cases, allowing survivors to file lawsuits in court against perpetrators.
The new law would nullify agreements between employees and their employers in which the employees waives their rights to sue in the case of sexual assault or harassment and instead are required to settle their disputes with an arbitrator.
A bill signing ceremony is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday at the White House.
“President Biden has long spoken against forced-arbitration clauses in employment contracts, and today marks an important milestone in empowering survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment and protecting employee rights,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday afternoon.
Critics of forced arbitration say the practice has only served to further cultures of abuse in workplaces and that the new law would be critical for holding perpetrators of sexual misconduct accountable. About 60 million Americans are subject to arbitration clauses, many of whom do not realize it because the provisions are buried in the fine print of their employment contracts.
“We can’t ignore a basic reality of these clauses: They deprive victims of sexual harassment and assault of their basic rights by mandating that they seek remedy only behind the closed doors of private arbitration, with no other alternative,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor Thursday morning.
Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson on Feb. 10 reflected on her work over the past five years advocating for victims of sexual harassment and assault. (The Washington Post)
The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, which was first introduced in 2017 by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), was a rare product of bipartisan congressional support. The #MeToo movement helped spur momentum for the bill after more victims spoke out about how they could not sue perpetrators because they had unwittingly signed such clauses.
Last month, the House passed the bill on a 335-to-97 vote; the Senate passed it on a voice vote. Gillibrand touted it then as “one of the most significant workplace reforms in American history,” while Graham defended the bill against some Republican criticism that it would be bad for businesses.
“It does not hurt business to make sure that people who are harassed in the workplace get treated fairly,” Graham said then.
Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who was a key proponent of the bill, said in advocating for it that she had been shocked to learn that her employment contract included a forced arbitration clause. Her lawyers initially said the clause meant she could not sue then-Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, whom she accused of sexual harassment.
“To this day, whenever my career — my life’s work — is referenced, my accomplishments as an actor are ignored, and I’ve been reduced to being Eliza Dushku who was paid off for ‘allegedly’ being sexually harassed on a TV series,” Dushku, an actress and producer, said in her testimony. “As I hope you understand, this was not the outcome I desired or ever expected, but because of binding arbitration there will never be real justice for me and for countless other victims of sexual harassment.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Then what? As it is, local TV meteorologists are facing an identity crisis of sorts. “You’ll need us if there’s a tornado” only works what … once or twice a year? We need to give viewers a better reason to tune in for the other 363 or whatever days a year — this is especially true for younger audiences that are not in the habit of tuning into local news as their parents and grandparents do.
For example, not a single weather app in the world can rival what veteran TV meteorologists such as James Spann, the chief at ABC 33-40 in Birmingham, do during a tornado warning. He can call out virtually every intersection, point of interest, Dollar General and barbecue joint in the state. When it comes to life-or-death weather, viewers trust him with their lives. | null | null | null | null | null |
The case is well understood but intricate, particularly in regard to the need to meet the standards of criminal prosecution. So, below, we’ll walk through the case presented by the committee in the document produced on Wednesday. We’ll also contextualize it with other recent legal activity that hints at more significant culpability for Trump allies and maintains a risk of civil repercussions for the former president.
Part of the argument against cooperating is that he was acting as Trump’s attorney and is therefore subject to attorney-client privilege. But that privilege doesn’t apply if the discussions between an attorney and a client were related to commission of a crime — what’s known as the crime-fraud exception. And so the committee delineated the crimes it believes Trump committed in concert with Eastman, hoping to persuade the court to review material that can then be shared with investigators.
As the riot was underway at the Capitol, Trump made no effort for hours to intervene, despite the rioters obviously acting on his behalf. It’s not included in this week’s filing, but the committee has numerous messages sent to Trump’s team as the riot was going on that called for the president to intervene, understanding that people believing themselves to be effecting Trump’s will would probably be responsive if he asked them to stop. He didn’t. In fact, the filing claims, Trump was aware of the violence underway at the Capitol when he tweeted an excoriation of Pence, who was still in the building.
Before the riot began, Trump had given a speech at the Ellipse in which he encouraged the thousands of people who he had asked to come to Washington to continue to fight. There had apparently been some debate about sending the Ellipse crowd to the Capitol, something for which the organizers had no permit. But Trump called for people to march to the Capitol anyway: “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong,” he said. “We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated.” This, of course, depends heavily on the idea that some electors weren’t legal, which was not the case. We’ll come back to this.
Pence did ask permission, including from the Senate parliamentarian, and didn’t receive it. On Jan. 4, Pence told Trump that he had been advised that he couldn’t simply reject electors — but Trump and Eastman, as articulated in the filing, continued to insist that he could. Eastman also spoke from the Ellipse; he and Trump both insisted that Pence could do something Eastman later “admitted that not a single Justice of the Supreme Court” would validate, according to the filing.
In other words, Trump and Eastman tried repeatedly to get Pence to impede the final counting of lawful electoral votes, and, once the count was halted by the riot, Trump did nothing for an extended period of time that would get the electoral-vote count back on track. In late January, Trump bolstered the idea that he intended to obstruct the finalization of the election broadly, saying in a statement that Pence on Jan. 6 “could have overturned the Election!”
All of this, of course, depends on Trump’s claims about rampant fraud in the 2020 election, claims that led directly to the rioters’ efforts to do what Pence wisely opted against. The filing offers some direct connections from Trump to that violence:
Last month, D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta published a remarkable opinion in which he allowed several civil lawsuits against Trump to move forward. In it, he noted that there was evidence that Trump had engaged in a civil conspiracy — that is, not necessarily a criminal one — with far-right extremist groups such as the Oath Keepers that on Jan. 6 aimed to block the finalization of the election. The bar is lower here, with participants in the conspiracy needing only to have “a mutual understanding to try to accomplish a common and unlawful plan” — like blocking the counting of electoral votes — “[the] general scope of which were known to each person who is to be held responsible for its consequences,” though not necessarily the details.
Trump faces both civil and criminal threats because of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But any accountability may come down to one of the central questions of his presidency: Does he actually believe the false assertions he amplifies? | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: It’s time for federal workers to return to the office
A train arrives at Federal Triangle Metro Station D.C. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Two years into the pandemic, daily life is finally starting to feel more normal. The White House has dropped its mask mandate for those who are vaccinated. So have Congress and many states, workplaces and school districts. President Biden and other top officials are rightly describing the virus now as “endemic,” meaning it isn’t gone, but the risk level is low enough that it’s safe to resume the bulk of normal in-person activities without masks.
So why haven’t all federal workers returned to the office? A logical next step, it would usher in a much needed revival of downtown D.C. The nation’s capital remains largely a ghost town, especially in the central areas that are dominated by federal workers and white-collar professions such as law, consulting and media. Many jobs at restaurants and hotels downtown have still not returned. D.C.'s unemployment remains near 6 percent, and the leisure and hospitality sector is down more than 23,000 jobs. Metro ridership continues at anemic levels. On a peak day in late February, it was just 170,000, which is a tiny fraction of the 626,000 who rode Metro on an average day in 2019. Metro is facing severe budget shortfalls and desperately needs more riders to return to maintain service.
Mr. Biden spelled it out in his State of the Union address: “It’s time for America to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again,” he said. “We’re doing that here in the federal government. The vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person.”
Now he needs to back that up with action. About half of the 2.1 million civilian federal workers were still working remotely at the start of the year and some do not yet have clear plans for an in-person return.
Returning to the office doesn’t have to mean five days a week. The Post is among many companies implementing a “hybrid” work structure this month with several days in the office and several days at home. Some businesses are incentivizing workers to return by offering perks including meals, prizes or permanent offices or desk space to those that come in at least a certain amount of time a week. Workers want flexibility and many federal employees can likely still work some days from home.
But it’s important to remember that only 15 percent of U.S. workers still had the privilege of working from home in January, when omicron was at its worst. The vast majority of Americans have had to keep commuting to their jobs in hospitals, grocery stores, warehouses, public safety and more. There is a big divide in American society between who can work from home and who can’t right now.
The return of federal workers — at least in a hybrid capacity of two or three days a week — would be a true signal that the nation is finally heading toward a new normal.
A break from the pandemic beckons. It’s time to plan for the next twist. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Putin’s incompetent invasion of Ukraine dispels the myth of Russian military invincibility
Destroyed Russian military vehicles in the Ukrainian settlement of Borodyanka on March 3. (Maksim Levin/Reuters)
In recent years, many on the American right have deified Vladimir Putin as a “genius” and his armed forces as invincible conquerors because they are not burdened by Western liberal pieties.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) typified the trend last year when he linked to a TikTok video showing a muscular Russian soldier doing pushups, parachuting out of an airplane, and using a rifle. Cruz contrasted this Kremlin propaganda unfavorably with a U.S. Army recruiting video featuring a female corporal who was raised by two mothers. “Holy crap,” Cruz tweeted: “Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea…” He went on to blame “Dem politicians & woke media” for trying to turn U.S. troops “into pansies.”
Well, how do you like the Russian military now, Sen. Cruz? The Internet is full of videos showing Russian troops running out of fuel and food in Ukraine, weeping after surrendering, and complaining that they are being used as “cannon fodder.” There are reports of Russian soldiers sabotaging their own vehicles rather than fight in a war they want no part of. The Russians are even leaving their dead on the battlefield — a shocking thing to see for U.S. soldiers, whose creed contains the line, “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”
I have spent decades covering the U.S. military, including numerous visits to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the lack of competence and morale displayed by the Russian military is simply impossible to imagine on the part of U.S. troops. U.S. personnel are far better equipped, trained, motivated and led than their Russian counterparts. It’s not even close. If the Russian military were ever to face the U.S. military in battle — something that we must fervently hope will never happen because of the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides — I doubt the Russians would last any longer than the Iraqi army (which was trained and equipped along Soviet lines) did in 1991 and 2003. Indeed, in 2018, U.S. air power pulverized Russian mercenaries who attacked a U.S. outpost in Syria: The U.S. troops suffered no casualties while the attackers lost 200 to 300 men.
Cruz and other Republicans who glorified the Russian armed forces are dupes — “useful idiots,” the communists called them — who did Putin’s bidding by enhancing the Russian dictator’s aura of power. To be sure, we still don’t know the outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s quite possible that, despite early setbacks, the Russians could still pound Ukrainian cities into rubble and claim at least a temporary victory. But one outcome is already clear: The myth of Russian military power has been shattered.
There has been much talk in recent years about Putin’s rebuild of the Russian armed forces, which included changing it from a mostly conscript to a mostly volunteer force and equipping it with high-tech weapons systems, such as cruise missiles. The buildup appeared to pay off during earlier interventions in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. But it is now obvious that those forays gave a highly deceptive image of Russian capabilities. Putin’s “little green men” quickly took over Crimea in 2014, largely because they had the support of the local Russian-speaking population. His air force was able to bomb Syrian cities with ease because the rebels didn’t have antiaircraft missiles.
That is a very different task from invading and occupying a country of more than 43 million people with a battle-hardened military equipped with Western-supplied weapons and backed by a large citizen militia. The invasion of Ukraine is laying bare all the corruption, inefficiency, and incompetence of the Russian military machine, which is all too reminiscent of the old Red Army.
As one retired U.S. general quipped, the Russians may have been trying to emulate U.S. “shock and awe” tactics from 2003, but their efforts are more like “shock and yawn.” The Russians have proved utterly incapable of coordinating air and ground operations or keeping troops supplied on the march. They can’t even maintain truck tires. A week into the war, the Russians still haven’t established control of the skies — something that the United States routinely does in the early hours of its wars. Analysts are wondering what happened to the Russian air force. Russia has a lot more aircraft than Ukraine, yet Russian ground troops have often been left to attack without air cover. The Russians fired fewer missiles in the first six days of the war than the U.S. did in the first night of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
At least 2,000 Russian soldiers have already been killed — and likely a great deal more. That’s almost as many as the United States lost in 20 years in Afghanistan. A retired Australian general commented that the early days of the invasion are indicative “of professionally corrupt and incompetent military leaders who are literally throwing away the lives of their soldiers.”
It’s still possible, of course, that the Russians could bombard Ukraine into submission. Never underestimate Putin’s barbarism. But it’s doubtful that Putin can ever extinguish Ukrainian resistance — or resurrect the myth of Russian military competence. American right-wingers such as Ted Cruz look foolish for being taken in by Russia’s Potemkin village armed forces. I’ll take our “woke military” any day. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ten injured after explosion and fire level apartment building in Montgomery County, Md.
Emergency personnel on the scene of an apartment fire and possible explosion in the 2400 block of Lyttonsville Road in Silver Spring, Md., on March 3. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
Ten people were taken to hospitals Thursday morning after an explosion and fire that leveled an apartment building in the Silver Spring area of Maryland just north of the District, fire officials said.
Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said several people were in critical condition and others suffered less serious injuries from the blast that some compared to a bomb. Several people had to be rescued from the burning building, and other structures surrounding it were damaged and had to be evacuated.
A video of the explosion showed debris shooting upward and loud screams following.
“We have catastrophic damage,” fire department spokesperson Pete Piringer said.
The cause of the blast was under investigation Thursday afternoon, as the Red Cross and county and state agencies attempted to help displaced residents. Fire crews were still trying to douse pockets of flames over the smoldering remains of the destroyed parts of the building.
The explosion and fire occurred around 10:30 a.m. at a four-story, garden-style residential building called the Friendly Gardens Apartment in the 2400 block of Lyttonsville Road. Goldstein said crews arrived to find all four stories of the building engulfed in flames.
Fire crews and bystanders helped rescue residents from the area around the blast.
Fire and rescue responded after an explosion at an apartment building in Silver Spring, Md., on March 3. (The Washington Post)
Tito Garcia, 40, was showering Thursday morning when he felt his apartment shake in a building near the blast.
He thought a tenant above him had dropped something, until Sylvia Bunyasi, 48, yelled that there was ash outside the window.
Garcia grabbed his 13-year-old son and ran out of his unit with Bunyasi. They tried exiting from the back of their building, but the pathway was blocked off with debris engulfed in flames.
Entire sections of building opposite theirs — 2405 — had fallen off, Garcia said.
“The flames looked like they were going to reach the trees. The building was totally engulfed,” Bunyasi said from the Gwendolyn Coffield Community Center where she and her family had taken shelter. “We could feel it; we could feel how hot it was.”
Bunyasi said she left her home without any belongings, including her identification.
Steve Inman, who lives nearby, rushed to the scene of the blast after hearing a “big boom.” He said the front of the building had fallen away and the top had been sheared off. He said he helped evacuate people from a portion of the building that had not collapsed.
“I was able to get a mother and an infant out first — that was when the fire really started getting up,” Inman said. “I busted on a few doors to get some extra people out.”
The response ultimately involved six or seven fire stations, 60 fire vehicles and as many as 150 firefighters from across the region, Piringer and Goldstein said.
Goldstein said there could be serious damage to the buildings surrounding the explosion. Crews from the fire department and Pepco and Washington Gas officials were on the scene examining the structures and power and gas lines.
Some residents in the area reported smelling gas before the blast.
“It is too early for me to say what initiated this,” Goldstein said. “We are working through a wide range of concerns and possibilities. Our focus is on lifesaving at this time.”
By noon, dozens of residents from Friendly Gardens and surrounding apartment complexes had gathered along Lyttonsville Road.
The smell of smoke and gas hung in the air as first responders brought individuals out in stretchers and placed them in ambulances. Pablo Deleon, 21, said he was sleeping in his apartment in the opposite building, Paddington Square, when he heard a massive boom.
When he exited his room, all he could see was smoke, he said.
“It was just mass hysteria, giant, giant flames,” he said.
Jibreel Seid, 68, heard about the explosion from his wife. Seid, who is originally from Ethiopia, said his family was one of many immigrant families who lived in Friendly Gardens. He had been at work when his wife called saying that the building next to theirs had caught fire. He rushed home to try to get his family’s immigration documents from his first-floor unit but firefighters did not let him through. There was a chance that the fire could spread, they told him.
“Our papers — that’s the most important thing,” he said. “We need that.”
The explosion was reminiscent of another nearby. In August 2016, a natural gas blast killed seven people and injured dozens more at the Flower Branch apartments in Silver Spring. That blast left a gutted shell.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich was at the building Thursday and promised government assistance to all who needed it and a thorough investigation. He said the building that was destroyed was affordable housing units. He called the scene “flat-out depressing.”
“It was kind of horrifying when you look at a building and see it gutted and walls down,” Elrich said. “You see all the debris piled up and all you can think is, ‘What happened to the people?’ ''
Elrich said there were roughly 13 units in the destroyed building and the surrounding ones that were evacuated. It was unclear how long residents would have to stay away.
Md. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) tweeted shortly before noon that his office has been in contact with officials in Montgomery County and with emergency officials in state government.
“Please keep all those involved, including our first responders, in your prayers,” Hogan wrote.
Authorities are scheduled to give another news conference on the blast at 3 p.m.
Dana Hedgpeth contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
John Eastman, left, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, appears with Rudolph W. Giuliani at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
The committee has previously floated potential crimes that Trump and others might have committed, but for the first time it lays out its case in significant detail.
In doing so, the filing also details tense sparring between a leader of Trump’s effort to overturn the election, his lawyer John Eastman, and Vice President Mike Pence’s chief counsel, Greg Jacob. We knew significant details about the exchanges, thanks to an October investigation by The Washington Post, but the emails they exchanged are published verbatim in the new filing.
This email references (and attaches) a Jan. 4 letter from Pennsylvania Republican state senators to the GOP leaders of the U.S. House and Senate, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). In the letter, the state senators ask for more time to review the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results, citing a case that the Trump legal team pitched as validating their claims (after overwhelmingly losing other cases).
As the Jan. 6 deadline approached, the Trump legal team needed state legislatures to cast their results into question. But none had done so officially, so the idea was to buy more time by delaying Congress’s counting of the votes.
Eastman appears to compare the situation to President Abraham Lincoln’s suspending the writ of habeas corpus early in the Civil War and President George W. Bush disregarding a legal impediment during the war in Iraq.
And thanks to your bull----, we are now under siege.
My “bull----” — seriously? You think you can’t adjourn the session because the ECA says no adjournment, while the compelling evidence that the election was stolen continues to build and is already overwhelming. The “siege” is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so the American people can see for themselves what happened.
It’s an indictment of Eastman, to be sure, but it also adds to a long history of Republicans and White House aides treating Trump as if he weren’t capable of parsing these issues for himself.
Here, Eastman complains that Pence’s rejection of his strategy (in a Jan. 6 letter) referenced only the most drastic option — Pence unilaterally trying to throw the election to Trump. Eastman argues, as he has after the emergence of his memo, that his preferred option was to have Pence merely send it back to the states. Eastman and allies have strained to disown that more drastic option, despite Eastman’s having pitched it as a viable strategy in the memo. | null | null | null | null | null |
After an effort to end reliance on the Russian engines for national security missions that was spearheaded by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), ULA moved to develop another rocket, called Vulcan, that would use American-made engines supplied by Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Jeff Bezos. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Rogozin on Wednesday also threatened the partnership that has sustained the space station for more than 20 years. Speaking on Russia Today, a state-controlled English-language station, he said through an interpreter that Russia “will closely monitor the actions of our American partners and, if they continue to be hostile, we will return to the question of the existence of the International Space Station.”
That followed tweets last week asking whether the United States wanted to ruin the cooperation in operating the station. Rogozin reminded President Biden that Russia is responsible for firing the thrusters that keep the station in the correct orbit and said that without Russia, the station could come crashing down. | null | null | null | null | null |
Then what? As it is, local TV meteorologists are facing an identity crisis of sorts. “You’ll need us if there’s a tornado” only works what … once or twice a year? We need to give viewers a better reason to tune in for the other 363 or whatever days a year. This is especially true for younger audiences who are not in the habit of tuning into local news as their parents and grandparents do.
For example, not a single weather app in the world can rival what veteran TV meteorologists such as James Spann, the chief at ABC 33/40 in Birmingham, Ala., do during a tornado warning. He can call out virtually every intersection, point of interest, Dollar General and barbecue joint in the state. When it comes to life-or-death weather, viewers trust him with their lives. | null | null | null | null | null |
French President Emmanuel Macron says he will run for second term, as war in Ukraine upends campaign
French President Emmanuel Macron waits for guests before a meeting over Ukraine crisis at the Élysée Palace in Paris on Feb. 28. (Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters)
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced that he would run for a second term, ending months of speculation somewhat anticlimactically — by sending a letter.
Even though it was never really at doubt that Macron would seek reelection, the surprisingly low-key announcement is likely to mark the true beginning of the French election campaign, which has kept the country’s political observers in suspense for much of the past year but had lacked the candidate who’s most likely to win in April.
Macron’s poll numbers have remained stable at 24 or 25 percent since last April, while his contenders’ fortunes either rose or fell, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen currently in second place, at 17 percent, behind the centrist Macron. The two candidates who win the most votes on April 10 will compete against each other in a runoff election two weeks later.
One week ago, it was still unclear if Le Pen and her far-right contender, Éric Zemmour, would even be on the ballots in April, as they lagged behind in the crucial race to secure the 500 signatures from elected officials that are required to stand in the election. With only days to go until the deadline this Friday, Zemmour and Le Pen this week succeeded in crossing the threshold, which Macron had passed weeks ago.
Macron’s team repeatedly said that the French leader wanted to avoid being drawn into the tumultuous election campaign until the very last moment, initially to respond to the omicron coronavirus wave, and in recent weeks to focus on the escalating crisis in Ukraine. The coronavirus crisis now appears to be largely over, with French Prime Minister Jean Castex having announced the end of the country’s vaccine passport on Thursday, but the crisis in Ukraine is likely to consume much of Macron’s attention over the next weeks.
“Rarely has France been confronted with such an accumulation of crises,” Macron wrote in his letter to French voters, published by several regional newspapers on Thursday. “I am a candidate to defend our values that are threatened by the disruptions of the world.”
It will also likely be a turning point in the campaign, which had so far centered on topics that in many ways appeared to echo the lead-up to the 2017 French election, when the influx of migrants from the Middle East and a string of terrorist attacks put identity politics at the forefront of the public debate.
Whereas almost all leading candidates advocated in favor of restricting migration just over a week ago — believing to have voters on their side — surveys suddenly show broad support for welcoming refugees in France, though it’s a sentiment that appears to be limited to refugees from Ukraine.
Le Pen, who was long one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s biggest defenders, had to walk a tightrope over the past week, as she distanced herself from the Russian leader amid near unanimity among the French that Putin is primarily responsible for the war in Ukraine.
Campaign leaflets that showed Le Pen shaking Putin’s hand, and of which over 1 million copies had already been printed, were withdrawn by her campaign team, the left-wing Libération newspaper reported. Le Pen’s team has denied that they ordered the leaflets to be withdrawn.
It remained unclear this week if the outpouring of support for Ukraine’s war refugees across Europe will make it more difficult for Le Pen and Zemmour to keep the French public focused on identity politics, their preferred topic.
Zemmour, who said at a rally last year that the United States has “done everything it could to separate us from Russia,” appeared eager to shift the public debate away from the east of Europe on Monday, five days after the invasion. “It is not Russia that threatens France” but rather “the great replacement and the Islamization of the country,” he said, according to Paris Match magazine.
In previous elections, concerns over rising inequality and surging inflation would have likely boosted the chances of France’s Socialist party, whose presidents have governed France for about two of the past four decades.
The woman who just weeks ago was seen by some as a possible unifier of the left — former justice minister Christiane Taubira — won’t even be on the ballot in April. After failing to cross the 500 sponsorships that are needed to run, she dropped out of the race on Wednesday. | null | null | null | null | null |
A view of the damage after Russian forces shelled Constitution Square in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, on March 2. (Sergey Bobok/AFP/Getty Images)
Accusations that Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine are mounting in the face of Moscow’s all-out onslaught across much of the country, a rising civilian death toll and the apparent use of weapons that can put noncombatants at increased risk.
The United Nations had recorded 227 civilian deaths, including 15 children, in the conflict as of Wednesday. The actual toll is probably far higher. Russian forces have pummeled Ukrainian cities with heavy shelling in recent days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday described Russia’s artillery assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, as a “war crime,” and called for an international tribunal to step in.
Western officials, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have leveled similar accusations. President Biden, though, said Wednesday that “it’s too early to say” Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal.
Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron in a phone call on Thursday that Russian forces are doing “everything possible to preserve the lives of civilians,” according to a Kremlin readout.
War crimes are hard to prove — and may be particularly so in the Ukrainian context, experts say. Accountability is often elusive.
Here’s what to know about what war crimes are and how perpetrators are prosecuted.
The modern framework for assessing war crimes was born out of the Nuremberg trials after World War II, in which Nazi Party officials, military officers and German elites were tried on charges including crimes against humanity. The international community sought to set guiderails that would minimize the horror of future conflicts.
People often use “war crimes” colloquially to describe a range of actions prohibited under international law during conflict, said William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. But the term has a precise, technical definition, referring to violations of international law governing conduct in combat and during occupation.
Those violations are spelled out in international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Rome statute, which established the International Criminal Court in 2002 to prosecute individuals responsible for war crimes, along with crimes against humanity and genocide — themselves complex terms with their own set of legal parameters.
War crimes include the deliberate targeting of civilians, attacks that cause disproportionate civilian casualties given the military objective and attacks on hospitals, schools, historic monuments and other key civilian sites. Plenty of horrific acts of violence resulting in civilian deaths would not meet the definition.
The use of certain weapons, including chemical ones, are also prohibited.
Cluster munitions, which scatter bomblets indiscriminately and leave unexploded duds that pose dangers to civilians after the conflict, are banned by many nations — but not Russia and Ukraine. Russia’s alleged use of those weapons in Ukraine, as well as “vacuum weapons,” isn’t automatically illegal, Schabas said. That determination depends on whether Russia took steps to avoid harming civilians.
There’s also a separate legal category of crimes against humanity, which includes mass murder, enslavement and torture.
International law around conflict governs more than just combat. Ukraine has adopted the tactic of posting photos and videos of captured and killed Russian soldiers online, which could be a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Who has the power to investigate?
Ukrainian authorities have the primary responsibility to investigate alleged violations of international law committed on its territory, said James Gow, professor of international peace and security at King’s College London. But that would require the Ukrainian justice system being functional.
Another avenue: The International Criminal Court.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia is a party to the court, so neither can bring allegations to prosecutors. But Ukraine has twice accepted the court’s jurisdiction over its territory — and other countries can refer alleged crimes there to the court. Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, said his office had received referrals from 39 countries as of Wednesday.
Khan announced on Wednesday that he would open an investigation into allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide in Ukraine “by any person” from November 2013 onward.
A preliminary investigation found “reasonable basis to believe crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court had been committed” and “identified potential cases that would be admissible,” Khan said in a statement.
What evidence is required to prosecute perpetrators?
A large quantity, and it has to be solid.
ICC investigators have begun collecting evidence, and Khan appealed for countries to give his office additional resources.
Eliot Higgins, the founder of open-source group Bellingcat, told the Guardian that his organization was working with others to preserve evidence of potential war crimes that would be accepted in court.
The world is watching the war unfold in real time, as a flood of videos across Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and Twitter show the destruction left by apparent cluster munitions and strikes on a TV tower close to a Holocaust memorial in Kyiv. Human rights groups and journalists have verified and published eyewitness and social media accounts of attacks on civilian areas.
Social media documentation can help in investigations. But the bar for evidence in war crimes cases is high, international law experts say.
War is a bloody business, and civilian casualties are expected. In many cases, proving that the killing of civilians constitutes a war crime requires showing the attacker’s intent to harm civilians or strike forbidden targets like hospitals and schools. So holding top officials accountable typically requires intercepting communications up the chain of command, Gow said.
And “proportionality” is a subjective standard that isn’t clearly defined, Schabas said.
“Crimes on the battlefield are very hard to prove," he said. “There have been very few successful prosecutions for those types of crimes.”
Building a case is further complicated by increasingly blurred lines between civilians and fighters. Ordinary Ukrainians have taken up arms and gathered to make molotov cocktails. They lose their status as civilians under international law when they’re fighting, Schabas said.
Could Russian officials be held accountable?
A week into Putin’s invasion, calls for accountability are already ricocheting across the world.
Lithuania’s prime minister, Ingrida Simonyte, told The Post on Monday: “What Putin is doing, it is just a murder and nothing else. And I hope he will be in Hague,” referring to the seat of the International Criminal Court.
More than three dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives are backing a resolution calling on the ICC to prosecute Putin “should anything happen” to Zelensky, Politico reported.
World leaders have faced trial for war crimes in the past. In a famous example, an international court put the president of the former Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, on trial in 2002 for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Milosevic died in custody before the trial concluded.
But even if the evidence is there, putting Russian officials — let alone Putin — on trial is unlikely, barring major political change in Russia, Gow said. As long as the Russian government remains unwilling to cooperate, and Russians accused of crimes don’t travel abroad, there’s not much international prosecutors can do.
Still, it’s valuable to collect and preserve evidence of potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, Gow said, since circumstances in Russia may change.
“No one likes to be branded a war criminal, so there is [an] important potential psychological and political effect to be gained contingently from investigations,” he said.
A slew of international sanctions, boycotts and restrictions have swiftly turned Russia into a pariah state. The economic toll has started to show. And a small but loud minority of Russians have voiced opposition to Putin’s invasion.
Even if the perpetrators of any war crimes in Ukraine do not face punishment, stockpiling evidence can serve as a crucial corrective to false narratives.
The international tribunal that tried Milosevic said the “greatest achievement” of the proceedings was making reams of evidence available to the public as “a barrier against malign attempts to revise history.” | null | null | null | null | null |
A bitcoin token sits on top of U.S. dollars. Amid calls for more scrutiny, cryptocurrency companies say they are cooperating with U.S. sanctions on Russia. (Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg News)
And they say authorities’ ability to track big transactions on the blockchain, the transparent digital ledger that underlies cryptocurrencies, makes it all but impossible for billionaire Russian oligarchs to use it for moving meaningful amounts of their wealth undetected.
“The scale of the sanctions we’re seeing are so massive, there just isn’t the depth in crypto for the kinds of evasion we’re trying to prevent. And if an oligarch tries to move $10 billion, it will be completely obvious and spotted by people in the industry who run the on- and off-ramps,” said Jerry Brito, executive director of the crypto think tank Coin Center. “This is such a red herring.”
“We do have laws on the books and all that,” Powell said. “But for digital finance generally we need a legal framework that would take away as much as possible the possibility people could use unbacked cryptocurrencies as a way to evade the law or to finance terrorism or hide their ill-gotten gains.”
Powell was responding to a question from Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who along with three Democratic colleagues wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen on Wednesday asking what the department is doing to ensure targeted Russians don’t use crypto to circumvent sanctions.
Yellen, in remarks Wednesday after a speech in Chicago, called crypto a “channel to be watched,” and said the Treasury Department could address loopholes that the technology presents in its sanctions, according to the Wall Street Journal. She added many crypto participants already face anti-money laundering and sanctions rules.
The United States has imposed punishing sanctions on Russia meant to cripple the country economically for invading its neighbor. They include cutting off the Russian central bank and freezing its U.S. assets; adding a number of top Russian banks and other companies to a sanctions list; closing U.S. airspace to Russian flights; working with European allies to disconnect the nation from the international financial network known as SWIFT, and personally targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle.
The biggest crypto-trading platforms, including Coinbase and FTX, say they are complying with sanctions and already abide by the same requirements as traditional financial institutions to collect data on their customers and guard against suspicious activity.
The industry takes sanctions compliance “very seriously and employ a host of tools, including the use of blockchain analytics, trade surveillance and Internet geo-tagging,” said Michelle Bond, CEO of the Association for Digital Asset Markets, an industry trade group. “We are entering a time where diligence to the utmost degree will be necessary and continued public-private information sharing will be key.”
The major crypto exchanges have rejected a call from Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, to block all Russians from their platforms to “sabotage ordinary users.” Kraken, one top exchange that spurned Federov’s request, said in a statement that “freezing access to digital assets of citizens from an entire country does not necessarily punish those who are actually responsible and who may have already prepared for the possibility of blanket sanctions.”
More than 17 million Russians, roughly 12 percent of its total population, own cryptocurrency, according to TripleA, a Singapore-based crypto-payments company. Adoption is even higher in Ukraine, where nearly 13 percent of the population, more than 5.5 million people, own digital assets.
Demand for crypto has been spiking in both countries since the conflict erupted, with Ukrainians and Russians racing to buy up bitcoin and Tether, a so-called stablecoin whose price is pegged to the U.S. dollar, according to data from Kaiko, a Paris-based crypto-analysis firm. The price of bitcoin has rallied by 18 percent over the past week.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has collected more than $42 million in crypto donations, some of which it has already converted into traditional currency to buy critical supplies, including drones, bulletproof vests and gasoline.
Crypto advocates point to that fundraising campaign as proof of crypto’s ability to advance a cause that has united much of the world. They aim to use it to argue that Washington policymakers should tread carefully in writing rules for the industry, even as they hunt for gaps that crypto may present in the new sanctions.
“This, right now, is the fog of war. I think there are opportunities within crypto for sanctions evasion,” said Adam Zarazinski, CEO of Inca Digital, a data firm that works with both the crypto industry and government agencies. “We don’t necessarily know what all of them are yet.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Why Belarus Is in Lockstep With Russia Over Ukraine
By Aliaksandr Kudrytski | Bloomberg
After breaking away from a crumbling Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Belarus stayed loosely aligned with Russia, unlike its neighbors. That’s changed dramatically with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Longtime President Alexander Lukashenko has allowed Belarus to be used as a staging ground even as he has so far avoided sending his own troops to join the attack, and has cleared the way to potentially host Russian nuclear weapons. The tight embrace is payback after Russian President Vladimir Putin bankrolled his government for many years and came to Lukashenko’s aid following a disputed 2020 election which sparked a popular uprising, repression and sanctions.
1. What role is Belarus playing in the war?
Belarus’s military value to Russia is its strategic position, lying just to the north of Ukraine with a common border several hundred miles long and its southern territory extending close to Kyiv. It also borders on NATO member countries Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. About 30,000 Russian troops may have been in Belarus during joint military drills in February, making it the largest military buildup there since the Cold War, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said before the exercises started. Weapons and other military equipment in the country included S-400 missile systems, the Washington Post reported. Those forces stayed on after the drills finished, paving the way for the Russian assault on Ukraine just days later.
2. What’s the prospect for Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons?
After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Belarus agreed to give up nuclear warheads stationed on its soil. However, the country voted in a referendum on constitutional reform on Feb. 27 to scrap its non-nuclear and neutral status, potentially permitting it to host nuclear weapons and Russian forces. Lukashenko said he could request the return of Russian nuclear weapons to Belarus if NATO stationed nuclear weapons in Poland or Lithuania.
3. Who is Lukashenko?
A throwback to a different era, he has led the state for almost three decades. Lukashenko, 67, has been in power since Belarus’s first presidential election as an independent republic in 1994. Belarus, which has a population of 9.3 million, used to rely on its potash exports, as well as imports of discounted Russian crude oil, which it refined and sold abroad at a profit. Now a torrent of sanctions is testing this economic model. Discontent has simmered as Lukashenko failed to diversify the cash-strapped economy. But it was the 2020 election that got people onto the streets, defying riot police and calling for strikes.
4. What happened in the election?
The fairness of previous landslide victories by Lukashenko had been slammed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors elections. In 2020, key challengers to him were detained or kept off the ballot. But Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of jailed opposition blogger Siarhei Tsikhanouski, was allowed to register. She drew huge crowds at rallies nationwide. So when officials declared Lukashenko had won 80% of the vote, protests erupted and Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania under pressure from authorities. The upheaval continued for weeks and led to some deaths.
5. How did the authorities respond to the protests?
More than 35,000 people were detained, sparking international condemnation. In May 2021, authorities in Minsk scrambled a Mig-29 fighter jet and used a fake bomb threat to force a Ryanair plane flying from Athens to Vilnius to land in the Belarusian capital. They arrested a Belarusian passenger, journalist Raman Pratasevich, who had risen to prominence covering the 2020 protests. Three months later, Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya said she was pressured to leave the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo early for criticizing sporting officials from her country and was granted refuge in Poland. EU members Poland and Lithuania, which have offered shelter to opposition figures from Belarus, accuse Lukashenko of retaliating by channeling thousands of migrants, many from the Middle East, across their border.
6. What’s been the response?
As with its ally Russia, the go-to tool to try to bring Belarus into line has been sanctions. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the EU agreed to impose further restrictions on Belarus for its involvement. Trade sanctions include a ban on imports from Belarus of goods used for the production or manufacturing of tobacco products, mineral fuels, bituminous substances and gaseous hydrocarbon products, potassium chloride, wood, cement, iron and steel and rubber, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. At the same time, the EU will block exports of so-called dual-use goods and technology, which could be used by Belarus’s military. Financial sanctions announced by the U.S. and U.K. following the Russian invasion also applied to Belarus, while the EU targeted penalties at Belarusian individuals helping the Russian war effort.
7. Weren’t there already sanctions?
Yes. The U.S., EU and U.K. had all imposed measures on Belarus following the Ryanair incident and other developments. The EU slapped trade restrictions on petroleum products and potash fertilizers, the country’s main sources of foreign currency revenue. The U.S. also targeted the country’s Olympic committee and business leaders and companies with ties to Lukashenko. The U.K. barred Belarusian airlines from flying over Britain or landing there and also prohibited the purchase of Belarusian government bonds.
8. What help did Russia offer?
Putin agreed to provide $1.5 billion in loans to the country and struck deals on oil and gas supplies following Lukashenko’s crackdown on protesters. Still, the Kremlin has been trying to reduce the financial burden of keeping afloat Belarus’s inefficient state-dominated economy. Energy subsidies that reached 19% of Belarusian gross domestic product in 2006 had plunged to less than 1% of GDP in 2020, before the election that year that sparked demonstrations and mass arrests. Putin in the past has shown little love for Lukashenko, whom Russia tried to weaken ahead of elections in 2010, but rallied to his support when the street protests erupted. | null | null | null | null | null |
Russian oligarch Igor Sechin, the CEO of oil giant Rosneft, docked the Amore Vero — “true love” in Italian — in the French Mediterranean port of La Ciotat in early January, and he had planned to leave on April 1. The 281-foot-long super yacht, which can accommodate 14 guests and 28 crew members, has an estimated value of $120 million, according to Superyacht Fan, a website tracking luxury yachts.
Sechin’s Amore Vero is among the luxury yachts targeted by countries in the wake of the invasion. The fate of the Dilbar remains uncertain after German authorities denied a Forbes report that the vessel had been seized. The 512-foot super yacht worth hundreds of millions of dollars is owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who was also among the Russian elite placed under E.U. sanctions this week.
Another $600 million super yacht, Solaris, a 461-foot-long vessel owned by oligarch Roman Abramovich, is one of several Russian yachts docked in Barcelona as the country continues to probe potential sanctions.
The movement of the luxury yachts comes as the White House and Treasury Department are expanding the number of Russian oligarchs subject to U.S. sanctions, aiming to punish the financial elite close to Putin. Biden said in his State of the Union address Tuesday night that the United States would join Europe in efforts to punish Russian oligarchs and “seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets.”
The Justice Department on Wednesday announced the creation of “Task Force KleptoCapture” to coordinate prosecutors and other federal investigators in the effort to enforce sanctions against “corrupt Russian oligarchs.” In a round of new sanctions against Russian oligarchs announced Thursday, the National Security Council announced Thursday that all property from Usmanov, the Dilbar yacht owner whom Forbes has estimated to be worth more than $15 billion, is “blocked from use in the United States and by U.S. persons.”
“We’re coming for your ill-begotten gains,” the president said this week.
It’s no easy task to move these super yachts docked in European ports to the Maldives. For instance, if Sechin’s Amore Vero were able to get out of the French port and head toward the Maldives, that’s a distance of nearly 5,000 miles. It’s a slightly longer trek for Abramovich’s Solaris, if it were to leave from Barcelona. | null | null | null | null | null |
RT America production company ceases operations amid backlash to Kremlin-funded media
T&R Productions, a company responsible for most of RT America’s programming, is laying off its staff due to ‘unforeseen business interruption events’
An RT app is seen on a smartphone in front of an RT and Sputnik logo. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)
The production company behind RT America will close up shop and lay off employees, signaling a potential end for the Kremlin-funded media outlet aimed at U.S. audiences.
Misha Solodovnikov, general manager and chief creative officer for T&R Productions, attributed the decision to “cease production” to “unforeseen business interruption events,” according to a memo he sent to employees Thursday that was reviewed by The Washington Post.
Most T&R employees, who are spread out between multiple locations in the United States, will be laid off, he said. “We deeply regret and understand the uncertainty this action will cause our valued employees,” he wrote.
Solodovnikov’s memo was first reported by CNN and the Daily Beast. Earlier Thursday, a host for the network, Holland Cooke, broke the news of disarray at RT America in a column for industry trade publication Talkers, writing that company brass told staff in a meeting on Thursday that the network has “been canceled, by cable/satellite/online distribution platforms.”
T&R began operating studios and producing English-language programming for RT America in the summer of 2014, according to a 2017 Justice Department summary of the company’s filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The statement signaled T&R’s centrality to RT America’s operations in the United States, noting that it “hired and paid all U.S.-based RT employees.”
Representatives for RT America did not respond to inquiries Thursday afternoon.
RT — originally standing for “Russia Today” — was launched by Vladimir Putin in 2005 as his answer to global media networks like CNN, with outlets in several Western nations, including the United States, sharing the Kremlin’s perspective on world events.
In the United States, RT America has lately covered Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine as a minor incursion intended for defensive purposes, drawing increasingly loud criticism.
On Tuesday, the cable television distributor DirecTV cut ties with the network. “In line with our previous agreement with RT America, we are accelerating this year’s contract expiration timeline and will no longer offer their programming effective immediately,” a spokesperson said. As of Thursday afternoon, Dish is the only major cable company that airs RT America in the United States.
YouTube, TikTok and Facebook parent company Meta have all blocked access to RT content on their platforms in Europe, with Meta executive Nick Clegg attributing the decision to “the exceptional nature of the current situation.”
The network has also faced defections from key talent, including comedian Dennis Miller, who, according to NBC News, will stop making his talk show. The show, “Dennis Miller + One,” began airing in March 2020.
Actor William Shatner produced 70 episodes of a show for production company Ora TV, which then sold it to RT America. But in recent interviews, he expressed support for the Ukrainian people and suggested he will not do business with the network beyond his contractual agreement. He told the Daily Beast that, as far as he knows, all Ora TV productions for RT America have been halted. “I await with apprehension what will transpire but my total sympathy is with Ukraine,” he said.
While RT America’s audience in the United States is hard to quantify, and was probably modest, the network received significant distribution via the amplification of social media posts by conservative media companies.
“The purpose of RT is for Russia to fight against the West and democratic values on the cheap,” said Robert Orttung, a professor of international relations at George Washington University who has researched the company. “It is easier to pay for this kind of divisive media coverage than to build a military equal to that of the United States and its allies.”
Yet its shuttering makes sense in this climate, he added. “With sanctions taking a big bite out of the Russian economy and state income, the Kremlin is going to cut its most unproductive assets.”
In his column, Cooke defended the integrity of RT America.
“I was never once censored, and never handed a script,” he wrote, praising his “100+ enthused, whip-smart colleagues I genuinely enjoyed working alongside in a bustling broadcast center, handsome and lavishly equipped, two blocks from the White House, with an amazing hi-tech coffee machine.”
Russia-Ukraine live updates: Negotiators agree to temporary cease-fire in some areas for civilian evacuation
With almost all Russian forces inside Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv explore limited cease-fire | null | null | null | null | null |
The headquarters of Purdue Pharma in Stamford, Conn. (Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse)
The payment, up from a previous offer of $4.5 billion, is part of a compromise negotiated between the company, family members and attorneys general from eight states and D.C. who previously resisted the company’s bankruptcy plan, according to court filings Thursday. A settlement would allow money to flow to addiction treatment programs and calls for the family to relinquish control of the company so it can be turned into an entity whose proceeds fight the opioid crisis. It would also shield Sackler family members from current and future civil claims over opioids.
As part of the settlement, still subject to the approval of U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert D. Drain, the Sackler family must accept when institutions or organizations take their names off buildings, programs, scholarships or other things the family funded. Members of the family will attend a hearing Wednesday when victims of the opioid epidemic will be allowed to address the court. The family did not acknowledge wrongdoing or personal responsibility.
“The Sackler families are pleased to have reached a settlement with additional states that will allow very substantial additional resources to reach people and communities in need,” two sides of the family involved in the litigation wrote in a statement included with the deal. “The families have consistently affirmed that settlement is by far the best way to help solve a serious and complex public health crisis.”
The statement continued: “While the families have acted lawfully in all respects, they sincerely regret that OxyContin, a prescription medicine that continues to help people suffering from chronic pain, unexpectedly became part of an opioid crisis that has brought grief and loss to far too many families and communities,” they continued.
In a statement, Purdue said it is “pleased” with the deal.
“We’re pleased with the settlement achieved in mediation, under which all of the additional settlement funds will be used for opioid abatement programs, overdose rescue medicines, and victims,” the statement said. “With this mediation result, we continue on track to proceed through the appeals process on an expedited schedule, and we hope to swiftly deliver these resources.”
The opioid files
Families of victims and tens of thousands of governments representing cities, counties and states allege that Purdue Pharma fueled the opioid crisis with OxyContin, which was introduced in 1996. They claim that the company created a marketing strategy adopted by the industry to downplay their opioids’ addictive potential, encouraging doctors through third-party groups to treat pain. The family and company have denied wrongdoing.
“Five months ago, Connecticut said no to a Purdue bankruptcy plan that allowed the Sackler family to purchase lifetime legal immunity without so much as an apology,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “After months of negotiation and consultation with victims and their families, Connecticut has forced Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers to pay a $6 billion settlement and apologize in dollars, words, and actions.”
Johnson & Johnson finalized a national agreement to contribute up to $5 billion to resolve a vast majority of the cases against it. The nation’s three largest drug distributors — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — signed off on paying up to $21 billion.
Major drug distributors and J&J finalize opioid settlement, launching nationwide funding
Meanwhile, upcoming trial dates approach for major pharmacies and other companies that have not settled. A federal judge has not yet issued a ruling in a bellwether trial in West Virginia over drug distributors’ role in the flood of pills that inundated a rural community.
The mediator recommended Judge Drain “set aside substantial time during the hearing” for victims to speak to the court and that at least one member from each of the two branches of the family who own the company attend. The third branch of the family, descendants of Arthur Sackler, was not involved in the litigation — he sold his shares of the company before OxyContin’s introduction.
“Unfortunately, this is Zoom,” Bisch said, “because I would love to look them in their faces.”
MORE ON THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC
Follow The Post’s investigation of the opioid epidemic
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They’d battled addiction together. Then lockdowns became a ‘recipe for death.’ | null | null | null | null | null |
He was serenaded by first lady Jill Biden for his 13th birthday (which was Monday), rode in the presidential motorcade and was introduced to the entire nation during the State of the Union address. His family dined in the White House (chicken for him and his big brother, crab cakes for parents Shannon and Brian).
At 4, at 7 and at 12 he asked lawmakers to fix rules that make life even harder for kids like him; explaining to adults that students who aren’t allowed to carry their insulin or snacks with them might have to make five, 10 or 12 trips a day to the school nurse.
Last month, he introduced President Biden at an event on prescription drug costs at Germanna Community College in Culpeper, Va.
“There were so many people,” Joshua said from the back seat of his parents’ car, as they drove back home to Midlothian, a suburb of Richmond that was originally settled as a coal town. “There were at least 10 cameras on me, and I was like, Oh, my God! What am I going to do? I’m going to die!”
“They kept saying: ‘Hey! You’re that kid!’ ” Joshua said, without a hint of celebrity ennui. And his brother Jackson, 16, acted as his body man, organizing the fans for photos.
“It’s life support. It’s not a choice,” she said. “It’s required to live.”
After dinner at the White House, Shannon rode with Joshua in the motorcade while Brian and Jackson stayed behind. They wandered the East Wing, then watched the speech in the “plush, red velvet” White House movie room.
Shannon said it was a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience. What if Joshua has a career in Congress, or the White House, even — I asked. | null | null | null | null | null |
After hearing about the recent directive from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to investigate gender-affirming care for trans youths as “child abuse,” Shannon Minter kept returning to one word: “Horrifying.”
The legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Minter is a transgender man and a native Texan. Minter said that “what’s happening in Texas truly is the worst anti-LGBT attack I have seen in 30 years” — the length of time he’s been representing LGBTQ rights cases.
Abbott’s letter, sent late last month to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, cited Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s opinion that giving transgender children medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy could “legally constitute child abuse.”
“I hereby direct your agency to conduct a prompt and thorough investigation of any reported instances of these abusive procedures in the State of Texas,” Abbott wrote.
Texas state Sen. Charles Perry (R), the bill’s author, argued during floor debate that the bill was necessary to “prevent children from making irreversible decisions that they may regret later,” reported ABC Chicago.
On Wednesday, Abbott’s order was partially blocked by a federal judge. Hours later, the Biden administration pushed back against the Texas governor, with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announcing upcoming guidance that “makes clear that states should use their child welfare systems to advance safety and support for LGBTQI+ youth.”
The HHS announcement also called for families being investigated as a result of Abbott’s order to file a complaint through the department’s Office for Civil Rights.
The guidance “dramatically changes the landscape” in Texas, Minter said. “It is extremely heartening.”
While there has been a wave of bills in the past two years aiming to curtail trans children’s access to health care and ban them from sports teams consistent with their gender identities, families of trans children across the country have long felt vulnerable to investigation and scrutiny, experts say.
In response, many parents who support their trans children have relied on a network of organizations for help, sharing essential practices to protect their loved ones. These include “safety folders” (also referred to as “safe folders”), which some Texas parents urged others to compile in the wake of Abbott’s order.
For decades, advocates say, these folders — a small but powerful archiving tool — have been a way for parents to confirm their children’s gender identity and shield them from harm.
Simply put, a safety folder is a collection of legal documents that establish a relationship, such as a marriage or guardian-child relationship, that could be questioned or threatened by a form of surveillance, said Jules Gill-Peterson, associate professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and author of “Histories of the Transgender Child.”
As a concept, the safety folder has been around for at least 20 to 25 years, Minter said, and it was a direct response to fears that child welfare agencies and other authorities were ignorant to the existence of trans children or otherwise misunderstood.
“They are primarily designed to protect parents in the event that a hostile family member, neighbor or colleague reports them to” child protective services, he said.
Back then, “the idea of supporting trans children was very new, very unfamiliar,” Minter said.
These folders have been “very helpful” to lots of parents, he said, and have served as an important educational tool for those unfamiliar with trans children. Lawyers and LGBTQ support organizations have advised families to keep this kind of archive, he added.
“In case you’re ever questioned, you have all the information you need to show there’s nothing amiss going on, but in fact, you are following medical guidance and providing your child with really important and necessary support and care,” Minter said.
“There is a sort of kitchen-sink logic” with what goes into these folders, noted Gill-Peterson. “The more you can marshal as evidence, the better.”
This includes legal documents (a copy of a birth certificate, social security cards, passports or name-change documents) and letters from health-care professionals that confirm a child’s gender identity. But it also includes photos and references from friends, family members or other trusted community members that attest both to the child’s gender and to the parent’s ability to support and care for their child.
Parents have to “imagine the worst things that could ever happen” — such as having a child taken away from them — and try to assemble an archive to protect against that, Gill-Peterson said.
“You have to take a loving relationship and turn it into a pile of documents, as if you have to prove in an imaginary court that you really are who you say you are, and that your child’s life is valuable and that your relationship of care and support is valuable,” Gill-Peterson added.
“The reason most people create safety folders is that they’re vulnerable under the law,” she explained.
These folders are crucial tools for families because child welfare agencies wield so much power, Minter said: “In many cases, the way the child welfare system works is that the state can take your children before there is any court hearing.”
Across the country, working-class and poor families, as well as families of color, are disproportionately affected by child removal. A 2021 HHS report noted that “racial disparities occur at nearly every major decision-making point along the child welfare continuum.”
According to Gill-Peterson, who has tracked the history of transgender children from the early 1900s, trans children were likely to be misdiagnosed, arrested, institutionalized or kicked out of their homes 50 to 70 years ago. But while it was common, it was not official state policy to separate those children from their families — and never a requirement to report them, as Abbott has attempted to do.
But with states like Texas and Alabama having recently sought to codify this kind of separation, the landscape is likely more dangerous for trans children now than it was before, Gill Peterson said: “There’s a difference between being at risk because no one knows what you mean when you say your kid is trans, versus everyone knows, and there are people deliberately targeting your kid because of that.”
Minter put it this way: “At this point, families are at risk with or without folders.”
But institutional support for trans families has also changed: Minter pointed to child-welfare workers, teachers and district attorneys who said they would not comply with Abbott’s orders, as well as support from the legal community in Texas and other parts of the country.
“The entire LGBT legal community is mobilized,” Minter said. “This is the most important battle right now.”
The recent guidance from HHS was also “extremely heartening” to Minter, who said it gives transgender children and their parents “concrete avenues for legal protection.”
For Gill-Peterson, safety folders continue to be relevant to trans children today. She sees them as a testimony to the resilience of the trans community — a small but effective way of navigating a system that has refused to acknowledge them: “We don’t just accept things getting worse, and we don’t ever stop fighting for things to get better.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: The mayor of Kharkiv: ‘We will not give up’
A view of a damaged building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 3. (Sergey BOBOK/AFP)
From an undisclosed location inside Ukraine’s second-largest city on Thursday, the mayor of Kharkiv tells me he can hear bombs exploding as our interview begins. He is trying to run a city that’s under siege, where the citizens are dodging missiles and fighting for their lives, running out of food, shelter and time as an invading foreign army closes in. But Kharkiv will neither succumb nor surrender, he said.
“There is no question over whether the city will give up,” Mayor Igor Terekhov said. “We will not give up.”
Terekhov is responsible for the well-being of Kharkiv’s 1.5 million residents during the city’s greatest crisis, a scenario he could not have predicted when he won the election last November, after serving as acting mayor for about a year following the covid-related death of his predecessor. In less than two weeks, this thriving metropolis has become a dystopian war zone. And over the past four days, the Russian military has unleashed aircraft, artillery and missile attacks on Kharkiv’s residential districts and civilian infrastructure, wantonly escalating a campaign of random death and destruction.
“They are destroying entire districts, where lots of people live. They just want to destroy and demolish the city,” he said. “This is a pure example of a genocide, the genocide of the Ukrainian nation.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Tuesday called the Russian attacks on civilians in Kharkiv a “war crime” and “state terrorism.” On Wednesday, the International Criminal Court said it would “immediately proceed” to begin an investigation into Russian military war crimes in Ukraine after 39 countries petitioned it to do so. There are credible reports of cluster bombs being used in civilian areas.
No matter what you call it, Putin’s cruel motive is clear — to break the will of the people and destroy the city’s ability to function. Terekhov told me the Russian military has deliberately targeted Kharkiv’s electricity infrastructure, heating lines and police stations. They want the streets of Kharkiv to be unpatrolled and covered by darkness, punctured only by the fireballs of explosions.
“If you are talking about war crimes, there is no doubt,” he told me, noting that there is no military justification for attacking schools, kindergartens and hospitals. Moscow’s claim that it targets only military infrastructure is a flat lie, he said.
The Russians are also destroying government buildings to starve the already scared and hungry citizens of Kharkiv of public services, Terekhov told me. Russian missiles and bombs have destroyed City Hall, the regional government administration office, and even the concert hall and opera house in Kharkiv’s Freedom Square.
The government-in-hiding has been able to keep services such as electricity, water, heat, garbage removal and law enforcement going, Terekhov said, but who knows for how much longer. He said the city is in desperate need of humanitarian goods including food, medicine and first-aid equipment for first responders.
Meanwhile, the Russian military is encircling Kharkiv with hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy artillery, rocket launcher systems and other weaponry, arrayed around Kharkiv’s perimeter, Terekhov said. They are slowly but surely trying to squeeze and suffocate the city like a boa constrictor.
To combat that threat, Terekhov said the Ukrainian army needs advanced systems that can contend with high-powered Russian weapons, including Stinger antiaircraft systems, Javelin anti-tank systems and armed drones. He supports the Zelensky government’s calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, but his job is to keep the city functioning, not to worry about international diplomacy.
Women and children are being hidden in schools, bomb shelters, metro stations, basements, anywhere they might be safer from the bombs, rockets, shells and missiles pouring down on the city indiscriminately. Armed citizens are helping the Ukrainian army forces patrol the streets and fight.
It’s an ominous scene, but the mayor is projecting confidence and courage. He won’t entertain the idea Kharkiv might fall into Russian hands, as did the southern city of Kherson this week. After the Russian military drove out the Ukrainian army and took control of administrative buildings in Kherson, there were reports of Russian troops looting and an ever deepening humanitarian crisis.
“The Ukrainian army will fight to the end. They are our heroes. They are fighting with their own weapons on their own land. They will not give up,” Terekhov told me.
The United States and its European partners are debating sanctions and issuing diplomatic condemnation of Putin. But all that will matter little if Kharkiv falls. The international community must not allow these 1.5 million innocent people to suffer under Russia’s military occupation for who knows how long. We must hear their cries for help and answer the call.
I asked the mayor what will happen if the world doesn’t rally to stop the siege of Kharkiv and help the people defend their city. His chilling answer: “Just more and more war.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: In war, Russia has swallowed up Belarus. Freedom is at stake there, too.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands in Moscow on Feb. 18. (Sputnik/Via Reuters)
Now, Mr. Putin is extracting his tribute. Last month, Russian troops staged exercises in Belarus, north of Ukraine, and the troops remained in place after the exercises were over. Missiles and bombers aimed at Ukraine are being launched from Belarus. Some 30,000 Russian troops have moved through Belarus or remain there. There are signs Belarusian forces will also participate in the assault on Ukraine. Mr. Lukashenko also rammed through a constitutional referendum on Feb. 27 creating a new body that could eclipse the parliament, giving Mr. Lukashenko still stronger control. The changes would also give him a chance to remain in office until 2035. The referendum revoked the pledge Belarus made to be a non-nuclear state, meaning that Russia could move nuclear weapons onto the territory of its satrap, bordering NATO.
After the election chicanery, the Belarusian democratic opposition, led by Ms. Tikhanovskaya, demanded new elections, marched peacefully and showed great forbearance in the face of Mr. Lukashenko’s violent crackdown. Ms. Tikhanovskaya has now shifted to a more aggressive challenge, announcing formation of a movement in Belarus to oppose the war on Ukraine and get the Russian troops out of Belarus. “No one wants this war except Putin,” she said, declaring that for “the achievement of the goals of the Movement, any action that is not aimed at hurting citizens’ lives and health on purpose is welcome.” This suggests more than just marching and waving banners.
Recently, both the European Union and the United States have announced new sanctions on Belarusian banks, businesses and officials. But if Mr. Lukashenko is going to enable Russia’s misbegotten war, then it is time that U.S. sanctions on his regime match those on Russia, including on all the oligarchs who support Mr. Lukashenko, on the central bank, and on Mr. Lukashenko personally.
Mr. Putin and Mr. Lukashenko want to extinguish democracy — or what small flames of it remain — in Belarus and Russia, and to bury a free Ukraine. They must be stopped.
In war, Russia has swallowed up Belarus. Freedom is at stake there, too. | null | null | null | null | null |
Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal is out for the season with a wrist injury. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
With his left arm in a cast, Bradley Beal sat in the Washington Wizards’ practice facility Thursday and shed light on the franchise’s most important question. Beal said he is leaning toward re-signing with the Wizards this offseason, a move that would lock in Washington’s cornerstone player and provide the organization the most stability it’s had since trading John Wall 15 months ago.
The guard averaged 23.2 points and 6.6 assists in 40 games. His 45.1 percent shooting from the field was his lowest shooting percentage since the 2015-16 season and his 30 percent shooting from three was the lowest of his career. Last season, he was named to an all-NBA team and was an all-star starter for the first time.
Current cast situation Beal is working with pic.twitter.com/ipJZL7k5CJ
— Ava Wallace (@avarwallace) March 3, 2022
“Shep and Ted, we’re all good. We know what the summer is, that’s always been the straightforward communication between us,” Beal said. “I’m excited I get to see our team. … It’s a great position to be in. I’m not mad at all.”
If all goes according to plan for Washington in the next few weeks, Beal will also get to watch Kristaps Porzingis take the court for the first time. That the Wizards nabbed the 7-foot-3 former all-star at the trade deadline was a shock to a groggy Beal emerging from surgery, master plan aside — “I woke up and was like, ‘What the hell happened?’" | null | null | null | null | null |
Amazon is now facing a third union vote at one of its warehouses
Another warehouse on Staten Island plans to hold a vote on whether to unionize
Chris Smalls, the leader of the New York effort to unionize Amazon and a former worker at the Staten Island facility. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg News)
A third Amazon warehouse has collected enough signatures to hold a vote on whether to unionize, the National Labor Relations Board confirmed Thursday, part of a movement spreading throughout the e-commerce giant to push for better working conditions.
The warehouse is the second on Staten Island to push for a union. The first Staten Island warehouse to try to unionize, known as JFK8, is holding a vote that will conclude near the end of March. That vote will overlap by days with a redo election at a large Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., where workers have already received ballots to vote on whether to unionize.
Amazon has worked to strongly oppose the unions by holding regular classes for employees, launching a website and telling them the union might not result in raises.
“We look forward to having our employees’ voices heard,” Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “Our focus remains on working directly with our team to make Amazon a great place to work.”
The first Staten Island vote, organized by the nascent Amazon Labor Union, will take place in person outside the Amazon warehouse from March 25 to March 30. Now, an election could also take place at smaller warehouse LDJ5, also on Staten Island. An election date and terms of a vote have not yet been set.
That sortation center, where packages are sorted for final delivery, has about 1,500 employees total, union organizers said, and the NLRB confirmed that organizers submitted signed cards for at least 30 percent of the potential union group.
The redo election in Alabama is because the NLRB threw out the results of the first vote last year, saying Amazon improperly interfered. The first vote rejected unionization.
Union leaders celebrated the step toward a third election, saying it’s more progress for workers’ rights. The unions have pushed for better pay, longer breaks and less surveillance of workers at the massive warehouses.
“It’s just another example of how when we come together, we can accomplish these milestones,” said Chris Smalls, a former Amazon employee and organizing leader for the union.
Smalls, who was fired from Amazon in 2020, was arrested last week in the parking lot of JFK8 on Staten Island after Amazon security called the police to report he was trespassing.
Tensions are running high as the votes approach between union organizers and company officials — and sometimes between workers voting for and against the unions — at the warehouses. The NLRB accused Amazon in January of illegally surveilling and threatening workers who are trying to unionize the warehouse. At the time, Amazon said the allegations were false.
Smalls said he was delivering food to workers on their break Feb. 23, something he said he has done regularly for 10 months. He was charged with resisting arrest, obstruction of government administration and trespassing after refusing to leave the area, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
Smalls disputes that he resisted arrest and said the incident “made the company look very ugly.” He was in the same area that many food delivery services use, he said.
Nantel said in a statement that Smalls had trespassed multiple times, despite warnings.
“On Feb. 23, when police officers asked Mr. Smalls to leave, he instead chose to escalate the situation and the police made their own decision on how to respond,” she said.
Smalls said a hearing will be held March 14 on the terms of the election at the smaller Staten Island warehouse. | null | null | null | null | null |
Metro to receive additional $120 million in federal pandemic relief
Metro riders board a bus along 14th Street NW in Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Another $120 million in federal pandemic relief money is being released to Metro to keep the transit system running and its front-line workers on the job, congressional leaders announced Thursday.
The money is a significant boost for the transit agency, which faces years of financial challenges amid steep ridership losses, particularly from its customer base of federal workers who are increasingly working from home.
“These funds will be helpful in our continued preparation to keep the region moving as many reenter the workplace and resume leisure activities,” Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said in a statement.
The aid is part of the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion bailout package approved by Congress and signed into law a year ago. The money for Metro comes on top of $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money the transit agency received over the past two years, which has saved Metro from making draconian service cuts.
The Department of Transportation awarded the extra money through a $2.2 billion competitive grant program designed to help agencies hit by the pandemic.
Metro’s prospects rise as omicron fades, but looming financial shortfall will shape service
Wiedefeld said the money will support continued operations of the transit system. Metro, with an annual operating budget of about $2 billion, had said recently it expects to run out of federal money next summer, leaving the transit agency to make up the rest.
Transit agency spokeswoman Sherri Ly said the new money will be used for Metro’s fiscal year 2024 operating budget to help offset the projected budget deficit.
Democratic Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia and Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who announced the release of the money Thursday, said it will “deliver needed support” to Metro.
“This funding will help ensure that WMATA is able to meet the needs of its riders, including public servants, residents, and commuters in the DMV region,” they said in a statement. | null | null | null | null | null |
French President Emmanuel Macron says he will run for second term as war in Ukraine upends campaign
French President Emmanuel Macron waits for guests before a meeting over the Ukraine crisis at the Élysée Palace in Paris on Feb. 28. (Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters)
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced he would run for a second term, ending months of speculation somewhat anticlimactically — by sending a letter.
Even though it was never really in doubt that Macron would seek reelection, the surprisingly low-key announcement is likely to mark the true beginning of the French election campaign, which has kept the country’s political observers in suspense for much of the past year but had lacked the candidate who’s most likely to win in April.
Macron’s poll numbers have remained stable at 24 or 25 percent since last April, while his contenders’ fortunes either rose or fell, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen currently in second place, at 17 percent, behind the centrist Macron. The two candidates who win the most votes April 10 will compete against each other in a runoff election two weeks later.
One week ago, it was unclear whether Le Pen and her far-right competitor, Éric Zemmour, would even be on the ballots in April, as they lagged behind in the crucial race to secure the 500 signatures from elected officials that are required to stand in the election. With only days to go until the deadline this Friday, Zemmour and Le Pen this week succeeded in crossing the threshold, which Macron had passed weeks ago.
Macron’s team repeatedly said the French leader wanted to avoid being drawn into the tumultuous election campaign until the very last moment, initially to respond to the omicron coronavirus wave, and in recent weeks to focus on the escalating crisis in Ukraine. The coronavirus crisis now appears to be largely over, with French Prime Minister Jean Castex having announced the end of the country’s vaccine passport Thursday, but the crisis in Ukraine is likely to consume much of Macron’s attention over the next weeks.
“Rarely has France been confronted with such an accumulation of crises,” Macron wrote in his letter to French voters, published by several regional newspapers Thursday. “I am a candidate to defend our values that are threatened by the disruptions of the world.”
It will also probably be a turning point in the campaign, which had so far centered on topics that in many ways appeared to echo the lead-up to the 2017 French election, when the influx of migrants from the Middle East and a string of terrorist attacks put identity politics at the forefront of the public debate.
Whereas almost all leading candidates advocated in favor of restricting migration just over a week ago — believing they had voters on their side — surveys suddenly show broad support for welcoming refugees into France, though it’s a sentiment that appears to be limited to refugees from Ukraine.
Le Pen, who was long one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s biggest defenders, had to walk a tightrope over the past week as she distanced herself from the Russian leader amid near unanimity among the French that Putin is primarily responsible for the war in Ukraine.
Campaign leaflets that showed Le Pen shaking Putin’s hand, and of which over 1 million copies had already been printed, were withdrawn by her campaign team, the left-wing Libération newspaper reported. Le Pen’s team has denied they ordered the leaflets to be withdrawn.
It remained unclear this week whether the outpouring of support for Ukraine’s war refugees across Europe will make it more difficult for Le Pen and Zemmour to keep the French public focused on identity politics, their preferred topic.
Zemmour, who said at a rally last year that the United States has “done everything it could to separate us from Russia,” appeared eager to shift the public debate away from Eastern Europe on Monday, five days after the invasion. “It is not Russia that threatens France” but rather “the great replacement and the Islamization of the country,” he said, according to Paris Match magazine.
In previous elections, concerns over rising inequality and surging inflation probably would have boosted the chances of France’s Socialist party, whose presidents have governed France for about two of the past four decades.
The woman who just weeks ago was seen by some as a possible unifier of the left — former justice minister Christiane Taubira — won’t even be on the ballot in April. After failing to cross the 500 sponsorships that are needed to run, she dropped out of the race Wednesday. | null | null | null | null | null |
For D.C.’s amateur pandemic graphmaker, it’s the end of the lines
In the spring of 2020, when people across the country were taking up pandemic hobbies like baking and crafting, Ryan Stahlin thought back to the college course he had taken on disease modeling and decided to give that a try instead.
From his home in Columbia Heights, Stahlin soon realized he couldn’t reliably predict the course of the novel coronavirus that soon slammed his neighborhood. But he could chart it.
“I started making more charts for myself, just to get in better touch with how D.C. was doing,” he said. When he began noticing a troubling surge on its way in late fall of 2020, acquaintances urged him to publish his graphs.
That was when Stahlin launched DCcovid.com, a website that grew into a daily habit for a small but faithful coterie of Washingtonians eager for easy-to-follow information on the patterns of the virus. His site featured detailed and thoughtfully color-coded charts and graphs tracking many aspects of the pandemic: hospitalizations, neighborhood case trends, school and nursing home outbreaks, and much more.
This week, the effort came to an end. The D.C. health department said Wednesday that it would stop announcing the number of new coronavirus cases in the city, as it had done nearly every weekday for almost exactly two years, switching to a once weekly update on the number of new cases and other metrics such as hospitalizations.
As soon as he found out, Stahlin announced on Twitter that his website would also end. Right away, he heard from some of his fans. “Your website was my go to source for the last 2 years,” one tweeted. Several wrote, “Thank you for your service.”
Stahlin said he didn’t look at his Google Analytics much while he was running the site to see how many people were using it. Only on Wednesday, when he decided to stop updating it but keep the data he has already charted online, did he check. More than 18,000 over the past year and a half had used it, he said.
“I would not imagine that anywhere close to that number of people has seen any of my other work, so I’m appreciative,” Stahlin said. “There were a lot of people who checked it every day and made it part of their routine.”
He said it appealed to a certain personality type who responded to the pandemic by following the numbers. “There’s a lot of people out there that need a lot of data in their lives,” he said.
Stahlin often pointed out errors in the District’s data, noting when the health department published a daily update with a typo or used unusual math to calculate its metrics. In the early phase of the vaccine rollout, he also created an automated program to alert people to CVS vaccine appointments.
“Those were the messages that meant the most to me,” when someone would say, “I’m high risk. I was able to get it after your bot tweeted,” he said.
Why the District publishes reams of coronavirus pandemic data
Government approaches to coronavirus metrics at various levels are shifting across the country. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the goals for communities to resume normal, unmasked activities should not be measured by the number of coronavirus cases.
The previous CDC target was fewer than 50 new cases weekly per 100,000 residents, and very few communities were meeting it. The case rate in the District has plummeted from over 1,800 during the January omicron surge to less than 80 per 100,000 on Tuesday, the last day of the District’s reporting of daily metrics.
The CDC replaced that goal with one that weighs multiple factors, including the burden on hospitals, and now deems most of the country to be low-risk.
Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease expert at Johns Hopkins, praised new CDC approach and said cities like the District should stop focusing on daily case counts. Residents should no longer need a daily number, he said, to tell them what precautions make sense for them to take given their own health status.
“We’re at a point now where the daily cases are less important from an action perspective,” Adalja said. “They’re eventually going to have the same importance as the day-to-day cases of influenza,” thanks to vaccines and new anti-viral treatments blunting the impact of the disease.
New federal approach means most people can go without masks
He also noted that as more people test themselves for the coronavirus at home, cities don’t even know an accurate number of new cases to report daily. Some people, Adalja said, were “looking at cases like ‘cases are up five,’ the way they’re tracking a sports team. I think that wasn’t the best metric to be using.”
For Stahlin, who will now have more time to spend with his friends and his dog as he stops updating his website, it was about far more than caseloads. He graphed cases by race and age, copious information on vaccinations across the District, tests administered and more. He was particularly interested in and proud of his colorful charts showing the spikes and falls in cases in every one of the District’s dozens of neighborhoods.
And for all his criticisms of the local public data mistakes, Stahlin said, he felt grateful for D.C. health officials as he finished his project.
“I’m just appreciative of them releasing the data, no matter how many qualms I’ve had about the quality,” he said. “I can really tell the human element of this work. I can tell that somebody is on the other end, typing these numbers in.”
24 hours inside the lives upended by coronavirus in the nation’s capital
They were so careful, for so long. They got covid anyway.
At doggie day care, a pandemic puppy spends his first day without mom and dad | null | null | null | null | null |
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas listens as President Biden speaks during a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room at the White House on Thursday, March 3, 2022. (Sarah Silbiger for The Washington Post)
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas granted temporary protection Thursday to tens of thousands of Ukrainian nationals already living inside the United States, saying the “full-scale Russian military invasion” has caused a “humanitarian crisis” that has made it unsafe for them to return.
The designation of “temporary protected status,” or TPS, will allow immigrants to live and work in this country for the next 18 months without fear of being deported, as long as they apply and pass background checks. Approximately 75,000 Ukrainian nationals are expected to be eligible to apply, according to DHS, more than double earlier estimates from lawmakers.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on March 3 announced temporary protected status for Ukrainian nationals already in the U.S. (Twitter/@SecMayorkas)
Dozens of senators led by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) wrote a letter to President Biden on Monday urging his administration to grant the protection to immigrants already in the United States.
“After a week of Vladimir Putin’s illegal and ruthless war against the people of Ukraine, I am heartened that Biden administration is heeding our calls to designate Ukraine for Temporary Protected Status,” Menendez said in a statement.
Mayorkas said the designation is justified because of the armed conflict, the "largest conventional military action in Europe since World War II,” and the severe damage Russian military forces have inflicted on Ukraine’s infrastructure. Swaths of the country are without electricity, water, shelter or food, not to mention emergency medical services. | null | null | null | null | null |
Kenny Pickett wore two gloves in a 2021 season that saw him throw for 4,319 yards, 42 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. (Keith Srakocic/AP)
Kenny Pickett could only keep the subject at arm’s length for so long. After declining to have his throwing hand measured at last month’s Senior Bowl, Pickett’s moment of truth arrived Thursday at the NFL combine.
The Pittsburgh star officially checked in at 8½ inches, giving him an unusually small hand size for an NFL quarterback prospect.
In fact, according to ESPN, no quarterback in the league has such small hands. Of the 31 quarterbacks to throw at least 270 passes last year, none measured below nine inches. Per Sharp Football Analysis, no quarterback with a hand size of 8½ or below has entered the NFL in the past five years. The most recent quarterback with that hand size who had appreciable success in the league was Michael Vick.
By comparison, Joe Burrow’s hand measures nine inches, yet that number caused enough chatter for the former LSU quarterback to joke at the 2020 combine that he was “considering retirement.”. Instead, Burrow went on to become the No. 1 pick in the draft, and there wasn’t much talk about his hand size this past season as he led the Cincinnati Bengals to the Super Bowl.
As with all measurements and drill results at the combine, hand size is a piece of the puzzle NFL teams use to assess players’ potential to succeed at football’s highest level. Any outlier result — such as, say, a wide receiver running a particularly slow time in the 40-yard dash — could cause some teams to push a prospect further down their draft boards. Some of the concern with hand size goes to a quarterback’s ability to grip NFL footballs, which can be bigger than those used in college, leading to speculation about accuracy or fumbling issues.
In Pickett’s case, that could be the difference between becoming the first quarterback taken in this year’s draft, going behind one or two others, or possibly even slipping out of the first round altogether. Unlike Burrow, whose extraordinary senior season made him a slam-dunk candidate to go first overall, Pickett is not widely predicted to be selected in the top 10.
This year’s quarterback crop is seen as relatively weak, particularly when compared to last year, which saw players at that position go in the first three picks and then again at 11th and 15th. That could help keep Pickett atop his class, depending on how strongly certain NFL front offices fee about hand size.
“That’s all bull----," an unidentified NFL quarterbacks coach told draft analyst Matt Miller on Wednesday. “Can he play or can he not play? I think he can play.”
“I think the media runs with it more than I’d say NFL teams do,” Pickett, known for wearing gloves on each of his hands in games, told reporters Wednesday. “There wasn’t much talk about that in all the formal interviews and informal interviews I’ve had so far this week.”
Those interviews, though, came before teams had an official number for Pickett’s throwing hand. There had already been talk about it at the Senior Bowl, particularly on one rainy day when Pickett appeared to have some trouble with his passes.
Then again, it has been known to rain and to be cold and otherwise unpleasant at times in Pittsburgh, where Pickett completed 67 percent of his passes last season for 4,319 yards, 42 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. That performance earned the 23-year-old a host of awards, All-America recognition and a third-place finish in the 2021 Heisman Trophy voting.
“It’s a complete joke, measuring this, measuring that,” Pitt Coach Pat Narduzzi said last month of the chatter about Pickett’s hand size. “If they want to measure anything, what they should do is do open-heart surgery, go check and see how big that chest cavity is and how big the heart is inside that chest, if you really want to analyze. What are we talking about? There’s nobody out there who’s going to play harder and put everything he’s got into it than Kenny Pickett. This kid doesn’t have a flaw. That’s what [scouts] do.”
Of the other first-round quarterbacks candidates at the combine, Liberty’s Malik Willis had a 9½-inch hand, Mississippi’s Matt Corral checked in at 9⅝, North Carolina’s Sam Howell was at 9⅛ and Cincinnati’s Desmond Ridder received a hefty measurement of 10. The only other quarterback whose hand was measured at under nine inches was Kansas State’s Skylar Thompson, at 8⅝. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Post’s María Luisa Paúl to join Morning Mix as staff writer
Announcement from Morning Mix Editor Gina Harkins and Deputy Morning Mix Editor Jessica Lipscomb:
We are thrilled to announce that María Luisa Paúl is joining Morning Mix as a staff writer.
María joined The Post as a General Assignment desk intern in June, where she has reported on everything from the Surfside condo collapse to wildfires, birds mysteriously dropping from the sky in Mexico and, most recently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A native of Venezuela, María is fluent in Spanish, English and Portuguese. She began her journalism career at the Observer, the University of Notre Dame’s student newspaper. There, she served as talent and inclusion director, news writer, social media strategist and podcast host.
During the summers of 2019 and 2020, she was a reporter for the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald. The investigative piece she co-authored about Venezuelans seeking asylum on the United States-Mexico border won second place in the Florida Society of News Editors 2020 Journalism Contest’s News Reporting (Spanish Language) category.
María graduated from Notre Dame in May with degrees in political science and economics and a minor in journalism, ethics and democracy. She received the R.V. Ley Journalism Award, a distinction bestowed on a graduating senior for outstanding achievement and exceptional promise.
María has lived in the Midwest for several years and reported from Minnesota since joining The Post. Now, she is ready for D.C.’s warmer weather and the arepas she is told are just a five-minute walk from the newsroom.
Please welcome María to her new position at The Post. She starts March 7. | null | null | null | null | null |
By John Marshall | AP
Arizona State head coach Charli Turner Thorne, right, reacts with her team during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against the Oregon State in the first round of the Pac-12 women’s tournament Wednesday, March 2, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) | null | null | null | null | null |
Kenneth M. Duberstein meets with President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office in 1988. (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)
Kenneth M. Duberstein, a consummate political insider who won the respect of policymakers and power brokers on both sides of the aisle and reached the peak of his influence during the Reagan administration, serving as the president’s final chief of staff, died March 2 at a hospital in Washington. He was 77.
Mr. Duberstein — affectionately called “Duberdog” by friends including the late Gen. Colin L. Powell — spent decades at or near the center of political power in Washington. He served two stints in the White House that bookended the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who credited him with helping to carry the administration over the “home stretch.”
Mr. Duberstein first joined the Reagan White House in 1981 as deputy assistant for legislative affairs. Soon promoted to the post of chief White House congressional liaison, he played a central role in pushing Reagan’s economic agenda, including substantial tax cuts, through the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
Mr. Duberstein left the White House in 1983 to join the lobbying firm of Timmons & Co. But in 1987, with the administration mired in controversy over the Iran-contra affair, Mr. Duberstein was recalled as deputy chief of staff under Howard H. Baker Jr. (Baker, a Tennessee Republican, had been Senate majority leader when Mr. Duberstein was Reagan’s congressional liaison.)
When Baker stepped down in 1988 as chief of staff, Mr. Duberstein succeeded him in that role, managing the White House through Reagan’s final months in office.
Within the White House, a reporter for The Washington Post wrote in 1988, Mr. Duberstein was regarded as the “key detail man, the behind-the-scene choreographer whose actions were increasingly vital for a president renowned as a generalist.”
On Capitol Hill, he had the respect of conservative GOP members aligned with Reagan as well as more moderate ones who knew the Brooklyn-born Mr. Duberstein as a Republican in the mold of former vice president Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York.
Democrats, for their part, appreciated his attentiveness to them, particularly in his role as congressional liaison. Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), then House majority leader and later House speaker, told The Post in 1987 that Mr. Duberstein was “extremely competent, knowledgeable and pragmatic in his approach to government.”
In his latter tenure at the White House, Mr. Duberstein was credited with working alongside officials including Powell, then national security adviser, to reestablish credibility that the administration had lost amid the Iran-contra affair, an illegal operation in which the proceeds of arms sales to Iran were diverted to right-wing rebels in Nicaragua.
“The two worked in tandem and they had extraordinary authority as the Reagan administration was expiring and older men moved on,” journalist Bob Woodward wrote in an account published in The Post in 1995, referring to Mr. Duberstein and Powell.
Noting Mr. Duberstein’s astute understanding of “human dynamics,” Gergen recalled that as chief of staff, he made a daily phone call to first lady Nancy Reagan, who had resented what she regarded as the imperious conduct of an earlier chief of staff, Donald T. Regan, who was ultimately forced from office.
“We opened the doors of the West Wing to fresh voices,” Mr. Duberstein wrote years later in the New York Times, recalling his efforts with colleagues to stop infighting and refocus the administration’s efforts.
Mr. Duberstein himself had the ear of the president in June 1987, when Reagan traveled to West Berlin, where he was to address a crowd with the backdrop of the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall. The speech that he gave there became one of the most famous presidential addresses in history, but its key line — “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” — was in question until hours before Reagan delivered it.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz argued that the line was “too tough” on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and might have the effect of alienating him, Mr. Duberstein recalled. When Reagan asked Mr. Duberstein’s opinion, Mr. Duberstein told him that he thought the line should stay.
“But I told him, ‘You’re President, so you get to decide,' ” Mr. Duberstein recalled. “He got that wonderful, knowing smile on his face, and he said, ‘Let’s leave it in.' ”
Mr. Duberstein was proud of his role in the subsequent summit between Reagan and Gorbachev that helped produce the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which according to the Arms Control Association “marked the first time the superpowers had agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals, eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons, and employ extensive on-site inspections for verification.”
After appearing amid Iran-contra to be “not just a lame duck but a dead duck,” Mr. Duberstein noted, Reagan ended his presidency “at 68 percent job approval.”
Mr. Duberstein, who became an Eagle Scout, had his first direct experience of politics when he handed out leaflets for Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential election.
Mr. Duberstein’s first job in politics was as an intern in the office of U.S. Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y.). During the Nixon administration, he worked in the General Services Administration as director of congressional and intergovernmental affairs. Under President Gerald Ford, he was deputy undersecretary of labor.
In the final months of the Reagan administration, Mr. Duberstein helped lead the successful White House effort to elect Vice President George H.W. Bush as president. With Bush in office, Mr. Duberstein helped coordinate the contentious Senate confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Mr. Duberstein formed a blue-chip lobbying firm, the Duberstein Group, with clients including General Motors, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and Dow Chemical. He served on the board of directors of companies including Boeing, on the advisory committee of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, on the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center and as chairman of the ethics committee of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Mr. Duberstein’s marriages to Marjorie Parman and Sydney Greenberg ended in divorce.
In the more than three decades since Reagan left office, Mr. Duberstein became an elder statesmen among former White House chiefs of staff, perennially called on for his advice when one administration gave way to the next.
Interviewed by the Los Angeles Times in 1992, shortly before Bill Clinton entered the White House, Mr. Duberstein recalled with emotion the final hours of Reagan’s tenure, standing instead of sitting with the president and Powell in the Oval Office because there were not enough chairs in the emptied out room. They all had tears in their eyes. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Supreme Court nominee’s critics on the right have begun an assault, charging that she is a ‘radical’ promoted by ‘dark money’ — and in one provocative case, demanding to see her LSAT scores
Ketanji Brown Jackson meets with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Capitol Hill on March 2 in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
At least publicly, the Republican senators who will vote on whether to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court are keeping their powder dry, saying they are keeping an open mind as they prepare for personal meetings with the nominee and a four-day confirmation hearing later this month.
But senior party officials have begun quietly sketching out the critiques and challenges that Republicans plan to aim at Jackson when she faces several days of rigorous questioning from senators at the hearing, which is scheduled to begin March 21.
The clearest outline of the GOP’s emerging case against Jackson came from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who on Thursday telegraphed the range of attacks she can anticipate: that her background as a public defender means she’s soft on crime, that she won’t commit to opposing Supreme Court expansion, that she’s being promoted by so-called “dark money” groups.
The White House has worked hard to fend off in advance such attacks — by, for instance, swiftly rolling out endorsements from police groups and highlighting her family’s deep background in law enforcement — and to line up conservative legal luminaries willing to speak on the judge’s behalf. No Republican senators have disputed Jackson’s qualifications, which include nine years on the federal bench, a Supreme Court clerkship and a pair of degrees from Harvard.
“She’s clearly a sharp lawyer with an impressive résumé. But when it comes to the Supreme Court, a core qualification is judicial philosophy,” McConnell said Thursday. Citing the issues of crime, so-called “court-packing” and the influence of outside groups, McConnell said he wants to gain “more clarity about Judge Jackson’s positions during the vigorous and thorough Senate process to come.”
Others are calling Jackson a “radical,” though her jurisprudence has been in the mainstream of liberal legal thought. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who favored another Supreme Court hopeful, tweeted that Jackson’s nomination means “the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again.”
The criticism of Jackson from the conservative world outside the Senate has been harsher. Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Wednesday mocked her name — calling it “a name that even Joe Biden has trouble pronouncing” — and demanded to see her LSAT scores, a message many of Jackson’s supporters saw as racist.
Republicans are just beginning to delve into her record and may craft a more thorough strategy closer to the confirmation hearing. Many in the GOP have signaled that they have little appetite to fight Jackson’s nomination, especially since her ascension to the Supreme Court would not change its ideological balance, although some individual Republican senators are sure to make an aggressive case against Jackson under the bright lights of a confirmation hearing.
Some of the GOP’s highest-profile, hardest-hitting senators sit on the Judiciary Committee, including Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.), all potential presidential contenders.
Democrats say the Republican’s preliminary arguments show they are struggling to make any attacks stick against Jackson, who would make history as the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court in its nearly 233-year history. They have taken pains to highlight Jackson’s credentials at every turn, and especially that she has already been approved by the Senate three times — twice for federal judgeships and once for the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
“She has more experience as a judge than four of the people who are already on the Supreme Court,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Thursday before meeting privately with Jackson. “Not that we’re keeping track.”
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee who met with Jackson earlier this week, said he avoided questions of substantive issues such as constitutional law or judicial temperament, saying he would hold off on any previews of his approach to the confirmation hearings until he finished vetting Jackson’s paperwork.
“It was a get-acquainted meeting,” Grassley said Thursday. “She’s very personable.”
And in interviews Thursday, Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee said questions about Jackson’s public defender background, and the broader crime issue, were fair game.
In the confirmation process for Jackson’s appointment last year to the D.C. Circuit, Republicans lobbed several questions at Jackson about her public defender work, including her representation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. Jackson would be the first federal public defender to sit on the Supreme Court, a distinguishing mark for the Biden administration which has sought to stock the federal bench with varied legal backgrounds.
“I do think that as an attorney, you have the obligation to make a vigorous defense, mount a vigorous defense for your clients, but you do get to choose the arguments that you make, however,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), noting that he has been asked to defend — and “rightly so” — his arguments when he served as Missouri’s attorney general and in private practice.
Hawley added: “She’s a very smart, very accomplished attorney. I imagine she’ll be able to defend her litigation.”
For as long as Jackson has been in Supreme Court contention, Democrats have aimed to dismiss any criticism of her tenure as a lawyer representing indigent defendants.
“Look, she was a public defender, but that doesn’t mean that she is soft on crime, that she’s pro-criminal,” said former senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who is serving as Jackson’s guide around the Capitol as she meets with senators. “There’s not a single public defender ever who was pro-crime. You know, they’re defending the Constitution and the rights of folks.”
Jones indicated that Jackson was prepared to respond to any criticisms of her public defender background, “because that work also helped form her and helped her (as) a judge.”
In his floor speech Thursday, McConnell invoked the issue of crime when talking about the debate over Jackson, without directly referring to the nominee’s public defender background.
“This is a moment when issues relating to the law and the judiciary are directly hitting American families — from skyrocketing murders and carjackings; to soft-on-crime prosecutors effectively repealing laws; to open borders,” McConnell said.
Those remarks drew criticism from Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has deployed a “war room” operation to immediately fend off any attacks against Jackson that they believe are rooted in race.
“That’s nothing but a racist deflection,” Watson Coleman said Thursday of McConnell’s comments. “It has nothing to do with what her record has demonstrated, it has nothing to do with whether she will be an appropriate and brilliant sitting jurist. It has nothing to do with the job that she is expected to do.”
In response, a McConnell spokesman said he has been “focused on exploding violent crime rates since long before this Supreme Court nomination.”
Another topic that is sure to surface is the contentious issue of adding seats to the Supreme Court — a position many liberal activists have endorsed but many Democrats oppose, including Biden.
McConnell said in his meeting with Jackson, he asked her whether — like Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg before her — she would take a position on so-called “court-packing.” The minority leader said Jackson did not offer an answer.
“But curiously, the same radicals who want to turn Democrats into the party of court-packing also badly wanted Judge Jackson for this vacancy,” McConnell said. “It’s a matter of record that this nominee was the anointed favorite of these fringe groups.”
Jones said that in their meeting, Jackson told McConnell that the question of whether to expand the Supreme Court was in the purview of Congress, not judges — the same position taken by now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett in her confirmation hearings in 2020. But McConnell’s “fringe group” comment apparently referred to Demand Justice, an influential advocacy group created during the Trump-era to fight conservative nominees.
The group’s president, Brian Fallon, said McConnell’s comments “is a tell that he has no hand to play against Judge Jackson on the merits.”
“It’s been widely reported that he thinks it is unwise for Republicans to go all out trying to defeat this pick, and this lame, guilt-by-association line of attack seems like his way of opposing her in the lowest-key way possible,” said Fallon, whose group launched a $1 million ad buy promoting Jackson immediately after her nomination.
Jackson’s courtesy meetings will continue next week, when she will continue to go down the Judiciary Committee roster and also meet with Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine), who doesn’t sit on the panel that will question the nominee but is seen as perhaps the best chance to give Jackson a bipartisan vote. | null | null | null | null | null |
The bill would expand health-care eligibility for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxins; it must now be reconciled with the Senate’s version of the legislation
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), joined by fellow lawmakers and veterans advocates, speaks at a news conference on toxins legislation March 2, 2022, at the Capitol. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Among the 174 Republicans opposing the bill were the top three party leaders — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Reps. Steve Scalise (La.) and Elise Stefanik (N.Y.).
Addressing burn pits and their effects has also been a priority of President Biden, who brought up the issue during his State of the Union address Tuesday.
The House bill was introduced by House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and pushed by Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), a physician. On the House floor Thursday, Ruiz argued that the House owed it to veterans and those who lost a loved one to toxins to pass the bill.
Jada Yuan in New York contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
Fire breaks out at Ukraine nuclear power plant, largest in Europe, after sh...
For decades, Russian money, energy and military strength held Europe in thrall. But as the rockets of Russian President Vladimir Putin rain down on Ukrainian cities, a clarion call is echoing through the halls of power, boardrooms and cultural spheres of a continent: No more.
The historic push for stronger, collective defense in Europe is the culmination of an awakening to the Russian threat after years of sleepwalking through Russian aggression. But it’s also an acknowledgment of the unpredictability of U.S. politics. Polls show public support for President Biden and former president Donald Trump, who has praised Putin, as roughly similar.
“I tend to think this could be an inflection point that sees Europe much more conscious of taking care of its own interest,” William Drozdiak, European affairs expert at the Wilson Center — and former Washington Post journalist — told me. “This is Macron’s thinking. Since days of the Trump era, Europe could no longer count on the security guarantees of the U.S.”
Western Europeans are typically the foot-draggers against Russia. But nodding to the lead they’re now taking in through some of the most crippling economic sanctions ever unleashed, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has not minced words.
“We’re waging an all-out economic and financial war on Russia,” Le Maire told France Info radio.
A litany of European gas and oil companies — BP, Shell and Equinor — are pulling the plug on their Russian investments, hitting the Kremlin where it hurts: its energy sector. The government in Britain, a nation awash in the ill-gotten gains of Russian oligarchs, stands accused of doing too little too late to rein in the billions spent by Putin’s friends on Belgravia mansions, private clubs and elite schools.
But the Russian threat has crystallized for the British people. In a September YouGov poll, 34 percent of Britons considered Russia a “hostile threat.”
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that figure almost doubled, to 64 percent. | null | null | null | null | null |
Paul Hodgson and his colleagues from an international school in Kyiv fled the city in the school's 16-seater minibus. (Photo courtesy of Paul Hodgson) (Courtesy of Paul Hodgson)
When Paul Hodgson and his colleagues at an international school in Kyiv learned last Friday that a bus booked to evacuate them to safety had canceled the trip last minute, they found another option: their school’s minibus.
Hodgson, a 47-year-old math teacher, his fiance and his co-workers loaded into the 16-seater vehicle, which was normally used to transport students to and from activities and field trips. They then started on a 120-mile drive southeast to Cherkasy, where the school had booked them hotel rooms. Hodgson and two other colleagues took turns behind the wheel, he said.
Hodgson, meanwhile, has decided to stay in Ukraine with his fiance for the time being to try to help others get to safety. The efforts began on Friday, as he and his colleagues fled Kyiv and made their way to Cherkasy. As the group trudged through traffic and checkpoints, they tried to keep the mood light, Hodgson said, listening to music and taking the occasional nap.
The group made it back to Kyiv on Saturday, returning to Cherkasy that evening with more co-workers and some hitchhikers they picked up along the way. The situation in Cherkasy grew more dangerous overnight. Air-raid sirens wailed and planes whooshed overhead as the group made several runs down to the hotel’s bomb shelter. By the morning, they decided together to form a new plan.
It was there that Hodgson’s fiance, Nadia Ustenko, 36, made the difficult decision to part ways with her mother, who had joined them on the first minibus trip from Kyiv. The couple wanted to continue making trips to help others but Ustenko’s mother, who is not in good physical health, was having a hard time withstanding the long drives. She planned to take a train to Ternopil.
The rest of the group then continued on the long drive toward Moldova, where after hours on the road with only stops to refuel the van, they crossed the border and headed to Chișinău.
Over the next few days they planned to see Ustenko’s 9-year-old son, who was with his father in Khmelnytskyi. From there, they hoped to transport food and supplies to the outskirts of Kyiv and pick up more people hoping to leave Ukraine. | null | null | null | null | null |
In this combination image, logos are seen for Honda Motor Co., Feb. 14, 2013, in Pittsburgh and Sony Corp., Nov. 14, 2018, in Tokyo. Sony Corp. and Honda Motor Co. agreed to set up a joint venture this year to start selling an electric vehicle by 2025, both sides said Friday, March 4, 2022. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
You Can’t Just Take a Russian Oligarch’s London Townhouse
It has taken Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the U.K. to pursue more concerted action against the flow of dirty money through the City of London and the capital’s property market. Government reforms announced on Monday focused on lifting the veil of secrecy around corrupt real-estate ownership. These are just the first steps toward potentially seizing assets — but the steps are significant.
Multimillion-pound properties in London have proved a convenient and safe place to stash Russian fortunes. Hereon, anonymous foreign beneficiaries of U.K. real estate will face restrictions on selling if they hide behind shell companies. Whether these changes lead to a sudden outbreak of transparency in the property sector remains to be seen.
Assuming the chain of ownership extends to trusts in offshore jurisdictions, the U.K. would still appear reliant on cooperation from those overseas authorities. And the first line of legal defense will be to argue that the suspect properties are indeed owned by corporate entities rather than individuals – just as the big banks and consulting firms own houses for client meetings.
If the success of those measures is doubtful, one related change could make a more substantial difference: the new regime for “unexplained wealth orders,” whereby the U.K. National Crime Agency forces people to demonstrate they obtained suspect wealth legitimately.
Legal resources matter here: the targets’ pockets are deep, and they can afford to throw money at securing the best-resourced law firms and slickest advocates in a legal war of attrition. For the government, the stakes are high. Failing in an unexplained wealth order has historically meant picking up the other side’s astronomical bill. That falls on a taxpayer purse already strained by the pandemic.
But under the reforms, a U.K. law-enforcement agency will no longer automatically have to pay the other side’s costs if it loses. It just has to persuade the court the failed action was reasonable. That radically alters the economics and legal dynamics, and should enable the NCA to bring more cases.
The tail wags the dog in U.K. litigation: The “loser pays” model means potential costs determine whether an action is bought in the first place. If one side can proceed with an effective indemnity, it changes the game.
The key question now is whether more cases will lead to more wins — and, ultimately, to confiscation of assets. This could be a critical moment for the judiciary. Oligarchs will be aware that U.K. courts have historically been resistant to depriving people of property rights without strong justification. It’s an almost instinctive aversion. The distinction between a corporate and a human actor is also firmly entrenched. Both tenets are enablers of secret, indirect real-estate ownership; both now face challenge.
Cabinet Minister Michael Gove is assessing how to seize British property owned by Russian oligarchs with links to Vladimir Putin without paying them compensation, but government lawyers are concerned about legal objections because this would undermine property rights, the Financial Times reported. Nevertheless, the political and legislative context is evolving rapidly. And that is likely to feed through to the courts.
“The cornerstone of common law is that property rights are respected. I think that is changing,” says Jonathan Fisher, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics. “We have seen a number of cases where confiscation has been upheld in financial crime.” Judges may be willing to allow an erosion of property rights so long as it’s proportionate, he says.
The courts will be busy, the arguments will be drawn-out and the so-called London laundromat will continue to generate fees for the legal teams involved. But outspending the government on lawyers may no longer be a viable strategy for those with something to hide. | null | null | null | null | null |
Cal Baptist Lancers (16-14, 6-11 WAC) at Lamar Cardinals (2-28, 0-15 WAC)
Beaumont, Texas; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Lamar takes on Cal Baptist in a matchup of WAC teams.
The Cardinals are 2-8 on their home court. Lamar is 1-3 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Lancers are 6-11 in WAC play. Cal Baptist averages 71.7 points while outscoring opponents by 4.7 points per game.
The teams play for the second time this season in WAC play. Cal Baptist won the last meeting 83-61 on Feb. 11. Tre Armstrong scored 25 points to help lead the Lancers to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: C.J. Roberts is scoring 13.5 points per game and averaging 2.5 rebounds for the Cardinals. Lincoln Smith is averaging 11.4 points and 7.7 rebounds over the last 10 games for Lamar.
Daniel Akin is scoring 11.9 points per game with 8.5 rebounds and 1.6 assists for the Lancers. Ty Rowell is averaging 13.2 points and 2.5 rebounds while shooting 44.9% over the past 10 games for Cal Baptist.
LAST 10 GAMES: Cardinals: 0-10, averaging 58 points, 31.6 rebounds, 11 assists, 6.3 steals and 3.2 blocks per game while shooting 38.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 72.8 points per game. | null | null | null | null | null |
Alcorn State hosts UAPB after Williams' 32-point performance
Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions (7-23, 5-12 SWAC) at Alcorn State Braves (14-15, 13-4 SWAC)
Lorman, Mississippi; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: UAPB visits the Alcorn State Braves after Shawn Williams scored 32 points in UAPB’s 87-79 loss to the Jackson State Tigers.
The Braves have gone 5-3 at home. Alcorn State is fifth in the SWAC shooting 32.0% from downtown, led by Tajah Fraley shooting 66.7% from 3-point range.
The Golden Lions are 5-12 in SWAC play. UAPB is 2-17 in games decided by 10 points or more.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. Alcorn State won the last matchup 70-64 on Feb. 5. Darius Agnew scored 15 points points to help lead the Braves to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Justin Thomas is averaging 10.4 points, four assists and 1.9 steals for the Braves. Keondre Montgomery is averaging 9.3 points over the past 10 games for Alcorn State.
Williams is averaging 17.1 points and 3.5 assists for the Golden Lions. Dequan Morris is averaging 16.1 points over the last 10 games for UAPB. | null | null | null | null | null |
Boum, UTEP Miners take on the North Texas Mean Green
North Texas Mean Green (23-4, 16-1 C-USA) at UTEP Miners (17-12, 10-7 C-USA)
El Paso, Texas; Saturday, 3 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Tylor Perry and the North Texas Mean Green visit Souley Boum and the UTEP Miners in C-USA play.
The Miners are 10-6 in home games. UTEP averages 69 points and has outscored opponents by 2.4 points per game.
The Mean Green are 16-1 in C-USA play. North Texas is the leader in C-USA giving up just 55.1 points per game while holding opponents to 41.4% shooting.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. North Texas won 66-58 in the last matchup on Feb. 8. Thomas Bell led North Texas with 18 points, and Boum led UTEP with 20 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Boum is averaging 19.8 points and 1.7 steals for the Miners. Jamal Bieniemy is averaging 11.7 points over the last 10 games for UTEP.
Perry is averaging 13.7 points for the Mean Green. Bell is averaging 10.3 points and 5.1 rebounds over the past 10 games for North Texas.
Mean Green: 10-0, averaging 60.5 points, 32 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 4.1 steals and 2.6 blocks per game while shooting 44.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 50.8 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Bryant Bulldogs and Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers play in NEC Tournament
Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers (14-17, 9-7 NEC) at Bryant Bulldogs (21-9, 15-2 NEC)
BOTTOM LINE: The Bryant Bulldogs and Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers play in the NEC Tournament.
The Bulldogs have gone 12-1 at home. Bryant leads the NEC averaging 75.9 points and is shooting 43.7%.
The Mountaineers are 9-7 against NEC opponents. Mount St. Mary’s has a 2-1 record in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The teams square off for the third time this season. Bryant won the last meeting 62-61 on Feb. 5. Charles Pride scored 32 to help lead Bryant to the victory, and Mezie Offurum scored 16 points for Mount St. Mary’s.
TOP PERFORMERS: Peter Kiss is averaging 25.1 points, six rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.5 steals for the Bulldogs. Pride is averaging 17.3 points over the last 10 games for Bryant.
Jalen Benjamin is averaging 13.2 points and 4.1 assists for the Mountaineers. Nana Opoku is averaging 9.4 points over the last 10 games for Mount St. Mary’s. | null | null | null | null | null |
Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils (2-25, 2-15 SWAC) at Jackson State Tigers (10-18, 8-9 SWAC)
Jackson, Mississippi; Saturday, 6:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Mississippi Valley State visits the Jackson State Tigers after Terry Collins scored 24 points in Mississippi Valley State’s 72-69 loss to the Alcorn State Braves.
The Tigers have gone 5-2 in home games. Jackson State gives up 65.8 points and has been outscored by 5.0 points per game.
The Delta Devils are 2-15 against SWAC opponents. Mississippi Valley State is 1-15 when it turns the ball over less than its opponents and averages 12.4 turnovers per game.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. Jackson State won the last meeting 69-65 on Feb. 5. Terence Lewis II scored 28 points points to help lead the Tigers to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jayveous McKinnis is scoring 12.0 points per game with 9.9 rebounds and 0.7 assists for the Tigers. Lewis is averaging 13.2 points and 8.6 rebounds while shooting 53.3% over the past 10 games for Jackson State.
Caleb Hunter is shooting 30.7% from beyond the arc with 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Delta Devils, while averaging 14.2 points. Collins is shooting 44.2% and averaging 13.2 points over the last 10 games for Mississippi Valley State.
LAST 10 GAMES: Tigers: 6-4, averaging 66 points, 33.9 rebounds, 12.1 assists, 5.2 steals and 3.5 blocks per game while shooting 44.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 64.1 points per game.
Delta Devils: 1-9, averaging 72.4 points, 28 rebounds, 10.3 assists, 6.8 steals and 1.8 blocks per game while shooting 41.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 80 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
De La Rosa and the Columbia Lions host conference foe Cornell
Cornell Big Red (14-10, 6-7 Ivy League) at Columbia Lions (4-21, 1-12 Ivy League)
BOTTOM LINE: Chris Manon and the Cornell Big Red visit Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa and the Columbia Lions in Ivy League play.
The Lions have gone 3-9 in home games. Columbia allows 78.8 points to opponents and has been outscored by 11.3 points per game.
The Big Red have gone 6-7 against Ivy League opponents. Cornell averages 17.4 assists per game to lead the Ivy League, paced by Kobe Dickson with 2.8.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. Cornell won 88-75 in the last matchup on Feb. 9. Dean Noll led Cornell with 23 points, and De La Rosa led Columbia with 15 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: De La Rosa is averaging 12.2 points and 3.3 assists for the Lions. Ike Nweke is averaging 15.9 points and 6.3 rebounds over the past 10 games for Columbia.
Manon is shooting 49.2% and averaging 10.3 points for the Big Red. Keller Boothby is averaging 1.7 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Cornell.
LAST 10 GAMES: Lions: 0-10, averaging 65 points, 30.2 rebounds, 11.3 assists, 6.7 steals and 1.4 blocks per game while shooting 40.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 81.2 points per game.
Big Red: 5-5, averaging 74.5 points, 32.2 rebounds, 14.5 assists, 9.1 steals and three blocks per game while shooting 46.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 75.4 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Portland State Vikings (12-15, 10-9 Big Sky) at Eastern Washington Eagles (16-14, 10-9 Big Sky)
Cheney, Washington; Saturday, 5 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Eastern Washington will try to keep its four-game home win streak intact when the Eagles face Portland State.
The Eagles are 8-3 in home games. Eastern Washington ranks second in the Big Sky with 26.0 defensive rebounds per game led by Angelo Allegri averaging 5.2.
The Vikings are 10-9 in conference games. Portland State is 4-6 in games decided by 10 points or more.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. Eastern Washington won 63-58 in the last matchup on Dec. 31. Steele Venters led Eastern Washington with 20 points, and Khalid Thomas led Portland State with 20 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Linton Acliese is averaging 15.8 points and 7.1 rebounds for the Eagles. Venters is averaging 15.2 points over the last 10 games for Eastern Washington.
Michael Carter III is averaging 10 points for the Vikings. Ezekiel Alley is averaging 16.8 points over the last 10 games for Portland State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Florida A&M hosts Garrett and Bethune-Cookman
Bethune-Cookman Wildcats (9-20, 7-10 SWAC) at Florida A&M Rattlers (12-16, 10-7 SWAC)
BOTTOM LINE: Bethune-Cookman visits the Florida A&M Rattlers after Marcus Garrett scored 27 points in Bethune-Cookman’s 69-63 victory over the Grambling Tigers.
The Rattlers have gone 7-4 at home. Florida A&M has a 2-10 record against opponents above .500.
The Wildcats have gone 7-10 against SWAC opponents. Bethune-Cookman is 7-8 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents and averages 12.4 turnovers per game.
The teams play for the second time in conference play this season. Bethune-Cookman won the last meeting 66-59 on Jan. 4. Kevin Davis scored 26 points to help lead the Wildcats to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: MJ Randolph is scoring 18.9 points per game and averaging 6.3 rebounds for the Rattlers. Kamron Reaves is averaging 1.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Florida A&M.
Garrett is averaging 13.4 points for the Wildcats. Joe French is averaging 3.2 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Bethune-Cookman. | null | null | null | null | null |
Siena Saints (15-12, 12-7 MAAC) at Canisius Golden Griffins (10-20, 6-13 MAAC)
Buffalo, New York; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Canisius hosts the Siena Saints after Ahamadou Fofana scored 21 points in Canisius’ 78-67 win against the Marist Red Foxes.
The Golden Griffins have gone 8-5 at home. Canisius gives up 71.7 points to opponents and has been outscored by 2.5 points per game.
The Saints are 12-7 against MAAC opponents. Siena averages 11.9 turnovers per game and is 7-5 when turning the ball over less than opponents.
The teams play for the second time in conference play this season. Siena won the last matchup 73-65 on Feb. 2. Anthony Gaines scored 24 points to help lead the Saints to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jacco Fritz is averaging 7.4 points and 5.5 rebounds for the Golden Griffins. Jordan Henderson is averaging 13.7 points over the last 10 games for Canisius.
Colby Rogers is averaging 14 points for the Saints. Gaines is averaging 12.7 points over the last 10 games for Siena. | null | null | null | null | null |
Brown Bears (13-15, 5-8 Ivy League) at Yale Bulldogs (16-11, 10-3 Ivy League)
New Haven, Connecticut; Saturday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Brown visits the Yale Bulldogs after Jaylan Gainey scored 25 points in Brown’s 81-74 win against the Columbia Lions.
The Bulldogs have gone 9-3 at home. Yale is third in the Ivy League with 25.3 defensive rebounds per game led by Azar Swain averaging 3.7.
The Bears are 5-8 against Ivy League opponents. Brown is eighth in the Ivy League shooting 32.0% from deep. Kino Lilly Jr. leads the Bears shooting 40.4% from 3-point range.
The teams play for the second time this season in Ivy League play. Yale won the last matchup 66-63 on Jan. 17. Swain scored 22 points points to help lead the Bulldogs to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Swain is scoring 18.7 points per game with 4.1 rebounds and 1.7 assists for the Bulldogs. Jalen Gabbidon is averaging 13.7 points and 2.5 rebounds while shooting 51.7% over the last 10 games for Yale.
Tamenang Choh is scoring 13.8 points per game with 8.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists for the Bears. Lilly is averaging 14.4 points over the last 10 games for Brown.
Bears: 4-6, averaging 71.4 points, 31.9 rebounds, 12.9 assists, 6.9 steals and 3.9 blocks per game while shooting 44% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 72.7 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Gordon and Nicholls State host New Orleans
New Orleans Privateers (17-11, 10-3 Southland) at Nicholls State Colonels (20-10, 10-3 Southland)
Thibodaux, Louisiana; Saturday, 4:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Nicholls State plays the New Orleans Privateers after Jitaurious Gordon scored 21 points in Nicholls State’s 86-75 win over the Texas A&M-CC Islanders.
The Colonels have gone 10-1 in home games. Nicholls State ranks second in the Southland in team defense, giving up 70.9 points while holding opponents to 41.7% shooting.
The Privateers are 10-3 against Southland opponents. New Orleans is seventh in the Southland shooting 31.7% from deep. Kmani Doughty paces the Privateers shooting 47.5% from 3-point range.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. New Orleans won 78-66 in the last matchup on Jan. 15. Troy Green led New Orleans with 26 points, and Pierce Spencer led Nicholls State with 25 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Gordon is shooting 36.5% from beyond the arc with 3.5 made 3-pointers per game for the Colonels, while averaging 21.1 points, 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals. Latrell Jones is averaging 13.4 points and 5.8 rebounds over the last 10 games for Nicholls State.
Derek St. Hilaire is shooting 44.7% and averaging 20.6 points for the Privateers. Green is averaging 18.2 points over the last 10 games for New Orleans. | null | null | null | null | null |
Grambling Tigers (11-18, 8-8 SWAC) at Alabama State Hornets (9-21, 7-10 SWAC)
Montgomery, Alabama; Saturday, 5:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Grambling looks to end its three-game slide with a win over Alabama State.
The Hornets are 5-6 in home games. Alabama State allows 75.2 points and has been outscored by 5.8 points per game.
The Tigers have gone 8-8 against SWAC opponents. Grambling ranks fifth in the SWAC shooting 32.0% from downtown. Amari McCray paces the Tigers shooting 42.9% from 3-point range.
The teams play for the second time this season in SWAC play. Alabama State won the last matchup 80-72 on Feb. 5. Juan Reyna scored 25 points points to help lead the Hornets to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Gerald Liddell is averaging 10.2 points and 5.7 rebounds for the Hornets. Reyna is averaging 2.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Alabama State.
Tra’Michael Moton is averaging 10.4 points and 3.4 assists for the Tigers. Cameron Christon is averaging 14.5 points and 3.9 rebounds while shooting 40.7% over the last 10 games for Grambling. | null | null | null | null | null |
Boise State Broncos (24-6, 15-2 MWC) at Colorado State Rams (23-4, 13-4 MWC)
Fort Collins, Colorado; Saturday, 8:30 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Boise State plays the Colorado State Rams after Abu Kigab scored 23 points in Boise State’s 73-67 win over the Nevada Wolf Pack.
The Rams are 13-1 in home games. Colorado State averages 75.2 points and has outscored opponents by 8.9 points per game.
The Broncos are 15-2 in conference play. Boise State leads the MWC with 9.2 offensive rebounds per game led by Mladen Armus averaging 3.2.
The teams square off for the second time this season in MWC play. Colorado State won the last meeting 77-74 on Feb. 13. David Roddy scored 18 points points to help lead the Rams to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Isaiah Stevens is averaging 14.9 points and 4.9 assists for the Rams. Roddy is averaging 12.9 points and 4.8 rebounds while shooting 57.2% over the past 10 games for Colorado State.
Marcus Shaver Jr. is shooting 38.2% from beyond the arc with 1.9 made 3-pointers per game for the Broncos, while averaging 14 points. Kigab is averaging 10.9 points over the last 10 games for Boise State.
LAST 10 GAMES: Rams: 7-3, averaging 61.7 points, 30.8 rebounds, 10 assists, 5.3 steals and 2.5 blocks per game while shooting 40.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 61.4 points per game.
Broncos: 8-2, averaging 71.9 points, 29 rebounds, 9.8 assists, 8.6 steals and 1.2 blocks per game while shooting 46.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 65.7 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Kountz and Northern Colorado host Montana State
Northern Colorado Bears (18-13, 13-6 Big Sky) at Montana State Bobcats (23-7, 15-4 Big Sky)
Bozeman, Montana; Saturday, 6 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Northern Colorado takes on the Montana State Bobcats after Daylen Kountz scored 29 points in Northern Colorado’s 75-66 win over the Montana Grizzlies.
The Bobcats are 13-1 on their home court. Montana State ranks fourth in the Big Sky with 32.5 points per game in the paint led by Jubrile Belo averaging 0.5.
The Bears are 13-6 in Big Sky play. Northern Colorado scores 78.5 points while outscoring opponents by 2.1 points per game.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. Northern Colorado won 77-75 in the last matchup on Dec. 3. Kountz led Northern Colorado with 21 points, and Xavier Bishop led Montana State with 17 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Bishop is averaging 14.1 points and 4.3 assists for the Bobcats. Belo is averaging 13.7 points over the last 10 games for Montana State.
Matt Johnson is averaging 13.9 points and four assists for the Bears. Kountz is averaging 20.8 points over the last 10 games for Northern Colorado.
LAST 10 GAMES: Bobcats: 8-2, averaging 74.9 points, 31.6 rebounds, 12.4 assists, five steals and 3.9 blocks per game while shooting 48.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 68 points per game. | null | null | null | null | null |
Lyons and Southern host Alabama A&M
Southern Jaguars (16-14, 10-6 SWAC) at Alabama A&M Bulldogs (11-16, 10-7 SWAC)
Huntsville, Alabama; Saturday, 5 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Southern visits the Alabama A&M Bulldogs after Tyrone Lyons scored 21 points in Southern’s 77-67 loss to the Alabama State Hornets.
The Bulldogs are 7-2 in home games. Alabama A&M has a 3-2 record in one-possession games.
The Jaguars are 10-6 in SWAC play. Southern is the leader in the SWAC scoring 12.7 fast break points per game.
The teams play for the second time in conference play this season. Southern won the last meeting 73-64 on Feb. 5. Brion Whitley scored 14 points to help lead the Jaguars to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Cameron Tucker is averaging 8.2 points and four assists for the Bulldogs. Jalen Johnson is averaging 18 points and 7.6 rebounds while shooting 53.3% over the past 10 games for Alabama A&M.
Lyons is averaging 13.8 points and 1.6 steals for the Jaguars. Whitley is averaging 12 points over the past 10 games for Southern.
LAST 10 GAMES: Bulldogs: 7-3, averaging 69.3 points, 36.7 rebounds, 10.8 assists, six steals and 3.8 blocks per game while shooting 41.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 66 points per game.
Jaguars: 5-5, averaging 69.7 points, 30.1 rebounds, 12.7 assists, 10.1 steals and 2.4 blocks per game while shooting 42.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 67 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
McEwen and Weber State host Southern Utah
Southern Utah Thunderbirds (19-10, 13-6 Big Sky) at Weber State Wildcats (20-10, 13-6 Big Sky)
Ogden, Utah; Saturday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Weber State hosts the Southern Utah Thunderbirds after Koby McEwen scored 20 points in Weber State’s 73-49 win against the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks.
The Wildcats are 10-5 in home games. Weber State averages 77.0 points while outscoring opponents by 6.5 points per game.
The Thunderbirds are 13-6 against Big Sky opponents. Southern Utah is 7-8 against opponents over .500.
The teams square off for the second time this season in Big Sky play. Weber State won the last meeting 92-84 on Jan. 25. Seikou Sisoho Jawara scored 25 points points to help lead the Wildcats to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: McEwen is scoring 18.3 points per game and averaging 4.3 rebounds for the Wildcats. Jawara is averaging 2.4 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Weber State.
Tevian Jones is averaging 14.6 points for the Thunderbirds. John Knight III is averaging 13.5 points over the last 10 games for Southern Utah.
LAST 10 GAMES: Wildcats: 5-5, averaging 74.4 points, 29.7 rebounds, 11 assists, 6.6 steals and 2.3 blocks per game while shooting 47.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 71.7 points per game.
Thunderbirds: 6-4, averaging 76.8 points, 29.5 rebounds, 11.2 assists, 6.9 steals and two blocks per game while shooting 47.4% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 70.4 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Murrell and Ole Miss host Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt Commodores (14-15, 6-11 SEC) at Ole Miss Rebels (13-17, 4-13 SEC)
Oxford, Mississippi; Saturday, 6 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Ole Miss plays the Vanderbilt Commodores after Matthew Murrell scored 25 points in Ole Miss’ 83-72 loss to the Kentucky Wildcats.
The Rebels have gone 10-7 at home. Ole Miss has a 0-2 record in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Commodores are 6-11 in conference games. Vanderbilt has a 7-6 record in games decided by 10 points or more.
The matchup Saturday is the first meeting this season for the two teams in conference play.
TOP PERFORMERS: Murrell is scoring 11.8 points per game with 2.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists for the Rebels. Nysier Brooks is averaging 6.6 points and 4.3 rebounds while shooting 55.4% over the past 10 games for Ole Miss.
Scotty Pippen Jr. is scoring 20.5 points per game with 3.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists for the Commodores. Jordan Wright is averaging 7.2 points over the past 10 games for Vanderbilt. | null | null | null | null | null |
Newton leads East Carolina against Wichita State after 27-point game
East Carolina Pirates (15-13, 6-10 AAC) at Wichita State Shockers (14-12, 5-9 AAC)
Wichita, Kansas; Saturday, 3 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: East Carolina plays the Wichita State Shockers after Tristen Newton scored 27 points in East Carolina’s 64-59 win over the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.
The Shockers have gone 10-6 in home games. Wichita State ranks eighth in the AAC with 12.0 assists per game led by Craig Porter Jr. averaging 3.6.
The Pirates have gone 6-10 against AAC opponents. East Carolina allows 70.9 points to opponents and has been outscored by 1.7 points per game.
The Shockers and Pirates square off Saturday for the first time in conference play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Tyson Etienne is scoring 15.0 points per game and averaging 2.8 rebounds for the Shockers. Ricky Council IV is averaging nine points and 3.1 rebounds over the last 10 games for Wichita State.
Vance Jackson averages 2.6 made 3-pointers per game for the Pirates, scoring 13.1 points while shooting 41.3% from beyond the arc. Newton is shooting 38.1% and averaging 11.3 points over the past 10 games for East Carolina.
LAST 10 GAMES: Shockers: 5-5, averaging 68.3 points, 34.8 rebounds, 9.7 assists, 7.5 steals and 4.5 blocks per game while shooting 39.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 73.3 points per game. | null | null | null | null | null |
North Carolina Tar Heels (22-8, 14-5 ACC) at Duke Blue Devils (26-4, 16-3 ACC)
Durham, North Carolina; Saturday, 6 p.m. EST
FANDUEL SPORTSBOOK LINE: Duke -12.5
BOTTOM LINE: No. 4 Duke hosts the North Carolina Tar Heels after Trevor Keels scored 27 points in Duke’s 86-56 win against the Pittsburgh Panthers.
The Blue Devils are 15-2 in home games. Duke has a 20-4 record against opponents over .500.
The Tar Heels are 14-5 in conference games. North Carolina is fifth in the ACC with 9.4 offensive rebounds per game led by Armando Bacot averaging 3.9.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. Duke won the last meeting 87-67 on Feb. 5. AJ Griffin scored 27 points points to help lead the Blue Devils to the win.
Bacot is scoring 16.4 points per game with 12.6 rebounds and 1.5 assists for the Tar Heels. Brady Manek is averaging 10.6 points over the past 10 games for North Carolina.
Tar Heels: 8-2, averaging 81.4 points, 37.6 rebounds, 15.9 assists, 5.4 steals and 3.6 blocks per game while shooting 46% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 72.7 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Oklahoma visits Kansas State on 5-game road skid
Oklahoma Sooners (16-14, 6-11 Big 12) at Kansas State Wildcats (14-15, 6-11 Big 12)
BOTTOM LINE: Oklahoma will aim to stop its five-game road slide when the Sooners take on Kansas State.
The Wildcats have gone 9-6 at home. Kansas State is ninth in the Big 12 with 26.2 points per game in the paint led by Mark Smith averaging 5.7.
The Sooners are 6-11 in conference matchups. Oklahoma is sixth in the Big 12 scoring 32 points per game in the paint led by Tanner Groves averaging 6.4.
The teams play for the second time in conference play this season. Oklahoma won the last meeting 71-69 on Jan. 2. Elijah Harkless scored 21 points to help lead the Sooners to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Markquis Nowell is averaging 12.6 points, 5.1 assists and 2.2 steals for the Wildcats. Nijel Pack is averaging 12.3 points over the last 10 games for Kansas State.
Groves is averaging 12.3 points and 5.6 rebounds for the Sooners. Jordan Goldwire is averaging 8.2 points over the last 10 games for Oklahoma.
LAST 10 GAMES: Wildcats: 4-6, averaging 75.1 points, 25.8 rebounds, 9.6 assists, nine steals and one block per game while shooting 43.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 82.9 points per game.
Sooners: 3-7, averaging 60.6 points, 27.9 rebounds, 11.2 assists, 10.3 steals and 0.7 blocks per game while shooting 43.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 62.3 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Arkansas State Red Wolves (18-10, 8-7 Sun Belt) vs. Georgia State Panthers (15-10, 9-5 Sun Belt)
BOTTOM LINE: Arkansas State takes on the Georgia State Panthers after Norchad Omier scored 35 points in Arkansas State’s 81-77 victory over the UL Monroe Warhawks.
The Panthers are 8-4 on their home court. Georgia State scores 70.4 points and has outscored opponents by 5.8 points per game.
The Red Wolves are 8-7 in Sun Belt play. Arkansas State averages 13.4 turnovers per game and is 5-6 when committing fewer turnovers than opponents.
The teams did not meet in the regular season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Corey Allen is scoring 13.5 points per game and averaging 3.7 rebounds for the Panthers. Justin Roberts is averaging 1.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Georgia State.
Caleb Fields is averaging 7.2 points and 4.5 assists for the Red Wolves. Omier is averaging 19.4 points, 12.3 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.5 blocks over the last 10 games for Arkansas State.
Red Wolves: 5-5, averaging 69.4 points, 32.5 rebounds, 13.6 assists, 9.1 steals and 2.5 blocks per game while shooting 43.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 70.5 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Monmouth Hawks (19-11, 11-8 MAAC) at Rider Broncs (11-18, 7-12 MAAC)
Lawrenceville, New Jersey; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Rider takes on the Monmouth Hawks after Allen Powell scored 20 points in Rider’s 65-59 loss to the Fairfield Stags.
The Broncs have gone 6-6 in home games. Rider is fifth in the MAAC with 12.4 assists per game led by Dwight Murray Jr. averaging 4.5.
The Hawks are 11-8 in MAAC play. Monmouth scores 69.4 points and has outscored opponents by 1.8 points per game.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. Monmouth won 60-58 in the last matchup on Feb. 19. Shavar Reynolds led Monmouth with 17 points, and Mervin James led Rider with 17 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Dimencio Vaughn is scoring 12.6 points per game and averaging 7.8 rebounds for the Broncs. Powell is averaging 1.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Rider.
George Papas is shooting 39% and averaging 15.4 points for the Hawks. Reynolds is averaging 1.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Monmouth.
LAST 10 GAMES: Broncs: 5-5, averaging 67.9 points, 34.9 rebounds, 13.1 assists, 6.5 steals and 3.4 blocks per game while shooting 43% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 65.8 points per game.
Hawks: 6-4, averaging 66 points, 31.8 rebounds, 12 assists, 7.5 steals and 3.7 blocks per game while shooting 41.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 66.6 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
VCU Rams (21-7, 14-3 A-10) at Saint Louis Billikens (20-10, 11-6 A-10)
BOTTOM LINE: Saint Louis hosts the VCU Rams after Gibson Jimerson scored 22 points in Saint Louis’ 80-74 victory over the Rhode Island Rams.
The Billikens are 13-4 on their home court. Saint Louis is second in the A-10 with 25.2 defensive rebounds per game led by Francis Okoro averaging 5.2.
The Rams are 14-3 against A-10 opponents. VCU has a 4-2 record in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The Billikens and Rams meet Saturday for the first time in A-10 play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Yuri Collins is averaging 11 points, eight assists and 2.1 steals for the Billikens. Fred Thatch Jr. is averaging 8.5 points over the last 10 games for Saint Louis.
Vince Williams is averaging 12.8 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.7 steals for the Rams. KeShawn Curry is averaging 9.3 points over the last 10 games for VCU.
Rams: 9-1, averaging 74.6 points, 33.0 rebounds, 15.2 assists, 10.7 steals and 4.9 blocks per game while shooting 49.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 59.4 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
SE Louisiana hosts White and Northwestern State
SE Louisiana Lions (17-13, 9-4 Southland) at Northwestern State Demons (9-21, 5-8 Southland)
Natchitoches, Louisiana; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Northwestern State hosts the SE Louisiana Lions after Brian White scored 23 points in Northwestern State’s 87-77 victory over the New Orleans Privateers.
The Demons have gone 6-5 in home games. Northwestern State has a 2-14 record against opponents over .500.
The Lions are 9-4 in Southland play. SE Louisiana leads the Southland scoring 79.6 points per game while shooting 46.5%.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. SE Louisiana won the last meeting 79-74 on Jan. 15. Jalyn Hinton scored 23 points to help lead the Lions to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: White is averaging 6.8 points and 3.6 assists for the Demons. Kendal Coleman is averaging 15.4 points and 9.7 rebounds over the past 10 games for Northwestern State.
Gus Okafor is scoring 15.3 points per game with 6.5 rebounds and 1.6 assists for the Lions. Hinton is averaging 16.2 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks over the last 10 games for SE Louisiana. | null | null | null | null | null |
Shumate, McNeese Cowboys to visit Lee, Houston Baptist Huskies
McNeese Cowboys (10-20, 4-9 Southland) at Houston Baptist Huskies (9-17, 5-8 Southland)
Houston; Saturday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Southland foes Houston Baptist and McNeese square off on Saturday.
The Huskies have gone 6-6 in home games. Houston Baptist is 1-2 in games decided by less than 4 points.
The Cowboys are 4-9 in conference play. McNeese is eighth in the Southland shooting 31.5% from deep. Zach Scott paces the Cowboys shooting 40.7% from 3-point range.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. McNeese won 78-75 in the last matchup on Jan. 15. Scott led McNeese with 24 points, and Darius Lee led Houston Baptist with 18 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Lee is scoring 16.9 points per game with 7.9 rebounds and 3.2 assists for the Huskies. Brycen Long is averaging 12.9 points and 2.7 rebounds while shooting 45.3% over the past 10 games for Houston Baptist.
Christian Shumate is averaging 12.5 points and 6.6 rebounds for the Cowboys. Scott is averaging 14.1 points over the last 10 games for McNeese. | null | null | null | null | null |
South Dakota State plays in Summit Tournament against the Omaha
Omaha Mavericks (5-24, 4-14 Summit) vs. South Dakota State Jackrabbits (27-4, 18-0 Summit)
Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Saturday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: The South Dakota State Jackrabbits and Omaha Mavericks meet in the Summit Tournament.
The Jackrabbits have gone 15-0 at home. South Dakota State leads college basketball shooting 45.1% from downtown, led by Alex Arians shooting 51.5% from 3-point range.
The Mavericks are 4-14 against Summit opponents. Omaha allows 83.4 points to opponents while being outscored by 14.1 points per game.
The teams meet for the third time this season. South Dakota State won 82-61 in the last matchup on Feb. 12. Zeke Mayo led South Dakota State with 21 points, and Nick Ferrarini led Omaha with 14 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Baylor Scheierman is averaging 16.2 points, 8.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists for the Jackrabbits. Doug Wilson is averaging 19.5 points over the last 10 games for South Dakota State.
Frankie Fidler is averaging 12.1 points for the Mavericks. Felix Lemetti is averaging 11.2 points and 3.7 assists over the last 10 games for Omaha.
Mavericks: 2-8, averaging 72.1 points, 31.5 rebounds, 9.5 assists, 5.1 steals and 2.5 blocks per game while shooting 44.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 85.0 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Texas A&M-CC Islanders (19-11, 6-7 Southland) at Incarnate Word Cardinals (7-23, 3-10 Southland)
BOTTOM LINE: Incarnate Word plays the Texas A&M-CC Islanders after RJ Glasper scored 20 points in Incarnate Word’s 69-67 victory over the McNeese Cowboys.
The Cardinals are 5-9 in home games. Incarnate Word ranks eighth in the Southland with seven offensive rebounds per game led by Jacob Teer averaging four.
The Islanders are 6-7 against conference opponents. Texas A&M-CC is fourth in the Southland scoring 34.8 points per game in the paint led by Jalen Jackson averaging 0.7.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. Texas A&M-CC won 80-64 in the last matchup on Jan. 15. Trey Tennyson led Texas A&M-CC with 20 points, and Glasper led Incarnate Word with 28 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Drew Lutz is averaging 9.8 points and 3.6 assists for the Cardinals. Glasper is averaging 17.7 points over the last 10 games for Incarnate Word.
Isaac Mushila is averaging 14.4 points and 9.8 rebounds for the Islanders. Tennyson is averaging 12.4 points over the last 10 games for Texas A&M-CC.
LAST 10 GAMES: Cardinals: 3-7, averaging 68.4 points, 28.6 rebounds, 10.9 assists, 5.8 steals and one block per game while shooting 41.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 76.4 points per game.
Islanders: 4-6, averaging 75.3 points, 38.6 rebounds, 12.9 assists, eight steals and 1.4 blocks per game while shooting 39.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 76.9 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Texas Southern hosts Daniels and Prairie View A&M
Prairie View A&M Panthers (9-17, 8-7 SWAC) at Texas Southern Tigers (14-12, 12-5 SWAC)
BOTTOM LINE: Prairie View A&M plays the Texas Southern Tigers after Jawaun Daniels scored 28 points in Prairie View A&M’s 59-53 loss to the Jackson State Tigers.
The Tigers are 6-2 on their home court. Texas Southern has a 4-3 record in one-possession games.
The Panthers are 8-7 in conference play. Prairie View A&M ranks seventh in the SWAC with 10.9 assists per game led by Jeremiah Gambrell averaging 2.8.
The teams square off for the second time this season in SWAC play. Texas Southern won the last matchup 75-74 on Jan. 29. Bryson Etienne scored 20 points points to help lead the Tigers to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Joirdon Karl Nicholas is scoring 9.4 points per game and averaging 5.8 rebounds for the Tigers. Etienne is averaging 1.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Texas Southern.
Gambrell averages 2.1 made 3-pointers per game for the Panthers, scoring 10.8 points while shooting 33.8% from beyond the arc. Daniels is averaging 18.2 points, 8.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists over the past 10 games for Prairie View A&M. | null | null | null | null | null |
Troy hosts Little Rock after Jefferson's 24-point outing
Little Rock Trojans (9-18, 3-11 Sun Belt) vs. Troy Trojans (19-10, 10-6 Sun Belt)
BOTTOM LINE: Little Rock plays the Troy Trojans after Jordan Jefferson scored 24 points in Little Rock’s 75-71 win against the South Alabama Jaguars.
The Troy Trojans are 10-3 in home games. Troy ranks third in the Sun Belt with 14.1 assists per game led by Duke Deen averaging 3.1.
The Little Rock Trojans are 3-11 against Sun Belt opponents. Little Rock gives up 73.3 points to opponents while being outscored by 6.4 points per game.
The teams meet for the second time this season. Little Rock won 66-62 in the last matchup on Feb. 12. Jovan Stulic led Little Rock with 18 points, and Christyon Eugene led Troy with 14 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Efe Odigie is scoring 11.6 points per game and averaging 6.5 rebounds for the Troy Trojans. Desmond Williams is averaging 1.6 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Troy.
Isaiah Palermo is shooting 46.8% and averaging 11.2 points for the Little Rock Trojans. Jefferson is averaging 11.3 points over the last 10 games for Little Rock.
LAST 10 GAMES: Troy Trojans: 6-4, averaging 65.9 points, 34.0 rebounds, 13.9 assists, 6.9 steals and 1.9 blocks per game while shooting 40.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 66.1 points per game.
Little Rock Trojans: 2-8, averaging 65.0 points, 27.1 rebounds, 12.4 assists, 5.6 steals and 2.0 blocks per game while shooting 44.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 72.6 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
UC Irvine hosts McCall and CSU Bakersfield
UC Irvine Anteaters (14-9, 8-5 Big West) at CSU Bakersfield Roadrunners (8-17, 2-11 Big West)
Bakersfield, California; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: CSU Bakersfield hosts the UC Irvine Anteaters after Justin McCall scored 26 points in CSU Bakersfield’s 72-70 loss to the UCSD Tritons.
The Roadrunners have gone 5-6 at home. CSU Bakersfield averages 11.1 turnovers per game and is 7-9 when it has fewer turnovers than its opponents.
The Anteaters have gone 8-5 against Big West opponents. UC Irvine scores 66.1 points while outscoring opponents by 6.6 points per game.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. UC Irvine won the last matchup 57-52 on Jan. 28. Austin Johnson scored 11 points to help lead the Anteaters to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Kaleb Higgins is averaging 9.3 points for the Roadrunners. McCall is averaging 10.7 points over the past 10 games for CSU Bakersfield.
Justin Hohn is averaging 7.7 points for the Anteaters. Collin Welp is averaging 12.2 points and 6.9 rebounds while shooting 40.7% over the last 10 games for UC Irvine. | null | null | null | null | null |
UC Riverside hosts Jones and Long Beach State
UC Riverside Highlanders (16-10, 9-5 Big West) at Long Beach State Beach (17-11, 11-3 Big West)
Long Beach, California; Saturday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Long Beach State hosts the UC Riverside Highlanders after Jadon Jones scored 21 points in Long Beach State’s 68-65 victory over the UC Davis Aggies.
The Beach are 10-3 on their home court. Long Beach State is 8-7 in games decided by 10 points or more.
The Highlanders are 9-5 in conference games. UC Riverside is second in the Big West with 33.2 rebounds per game led by Callum McRae averaging 7.9.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. Long Beach State won 68-62 in the last matchup on Jan. 28. Colin Slater led Long Beach State with 16 points, and Zyon Pullin led UC Riverside with 23 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Aboubacar Traore is averaging 8.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks for the Beach. Jones is averaging 2.8 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Long Beach State.
Pullin is scoring 13.6 points per game with 5.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists for the Highlanders. Dominick Pickett is averaging 14.0 points and 3.7 rebounds while shooting 51.0% over the last 10 games for UC Riverside. | null | null | null | null | null |
UMass faces George Mason on 3-game road skid
UMass Minutemen (13-16, 6-11 A-10) at George Mason Patriots (14-14, 7-8 A-10)
Fairfax, Virginia; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: UMass will look to stop its three-game road skid when the Minutemen play George Mason.
The Patriots have gone 10-3 at home. George Mason is fifth in the A-10 with 14.1 assists per game led by Xavier Johnson averaging 4.6.
The Minutemen are 6-11 in conference games. UMass is seventh in the A-10 with 13.9 assists per game led by Noah Fernandes averaging 5.4.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. George Mason won the last matchup 72-62 on Jan. 30. D’Shawn Schwartz scored 15 points points to help lead the Patriots to the victory.
TOP PERFORMERS: Davonte Gaines is averaging 10.6 points and 8.1 rebounds for the Patriots. Josh Oduro is averaging 11.8 points over the last 10 games for George Mason.
Fernandes is averaging 13.4 points and 5.4 assists for the Minutemen. Rich Kelly is averaging 7.5 points over the last 10 games for UMass.
LAST 10 GAMES: Patriots: 3-7, averaging 63.8 points, 31.7 rebounds, 11.7 assists, 5.1 steals and 2.2 blocks per game while shooting 40.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 67.1 points per game. | null | null | null | null | null |
Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks (21-8, 13-4 WAC) at UT Rio Grande Valley Vaqueros (8-21, 3-14 WAC)
Edinburg, Texas; Saturday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: UT Rio Grande Valley takes on the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks after Justin Johnson scored 23 points in UT Rio Grande Valley’s 67-63 win against the Lamar Cardinals.
The Vaqueros have gone 4-9 in home games. UT Rio Grande Valley has a 1-2 record in one-possession games.
The ‘Jacks have gone 13-4 against WAC opponents. SFA is ninth in the WAC giving up 68.0 points while holding opponents to 42.4% shooting.
The teams square off for the second time in conference play this season. SFA won the last matchup 86-75 on Jan. 12. Sadaidriene Hall scored 18 points to help lead the ‘Jacks to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Johnson is averaging 18 points and 6.8 rebounds for the Vaqueros. Marek Nelson is averaging 11.1 points over the last 10 games for UT Rio Grande Valley.
Latrell Jossell is shooting 37.5% from beyond the arc with 2.2 made 3-pointers per game for the ‘Jacks, while averaging 9.2 points. Gavin Kensmil is shooting 64.1% and averaging 20.0 points over the past 10 games for SFA.
LAST 10 GAMES: Vaqueros: 2-8, averaging 69.1 points, 32.8 rebounds, 11.8 assists, 5.2 steals and 3.4 blocks per game while shooting 43.7% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 78.2 points per game. | null | null | null | null | null |
Long Island Sharks (16-13, 12-6 NEC) at Wagner Seahawks (21-5, 13-3 NEC)
BOTTOM LINE: The Wagner Seahawks play in the NEC Tournament against the Long Island Sharks.
The Seahawks are 11-1 on their home court. Wagner has a 7-3 record against teams above .500.
The Sharks are 12-6 in conference matchups. LIU ranks third in the NEC scoring 34.3 points per game in the paint led by Isaac Kante averaging 2.4.
The teams square off for the third time this season. Wagner won the last matchup 79-64 on Feb. 5. Alex Morales scored 28 to help lead Wagner to the win, and Eral Penn scored 19 points for LIU.
TOP PERFORMERS: Morales is shooting 50.5% and averaging 18.2 points for the Seahawks. Will Martinez is averaging 10.4 points over the last 10 games for Wagner.
Tyrn Flowers is averaging 19 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.6 blocks for the Sharks. Alex Rivera is averaging 1.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for LIU.
Sharks: 8-2, averaging 83.1 points, 37.8 rebounds, 19.8 assists, 6.4 steals and 5.2 blocks per game while shooting 47.5% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 73.6 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Washington hosts Calloo and Oregon State
Oregon State Beavers (3-25, 1-18 Pac-12) at Washington Huskies (15-15, 10-9 Pac-12)
BOTTOM LINE: Oregon State visits the Washington Huskies after Maurice Calloo scored 20 points in Oregon State’s 71-67 loss to the Washington State Cougars.
The Huskies are 11-6 in home games. Washington is 3-0 in one-possession games.
The Beavers have gone 1-18 against Pac-12 opponents. Oregon State is fourth in the Pac-12 scoring 31.0 points per game in the paint led by Abdul Alatishe averaging 7.6.
The teams square off for the second time this season in Pac-12 play. Washington won the last meeting 82-72 on Jan. 21. Terrell Brown Jr. scored 27 points points to help lead the Huskies to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Daejon Davis is averaging 7.6 points and two steals for the Huskies. Brown is averaging 22 points, 4.2 assists and 2.5 steals over the past 10 games for Washington.
Jarod Lucas is scoring 13.3 points per game and averaging 2.3 rebounds for the Beavers. Calloo is averaging 8.5 points and 3.4 rebounds over the last 10 games for Oregon State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Washington State and Oregon face off in conference showdown
Oregon Ducks (18-12, 11-8 Pac-12) at Washington State Cougars (16-13, 10-9 Pac-12)
Pullman, Washington; Saturday, 4 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Pac-12 foes Washington State and Oregon meet on Saturday.
The Ducks have gone 11-8 against Pac-12 opponents. Oregon is sixth in the Pac-12 shooting 33.4% from downtown. Will Richardson leads the Ducks shooting 38.8% from 3-point range.
The teams meet for the second time in conference play this season. Oregon won 62-59 in the last matchup on Feb. 15. De’Vion Harmon led Oregon with 13 points, and Michael Flowers led Washington State with 23 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Flowers is shooting 39.2% from beyond the arc with 2.9 made 3-pointers per game for the Cougars, while averaging 14.4 points and 3.3 assists. Mouhamed Gueye is averaging 6.6 points over the past 10 games for Washington State.
Richardson is averaging 14.1 points and 3.6 assists for the Ducks. Harmon is averaging 7.9 points over the last 10 games for Oregon. | null | null | null | null | null |
William & Mary plays in CAA Tournament against the Northeastern
Northeastern Huskies (8-21, 2-16 CAA) vs. William & Mary Tribe (5-26, 4-14 CAA)
Williamsburg, Virginia; Saturday, 5 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: The William & Mary Tribe play in the CAA Tournament against the Northeastern Huskies.
The Tribe are 4-10 in home games. William & Mary has a 1-19 record in games decided by at least 10 points.
The Huskies are 2-16 against CAA opponents. Northeastern ranks eighth in the CAA with 7.1 offensive rebounds per game led by Chris Doherty averaging 3.4.
The teams square off for the third time this season. Northeastern won the last matchup 62-28 on Feb. 24. Doherty scored 13 to help lead Northeastern to the win, and Connor Kochera scored nine points for William & Mary.
TOP PERFORMERS: Ben Wight is averaging 11.5 points and 5.6 rebounds for the Tribe. Brandon Carroll is averaging 1.2 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for William & Mary.
Jahmyl Telfort is averaging 12.9 points for the Huskies. Nikola Djogo is averaging 9.5 points over the past 10 games for Northeastern.
LAST 10 GAMES: Tribe: 1-9, averaging 59.7 points, 31.6 rebounds, 9.6 assists, 5.1 steals and 2.3 blocks per game while shooting 38.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 74.9 points per game.
Huskies: 2-8, averaging 60.3 points, 29.2 rebounds, 10.4 assists, four steals and 2.6 blocks per game while shooting 39.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 67.7 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Woods and Grand Canyon host Dixie State
Dixie State Trailblazers (13-17, 6-11 WAC) at Grand Canyon Antelopes (22-7, 11-5 WAC)
Phoenix; Saturday, 8 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Grand Canyon hosts the Dixie State Trailblazers after Holland Woods scored 22 points in Grand Canyon’s 68-57 victory over the Utah Valley Wolverines.
The Antelopes are 14-2 on their home court. Grand Canyon scores 68.8 points and has outscored opponents by 10.0 points per game.
The Trailblazers are 6-11 in WAC play. Dixie State is fourth in the WAC scoring 32.6 points per game in the paint led by Cameron Gooden averaging 0.5.
The teams play for the second time in conference play this season. Dixie State won the last meeting 61-60 on Feb. 13. Hunter Schofield scored 18 points to help lead the Trailblazers to the win.
TOP PERFORMERS: Jovan Blacksher Jr. is averaging 16.8 points, four assists and 1.8 steals for the Antelopes. Woods is averaging 17.4 points and 2.3 rebounds while shooting 42.6% over the past 10 games for Grand Canyon.
Gooden is averaging 11.8 points and 3.6 assists for the Trailblazers. Schofield is averaging 16.4 points over the last 10 games for Dixie State. | null | null | null | null | null |
Workman and Jacksonville host Jacksonville State
Jacksonville Dolphins (20-9, 11-5 ASUN) at Jacksonville State Gamecocks (21-9, 13-3 ASUN)
BOTTOM LINE: Jacksonville visits the Jacksonville State Gamecocks after Bryce Workman scored 21 points in Jacksonville’s 79-69 win against the Central Arkansas Sugar Bears.
The Gamecocks have gone 11-3 in home games. Jacksonville State is fourth in the ASUN scoring 74.7 points while shooting 47.1% from the field.
The Dolphins are 11-5 against ASUN opponents. Jacksonville is sixth in college basketball giving up 59.0 points while holding opponents to 39.3% shooting.
The teams meet for the second time this season. Jacksonville State won 64-58 in the last matchup on Feb. 5. Darian Adams led Jacksonville State with 22 points, and Kevion Nolan led Jacksonville with 19 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Brandon Huffman is averaging 9.1 points and 5.9 rebounds for the Gamecocks. Adams is averaging 2.6 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Jacksonville State.
Nolan is scoring 14.0 points per game with 3.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists for the Dolphins. Workman is averaging 12.4 points and 6.6 rebounds while shooting 57.3% over the last 10 games for Jacksonville.
Dolphins: 8-2, averaging 71.5 points, 32.5 rebounds, 12.5 assists, 4.4 steals and 1.7 blocks per game while shooting 47.1% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 62.4 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Georgetown Hoyas (6-23, 0-18 Big East) at Xavier Musketeers (17-12, 7-11 Big East)
Cincinnati; Saturday, 7 p.m. EST
BOTTOM LINE: Xavier aims to break its five-game losing streak when the Musketeers play Georgetown.
The Musketeers have gone 12-5 at home. Xavier is eighth in the Big East in team defense, giving up 68.3 points while holding opponents to 42.4% shooting.
The Hoyas have gone 0-18 against Big East opponents. Georgetown ranks fifth in the Big East shooting 34.6% from 3-point range.
The Musketeers and Hoyas match up Saturday for the first time in Big East play this season.
TOP PERFORMERS: Paul Scruggs is averaging 12 points and four assists for the Musketeers. Jack Nunge is averaging 8.8 points and 4.9 rebounds while shooting 50% over the past 10 games for Xavier.
Don Carey is averaging 13.9 points and 1.5 steals for the Hoyas. Aminu Mohammed is averaging 9.1 points over the last 10 games for Georgetown.
LAST 10 GAMES: Musketeers: 3-7, averaging 76.4 points, 35.4 rebounds, 11.1 assists, 7.4 steals and two blocks per game while shooting 39.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 88.5 points per game.
Hoyas: 0-10, averaging 69.6 points, 26.7 rebounds, 8.1 assists, 8.3 steals and 5.3 blocks per game while shooting 41% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 75.5 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
The California Supreme Court denied a request to lift a cap on enrollment at the public university, leading to an admissions scramble.
Students are seen at the University of California at Berkeley in May 2018. (Ben Margot/AP)
The University of California at Berkeley expects to cut the number of admission offers it had planned to make this spring and ask some incoming students to delay their arrival to campus, following a state Supreme Court decision Thursday that leaves in place a lower court’s order to cap student enrollment.
The California Supreme Court, on a 4-to-2 vote, denied UC-Berkeley’s appeal for a stay of the enrollment cap that a judge had imposed in August as the result of a lawsuit alleging that the university’s growth puts unacceptable strain on housing and other resources in local neighborhoods. Some estimates cited in court documents suggested the cap could reduce the size of the entering class by nearly a third. Under that scenario, there could be about 3,050 fewer incoming students at UC-Berkeley in the fall compared with the previous year.
The decision was a setback for Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who had supported the university’s appeal. “This is against everything we stand for — new pathways to success, attracting tomorrow’s leaders, making college more affordable,” Newsom’s office said in a tweet. “UC’s incoming freshman class is the most diverse ever but now thousands of dreams will be dashed to keep a failing status quo.”
UC-Berkeley, one of the biggest names in higher education, draws more than 100,000 applicants a year. The school recently said more than 128,100 students applied for the fall 2022 freshman class.
Beyond ‘test-optional’: Some ‘test-free’ colleges drop the SAT and ACT entirely
But the university is weighing alternatives that could soften the blow to its admission plans. The Los Angeles Times reported at least 1,500 seats could be set aside for freshman or transfer students who start classes online or defer matriculation until January. Other seats on campus could be freed up through study programs based overseas or elsewhere in the United States.
UC-Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof confirmed the Times report. But Mogulof acknowledged the university is also projecting a need to reduce the size of the incoming class by at least a few hundred students.
The two dissenters on the state high court who sided with Newsom and the university were Justices Goodwin H. Liu and Joshua P. Groban. Those in the majority were Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Carol A. Corrigan, Leondra R. Kruger and Martin J. Jenkins. The majority did not issue a published opinion. The lawsuit, filed by a group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods, remains pending in a state appellate court.
“We have offered many times to settle our case in exchange for UC Berkeley’s agreement to a legally binding commitment to increase housing before they increase enrollment,” Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods said in a statement. “We have been rebuffed every time.” The group said it wants to “get the settlement process started.”
Colleges lost 465,000 students this fall. The continued erosion of enrollment is raising alarm.
Exactly how the numbers will shake out for UC-Berkeley remains to be seen. Most admission offers are scheduled to be released within a few weeks. University officials say they want to mitigate the effects of the court ruling.
“We are extremely disheartened by today’s ruling,” UC-Berkeley said in a statement. “This is devastating news for the thousands of students who have worked so hard for and have earned a seat in our fall 2022 class. Our fight on behalf of every one of these students continues.” The university said it may pursue relief from the state legislature.
The extraordinary legal development at this late stage of the admission season is likely to cause huge angst among those applying to enter the prestigious public university in the fall.
“Never seen anything quite like this, coming as it does, this late in the cycle,” said David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer for the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “Without a doubt this puts the university in a difficult situation.” Hawkins said the university might have to resort to a “supplemental round of application review, to figure out which applicants you’re not going to be able to accept after all based on limited capacity.”
UC-Berkeley had about 42,300 students as of fall 2020, according to federal data. Of those, about 30,800 were undergraduates. The university is one of the most sought-after destinations in public higher education. Out of 112,838 students who applied for freshman admission in 2021, according to UC, 16,395 were offered seats. That worked out to an admission rate of 14.5 percent. The university also received 22,200 applications for transfer admission, and 22 percent were offered seats. | null | null | null | null | null |
Paul Hodgson and his colleagues from an international school in Kyiv fled the city in the school's 16-seat minibus. (Courtesy of Paul Hodgson)
When Paul Hodgson and his colleagues at an international school in Kyiv learned last Friday that a bus booked to evacuate them to safety had canceled the trip at the last minute, they found another option: their school’s minibus.
Hodgson, a 47-year-old math teacher, his fiancee and his co-workers loaded into the 16-seat vehicle, which was normally used to transport students to and from activities and field trips. They then started on a 120-mile drive southeast to Cherkasy, where the school had booked them hotel rooms. Hodgson and two other colleagues took turns behind the wheel, he said.
“We said, ‘We don’t want to sit here twiddling our thumbs waiting for things to happen. We need to get back up to Kyiv and get this bus back up there to get other people out,’ ” Hodgson, who is from northern England, said in an interview with The Washington Post.
“There’s people all over Ukraine asking how to get out,” Hodgson said. “So we think, ‘How can we help?’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
Ike Gazaryan, left, stands with his wife, Yulya, and son, Arren, after voting in an election in California. (Family Photo)
In the days after Russian soldiers invaded Ukraine, prompting an outcry across the globe, Ike Gazaryan started receiving threatening phone calls, negative reviews and cancellations at his California restaurant.
Gazaryan, 38, owns Pushkin Russian Restaurant in San Diego, where cooks serve up classics such as beef stroganoff. Though he is Armenian — and a U.S. citizen — Gazaryan speaks Russian, enjoys that nation’s cuisine and named his seven-year-old restaurant after Russian author Alexander Pushkin.
But the ties to Russia end there. Many of his family, friends and employees are from Ukraine, and he supports their fight against Russia’s invasion. Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped strangers from calling, shouting and telling him that he is to blame for the vicious bloodshed Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed on Ukraine. One caller even asked why he hasn’t spoken to Putin about putting a stop to the war.
“Everyone puts us in the same bucket thinking that just because we speak Russian, we are Russian, and that because we’re all Russian, we are automatically for Putin and this war — and we are not. Absolutely not,” Gazaryan said.
Windows are broken at Russia House restaurant, owner says
As Putin’s invasion of Ukraine intensifies, some Russian-themed businesses and Russian Americans in the United States are suddenly getting a frosty reception — and in a few cases, experiencing outright hostility. A Russian restaurant in Washington, D.C., called Russia House, was vandalized and the owner indicated that he thought anti-Russian sentiment might be to blame. Some Russian Americans say their children are being bullied at school.
Recent incidents such as these speak to the frustration many Americans are feeling toward the war in Ukraine, and also reveal a lack of understanding about the conflict, said Michelle Kelso, assistant professor of sociology and international affairs at George Washington University. But Kelso warned of the dangers of people not making the distinction between Putin and the general Russian population — noting that many oppose Putin’s policies and condemn the invasion.
“People think they can target Russian businesses and use that as an outlet for their anger, but the problem is that there is not a nuanced perspective,” she said. “People get ratcheted up and that can lead to violence.”
David Foglesong, a professor of history who specializes in U.S.-Russian relations at Rutgers University, said widespread anti-Russia sentiment in the United States dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when worsening czarist political repression and anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia combined to trigger what he called the first American crusade for Russian freedom.
“Americans were encouraged to sympathize with the people of Russia rather than the government. And that seems to me to be what is really different from what we’re seeing now, where you see people at protests with signs saying all Russians are to blame for Putin’s aggression,” he said.
In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted before and after the start of the invasion, 80 percent of Americans said they see Russia as “unfriendly” or an “enemy” — the highest level since the Cold War. But even then, when tensions were at their highest and many feared a nuclear war in the early 1980s, Foglesong said, Americans and Soviets were working to overcome those tensions.
“That’s what I would point to as an inspiration for how we should be thinking — about trying to build connections outside of the Russian government, to the Russian people. And instead of terminating cultural exchanges and person-to-person contacts, we should be seeking to maintain them,” he said.
Since the invasion started, Russia has become isolated from the Western world as major U.S. brands halt sales in Russia, sports federations and leagues move aggressively to sideline Russia’s teams and even the country’s show cats are banned from international competition.
But far from Moscow, Russian Americans and others hailing from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union say they are feeling a misplaced hostility.
Tatyana Thulien is a former president of the Russian American Business & Cultural Association in Charlotte, which works to promote Russian and Slavic culture in the United States. She says there has been a “wave of harassment” against Russian immigrants and Russian Americans in recent days. Friends who emigrated from Russia or other parts of the former U.S.S.R. tell her their Russian-speaking children are being bullied at school.
“Students don’t have anything to do with what is going on today — most of them are refugees that came here from Ukraine or Russia or Belarus, or elsewhere in the Soviet Union, to have normal lives, and it is unacceptable to be bullied,” she said Thursday.
Thulien pointed to another incident in which the parents of a close friend, a couple in their 80s, had their car scratched and vandalized overnight this week.
“I am terrified about what is going on, but harassing people who have nothing to do with it is just wrong,” said Thulien who was born and raised in Kyiv and moved to the United States in 1998.
Gazaryan, who said he was born in Azerbaijan, fled with his family from war in that country in the late 1980s and sought refuge in Uzbekistan, he said. Then, when the Soviet Union collapsed, he said Uzbekistan, which is largely Muslim, was not considered safe for his Christian family, so they ran again — this time to Russia.
He said he lived in Russia only a few years before his family immigrated to the United States, where he has lived for the past 24 years, raising a family of his own and building a successful business.
He and his wife opened Pushkin Russian Restaurant seven years ago because, he said, he wanted to share the dishes he grew up enjoying. He said the restaurant serves Russian dishes as well as Armenian, Ukrainian and even American ones.
He said the recipes have nothing to do with politics.
“We just make food,” he said.
Still, he added, people, including his father, have recently suggested that he change the Russian name of his restaurant — but he won’t. He said it is Putin — not the people of Russia — who is driving this war, and changing the name of his restaurant to distance himself from the Russian people would, in a way, be turning his back on them.
“You have no idea how many of the Russians here are against what’s happening. Imagine being against something and being blamed for that same thing,” he said. “This is what Russians are going to go through here in the United States.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Danish filmmakers Christoffer Guldbrandsen, left, and Frederik Marbell followed Roger Stone for their documentary “A Storm Foretold.” (Ruben Hughes for The Washington Post)
Danish filmmakers followed Donald Trump’s longest-serving political adviser for extended periods over more than two years
Dalton Bennett
Making a film about Roger Stone almost killed Christoffer Guldbrandsen.
It was a Saturday evening in February 2020, and the Danish documentary filmmaker was set to fly to Florida the following morning for a difficult confrontation with Stone, the longtime Donald Trump adviser he had been filming for more than a year.
Guldbrandsen told The Washington Post he had learned that Stone had secretly agreed to sell the exclusive rights to his story to a rival production company in the United States. Guldbrandsen and Stone had been working without such a contract, and Guldbrandsen said he — having remortgaged his home and raided retirement savings to help finance the film — was in no position to pay.
That evening, Guldbrandsen, who was then 48, stepped off a treadmill at a gym in Copenhagen. He began to feel dizzy, bent over and fell to the floor. Everything went dark.
“My heart stopped beating for three minutes,” Guldbrandsen said in an interview with The Post. “I was brought back to life by a doctor who was working out at the gym. Lucky me.”
The filmmaker said his doctors described stress as a factor in the heart attack, and he said the Stone project was the source of that stress.
After the heart attack, Guldbrandsen and director of photography Frederik Marbell convinced Stone to let them back into his inner circle for several more periods of filming over the following year. The rival company eventually abandoned its project, Guldbrandsen said.
The Danish team’s film, “A Storm Foretold,” follows Stone as he worked behind the scenes to aid Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. The filmmakers shadowed Stone inside the Willard hotel in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rallies spilled into violence at the U.S. Capitol, and then as Stone lobbied for Trump to grant preemptive pardons to his high-profile allies and “the America First movement.”
In advance of its expected release later this year, reporters from The Post reviewed more than 20 hours of video filmed for the documentary. The footage was used as the basis for a detailed Post account about Stone’s activities during this period.
Stone declined requests for an interview. In response to questions, he said in an email that The Post’s reporting contained falsehoods, and he suggested that the video clips of him reviewed by The Post could be “deep fakes.” He did not provide specifics.
Stone said he had no involvement in illegal acts on Jan. 6. “Any claim, assertion or implication that I knew about, was involved in or condoned the illegal acts at the Capitol on Jan 6 is categorically false and there is no witness or document that proves otherwise,” he wrote.
Guldbrandsen trained as a journalist at universities in Denmark and the U.K. and previously made acclaimed films for Danish public television. Remarks by a Danish government minister captured in a documentary he made in 2003 caused a diplomatic incident with Germany. His disclosure in 2010 of a government leak was partly credited with causing the resignation of Denmark’s defense minister. Guldbrandsen’s work has won several prizes, and he was part of a team that won a Peabody Award in 2012 for films on poverty.
He told The Post that in 2018, he and his team set out to document the forces that were upending American politics and tearing through government under the Trump administration.
“Something is happening in your democracy that looks like a significant change and that we don’t understand,” Guldbrandsen said. “If the mightiest democracy undergoes these changes and is challenged in this way, how will it affect the rest of us?”
They began contacting people who could shed light on how “the essence of power in the Western Hemisphere had turned into a circus show.” Stone, a friend and adviser to Trump for more than three decades, seemed an obvious target.
During his nearly half-century career as a Republican operative, Stone has made himself synonymous with the type of populist showmanship and scorched-earth political attacks that propelled Trump’s 2016 bid for the White House, for which Stone served as an informal adviser.
On Sept. 7, 2018, the Danes emailed Stone, asking for an interview and outlining the basic details of their project.
“Tell me more,” Stone replied later that day. They exchanged additional emails, and Stone soon agreed to be interviewed.
The filmmakers attribute Stone’s willingness to their status as total outsiders. “I think that it was refreshing to him that we met him sort of like a blank slate,” Marbell said.
Guldbrandsen flew to meet Stone in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where Stone lives. The interview went well, and he decided Stone should be the focus of the film. But Stone was initially skeptical. He wanted to be paid for participating in the documentary, and was wary of the Danes’ plans for fly-on-the-wall footage, Guldbrandsen said.
“He didn’t want to do anything observational, where he lost control of the situation,” Guldbrandsen said. “He wanted interviews and staged situations, which of course from my perspective is very boring and uninteresting.”
Yet after what Guldbrandsen calls a “game of inches all the way through,” Stone relented.
The filmmakers explained to Stone that they could not pay him, particularly because funding they had received from a Danish public broadcaster came with ethical guidelines. Stone also yielded on the documentary’s observational format, accepting that he would have no say in how the movie turned out, they said.
Ultimately Stone said “that if the film was [only] 60 percent negative, he would be overjoyed,” Guldbrandsen said.
He and Marbell went on to spend days with Stone at his home and office and followed him across the country for fundraising events and speaking engagements. In November 2019, they were with him in Washington for his trial on felony charges that he impeded a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, a case brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Stone was convicted, but Trump pardoned him.
The filmmakers captured dozens of hours of footage as Stone strategized with Republican allies and tried to wield influence in conservative media and politics. They recorded Stone working to lobby Trump’s White House for pardons on behalf of convicted criminals, one of whom said he was prepared to pay Stone $100,000 for the advocacy. Such payments are legal.
Sometimes, the Danish team’s cameras caught clear views of the screens of Stone’s iPhone and computer, offering glimpses of his communications with associates. On other occasions, Stone’s side of calls with high-profile friends, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Infowars founder Alex Jones, were picked up on the filmmakers’ microphones.
The documentary is ultimately a story of “loyalty and betrayal,” Guldbrandsen said. “Loyalty toward country and friends — maybe even accomplices — and the betrayal of the same,” he said.
Stone stayed loyal to Trump even as Mueller’s investigators pressed him on whether he and Trump had discussed WikiLeaks’ release of hacked Democratic emails in 2016. Both denied they had, but witnesses contradicted them. Stone was filmed telling a friend in October 2019 that he could “easily” have avoided prosecution by cooperating with Mueller and making damaging allegations about Trump.
Yet after Jan. 6, 2021, Stone felt badly betrayed by Trump, who had rejected Stone’s plan for him to preemptively pardon Stone and others for trying to overturn the election. Though he is now once again a supporter, Stone denounced Trump in an Inauguration Day phone call with a friend, saying he should be impeached a second time and lambasting members of Trump’s family in an expletive-laden tirade. “F--- these people,” he said repeatedly.
The rant was one of many the filmmakers captured as Stone angrily revisited grudges against those who he perceived had wronged him over the years, including members of the Republican establishment. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has an “IQ of 70,” according to Stone, “plus he looks like Yertle the Turtle.” When Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) voted to impeach Trump after the insurrection, Stone blasted her father as a war criminal. “They should dig his a-- up and try him,” said Stone, perhaps forgetting that former vice president Richard B. Cheney is still alive. Spokesmen for McConnell and Cheney did not respond to requests for comment.
Stone took a more favorable view of Trump’s father, whose arrest at a 1927 Ku Klux Klan parade in New York he discussed with an associate. “I think he was connected to a lot of far-right groups. That doesn’t make him a bad person,” Stone said. “He was a great man, Fred Trump.”
During some unguarded moments, the filmmakers recorded Stone making potentially offensive or cynical remarks about minorities, nicknaming his staffer Enrique Alejandro “Mongoloid” and referring on one occasion to “the Negroes.” In one interaction, after describing himself to a Jewish supporter as a Zionist, Stone told a member of his entourage, “That ‘Zionist’ line always gets 'em.”
Alejandro told The Post it was an “affectionate nickname that has no racial connotation whatsoever.”
Stone did not respond to a question about those comments.
Over the span of more than two years, however, the filmmakers also saw what they call an “easygoing” and generous side to the notoriously ruthless operative. When Stone learned of the birth of Marbell’s daughter, he telephoned Marbell in Denmark to offer congratulations — and to suggest that the baby girl be named “Rogina.”
“There is a human behind all of these characters, and the public persona often is a Frankenstein creature that doesn’t exist,” Guldbrandsen said.
Like most documentary subjects, Guldbrandsen said, Stone presented a facade that had to be chipped away. “All observational documentary consists of 80 percent of people performing in front of the camera, not even intentionally, but just because we are aware of its existence,” he said. “So of course, Roger did that, and he is, of course, also a person who wants to control his messaging.”
The filmmakers recorded Stone exchanging routine off-the-record texts and calls with national media reporters, even as in other moments he echoed Trump’s complaints about fake news. (While being filmed on Jan. 6, 2021, Stone called The Post “the single worst newspaper in the country.”)
At times, Stone’s unpredictable behavior and disregard for scheduling left the Danes exasperated.
“We would agree to meet in Washington, D.C., because he was going to give a speech at a demonstration in front of the White House,” Guldbrandsen said. “Frederik and I would leave our families in the middle of the summer vacation and travel to D.C., and he would not turn up, and we would travel back again empty-handed.”
Despite Stone’s reputation as a cutthroat operator, the filmmakers said, they were surprised to learn he shied away from personal confrontation. Their film shows Stone to be a more complicated character than the one he has lodged in the popular imagination, at times revealing vulnerability behind the bravado.
Early in the production process, the filmmakers said, Stone placed himself in a potential bind by talking on camera to them about the charges Mueller had brought against him. The federal judge in that case had barred Stone from discussing it publicly — especially with the media — after a photograph of the judge beside what appeared to be crosshairs was posted to Stone’s Instagram account. “He was accidentally forced to trust us, and then learned that he could trust us,” Guldbrandsen said.
It meant that in the end, Stone’s only surviving demand was that the Danish team not publish anything before the gag order was lifted. “Because if we published, he would likely go to jail,” Guldbrandsen said, adding: “We were happy to accommodate.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Filmmaker Kogonada, pictured promoting “After Yang” at the Cannes Film Festival in July, describes his new sci-fi film as “a different kind of grief story.” (Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images)
The characters in Kogonada’s films spend a lot of time talking about nothing. We all do, don’t we? But by granting the everyday conversations ample screen time, the filmmaker assigns them a certain level of import. He strives to find meaning in the mundane, a storytelling approach gently examining the lives we choose to lead.
Given his taste for simplicity, Kogonada didn’t expect to dive into science fiction, a genre known for its grandiositye proclivities. But he found a way in with “After Yang,” his new adaptation of an Alexander Weinstein short story about a couple, Jake (Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), who purchases a robot child named Yang (Justin H. Min) to act as a live-in babysitter for their daughter, Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). When Yang becomes unresponsive, Jake grapples with the loss by revisiting Yang’s stored memories, as well as his own.
Familial bonds are central to films by Kogonada, who uses a pseudonym nodding to Kogo Nada, a screenwriter known for collaborating with the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and takes inspiration from their minimalist works. Their style influenced Kogonada’s critically acclaimed debut, 2017′s “Columbus,” which follows the estranged son of an architecture scholar who winds up stranded in Columbus, Ind., and bonds with a young library worker over discussions of modernist architecture and strained parental relationships.
As he did with “Columbus,” Kogonada explores a variety of themes in “After Yang,” out Friday in theaters and on Showtime; the robot not only wrestles with being the only nonhuman member of the family, but also wonders what it means for him to “be” Asian (Jake and Kyra intentionally bought an Asian-presenting robot, as they adopted Mika from China but are not Chinese themselves). The quiet turmoil reflects a bit of what plagues Kogonada himself, and what the Korean American artist continued to explore while directing four episodes of the upcoming television adaptation of “Pachinko,” Min Jin Lee’s sweeping, multigenerational story of a Korean family that immigrates to Japan.
The Washington Post recently spoke with Kogonada over a video call about what he set out to explore in “After Yang,” why he was drawn to directing “Pachinko” and how both works have impacted his sense of self.
Q: What was it about the short story “Saying Goodbye to Yang” that spoke to you cinematically?
A: There was a really beautiful everydayness to a father discovering not only the things that were passing him by, but also a connection he had lost. It was a different kind of grief story. If it weren’t sci-fi and I read a story about a son dying, it would have been almost too direct with the things that consume me. There was something about the indirectness of a robot malfunctioning and [Jake] processing loss, or almost catching up to grief, that felt enticing.
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Q: In both of your feature films, you explore humanity through material creation — architecture in “Columbus,” and so-called technosapiens like Yang in this one. Is that an intentional theme?
A: I’m interested in the material world as an expression of meaning, and it’s often overlooked. Architecture is certainly like that because it can become the wallpaper of our lives and we don’t attend to the way someone has thought about forms and what that might offer.
But when we think about sci-fi, that’s already fascinating. We’re ready for something mind-blowing when we think about [artificial intelligence], and I wanted to make our A.I. mundane. Once we are in the future and A.I. becomes something that is a part of everyday life, it will lose some of that element. By the time we’re in our story, Jake doesn’t think Yang is fascinating at all. He really has to come to that knowledge, that he’s like a broken vacuum cleaner. When the first vacuum cleaner was introduced to society, people were fascinated by it.
Q: There’s a scene in the film where Yang asks Jake about why he got into selling tea and, in that conversation, Yang says, “I wish I felt deeper about tea.” The quote gets at how much meaning there is to the rituals we perform. A character like Yang can’t grasp Jake’s emotional connection to tea, and he’s aware that he can’t. It’s such a tricky thing.
A: Yeah, that’s right. They have that initial conversation about the search for tea, and there’s the possibility that the tea was offering some sort of context to life and connection to nature. Yang, with his eyes being on the outside, all of that feels so promising to him. Yang is really longing for a sense of place.
People who are minorities and are part of the diaspora, they’re no longer connected to the nations that have their histories. I think we all struggle with feeling adrift and feeling like we have to prove that we’re authentic enough. There was a sense in which Yang, being a construct of Asianness — he wasn’t Asian, and he knew that. It was manufactured. Him asking that deeper question of, “What does that even mean? I’m here to present Asianness, what does that even mean?” In a way, I can deeply relate to that.
Q: Going back to the point about how sci-fi can help us process difficult concepts by approaching them indirectly, what do you believe this film reflects about how cultural identity functions in society, and on an individual level? It’s what Yang is grappling with when he questions what it means that he was made to appear Asian.
A: That’s such a great question and I don’t have a real answer because my sense of cultural identity is elusive. If we talk to a number of Asian Americans about what it means to be Asian and what it means to embrace that cultural identity, I think we would find we’re all struggling. I don’t think in that excavation, you find it and say, “Aha! This is it.” Maybe that is the explanation itself, that we never fully find it but that some of us suddenly becoming activated into realizing this is an important part of who we are.
But once you’re outside of its history and geography, it gets very tricky. We also have to contend with the constructs that are coming from outside of us, what people see as Asian. They have their own perceived idea of what it means to be who we are. We’re constantly having to negotiate that.
Q: You could make an entire movie about Yang questioning what it means for him to present as Asian, but that’s just one part of the personal journey explored here. As a writer, how did you approach balancing all the themes uncovered as Jake explores Yang’s memories?
A: I don’t think art or films are interesting if you have some thesis and you’re just trying to prove it. I can’t even write that way, it doesn’t generate really great material … I just write as my struggling self trying to explore things that feel meaningful to me. But even in the writing of it, I like to keep those answers at a distance. I don’t think even, to this day, I understand Yang. I work to keep him a mystery because it’s what makes it interesting to me.
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Q: Has living with this project for so long affected how you access your own memories?
A: Maybe now, I’ve grown into intuitively knowing that … the truth isn’t up on a mountain with a guru, but all around me. One day I’ll realize that the accumulation of these everyday moments with my children or even the sun and the trees, all of those are the really meaningful things in life. To live that, to be present in that — the film is a constant reminder to engage.
We all have these cameras, this sort of Yang, in our pockets. But the real set pieces of this sci-fi are not fights but, like, conversations about tea and butterflies. Those conversations are human memories, [which] work so differently because they’re never the same and there’s no certainty. We’re almost auditioning, changing it based on our mood. I have really learned to love that. When they’re recalling these conversations, they’re also sweetening it in their minds. They had dismissed it, or it wasn’t memorable, but suddenly their recollection of Yang, there’s something so intimate and meaningful about it. That’s the beauty of not having something recorded.
There was a moment when I stopped trying to record my children’s every act or performance. That’s all you see, parents holding this thing in front of their [children’s] faces, out of this worry that they would lose that moment. I just thought, “God, if I can just be present and recall it in my mind …” If I forget things, maybe they should be forgotten. Maybe the things I will remember are the things I should remember.
I’ve learned to value memory and all of its imperfection.
Q: Switching gears a bit, I wanted to ask you about the upcoming television adaptation of “Pachinko.” You directed a handful of episodes. What drew you to it?
A: It was a scary project … because it’s so much a part of even my own family history. My father grew up in Japan, and that has always been something that was both [mysterious] and complicated and that affected us in very indirect ways. As kids, you don’t pay attention to your parents, but then you do and you want all their stories. That had become a part of the narrative we were recognizing.
But I think it’s also a story that would be personal to any immigrant family because it’s about a diaspora family trying to make sense of all the things we’ve been talking about … It’s humbling to even be involved in it, and to feel some responsibility for sharing a story that felt significant for not just our community and Korea and the Korean diaspora, but the larger story that will hopefully resonate with a lot of communities.
Q: It can be difficult to navigate something so closely tied to your own family history, especially as you begin to recognize the vastness of what you do and don’t know about it all. What was that aspect of the project like for you?
A: It was really overwhelming and revelatory. My dad grew up very poor in a poor village, and he would tell me about these dirt floors and thatched roofs. It just felt like something so other, and it was hard to even picture for me. I was like, “Is this even true?” Then we went to these villages and re-created elements of it. You’re both like, “Oh my God, this feels like I’m getting closer,” but there’s always a distance because you are a visitor.
Q: It’s sort of what we’ve been talking about, isn’t it? Processing from a distance.
A: It’s funny, I think as immigrant kids, especially the next generation, we’re much more fluid in this society and we can navigate it. Going back to even Yang, that sense of place … I have Chicago, Indiana and Korea. Those places have meaning, but are also why that excavation [of identity] is so complicated. But the process is worthwhile. | null | null | null | null | null |
The all-star musicians are coming to the Kennedy Center on March 7 behind their new recording, “Beethoven for Three.”
From left, Leonida Kavakos, Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma, who will be performing at the Kennedy Center on March 7. (Shane McCauley)
Three years after Tanglewood, they released their first acclaimed recording, “Brahms: The Piano Trios.” Now they’re getting the band back together to tour their most recent release, “Beethoven for Three,” a recording of Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5 arranged for piano trio — the former by Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Reis, the latter by the contemporary English composer Colin Matthews.
When the trio returns to the Kennedy Center — where last they converged in 2018 for a similarly concentrated program of Schubert and Brahms — they’ll offer an all-Beethoven program that promises to be full of grand gestures and small revelations. The three will take on a trio arrangement (by pianist Shai Wosner) of the “Pastorale” symphony (No. 6), as well as a pair of beloved trios — the “Gassenhauer” (Piano Trio No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 11) and the “Ghost” (Piano Trio No. 5 in D, Op. 70, No. 1).
Ax: … because [during the pandemic] there were no orchestra concerts going on. Everything had just simply stopped. And Yo-Yo said, “This is our chance to play things like the Beethoven symphonies for a small group.” And of course that was always part of the way these pieces got introduced. The Second Symphony is actually in the complete Beethoven works. It’s a version done by Ferdinand Reis, which [Beethoven] supervised and made changes, too. So that’s actually a very legitimate version of that particular piece.
Ma: I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s a really great person, a great violinist, but also a really fantastic conductor. So, as you know, conductors usually tell us what to do. So Manny usually tells me what to do. And I like being told what to do because I’m the second child — so it’s easy for me to just kind of follow other people. So this trio is an ideal way for us to make music together.
Ax: I think he might want to hear more about the pieces. It is a time-honored way to introduce music in different arrangements because, for example, in Beethoven’s time, the public was not able to hear these symphonies as written for an orchestra because orchestras were very few and far between. Unless you were in a capital city and you happened to be there just that one time in the two or three years when they were doing that piece of Beethoven, you might not have had a chance to hear it at all.
Ax: For me, personally, what’s wonderful about it is I get to learn these pieces better than simply from hearing them on a recording. And the music is so amazing, it’s always different textures. And while I know how the tune [of the Fifth] goes — bum ba ba baaa — I don’t know it back and forth. I certainly don’t know how it works. But I think I know that a little better now.
Beethoven, on the other hand, he will say, “I can take you there. If I’m your guide, I’m going to take you to the mountaintop. You will see the vista from the mountaintop; you don’t have to look at it from the valley.” And more often than not, he will get you to that place. That’s my arrogant, ignorant stereotype. Manny, now correct me. Because this is the moment when he says, “No … ” | null | null | null | null | null |
Companies have long brandished socially responsible images while busting unions
Workers at REI and Starbucks are voting to unionize. The companies’ commitment to progressive branding is under scrutiny.
By Mattie Webb
Mattie Webb is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where her research examines labor and social movements in the United States and South Africa.
Starbucks employees and supporters celebrate as votes are read during a viewing of their union election on Dec. 9 in Buffalo. (Joshua Bessex/AP)
Workers at an REI store in New York City voted to unionize on Wednesday. And in recent months, a unionization drive at Starbucks stores has resulted in three stores voting to unionize. In fact, workers around the country are expressing pro-union conviction amid a significant spike in worker protests and strikes. In response, corporations have sought to shut down and stymie such efforts.
But some companies have unleashed union-busting tactics while still affirming corporate cultures that claim to champion social justice. For example, REI, which is a co-op serving a left-leaning consumer base, launched a podcast to argue against unionization efforts that included an acknowledgment of Indigenous land and inclusive use of personal pronouns. Similarly, Starbucks has fired several employees involved in the unionization effort while brandishing its own pro-worker image.
Such contradictions are nothing new. Companies have long deployed socially responsible rhetoric to fight impending unionization. At their core, companies, regardless of their brand identities, remain profit-seeking, anti-worker organizations. But as the history of South Africa shows us, when contradictions surface between internal polices and external appeals to consumers, possibilities emerge for workers to advocate for power against the wishes of management.
In late 1970s South Africa, the draconian apartheid regime firmly repressed the movement, livelihood and citizenship of the majority Black population. Under the 1956 Industrial Conciliation Act, the South African government allowed companies to legally reserve jobs for the White minority. Some companies even refused to classify Black workers as employees, thereby excluding them from the negotiation process.
As the apartheid regime drew increased global scrutiny and outrage after images of the violent police response to the 1976 Soweto uprising reached an international audience, U.S. companies operating in South Africa found themselves in a quagmire. After the legislative dismantling of Jim Crow in the United States, investors became increasingly concerned with the ethics of U.S. subsidiaries in South Africa maintaining firmly segregated working policies, including separate work facilities across racial lines and the near-exclusion of Black workers from management positions. These investors began applying increasing pressure on the companies to shift away from such policies.
In 1977, a number of major U.S. corporations, including Ford, IBM, General Motors and Colgate-Palmolive, which operated in South Africa, signed on to the Sullivan Principles corporate code of social responsibility. This voluntary code of conduct called on U.S. subsidiaries in South Africa to make substantial progress toward desegregating their workplaces while training and advancing Black workers into supervisory positions. Concerned with their image but also weary of the growing anti-apartheid movement’s calls for disinvestment, signatory companies hoped signing and abiding by the code would lessen grass-roots and shareholder pressure.
In 1978, Colgate-Palmolive released a press statement, justifying its continued presence in South Africa by declaring a “sincere and ongoing commitment to the elimination of racial discrimination” there. Colgate self-reported progress in desegregating the workplace and noted it had initiated affirmative action hiring programs. Colgate received the highest possible rating from the U.S.-based Arthur D. Little consultancy firm for its efforts to desegregate operations and promote Black workers in its South African plants.
But the company was simultaneously suppressing Black unions.
By 1979, the Sullivan Principles advanced an addendum to encourage companies to recognize and negotiate with Black trade unions. The South African government had finally recognized Black workers as employees that same year and reluctantly agreed to legalize unions representing Black workers.
But Colgate resisted Black workers’ requests for the recognition of their union, the Chemical Workers’ Industrial Union (CWIU). Throughout 1980 and 1981, a tense 16-month saga ensued between the union and Colgate. Refusing to even meet with union representatives, the company engaged in union-busting tactics, citing that their workers were paid well and that they did not need the protection of the union.
The CWIU decided to leverage the Sullivan Principles to increase pressure on Colgate. The union contacted Leon Sullivan, the African American preacher and architect of the Sullivan Principles, hoping that Sullivan would pressure management into recognizing the union. It cited persistent worker discord and discriminatory practices at Colgate, despite corporate claims that its policies and attitudes were in total compliance with the Sullivan Principles.
Rebutting the union’s grievances, Colgate claimed that it paid its workers the highest possible wages in the industry, citing a minimum of 480 rand a month for the lowest tier worker, well above the minimum household subsistence level. Colgate further claimed that they were “enlightened employers” and that they did more for its workers than any trade union could.
But workers continued to challenge management, noting that segregation persisted on the shop floor. Union shop stewards organized meetings in the nearby townships and union offices and spearheaded meetings with a representative of the U.S. congressional subcommittee on Southern Africa. At the plant, workers risked their jobs by interfering with equipment and initiating shutdowns of various production departments, receiving condemnation from Colgate management.
In April 1981 the CWIU protested that Colgate was deploying a variety of anti-union tactics, from worker intimidation to enticement of workers away from the union by offering benefits as a form of bribery. By late May 1981, the CWIU called for a nationwide South African boycott of all Colgate products, including soaps, detergents and toothpastes, in support of the union’s goals. Colgate workers distributed over 15,000 posters and stickers to urge workers and the surrounding community to boycott Colgate until the company granted full union recognition and the right to negotiate wages and working conditions. In turn, Colgate distributed pamphlets, delivered free product samples to the Black townships and suggested that the boycott was the work of outsiders with no connection to the union.
With the boycott in place and after the union voted in favor of a strike by a two-thirds majority, management conceded. At last Colgate and the CWIU signed a formal recognition agreement that August, signaling a major victory for the union.
The saga at Colgate was one of the earliest examples of South African workers’ struggles drawing in the larger community of Black workers outside the factory.
On their own, the Sullivan Principles offered little help for Black workers. After all, Colgate could obstinately refuse Black workers’ demands while still enjoying high ratings as one of the most successful and socially responsive multinational firms operating in South Africa. But workers ultimately leveraged the Sullivan Principles to challenge management while rallying workers and the surrounding community to support a boycott of Colgate products.
They were able to expose the hypocrisy of corporations marrying a socially responsible image with a staunch anti-worker stance. This is the formula we are witnessing today with new corporate efforts to quash worker organization. But history shows that those efforts are unlikely to work so long as workers and consumers work together to condemn and reject empty promises and instead insist on prioritizing workers’ rights. | null | null | null | null | null |
Like the 19th-century U.S., Putin seized separatist claims to expand his empire
From Polk to Putin.
By Elliott Young
Elliott Young is professor of history at Lewis & Clark College and the author of "Forever Prisoners: How the United States Made the World’s Largest Immigrant Detention System."
A person walking on the street is pictured through a hole in the wall of a residential building, which locals said was damaged by recent shelling, in the separatist-controlled town of Horlivka (Gorlovka) in the Donetsk region, Ukraine. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
Fighting rages as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. Just days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin justified his aggression by claiming he was recognizing the independence of two separatist regions, the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics. It was clear from the beginning, however, that the separatist regions were merely a convenient excuse to justify a full-scale invasion of the country and expand “Greater Russia.”
The role played by these separatist regions in the war brings to mind the history of the Republic of Texas’s breakaway from Mexico on March 2, 1836, which set in motion the events that led to the U.S. invasion of Mexico and a massive land grab. Much like how Russia first recognized the independence of the two breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine before launching its wider invasion, the United States recognized Texas and soon thereafter invaded Mexico. By the end of the U.S.-Mexico War, Mexico would cede to the United States around half of its territory, including parts of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada and Utah.
While historical analogies are inexact and the context of the world has certainly changed over the past two centuries, this story also reminds us that calling Putin’s move “unprecedented,” as many pundits and politicians in the United States and Europe have, fails to understand the long continuum of imperial expansions by powerful countries.
In the 1830s a group of mostly Anglo-American recent settlers in Texas sparked a rebellion against Mexico’s central government and declared independence. Echoing the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the Texas rebels began their manifesto with the words, “when a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people.” Instead of “happiness,” the Texans inserted “property,” which, in their case, referred to 5,000 enslaved people imported from the U.S. South. Although Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, the colonists in Texas had been granted exemptions. Yet fearing the rollback of these exemptions, enslavers in Texas jumped on the independence bandwagon to protect the institution of slavery.
It was not just English-speaking White settlers who joined this effort. Tejanos, or Texas Mexicans, also had long-standing grievances with Mexican President Santa Anna’s authoritarianism and pushed for more regional autonomy under the banner of federalism. But some Tejanos ultimately supported the establishment of an independent republic, which happened in March 1836 — although Mexico declined to recognize its independence.
Some Republic of Texas leaders wanted the United States to annex the republic. Many had recently come from the U.S. South, and Texas was embroiled in conflicts with Mexico and Indigenous nations. Initially the United States did not incorporate the new republic into the union, mostly because the issue of adding new states where slavery was legal remained contentious.
But the United States ultimately annexed Texas in 1845, seeing its own territorial expansion as a path to economic prosperity. It also allowed slavery to persist in the newly created state. After annexation, the newspaper columnist John O’Sullivan famously declared that it was “America’s Manifest Destiny” to spread its power across the continent. “It was an independence, not only in fact, but of right,” which meant that divine providence was at work. O’Sullivan predicted that California would be next. As he put it, “the Anglo Saxon foot is already on its borders.”
Texas claimed its southern border was the Rio Grande river, but Mexico never ratified the Velasco treaties signed by Santa Anna that marked the boundary there. Mexico instead insisted that the border of Texas ended at the Nueces river, 100 miles to the north. War with Mexico began when U.S. President James K. Polk sent troops into the Trans Nueces strip — beyond that boundary. This provocation led to shooting between Mexican and U.S. troops that helped justify the formal waging of war against Mexico.
On May 11, 1846, Polk went to Congress to gain approval for a war on Mexico that had started a few weeks earlier. “After a long-continued series of menaces, [Mexicans] have at last invaded our territory and shed the blood of our fellow citizens on our own soil,” he said. Although Mexico had never agreed to the boundaries claimed by the Texas Republic, Polk claimed that it was the aggressor.
In reality, it was Anglo Texans who had flouted Mexican laws, broken away from Mexico by force and it was U.S. Gen. Zachary Taylor who marched thousands of soldiers into Mexican territory.
But the United States was not just interested in this thin strip of land in South Texas. As O’Sullivan had indicated, the goal was to spread the “irresistible army of Anglo Saxon emigration” to the west. The boundary dispute served as an excuse to invade Mexico, occupy its capital city and send the U.S. Army all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
In 1848, a prostrate Mexico was forced to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding to the United States more than half a million square miles, about half of Mexico’s territory. By the end of the war, 13,000 U.S. soldiers and more than 25,000 Mexicans had died.
Much like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. invasion of Mexico in the 19th century began because of the actions of a separatist region. Texas separatists hoped that the help of a major foreign power — in that case, the United States — would serve their interests. U.S. leaders interested in expanding the territory of the United States seized the chance to claim not only Texas, but to invade Mexico.
These events helped set into motion another century of expansion. By the early 20th century, the United States not only extended to the Pacific Ocean but possessed territories including the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, not to mention landing its Marines in scores of countries in Latin America. By the beginning of the 21st century, the United States used its military might to expand its tentacles across much of the globe.
Today, the actions of two separatist regions in Ukraine may have set into motion a larger imperial grab by Russia. The Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in the eastern part of the country declared independence in April 2014. Russian-backed rebels seized government buildings and later held a makeshift and questionable referendum in which 90 percent of participants voted in favor of separating from Ukraine.
According to a poll conducted in April 2014, a majority of the population in Donbas favored some form of greater autonomy in relation to the central government, but they did not necessarily want independence or to become part of Russia. Regardless of the popularity of autonomy in these regions, what came next went far beyond local concerns or desires.
Russia didn’t immediately annex Luhansk and Donetsk, even though some separatists there wanted to become part of Russia. For the past seven years, these breakaway republics existed in a nebulous state — not internationally recognized as independent, but also not under the control of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian military forces provided support to the separatists.
That changed when Putin ordered troops into the separatist territories before expanding his invasion to cities in central Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv. Whatever Putin’s claims to Russia’s historical connection to Ukraine might be, none of that justified a baldfaced imperial land grab and a brutal attack on a sovereign country.
But Putin’s actions are not without precedent. In fact, invasions of sovereign nations with weaker militaries have been the international norm for imperial powers for centuries — and the United States has been at the forefront of that legacy.
Today, we can draw important parallels between Putin’s declaration of war speech and Polk’s 1846 speech to Congress. Putin claimed that he had to invade Ukraine to stop “the genocide against the millions of people living there” and declared that an independent Ukraine was a threat to the “very existence of our state, its sovereignty.” Like Polk, Putin is seizing the opportunity created by the claim of independence to annex more land — and, he hopes, expand Russian power in the region.
In 2022, few Americans think of Texas and most of the U.S. West as the product of one of the biggest land heists of the modern era. Whatever success Putin has in redrawing the map in Eastern Europe, history reminds us that borders are the result of the past and continuing violence of empire. | null | null | null | null | null |
TPS for Ukrainians is good. But our selective approach to refugees excludes many.
Granting just temporary protected status to Ukrainians risks repeating a mistake from the 1930s
By S. Deborah Kang
S. Deborah Kang is an associate professor of history and member of the Democracy Initiative at the University of Virginia.
Demonstrators in Chicago protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 27. (Jamie Kelter Davis/Bloomberg News)
Heeding calls by advocates, former immigration officials and U.S. lawmakers, President Biden will grant temporary protected status (TPS) to Ukrainians, an immigration status that could help about 30,000 Ukrainians residing in the United States by suspending deportations to their war-torn homeland.
As policymakers debate the fate of Ukrainians in the United States and abroad, a largely forgotten law from 1934 offers important lessons on how the nation ought to respond to this new refugee challenge. That law allowed approximately 2,000 undocumented Russians in the United States to adjust their immigration status and become legal immigrants between 1934 and 1935. The narrow scope of the law made it politically viable at a time of extreme xenophobia. But it also established an unfortunate precedent whereby the exclusionary logic underlying the nation’s immigration restriction laws came to shape the development of immigration relief.
With the collapse of the Russian Empire, the rise of Soviet Russia after the 1917 revolution and the ensuing civil war, hundreds of thousands of opponents of the new regime fled political persecution and crossed multiple national borders in search of safety, shelter and sustenance. Many were so-called White Russians, specifically members of the anti-Bolshevik White Army and their civilian supporters. By 1921, the League of Nations implemented measures that afforded the exiles some degree of protection and mobility and, by 1933, designated them as refugees under international law.
Although their refugee status enabled them to resettle in countries throughout the world, many believed that a better life was to be found in the United States. Here, they hoped to escape the discrimination they encountered in their European countries of first flight. Such discrimination prevented them from finding jobs and attaining citizenship, as Michael Honig (formerly Mendel Honigman) observed. “It was very difficult to become a citizen [of Romania] and being a refugee it was hard … so I decided to come to the United States.”
Yet the United States had in 1921 and 1924 erected significant barriers to their admission. Reflecting American prejudices against southern and eastern Europeans, the quota system created in the 1920s decreased the number of immigrants allowed from these nations while increasing the quotas for arrivals from northern and western Europe.
In Harbin, China — where Russian refugees thirsted for news about Russian immigrant life and any loosening of American immigration laws — one Russian journalist wrote in a Russian-language newspaper: “[Russians, Poles, and Italians] are the nationalities which assimilate poorly and who give few or poor ‘Americans’. For British, Germans, and Scandinavians, who easily come under the influence of Americanism the respective quotas have been lowered but slightly. America does not fear these.” As a result of these restrictions, by 1926, a Russian refugee seeking a quota visa would need to wait 10 to 15 years for 18,000 other applicants to receive their visas first.
Instead of waiting, most Russians sought alternative modes of entry. According to one 1934 estimate, half of the Russian refugees then in the United States managed to gain admission as visitors, entertainers and students on temporary visas. The other half made the conscious choice to enter in violation of the immigration laws as deserting seamen or through a surreptitious border crossing from Canada or Mexico. Many of the former, however, eventually became unauthorized immigrants by failing to renew their temporary visas. In short, as they would openly admit to immigration inspectors during their legalization proceedings, they were undocumented immigrants in America.
While most lived untroubled by the immigration authorities, the onset of official diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1933 raised the possibility that these once stateless people could be deported to the U.S.S.R. where they would face persecution and even death. Considering the widespread antisemitism that was blocking efforts to admit European Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, the Russians’ advocates, lawmakers who had long opposed the discrimination against southern and eastern Europeans perpetuated by the quota laws, decided against lobbying for refugee legislation to protect them. They reasoned that doing so might be perceived as opening the gates to unwanted immigrants.
Instead, these lawmakers chose to downplay their refugee identity and highlight their status as undocumented immigrants who deserved legalization and U.S. citizenship after living in the United States for nearly a decade.
An immigration liberal, Sen. Royal Copeland (D-N.Y.), introduced a bill of limited scope to accomplish this. As one congressman explained on the floor of the House, “this bill does not do anything except to enable a number of Russian refugees who are in this country, to adjust their status under our immigration laws.”
The legalization measure passed with strong support from both pro- and anti-immigration forces. Indeed, legislators such as Rep. Thomas L. Blanton (D-Tex.), who staunchly defended the national origins quota system of 1924 and the application of severe civil and criminal penalties to undocumented Mexican immigrants, changed their tune when it came to unauthorized Russians.
While Blanton characterized Mexicans as invaders and accused them of “taking away jobs from American citizens,” he justified the Russian legalization. “It is a bill for Americanism and against Bolshevism. It is a bill for lovers of constitutional government instead of Russian Bolsheviks, and this is why I am for it.” For immigration restrictionists like Blanton, the Russians’ anti-communist ideology erased their anxieties about their putative racial inferiority and illegality.
While the law was originally intended to assist a small group of Russians, its beneficiaries ultimately included members of those ethnic groups, including Ukrainians, Jews, Germans, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians and Armenians, who had been absorbed into the former Russian Empire during centuries of war and conquest.
The June 8, 1934, law was a harbinger of things to come. Until the end of the Cold War, U.S. refugee policy served the nation’s geopolitical interests by privileging the admission of people from communist and incipient-communist states. Also like the Act of June 8, 1934, this highly selective approach to refugee admissions excluded many from access to asylum and reinforced the anti-Latino and anti-Black racism that long informed the nation’s refugee and asylum policies.
Today, the Biden administration faces a challenge like that faced by advocates of the Russian refugees during the Great Depression. Then and now, lawmakers are asking the question of how they might provide Ukrainians in the United States with meaningful forms of relief in a moment of widespread xenophobia. In the 1930s, Congress capitulated to the forces of nativism when it opted to spare thousands of undocumented Russians from an uncertain fate in the Soviet Union while disregarding the humanitarian needs of European Jews and Mexican nationals. Whether the Biden administration can overcome the legacies of the past by providing robust forms of immigration relief to White and non-White asylum seekers remains to be seen. In the meantime, Ukrainians, Afghans, Haitians, Mexicans and Central and South Americans, among many others, wait — often in dangerous conditions — to be deemed worthy of protection and relief. | null | null | null | null | null |
After Guinea-Bissau’s failed coup attempt, expect the government to reshuffle political elites
It’s not a purge — the likely goal is to dilute the possibility of internal threats
By Josef Woldense
Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embaló arrives for an E.U.-Africa summit at the European Council in Brussels on Feb. 17. (John Thys/Pool/AP)
Armed assailants attempted to launch a coup against the Guinea-Bissau government last month. Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embaló quickly reported that the plot was foiled, and he linked the perpetrators to the illicit drug trade.
My research suggests Embaló’s actions in the coming months — especially decisions about the appointments and shuffling of political elites — will yield important clues about whom the president sees as threatening to his rule.
A coup isn’t over, even if conspirators fail
Once launched, a coup attempt ushers in a crisis rulers cannot afford to ignore. Embaló’s predicament is reminiscent of Yahya Jammeh, the former ruler of neighboring Gambia. After surviving a 2014 coup attempt, Jammeh proclaimed, “We will get to the bottom of this and we will not spare anybody. … They [the conspirators] want to destroy our country. We will destroy them.”
Africa has had eight coup attempts in recent months. What’s behind the ‘coup epidemic’?
It might seem logical, as Jammeh points out, for rulers to root out the remaining opposition lest they fall victim to more conspiracies. But while rulers know who launched the now-defunct coup, it’s a greater challenge to figure out the identity of people who did not actively participate in the attempt — and yet oppose the ruler. These plotters and sympathizers constitute what I call the “invisible enemy,” who can quietly retreat and melt into the sea of government officials.
How rulers weaken the ‘invisible enemy’
To understand how rulers deal with this challenge, my research focused on the reign of Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s last emperor, who ruled from 1930 to 1935 and from 1940 to 1974. In 1960, a clandestine group of regime insiders launched a coup led in part by Mengistu Neway, commander of the Imperial Guards.
Although the attempt ultimately failed, Haile Selassie learned that the core conspirators were the very officials whom he had fostered as the vanguard for modernizing Ethiopia’s government. These were his protegees. If they could betray him, who else could?
I collected the career trajectories of mid- and high-level officials over 34 years in Ethiopia and examined at the granular level how Haile Selassie responded to the failed 1960 coup. With this data, I could follow whom he appointed and when, as well as where these officials came from within the government apparatus.
Conventional wisdom might have predicted rulers purging widely after a coup attempt to get rid of all the potatoes in the sack, rotten or not. But purging is a risky strategy because it cripples the government, invites reprisals from elites and is likely to upend the ruler’s support base, which they have worked diligently to build.
How this wave of African coups differs from previous ones
Mass purges may be the exception rather than the rule in dealing with failed coups. I found no evidence for mass purges in Ethiopia. To be sure, purges happen — as in Turkey in 2016, but rarely are mass purges mentioned in connection with failed coups, even though such purges become public spectacles that are easily observed and recorded.
My research instead points to leaders strategizing to dilute the power of anyone who might later challenge their rule. With their power over appointments, rulers infuse the center of the regime with officials from the periphery, for instance. Why? The goal here is to avoid officials becoming too embedded in the social networks of the people living or working in the location where they have been appointed to. Over time, this theory suggests, officials might adopt the outlook and goals of people who stand in opposition to the ruler.
Officials close to the center could be at risk
The role of embeddedness becomes magnified in the wake of failed coups. The most powerful branches of government — the defense and finance ministries, for instance — typically are based in a country’s capital. Proximity facilitates the spreading of conspiracies, which travel along the social networks that government officials form over time.
Officials stationed in far-off provinces or in embassies abroad, however, are not embedded in the existing cliques at the center. These outsiders are unlikely to have links to the conspirators. This quality makes them a valuable asset during the uncertain period following a coup attempt.
Rulers can infuse outsiders into the center where the invisible enemy is poised to do the greatest harm. Once there, outsiders can act as agents of the ruler, spying on and disrupting the activities of the invisible enemy. In so doing, the enemy may remain invisible, but they are no longer invincible.
Comparing Haile Selassie’s appointments in the wake of the 1960 failed coup to the other 33 years of his reign, I found he relied on outsiders in a way he never had done before, and never would again. There was a sudden influx of outside officials to the center of the regime. For example, before the coup, Belette Gebre-Tsadik served as governor in the northern and southern provinces of the empire, and afterward, became vice minister in the Ministry of Information. Likewise, Hagos Tewelde-Medhin, a relatively obscure official working in Ethiopian embassies abroad, was brought to the center after the coup to serve as commissioner in the Ministry of Pension and Supplies — and ended up a close adviser to Haile Selassie. Officials like these were deliberately placed throughout the ministries, nestled within the ranks of any potential critics.
What to watch for in Guinea-Bissau
My research offers a guide on how to interpret the weeks and months ahead in Guinea-Bissau. First off, it’s important to consider the motives behind Embaló’s diagnosis of the coup attempt. The target audience for what he says isn’t just the public, but fellow regime insiders as he tries to manage the crisis at hand.
Second, although he served as prime minister before, Embaló’s election as president was contested, and he is relatively new to his position. It remains unclear how much institutional power and political capital Embaló has to reshape the composition of his regime. This makes his appointments a particularly important means of addressing the internal threats he is facing. And that puts a spotlight on the movement of ministers, but also on the lower-level bureaucrats who make up the government apparatus.
Professors: Check out TMC’s ever-expanding list of classroom topic guides.
Josef Woldense (@JWoldense) is an assistant professor in African American and African studies and affiliated faculty in political science at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. | null | null | null | null | null |
An explosion and fire at the Friendly Garden Apartments in Silver Spring on March 3, 2022 sent debris flying into trees, bushes and walkways. (Dan Morse/The Post) (TWP)
Public safety officials on Friday returned to the scene to continue to investigate what caused a massive explosion and fire that leveled a Silver Spring-area apartment building and left 10 people injured.
The incident at the complex unfolded around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Residents reported hearing a loud boom and felt an explosion before smoke and debris spread. A video captured the explosion and people could be heard screaming. Firefighters and bystanders rushed to help rescue people.
Three people were taken to the hospital in critical condition and seven others suffered less serious injuries, officials said.
The cause of the blast is still under investigation. Montgomery County Fire Chief Scott Goldstein said there had been no reports of gas leaks at the complex since Jan. 1. Some residents said they smelled gas before the Thursday blast. | null | null | null | null | null |
Son held in killing of George Mason University professor
The accomplished chair of a George Mason University program was stabbed to death, allegedly by his son, in their Vienna home Wednesday night, authorities said Thursday.
Police have obtained second-degree murder warrants for Axel Buschmann, 26, in connection with the slaying of Michael Buschmann, who headed the Department of Bioengineering at the Northern Virginia university. The father was recently working on technology that would make mRNA vaccines, such as the ones for the coronavirus, cheaper and more widely available.
“We did lose a great mind,” said Paul Allvin, a vice president at George Mason.
At about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, police received calls from multiple people reporting a person covered in blood walking down the road in the Vienna area, police said. Officers responded to the scene and began a conversation with Axel Buschmann, who then discarded a knife, police said.
Buschmann had multiple cuts to his neck and was taken to the hospital, police said. He is still being treated at the hospital and will be served with the murder warrants when he is released, police said.
Police went to the home Buschmann shared with his parents in the 9800 block of Palace Green Way on Wednesday night for a welfare check based on statements he had made.
Officers found Michael Buschmann inside and he was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. He had suffered multiple stab wounds to the upper body. Axel Buschmann’s mother was not home at the time of the slaying.
Body discovered buried in shallow grave behind Falls Church home
Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said at a news conference that investigators had yet to determine a motive in the case. Davis said he worries the pandemic has placed strains on many families, leading to the spike in domestic-related homicides in the county.
He said officials needed to look at getting help to troubled individuals earlier, noting “the despair and the isolation and family dynamics surrounding covid” and “the way we have been living as a society.” Davis could not say to what degree that played a role in this incident.
Michael Buschmann had been a professor at George Mason since 2017. He had previously worked at a university in Montreal and received a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He had won numerous awards in his field and been recruited to George Mason.
“We are crushed and anguished by this shocking news,” Allvin said. It was unclear whether Axel Buschmann had retained an attorney. | null | null | null | null | null |
Collin Gillespie's Villanova squad is headed toward a high seed in the NCAA tournament. But first, the Wildcats have to take care of business at Madison Square Garden. (Laurence Kesterson/AP)
The Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden in New York has been a staple of March Madness for nearly four decades, and this year’s tournament is set to begin next week. Here’s where things stand entering the final weekend of the regular season.
What is the bracket setup for the Big East tournament?
What happened at the last Big East tournament? | null | null | null | null | null |
Like the Epstein case, Kizer’s circumstances have brought international attention to the realities of sex trafficking, highlighting the way that vulnerable people can be groomed into abusive relationships. After being championed by celebrities and the organizers of the #MeToo movement, Kizer’s case received renewed attention during the uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
But even as she has become a symbol to many, Kizer’s potential fate has remained the same. She could still spend the rest of her life in prison for the night in 2018 when she admitted to shooting Randall P. Volar twice in the head, lighting his house on fire and fleeing in his car. She is still living with the traumatic effects of the exploitation she experienced.
A 2019 Washington Post investigation showed that the Kenosha Police Department knew Volar was abusing underage Black girls for nearly three months before his death. After another Black girl fled from his home, a raid turned up hundreds of videos of child sexual abuse in his possession, including videos he’d made of Kizer and girls who appeared to be as young as 12. But while the investigation continued, police and prosecutors allowed Volar to remain free.
Even if Barber loses on that front, he could win on another: Instead of being acquitted of first-degree homicide, he argued, Kizer’s charge should be only mitigated, meaning reduced from first-degree to second-degree. If his argument is successful, Kizer could no longer receive a life sentence, but she could still face up to 60 years in prison if convicted. Some justices seemed open to that argument.
If Kizer’s public defenders believe her circumstances meet that definition, they will present their case to a circuit court judge. If the judge agrees that there is “some evidence” her crimes fit, then the case could go before a jury. Kizer’s team could present evidence of what she endured, expert testimony on how trauma affects the brains of children and explanations for each act she committed.
That opportunity would be a significant shift from previous cases in which child sex-trafficking victims were charged in the deaths of their abusers. In most, evidence about the trafficking they experienced was ruled inadmissible, or objected to as defaming the deceased. As a result, most victims with stories similar to Kizer’s have been painted as “child prostitutes” or juvenile delinquents making up stories to cover their tracks. Most have been convicted or taken plea deals for lengthy sentences.
If Kizer does go to trial, the attorneys will be choosing jurors from the same community where the Rittenhouse case unfolded. And though their legal defenses will be different, advocates say the national attention on the case and the potential for further unrest could add pressure on the state to offer Kizer a plea deal instead of going to trial. | null | null | null | null | null |
What to watch with your kids: ‘The Batman,’ ‘The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder’ and more
Zoë Kravitz, left, and Robert Pattinson in “The Batman.” (Jonathan Olley/DC Comics/Warner Bros. Pictures)
Confident and mature yet dark, violent Batman reboot.
“The Batman” is a rebooted take on the iconic superhero. This Batman (Robert Pattinson) is conflicted and violent but also uses his head and learns as he goes along. The movie’s action violence is intense, with killings/dead bodies, guns and shooting, explosions/crashes, lots of fighting (punching, kicking, hitting with objects, choking, etc.), a severed thumb, violence against women, descriptions of upsetting events and more. Language isn’t constant but includes several uses of “s---,” “son of a b----,” “goddamn” and more. Characters kiss, there’s sex-related dialogue, and a woman is seen in her underwear as she dresses. Part of the plot revolves around a fictitious drug business; the drug consists of drops placed in the eyes (addicts are called “dropheads”). The movie is more diverse than previous takes on the Dark Knight, deals thoughtfully with the nature/cost of vengeance, touches on how social media can spread misinformation and, even with a nearly three-hour runtime, is one of the best Batman movies to date. (176 minutes)
In theaters.
Cartoon violence in movie based on popular franchise.
“Rabbids Invasion: Mission to Mars” is an animated movie based on the popular game/TV franchise. It centers on a uniquely intelligent Rabbid (a wild, rabbitlike creature) named Scribbles, who must find a way to stop an evil tech giant from blowing up Mars. It’s a silly movie with cartoon peril and violence throughout, such as a Rabbid flying around with a firework in its mouth or Rabbids running from aliens or stopping a nuclear bomb from going off. Robots also shoot lasers at Rabbids. Expect bathroom humor throughout, including fart jokes and Rabbids pulling pranks, like playing tic-tac-toe on the rear ends of other Rabbids. Adult human characters make two references to drinking. (70 minutes)
Life lessons and lots of laughs in star-studded reboot.
“The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder” is the star-studded follow-up to the classic Disney Channel series “The Proud Family.” With most of the original cast returning — including Kyla Pratt as Penny Proud, Tommy Davidson as Oscar Proud and Paula Jai Parker as Trudy Proud — viewers can expect the same laugh-out-loud comedy, relatable stories and positive messages. This time around, however, the characters are dealing with issues more suited to tween and teen viewers, like puberty, dating, activism and expanded representation in gender identity and family makeup. Creators have taken care to give things a modern update that reflects the world in 2022 while maintaining the heart of the show that people loved years ago. Viewers can look forward to a very long list of celebrity guest stars, including Disney favorite Keke Palmer, singer Lizzo, actor Billy Porter and Olympic gymnasts Gabby Douglas and Laurie Hernandez, to name a few. (10 roughly half-hour episodes)
Chaotic, overstuffed mess of a superhero story is violent.
“The Guardians of Justice” is a hybrid live-action/animated series about a group of superheroes led by Knight Hawk (Diamond Dallas Page). Violence is an issue in both formats and is as brutal in the live-action segments as in the animated ones, with combat, guns, bombs, explosions and dead, rotting bodies. A main character appears to die by suicide during a televised broadcast. Language is mature, too, with uses of “f---,” “s---,” “t---ies,” and more; characters also discuss sex and make crude references. A fictional street drug is discussed, and a character smokes a cigar. (7 roughly half-hour episodes) | null | null | null | null | null |
Would other countries also try to claim territory that contains their ethnic kin?
By Paul Hensel
Sara Mitchell
Andrew Owsiak
Krista Wiegand
A service member of pro-Russian troops in a uniform without insignia in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on March 1. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
Russia’s efforts to redraw the map by taking the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 — and recent attempts to possibly seize other territory from Ukraine — are highly unusual. Putin’s claim that he’s protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine to justify capturing neighboring territory is extremely rare to see.
Our research shows that irredentist conflicts — waged with the purported goal of capturing territory to incorporate ethnic kin — are frequently violent. Russia’s recent actions toward Ukraine are similar to the tactics it used in Georgia and Moldova to support separatist claims. But Russia has now escalated its tactics in Ukraine by also threatening land grabs. These moves also threaten the territorial integrity norm and could embolden other countries to take back territory that contains their ethnic kin too.
Russian journalists report the facts about Ukraine. Why do Russians ignore them?
We analyzed over 950 territorial and ethnic conflicts
Our Issue Correlates of War research project collects data on diplomatic conflicts between two or more countries over the past two centuries, specifically looking at conflicts that involve land and/or concerns over the treatment of ethnic kin living abroad. One-third of the 843 territorial disputes since 1816 that we’ve coded feature ethnic kin living in contested land areas. We find that war is much more likely to occur when territorial and ethnic issues are connected. In contrast, the settlement of border issues creates opportunities for democratization and peace.
What causes these disputes? In some cases, territorial conflict stems from claims about poor treatment of minorities. It’s also possible for ethnic conflicts to arise independently from border disputes. We examine 133 identity conflicts in which one country complains that another country is treating its ethnic kin poorly. These complaints often involve demands for better treatment of the group in domestic politics (53 percent of the 133 cases). An example is Austrian demands beginning in 1955 that Italy improve its treatment of ethnic Germans living in Italy.
Identity conflicts also involve countries supporting ethnic independence movements (15 percent of cases) — like Russia has done in eastern Ukraine. Countries sometimes make irredentist demands to shift territorial boundaries to reincorporate their ethnic kin into the homeland (32 percent of cases), as Somalia sought to do with ethnic Somali-inhabited areas of Ethiopia and Kenya. Our research suggests that conflict escalation is much more likely when these independence or irredentist motives are present.
Russia has a history of making irredentist claims
Russia has a long track record of making ethnic claims to Ukraine’s territory. Russia contested Crimea’s sovereignty in the early 1990s when Ukraine became an independent country — and again in 2014 when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula.
Russia has issued many diplomatic complaints about Ukraine’s treatment of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, including a demand to recognize Russian as an official language. Protests leading up to the 2014 Maidan revolution and Crimean conflict arose in part because then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed a law that made Russian the official language in parts of Ukraine.
Putin increased the scope of Russia’s ethnic claims against Ukraine in recent years, moving from a demand that Ukraine recognize Russians’ language rights to active support of separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk. Last week, Putin rejected Ukraine’s sovereignty and used irredentist language to justify expansion of Russian territory to incorporate other parts of Ukraine beyond Crimea The irredentist nature of recent demands, as well as the ongoing territorial dispute over Crimea, help explain why Putin ordered the invasion.
Strong territorial integrity norms decrease conflict
Major powers promoted a norm of territorial integrity after World War II. This aimed to halt the destructive expansionist foreign policies that contributed to the war’s outbreak. The norm sees territorial conquest as unacceptable — and encourages economic pressure (e.g., Western sanctions against Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine) and military actions (e.g., the global response to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait) to stop territorial incursions.
For the most part, this approach has worked, and the frequency of interstate war declined. Our data show that there are now far fewer territorial disputes. The average country was involved in 2.5 territorial conflicts around World War I but participates in less than 0.5 today — and many conflicts involve small islands rather than large territories. In the same time period, conflict scholars saw reductions in the average number of countries participating in war. The mean number of countries fighting interstate wars declined from five in 1950 to less than 0.5 in 2007.
Will this trend now reverse?
Russia’s potential land grabs in Ukraine, if unchecked by the West, threaten long-established norms against conquest which have been predominant in the international system in the 70 years since World War II.
In recent decades, most countries have been content with taking small pieces of land to avoid escalation to war. For example, China secured a small change in the Line of Actual Control in border clashes with India in 2020, and also pushed past status quo boundaries with Taiwan with repeated incursions into Taiwan’s sea and air spaces.
If Russia faces few real consequences, whether it annexes Ukrainian territory or partitions the country, this sets a dangerous precedent. Would other countries — including China — take similar moves to capture territory with force? However, if the international community is able to impose sufficient economic and military costs on Russia, the clear signals that the global community will not tolerate conquest could reduce the risk that other potential aggressors will be emboldened.
Kenya’s U.N. ambassador, Martin Kimani, argued last week that rejecting irredentism and expansionism is the only path forward for maintaining peace in the international system. Our data support this claim.
Paul Hensel is a professor of political science at the University of North Texas and an expert on territorial disputes, river disputes and international rivalries.
Sara Mitchell is the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa and co-editor of “What Do We Know About War?” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Follow her on Twitter at @sbmitche.
Andrew Owsiak is Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor and professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. He is the co-author of “On Dangerous Ground” (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Krista Wiegand is director of global security at the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy and associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, and author of “Enduring Territorial Disputes” (University of Georgia Press, 2011). Follow her on Twitter at @drkristawiegand. | null | null | null | null | null |
Democracy is under threat. Are billionaires to blame?
By Debra Satz
Debra Satz is the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University.
The richest of the rich — including Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX — have bent economies and rules in their favor, Peter S. Goodman argues, noting that Musk didn’t pay federal income taxes in 2018. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
During the last two years, millions of Americans have seen their livelihoods and lives upended as a global pandemic has decreased life expectancy, shuttered businesses and schools, added to unemployment, and devastated communities. But one group has been doing quite well: billionaires. The world’s 10 richest men doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, according to a report by Oxfam International. Over the same period, more than 160 million people around the world have been pushed into poverty.
It’s hard not to feel moral revulsion when gigantic wealth is displayed as extreme poverty and human suffering afflict the globe. But why exactly does this inequality matter? Why not simply focus on ending poverty and leave the rich to their yachts and spaceships?
In “Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World,” Peter S. Goodman delivers a powerful and resounding answer: Outsize wealth is an outsize threat to democracy. Focusing on a handful of billionaire entrepreneurs — Jeff Bezos, Stephen Schwarzman, Marc Benioff, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink — Goodman, a New York Times economics correspondent, shows how they helped reshape an economy that now works only for the wealthy. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Over the last several decades, the rich have clamped down on wages, unions and taxes, building enormous monopolies with expansive political power. Their fortunes have grown while the majority of the U.S. population has faced stagnation or even a decline in living standards. Public frustration over this state of affairs has turned parts of the public in an anti-democratic and hyper-nationalist direction.
ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative news organization, obtained IRS records showing that Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, paid no federal income taxes in 2018. The very rich often hold their stocks and shares in ways that draw no tax: As Warren Buffett observed, billionaires now pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. And it is not as if they are paying much in corporate taxes, either. By sending profits abroad, companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google have paid little or no U.S. corporate tax. Recently, the leaked Pandora Papers cast further light on the tax havens, shell companies, complex trusts and other tax loopholes used by the super-rich. The wealthy also have an army of professional lobbyists, lawyers and accountants looking for loopholes in the tax code and shaping the rules where they can.
This influence extends beyond the economy: The children of the elite are disproportionately represented at America’s most selective colleges and universities, the top 1 percent have access to teams of expensive lawyers in the face of criminal charges, and they wield outsize influence in elections through political contributions and lobbying. The rules that are meant to restrict the power of money in the markets, the political system, the regulatory system and education can all be gamed by the wealthy.
Certainly, many of these billionaires are innovators: It’s hard not to be impressed by the business genius of a Jeff Bezos or an Elon Musk. But after innovation mints new billionaires, what should happen next? There is substantial agreement among economists and social scientists that massively successful innovators need to be prevented from blocking the next wave of innovation, which often threatens their dominance.
Goodman’s reporting is biting and bitterly funny as he shows just how much the wealthy wish to be admired. His five billionaires are “Davos” men, showing up at the World Economic Forum each year in the Swiss Alps, determined to demonstrate their commitment to the common good. As likely to reference Nelson Mandela as Milton Friedman, and to begin their mornings with meditation sessions, these Davos men tout their giving to charity and their commitments to “stakeholder capitalism.” Unacknowledged, as Goodman wryly notes, are their decades of tax avoidance that weakens state capacity, their roles in the gutting of antitrust laws, their lobbying for tax cuts, their reckless financial gambling with pension funds, their predatory privatization of public services and their opposition to unions.
So, what is to be done? Goodman homes in on one policy solution: taxes, and in particular, a wealth tax. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman estimate that a marginal tax rate of 10 percent for wealth over $1 billion would have raised $250 billion from the 400 richest Americans in 2018. Perhaps as important, it would have deconcentrated wealth. Given the analysis above, a wealth tax is certainly a policy worth considering. So is raising the income tax on high incomes. Even if you don’t like paying taxes, you should want the tax system to be fair. And we should not forget that the unpaid taxes by the super-rich mean more decaying roads, less money for schools and more uncared-for children.
But would it solve all the problems that ail our democracy? Goodman’s analysis would be strengthened by looking at other factors that contribute to the erosion of democracy: the persistence of de facto segregation, unequal opportunity and misinformation. While the billionaires may have had a hand in this, it is not they alone — and tax policy alone will not fix it. We also need to consider policies to raise voter turnout and increase the representation of disadvantaged groups, policies that encourage unions and the use of wage boards to rein in monopsony power, policies to end the restrictive zoning that aims to keep poor people out of wealthier communities. We need to significantly boost investment in pre-K and K-12 education, regulate the Internet, and develop a national jobs policy aimed at reducing unemployment. Goodman keeps his focus on billionaires and says little about alternative explanations for inequality, such as the effects of technology and globalization. Again, Davos Man has certainly had an outsize influence on these factors, but do we know how much inequality would have happened without him?
Balzac reportedly said that behind every great fortune is a great crime. That is, at best, an exaggeration. But “Davos Man” shows us that today’s extreme wealth is inextricably linked to a great crime, perhaps the greatest one of this century: the hijacking of our democracy.
Davos Man
How the Billionaires Devoured the World
Custom House. 472 pp. $29.99 | null | null | null | null | null |
How the South was transformed by the fall of Jim Crow, and how it wasn’t
By Jason Sokol
Jason Sokol is the author of three books on the history of the civil rights movement, including “There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975.”
U.S. marshals escort 6-year-old Ruby Bridges from William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in November 1960. Adolph L. Reed writes that the end of Jim Crow segregation transformed the South, though “vestiges” of the system remained decades later. (Uncredited/AP)
In the Jim Crow South, “a gesture could blow up a town.” So wrote James Baldwin in a 1960 essay about student civil rights activists at Florida A&M. At the Tallahassee airport, Baldwin watched as a White woman beamed at the Black chauffeur who had come to meet her. “If she were smiling at me that way I would expect to shake her hand,” he wrote. Such an action, of course, would have spelled disaster. “Danger, even the threat of death, would immediately fill the air.” Black men did not shake the hands of White women; to do so was to upend the “folkways” of the Jim Crow South and to threaten the foundations of that society.
Six decades later, Adolph L. Reed Jr. explores and explains those “folkways” in “The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives,” a book based on his personal recollections. Reed is a political scientist known for his Marxist interpretations and combative polemics, but “The South” is a different kind of book.
Though he was born in New York City in 1947, Reed spent many of his formative years in New Orleans as well as Pine Bluff, Ark. He recounts stories of everyday life under the Jim Crow regime and illuminates the region’s “distinctive brew of continuity and change.” Reed comes down firmly on the side of change. He argues that the fall of Jim Crow transformed Southern life. If some observers today are tempted to look at the racial injustices that still abound — White violence, mass incarceration, segregated schools and neighborhoods, systemic poverty, the return of restrictive voting laws — and claim that little has changed since the days of Jim Crow, Reed shows the folly of such a conclusion.
He opens with penetrating insights into the nature of the Jim Crow order — how it operated, for whom and what anchored it all. Reed contends that to associate Jim Crow merely with bigoted sheriffs and “Colored Only” signs, as many Americans now do, is to misunderstand this part of our nation’s history. An emphasis on the familiar images reduces segregation “to its most superficial artifacts, like reducing the image of an iceberg to its visible tip.”
That metaphor challenges the reader to consider what lay underneath, namely the systems of economic exploitation and racial terrorism. Yet Reed also refuses to minimize the “relatively superficial mechanisms,” like “the petty apartheid of Jim Crow takeout windows.” Such mechanisms were “never less than massively inconvenient and humiliating.” And everyone understood that these “extrusions” were “inseparably linked — as the tip is to the submerged 90 percent of an iceberg — to that larger system.”
Reed and his family endured those humiliations. But in New Orleans, a city that was comparatively cosmopolitan, there were moments when racial barriers could seem more permeable or less suffocating. The McCrory’s Five and Dime store made an ice cream soda that was so good that the Jim Crow lunch counter “hardly registered” to the young Reed. He also tells the story of a beignet shop that served Whites only. When his family members developed a “collective hankering” for those fantastic beignets, they would convince his grandmother — the only one among them who could pass for White — to go and purchase a box. Despite her “kvetching,” she experienced no deep trauma from the fleeting act of passing.
The beignet story notwithstanding, Reed’s chapter on passing is one of his least effective. He wants to make the point that passing in the Jim Crow era was merely pragmatic and instrumental, yet he does not engage with any of the recent work on the subject — most notably Allyson Hobbs’s brilliant book, “A Chosen Exile.” Hobbs, in contrast to Reed, argues that passing was fundamentally about “losing what you pass away from.”
“The South” rises to its best in the final chapter, as Reed examines the changes wrought by the demise of Jim Crow. When Reed traveled through rural Louisiana in the summer of 1993, he noted that African Americans held many elected offices while “vestiges” of the Jim Crow world remained visible. Most important, large numbers of African Americans were still stuck in grinding poverty. Yet this was a much different social order than the one that reigned until the 1960s. The white-supremacist regime had been defeated. Because he lived the everyday outrages of Jim Crow, Reed is attuned to their absence. Still, “that victory left the undergirding class system untouched and in practical terms affirmed it.” While middle-class Blacks ascended in the post-Jim Crow years, impoverished African Americans continued to suffer.
Reed views Southern history, convincingly, as a series of ruptures — not as “an unbroken arc of racial subordination continuous from the segregation era, the Civil War, or slavery.” He has little patience for a “simple polarity of racism/anti-racism,” a not-so-subtle criticism of Ibram Kendi’s schema, which sorts most every idea, action and policy into one of two categories: racist or anti-racist. (To be fair, Kendi’s “Stamped From the Beginning” includes a third category: assimilationist.) Such a perspective, Reed writes, “flattens history and context” and “reduces politics to an unchanging contest of black and white.”
Another momentous change arrived when New Orleans’s Confederate monuments came down. The towering monument to Robert E. Lee had watched over the city for more than a century. Reed returned to New Orleans in the spring of 2017, to be at his mother’s side during her last days. Coincidentally, the Lee statue was to be removed just then. This is a poignant and affecting story, as Reed endures the death of his mother while watching the symbols of white supremacy tumble.
Reed writes curiously little about the desegregation of New Orleans’s public schools. In November 1960, federal marshals led 6-year-old Ruby Bridges into Frantz Elementary. All but a few White families pulled their children from the school. Mobs formed each morning to threaten those parents who dared abide integration. This was the most consequential event of the civil rights era in New Orleans. What did Reed, 13 years old at the time, think of it? His family might have been living in Pine Bluff at that moment, but they returned soon to New Orleans. Whites boycotted some of the public schools through the early 1960s, and that event shaped public education in the city for years to come.
Ruby Bridges walked bravely into the Frantz School just nine months after the student sit-ins began. That was the same year James Baldwin traveled to Tallahassee. All at once, young children like Ruby, together with college students like those Baldwin interviewed, enlisted in an epic struggle that would bring down the old racial order.
Jim Crow and Its Afterlives
By Adolph L. Reed Jr. Verso. 160 pp. $24.95 | null | null | null | null | null |
Pushing back against the American tendency to forget
By Michael S. Roth
Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University. His latest book is “Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech and Political Correctness on College Campuses.”
Days after the Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012, a memorial in Newtown, Conn., included a flag with the names of the 26 victims killed at the elementary school. Essayist Colette Brooks asks her readers to also remember the gunman’s first victim: Nancy Lanza, his mother. (Julio Cortez/AP)
“Trapped in the Present Tense” is made up of a half-dozen sections of varying lengths that are only loosely related. These are ruminations on diverse subjects such as mass murder and mass statistics, the militarization of our culture, and family snapshots infused with nostalgic pathos.
In each of her brief “pure acts of attention,” Brooks is paying her respects to fleeting but meaningful episodes in our history, pushing back against our culture’s waves of forgetting. We turn to the past sometimes for accurate, objective accounts, and sometimes to glean lessons we can apply to the future. And sometimes we turn to the past simply so that it won’t disappear; we pay attention to it because it was meaningful to us, and we acknowledge that meaning with reverence. Paying one’s respects to the past, through memorialization of some kind, is an act of piety. For all the melancholy ironies in “Stuck in the Present Tense,” Brooks’s ruminations are such acts.
Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University. His latest book is “Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatist’s Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses.”
Trapped in the Present Tense
Meditations on American Memory
By Colette Brooks
Counterpoint. 230 pp. $26 | null | null | null | null | null |
Seven games that challenge the human brain — and teach computers to think
By Lucinda Robb
Lucinda Robb worked for 15 years for the Teaching Company and is a co-author with Rebecca Boggs Roberts of the young-adult book “The Suffragist Playbook: Your Guide to Changing the World.”
Chess is a complicated puzzle for humans, but it’s not so difficult for computers to master, writes Oliver Roeder, who writes about that game and six others: checkers, backgammon, bridge, poker, Go and Scrabble. (Ricky Carioti/WASHINGTON POST)
Thanks to the pandemic, Americans are playing more games than ever — and not just for entertainment. Something else compels us to test our skills with games. Or to put it another way, why can’t we stop playing Wordle?
You might find some clues in Oliver Roeder’s illuminating new book, “Seven Games: A Human History.” Roeder, a senior writer and puzzle editor at FiveThirtyEight, has written a fascinating group biography of some of the most popular games of all time. In doing so, he offers powerful insights into why we play games and what we can learn from them.
You’ve probably played at least one of the seven games profiled: checkers, chess, Go, backgammon, poker, Scrabble and bridge. Roeder chose them in part because of their longevity. An early version of checkers is mentioned in Plato’s “Republic,” and a prototype of backgammon was found in a 3rd-century Nubian tomb (by comparison Scrabble, invented during the Great Depression, is the new kid on the block).
Each game gets its own biographical chapter that digs into what makes it unique. Also included is a rough sketch of the rules of play and the skill sets needed to win. We’re introduced to legends of the games like the humble and devout Marion Tinsley, who lost only three times in a 40-year period of playing competitive checkers. Roeder himself competes in the World Series of Poker and the Scrabble Players Championship, for which he memorizes nearly 35,000 words.
The real payoff from the group biography concept — the connective tissue that ties the book together — is the way Roeder illustrates the impact these games have had on artificial intelligence. This gets to the heart of what makes games so valuable, both for humans and for computers.
Games allow humans to make decisions and experience agency in a limited context. As Rice University philosopher Gwen Bradford observes, “Every time you play a game you are choosing to do something that is more difficult than it has to be.” When we strive and come up with solutions, it gives us an important sense of achievement (hence, the appeal of Wordle).
More specifically, games are made up of arbitrarily imposed rules. Following those rules allows us to practice making choices and solving problems in a controlled environment. Which also makes them a perfect tool for teaching computers how to think.
Roeder has arranged the chapters in his book according to “a rough menu of intelligence” that correlates — broadly — to the difficulty computer programs have in mastering each game. This ranking is based on the complexity of each game, the range of skills required and the element of chance. Thus checkers, the most straightforward game and nominally the “easiest” (but deeper than it gets credit for) comes first, whereas Scrabble, which Roeder memorably describes as a sort of “brainy heptathlon,” is sixth.
Rather surprisingly, the famously cerebral game of chess is only second. Although endlessly complicated for humans, chess is not a terrible challenge for a computer program with enough processing speed. Armed only with the rules of the game and no other human input, AlphaZero, the best chess program in the world, played itself 44 million times and discovered on its own the Queen’s Gambit, the English Opening and the Sicilian Defense.
The brilliance of the top-ranked human chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, pales beside computer-generated competitors. More than 90 computer engines are ranked higher than Carlsen. Check out Top Chess Engine Championship to watch elite computer programs play at a level that humans have never matched.
Because they are completely governed by rules, checkers, chess and Go can all be mastered by computers. But that doesn’t mean they are simple. Checkers alone has 500,995,484,682,338,627,639 different positions. The number of positions for the infinitely more complex Go is so immense that it has 171 digits. For comparison, Roeder tells us that the number of atoms in the entire universe is a number that is 80 digits long.
Yet as daunting as these numbers are, adding an element of chance is the real game changer (pardon the pun). Computers lose their advantage over humans when they play a completely random game like rock, paper, scissors. In backgammon, poker and Scrabble, the roll of the dice, or the draw of a card or a tile, introduces a level of luck that makes it exponentially harder for humans or computers to predict the next move. It is simply not feasible (for now) to use raw computing power to muscle through enormous decision tree branches and pick the best options. Machines can tackle aspects of the game, but they can’t solve it.
This forces scientists to find new ways to harness computing’s tremendous potential. For backgammon, IBM researcher Gerald Tesauro created a neural networking program that looked instead for patterns, mimicking human learning. Not only did TD-Gammon, as he named his program, eventually dominate the backgammonscene, it would go on to yield real-world benefits in a variety of other applications such as elevator traffic in tall buildings and job scheduling for the space shuttle.
As computers improved their play, so did humans, who now study their games and learn from commercial and free programs such as eXtreme Gammon, PokerSnowie and Quackle. This has helped to democratize the games. You no longer have to live in certain locations, or be able to afford to travel, to play and study a game at the highest levels. You can just go online or consult an app on your phone. This is particularly true of poker, where the wide availability of programs known as solvers helps a new generation of would-be pros pursue optimal betting strategies.
But there may be downsides. The colorful, larger-than life poker players with big hats and jewelry are slowly being replaced by guys in sunglasses and headphones who don’t interact with anyone at the table. They may be more successful, but they aren’t fun. Traditionalists fear that if the social aspect of the game fades, so will the enthusiasm of the casual gamblers who trust their luck and lose reliably enough to bankroll the winners. What the long-term impact will be is hard to tell, but gambling is absolutely essential to poker. Think about it: If people didn’t bet in Texas hold ‘em, then why in the world would anyone play?
Bridge, the last game and the one Roeder describes as “most ‘human,’” is perhaps the most complex from a skill set perspective (it even has its own special languages for bidding). It is also the lone game of the seven where artificial-intelligence programs still trail human players. While its popularity has fallen dramatically from its heyday in the 1930s and ’40s, being good at bridge is still viewed by many on Wall Street as a predictor of real-world success. Today, bridge tournaments are subsidized by ultrarich patrons who sponsor teams for bragging rights, the same way other wealthy individuals might sponsor a racehorse or racing sailboat.
Like the games it profiles, “Seven Games” is accessible, enjoyable and ultimately quite challenging. It raises provocative and sometimes unsettling questions about the nature of intelligence and the unintended consequences when machines play better than we do. Roeder makes lots of sage observations but doesn’t offer answers, just philosophical paths to follow. If you are intrigued by this rare opportunity to pull back the curtain on how humans and computers learn, then you will be richly rewarded. You might also improve your game.
Seven Games
A Human History
By Oliver Roeder
Norton. 306 pp. $26.95 | null | null | null | null | null |
Virginia man fatally shot in Northeast Washington
A D.C. police vehicle at a crime scene. (Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)
A 44-year-old Virginia man was fatally shot Thursday morning in the Kingman Park neighborhood of Northeast Washington.
Police said the shooting occurred about 6 a.m. in the 1700 block of Gales Street NE. The victim was identified Artavarn Wagner of Alexandria, Va.
Officers responding to calls for gunshots found Wagner in an alley, and he was pronounced dead on the scene, police said.
No other details of the shooting were made available. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ukrainians and Taiwanese people attend a prayer event to pray for the end of the war in Ukraine at a temple in Taipei, Taiwan, March 3, 2022. (Ann Wang/Reuters)
To Lung, the similarities between the two global flash points are unsettling. Like President Vladimir Putin, China’s ruling Communist Party has for decades said the self-governed democracy is an “inalienable” part of its history and sovereign territory. Chinese President Xi Jinping, the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has repeatedly reserved the right to use force to “reunite” Taiwan with mainland China.
The Kuma Academy, an education research center hosting a two-day crash course on traditional and cyberwarfare and modern military science described the Ukraine attack as a reminder that “we cannot relax, and in peacetime we must prepare for the worst.”
“From the Ukraine crisis there is a lot we must do but these are things we were doing before, maybe we should do more and do it faster,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. He cited in particular reforming Taiwan’s reservist system and buying more weapons from the United States.
“Although I might not be able to fight at the frontlines, I can still help build molotov cocktails, just like the Ukrainian women,” said Huang Shu-chen, 52, who sells medical instruments in Taipei. “Taiwan is our home. We need to protect it.” | null | null | null | null | null |
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