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In 2014, the league actually got six NCAA tournament bids — matching the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12. Only the Big 12, with seven, had more. No non-power conference had gotten six bids before, and none has since.
A year earlier, the A-10 got five bids. In fact, it has been a multi-bid league for each of the past 15 tournaments. It also has four schools that have been to the Final Four — although none were in the league at the time. Dayton reached the championship game in 1967, losing to a John Wooden/Lew Alcindor UCLA team. Saint Bonaventure got to the Final Four in 1970 but had to face Jacksonville without Bob Lanier.
Much more recently, George Mason (2006) and VCU (2011) both made the Final Four while they were members of the Colonial Athletic Association. Davidson and Stephen Curry reached the Elite Eight in 2008, losing to Kansas — which won the national championship — at the buzzer. Davidson also went to the Elite Eight in 1968 and 1969, led by a young coach named Lefty Driesell.
The most electric atmosphere I have ever been in for a basketball game — and I have been in a few of them — was a 2013 Atlantic 10 game held at VCU’s Siegel Center between Butler and VCU. That was the only year Butler was in the league, moving to the Big East the next season. The reason was money, but after getting blown out at VCU, I think Brad Stevens — then Butler’s coach — wanted nothing to do with going back to Richmond.
But the reason attention should be paid the next few days isn’t the past but the present. This week will be vitally important to just about every key team involved. Right now, the only A-10 team that is a lock for the NCAA tournament is regular season champion Davidson, although I believe both Dayton and VCU also should be locks.
I base this on having seen the two teams play, not on whatever unfathomable statistics the NCAA men’s basketball committee will use Sunday night to explain some of its inexplicable decisions. Dayton has been something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde team this season, but when the Flyers are good, they are very good. They had early losses to Massachusetts Lowell and Lipscomb but also had early wins over Kansas and Miami. A late loss to La Salle probably has the various stat-heads shaking their stat-heads. Forget that. The Flyers are good.
No one will ever know how deep the Rams might have gone last season, when they still had sophomore guard Bones Hyland, currently averaging 8.8 points as a Denver Nuggets rookie. VCU was forced to forfeit its first-round tournament game to Oregon a couple of hours before tip-off because of positive coronavirus tests. It was the only team in the 68-team field eliminated by covid.
The next three seeds in the A-10 field — Saint Bonaventure, Saint Louis and Richmond — all have some serious work to do if they want to avoid the NIT. Still, the Bonnies and Billikens are already 20-win teams; Richmond is 19-12. Beyond that are teams dreaming of a four- or five-game miracle run to win the conference tournament and keep playing next week. That includes locals George Washington (the seventh seed) and George Mason (the ninth seed).
Upsets are entirely possible because, records aside, the league has been remarkably competitive this season. La Salle Coach Ashley Howard and Saint Joseph’s Coach Billy Lange — whose teams met in the tournament’s opening game Wednesday, a seven-point La Salle win — said virtually the same thing Monday: “You know, we’re about five plays away from being 10-8.”
Duquesne Coach Keith Dambrot, whose team lost three key players during the season and finished last, explained the A-10 best: “Everyone in this league is focused on basketball,” he said. “There no big-time football or football money. That means it’s vitally important at every school to get good and be good.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Ukraine has supplied Beijing for years with critical military technology that it couldn’t get elsewhere, including China’s first aircraft carrier, technology for its naval antimissile radar, and advanced jet engines. It’s also a key supplier of agricultural products such as corn and sunflower oil to China.
“China would not have even a single operational aircraft carrier in service today, if not for that help,” said Sarah Kirchberger, the head of the Center for Asia-Pacific Strategy and Security at Germany’s Kiel University.
This history helps explain why Beijing might feel a bit awkward about the invasion, but China’s dependence on Russia outweighs its relationship with Ukraine, and Beijing has publicly backed Moscow. Ukraine also has been tilting away from China in recent years as it angled to join NATO, the Western military alliance.
“Russia is far and away the most important arms supplier to China,” said M. Taylor Fravel, the director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Where Ukraine has really helped China has been in the area of jet engines, as well as some ship engines and air-to-air missiles.”
“There was this expectation that if we had Chinese enterprises and Chinese investment in Ukraine, that would prevent Russia from escalating,” said Sergiy Gerasymchuk, the deputy director of the Foreign Policy Council’s Ukrainian Prism, a think tank in Ukraine. “There were expectations that Russia wouldn’t shell enterprises belonging to China.”
Gerasymchuk said that while there were still hopes in Kyiv that Beijing might intercede toward a cease-fire, “the level of trust is much lower” after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s public alignment with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in February.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated Monday that Russia was his country’s “most important strategic partner.” China abstained from a U.N. vote to condemn Russia’s invasion.
China, however, has not condemned Russia’s invasion — or even called it that — and has blamed the United States and NATO for the conflict.
As China hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, Chinese media cited the Kyiv Post in reporting that a Ukrainian research institute had supplied antimissile equipment to protect the Games. The reports said the Aegis-like radar system also was being use in Chinese warships.
Beijing and Kyiv’s strategic partnership cooled after 2014, as Ukraine prioritized joining NATO in the aftermath of Russia’s first invasion. As Ukraine sought to align more closely with the United States and E.U., it has pushed China to arms’ length, including nixing a 2017 attempt by a Chinese company, Beijing Skyrizon Aviation Industry Investment, to purchase Ukrainian aerospace company Motor Sich, one of the world’s most advanced makers of military aircraft engines.
“The United States helped to stop this deal,” Poita said. “As far as very sensitive and advanced technology, Ukraine doesn’t transfer it to China. It’s prohibited, it’s absolutely prohibited, because for Ukraine, the relationship with NATO and allies is crucial.”
While Ukraine looked westward, Russia and China cemented a closer bond, leading to their joint declaration on Feb. 4 that the relationship had “no limits.” Kirchberger said one result of this closer partnership has been that in recent years, Moscow has become more willing to sell more advanced military equipment to Beijing.
The full shape of China’s military cooperation with Ukraine is difficult to confirm because that realm largely exists behind closed doors. Even Chinese state media has commented on the scant information disclosed about an apparently important defense relationship.
“It’s as if both sides are purposefully avoiding the military industry cooperation and don’t raise a word about military trade. But in actuality, China is the largest customer of Ukraine’s military industry,” the state-run Global Times wrote in 2015.
Some of the most critical military deals between the two countries have taken place under hazy circumstances. The purchase of an incomplete aircraft carrier, the Varyag, had been a cloak-and-dagger affair, according to a South China Morning Post interview in 2015 with Xu Zengping, the Hong Kong-based businessman who had negotiated the sale.
China also obtained from Ukrainian weapons dealers half a dozen air-launched cruise missiles that can be fitted with nuclear warheads, Ukrainian prosecutors said in 2005, alleging that they had been smuggled out of the country and sold illegally. Officials loyal to former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma were implicated in the weapons sales.
In more recent years, Ukraine has curbed its sale of advanced weapons to China but joined Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure development program. Ukraine also remains in China’s sphere of influence in some ways: Last summer, Ukraine made waves when it retracted its signature from a U.N. statement to condemn China’s human rights violations in the Xinjiang region. The Associated Press, citing diplomats familiar with the matter, reported that China threatened to withhold Chinese coronavirus vaccines from Ukraine if Kyiv didn’t make the retraction. | null | null | null | null | null |
Plane carrying Trump makes emergency landing in New Orleans
A plane carrying former president Donald Trump suffered engine failure late Saturday over the Gulf of Mexico, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in New Orleans shortly after taking off from the city.
The plane carrying Trump was forced to immediately return to the airport and make the unscheduled landing in Louisiana shortly before 11 p.m., according to people familiar with the incident. The plane was attempting to take Trump home to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., from the Four Seasons Hotel in New Orleans, where he spoke to some of the Republican Party’s top donors at a private event.
Politico first reported on the incident. A Trump spokesman declined to comment.
The flight had traveled about 75 miles after taking off from New Orleans Lakefront Airport, reaching an altitude of about 28,000 feet before turning around, according to tracking data from ADS-B Exchange. The Dassault Falcon 900 carried a retinue of Secret Service agents, other support staffers, Trump and some of his advisers, according to the people familiar with the incident. One of the plane’s engines failed, the people said.
The tracking data, reviewed by The Washington Post, show the plane started its journey in Texas, flew to Palm Beach on Saturday afternoon and then went to New Orleans. A map of the evening flight shows the plane was over the water when it turned around and went to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
Trump advisers worked to secure another donor’s plane, which was brought to New Orleans. Trump returned to Palm Beach on the plane of Craig Estey, a GOP donor and founder of Nevada Restaurant Services.
Trump did not arrive home in Palm Beach until early morning, the people familiar with the incident said.
— Josh Dawsey and Ian Duncan
Appeal rejected over transgender case suit
The Texas 3rd Court of Appeals dismissed Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s appeal of the temporary order a judge issued last week halting the investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services into the parents of the 16-year-old girl. The court ruled that the judge’s temporary order was not appealable.
Paxton on Wednesday also filed a challenge in federal court to guidance that President Biden’s administration issued in response to the Texas governor’s directive. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - This photo released by the North Las Vegas Police Department shows a Dodge Challenger following a crash in North Las Vegas on Jan. 29, 2022. A police report says the 59-year-old motorist’s sports car was at full acceleration when he caused a multi-vehicle wreck in North Las Vegas that killed him, his passenger and seven family members in a minivan. The report made public Wednesday, March 9, 2022, said a vehicle computer showed Gary Robinson’s Dodge Challenger sped up from 90 mph to 103 mph five seconds before entering the intersection against a red traffic signal. (North Las Vegas Police Department via AP, File) (Uncredited/North Las Vegas Police Department) | null | null | null | null | null |
The United States is back in an energy crisis, with record gas prices because of disruptions stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many nations have rightly taken steps to halt or sharply reduce Russian energy purchases in an effort to choke off Vladimir Putin’s economy. But the shunning of Russian oil — which accounts for more than 10 percent of worldwide consumption — is causing a huge supply problem.
In the short term, President Biden has little choice but to turn to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela for more heavy crude oil. The United States stopped importing Venezuelan oil in 2019 in response to widespread human rights abuses under President Nicolás Maduro. In wartime, Mr. Biden must make hard choices. If he can get some political concessions from the regime, it could be worth lifting the ban on U.S. purchases from Venezuela and adding the 600,000 additional barrels per day it might be capable of producing to the global supply. Mr. Biden has already sent envoys to Venezuela, and Mr. Maduro has freed two American prisoners.
In the medium term, we need more U.S. production of oil and natural gas, changes to U.S. refineries so they can handle more shale oil, and an ongoing push to be more energy-efficient.
Mr. Biden is already outpacing former president Donald Trump in issuing drilling permits on federal land. It might be necessary to provide tax credits or other incentives to get refineries to upgrade and Americans to reduce energy consumption. Automakers are predicting an electric vehicle boom in the coming years, proving that even cars and trucks can change.
In the longer term, the United States must continue to push for greener energy. Democrats should make a deal with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III (D) to pass the climate change provisions of Build Back Better. It will take time, but continuing to move in the direction of a greener future is wise both for climate reasons and geopolitics. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Why Doug Ducey and other GOP governors find the Senate such a resistible temptation
Gov. Doug Ducey speaks at a conference in Yuma, Ariz., on Feb. 17. (Randy Hoeft/The Yuma Sun/AP)
PHOENIX — Doug Ducey has given the nation three fine things: an abundance of ice cream, the rare example of eight years of good governance and the noun “grift-fest,” which today has many uses denoting nonsense. There are, however, limits to his giving.
He is the third popular Republican governor, joining Maryland’s Larry Hogan and New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu, who has found the Senate a resistible temptation. The most unhappy senators are former governors. The Senate has decayed into a performative arena for striking poses, so governors, who have known the executive satisfactions of decision and responsibility, must wonder: Why join an institution that cannot even perform what should be the routine business of budgeting? For the pleasure of having grandstanders such as South Carolina’s Lindsey O. Graham and Missouri’s Josh Hawley as colleagues? It is not clear why, but it is clear that, some of the Republicans who add the most value to the Senate — e.g., Missouri’s Roy Blunt, Ohio’s Rob Portman, Pennsylvania’s Patrick J. Toomey — are retiring.
Ducey, the son of a Toledo police officer, graduated from high school into the 1982 recession, when Rust Belt Ohio’s unemployment rate was 14 percent. Channeling his inner Horace Greeley, or whomever actually deserves credit for “Go west, young man,” Ducey did what Americans used to do more frequently: He moved. With a 1986 finance degree from Arizona State University, he joined a start-up called Cold Stone Creamery, of which Ducey eventually became chief executive. Today, it has more than 1,000 outlets.
Cold Stone got bought, Ducey got wealthy, then got elected state treasurer, in which office he orchestrated the defeat of a 2012 ballot initiative to make permanent a temporary sales tax increase. In 2014, he became governor, a “full-spectrum conservative” — his description — with policies conducive to, by 2022, more than 400,000 additional private-sector jobs, 5,000 fewer government jobs and 3,000 fewer regulations. Attracted by, in addition to sunshine, the nation’s lowest flat income tax (2.5 percent) and a $1 billion deficit turned into a $1 billion surplus, in-migration has surged. Today, 60 percent of Arizonans were born elsewhere — the state last elected a native-born governor in 1988 — and between 1990 and 2019, its population almost doubled, from 3.7 million to 7.3 million.
Then began the Maricopa County (Phoenix and environs) vote audits, the last of which Ducey called a “grift-fest.” State law required an audit of a random sampling of ballots, which matched electronic counts exactly. Then two companies, both certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, conducted audits, which were supplemented by a third review to ensure Maricopa’s compliance with state law. All these discovered “no evidence” of malfeasance, so Republicans brought in — really — Cyber Ninjas, a company owned by a stop-the-steal worrywart. The company’s chief executive appeared in a 2020 election-conspiracy film whose director has suggested that aliens were responsible for 9/11. Only the Ninjas’ audit changed anything, expanding Biden’s winning margin by 360 votes. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Kyiv vs. Kiev, Zelensky vs. Zelenskyy, and the immense meaning of ‘the’
By Benjamin Dreyer
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a news conference in Kyiv on Feb. 23. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
Benjamin Dreyer is Random House’s executive managing editor and copy chief and the author of “Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style.”
“Ukraine, not ‘the Ukraine,’ ” I’d jotted down in my to-do notebook a couple of weeks ago. “Kiev/Kyiv.” “Zelensky(y).”
This column should have been a slam-dunk: a little copyeditorial erudition and explication, a few historical quotes for context and support, perhaps a digression into Bombay and Mumbai, or Burma and Myanmar, maybe a joke or two — how about a sly reference to the 1953 novelty pop hit “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”? (“If you’ve a date in Constantinople / She’ll be waiting in Istanbul.”)
It should have been simple to say: Things (and people) change, including the names of things (and people), and innocuous-looking shifts in nomenclature can carry significant content, and one does well to keep up.
But then other things changed, too, and conflict turned into invasion turned into war turned into war crimes allegations turned into humanitarian cataclysm, and the potential jokes palled and I wondered whether it’s even worth the keystrokes to explain the imperialist smell of the simple article “the.”
I’m not a global sociopolitical expert (or an epidemiologist, as so many people are these days); I’m a copy editor. When I find Major Ideas bubbling up in my brain, I tend to reach for the delete key. When I stare at a photograph of four Ukrainian teenagers newly volunteered for combat, three of them wearing skaters’ kneepads and one carrying a yoga mat, I have no Major Ideas, just an inchoate, looming sense of despair.
So, quickly, then, before I lose my nerve and something even worse happens than has already happened:
Ukraine is an independent country and has been so since it declared itself free of the moldering, moribund Soviet Union in 1991 — more than 30 years ago, I underline. It is not “the Ukraine” — that is, not a province, not a territory, which is indeed the whiff given off by that “the,” as in, reaching back into history, “the Levant” or “the Crimea.”
“The ‘the’ is gone,” noted the Ukrainian Weekly (published out of Jersey City) in its issue of Dec. 8, 1991.
“It is just Ukraine,” diplomat William B. Taylor Jr. told Time in 2014 after President Barack Obama referred to “the situation in the Ukraine.” “It is incorrect to refer to ‘the Ukraine,’” Taylor went on, “even though a lot of people do it. … It kind of denies their independence, denies their sovereignty.”
Kyiv or Kiev? National video reporter Hannah Jewell explains how to pronounce Ukraine's capital, as well as the history behind the two words. (Casey Silvestri/The Washington Post)
Even as recently as late last month at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the majestic Brian Cox, accepting an award on behalf of the ensemble of the series “Succession,” made mention of “what’s going on in the Ukraine” before, twice, hitting the standalone “Ukraine” loud and clear.
Look, it’s an easy stumble, and I’ve caught myself a number of times these past weeks. Perhaps you have, too.
But this ostensible sliver of a difference, this “the,” is, to borrow an idea attributed to, of all people, Vladimir Lenin, the difference between “who” and “whom”: who does and to whom it is done, who owns whom, or asserts that they do.
As to Kiev and Kyiv, that’s simpler: Kyiv is the appropriate transliteration of the Ukrainian name of the country’s capital, whereas Kiev is the name of the city in Russian. (An online campaign — KyivNotKiev — was started in 2018 by the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.) It doesn’t take a big thinker, I think, to understand why the Ukrainians would prefer the one over the other.
About chicken Kiev, a dish that was more than likely invented, a century or two ago, neither in Russia nor in Ukraine but in Paris, and that seems to exist mostly to squirt lava-hot butter onto your shirtfront: I’m not certain that renaming it chicken Kyiv, as the British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has just done, makes a statement any more effective than “freedom fries” did in 2003 when someone was mad at the French, as someone always seems to be.
What about the surname of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, or Zelenskyy, depending on which U.S. publication you’re reading? (The Post and the New York Times, among others, prefer the single “y,” while USA Today, the Associated Press and others go with “yy.”) To some people, I’ve read, the single-y spelling reflects a more Russian approach, with the double-y appearing more Ukrainian. One notes that the president of Ukraine’s Twitter handle is @ZelenskyyUa.
Those of us who follow publishers’ usages and standards at least as much as we set them out will continue to watch the Zelensky(y) matter with interest — and will be reminded that words, even “the” small ones, even their smallest components, can carry a big meaning.
OPINIONS ON LANGUAGE
Words in English don’t last forever. And that’s okay.
How I wound up with a wound from heteronyms | null | null | null | null | null |
Robert Regan is far from the first politician or other public figure to try to make light of what a woman experiences during rape — specifically, to suggest that she likes it. As far back as 1976, a television weatherman in New York said pretty much the same thing that Regan did — after a stock market report and, inexplicably, claiming it was a saying by Confucius. When Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight was asked in a 1989 network television interview how he handled stress, he found the same analogy: ''I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.''
Most famous, perhaps, was West Texas oilman Clayton Williams, who, as the 1990 GOP nominee for governor, bankrolled himself into a seemingly invincible lead in the race over the Democrat, state treasurer Ann Richards. The race was quickly christened “Claytie and the lady.“
And while that gaffe alone didn’t kill Williams’s candidacy, it was revelatory and dogged him as other ones mounted. As Richards, a recovering alcoholic, began gaining on him in the polls, Williams averred, “I hope she hasn’t gone back to drinking again,” and announced he would “head her and hoof her and drag her through the mud.” And then came a final blow, just days before the election, when news broke that the big-spending candidate hadn’t paid income taxes in 1986. Richards pulled out a three-point victory.
What’s really at issue, however, is how Regan thinks, not the way he expressed it. His is a worldview that is not only offensive but also twisted. This is the same man who last year offered the opinion that feminism is a “Jewish program to degrade and subjugate White men” and more recently called the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “fake war just like the fake pandemic.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The EU banned “broadcasting” Sputnik and RT. Now it’s arguing that applies to search results and social media re-posts from regular users.
Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Google’s YouTube all said last week they would block posts from Russian state media accounts in Europe, responding to public pressure and government requests. An official order from the E.U. banning the “broadcast” of RT and Sputnik came on Mar. 2, but it was not clear immediately how it applied to Internet companies.
Now, a document uploaded by Google to a database of government requests shows E.U. officials explaining how the order applies not just to the social media accounts of RT and Sputnik, but also to search results and to posts from anyone who “reproduces” content from the two media organizations on any social media platform. The E.U. letter does carve out an exception for media organizations reporting on the sanctions.
The EU’s position is a “far-reaching and remarkable interpretation of the law,” said TJ McIntyre, an associate professor at University College Dublin who studies Internet law and civil liberties. The document wasn’t made public by the E.U., so it also raises questions about transparency, McIntyre said. “We have very little insight into how it’s actually being applied.”
But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is forcing a new set of questions for the tech companies as they respond to intense public pressure to cut Russia off from the rest of the world, while also balancing their desire to keep their apps open and usable to Russian citizens.
Searches for “Russia Today” on Google in Europe did not return a link to the organization’s page, while the same search done in the U.S. did. Google’s announcement on Mar. 1 that it was taking action on the two Russian media organizations only mentioned it was taking down their YouTube channels in Europe and blocking their ability to make money from YouTube ads globally.
Companies like Google respond to many government requests to take down content, but usually it’s limited to a specific post or based on something that is illegal under a long-standing law, said Daphne Keller, who was associate general counsel for Google until 2015 and now directs the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center. The E.U. order, however, applies to anything RT and Sputnik might post, and also to anyone who reposts content from them, Keller said. | null | null | null | null | null |
Robert Ryan, ambassador
Robert Ryan, 82, a career Foreign Service officer who served as ambassador to Mali from 1984 to 1987, died Jan. 10 at a hospital in Augusta, Maine. The cause was pneumonitis, said a daughter, Susan Ryan.
Mr. Ryan, a native Washingtonian, was in the Foreign Service from 1960 to 1992. In 1991 and 1992, he was coordinator of the U.S. delegation to Rio de Janeiro for the U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development, which was among the first international meetings on global climate issues.
Merrill Skolnik, Navy employee
Merrill Skolnik, 94, the retired superintendent of the Naval Research Laboratory’s radar division, died Jan. 27 at his home in Baltimore. The cause was dementia and atrial fibrillation, said his wife, Judith Skolnik.
Dr. Skolnik was a lifelong Baltimorean who from 1965 until he retired in 1996 commuted to his job at the Naval Research Lab in Washington. He wrote and edited professional textbooks.
Glynn Mays, lawyer
Glynn Mays, 76, a lawyer who retired in 2007 as senior assistant general counsel of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, died Jan. 7 at a hospital in Washington. The cause was a heart ailment, said a son, Owen Mays.
Mr. Mays was born in Hempstead, N.Y. He was a lawyer with the Securities and Exchange Commission before joining the trading commission in 1978. He moved to Halethorpe, Md., from Arlington, Va., about 20 years ago.
Stephen Sabados, music therapist
Stephen Sabados, 52, a music therapist who had worked for nearly the past 14 years with patients at the Adventist HealthCare Behavioral Health and Wellness center at Shady Grove Hospital in Rockville, Md., died Jan. 29 at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Diana Sabados.
Mr. Sabados, a Rockville resident, was born in Washington. He was a music therapist all his professional life and had previously been director of rehabilitation at Greater Laurel Heath and Rehabilitation Center, among other jobs. | null | null | null | null | null |
Demetrios Papademetriou, migration scholar
Demetrios Papademetriou, 75, a migration scholar who founded Migration Policy Institute think tanks in Washington and in Brussels, published 275 books, monographs and reports on global patterns of migration, and advised world leaders on immigration policies, died Jan. 26 at a hospital in Washington. The cause was a heart attack, said Migration Policy Institute spokeswoman Michelle Mittelstadt.
Dr. Papademetriou, a District resident, was born in Patras, Greece. He was a founding president of the Migration Policy Institute, an office he held from 2001 to 2014. Until 2018 he was the founding president of MPI Europe, a nonprofit, independent research institute in Brussels.
Earlier in his career, he was director of the international migration policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and played a central role in efforts to resolve long-standing immigration tensions between the United States and Mexico. But they unraveled in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when the issue lost priority and immigration became even more entangled in national security concerns.
Humberto Arbulu-Neira, IMF economist
Humberto Arbulu-Neira, 74, an economist with the International Monetary Fund who specialized in macro economic policy, died Jan. 25 at a hospital in Olney, Md. The cause was autoimmune encephalitis, said a son, Diego Arbulu.
Mr. Arbulu-Neira, who lived in Potomac, Md., was born in Chiclayo, Peru. He joined the IMF in 1982 and retired in 2010 as a deputy division chief. He was an IMF representative to Uruguay, Venezuela and Nicaragua. After his retirement, he served on the board of the Lafise Group bank.
Abdullahi Irro, Somali general
Abdullahi Irro, 83, a retired Somali army general who had lived in the Washington area for more than two decades, died Jan. 24 at his home in Falls Church, Va. The cause was kidney failure, said a son, Abdurahman Ahmed. | null | null | null | null | null |
Eileen Garner, administrator, realtor
Eileen Garner, 72, an administrator with the American Association of University Professors from 1996 to 2003, who then spent six years as a realtor with Coldwell Banker, died Jan. 31 at a hospice center in Washington. The cause was cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said her spouse, Carolee Byrley.
She was born in Washington and was a lifelong resident of the District. She began working in a family business, Armorplate Insurance, an auto insurance business, when she was in high school and became president before leaving in 1995.
Carl Leventhal, NIH division director
Carl Leventhal, 88, a neuropathologist who retired in 1996 as division director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, died Feb. 2 at a hospital in Rockville, Md. The cause was kidney failure, said a son, George Leventhal.
Dr. Leventhal, a Rockville resident, was born in the Bronx, N.Y., and began his career at the National Institutes of Health in 1964. In retirement he did private consulting. He received the NIH Director’s Award in 1992.
Julie Harrison, phone operator
Julie Harrison, 87, a phone operator with Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. and later AT&T before retiring in 1995 after 30 years of work, died Jan. 7 at a hospital in Jacksonville, Fla., where she was visiting a daughter. The cause was cancer, said the daughter, Lisa Wiles.
Mrs. Harrison, a resident of Upper Marlboro, Md., was born Julie Janke in Detroit Lakes, Minn., and moved to the Washington area in 1955.
Audrey St. Arnold, nurse
Audrey St. Arnold, 91, a physicians’ office nurse in the Silver Hill area of Prince George’s County, Md., for 50 years before retiring in 2019, died Jan. 18 at home in Fort Washington, Md. The cause was cancer, respiratory failure and covid-19, said a son, Daniel St. Arnold.
Mrs. St. Arnold was born Audrey Posthuma in Randolph, Wis. In addition to working for doctors, she was also a duty nurse for Rosecroft Raceway, the Capital Centre and EagleBank Arena. | null | null | null | null | null |
Lawrence 'Larry' Slagle, USDA official
Lawrence “Larry” Slagle, 87, who spent 34 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture before retiring in 1994 as personnel director, died Jan. 10 at a hospital in Washington. The cause was pulmonary congestion, said a family friend, Garrett Peck.
Mr. Slagle, a District resident, was born in Templeton, Pa. He was associate administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service before his appointment as personnel director in 1990. In retirement, he was a consultant to the National Mediation Board. He was a chair of boards and committees at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington.
Tufail Ahmad, food exporter
Tufail Ahmad, 83, the president of a food exporting company that specialized in food aide for developing countries, died Jan. 12 at a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, where he was visiting relatives. The cause was cardiopulmonary arrest following a severe case of pneumonia, said a son, Zubaid Ahmad.
Mr. Ahmad, a resident of Potomac, Md., was born in Allahabad, India. He settled in the Washington area in 1973 and was president of Euro-America Shipping & Trade from 1977 to 2000. From 2006 to 2022, he was chairman of the Montgomery County Muslim Foundation.
Thomas Jabine, statistician
Thomas Jabine, 97, a statistician for federal agencies and later a statistical consultant, died Jan. 30 at an assisted-living facility in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was cerebrovascular disease, said a daughter, Anne Jabine.
Mr. Jabine was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. He worked for the Census Bureau from 1950 to 1973, leaving as chief of the statistical research division. He later was chief mathematical statistician at the Social Security Administration’s office of research and statistics. From 1980 to 1999, he was an independent statistical consultant to the United Nations and other global organizations. | null | null | null | null | null |
Sylvia Zagoria, jobs counselor
Sylvia Zagoria, 99, a jobs counselor who spent about 15 years with the Prince George’s County government before retiring in 1985, died Jan. 25 at her home in San Francisco. The cause was heart disease, said a son, Ron Zagoria.
Mrs. Zagoria was born Sylvia Bromse in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved to Washington during World War II. A former resident of College Park, Md., she left the area in 2014.
Philip Cohen, USGS chief hydrologist
Philip Cohen, 90, the chief hydrologist of the U.S. Geological Survey from 1979 to 1994, died Jan. 18 at a hospital in Reston, Va. The cause was pneumonia, said John Fischer, a colleague and family spokesman.
Mr. Cohen, a Reston resident, was born in New York City. He spent much of his early career as a USGS hydrologist. As chief hydrologist, he managed more than 4,000 scientists in 200 offices and was responsible for the quantity and quality of the nation’s surface and ground water. In 1993, he received a top honor from the American Institute of Hydrology.
Jerald Sussman, CIA officer
Jerald Sussman, 61, a CIA technical intelligence officer who was assigned to a cyber unit to design and write programs against foreign networks, died Feb. 3 at a hospital in Reston, Va. The cause was a heart attack, said a daughter, Rebecca Sussman.
Mr. Sussman, a resident of Centreville, Va., was born in Lexington, Mass. He worked 30 years at the CIA until retiring about eight years ago. At the time of his death, he was an information security officer at Langley Cyber in Arlington, Va.
Robert Barrett, home builder
Robert Barrett, 82, a residential home and apartment builder in the Washington area, died Feb. 1 at his home in Trinity, Fla. The cause was a heart ailment, said a son, Andrew Barrett.
Mr. Barrett was born in Alexandria, Va. His building career extended for more than 50 years, beginning in 1966. He was general manager of Hamel Builders from 2000 to 2012. A former resident of Oakton, Va., he moved to Trinity in 2020. | null | null | null | null | null |
People steer their boat by the old Windsor Bridge under rising floodwaters along the Hawkesbury River in Windsor, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, on March 9, 2022. (Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)
Local residents gathered in the severely hit New South Wales city of Lismore ahead of a scheduled visit by the prime minister, holding signs declaring: “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the [prime minister] is snoring” and: “Announce a climate emergency.”
Although the complexity of the weather systems involved in extreme rain makes it hard to pinpoint the role of climate change in flooding events, excessive and, in some cases, record-setting rainfall is expected to become more frequent in a warming climate. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects heavy precipitation events will increase 7 percent for every 1.8 degrees F. (1 Celsius) of warming over the coming decades.
Sydney, the commercial capital, has recorded its wettest start to a year ever, according to the country’s weather bureau, with more flooding predicted in coming days. Two bodies were pulled from a stormwater canal in western Sydney on Tuesday, believed to be that of a mother and her adult son, missing since Sunday. Their car was found washed up nearby.
As of Wednesday, insurers had received some 107,844 claims related to the Queensland and New South Wales floods, according to the Insurance Council of Australia, with the damage bill estimated to be in excess of $1 billion.
Vinall reported from Melbourne, Australia. Jason Samenow in Washington contributed to this article. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Netherlands has been perhaps the most prolific employer of strategic, weaponized flooding. A 2015 research paper found that, from 1500 to 2000, about one-third of floods in the country’s southwest were deliberately caused during wartime. The tactic was often ineffective, the study found, and had far-reaching consequences for the land and local population. | null | null | null | null | null |
David Solomon, highway engineer
David Solomon, 94, a civil engineer who retired in 1983 from the Federal Highway Administration after 30 years of service, died Dec. 22 at his home in Northbrook, Ill. The cause was colon cancer, said a daughter, Ruth Tupper.
Mr. Solomon was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. He moved to the Washington area in 1953 and began his engineering career with what then was the Bureau of Public Roads. He was head of the environmental control and design division when he retired in 1983. He moved to Illinois from Bowie, Md., in 1999.
Eric Beshers, economist
Eric Beshers, 85, former deputy director of the Department of Transportation’s office of economics who retired in 1983 after 20 years with the agency, died Dec. 10 at a health-care facility in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was heart ailments, said a son, Hugh Beshers.
Mr. Beshers, a Silver Spring resident, was born in Austin and moved to the Washington area in 1940. For 15 years, after his federal retirement, he ran a consultancy, Inner City Fund, specializing in economic analysis of freight.
Phyllis Vanden Berg, office administrator
Phyllis Vanden Berg, 92, an office administrator from about 1977 to 1992 for the Community Ministry of Montgomery County, an interfaith, nonprofit organization that serves the poor and homeless, died Jan. 13 at an assisted-living facility in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was a stroke, said a daughter, Kathryn Vanden Berg.
Mrs. Vanden Berg was born Phyllis Olsen in Sioux Falls, S.D., and moved to the Washington area in 1965. She was a volunteer with the League of Women Voters and Colesville Presbyterian Church and Holy Cross Hospital, both in Silver Spring.
Dorothy Peters, secretary
Dorothy Peters, 88, a retired Foreign Service and CIA secretary who had served in Saigon, Vietnam; Seoul; Buenos Aires; Islamabad, Pakistan; New Delhi; Beirut; and Washington, died Jan. 24 at a rehabilitation facility in Leesburg, Va. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a cousin, Susan Pittman.
Ms. Peters was born in Craig, Alaska. She joined the State Department in 1955 and served as a Foreign Service secretary until 1977, when she joined the CIA as a personnel and intelligence officer. She retired in 1986. | null | null | null | null | null |
Navy falls one step short of NCAA tournament with loss to Colgate in Patriot League final
John Carter Jr. and his Navy teammates fell behind early and couldn't find a way past Colgate in the Patriot League tournament championship game Wednesday. (Hans Pennink/AP)
HAMILTON, N.Y. — Navy summoned enough energy to inject some drama into the Patriot League men’s basketball tournament championship game against Colgate on Wednesday night — but not enough to pull off what would have been a stunning comeback.
The Midshipmen rallied from a 24-point deficit in the second half to draw within six but sputtered from there, ultimately falling to the Raiders, 74-58, at Cotterell Court. The Mids were within a half-dozen with 5:43 remaining, but the Raiders answered with a 14-4 burst to clinch an NCAA tournament berth.
“We had to change things the second half,” Navy Coach Ed DeChellis said. “We weren’t getting anything done playing traditional, so we went with a smaller lineup. It almost worked. We were one shot away from making it really interesting. We didn’t make that shot tonight. It wasn’t a lack of effort. It wasn’t a lack of energy and enthusiasm.”
Tournament MVP Jack Ferguson paced the Raiders with 17 points and Nelly Cummings added 15. Greg Summers led Navy with 18, and Tyler Nelson had 11.
Navy had a 41-26 rebounding edge, including 18-2 on the offensive glass, but couldn’t take advantage. Navy shot 22 for 62 (35.5 percent) from the field, including 6 for 22 (27.3 percent) from three-point range.
“I always talk about rebounding as activity. We had great activity. We just didn’t shoot the ball very well,” DeChellis said.
Second-seeded Navy, which was appearing in its first Patriot League final since 2001, finished 21-11 after losing to the Raiders for the third time. Top-seeded Colgate, the conference’s top team for several years, improved to 23-11 and will return to the NCAA tournament.
Navy had beaten American and Boston University (in overtime) to get to this point, and the Mids lost by five to the Raiders in their regular season finale Feb. 26. They couldn’t turn the tables Wednesday night.
Colgate, which has won 15 straight games, padded its cushion to 49-25 early in the second half, but a 16-0 Mids run not long after stunned the crowd. Navy’s smaller lineup rattled the Raiders, forcing turnovers and bad shots.
With his team down 58-36, Summers dropped in a driving layup with 10:32 remaining and John Carter Jr. drilled a step-back three-pointer. Nelson added a foul shot and Sean Yoder’s turnaround jumper cut Navy’s deficit to 58-44 with 8:13 left.
“Every time there was a timeout or anything, the word that we kept saying was ‘believe,’ ” Summers said. “We just had to stay aggressive and keep believing.”
Yoder kept up the run with a three, and Jaylen Walker dropped in a free throw. Summers’s second-chance layup got Navy within 58-50, and Yoder added a pair of free throws to make it 58-52 with 6:22 left.
Cummings finally stopped the bleeding for Colgate with a layup with 5:57 remaining, but Carter responded with a jumper 14 seconds later to slice Navy’s deficit to six again. But that’s where the Mids finally ran out of steam.
“They get it down to six — it was definitely a wake-up call,” Ferguson said. “I think we got a little bit complacent there, but we’re a veteran group. Obviously we came together and got it done.”
Feinstein: The Atlantic 10 tournament is in Washington, and college basketball fans are in for a treat
The Raiders tightened up on defense and put together a 10-0 run to lock up the win.
“What it came down to was just taking care of the ball in that situation,” said Summers, whose team had 17 turnovers. “We just had to be a little more focused.”
The contest appeared to get away from Navy early as Colgate grabbed a 40-22 lead at halftime.
“Defensively we weren’t very good in the first half and we dug ourselves a hole,” DeChellis said. “But Colgate was good.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Virginia Tech's Darius Maddox, center, celebrates with teammates after his game-winning three-pointer advanced the Hokies into the ACC tournament quarterfinals. (John Minchillo/AP)
NEW YORK — Darius Maddox calmly took the inbounds pass with 6.7 seconds left in overtime, crossed into the frontcourt and created a little space with three seconds remaining. He let fly with a three-pointer a few ticks before the buzzer sounded, finding nothing but net for a basket that saved the Virginia Tech men’s basketball team on several fronts.
First, it allowed the seventh-seeded Hokies to outlast No. 10 seed Clemson, 76-75, at Barclays Center in the second round of the ACC tournament. It also prevented what would have been one of the more ignominious collapses in program history given the stage and the stakes.
But the sophomore guard’s only field goal in extra time, and just his third of the entire game, also kept Virginia Tech’s NCAA tournament aspirations flickering with an opportunity to boost its credentials with a victory over its next opponent, No. 2 seed Notre Dame, in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
Bracketology: A message for bubble teams Wednesday — don't mess up
“We’re luckier than hell,” Virginia Tech Coach Mike Young said after the win, briefly detailing his play design on the final possession. “We’re just lucky. That’s basketball. The last play right there, he caught it, got in the air and banged a big shot, and we go home happy.”
Maddox’s calm execution belied the emotion of his teammates, who rushed him in corner of the court for a gathering that was equal parts relief and joy.
That’s because a litany of breakdowns plagued Virginia Tech (20-12, 11-9) over the final seven minutes-plus of the second half and permitted the Tigers to close on an 18-7 barrage during which Clemson (17-16, 8-12) got Nick Honor’s three-pointer with 1:13 to play to reclaim the lead, 62-61, for the first time since early in the game.
Storm Murphy’s three-pointer with 19.5 seconds remaining provided Virginia Tech with a 66-64 lead. Tigers Coach Brad Brownell immediately called timeout, and out of the stoppage Hall got a contested midrange jumper to fall before Murphy missed an off-balance three-pointer at the final regulation buzzer.
Who's in? What to know about the NCAA men's tournament's automatic bids
“I’m confident along with the rest of my guys,” said Maddox, a native of Bowie, Md., who finished with eight points on 3-for-6 shooting. “We’re all confident shooting. We shoot a lot. I love the feeling. It’s amazing, especially to win the game in an atmosphere like this, it’s great.”
Keve Aluma led the Hokies with 19 points, including a three-point play in overtime for a 72-69 lead with 2:19 to play. The second-team all-ACC selection added 10 rebounds in Virginia Tech’s second game against the Tigers in five days. The teams also met in Saturday’s regular season finale with Clemson winning, 63-59.
Turnovers in the second half contributed significantly to preventing Virginia Tech from pulling away — and had Young glaring at his players after several of the unforced variety.
In one sequence midway through the second half, reserve guard Sean Padulla dribbled wildly into the painted area and was called for a charge. Young immediately yelled for Murphy to rise from the bench and reenter, scowling at Padulla as he left the court.
Several minutes later on a two-on-one fast break, Justyn Mutts threw the ball out of bounds, and another turnover foiled a promising possession when Padulla tried a behind-the-back pass that sailed beyond the reach of a teammate and out of bounds on the sideline.
The Tigers capitalized by clawing back to 60-55 with 3:13 remaining in the second half on the heels of a 7-1 burst to set up the riveting finish. All three of Clemson’s field goals during that stretch came on layups, including a three-point play from forward Hunter Tyson with Aluma committing his third foul.
“That was kind of our problem early in the season when teams would make a run we wouldn’t be able to close the game,” said Murphy, who scored 15 points and made 5 of 9 three-pointers. “We were talking to each other a lot, stay connected, stay on the same page and not panic.”
After Clemson scored five straight points early in the second half to get the deficit back below double figure, the Hokies reeled off six of the next eight points, including a three-pointer from Maddux from the left side of the arc, to extend the lead to 52-39 with 12:18 to go.
The largest lead of a first half that included eight lead changes belonged to Virginia Tech, 41-29, with 1:29 to play on the strength of Murphy’s three-point shooting, paving the way for the Hokies to head into the locker room with a 43-32 advantage.
Murphy’s second three-pointer had given the Hokies a 35-24 lead with 4:30 left, but Clemson countered by scoring the next five in a row behind renewed defensive intensity highlighted by David Collins stealing an inbounds pass and dribbling almost the length of the court for a layup.
P.J. Hall, whose father Young coached at Wofford, led Clemson with 16 points, and Tyson Hunter added 13. | null | null | null | null | null |
T.E. Lawrence’s memoir of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire -- the basis for ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ — offers a sweeping look at war and its consequences
Last month, when Vladimir Putin was still massing troops on the Ukrainian border, I decided to read “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” T.E. Lawrence’s memoir of the 1916-1918 Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. The “private” edition first appeared 100 years ago in 1922, by which time its author had already tired of being called “Lawrence of Arabia.” Still, this account of how a young Englishman helped lead a Bedouin guerrilla force tasked with blowing up trains and rail lines is subtitled “A Triumph.” I wanted the same outcome for Ukraine, birthplace of one of my wife’s grandfathers, in its struggle with Russia, birthplace of one of mine.
If you’ve seen David Lean’s breathtaking film “Lawrence of Arabia,” you already know the overall arc of the narrative. During World War I, the Ottoman Empire allied itself with Germany, which led Great Britain to send troops to the Middle East. At roughly the same time, Sharif Hussein ibn Ali inaugurated an independence movement — largely spearheaded by two of his sons, Ali and Feisal — to break free of Turkish domination. Because Lawrence had spent time on archaeological digs and could speak Arabic, he was commissioned as a liaison between the British army and the ragtag rebel forces. Surprisingly, the young Oxford graduate, not yet 30, first earned the trust of Feisal, then persuaded the Bedouins to adopt hit-and-run battle tactics. Highly mobile fighters on camelback, he argued, could strike the enemy unexpectedly, then quickly disappear into the desert they knew so well. Soon nicknamed “Prince Dynamite,” Lawrence showed himself to be — in the words of military historian B.H. Liddell Hart — “a supreme artist of war.”
More reviews by Michael Dirda
Five feet five inches tall, he was also an excellent gymnast, a crack shot and a skilled mechanic. During the revolt, Lawrence carried Malory’s “Le Morte d’Arthur” in his saddlebag and in later life translated Homer’s “Odyssey.” This self-described “pocket Hercules” may also have been homosexual but probably nonpracticing: He couldn’t bear to be touched and claimed never to have had consensual physical intimacy with anyone. Abstemious about food and drink, Lawrence was utterly uninterested in acquiring possessions or wealth, while many have testified to his spiritual charisma and intensity. He repudiated the least suggestion that one race was better than another.
As a writer, Lawrence excels at portraiture, topographical description, confession (usually laced with self-doubt) and the depiction of combat. Auda, the fiercest of all Bedouin warriors, “had married twenty-eight times” and “been wounded thirteen times; whilst the battles he provoked had seen all his tribesmen hurt and most of his relations killed. He himself had slain seventy-five men, Arabs, with his own hand in battle: and never a man except in battle. Of the number of dead Turks he could give no account: they did not enter the register.”
Lawrence’s evocations of landscape range from the sharp and swift — “The heat of Arabia came out like a drawn sword and struck us speechless” — to the intensely tactile, as when the rebel forces trek through the Wadi Hamdh river, “a trough 15 miles across.” The sand was “rotten with salty mud and flaking away, so that our camels sank in, fetlock deep, with a crunching noise like breaking pastry. The dust rose up in thick clouds, thickened yet more by the sunlight held in them; for the dead air of the hollow was a-dazzle.”
“As I watched, our machine-guns chattered out over my head, and the long rows of Turks on the carriage roofs rolled over, and were swept off the top like bales of cotton before the furious shower of bullets which stormed along the roofs and splashed clouds of yellow chips from the planking.”
Book Review: ‘The Young T.E. Lawrence,’ by Anthony Sattin
For many readers, the most horrific episode in a work replete with shocks occurs not when a captured Lawrence is raped by a Turkish officer at Deraa, but when his forces enter the massacred village of Tafas. After coming upon sickening atrocity after atrocity, the Arabs discover “a three or four year old child, with a huge wound where neck and body joined. She tottered forward and cried ‘Don’t hit me, Baba.’ Abd el Aziz, whose village this was, stumbled toward her, she screamed, then died.”
Overcome with anguish, one of Lawrence’s best fighters madly gallops into the midst of the fleeing enemy soldiers and is immediately cut down. At that point, Lawrence finally gives his command: “I said, ‘The best of you brings me the most Turkish dead.’ ” For the only time, he adds, “by my order we took no prisoners.”
At first, the long-sought capture of Damascus might seem to be the climax of “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” Yet the book’s actual conclusion occurs afterward, when the weary-hearted Lawrence, urged to visit that city’s hospital, surveys the hundreds of wounded and dying laid out on pallets. Here is the true face of battle.
Today’s readers, used to the twittering demotic of our age, may need to adjust to this titanic prose-poem’s leisurely, mandarin style. It’s worth the effort. To H.G. Wells, the book was nothing less than “the finest piece of prose that has been written in the English language for 150 years” — in other words, since Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Other equally ardent admirers of the work or its author include Winston Churchill, British Field Marshal A.P. Wavell, playwright George Bernard Shaw, poet Robert Graves and Israeli statesman Chaim Weizmann.
Like Gibbon’s masterpiece, “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” can be criticized as slanted, partial and even unreliable. But as epic and psychological document, it remains a stunning achievement. It’s also something of an encyclopedia, providing reflections on Middle Eastern history, the nature and appeal of fanatical piety, the sociology of Bedouin life and, sadly, the Western Allies’s political duplicity. While this great book’s monumentality can certainly be daunting, reading it is an experience you will never forget.
Rereading “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” | null | null | null | null | null |
In Carson Wentz, the Washington Commanders have arguably their best combination of talent and experience at quarterback since 2017, Kirk Cousins’s final season with the team. But Wentz is a complicated player who not only has struggled to use his physical skills judiciously but has gained a reputation as a player who makes crushing mistakes in the biggest moments.
The latest and most dramatic example came last season in Week 18. The Colts’ stunning loss to the two-win Jacksonville Jaguars that kept them out of the postseason wasn’t entirely on Wentz — the defense and his offensive supporting cast shared the blame — but he shouldered a sizable chunk. Wentz completed 17 of 29 passes for 185 yards, one touchdown and one interception. He took six sacks and lost a fumble. Per ESPN, his total quarterback rating of 4.3 was one of the worst for any passer all season.
It’s fair to wonder whether Wentz will fare any better with Washington. Wentz will turn 30 in December and was just traded away by his biggest advocate, Colts Coach Frank Reich, who was the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive coordinator during Wentz’s MVP-caliber 2017 season. But even if the Commanders’ coaches can’t help Wentz improve, even if he remains a quarterback with a chasm between his talent and his production, he figures to be an upgrade over Taylor Heinicke in ability and consistency.
This is key for a Washington offense that has struggled for the past two years. It’s difficult to know how much blame falls on coordinator Scott Turner because he has spent the bulk of his tenure calling plays for limited quarterbacks in Dwayne Haskins, Alex Smith and Heinicke. Wentz, an established NFL starter, was considered for most of this past season about league average, and he should bring some of the stability that Ryan Fitzpatrick was expected to offer in 2021.
But like Heinicke early in the season, Wentz seemed to have trouble balancing his aggressive style with the conservative approach his coaches wanted. At his end-of-season news conference, Colts General Manager Chris Ballard divulged that he had a lengthy conversation with Wentz after Week 18 in which he urged him to make smarter, safer decisions. Ballard said he told Wentz that he needed to get the ball out quickly — which is what Commanders Coach Ron Rivera said about Heinicke at times last season.
During his news conference at the NFL combine last week, Ballard hinted that Wentz needed to learn to better handle criticism and that “it’ll be interesting to see how he grows from this. I think he will.”
In Washington, Wentz may have one of the best supporting casts of his career. He’s downgrading at running back — Indianapolis’s Jonathan Taylor was the class of the league last season — but getting a boost along the offensive line and with his pass catchers. Last season, wideout Michael Pittman Jr. (1,082 yards, six touchdowns), one of his only consistent options, became his second 1,000-yard receiver (joining Eagles tight end Zach Ertz, who had 1,163 in 2018). The combination of wide receiver Terry McLaurin, running back Antonio Gibson and tight end Logan Thomas, among others, should help. | null | null | null | null | null |
New York Knicks forward Julius Randle (30) looks to pass against Dallas Mavericks forward Dorian Finney-Smith (10) and other defenders during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Dallas, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Mavericks: Doncic picked up his 14th technical foul with the game just about out of reach in the fourth quarter. He is two technicals from a one-game suspension, though that count resets for the playoffs. ... Dallas’ previous lowest-scoring first half was 37 in a 97-90 loss at Memphis on Dec. 4. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ships are docked at an oil and chemicals terminal at the Port of Rotterdam. Europe's biggest port is where the sharp end of sanctions against Russia looks likely to hurt the Netherlands. (Peter Boer/Bloomberg News)
E.U. officials cast the move as a way to hit the Kremlin’s war chest while also reducing Russia’s leverage over the bloc. “We must become independent from Russian oil, coal and gas,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement Tuesday. “We simply cannot rely on a supplier who explicitly threatens us.”
Getting more natural gas from places like Norway or Nigeria is theoretically possible but needs to be coordinated. With the question of supply up in the air, price increases were strongly predicted, experts said.
In a video that went viral on Tuesday, Tobias Hans, the minister president of Saarland, a small state in Western Germany, accused the federal government of enriching itself through fuel taxes. Filming himself at a gas station, Hans said prices “have reached the point where we have to act.”
He joined his conservative ally, Markus Söder, minister president of Bavaria, in demanding that the federal government enact a cap on fuel prices.
The coalition government passed a relief package before Russia’s invasion that included increases in commuter subsidies and immediate financial aid for poor families. Germany’s finance minister, Christian Lindner, said he would not rule out additional measures in the year ahead but that the state could not compensate the rising costs of energy imports in the long term. The state has limited resources, he said, and “we need to recognize that it is our contribution to solidarity with Ukraine to bear some negative economic consequences.”
In the long run, Europe’s energy crisis could be a boost for Macron’s argument that the E.U. should become more self-sufficient. In the short run, and with the election next month, the fallout could pose challenges for Macron, who recently warned the French that “this major crisis will have consequences on our lives, our economy.” | null | null | null | null | null |
And despite multiple opportunities in the closing seconds, the Hoyas ended their season with a 57-53 loss to Seton Hall, closing a campaign 6-25 and on a program-worst 21-game losing streak.
Georgetown is first Big East tournament defending champion to lose their first game the following tourney since West Virginia in 2011.
Now the questions begin on if Ewing will coach another game at his alma mater, though Athletic Director Lee Reed gave support in a statement last week.
The Hoyas became the first team in Big East history to go 0-19 in conference play. Their last victory came on Dec. 15. The record may have been horrendous, but two losses to Seton Hall came by a combined 12 points.
Georgetown took a 27-24 lead into halftime after a choppy first half in which neither team shot the ball well or did much to take care of it. The Hoyas shot just 30.3 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes; Seton Hall was at 33.3 percent. The start was ugly as Ewing took a timeout less than two minutes into the game as the Hoyas had two early turnovers and the team was 0 for 6 from the field.
That’s when freshman Mohammed took over for a stretch. He scored six straight and Georgetown wen on a 13-0 run to take a nine-point lead. All of those good feeling disappeared soon after when Harris, the 2021 Big East tournament most outstanding player, collapsed in the lane after twisting his ankle at the 11:39 mark of the first half. He immediately went to the locker room, helped off by trainers and not putting any weight on his right foot. He did not return because of a lower right leg injury.
Harris’s replacement, freshman Tyler Beard scored five points during a 9-2 stretch that gave Georgetown its biggest lead at 27-17. The problem was the Hoyas couldn’t close the half. Seton Hall finished on a 7-0 run that included two shot clock violations by Georgetown that had Ewing coming all the way on the court to scream at Carey to shoot the ball after he passed it late in both instances. | null | null | null | null | null |
Jayden Gardner (1) scored a game-high 17 points to lead Virginia past Louisville. (John Minchillo/AP)
NEW YORK — The sixth-seeded Virginia men’s basketball team took a modest but necessary step toward securing a berth in the NCAA tournament with a 51-50 win against No. 11 seed Louisville on Wednesday night in the second round of the ACC tournament at Barclays Center.
Forward Jayden Gardner scored on a jumper to put the Cavaliers (19-12) ahead to stay, 47-45, with 1:28 to play in the second half, and guard Reece Beekman’s driving layup moments later all but ensured a meeting with No. 3 seed North Carolina in Thursday’s quarterfinals.
A victory over the Tar Heels would boost Virginia’s spotty NCAA tournament credentials based on metrics used to determine at-large berths, but by all accounts a run at least to the ACC tournament championship game is a must to keep the Cavaliers from sweating it out on selection Sunday.
Virginia beat Louisville (13-19) for a third time this season despite missing all six of its three point attempts and won a game in the ACC tournament for the eighth consecutive season, setting a program record.
But the Cavaliers could afford to exhale only after Gardner made two foul shots with 4.2 seconds to play for a 51-47 lead. Louisville’s El Ellis sank a three-pointer from just inside half court for the final points.
“That was a kiuckle-buster, and that’s all you can do,” said Virginia Coach Tony Bennett. “Sometimes that’s how it gets in tournaments. We get to play tomorrow.”
Gardner led Virginia with a game-high 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting, and senior guard Kihei Clark added 15 points to help the Cavaliers advance to the quarterfinals for the 10th year in a row, all under Bennett.
“To me it’s beautiful when a team finds a way,” said Bennett. “They guard hard. They do tough things, and we’ve been down this road, and again it’s about getting a victory. I don’t apologize for how we play. I want our guys when they have shots to take them. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t, but when you know when you’re struggling in certain areas, do you have the wherewithal and the identity to say, ‘We’re going to rely on stop and squeeze out a few points?’ ”
Malik Williams led Louisville with 11 points. No other Cardinals player scored in double figures on a night they shot 36 percent from the field, including just 5 of 22 on three-pointers.
“We knew we had to get stops,” Beekman said. “That was kind of the mind-set, so coming down the stretch it was kind of going back and forth, and we knew at the end of the day we’d have to get a couple stops to win the game. At the end that’s what we did.”
The emotionally charged nature of the game bubbled to the surface, particularly after the teams were deadlocked at 39 with 6:32 to go in the second half.
Louisville had an opportunity to take the lead on the ensuing possession when Sydney Curry rose to get a hand on teammate Samuell Williamson’s missed layup and attempted a dunk on the putback. The rim got in the way, however, and Curry looked at both hands and hollered in disappointment while retreating to play defense.
On the other end, Clark drove past Curry, glided under the basket and emerged on the other side for an acrobatic reverse layup that brought Cavaliers fans to their feet.
But the Cardinals got Williams’s three-pointer with the shot clock winding down and Gardner guarding closely to push Louisville back in front, 42-41, with 4:48 to go before Kadin Shedrick made both ends of a one-and-one 25 seconds later.
Both teams had a significant contributor log a third personal foul early in the second half, forcing Shedrick and Curry to the bench for an extended period.
Shedrick drew a large portion of the defensive assignment on the chiseled Curry, who in the last meeting between the schools — a 71-61 victory for visiting Virginia in Saturday’s regular season finale — punished defenders in the painted area for a game-high 24 points to with 14 rebounds, six of which were offensive.
The foul issues saddling Shedrick forced Francisco Caffaro to play the majority of the second half, although Bennett deployed both his big men on the court at the same time with 8:55 left in the game.
Curry also reentered at the same time, and Louisville went right to him for a turnaround one-hander along the baseline to tie the score at 37 with 8:12 remaining in the second half.
Virginia trailed at halftime, 24-20, in Wednesday’s rematch following a flat start that resulted in the Cardinals, who advanced to the second round with an 84-74 victory over No. 14 seed Georgia Tech on Tuesday, opening a nine-point advantage with 8:59 to play courtesy of a 9-0 surge.
But Gardner scored the next five points consecutively on a driving layup, 1 of 2 free throws and a midrange jumper to pull the Cavaliers back within two possessions in a game that tipped after 10 p.m. because of overtime in the first night game between Virginia Tech and Clemson. | null | null | null | null | null |
Eleanor Roosevelt scores an upset, Churchill wins its semifinal to set up showdown for 4A boys’ crown
Churchill forward Tre Stott, shown last month, scored 18 points in the Bulldogs' semifinal win. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
When Parkville’s desperation three-point attempt fell to the floor Wednesday, the game clock showed 0:00 and the scoreboard read Eleanor Roosevelt 57, Parkville 55.
Then everybody at North Point’s gym in Waldorf stood at attention awaiting an explanation for the whistle that accompanied the game’s final buzzer. As one official ran toward the spot where the shot was attempted, members of Eleanor Roosevelt clutched their heads, fearing the worst. But instead of calling a foul on the shot, the official called a travel.
Game over. Eleanor Roosevelt advances to Saturday’s Maryland 4A championship game, in which it will face Churchill at 8 p.m. at Xfinity Center in College Park.
“I was pretty nervous there,” senior James Rice said. “In my opinion, we had played pretty solid defense, but when they blew the whistle, I definitely thought we were about to get robbed.”
The Raiders (18-5) battled back from a 10-point deficit in the second half to set up the showdown with the Bulldogs (23-1), who knocked off Meade, 55-50, in the other semifinal Wednesday at Wise High in Upper Marlboro.
Junior forward Tre Stott, seeking redemption after initiating an on-court fight in January, led Churchill with 18 points. Junior guards Isaiah Mbeng and Zeke Avit added 13 and 10 points, respectively.
Back in Bennsville, Eleanor Roosevelt fans and bench players mobbed the team’s starting five, while the fans who remained in the stands turned into a choir and sang the arena favorite “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”
Top-seeded Parkville (24-1) converted on a late foul to take a 31-29 lead into the half, and the Knights seemed intent on closing out fourth-seeded Roosevelt in the third quarter. The Raiders committed several unforced errors, and Parkville went on a 12-4 run to extend its lead to 43-33 with roughly four minutes remaining in the third quarter.
From there, the Raiders found their legs and began chipping away at the deficit.
“It’s kind of been what we’ve been doing all throughout this season,” Eleanor Roosevelt Coach Brendan O’Connell said. “We haven’t blown teams out like in years past, and as a result teams have gone on runs and we’ve had to respond accordingly, starting with our defense.”
Eleanor Roosevelt did just that, holding the previously undefeated Knights to 12 points the rest of the way. Before Wednesday, Parkville hadn’t scored fewer than 60 points in a game all season; it was averaging 80 points a night.
After taking a 57-55 lead with seven seconds remaining, Eleanor Roosevelt senior Jaylin Payne stepped to the free throw line with an opportunity to ice the game. Despite leading the team with 16 points, he missed both shots.
Parkville called a timeout, and Rice made a beeline to Payne, who was sulking.
“As one of our leaders, I just tried to pick him up and let him know that we were still going to win,” said Rice, who scored eight. “We’ve hung our hat on being a defensive team all year; I knew we could get one more stop.”
Roosevelt will be seeking its fifth state championship and fourth under O’Connell. The Greenbelt school won the last time Maryland staged state championships, in 2019. Churchill won its only 4A crown in 1978.
“There’s honestly no better feeling than knowing that you’ll be playing for the big one Saturday night at Maryland,” O’Connell said. “Incredibly blessed.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Portland Trail Blazers forward Trendon Watford (2) turns to offload the ball away from Utah Jazz forward Royce O’Neale during the first half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, March 9, 2022, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Adam Fondren)
SALT LAKE CITY — Bojan Bogdanovic scored 27 points, hitting six 3-pointers, to lead the Utah Jazz to a 123-85 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night. | null | null | null | null | null |
And despite multiple opportunities in the closing seconds, the Hoyas ended their season with a 57-53 loss to Seton Hall to close out a 6-25 campaign on a program-worst 21-game losing streak.
Georgetown is the first Big East tournament defending champion to lose its first game the following year since West Virginia in 2011.
Ewing was reluctant to discuss his future after the loss.
“It’s been a rough year, can’t do anything rash,” the coach said. “Just got to take a few days to regroup, think about what we want to do and then start the process. … I’m not going to make any rash decisions.”
“We still had opportunities. We just weren’t able to overcome them,” Ewing said. “So I have to be proud of them, proud of the effort. We’ve just got to regroup.”
“It was amazing,” said Harris, from nearby East Brunswick, N.J. “Just to be able to knock down that shot for my teammates and my brothers. … Hearing the crowd go crazy for us. … Being from Jersey I always have a chip on my shoulder.”
Now the questions begin on whether Ewing will coach another game at his alma mater, though Athletic Director Lee Reed gave Ewing his upport in a statement last week.
The Hoyas became the first team in Big East history to go 0-19 in conference play. Their last victory came on Dec. 15. Their record may have been calamitous, but two losses to Seton Hall came by a combined 12 points.
Georgetown took a 27-24 lead into halftime after a choppy first half in which neither team shot the ball well or did much to take care of it. The Hoyas shot just 30.3 percent from the field in the opening 20 minutes; Seton Hall was at 33.3 percent. The start was ugly as Ewing took a timeout less than two minutes into the game as the Hoyas had two early turnovers and were 0 for 6 from the field.
That’s when freshman Mohammed took over for a stretch. He scored six straight points and Georgetown went on a 13-0 run to take a nine-point lead. All of those good feelings disappeared soon after when Harris, the 2021 Big East tournament most outstanding player, collapsed in the lane after twisting his ankle at the 11:39 mark of the first half. He immediately went to the locker room, helped off by trainers and not putting any weight on his right foot. He did not return. | null | null | null | null | null |
Philippines to proceed with purchase of Russian helicopters despite war in Ukraine
The Philippines will proceed with the purchase of 17 Russian transport helicopters for about $250 million despite Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine, the Southeast Asian nation’s defense secretary said Wednesday, poking a hole in the United States’ hopes of maximizing economic pressure on Moscow.
The move comes despite the Philippines being one of the 141 countries to vote for a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly this month that demanded Russia end military operations in Ukraine, and although it is a treaty ally of the United States.
A down payment on the helicopters was made before Russia began its military incursion into Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to remarks by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana that were confirmed by the Philippine Department of National Defense. The Philippines plans to receive the first batch of Russian-made Mi-17 choppers in a few years, the Associated Press reported.
Compared with the financial damage expected to be inflicted on Russia by Western sanctions, the Philippine payment into the Kremlin’s coffers is a relatively small sum. But Manila’s decision to keep buying Russian weapons reflects a broader dilemma for some American allies in Asia that do not have the budgets of the Pentagon or wealthier democracies.
The Philippine defense budget for 2020 was about $3.7 billion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) think tank. That figure was less than 1 percent of the $714 billion the Pentagon spent in the 2020 fiscal year.
Russia offers countries such as the Philippines a way to modernize their armed forces on a budget by selling cheaper weapons. Moscow’s arm sales to Southeast Asia from 2000 to 2019 amounted to $10.7 billion, according to SIPRI. The United States sold $7.86 billion worth of arms in the region during the same period.
By Gerrit De Vynck1:40 a.m.
Now, a document uploaded by Google to a database of government requests shows E.U. officials explaining how the order applies not just to the social media accounts of RT and Sputnik, but also to search results and to posts from individuals who “reproduce” content from the two media organizations on any social media platform. | null | null | null | null | null |
George Washington meets UMass in A-10 Tournament
BOTTOM LINE: The George Washington Colonials and UMass Minutemen square off in the A-10 Tournament.
The Colonials are 8-5 on their home court. George Washington has a 5-14 record against teams over .500.
The Minutemen are 7-11 in conference matchups. UMass has a 4-1 record in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The teams square off for the second time this season. George Washington won the last meeting 77-68 on Feb. 10. James Bishop scored 24 to help lead George Washington to the victory, and Trent Buttrick scored 17 points for UMass.
TOP PERFORMERS: Joe Bamisile averages 2.0 made 3-pointers per game for the Colonials, scoring 16.0 points while shooting 35.8% from beyond the arc. Bishop is averaging 16.8 points over the last 10 games for George Washington.
Noah Fernandes is averaging 14 points and 5.2 assists for the Minutemen. Rich Kelly is averaging 7.7 points over the last 10 games for UMass. | null | null | null | null | null |
Sam Houston aims for 20th victory this season in matchup with Grand Canyon
Sam Houston Bearkats (19-13, 13-5 WAC) vs. Grand Canyon Antelopes (23-7, 12-5 WAC)
BOTTOM LINE: Sam Houston will aim for its 20th win of the season when the Bearkats visit the Grand Canyon Antelopes.
The Antelopes have gone 15-2 at home. Grand Canyon is fourth in college basketball allowing 58.6 points per game while holding opponents to 38.2% shooting.
The Bearkats are 13-5 against WAC opponents. Sam Houston is ninth in the WAC scoring 68.9 points per game and is shooting 42.7%.
The teams meet for the third time this season. Grand Canyon won 67-41 in the last matchup on Feb. 27. Jovan Blacksher Jr. led Grand Canyon with 18 points, and Javion May led Sam Houston with eight points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Blacksher is shooting 42.1% and averaging 16.4 points for the Antelopes. Holland Woods is averaging 1.9 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games for Grand Canyon.
Savion Flagg is scoring 18.6 points per game with 8.3 rebounds and 2.1 assists for the Bearkats. Demarkus Lampley is averaging 8.7 points over the last 10 games for Sam Houston.
LAST 10 GAMES: Antelopes: 8-2, averaging 69.4 points, 32.4 rebounds, 10.3 assists, 5.7 steals and 1.8 blocks per game while shooting 40.3% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 60.3 points per game.
Bearkats: 6-4, averaging 64.0 points, 32.4 rebounds, 13.3 assists, 9.0 steals and 2.4 blocks per game while shooting 42.6% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 53.9 points. | null | null | null | null | null |
Washington visits No. 21 USC following Mobley's 20-point performance
Washington Huskies (16-15, 11-9 Pac-12) vs. USC Trojans (25-6, 14-6 Pac-12)
BOTTOM LINE: No. 21 USC hosts the Washington Huskies after Isaiah Mobley scored 20 points in USC’s 75-68 loss to the UCLA Bruins.
The Trojans have gone 13-3 at home. USC is third in the Pac-12 with 10.2 offensive rebounds per game led by Chevez Goodwin averaging 2.7.
The Huskies are 11-9 against conference opponents. Washington is 3-0 in games decided by 3 points or fewer.
The teams meet for the second time this season. USC won 79-69 in the last matchup on Feb. 18. Goodwin led USC with 24 points, and Terrell Brown led Washington with 23 points.
TOP PERFORMERS: Mobley is scoring 14.6 points per game with 8.5 rebounds and 3.1 assists for the Trojans. Drew Peterson is averaging 9.2 points over the last 10 games for USC.
Daejon Davis is averaging 7.3 points and two steals for the Huskies. Brown is averaging 14.1 points and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 44.8% over the last 10 games for Washington. | null | null | null | null | null |
NEW YORK — Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled 93 more games, appearing to cut off the chance to play a full 162-game schedule and threatening locked out players with loss of salary and service time.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The greatest of his generation, Tiger Woods took his place among the best of all time when he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame and shared a life story of a passion to play and a work ethic that made him feel like he earned it. | null | null | null | null | null |
LONDON — The U.K. on Thursday announced sanctions on seven wealthy Russians with connections to the Britain, including the most high profile of them all, Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea soccer club.
Like all of those on the list, Abramovich’s assets in the U.K. will be frozen and he faces a travel ban. He also faces a prohibition on transactions with U.K. individuals and businesses.
Abramovich, whom the government said is worth more than £9 billion (more than $12.2 billion), recently announced he was selling the London-based Chelsea soccer club.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “There can be no safe havens for those who have supported Putin’s vicious assault on Ukraine. Today’s sanctions are the latest step in the UK’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian people. We will be ruthless in pursuing those who enable the killing of civilians, destruction of hospitals and illegal occupation of sovereign allies.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Roman Istomin and Olga Petrova protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Lafayette Square in D.C. on March 3. The Russian couple has joined numerous antiwar protests since the conflict began. (Joe Heim/The Washington Post)
And they cannot stay quiet here, they say, when speaking against the war is outlawed in Russia. More than 4,500 antiwar protesters were arrested there on Sunday alone, according to the independent human rights organization OVD-Info.
On a cold evening last week, Roman Istomin and Olga Petrova stood in front of the White House at a protest organized by the local Ukrainian community. The couple, from the Russian city of Perm, moved to the United States in 2014. They had protested Putin’s leadership and participated in pro-democracy movements when they lived in Russia. Since the war began, they have had friends in Russia beaten and arrested for taking part in antiwar protests. It’s their responsibility, they said, to voice their opposition here since so many back home can’t.
“We’re trying to make us more visible,” Valuev said. “To go to the rallies and say, ‘Yes, I’m Russian and I support Ukraine. And I’m against the war.’”
Elizaveta Volkova didn’t expect to spend her first year of college at anti-Putin protests in Washington, but that’s what’s happened for the freshman from Moscow who is studying at George Washington University. The 17-year-old has not known a Russia led by anyone other than Putin. When the war began, Volkova said, “my whole world collapsed.”
In Russia, there is a ban on criticizing the war. Even referring to it as a war is against the law. Officially, the war can only be called a “special operation.” Participating in protests or speaking out has lead to fines and arrests. Most Russians receive their news from state-controlled television and radio. Independent reporting has been muzzled.
“The biggest risk is me not being able to see them,” he said. “But my sister could lose her job. My mother, who knows. There are many ways to humiliate.”
At the protests she has attended, including one at the Russian Embassy the morning the war began, Maria Bulycheva made a point of telling the Ukrainians who were there that she was Russian and was against the war. They welcomed her, she said.
Bulycheva has lived in the United States for almost 30 years, but her parents and other family members remain in Russia and she is in daily contact with them. The 50-year-old economist, who has both American and Russian citizenship, said she feels a duty to protest the war. She kept her Russian citizenship, she said, because she wants to be able to have a say in its future. | null | null | null | null | null |
Anti-trans laws weaponize child protection systems that have long harmed kids
Overly broad definitions of abuse have invited coercive intrusions into families’ lives
By Mical Raz
Mical Raz is a professor of history and health policy at the University of Rochester, and a practicing physician.
Val Benavidez, Texas Freedom Network executive director, and other LGBTQ leaders speak outside the Travis County, Tex., courthouse on March 2 in Austin. (Erich Schlegel/AP)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has instructed the commissioner of the state’s Department of Family and Protective services to view gender-affirming care for trans children as a form of child abuse. Referring to an opinion by his beleaguered (and indicted) Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), Abbott noted that Texas law “imposes a duty on DFPS to investigate the parents of a child who is subjected to these abusive gender-transitioning procedures.” A judge has halted an investigation in one case, but the judge’s order allows for investigations into other trans families to go forward.
Public outcry has been swift, while professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and its local Texas chapter, have issued strong statements of condemnation. Yet already a leading pediatric hospital has paused providing gender affirming care to shield employees and patients from potential ramifications. There are real consequences to these policies.
For trans children and families, their very existence is at stake. Investigations may result in child removal and placement outside the home, as well as denial of essential medical care. But for Abbott, this is just one facet of a calculated political strategy. As his reelection strategist noted, this is a “winning issue” for Abbott’s campaign. Exploiting broad legal statutes to criminalize, punish and break up families of disfavored and disempowered groups has a long history. And systems of child protection have often been deployed in ways that harm the very ones they have been charged to safeguard.
Early mandated reporting statutes focused on requiring physicians and health-care workers to report concerns of physical abuse. These were gradually broadened and expanded, and the passage of the federal Child Abuse and Protection Act in 1974, set the standard for what situations required reporting.
These standards were exceedingly broad, reflecting relentless advocacy of groups such as the influential Parents Anonymous, which sought to equate all forms of abuse as equally harmful. This argument was taken to the absurd. In one booklet, Parents Anonymous argued that emotional neglect could be “worse than the murder of a child.” The murdered child “at least” had “been shown negative emotional response,” while the neglected child did not even receive that. This was part of a bigger push to equate different forms of imperfect parenting with actual abuse and to portray abuse as omnipresent.
These broad definitions had practical implications. As states scrambled to meet the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) requirements, their reporting requirements included vague definitions such as “emotional neglect” or “mental injury.” But what states were primarily doing was reporting, not offering needed services. As Yale child psychiatrist Albert Solnit argued in 1978, overly broad definitions of abuse were leading to an “epidemic” of reporting, unmatched by funding for supportive services. Reports “based on life style [sic] difference, and on prejudice against minorities, single-parent families and low income families” could lead to coercive interventions that threatened “family integrity.” Sen. Walter Mondale (D-Minn.), who had championed CAPTA, also warned against further expansions of child abuse definitions. The government, Mondale explained, had a responsibility to “safeguard families — particularly those who are poor and from minority groups — from being enveloped in a system which may label them permanently as criminal or deviants.”
By the late 1970s, child welfare researchers across the political spectrum from liberal advocates for families to researchers affiliated with the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute cautioned that child abuse definitions were overly broad and vague and argued that they should be narrowed.
Yet politicians made the opposite choice.
Child abuse was a useful tool in culture wars, and the American public was particularly vulnerable to political scares involving the alleged harm to children.
Politicians could use the specter of child abuse to commit resources to state surveillance and oppression of poor communities and communities of color — even at times of fiscal crisis, and at a time when people of color and women were claiming more civil rights.
In 1977, California became the first state to attempt to criminalize the behavior of a pregnant woman under child abuse and maltreatment statutes. Prosecutors charged Margaret Velasquez Reyes with felony child endangerment for giving birth to twins who exhibited signs of withdrawal from heroin. The legal charges against Reyes, a Latina mother who had received little prenatal care, would prove to be a model for the forthcoming litigation over intrauterine “child abuse” cases. In the post-Roe era, where conservative politicians pushed what was termed “fetal personhood” policies, punishing pregnant women and other pregnant individuals who used drugs was seen as a political winner.
Physician groups including the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists and the American Public Health Association all cautioned against the criminalization of maternal drug use and addiction, concerned that pregnant mothers would delay seeking care for fear of prosecution.
Undeterred, some states rushed to update their child abuse statutes to include maternal drug use. By the 1980s, mothers across the country were prosecuted for the use of crack cocaine during pregnancy. Often this had nothing to do with actual harm to children. In 1998, an African American mother, Malissa Ann Crawley, was sentenced to five years’ probation after pleading guilty to child abuse. She had used crack cocaine during her 1991 pregnancy, which had resulted in a healthy baby boy. When Crawley’s probation was revoked over a fight with her boyfriend, she went to prison for a child abuse conviction in which no children had been harmed — leaving behind her son, by then 6 years old, and his two older siblings.
Prosecutions of pregnant women and other pregnant individuals for their behavior while pregnant, while unusual, instilled great fear and probably hindered their access to care. One study from 2013 identified 413 cases of pregnant women prosecuted for their otherwise noncriminal behavior while pregnant between 1973 and 2005 — almost certainly an undercounting of the true number of cases.
Today, parental drug use is a leading cause of child abuse investigation and removal, while we know that addiction is a relapsing disease and that, as advocates have noted, a drug test is not a parenting test. Many Americans use substances, yet Black mothers are disproportionately investigated and experience child removal.
And it’s not just the use of substances. As early as 1990, the United States Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect reflected on a system focused primarily on investigations, rather than on the provision of services and necessary resources. In a system where reports of neglect abounded, it was “far easier to pick up one’s phone to report one’s neighbor” than to connect the neighbor in need with resources. For many observers, calling child protective services might appear to be the simplest way to respond to a crisis. Yet most reports and investigations don’t result in the provision of new services. Still, reports and investigations continue to be the primary response to families in crisis.
The same system ensnares families living their lives with no need for any intervention at all. In the past decade, states have investigated parents for allowing their children to play in a playground unsupervised, for running in for a quick errand while leaving a child in a car and for letting children walk home from school alone.
It is primarily poor mothers of color who are vulnerable to these coercive interventions into family decisions. A recent study has shown that more than half of all Black children will experience a child protection investigation before age 18. More than one in 100 kids in the United States will experience termination of parent rights, the ultimate loss of family integrity, with rates even higher for Native and Black children.
Broad definitions of neglect and abuse are ripe for cynical misuse. For example, Fox News host Tucker Carlson encouraged his viewers to report children wearing masks to the police or to child protective services. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) press secretary accused those who object to the controversial Parental Rights in Education bill of being “groomers” or supporting the sexual grooming of 4-to-8-year-old children, an accusation couched in language of sexual abuse.
Abbott’s latest cruel push to investigate families of transgender children is possible thanks to overly broad definitions of child abuse. These provisions have been weaponized and politicized for over half a century as a cudgel against disfavored families. Truly protecting children and families from these abusive policies requires more narrowly and carefully defining abuse and limiting coercive investigations into families. | null | null | null | null | null |
Foreign volunteer fighters can greatly assist Ukraine. But there will be challenges, too.
The Spanish Civil War’s history points to what Ukrainians and the thousands volunteering to fight with them should know
By Ariel Mae Lambe
Fraser Raeburn
A man who said he wants to join the fight against the Russian army in Ukraine crosses into Ukraine at the border in Medyka, Poland, on Wednesday. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been framed in the West as a key flash point in a wider ideological struggle against militarism and dictatorship. Yet because of the risk of global nuclear war, Western democracies cannot risk direct participation. In these circumstances, the stage has been set for foreign volunteer fighters to play a prominent role in this conflict.
On Feb. 27, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the creation of an International Legion within the Ukrainian territorial forces, waiving the need for visas, inviting applications through its embassies and publishing step-by-step instructions for potential volunteers. Various foreign governments have indicated that they would look favorably upon such volunteers, and media reports indicate that thousands of people may have already enlisted.
Zelensky’s call for foreign volunteers has precedents, most notably the foreign volunteers who participated in the Spanish Civil War. Their history offers insight into what prospective volunteers — and the world — should expect. While there are practical issues and drawbacks to consider when inviting foreign recruits, such volunteers have made significant contributions in the past, both as fighters and enduring symbols of global solidarity.
In 1936, a fierce civil war raged across Spain and armies fought to control the capital of Madrid. As the elected Republican government fought Francisco Franco’s rebellious Nationalists, a column of foreign volunteers arrived to bolster Madrid’s defenders. Such units became known as International Brigades, eventually encompassing tens of thousands of foreign volunteers fighting to preserve Spain’s fragile yet inspiring democracy. In the words of British communist politician Harry Pollitt, they were “fighting for the democracy not only of Spain, but also of Britain and all of Europe.” All democracies, he asserted, should “support and strengthen” those confronting fascism on their behalf.
Similar rhetoric fuels the global response to today’s crisis, as Ukrainian authorities frame the conflict as an existential threat far beyond Ukraine’s borders — in Zelensky’s words, “If we will fall, you will fall.”
An exceptional number of foreigners volunteered to fight in Spain. Such recruitment was possible not only because of mass sympathy for the Spanish Republican cause, but also because that sympathy was deeply rooted in existing anti-fascist movements and particularly the transnational networks of international communism.
These networks facilitated volunteering on several levels. They ensured prospective volunteers had local points of contact that could help arrange and pay for travel to the war zone. Even more importantly, these networks ensured that recruitment was not taking place among isolated individuals. Rather, the call reached tightknit social groups with shared ideological outlooks, who could decide collectively that volunteering was the right response to the crisis.
This dramatically increased follow-through. So, too, did pan-Hispanism in the case of Spanish-speaking recruits from the Americas, an affinity based on shared language and culture that provided the Spanish Republic with some of its most valuable volunteers. Due to this affinity, these recruits could integrate into the Spanish conflict much more easily than the majority of volunteers who spoke no Spanish, and some who were bilingual acted as vital linguistic and cultural interpreters.
Existing networks facilitated recruitment — but they also played gatekeeper. It quickly became clear that many people who had initially volunteered were unsuitable, due to age, fitness or ideological untrustworthiness. The presence of such volunteers in the conflict zone proved to be a serious drain on resources. Yet sending them home while other volunteers were denied opportunities for leave proved unpopular. As a result, stricter recruitment standards were imposed, including compulsory medical checks, as well as heightened efforts to ensure that volunteers were committed antifascists whose motives and political beliefs were deemed compatible with those of the International Brigades.
Foreign volunteers in Spain came from dozens of countries: across Europe from Ireland to Greece, across the Americas from Canada to Argentina and from as far afield as Ethiopia, New Zealand and China. While individual circumstances varied greatly, most fought to confront and contain fascist aggression in Europe. With both Nazi Germany and fascist Italy actively intervening in the civil war from its earliest days, volunteers hoped that checking their ambitions in Spain would halt their expansionist diplomacy and strengthen European commitments to collective security.
Even with a shared sense of mission and much goodwill, working together still proved challenging. With dozens of languages in regular use, it was difficult for volunteers to coordinate effectively with Spanish military units, and cooperation between the different international units could also be fraught.
While linguistic problems limited the military effectiveness of the volunteers on the battlefield, the simple reality was that even 35,000 foreign recruits could not turn the tide of a conflict fought by hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides. The sudden arrivals of volunteers did play a critical role in stiffening the defense of Madrid in 1936-37, but high casualties and dwindling replacements made the International Brigades less effective as the conflict wore on. Up to a quarter of the volunteers died in Spain, the result not just of the intense battles in which they fought, but also their limited experience and training.
Up against the rebellious Spanish army — and its German and Italian allies — Spanish Republican forces and the International Brigades were often outmatched in training and equipment. Most of the remaining International Brigades were withdrawn from Spain just months before Franco’s victory in early 1939. For decades to come, as Franco’s repression silenced most in Spain, the veterans of the International Brigades along with exiled Spanish Republicans helped keep memory and knowledge of the struggle alive.
This history points to a mixed record when it comes to incorporating international volunteers into a military force during war. While medical volunteers and specialist technicians could play particularly valuable roles in Ukraine, having to train large numbers of inexperienced international volunteers for combat could be costly. Focusing on recruiting those with actual military experience and weapons training, or those skilled in medical or technical work needed for the war effort, could make these costs worth it. This is a lesson that may need to be relearned the hard way — Ukrainian authorities said on March 5 that all prospective volunteers were welcome whether they have combat experience or not.
As in Spain, there are questions about ideological gatekeeping. There is a risk, for example, that radical right-wing groups could become recruitment networks. While the far right is hardly unified on the issue of Ukraine, association with any such volunteers may increase the effectiveness of Russian propaganda painting Ukraine as “fascist.” Propaganda and information warfare have been vital in the conflict thus far, and the Ukrainian government can ill afford to recruit foreign fighters without any care for their background or motives.
Perhaps the most useful foreign recruits for Ukraine would be individuals in the Ukrainian diaspora, particularly those with military experience or training. Indeed, on March 5, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry claimed that 66,000 Ukrainian men had returned to fight — an impressive number if accurate. Such volunteers could integrate into both the Ukrainian armed forces and civilian landscape with relative ease. While English probably will emerge as a lingua franca among foreign volunteers today, encounters with local troops, civilians and command structures will still make local language skills vital.
According to historian Nir Arielli, foreign fighters can serve three main purposes: compensating for manpower shortages, filling vital skills gaps and advancing political propaganda. In the short term at least, this final purpose is most pressing. Ukrainian authorities are skillfully rallying world opinion to their side, and the foreign volunteers are now a prominent part of their communication strategy.
Recruits from abroad will create links between the war zone and the wider world, maintaining public investment in events even after the initial shock and spectacle of wartime aggression fades. Without direct foreign intervention — which remains just as unlikely today as it once was in Spain — volunteers from abroad can become important and enduring symbols of international solidarity. | null | null | null | null | null |
My March 2022 book recommendations
The interwar period, so hot right now.
A glass of red wine and a book on the bed at home. (iStock)
The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts went on vacation recently. Sure, the current global crisis might have created a demand for individuals with a passing familiarity with economic sanctions and Ukraine. The thing is, all punditry and no play makes Dan a dull boy, and I have been feeling pretty dull as of late.
Of course, vacation means time to read! And because I am a international relations nerd, the lines between my vacation reading and my work reading can be a bit blurry. Still, we all relax in our own ways, and given the current geopolitical moment my way is to read an awful lot about the legacies of the interwar period.
My books of choice for this vacation, in alphabetical order:
Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, “The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World.” This book, about the legacy of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that ostensibly outlawed wars of aggression, came out in 2017 but feels more trenchant today. Hathaway and Shapiro argue that the much-derided treaty outlawing war had a more profound effect on international relations than is commonly appreciated. If nothing else, states now have to justify their wars of aggression with absurd, hyperbolic claims — like the country they are invading is run by neo-Nazis trying to develop nuclear weapons.
James McAllister, “The Williamstown Institute of Politics and American Internationalism after the First World War.” I am a Williams College alum. I studied political economy and international relations there. Until I read McAllister’s book, I had no idea that the Williamston Institute of Politics (IOP) ever existed. In the aftermath of the first World War, Harry Garfield, the president of Williams and a close confidante of Wilson, created the IOP and dedicated it to Wilson’s vision of liberal internationalism. Furthermore, Garfield succeeded in attracting many European diplomats and policymakers to the Purple Valley to convene. One Swiss diplomat said in the 1920s that a “citizen of Geneva is more at home in Williamstown than in Warsaw, Vienna, Berlin, or Paris.” There has never been a single journal article or scholarly book written about the IOP. McAllister was able to access the archives and correct that oversight.
Wilson might be very much out of favor but the ideas of liberal internationalism have persisted. I, for one, am very curious how my alma mater played a central role in the development of American international relations.
Nicholas Mulder, “The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War.” Economic sanctions are all the rage nowadays. Although the practice traces back to the days of the Peloponnesian War, their modern iteration began during and after the first World War. Mulder’s book examines how economic sanctions emerged during the Great War — as an adjunct to military action — and eventually became perceived as the substitute for military action. Mulder suggests that the League of Nations’ interwar reliance on the tool was one of the triggers that ended the fragile return to economic globalization that occurred in the 1920s. The League’s sanctions were potent enough to encourage more autarkic behavior from revisionist actors like Nazi Germany.
I am sure this book will have zero relevance for today’s world. | null | null | null | null | null |
The war, which has divided Muslim clerics, threatens to destabilize the Caucasus and Central Asia
By Robert D. Crews
Robert D. Crews is a professor of history at Stanford University.
Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, addresses service members while making a statement on the military conflict in Ukraine, in Grozny, Russia, on Feb. 25. (Stringer/Reuters)
As Russian troops pushed in the first days of the war toward Kyiv, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities, and Ukrainians resisted, families in the Russian North Caucasus began to bury sons killed in the fighting. At one funeral in the Kurchaloyevsky district of Chechnya, a Muslim cleric announced that the families of Abdulbek Taramov and Tamirlan Isaev would each receive 1 million rubles (about $6,400) and a cow. Just days before, on Feb. 27, an Islamic scholar based in the Chechen capital of Grozny, Salakh Mezhiev, had declared the Russian invasion a “jihad.” Chechen soldiers, he explained, were fighting “for the Koran, for God” and to save both Russia and Islam from “filth” spread by NATO.
Pro-Kremlin propagandists have cast the Russian invasion as a war for what Putin has called the “spiritual unity” of Orthodox Christian Russians and Ukrainians. Yet an overlooked aspect of this war is the fact that Muslims of diverse national and ethnic backgrounds аre playing a central role. Muslim clerics in Russia have backed Vladimir Putin’s offensive and tried to rally the support of Russia’s estimated 20 million or more Muslims (at least 14 percent of the country’s population). On the front lines, Russian Muslims find themselves pitted against fellow Muslims defending Ukraine. Chechens are fighting on both sides. More Islamic burials are anticipated in both countries in the days to come.
These deaths could have significant geopolitical implications. Ukrainians are obviously bearing the brunt of Putin’s fury, but the war threatens to ignite other kinds of conflict within Russia and, via its Muslim diaspora communities, throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Russian clerics’ support of Putin could also backfire: Their support of Putin’s venture could discredit them in the eyes of their followers, who may come to question the legitimacy of the war and its religious validation — a development that would unsettle Russian Islam.
To be sure, Muslims have served in the Russian military since the tsarist era, yet their presence has been especially visible — and controversial — in this war. Among the first Russian casualties whose name became public (in this case by way of a local official’s statement) was a Muslim from Dagestan, Nurmagomed Gadzhimagomedov. Numerous Muslim names have already appeared on lists of captives, and according to analysis by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, about one third of casualties are soldiers with non-Slavic, mostly Muslim names. Notably, the Chechen strongman and Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov has dispatched a unit of loyalists to Ukraine. Videos of their exploits have circulated on social media, and Ukrainians have accused them of attempting to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky. When the offensive slowed in its early days, Kadyrov urged Putin to set aside all restraint to finish the job more quickly and has since called on Muslims to embrace the war as a religious duty.
In Ukraine, Kadyrov’s forces have become a symbol of Russian tyranny — and for some, Muslim-Christian conflict. Far-right Azov Battalion fighters have filmed themselves smearing bullets in pork grease to antagonize Muslims fighting for Russia, whom they refer to as “orcs.” However, Ukraine is also home to Chechen exiles who have never forgiven the Kadyrovs for siding with Russia and crushing their independence movement in 1999-2000. They, too, have pledged to fight.
In Russia, top Muslim clerics have for now put their rivalries aside and have mostly united behind the Kremlin. In Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan, Talgat Tadzhuddin has echoed Kremlin talking points justifying the invasion, concluding his statement with citations from the Koran. Kamil Samigullin, the mufti of the Republic of Tatarstan, has argued that the West’s support of Ukraine is hypocritical, given the interventions in Libya and Iraq (and the treatment of Palestinians), and asserted that Ukraine is controlled by neo-Nazis who have harmed Ukrainians “of all confessions, including Muslims.” Similarly, in Moscow, mufti Albert Krganov expressed regret about Ukrainian suffering but concluded that Ukraine had become a “staging ground for an attack on our country.” He added that Muslims were praying “for our president and for our soldiers in Ukraine regardless of their religion or nationality.”
In offering their blessings for the war, though, these clerics have taken a risk. Their authority is not universal, and it remains unclear how Muslims, particularly those with sons in the military, will respond. The “jihad” declared in Chechnya does not appear to have much popular support. One influential critic, Abdullah Kostekskii, a Salafist from Dagestan now in exile in Turkey, has declared it unlawful for Muslims to participate in the war for either “infidel” army. His Russian-language YouTube video on the subject has received more than 450,000 views in just over a week.
Nowhere is the risk of these controversies creating intra-Muslim conflict and anti-government mobilization greater than in the North Caucasus, which has some of the lowest standards of living in Russia. Squeezed by corrupt and oppressive rule, the region has been fertile ground for clashes among competing Islamic movements; as many as 7,000 locals may have left since 2013 to join the Islamic State seeking social justice and religious purity. There and elsewhere in Russia, disapproval of Muslims killing one another or dying in a futile war to aid the domination of one Slavic “brother” over another may harden.
Sanctions are yet another destabilizing feature of the war: Among the people most severely hurt by them will be the region’s Muslim labor migrants. As construction and other sectors of the Russian economy grind to a halt and the ruble plummets, 7.8 million itinerant workers from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan will lose wages that sustain their families back home. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where remittances make up roughly 30 percent of GDP, are the most vulnerable. Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan will also feel Russia’s pain due to currency and trade disruptions.
Back in Ukraine, the prominent Muslim cleric Said Ismagilov has responded to all of this by calling for Ukrainian unity against Russian aggression — and by appealing to Russian Muslims “not to support the Putin regime.” On his Facebook site, he has published photographs of a Ukrainian mosque damaged by Russian shells and asked the world’s Muslims “to be on our side,” arguing that Ukraine is a country, unlike Russia, “where Islam is a respected religion.”
The war in Ukraine is testing Muslims’ allegiances and straining relations between state-backed clerics and their followers. It also threatens to reopen the wounds of Russia’s wars of the 1990s in the Caucasus, while placing immense pressure on Central Asians in Russia and throughout the region. Within Russia itself, Putin’s actions risk undermining key religious foundations of the state by isolating the Kremlin’s Muslim-leader allies from their fragile social bases. Meanwhile, the possible entry of Syrians recruited by Russia and exiled Chechens fighting for Ukrainians raises the stakes of the war for neighbors in the Middle East.
Conceived as a quick operation to consolidate Russian domination of Ukraine, the war’s entanglement of Christians and Muslims of different ethnic and national origins and competing religious orientations could soon inflame ideological and sectarian antagonisms far beyond the battlefield. | null | null | null | null | null |
Film can be a powerful weapon in warfare
By Christopher B. Daly
Christopher B. Daly, a professor of journalism at Boston University, is the author of "Covering America: A Narrative History of a Nation’s Journalism."
Demonstrators watch an address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the big screen during a rally in support of Ukraine in Tbilisi, Georgia, on March 4. (Vano Shlamov/AFP/Getty Images)
As the latest land war in Europe grinds on in Ukraine, the fighting extends well beyond the military combat on the ground. Both sides are also waging a propaganda war — an old tactic updated with an array of new weapons and techniques.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has emerged as a master communicator, using social media platforms to bypass Russian censorship and communicate to the Ukrainian people. In his Instagram and Twitter posts and videos, he has outwitted Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and managed to capture the world’s attention with his direct and honest messaging — a feat in an age of snark and fakery. In this way, Zelensky has succeeded in showing the world that Ukraine — far from being a lost colony welcomed back to Mother Russia — is the victim of a war of aggression that was unprovoked and has been, so far, unsuccessful. In doing so, he is building on a wartime playbook advanced by the United States and other countries during World War II: mobilizing new communications technology as a weapon of war.
U.S. wartime propaganda from World War II played an important role in training troops, enhancing civilian morale and raising money for the war effort. Consider, for example, the famous series “Why We Fight,” created by Hollywood in the service of the U.S. War Department and directed by Frank Capra, the renowned creator of such beloved and sentimental American movie classics as “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Capra, an Italian immigrant and U.S. Army veteran who served during World War I, viewed Nazi leader Adolf Hitler as a unique global threat. Hitler’s primary propagandist was Leni Riefenstahl, a filmmaker. Understanding the power of film to persuade and evoke emotions, Capra was particularly worried about the effectiveness of Riefenstahl’s propaganda. Plus, he watched as wartime rationing sidelined most Hollywood production, sapping the American film industry of its own potential to persuade.
Capra and others in the film industry pushed the White House to mobilize Hollywood talent just as the government had mobilized other American industries, including car and textile production, in support of the war effort. American film, Capra said, could effectively counter Nazi messaging, and the impact could be as important as the building of fighter planes or production of military uniforms.
The idea, embraced enthusiastically by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his military chief of staff, George C. Marshall, was that such films could explain to recruits why they were being asked to go and fight in far-off lands. At first, the “Why We Fight” series was meant to be shown just in Army boot camps, but when Roosevelt screened an early entry in the series, he was so impressed that he ordered the government to pay for the rights to screen the films in free showings for all American moviegoers.
What was Capra’s message?
In “The Battle of Russia,” Capra drove home the theme that the Nazi assault on Russia was uniquely barbaric for two reasons: First, it was unprovoked. Second, it involved the dreadful tactic of laying siege to major cities and shelling civilian populations.
On an emotional level, the film made the case that the Russians were a stalwart people and that the United States could count on them as allies. Capra showed individual Russians in close-ups, including babushkas digging trenches and factory workers making munitions, and he showed civilians, including children, dying from indiscriminate shelling. He even showed a still image of a dead elephant at the Leningrad Zoo, killed by German bombs. In an eerie echo, the current Russian shelling of civilian areas in Ukraine led to reports about the trauma inflicted on the elephant in Kyiv’s zoo. (The animal was still alive at press time.)
By contrast, Capra depicted the Germans as faceless aggressors, shown only from behind or in groups. Through Capra’s lens, these German armies violated all standards of decency by reviving a medieval tactic of siege and engaging in bombing campaigns that killed innocent civilians. His most insistent indictment of the Nazi attackers was the shelling of noncombatants. Using actual footage supplied by the Soviet Red Army, Capra showed bombs falling night and day, followed by close-ups of dead men, women and children.
In Capra’s eyes in the 1940s films of “Why We Fight,” the Russians were to be admired for their determination to endure the brutal siege.
Today, the filmmaker would surely have cast the Ukrainian people in that heroic role, while the Russian army and its leader would be the brutal aggressors. In Ukraine, Zelensky — a figure straight out of a Capra movie, having been plucked from obscurity and thrust into a heroic role — is rallying his compatriots to stand firm. Meanwhile, Putin is playing the villainous role of the Hitler figure, launching a criminal assault on women and children. In one of the great ironies of European history, the Russians have effectively traded places with the Germans of World War II, by launching a ground war against a neighbor and using the brutal tactic of raining artillery down indiscriminately among civilians.
No one knows this better than the Russians, who endured the brutal German siege of Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg) as well as Moscow, Stalingrad and other cities. Putin, as a native of Leningrad, probably heard horror stories about the siege that his family endured, so he should know even better than most about the suffering of civilians when they are attacked in war. He does not need Capra to remind him.
It is often said that when war comes, the first casualty is truth. But that does not mean all wartime communication is fake. Today, as the propaganda war rages, it may well turn out that the ultimate weapon in the information wars might just be the kind of truth Zelensky has been wielding in videos that show him alive in his office, not running away. | null | null | null | null | null |
If European nations want to welcome these refugees, here’s what they can learn from our research
By Nazita Lajevardi
Jacob Sohlberg
Peter Esaiasson
A child on a train that carried her from Iasi, Ukraine, to Bucharest, Romania, on March 9. (Robert Ghement/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Two weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that more than 2 million people have fled the conflict, most presumably into the European Union. As Western news outlets reported on a refugee crisis that’s the largest since World War II, many media figures’ comments revealed racially biased attitudes. A French reporter on BFN TV said, “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing. … We’re talking about Europeans.” On CBS News, foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata said, “This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan. … This is a relatively civilized, relatively European city.”
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Consulate lodged a formal objection to a racial divide in how those fleeing Ukraine were treated in neighboring E.U. countries: Reports say Black and Brown migrants from Ukraine waited in longer queues and had to endure more protocols, while White Ukrainians went through more quickly. Depending on how the war proceeds, many may wait for months or years without a firm decision about whether and where they can stay.
So how did migrants from Europe’s last refugee crisis fare once they arrived?
We studied asylum seekers who arrived in Sweden during the 2015 migration surge, when the country received 162,500 asylum applications, more per capita than any other European country. Specifically, we studied those who were in limbo while they waited to learn their fate. On average, asylum seekers in our study waited 461 days for an initial decision.
Limbo is a dire personal state: While those who remained waiting generally had positive attitudes toward Swedish institutions, they suffered on a personal level on par with those who were formally rejected. Once accepted, people did better; they rated their personal well-being higher and reported positive attitudes toward Sweden and its people. Our research suggests that governments may wish to quickly offer refugees residence permits, however temporary, to improve refugees’ well-being and trust in the government.
We conducted up to four surveys of the same asylum seekers between April 2016 and November 2017. We recruited participants who had not yet received a migration decision outside the Swedish Migration Agency’s facilities in Gothenburg and Malmö, the two largest hubs for asylum seekers. At the end of the first survey, 782 agreed to give their contact information and to be contacted again for additional surveys. The first survey was administered in person and the next three online. Most participants took the first survey between Aug. 15 and Sept. 22, 2016; the second between Oct. 6 and Nov. 9, 2016; the third between Dec. 14, 2016 and Feb. 4, 2017; and the fourth between Oct. 16 and Nov. 10, 2017. Surveys were in Arabic or English.
In all surveys, we asked about life satisfaction and perceived health. Besides these questions on well-being, we also asked several questions about their trust in Swedish institutions and trust in Swedish people. We measured trust in Swedish institutions with three questions that create a combined scale, and used a single question for trust in ordinary Swedes. In the third and fourth surveys, we added questions about whether the individual had received a migration decision yet, and if so, whether their application had been approved or rejected. Of the 782 who initially agreed to join our study at the end of the first survey, 199 answered the questions about their asylum application outcome.
More of our respondents were male and Arabic-speaking than was true for asylum seekers overall in Sweden that year. Otherwise, our respondents were relatively representative of that population, especially in age.
Even Russian-speaking Ukrainians don't want to be evacuated to Russia or Belarus
Sweden’s migration decisions deeply affected asylum seekers
When we examined those who reported their migration decisions in the third and fourth surveys, we found that those accepted for residency ranked themselves 29 percentage points higher on self-reported health than those who were rejected, and 24 percentage points higher than those still waiting for a decision. Fully 48 percent of those rejected and in limbo reported poor health.
We found a similar pattern of effects on life satisfaction, with those accepted ranking themselves 21 percentage points higher than those rejected and 18 percentage points higher than those still in limbo.
Accepted asylum seekers reported trusting Swedish institutions 20 percentage points more than those who had been rejected and 13 percentage points more than asylum seekers in limbo. (Because of inherent statistical uncertainty, we cannot say for sure that the numerical difference in institutional trust between rejected asylum seekers and those who are still waiting is statistically valid.) Similarly, those accepted for asylum reported more trust in ordinary Swedes than did those who were denied. Rejected asylum seekers also appear less trusting in Swedes compared to those left in limbo.
What does this mean for today’s refugee surge?
Of course, today’s refugees are arriving in a very different climate than did the 2015 asylum seekers. In many receiving countries, like Poland, the public supports welcoming the Ukrainians, something the racially tinged rhetoric suggests. Even far-right party leaders in Spain, Italy, and France are saying they welcome these refugees, although in 2015 they overwhelmingly opposed the newcomers. Second, most of the Black and Brown migrants are students who will probably return to their countries of origin, and thus are less likely to be met with antagonism.
And yet there are some similarities. During the 2015 refugee crisis, on average, people in E.U. countries supported welcoming the refugees; only over time, as more arrived, did that welcome turn into resistance. Further, many of today’s migrants may remain in limbo for much longer than just the few weeks or months they may be hoping for now. They will have to navigate their circumstances in new countries, languages and cultures, as did the last wave of refugees.
That limbo hurts asylum seekers, leaving them unhappy and unwell, our research suggests. Policymakers who want the best for Ukrainian refugees may wish to set up procedures allowing quick decisions about their fate.
Nazita Lajevardi (@NazitaLajevardi) is an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University and author of “Outsiders at Home: The Politics of American Islamophobia” (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Jacob Sohlberg (@JacobSohlberg) is an associate professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg.
Peter Esaiasson is a professor of political science at the University of Gothenburg. | null | null | null | null | null |
Supporters of India's Bharatiya Janata Party celebrate outside the party office in Lucknow on March 10, when votes were counted for the Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections. (Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images)
In the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh, the BJP was ahead in 245 seats out of 403, according to early results by the Election Commission. The northern state is the country’s most populous and considered a political bellwether. It sends more legislators to Parliament than any other state and was key to Modi’s thumping victories in previous national elections. The final results are set to be available by late evening.
The early results from the state indicate a “triumph” for the BJP, said Nalin Mehta, author of “The New BJP,” a recent book on the party and Modi. The party’s model of welfare — direct benefits transfers and providing free food grains to people during the pandemic — helped it “overcome the stresses of anti-incumbency and deep economic deprivation along with an unapologetic positioning of Hindu-ness,” Mehta said. “The broad social coalition across caste and class that powered BJP’s victories since 2014 has not only remained intact, but deepened its roots.”
In the agrarian state of Punjab in northern India, a regional party known as the Aam Aadmi (Common Man) Party, or AAP, seemed poised to win handsomely over the incumbent Indian National Congress. With its victory in Punjab, the AAP, which controls the Delhi capital region, became the first regional party to capture power in more than one state in decades. | null | null | null | null | null |
TEL AVIV — Russian-Israeli oligarch Leonid Nevzlin announced Tuesday that he plans to give up his Russian passport in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In the years following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, a new wave of wealthy Russian citizens, including former Chelsea Premier League soccer team owner and longtime Putin supporter Roman Abramovich, took up Israeli citizenship in part to avoid the resulting U.S. sanctions. Many continue to have business and financial ties in Russia and have been cautious about publicly criticizing the war.
Sanctioned billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman has described the war as a “tragedy” and said that war “can never be the answer.” But in a news conference with journalists in London, he said he would not directly criticize Putin’s invasion of Ukraine so as to avoid reprisals against his employees.
Nevzlin wrote Tuesday that his compatriots cheered the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. | null | null | null | null | null |
But anecdotal evidence suggests the number is at least in the tens of thousands, amid reports of burgeoning Russian-speaking emigre communities arising in Dubai, Istanbul and other places where air service from Russia still exists. More than 20,000 Russians have entered Georgia in recent days, the country’s economic minister said Monday.
Many of them, including those working for the Russian emigre’s Swiss firm, stand apart from the average Russian worker — better educated, often speaking multiple languages, and accustomed to consuming news from across the world, even when that means overcoming technical obstacles. | null | null | null | null | null |
The group’s leaders gave no indication of how long Cruz will stay with them and said he’ll be riding in one of the lead trucks.
Though many pandemic-related restrictions at the federal and local levels have been blocked or rescinded, organizers have rallied supporters by calling mandates an infringement on their freedoms.
Brian Brase, the group’s organizer, said there convoy will continue to protest until mandates for health workers, federal employees and military personnel are eliminated.
“I believe he’s gonna hop in the lead truck, not 100 percent sure on the details of it, but he’s gonna at least lead the convoy out the gate and down the road,” Brase said. “He may stick with it. I’m not exactly sure it’s up to him, his security staff and what they decide to do.”
Mike Landis, one of the People’s Convoy organizers, said he believes the plan is for Cruz to ride shotgun in his truck. He hoped Cruz would ride with him for the entire demonstration and into D.C. He said there’s “talk of going into D.C. proper,” but he wasn’t sure what would happen. “It’s a pretty big honor,” he said.
Brase also said they would be going into D.C. to meet with more lawmakers, adding that it was a bit of “cold calling.”
“There ain’t no ignoring a senator riding in the lead truck,” Brase said to cheers. “That’s basically an endorsement of what we’re doing.”
Brase and other convoy leaders met with Cruz and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Tuesday morning in the Capitol to discuss their demands and grievances. While no direct action came from the meeting, Brase said he saw it as a step in the right direction. In the meeting, Cruz validated the convoy’s concerns, criticizing the country’s pandemic response and urging leaders to pressure Democrats in Congress. | null | null | null | null | null |
Anna Galicina, 38, and her son, Sheerbak Semen, 5, are shown in Korczowa, Poland, on March 3, 2022, after fleeing their home city of Kyiv. They are Ukrainian Jews who are heading to refuge in Israel with the help of the Jewish Agency for Israel. (Kasia Strek for The Washington Post)
Last week, Wolff was at home in Odessa helping to evacuate anyone who called and otherwise help those who wanted to stay. But by Feb. 4, at the end of the war’s ninth day, as Russian forces advanced, he boarded a bus with his family for Moldova. | null | null | null | null | null |
Brian Brase, the group’s organizer, said they plan to take the lead truck, with Cruz as a passenger, into the District for a press conference at noon.
“There ain’t no ignoring a senator riding in the lead truck,” he told the crowd. “That’s basically an endorsement of what we’re doing.”
He said the convoy will continue to protest until mandates for health workers, federal employees and military personnel are eliminated, but he warned the convoy against heading into the capital. | null | null | null | null | null |
Department Stores Should Keep a Close Hold on Their Websites
Department stores have been under some pressure to split off their e-commerce operations. It’s an idea that should be left on the shelf.
Macy’s Inc. has felt the push from activist investor Jana Partners LLC, but says it won’t spin off its e-commerce business. A demerger at Kohl’s Corp is off the agenda because the company is more focused on maximizing the value from people who might buy the chain. That’s the right call. But if rising inflation forces a retail contraction that weighs on department store share prices, the companies may find it harder to stick with their decisions.
Hudson’s Bay Company’s Saks Fifth Avenue started the splitting trend a year ago when it separated its online business into a unit known as Saks. The private equity group Insight Partners invested $500 million in Saks, valuing it at $2 billion. The group’s 41 department stores remain wholly owned by Hudson’s Bay. The Saks digital unit was eyeing a $6 billion initial public offering in the first half of this year, Dow Jones reported in October.
Supporters say separation makes it possible to direct investment to the e-commerce arm, unencumbered by the requirements of stores. Stand-alone digital companies also may find it easier to attract tech talent. But the most obvious reason for department stores to split is to achieve a higher valuation.
Over the past two years, both online retail and luxury spending have surged, elevating the worth of digital luxury players. MYT Netherlands Parent NV, for example, which operates the upscale Mytheresa website, has an enterprise value that is 1.2 times its next 12 months’ sales. The ratio for Farfetch Ltd is 1.5 times. In contrast, Macy’s Inc. and Nordstrom Inc. trade on 0.5 times.
This is why some investors assume that valuing department store e-commerce sales separately could generate a windfall. Consider Macy’s, whose digital sales this fiscal year are expected to be about $10.4 billion, according to analysts at Cowen Inc. Putting this on a multiple of 0.8 to 1.2 times generates an enterprise value of about $8 billion to just over $12 billion, the analysts estimate. According to Bloomberg data, that’s more than the whole of Macy’s.
But this isn’t the full story.
Across the retail sector, stores and websites are becoming increasingly intertwined. While people who advocate splits say the ownership of different divisions makes no difference to shoppers, there are risks to the consumer experience.
Separate companies owning the brick and mortar stores on one hand and the plumbing behind e-commerce on the other adds more costs and complexity. Arrangements to handle orders placed online but collected in stores must be established, as well as returns made to stores. Retailers from Target Corp to Zara owner Inditex SA are increasingly using store inventory to fulfill online orders. Although Saks is navigating these challenges — it also ships from stores, for example — these elements are generally more complicated when the two businesses are separate.
The bigger danger is that each part of the business runs its operations for its own benefit, to the detriment of the shopper experience and ultimately of sales.
Right now, shareholders are giving department stores that resist splitting the benefit of the doubt. Macy’s last month announced better-than-expected results, sending up its shares as much as 10%. And on Monday, Kohl’s set out plans to become a “focused lifestyle concept,” opening 100 smaller local stores over the next four years and expanding its relatively new Sephora beauty partnership into a $2 billion business. Although the shares fell after its investor day, its stock has been supported by the prospect of a sale. The company said on Monday that its adviser Goldman Sachs Group Inc. had engaged with more than 20 parties on potential strategic alternatives including a sale.
But investors’ patience may wear thin if American consumers, who have so far proved remarkably resilient, start to rein in their purchases. Rising inflation makes this a distinct possibility. And it is the mid-market, in which most department stores operate, that will feel the pinch first. Luxury online retail sites such as Farfetch and Mytheresa may hold up better. Under these circumstances, investor pressure to spin off digital operations could strengthen.
Then, companies such as Nordstrom Inc., which hasn’t yet faced calls to separate its e-commerce unit, could be drawn into the fray too.
Even if the demands increase, spinning off online will make little difference to department stores’ sales. In fact, if customers face substandard service, their operating performances could get worse.
Macy’s, Kohl’s and potentially Nordstrom should prepare to defend their decisions to avoid spinning off e-commerce.
(Corrects the number of Saks department stores in the third paragraph.) | null | null | null | null | null |
Tiger Woods wept as he spoke of his parents' sacrifices during his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. (Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)
With his son Charlie and mother Kultida looking on, Woods’s 14-year-old daughter set the tone, speaking of the 2021 car crash and his lengthy recovery.
“Nothing is ever going to be given to you. Everything is going to be earned. If you don’t go out and put in the work, the effort, one you’re not going to get the results and two, and more important, you don’t deserve it. You didn’t earn it.”
He remembered having to search for lost golf balls to practice with as a child and his father, who died in 2006, telling him to stop putting against other golfers for quarters. “I come home a week later,” Woods said, “I had a pocket full of dollars.”
“You had to be twice as good to get half a chance [so] I made practice so hard, hurt so much, because I wanted to make sure I was ready come game time. I was not allowed into the clubhouses. The color of my skin dictated that … As I got older that drove me even more.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The meeting at the Palace of Versailles, site of the 1919 treaty that established the post-World War I order, was supposed to focus on the continent’s post-pandemic future. Instead it will carry echoes of the past, as European leaders once again chart a course through conflict.
Moved by the urgent appeals of President Volodymyr Zelensky, E.U. countries came together quickly to hit Putin with “unprecedented” sanctions. The E.U. agreed to supply and finance arms for Ukraine — a first. It also decided to offer “temporary protection” to Ukrainians fleeing the fighting — another first.
But as E.U. leaders dine in splendor — and the public digests images of bombed maternity hospitals and the deadly siege of Mariupol — they will be faced with tough questions about what comes next.
The E.U. broke new ground by promising to supply and finance weapons for Ukraine, but a pledge from the E.U.'s top diplomat to send fighter jets quickly fell through with little explanation. Nobody seems sure what’s next.
Heads of state and government are likely to tout the decision to offer temporary protection to those fleeing the conflict. Ukrainian nationals will be able to live and work in Europe and will be eligible for school and social benefits. They will also bypass the asylum system that has left so many from Africa and the Middle East in years-long limbo.
Though Europe seems relatively united in its desire to help, there will no doubt be discussion about how to accommodate the roughly 2 million people who have Ukraine in two weeks.
Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
Sen. Cruz rides with ‘People’s Convoy’ truck to D.C.
The Texas senator is riding in the lead truck, which organizers say will head into D.C.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sits in a truck while meeting with the People's Convoy on Thursday in Hagerstown, Md. (Karina Elwood/The Washington Post)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) visited the “People’s Convoy” at the Hagerstown Speedway on Thursday and rode shotgun in the lead truck, with plans for the vehicle to head into to D.C. for a news conference, while the rest of the convoy circles the Capital Beltway to protest pandemic health restrictions aimed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
“The convoy is not [going into D.C.],” Brase said from inside the lead truck. “The convoy’s going to continue its normal operation. This truck will be going into D.C.”
“There ain’t no ignoring a senator riding in the lead truck,” Brian Brase, the group’s organizer, told the crowd at the Hagerstown Speedway earlier. “That’s basically an endorsement of what we’re doing.”
Brase said the convoy will continue to protest until mandates for health workers, federal employees and military personnel are eliminated, but he warned the convoy against heading into the capital.
Brase has insisted that the group won’t leave the region until the mandates are lifted. The convoy of big rigs, RVs and pickups began circling the Beltway on Sunday, repeating the demonstration on Monday and Tuesday. The group rested on Wednesday due to rainy weather and concerns about safety on the roads. Thursday would be the fourth day of protest on the Beltway. | null | null | null | null | null |
Tiger Woods wept as he spoke of his parents’ sacrifices during his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. (Gerald Herbert/AP)
With Woods’s son, Charlie, and mother, Kultida, looking on, Woods’s 14-year-old daughter set the tone, speaking of the 2021 car crash and his lengthy recovery.
“It’s actually a team award. All of you allowed me to get here, and I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“Nothing is ever going to be given to you. Everything is going to be earned. If you don’t go out and put in the work, the effort, one, you’re not going to get the results, and two, and more important, you don’t deserve it. You didn’t earn it.”
He remembered having to search for lost golf balls to practice with as a child, and his father, who died in 2006, telling him to stop putting against other golfers for quarters. “I come home a week later,” Woods said, “I had a pocket full of dollars.”
“You had to be twice as good to get half a chance, [so] I made practice so hard, hurt so much, because I wanted to make sure I was ready come game time. I was not allowed into the clubhouses. The color of my skin dictated that. … As I got older, that drove me even more.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Ukrainian emergency employees work at a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol on March 9. (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP)
The latest shelling hit near a theater and a university building, the city council said Thursday after the airstrike buried hospital patients under rubble. One of the dead was a child, and some of the injured women had been in labor, the council said.
A Russian barrage has pummeled Mariupol, a key port city on the Sea of Azov, for days, thwarting efforts to shuttle residents out to safety, after a siege choked off food, water and power supplies.
The adviser, Petro Andryushchenko, said 1,300 people have died in the city since Russian forces surrounded it and at least 3,000 were injured, as authorities say rescue workers have been unable to collect all the bodies and determine the toll. With the city cut off from the outside world, the figures were not possible to independently verify.
“Nine days without food, warmth, and dead bodies everywhere on the street,” he told The Washington Post. “What can be worse than this? The only hospital that’s left [is] filled to the brim with people.”
A Mariupol city council statement to The Post said 43 people had been buried in what it described as the city’s first mass grave in the conflict. It said they were buried in a location “relatively safe” from shelling because of the risks in other cemeteries and neighborhoods of the city. Footage from the Associated Press showed men wrapping bodies in shrouds or body bags and piling them up inside a trench.
The dire warnings came from Mariupol as Russia’s foreign minister and his Ukrainian counterpart failed to find common ground at a meeting in Turkey, their first high-level talks since the invasion.
The United Nations said Wednesday that 516 civilians were confirmed to have been killed in Ukraine, and more than 900 injured since the Russian invasion, but expects the true casualty toll to be higher.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday, without evidence, that the maternity hospital was housing Ukrainian fighters, and that no women or children were in the building.
The attack drew condemnation from Western leaders including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who described it on Twitter as “depraved,” while Britain’s armed forces minister called it “a war crime.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “It is horrifying to see.” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said the hospital attack was “horrific,” calling for an end to the bloodshed.
“I am horrified by the reported attack today on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine — an attack which reportedly left young children and women in labor buried beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings,” Catherine Russell, the executive director of UNICEF, the U.N.'s agency for children, said in a statement. “This attack, if confirmed, underscores the horrific toll this war is exacting on Ukraine’s children and families.” | null | null | null | null | null |
“It’s not about the feel. We can’t control how a person feels about a topic,” said Sen. Manny Diaz Jr., a Republican from Miami-Dade who shepherd the proposal through the Senate. “But what we can control is to have a teacher not go to a student … and impose on male student that they are sexist simply because they are a considered a male … Don’t impose guilt on a student based on a group they belong to.”
“My goal would be, when they think of the ‘free state,’” DeSantis said. “But I also want Florida to be known as a brick wall against all thinks WOKE. This is where Woke goes to die.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The decision comes amid a broader rollback in restrictions elsewhere in the country as coronavirus cases have fallen.
The mandate, which first was put into place by the Biden administration in early 2021 as a public health measure during the coronavirus pandemic, has been extended multiple times. It had been set to expire March 18.
“During that time, CDC will work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor. This revised framework will be based on the COVID-19 community levels, risk of new variants, national data, and the latest science," an administration official said in a statement.
The announcement comes as a growing number of states have rolled back rules that people wear masks indoors and as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revised its rules on mask-wearing. The revised guidance details new metrics designed to help individuals assess the risk in their community so they could determined whether extra precautions are needed.
Airlines began requiring customers to wear masks in mid-2020 as part of the effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The Trump administration declined to put a mask mandate in place, but shortly after taking office, Biden issued an order that required masks be worn in all transportation settings.
In hope of deterring bad behavior, the TSA — charged with enforcing the federal mask mandate in airports, on trains and in other transportation settings — last year doubled fines for violations to as much as $1,000 for first offenders and up to $3,000 for second offenders. The agency said in February it has imposed nearly $400,000 in civil penalties against more than 600 mask violators.
At a Senate hearing in December, Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the ranking Republican on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, pressed airlines executives on when the requirement would be dropped. Gary Kelly, then-chief executive of Southwest Airlines, told lawmakers he thought masks didn’t add much protection because of air exchanges on commercial aircraft. The exchange drew pushback from Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, who also was on the panel. Kelly announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus the next day. | null | null | null | null | null |
A sign promoting Native American participation in the U.S. Census in Lodge Grass, Mont., on Aug. 26, 2020. (Matthew Brown/AP)
People who identified as Hispanic or “some other race” were undercounted three times more in the 2020 Census compared to the 2010 Census. The 2020 count was beset by challenges including the pandemic, hurricanes, wildfires and efforts by the Trump administration to speed up the timeline. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Jewish psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud appears at his Hampstead home in London on June 6, 1938. Andre Aciman, Colm Toibin and Rick Moody are among the authors contributing to an essay collection on the legacy of Freud. “On the Couch: Writers Analyze Sigmund Freud,” conceived and edited by the literary agent Andrew Blauner, is scheduled for release in 2023 by Princeton University Press. (AP Photo, File) (Uncredited/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
But in Mariupol, people sheltered in basements, bodies littered the streets, and the one functional hospital was at capacity, an adviser to the mayor’s office said Thursday. Local authorities have sought for days to deliver aid to the city and to open a corridor for civilians out of Mariupol, but they say shelling has prevented residents from leaving.
“Nine days without food, warmth, and dead bodies everywhere on the street,” Andryushchenko told The Washington Post. “What can be worse than this? The only hospital that’s left [is] filled to the brim with people.” | null | null | null | null | null |
“It’s not about the feel. We can’t control how a person feels about a topic,” said Sen. Manny Diaz Jr., a Republican from Miami-Dade who shepherd the proposal through the Senate. “But what we can control is to have a teacher not go to a student … and impose on male student that they are sexist simply because they are a considered a male."
Diaz, a Cuban American, spoke of how his ancestors fled to Florida because they wanted a free and open education system. "Don’t impose guilt on a student based on a group they belong to,” he said.
“My goal would be, when they think of the ‘free state,’” DeSantis said. “But I also want Florida to be known as a brick wall against all things ‘woke.’ This is where ‘woke’ goes to die.” | null | null | null | null | null |
But let’s be clear-eyed about what the U.S. government prefers but cannot say: For the long-term security of Europe, the preservation of the international order and the restoration of Russian self-determination, Putin must go. The 69-year-old, who has paved the way to stay on as president indefinitely, harbors grandiose ambitions to re-create the Soviet empire. Conquering Ukraine might not satisfy his appetite.
The intelligence community believes the economic crisis is exacerbating domestic political opposition to Putin, though reliable polling is difficult. Facebook and Twitter are blocked. Independent reporting has literally been criminalized. Journalists can be sentenced to 15 years in prison for writing that the war is a war, instead of a “special military operation,” the phrase used by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, a generation of Western conveniences and commercial openings have dried up overnight. “Thirty years of progress in Russia has been wiped out,” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland testified Tuesday before the Senate.
But those pre-revolutionary events are more than a century old. And history also teaches that the czar you know sometimes turns out to be better than the train full of revolutionaries you don’t. Who can say for sure that whoever or whatever follows Putin in Moscow will be more reasonable? Putin is a leader who has been closely studied in the West for decades; multiple U.S. presidents have met and negotiated with him; anyone who takes his place is likely to be untested and unknown. This is why calling for regime change with a nuclear state is very dangerous business.
Perhaps one day, the benefits of giving Putin a taste of his own medicine will more clearly outweigh the costs. But that day has not yet come. | null | null | null | null | null |
A Feb. 20-24 Washington Post-ABC News poll found that White evangelical Christians were just as negative toward Russia and supportive of sanctions as Americans overall. Among White evangelicals, 47 percent said Russia is an enemy of the United States and another 33 percent said it is unfriendly. Similarly, 68 percent supported sanctions and 51 percent said they would still support them if energy prices went up.
White evangelicals were also much more likely to say they disapprove of the way President Biden has handled the situation with Ukraine (75 percent) than the rest of Americans (47 percent).
Daniel Hummel, a historian of religion who is working on book about a system that emphasizes a literal reading of the Bible called dispensationalism, said Christians would write in the 1840s and 1850s about Russia using literal connections between the Bible and what would happen in the future. Other Christians tended to see biblical descriptions as more symbolic or allegorical. | null | null | null | null | null |
Companies are releasing images that once were seen only by intelligence agencies
One image shows a bombed-out hangar at a Ukrainian air base where a massive cargo airplane was destroyed. In the next photo a bridge connecting Ukraine to Belarus lies in pieces. The next: a trail of smoke along the Russian-Ukrainian border that was the probable site of a missile launch attack.
These high-definition satellite images from the Russian invasion of Ukraine were not snapped in secret by the CIA or the National Reconnaissance Office. Neither are they classified. Rather, the images come from a private company known as Planet, one of several companies with a fleet of satellites that act as eyes in the sky — or, in this case, space. The images are public, posted on the Internet and released to the media in what constitutes real-time documentation of the war from fleets of highly capable satellites swarming around the Earth in space. | null | null | null | null | null |
The decision comes amid a broader rollback in restrictions elsewhere in the country as coronavirus cases have fallen
The mandate, which was first put into place by the Biden administration in early 2021 as a public health measure during the coronavirus pandemic, has been extended multiple times. It had been set to expire March 18.
“During that time, CDC will work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor. This revised framework will be based on the COVID-19 community levels, risk of new variants, national data, and the latest science,” an administration official said in a statement.
The announcement comes as a growing number of states have rolled back rules that people wear masks indoors and as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has revised its rules on mask-wearing. The revised guidance details new metrics designed to help individuals assess the risk in their community so they could determine whether extra precautions are needed.
Airlines began requiring customers to wear masks in mid-2020 as part of the effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus. The Trump administration declined to put a mask mandate in place, but shortly after taking office, President Biden issued an order that required masks be worn in all transportation settings.
In hope of deterring bad behavior, the TSA — charged with enforcing the federal mask mandate in airports, on trains and in other transportation settings — last year doubled fines for violations to as much as $1,000 for first offenders and up to $3,000 for second offenders. The agency said in February that it has imposed nearly $400,000 in civil penalties against more than 600 mask violators.
At a Senate hearing in December, Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), the ranking Republican on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, pressed airline executives on when the requirement would be dropped. Gary Kelly, then-chief executive of Southwest Airlines, told lawmakers he thought masks didn’t add much protection because of air exchanges on commercial aircraft. The exchange drew pushback from Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, who also was on the panel. Kelly announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus the next day. | null | null | null | null | null |
Russian forces disconnected Ukraine’s closed Chernobyl nuclear power plant from the nation’s power grid, Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator Ukrenergo said Wednesday. The move potentially jeopardizes the cooling of nuclear fuel still stored at the site.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said that U.N. monitors had “unexpectedly lost connection” with monitoring systems there, calling it an “extremely dangerous situation.”
Electricity is needed for cooling, ventilation and fire extinguishing systems at the site. In a statement on its Facebook page, Ukrenergo said emergency diesel generators have been turned on but that fuel would last only 48 hours. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday demanded a cease-fire to allow repairs.
Concerns emerged that the Russian invasion could jeopardize the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear sites after Russian forces took control of Chernobyl on Feb. 24.
Those fears mounted when a Russian projectile sparked a fire early March 4 at the Zaporizhzhia site, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, triggering alarm across the world. Authorities have not recorded a release of radioactive material or damage to reactors.
The Zaporizhzhia incident prompted the United States to activate its nuclear-incident response team. At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday, the United States and allies lambasted Russia for the shelling and seizure of the plant.
Moscow denied that Russian forces fired on the plant.
Russian troops have placed Ukrainian workers at both the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia plants under their command.
In a statement released Sunday, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that according to Ukraine, Russian troops had cut off access to the Internet and mobile networks around the Zaporizhzhia site, hindering the flow of reliable information from the ground.
During a news briefing last week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the country was “taking every measure” to maintain the safety of the Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl plants.
Here’s what to know about Ukraine’s nuclear sites and what risks the invasion by Russia could pose. | null | null | null | null | null |
In a video released on Telegram on March 10, the Ukrainian president celebrated Ukraine's defenders and promised to rebuild “after our victory.” (Telegram)
“Thanks to our military, the National Guard, the border guards, the police, the Territorial Defense Forces and everyone who joined the defense of the state, we did not become slaves, and we never will,” he said. “Because this is our spirit, this is our destiny.” | null | null | null | null | null |
He made it out just before a barrage pounded neighborhoods in the northeastern Ukrainian city.
“It was a nice place to live, to settle. It was great,” he said of Kharkiv, where he moved more than a year ago. But, the engineering student said: “I left everything behind.” He asked for his full name not to be published as he worried it may affect his asylum prospects in Europe.
He looked back on his memories in Poltava fondly. “I never imagined there could be this level of destruction,” he said. “I made Ukrainian friends, and we celebrated together. I still talk to their parents … I was happy.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Surveillance footage shows a missile hitting a residential building in Kyiv, Feb. 26, 2022, in this still image taken from a handout video. (Vitali Klitschko/Via Reuters)
We take for granted our access to near-real-time documentation of international events, including the war in Ukraine. Since even before the full Russian invasion began, social media users in Ukraine and Russia were filming and sharing the build-up of forces near Ukraine’s border. The government had satellite imagery showing the scale of what was looming, but on-the-ground observers gave a sense of ubiquity and detail. The general public knew that Russia’s vehicles were painted with "Z" markings before they began showing up on streets near Kharkiv.
There is a prohibition against the use of cluster munitions, for example, a type of ordinance that spreads smaller explosives over a wide area. Such weapons pose an obvious risk of civilian casualty, given that they are inherently imprecise. And that is what the dashcam footage above appears to show, according to researchers from the open-source investigations group Bellingcat.
The hospital, too, was struck. It’s not visible in the video, but sits across the intersection the car approached, on the left. We know that in part because the video was geolocated; the place at which it occurred was identified by latitude and longitude. Here is what that same intersection looked like in peaceful times, as captured by Google.
In a phone call with The Washington Post, Eliot Higgins, Bellingcat’s founder, explained the importance of geolocating such videos as part of the process of documenting possible infringements of international law. Over the past several years, Bellingcat and its partners — including Mnemonic Labs and the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) — have built a system for collecting, verifying and storing evidence from conflict zones that might eventually be used to enforce the rules of war.
“The main thing we try to find out at the moment is the location of each of these videos because the intent is to make them searchable for future accountability processes,” Higgins explained. Once geolocated, the information is put in a spreadsheet that’s maintained by Bellingcat and CIR. The evidence itself is archived by both Bellingcat and Mnemonic and the data used to populate a map created by CIR.
What’s remarkable about the conflict in Ukraine is that Russia made it far more likely that any potential criminal activity would be documented by open-source investigators because of its history in the region. Bellingcat was founded in 2014, days before a Russian anti-aircraft battery accidentally shot down a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet over Ukraine. The MH17 investigation became one of Bellingcat’s most notable, pitting the group against Russian misinformation regularly. But that and the ongoing conflict between Russian proxies and Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine helped build a community of people trained in observing and identifying actions in Ukraine.
Lots of eyes and cell phones on the ground. Lots of outside observers ready to figure out where documentation occurred. A system for tracking and storing those videos and that evidence. The only question, then, is whether criminal courts will use that evidence in potential investigations and indictments. And that, given the novelty of the system, is still not entirely settled. While Bellingcat’s evidence (and testimony from staffers) was used in MH17 legal proceedings, war crimes probes are something else entirely.
“This could be the first time that this evidence is used directly in accountability processes, so we’re trying to engage very early on with those different accountability processes to talk them through exactly what we’re doing, get feedback from them,” Higgins said. He has served for several years on the technology advisory board for the International Criminal Court where he’s advocated for using open-source evidence. “We’ve been collaborating with various organizations to build the best process possible to meet what their expectations would be for this kind of evidence,” Higgins said.
It’s important to recognize that other fields, including the media, have embraced the techniques of open-source investigation. The New York Times hired a Bellingcat researcher to aid its visual investigations team, for example. The evolution of documentary evidence in the social-media age — starting, Higgins pointed out, with the Arab Spring more than a decade ago — has meant revisiting assumptions about how to conduct investigations of such conflicts.
“A big part of the open-source community,” he added, “is the idea that it’s better to work together and share information than it is to get exclusives and scoops." The media having overcome that instinct to embrace open-source investigations offers some cause for optimism that investigators might do that too. Bellingcat researchers have participated in mock trials aimed at evaluating the strength of their evidence, with success.
Putin’s invasion has been stymied by the strength of the Ukrainian public. His team might be held to account by the global public more broadly. | null | null | null | null | null |
Previewing a suite of new fossil-fuel rules, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said more needs to be done to clean up the air and water around power plants.
Michael Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks during the 2022 CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston on Thursday. (F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg)
In a speech made in the heart of the U.S. energy industry, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan put the power sector on notice, outlining how the Biden administration plans to cut air and water pollution spewing from the nation’s electricity generators.
Speaking to a gathering of energy executives in Houston, President Biden’s top environmental officer outlined a suite of regulatory actions in the coming months to tighten rules around toxic mercury, smog-forming compounds and other power-plant pollutants as the Biden administration searches for ways to accelerate the nation’s shift to cleaner electricity.
While noting the significant drop in air pollution from power plants and other sources since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, Regan said more work needs to be done to clean up the unhealthy air that often hits the poorest neighborhoods and those of color the hardest.
“While we continue to see the important leadership you’re demonstrating to reduce pollution, power plants remain the largest stationary sources of harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide,” Regan said at CERAWeek, an annual energy conference, noting that an estimated 8,000 people die prematurely every year from power plants’ air pollution.
“Folks, I’ve thought long and hard about this,” he continued. “I know it’s complex. We think there’s a way to do it that protects public health and continues to give you the certainty you need to expedite a clean energy future.”
Regan arrived in Texas as the Biden administration struggles to achieve its goal of running the grid entirely on clean energy by 2035 in the face of resistance from the Supreme Court and even members of his own party in Congress. While some of the EPA’s moves have been expected due to court orders and other deadlines, Regan said taking an “integrated and coordinated approach” to the decisions would create “regulatory certainty for long-term investments.”
The agency will soon announce a proposal to compel power plants and factories to cut the emission of smog-forming pollution that gets blown across state lines, Regan said. The move is aimed at improving air quality in downwind states, such as those in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, that have no control over the pollution coming from the industrial Midwest.
Upwind states are often reluctant to cut cross-border pollution, said John Walke, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s clean-air director, “because it requires them to crack down on homegrown plants.”
The EPA is also considering tightening requirements on mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin, coming from power plants’ smokestacks. As his administration steps up efforts to write new air rules, Biden this week picked Joseph Goffman, a seasoned climate expert, to lead the EPA’s air office.
Regan also said the agency will propose a new rule aimed at stopping toxic contaminants in pits of ash from burned coal at closed-down power plants from leaching into drinking water and the environment.
“This is long overdue,” said Thom Cmar, an attorney with the law firm AltmanNewman, which represents environmental groups. “This should have been done under the Obama administration.”
These older coal ash impoundments, he added, “are some of the most dangerous.”
Even without climate regulation, the business of burning coal for electricity has collapsed over the past decade as cheaper gas, wind and solar projects come online. Since 2009, more than 260 coal plants switched to gas or ceased operations entirely, according to the Sierra Club.
Despite the coal-plant closures, the power sector is still the nation’s second-biggest source of climate-warming emissions, with most of that carbon pollution coming out of the smokestacks of coal-fired plants.
Across the street at the Supreme Court, conservative justices expressed skepticism that the EPA can go forward with sweeping climate regulations without more input from Congress.
The high court is weighing a challenge from GOP-led states and the coal-mining industry against the agency’s authority to regulate power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions. With three justices picked by Donald Trump, the current court leans even further to the right than the one that stopped Barack Obama’s plan to cut carbon pollution from the power sector.
The agency is in the middle of crafting carbon regulations for new and existing power plants that can withstand Supreme Court scrutiny. Regan expects to unveil a plan for that later this year, he said in Houston.
The world has little time to wait. A major 3,500-page report from U.N. climate scientists published last month concluded that nations have a “brief and rapidly closing window” to cut emissions and “secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” | null | null | null | null | null |
NEW YORK — A prosecutor cast an ex-convict Thursday as a mobster-like figure who coerced his daughter’s college friends to join his “family” as he accumulated power, sex and money, forcing one woman into a sex work enterprise so lucrative that she gave him $1 million in a single year. | null | null | null | null | null |
Far-right figures are newly embracing a scary symbol: The gallows
It’s trolling — but it’s not just that.
By Thomas Lecaque
Thomas Lecaque is an associate professor of history at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa. His work focuses on the nexus of apocalyptic religion, religious violence and politics, from the crusades to the contemporary era.
A makeshift gallows with a noose at the Jan. 6, 2021, protest in Washington. D.C., over the presidential election results. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
The recent America First Political Action Committee convention, organized by a prominent white nationalist, had all the trappings of a far-right American rally: red MAGA hats, appeals to Christianity, even an appearance by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Less noticed was a violent motif that has become disturbingly common in right-wing circles: the gallows. In separate speeches, two different speakers called for the hanging of their opponents. These remarks weren’t subtle, and they weren’t presented as metaphorical. And they were met with rapturous applause and cheers.
“I’ve said we need to build more gallows,” Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers (R) said in a prerecorded message delivered at the convention. “If we try some of these high-level criminals, convict them, and use a newly built set of gallows, it will make an example for these traitors who’ve betrayed our country.” Shortly afterward came Stew Peters, a bounty hunter turned radio host, who said of White House chief medical adviser Anthony S. Fauci, “Why is this man still running around free, instead of hanging by the end of a noose somewhere?” The assembled crowd cheered in response, chanting “Hang him up.”
It’s not just AFPAC. The imagery of the hangman’s noose, dangling from the type of wooden scaffolding you’d have seen erected in a town square in the Old West, comes up so commonly in right-wing commentary and gatherings these days that the rest of us can only be assumed to be willfully ignoring it. We want to see this rhetoric as fringe or metaphorical. We dismiss it as trolling — and yes, it is an attempt at ginning up outrage that can be used to accuse opponents of opposing free speech. But it also is not just trolling. It’s an intensifying call for violence from which we look away at our peril.
Examples of this type of imagery in recent history are abundant. Who could forget the gallows erected outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, or the chants of “Hang Mike Pence” as the mob broke into Congress? Recall the riots at the Michigan Capitol in 2020; among swastikas, Confederate flags and other far-right motifs waved by armed groups seeking an end to coronavirus restrictions was a man carrying a doll resembling Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) hanging from a noose. (Whitmer was also the subject of a foiled plot to kidnap and execute her for treason.) In 2019, two Republicans running for Congress suggested that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) could be hanged.
An obvious reason this imagery was long avoided in the political arena is its racial association. Who but the most fringe figures would want to make a political point by evoking the history of lynching African Americans? There have only been three executions by hanging in the United States since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But the resurgence of this imagery in recent times can be explained by two connected political developments: the election of Donald Trump, and the rise of QAnon, an Internet-based movement that has been embraced by some conservative Christians.
Trump’s open misogyny, racism, xenophobia and ableism broke many long-standing taboos. He is also the animating figure behind QAnon, which believes a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles runs a worldwide “deep state” and sees Trump as a savior. The movement has continued to flourish despite Trump’s reelection defeat in 2020, as some of its ideas have penetrated evangelical Christian circles; the most hardcore believers think there will be an apocalypse that ends in the mass arrest, and then mass hanging, of all of the “deep state” and their allies, bringing in a near-millennial kingdom-esque era of peace and prosperity.
QAnon resembles the games I design. But for believers, there is no winning.
Christians have sometimes used gallows imagery to evoke the crucifixion. In the Heliand, the 9th century Old Saxon epic retelling of the Gospel, the crucifixion is described like this: “At midday a great sign was wondrously shown over the whole world when they lifted God’s Son up unto the gallows, up onto the cross — it became known everywhere: the sun went dark, its brilliant, beautiful light was unable to shine. It was wrapped in shadow, dark and gloomy, and in a deep sinister fog.”
Some with ties to Christian conservative and Republican groups have openly called for mass hangings. Joe Oltmann of FEC United in Colorado, who is influential in Republican circles, proposed on his podcast the hanging of 19 Republicans who voted with Democrats to pass a stopgap spending measure last year to keep the government open. “I want people to go out there and get some wood. The gallows are getting wider and longer. We should be able to build gallows all the way from Washington, D.C., to California,” he said, among other more graphic remarks. In response to The Washington Post, Oltmann said: “No one called for opposition being sent to the gallows. It was for traitors to our nation, and in reference to the law of our country.” He again demonstrated his fondness for this imagery Feb. 12, when he posted a meme depicting Hillary Clinton being led up to the gallows, labeling it, “The Halftime show America really wants.”
QAnon watchers have noticed similarities between the movement’s ideology and “The Day of the Rope,” a mass hanging of “race traitors” described in the white supremacist novel “The Turner Diaries.” The book served as an inspiration for Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. But the idea of mass hangings as a tool for creating and maintaining power by white Christian nationalists goes back even further, to the Ku Klux Klan, who based their justifications for hatred on a particular brand of Protestantism that resonated with mainstream Americans in the first half of the 20th century.
History reveals the danger of Republicans indulging Marjorie Taylor Greene
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman who spoke at the AFPAC convention, defended her presence there by claiming not to know the organizers’ views. “It was to talk about getting everyone together to save our country,” she told CBS News. We treated it as a joke in 2018 and 2019, when Greene was spreading the QAnon rhetoric of executing political opponents. But consider this: AFPAC’s convention took place in Orlando as an alternative gathering to CPAC, a more mainstream gathering of conservatives featuring Trump, who is likely to run for president again in 2024. Greene flitted back and forth between the two events. The line between Christian nationalism, “hang him up,” and a presidential nomination is only as wide as the drive from one convention to another — and that should scare us all. | null | null | null | null | null |
“It was a nice place to live, to settle. It was great,” he said of Kharkiv, where he moved more than a year ago. But, the engineering student added: “I left everything behind.” He asked for his full name not to be published as he worried it may affect his asylum prospects in Europe. | null | null | null | null | null |
Roman Istomin and Olga Petrova protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., on March 3. The Russian couple has joined numerous antiwar protests since the conflict began. (Joe Heim/The Washington Post) (Joe Heim/The Washington Post)
And they cannot stay quiet here, they say, when speaking against the war is outlawed in Russia. Friends back home have been arrested for demonstrating. Others, they say, are increasingly fearful that attending antiwar gatherings will cost them. Penalties of up to 15 years in prison have been announced for criticizing the war. More than 4,500 antiwar protesters were arrested there on Sunday alone, according to the independent human rights organization OVD-Info.
“It gets scarier every day because the police now detain random people gathering in groups of more than three to four people,” said Elizaveta Volkova, a college student from Russia now studying in Washington.
On a cold evening last week, Roman Istomin and Olga Petrova stood in front of the White House at a protest organized by the local Ukrainian community. The couple, from the Russian city of Perm, moved to the United States in 2014. They had protested Putin’s leadership and participated in pro-democracy movements when they lived in Russia. Since the war began, friends in Russia have been beaten and arrested for taking part in antiwar protests. It’s their responsibility, they said, to voice their opposition here since so many back home can’t.
“We’re trying to make us more visible,” Valuev said. “To go to the rallies and say, ‘Yes, I’m Russian, and I support Ukraine. And I’m against the war.’”
Russians living in Washington are also starting to hear about the effects of sanctions back home. Prices in supermarkets are up sharply. Many stores have posted limits on the amount each customer can purchase of sugar, buckwheat, vegetable oil and other staples. Slabykh said a woman he knows in Moscow bought a year’s supply of disposable contact lenses because she was afraid they would soon not be available. Two people he knows have told him they are worried about pharmacy shortages of heart medicine and antidepressants.
Others in Russia are not yet feeling the effects of the sanctions and don’t think they will present a long-term hardship, said Maria Bulycheva, who has lived in the United States for three decades but has close family members back home. “They think that China will help and they will not feel any impact other than temporary discomfort,” she said.
But many of the sanctions have been in place less than a month, and they will be felt more with each passing week, Slabykh said. “Most people don’t understand that it will be very difficult and it will get harder and harder for people, especially poor people,” he said.
Volkova didn’t expect to spend her first year of college at anti-Putin protests in Washington, but that’s what’s happened for the freshman from Moscow who is studying at George Washington University. The 17-year-old has not known a Russia led by anyone other than Putin. When the war began, Volkova said, “my whole world collapsed.”
In Russia, there is a ban on criticizing the war. Even referring to it as a war is against the law. Officially, the war can only be called a “special operation.” Participating in protests or speaking out has lead to fines and arrests. Most Russians receive their news from state-controlled television and radio. Independent reporting has been muzzled. Truth is a crime.
“The biggest risk is me not being able to see them,” he said. “But my sister could lose her job. My mother, who knows? There are many ways to humiliate.”
At the protests she has attended, including one at the Russian Embassy the morning the war began, Bulycheva made a point of telling the Ukrainians who were there that she was Russian and was against the war. They welcomed her, she said.
Bulycheva has lived in the United States since 1993, but her parents and other family members remain in Russia, and she is in daily contact with them. The 50-year-old economist, who has both American and Russian citizenship, said she feels a duty to protest the war. She kept her Russian citizenship, she said, because she wants to be able to have a say in its future. | null | null | null | null | null |
In some of the cases, suspects wrongfully obtained federal loans to bolster companies that didn’t actually exist. In others, large, transnational crime syndicates stole workers’ identities to receive generous unemployment benefits under someone else’s name. And in a series of additional allegations that struck at the very heart of Americans’ pandemic anxieties, federal officials charged a litany of actors who promised faulty tests or fake cures — then at times submitted fake Medicare claims to the government for reimbursement.
The promise and peril is laid bare in a series of stories by The Washington Post, which found agencies including the Small Business Administration for years failed to put in place key checks to keep watch over its aid programs. The SBA’s own inspector general at times has warned about as much as $80 billion in fraud affecting the agency alone, warning in public reports and congressional testimony recently that it could take years to find and recover the funds.
The agency did not provide a dollar amount, but other outside estimates recently have warned the number is expansive — and growing. One report from the Government Accountability Office estimated at least $2.3 billion in unemployment fraud as of last fall, but it warned the number is likely outdated and understated, since it did not include ongoing investigations that “may take a long time” to complete. | null | null | null | null | null |
“Nine days without food, warmth and dead bodies everywhere on the street,” Andryushchenko told The Washington Post. “What can be worse than this? The only hospital that’s left [is] filled to the brim with people.”
Vice President Harris said Thursday during a visit to Poland that the United States is “absolutely prepared” to help the country with the “virtually unprecedented” number of Ukrainian refugees it has received in the past two weeks.
Poland has already taken in 1.5 million refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine, and many of them are staying with Polish families. Harris praised the generosity and courage of those in Poland who are sheltering strangers. Americans will “do what we can and what we must to support Poland in terms of the burden that they have taken on.” Harris also announced the United States would donate $50 million to the United Nations World Food Program.
“Through our work collectively in the U.N., through NATO, we will support Poland in terms of the burden it is facing and our collective responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of these refugees,” Harris said.
Timsit and Francis reported from London. Stern reported from Mukachevo, Ukraine. Rick Noack in Paris, Cleve R. Wootson Jr. in Warsaw and Amy B Wang and Dalton Bennett in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Downtown will survive without commuters
There were more pigeons than people outside the Metro station in D.C.’s Chinatown during the pandemic. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)
The March 4 editorial “There’s no place like not home” got it wrong.
For more than 30 years, the federal government has been trying to get more federal employees to stop commuting to work. It is good for the environment, reduces traffic congestion, saves energy and lowers costs for taxpayers. Federal agencies have been moving farther from the downtown area of D.C. to decrease expenditures. Now is the time to double down on remote work to decrease oil and gas consumption and repurpose money away from high rents.
As we fight high inflation and an economic war with Russia, it is time for all American workers and employers to move toward remote work and decrease the demand for gas and oil. Work is not a place but an activity, and most of it can be done very well outside of a traditional office. The two or three hours of commuter buzz in downtown has certainly lessened, but the sidewalks have always rolled up at night downtown.
The Post's View: The region’s recovery rides on Metro
Tourism will not change regardless of whether employees come downtown. Gas prices and high hotel rates will take care of that.
Now is the time to rethink the downtown area and perhaps consider more affordable housing and a livable business district. Lower commercial rental rates and decreased office space (and, incidentally, the ability to save taxpayer funds) should cause developers to rethink how empty buildings get used. Downtown will survive and thrive in a different manner. Pining for pre-pandemic days is merely romanticizing days gone by.
Andrew Wasilisin, Springfield | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: A few more months of due diligence won’t hurt Virginia’s stadium chances
Fans look at team merchandise after the Washington Football Team announced its new name, the Washington Commanders, at an event at FedEx Field on Feb. 2 in Landover. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Regarding the March 7 Metro article “Va. stadium bills lack caps on subsidies”:
The Virginia General Assembly seems in quite a rush to pass legislation to create a bond authority to help fund Daniel Snyder’s plan for a new football stadium and “mini-city” in Virginia. However, the disparity of the House of Delegates and Senate versions being considered by a conference committee seems to indicate a clear lack of understanding of just how long the bonds would run and exactly how much tax revenue the commonwealth stands to lose in the endeavor. The attitude seems to be that it is critical for Virginia to act before Mr. Snyder gets a better deal. So much for due diligence.
Mr. Snyder’s team is still under contract to play at FedEx Field for at least five more years, so taking a bit longer to clearly set some criteria or limits on the bond authority is in order. The current versions of the two bills vary widely in their scope as well as understanding by key members of the House and Senate.
The Post's View: Daniel Snyder doesn’t deserve the sweetheart deal Virginia lawmakers want to give him
Most important, any deal should have to wait until after the National Football League completes its investigation of sexual harassment charges leveled by former employees. In fact, full public disclosure of the current investigation, as well as the earlier one that has been shielded from public view, should be an essential requirement before the legislature commits about 1 billion taxpayer dollars. A few more months or another year won’t hurt.
John M. Huber, Williamsburg, Va. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: We need more trains, not more lanes
A train pulls out of Metro Center in October. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Regarding the March 6 Metro article “Commuter rail lines struggle to fill seats”:
The Feb. 27 Local Opinions essay “Maryland can’t wait for traffic relief” said Maryland desperately needed to add more lanes to Interstates 270 and 495 because that is the only possible way to relieve traffic congestion and quoted an environmental-impact statement that said the added lanes would reduce delays by 18 percent and 32 percent in the morning and evening peak periods, respectively. The essay also said those who oppose the lane additions are making “wild and nonsensical claims about the project.”
When I moved here in 1979, I-270 was only two to three lanes in each direction. It got jampacked during commute times, so lanes were added. Within a few years, it got jampacked again, so more lanes were added. Again, that helped only for a few years. Obviously, continuing to add lanes is not the solution.
Studies also claimed that the Intercounty Connector would take enough cars off the Beltway to relieve the congestion between Silver Spring and Bethesda. After it was completed, I saw the same red taillights and congestion.
Adding lanes won’t work if more houses and apartments are built to house people who will end up driving on I-270 and the Beltway without increasing access to public transportation. The true solution to the traffic problem is to get people onto trains and buses — and continue working from home, which has reduced the number of commuters no matter what form of transportation they were taking before the pandemic.
Melissa Yorks, Gaithersburg | null | null | null | null | null |
Surveillance footage shows a missile hitting a residential building in Kyiv on Feb. 26. (Vitali Klitschko/Reuters)
We take for granted our access to near-real-time documentation of international events, including the war in Ukraine. Since even before the full Russian invasion began, social media users in Ukraine and Russia were filming and sharing the buildup of forces near Ukraine’s border. The government had satellite imagery showing the scale of what was looming, but on-the-ground observers gave a sense of ubiquity and detail. The general public knew that Russia’s vehicles were painted with “Z” markings before they began showing up on streets near Kharkiv.
There is a prohibition against the use of cluster munitions, for example, a type of ordnance that spreads smaller explosives over a wide area. Such weapons pose an obvious risk of civilian casualties, given that they are inherently imprecise. And that is what the dashcam footage above appears to show, according to researchers from the open-source investigations group Bellingcat.
The hospital, too, was struck. It’s not visible in the video but sits across the intersection the car approached, on the left. We know that in part because the video was geolocated; the place at which it occurred was identified by latitude and longitude. Here is what that same intersection looked like in peaceful times, as captured by Google.
In a phone call with The Washington Post, Eliot Higgins, Bellingcat’s founder, explained the importance of geolocating such videos as part of the process of documenting possible infringements of international law. Over the past several years, Bellingcat and its partners — including Mnemonic and the Center for Information Resilience (CIR) — have built a system for collecting, verifying and storing evidence from conflict zones that might eventually be used to enforce the rules of war.
“The main thing we try to find out at the moment is the location of each of these videos because the intent is to make them searchable for future accountability processes,” Higgins explained. Once geolocated, the information is put in a spreadsheet that’s maintained by Bellingcat and CIR. The evidence itself is archived by both Bellingcat and Mnemonic, and the data used to populate a map created by CIR.
What’s remarkable about the conflict in Ukraine is that Russia made it far more likely that any potential criminal activity would be documented by open-source investigators because of its history in the region. Bellingcat was founded in 2014, days before a Russian antiaircraft battery accidentally shot down a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet over Ukraine. The MH17 investigation became one of Bellingcat’s most notable, pitting the group against Russian misinformation regularly. But that and the ongoing conflict between Russian proxies and Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine helped build a community of people trained in observing and identifying actions in Ukraine.
Lots of eyes and cellphones on the ground. Lots of outside observers ready to figure out where documentation occurred. A system for tracking and storing those videos and that evidence. The only question, then, is whether criminal courts will use that evidence in potential investigations and indictments. And that, given the novelty of the system, is still not entirely settled. While Bellingcat’s evidence (and testimony from staffers) was used in MH17 legal proceedings, war crimes probes are something else entirely.
“This could be the first time that this evidence is used directly in accountability processes, so we’re trying to engage very early on with those different accountability processes to talk them through exactly what we’re doing, get feedback from them,” Higgins said. He has served for several years on the technology advisory board for the International Criminal Court where he has advocated for using open-source evidence. “We’ve been collaborating with various organizations to build the best process possible to meet what their expectations would be for this kind of evidence,” Higgins said.
It’s important to recognize that other fields, including the media, have embraced the techniques of open-source investigation. The New York Times hired a Bellingcat researcher to aid its visual investigations team, for example. The evolution of documentary evidence in the social media age — starting, Higgins pointed out, with the Arab Spring more than a decade ago — has meant revisiting assumptions about how to conduct investigations of such conflicts.
“A big part of the open-source community,” he added, “is the idea that it’s better to work together and share information than it is to get exclusives and scoops.” The media having overcome that instinct to embrace open-source investigations offers some cause for optimism that investigators might do that, too. Bellingcat researchers have participated in mock trials aimed at evaluating the strength of their evidence, with success.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion has been stymied by the strength of the Ukrainian public. His team might be held to account by the global public more broadly. | null | null | null | null | null |
“We faced a lot of criticism, but when the previous board entirely stepped down, that allowed us to say everything was on the table,” said Emily Wines, the appropriately named chair of the new board of directors. Wines earned her pin in 2008 and is vice president of the beverage program for the Cooper’s Hawk Winery restaurant chain. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: The Path Forward: U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen
MR. CAPEHART: Good morning, I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Welcome to Washington Post Live and another in our series on the path forward. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to significant sanctions on Russia, its leaders, and oligarchs, record-high inflation and gas prices are hitting American consumers, and the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic lingers on. Joining me now is the person for whom all of these things is priority number one. She is Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Secretary Yellen, thank you for coming to Washington Post Live.
SEC. YELLEN: Thanks so much for inviting me, Jonathan. Nice to be with you.
MR. CAPEHART: So let’s start with some--a little bit of breaking news. A few hours ago, the British announced sanctions against Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who also owns the Chelsea football team which he was trying to sell but can’t now because of the sanctions. Will the United States follow suit?
SEC. YELLEN: Well, we have a list of individuals, Russians on whom we have imposed sanctions, and a further group of individuals that we are considering. So the names continue to be added to the sanction list. And I do not want to talk about any specific individual, but certainly this is one of the ways in which we are trying to punish Russia for what they’ve done and make it clear to the oligarchs who are--have been supporting President Putin and, you know, providing support for him to conduct this war, that this is something that is an atrocity and that we, with our allies, will take actions to raise the cost to them, and hopefully they will express their views to President Putin as a consequence.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, Madam Secretary, when your deputy, Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo, was here last week, another round of sanctions were announced while we were--while we were talking against Russian officials, oligarchs, family members, and associates. Would you like to announce any more right now? Or at least you just mentioned that there are a list of people and organizations you are considering. Might we see a new announcement today or this week?
SEC. YELLEN: Well, we continue to work very closely with our allies to consider sanctions. Certainly, at this point, we're not seeing Russia back off the horrific war that they've started, an unprovoked invasion of Ukrainian homeland. And in fact, the atrocities that they're committing against civilians seem to be intensifying. So, it's certainly appropriate for us to be working with our allies to consider further sanctions.
But it's important to understand that we have already had a very devastating impact on Russia. We have isolated Russia financially. The ruble has been in a freefall. The Russian stock market is closed. Russia has been effectively shut out of the international financial system, and the war chest that Russia amassed--over $600 billion in central bank reserves that I think it hoped to use to cushion any blow to the Russian economy--the actions that we have already taken against Russia's banks, and particularly against the central bank of Russia, with many of our allies participating in that, has made those reserves all but unusable. So, the Russian economy will be devastated as a consequence of what we've already done. But we do consider--continue to consider further steps we can take.
MR. CAPEHART: Madam Secretary, given the litany of things you just mentioned about the Russian economy, is it safe to say that the Russian economy is in freefall?
SEC. YELLEN: It's certainly experiencing a very severe contraction. And I don't--I don't want to make the forecast for what will happen to the Russian economy over the coming year. But it is certain to--certain to contract meaningfully. And you know, over the medium and longer term, we have put in place export controls that will deprive Russia of the advanced technologies, the semiconductors, and other things that they need to continue to advance economically and to fortify their defenses. And so our longer-term impact will also be negative, degrading Russia's ability to project power and continue to threaten its neighbors.
MR. CAPEHART: Madam Secretary, is there any concern that the severe contraction of the Russian economy that you're talking about will have an impact on our European allies, or even on the United States itself economically?
SEC. YELLEN: Well, there's certain to be an effect on the United States, and also on Europe. But let me say we've worked very closely with our allies, first of all, to be aligned about the sanctions, because that means that they have a much greater effect, and we have been united in what we've done. And we've designed the sanctions so that they will have the maximum negative effect on Russia, while, to the extent possible, shielding the United States and Europe from negative consequences. But will there be some negative consequences? Of course, and I think that's unavoidable.
And look, you know, the Russian economy is the 11th largest. It--Russia is a major exporter of oil and natural gas to Europe. That dependency means that Europe is vulnerable to--particularly vulnerable to higher energy prices. Russia supplies enough oil to global markets that a reduction in Russian exports, it's already pushed up global oil prices. And we're seeing that ourselves in prices at the pump. National average gas prices have risen in the United States significantly already as a consequence of what's happening with Russia.
So, you know, we will do the most we can to shield--we will do the most we can to take steps to shield Americans and our allies from negative impacts. But this is an atrocity, and it's recognized by Americans and by people all around the world as a step that we cannot let Russia do this without expressing our extreme sanctions for this behavior and to discourage anything in the future.
MR. CAPEHART: Madam Secretary, the president announced oil and gas sanctions against Russia. The--what's the likelihood that our European allies will follow suit, considering they are much more dependent on Russian oil and gas?
SEC. YELLEN: Well, as the president said when he announced our sanctions, we recognize that not all countries are in the same position in terms of their ability to cut off shipments of oil and gas from Russia. We're relatively independent. We have very little dependence on a Russian oil. And overall, we are a net exporter of oil, and we're able to do this because of our very strong position. I wouldn't expect most of our European allies to be able to do the same thing.
MR. CAPEHART: Let me ask you about China. Have you been in contact with your counterpart in China? I'm wondering if President Xi is taking steps to lessen the economic isolation of his ally, President Putin.
SEC. YELLEN: Well, you know, I think that China does buy Russian oil, but I think that our sanctions are limiting Russia's ability to sell to China and other countries as well. Our financial sanctions, even though China is not part of it, my sense is that financial institutions in China that do business in dollars and in euros and are worried about the impact of sanctions, don't want to violate sanctions, are very concerned and risk averse about doing business with Russia as well. So, I don't think that China--what China is doing is meaningfully offsetting or lessening the pressure from the sanctions that we've put in place.
MR. CAPEHART: Let's turn our attention here stateside. Big news this morning. Inflation data released in February, 7.9%, the highest it's been in 40 years. You know, Republicans for months have been saying that the rise in inflation, this record rise in inflation, is a result of too much stimulus, that the American Rescue Plan is part of that. It added too much stimulus to the economy. What do you make of that argument? Were they right?
SEC. YELLEN: Well, I think the American Rescue Plan--and this week we're celebrating the one-year anniversary of it--did a great deal to strengthen the American economy. Just look at the job market. We have one of the strongest job markets that we've seen in this country in a very long time. Americans are easily able to get jobs and feel confident in their ability to move. We're seeing the quit rate reach all-time highs, as Americans feel confident about their ability to get better jobs, to move across jobs, to improve their pay and working conditions. It's remarkable that the unemployment rate has fallen more this year than in any year in American history.
When you consider that we had a double-digit unemployment after the pandemic struck, and in a very short time we're back to normal levels of unemployment, low levels of unemployment, it took almost a decade to achieve that after the financial crisis in 2008. And you know, we really protected most Americans from severe financial price consequences of the pandemic so that they’re, by and large, in good financial shape, poised to spend enough to continue propelling solid growth in the U.S. economy. And we're seeing that in the labor market.
The pandemic played a big role in inflation. The drop in unemployment, the strengthening in the labor market without the pandemic, it might have put mild upward pressure on inflation. But much of the inflation pressure we're seeing, which is of tremendous concern, it hits Americans hard, it makes them worry about basic pocketbook issues, it is a great concern to us. But I think a lot of it--and we're seeing this all around the world--it really stems from shifts that were due to the pandemic. We saw a huge shift away from services toward goods in the United States and much of the global economy. And we quickly encountered bottlenecks, supply constraints that have made it difficult. Even though goods production has increased in the United States and globally, moving those goods, transportation costs, we have a shortage of semiconductors that’s curtailed auto production in the United States, higher car prices. New and used cars account for a third of inflation. I think it’s supply chain issues caused by the pandemic and the shift in spending that’s really boosting inflation here and around the world.
MR. CAPEHART: So, Madam Secretary, we're running out of time. I'm going to squeeze in two more questions. With inflation outpacing wages, the majority of Americans are making less now than they were a year ago. What is your message to the American people who don't think the government is doing enough to help them?
SEC. YELLEN: Well, we've done, I think, a lot to shore up the finances of Americans. And I would say that at the lower end of the wage spectrum, wage increases have outstripped price increases. When you think about all the aid that came out of the American Rescue Plan for American families--unemployment insurance, economic impact payments--if you take that into account, Americans have been doing pretty well.
But I don't want to say that inflation is not a problem. Inflation is a problem. Longer term, many of the proposals that President Biden has put forward, discussed in the State of the Union, would meaningfully address costs that really burden American households--the cost of childcare, the cost of elder care, the cost of healthcare bring down prescription drug prices. And you know, inflation is, first and foremost, the job of the Federal Reserve. We have to look to the Federal Reserve to take steps to bring down inflation, and I have confidence the Fed will take the actions that are needed.
MR. CAPEHART: Madam Secretary, last question. Today is Harriet Tubman Day. She died today in 1913. Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, when will we actually see it? When will I be able to pay bills in Tubmans?
SEC. YELLEN: 2030. I know it's a long way off. That’s--that adheres to the original schedule that was announced in 2014 by Secretary Lew and President Obama. We lost four years during the Trump administration in pushing it forward. But we have made efforts to catch up and we remain on that schedule.
You know, there's a huge amount of technology that goes into designing currency to make sure that we have the most modern, sophisticated, anti-counterfeiting features embodied in our currency and producing it is--producing currency is a technologically sophisticated matter. But I'm looking forward to seeing Harriet on the 20 in 2030.
MR. CAPEHART: Janet Yellen 78th secretary of the United States Treasury, we are out of time. Thank you very much for coming to Washington Post Live.
SEC. YELLEN: Thanks for having me, Jonathan.
MR. CAPEHART: And thank you for joining us. To check out what interviews we have coming up, head to WashingtonPostLive.com. Once again, I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Thank you for tuning in to Washington Post Live. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Path Forward: Gen. David H. Berger
Gen. David H. Berger is the 38th commandant of the United States Marine Corps and has served in a variety of command positions in Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan. On Wednesday, March 16 at 1:30 p.m. ET, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius speaks with the commandant on the latest developments in Ukraine, how Russia’s actions influence the future of warfare and how the conflict will impact future potential engagement with adversaries such as China.
Gen. David H. Berger
Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps | null | null | null | null | null |
117th Congress: Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.)
117th Congress: House Majority Whip Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.)
117th Congress: Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
117th Congress: Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.)
117th Congress: Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.)
117th Congress: Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.)
117th Congress: Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah)
117th Congress: Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.)
117th Congress: Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)
117th Congress: Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.)
117th Congress: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) & Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N....
117th Congress: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
117th Congress: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
117th Congress: House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.)
117th Congress: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
117th Congress: Sen. Todd C. Young (R-Ind.)
117th Congress: Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)
117th Congress: Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)
New Government: 117th Congress with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.)
The ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine has unleashed Western sanctions aimed at crippling Putin’s economy. On Thursday, March 17 at 1:30 p.m. ET, join Washington Post Live for a conversation with Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, about additional steps he supports to boost Ukraine, including lethal aid that he believes should have been sent to Kyiv over a year ago. | null | null | null | null | null |
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson climbs into a military airplane on Feb. 17. (Afp Contributor#afp/AFP/Getty Images)
In a pair of new polls, YouGov noted to respondents what this would likely entail: Shooting down Russian planes. But curiously, that seemed to depress support in one poll, while making very little difference in the other.
“Would you support or oppose the U.S. enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine?”, and ...
"Would you support or oppose the U.S. enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would mean the U.S. military would shoot down Russian military planes flying over Ukraine?
“Do you think each of the following courses of action is a good idea or a bad idea?,” and then, two questions later ...
In this case, there was a more significant difference and a drop in support. While Americans favored the undefined no-fly zone 40-30 percent — similar to the other poll — they actually opposed shooting down Russian planes 46-30 percent. Fully 28 percent of people who say they want a no-fly zone also don’t want to shoot down Russian planes (which a no-fly zone would, in all likelihood, entail).
As we wrote last week, no-fly zones — and especially one involving Russia — would be extremely difficult to enforce and could lead to a much-broader conflict being triggered, whether intentionally or otherwise. One expert summarized: “Do you shoot down all Russian air traffic? How do you identify friend or foe? Do you take out any ground source that paints you with target acquisition radar?” Another: “Risks are both intentional escalation and inadvertent incident that could ratchet up."
Even serious and studied supporters of a no-fly zone, like former NATO commander Philip Breedlove, concede that means likely war. Breedlove said, “The reality of a no-fly zone is — it is an act of war." | null | null | null | null | null |
Washington Wizards forward Rui Hachimura, left, is playing with confidence coming off the bench. (Nick Wass/AP)
LOS ANGELES — In his third season with the Washington Wizards, Rui Hachimura remains one of the quietest players on the roster. He watches games stoically when he’s not playing, dialed into the action from his spot near the end of the bench. He wilts midway through long news conferences, as if his body physically rejects the idea of revealing his personal thoughts. When he was asked after practice last week about one particularly joyful looking on-court moment, Hachimura answered, “It’s a very natural thing for me, having fun, playing basketball.” Kawhi Leonard couldn’t reach an affect so flat.
Twenty-three games into the most fractured season of Hachimura’s young career, here was a portrait of the third-year pro: relaxed, happy, confident around his teammates (at least with no cameras in the vicinity). In return, the Wizards have found themselves with a surprise three-point shooting machine — at least temporarily — who still, according to Wes Unseld Jr., fits into the franchise’s long-term vision. Washington has always wanted Hachimura to be a dynamic offensive threat with the physical ability and know-how to guard all five positions on defense.
Coming off the bench for the first time in his career, the former first-round pick was shooting a gob-smacking 51.9 percent from beyond the arc entering Wednesday while shooting roughly the same volume as last season, 2.3 attempts per game. His threes were helping him average 9.2 points in 18.9 minutes per game. Hachimura doesn’t credit some mechanical adjustment or extra hours in the gym.
Although his teammates are thrilled with this development, Hachimura insists that his offensive game still lives within the midrange. He labored away for 13.8 points per game in the 2020-21 season and 13.5 in 2019-20 popping off floaters inside the arc.
Oddly, Hachimura’s reluctance to lean into three-point shooting only makes Unseld more excited. No one is forcing Hachimura to launch three-pointers — the forward is simply plucking the good shots that come his way without hesitation.
“Spatially, he’s getting himself in the right spots. The ball finds him,” Unseld said. “So we’re encouraging him to take those shots. But I’m not telling him not to shoot midrange. We just don’t want those shots early in the clock, and we certainly don’t want him off multiple dribbles and [isolation plays]. There’s times for that, opportunities for that late in the shot clock, but if you’re spaced correctly and the ball finds you, you’re doing the right thing by stepping up and knocking those down.”
Hachimura is comfortable now after his late start to the year. He has his pregame routine in place, and his teammates are encouraging him to be even more aggressive on offense given his three-point outburst. The Wizards are enjoying the new dimension his long-range shooting brings to the second unit and are confident they will be able to use his versatility on both ends of the court, even as roles on the roster shift thanks to the arrival of Kristaps Porzingis. | null | null | null | null | null |
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan calls to suspend state gas tax amid rising prices at the pump
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced Thursday he’s seeking to lift the state’s gas tax to blunt rising fuel prices that have surged past $4 per gallon.
Hogan (R) said he will work with the Democrat-controlled General Assembly to quickly suspend Maryland’s gas tax, which is roughly 37 cents per gallon but is also tied to inflation and could rise in the coming months.
He pitched the emergency relief as state lawmakers learned the state’s surplus was projected to grow, reaching $7.6 billion by the end of 2023. | null | null | null | null | null |
The amount of gas that has escaped from the Alpine oil development on Alaska’s North Slope is unknown.
. Pipelines extend across the landscape outside Nuiqsut, Alaska, on May 29, 2019. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)
For nearly a week, natural gas has been leaking from a ConocoPhillips project outside an Alaska Native village in the Arctic, prompting the company to evacuate nonessential personnel and some residents to flee.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is revising its environmental analysis of the Willow project after a U.S. district court judge found that the federal government failed to adequately analyze the climate impacts of the project, among other deficiencies. . | null | null | null | null | null |
Two years ago, long before vaccines and boosters, we cautioned that it would be reckless to go back to normal too soon. Now, with the omicron variant passing, with widespread vaccine and natural immunity, with greater knowledge about the virus and how to mitigate it, a new normal is in sight. But a smart group of public health experts have a warning to be heeded: the new normal will be different, and we must prepare for it.
In a report released Monday and titled “Getting to and Sustaining the Next Normal: A Roadmap for Living with Covid,” the experts caution that the United States is still in the grip of pandemic. With 330 million people, they say the U.S. transition to the “next normal” will be when direct mortality from major respiratory illnesses is 165 deaths per day and 1,150 per week; the death toll from covid-19 going into this month was ten times higher. And they caution that a new, concerning variant could emerge. At the same time, they suggest that the death toll will decline sharply from the disaster of the past two years, thanks to vaccine and natural immunity.
If the outlook is cautiously optimistic, however, the report makes an important plea for policymakers and politicians not to fall back into complacency and inaction, as they have in the past. It comes from two dozen epidemiologists, pharmacologists, virologists, immunologists and policy experts, shepherded by Vice Provost of Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania Ezekiel J. Emanuel.
What needs to be done? A major recommendation is that the United States should build a comprehensive testing and surveillance system for the coronavirus and other respiratory viruses, which does not yet exist in the nation’s patchwork of testing technology and reporting. The report suggests such a system should make rapid tests “both ubiquitous and affordable, which means less than $3 per test,” and swiftly link those who test positive — whether through a PCR or rapid test — to suitable treatment. The experts also suggest building a real-time disease surveillance network that would rely on viral, environmental, genetic, immunological and zoonotic sampling to provide early warning and data about outbreaks. These will be even more useful if linked to a modernized, comprehensive health-data system, which the pandemic showed is desperately needed. Other common-sense suggestions include: measures to improve indoor air quality; a strategy to deal with burnout among health-care workers; sustained investment in vaccine and therapeutics research and development; a better understanding of long covid; and improvements on the confusing pandemic communications evident over the past two years.
All of this won’t be easy or cheap. The report calls for an estimated $100 billion investment the first year, around $30 billion for the second and third, and $10 billion to $15 billion annually thereafter. But the economic and other damages of the pandemic were in the trillions. Investing in the future of public health systems to avoid such a disaster in the future would be prudent and farsighted. | null | null | null | null | null |
MLB and the players union have a tentative deal to end the lockout. Here’s what comes next for the Nationals.
The Nationals are expected gather for spring training in West Palm Beach, Fla., soon. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
With the owners and players union having tentatively agreed to a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement Thursday — and with the formality of ratification seen as the final step to the finish line — Major League Baseball is really, finally set to return.
So too, then, are the Washington Nationals, who are expected to begin spring training in West Palm Beach, Fla., this weekend and open their season April 7. And while all the ancillary details are ironed out, let’s look at what the Nationals have accomplished this offseason and could be left on their agenda.
Pre-lockout behavior won’t mirror post-lockout behavior for all teams. The New York Yankees, for example, will almost certainly crank up from the next-to-no aggression they showed in November. If the Atlanta Braves keep wading through the market, they’ll risk losing star first baseman Freddie Freeman to free agency. The Nationals, though, are expected to be what they were in autumn: Rebuilding. Spending on the margins of their roster. Otherwise waiting for their top prospects to develop (or not) and give a stencil to color in when the time’s right.
Just before they lockout began, they signed veteran second baseman César Hernández to a one-year, $4 million deal. Prior to that, they re-signed shortstop Alcides Escobar to a one-year, $1 million deal; claimed lefty reliever Francisco Pérez off waivers from the Cleveland Guardians and infielder Lucius Fox from the Baltimore Orioles; and offered Juan Soto a 13-year, $350 million that the star right fielder turned down.
Those transactions alone show their focus on the future. If Hernández is productive, as he was in 2021, he could be dealt for a coin-flip prospect or two at the trade deadline, as he was in 2021. Escobar is a versatile, low-upside stopgap for an infield still auditioning Carter Kieboom at third and Luis García up the middle. Pérez and Fox are low-cost, low-risk additions to what should be an ever-evolving 40-man roster for at least the next two seasons. And Soto will hang over everything until he’s signed long-term in Washington or playing for another club.
During the 99-day lockout, unable to negotiation major league deals or touch their 40-man, the Nationals made four picks in the minor league Rule 5 Draft and looked for veterans on the fringe. They brought on third baseman Maikel Franco, infielder Dee Strange-Gordon, and relievers Carl Edwards Jr. and Reed Garret, among others. Franco, Strange-Gordon and Garrett have been working out with minor leaguers at the team’s facility in West Palm Beach since late February.
Franco, 29 and once a top prospect for the Philadelphia Phillies, has 12 career homers against the Nationals. Strange-Gordon last appeared for the Seattle Mariners in 2020. Bench spots should be available, performance permitting, for either of them or outfielder Donovan Casey, who was put on the 40-man in November. And if Franco hits really well this spring, he could even challenge Kieboom for starts at third.
Considering all of that, what’s left for the Nationals to do?
As was the case a few months ago, they could certainly field a team right now if they’re okay with losing a lot of games. Given General Manager Mike Rizzo’s comments in early October — “Our goal is to win. It’s to win the division. It’s to win the World Series. Some seasons you go into the winter and it’s a little more problematic to foresee that" — that may be the plan.
But if they’re already angling toward another deadline sale, they could get a flippable arm for the rotation and one (or more) in the pen, marginally improving the day-to-day product and their chances of padding the system mid-summer. There’s a hole for a right-handed first baseman next to Josh Bell after Ryan Zimmerman retired in February. Left field is another void, though could be easily filled if the Nationals are fine with playing Yadiel Hernandez or Andrew Stevenson regularly, or having Lane Thomas and Victor Robles in the same lineup.
Cot’s Baseball Contracts currently projects their Opening Day roster payroll at about $114 million, with $135 million for the whole 40-man. Last season, Cot’s had the club’s final payroll at $174.5 million, the 11th-highest in the majors. These are educated calculations with no direct knowledge of internal finances. But they help show a philosophical shift in the early stages of a rebuild, even if the Nationals have preferred the phrases “reboot” or “retool,” lest they make it seem like this could take a while.
When camp begins this weekend, you won’t hear Soto or Bell, or Stephen Strasburg or Patrick Corbin, or Rizzo or Manager Dave Martinez predict a non-competitive year. No matter what’s spent on the club, 26 players and a coaching staff will be trying to win come April. Count it as one thing that’s unchanged. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: Bear Grylls, Author, “Never Give Up: My Life in the Wild”
MR. JORGENSON: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Dave Jorgenson, a video producer here at The Washington Post.
My guest today is probably the world's most famous outdoorsman and adventurer, at least in my opinion, Bear Grylls. He has just come out with his new autobiography, Bear Grylls' "Never Give Up: My Life in the Wild."
He joins us now to talk about his book and his life of adventure. Welcome to Washington Post Live.
MR. GRYLLS: Thanks, Dave. Yeah, nice to be with you.
MR. JORGENSON: Thank you so much.
And a reminder to our audience, we want you to join our conversation. So please tweet your questions and comments to the handle @PostLive.
Okay. So, Bear, I have a lot of questions. Can I call you "Bear" or "Mr. Grylls"? Which do you prefer?
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. No, of course, Bear. Don't be silly. Yeah, yeah.
MR. JORGENSON: Okay, wonderful. Well, then I'm going to start with "Bear" because I understand you got that name from your sister at about a week old. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
MR. GRYLLS: So I have an older sister who's amazing, quite bossy, who always said she'd be much‑‑
MR. JORGENSON: I know what that's like.
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. She always said she'd be much better at being in the public eye than me. She said, "Bear, you always hide away," which is probably true.
But she decided when I was a kid that "Edward," which is what I was christened was‑‑she goes, "Oh, such a boring name." So that became "Teddy Bear," and I was always much less, you know, extravert than she was. And, you know, I used to think as a kid, oh, why can't I just be called a normal name? And I used to feel quite self‑conscious going to school and stuff, but actually, you know what? I look back now, and I think it served me well. It kind of works, and it's just always been "Bear" to everyone, so yeah.
I should really‑‑
MR. JORGENSON: I think that's‑‑
MR. GRYLLS: ‑‑have something about wrestling a grizzly or something, but the reality is much less spectacular.
MR. JORGENSON: I think that's a much more‑‑much more wholesome, much more relatable. My older sister at one point decided my name was "Pavel," which is for no reason, and she got everyone in high school to call me that. So I think "Bear" would have been a lot cooler.
And also, "Bear Grylls," the first time I heard that name in my head‑‑and not that you were trying to do a branding exercise, but it worked very well. And I think it really coincides with you as a person and just your sense of adventure.
So I wanted to ask too, you know, maybe jumping ahead a couple years to when you could walk, when did you start feeling this‑‑it seems like you have almost a drive to be outside and to be doing these things. When did that start happening? Do you have like an early memory of that?
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. I think as I look back now, you know, as a kid growing up, like I said, I was quite sort of shy, but one of the things I always loved doing was doing adventures with my dad. And we were brought up on this little island off the south coast of the UK, and he'd been an‑‑he's been a Marine beforehand and just loved, you know, taking me on loads and many adventures. We were always climbing up the little sea cliffs where I lived, always tinkering around, making boats, always kind of figuring stuff out, and I think at a young age, it's that I‑‑it wasn't so much even the adventure. I just think I loved hanging out with him, you know, often literally on the end of‑‑you know, off a cliff face or whatever, but it was my way of being close to him, I suppose.
And I think, subconsciously, that's been a huge driver always in my life. I love the bonds you create with people when you're on these expeditions, when you're out in these sort of environments, and I think the wild kind of strips us bare. You get to know the real people, and for me, that's always been the magic, you know, from a young age, my dad, through the military stuff that I did, through expeditions, through to the "Man vs. Wild" and the "Running Wild" and all the TV side of things. You know, it's always about the connections and the bonds you make with great people in wild and often difficult places, and I love that.
MR. JORGENSON: I love that too, and the thing I've always gotten a sense of when watching the show‑‑and I've watched it for many, many years and all the other iterations that you've had‑‑is there's sort of a sense of humor underneath it all as well within the bond. And I feel like one thing that you're always really good at‑‑and you mention this in the book a few times‑‑is an icebreaker, essentially, and that always kind of gets them loosened up. Can you tell me a little bit about that and the sort of‑‑maybe even just the strategy of, hey, I'm going to do this, you know, give the president a half‑eaten fish and, you know, see what happens?
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. Well, I think‑‑first of all, I think "Running Wild," it's an intimidating thing for these stars to walk into. You know, they are rookies for anything like this. They are out of their comfort zone. They're, you know, in an environment they've often never been in before, and I'm very respectful of that. That's a scary thing for them to do.
I think often they arrive with quite a lot of, you know, sometimes a bit of bravado, a bit of competitiveness, and I'm not like that as a person. I'm there to keep them alive, to make it fun, and to empower them and make them the hero, you know.
So I think what happens quite quickly is that they realize that I'm not kind of‑‑I'm not there to flex my muscles. I'm there to help them shine, and once they kind of get that, then everyone kind of relaxes a bit.
But I think the wild is a great leveler, ultimately, you know. It's‑‑you know, it's always fun stuff. You know, very quickly, somebody is tripping over something or finding some grub to eat or, you know, figuring out some crazy way of getting down something, and it's always‑‑you know, the improvisation part of the journeys, I think, are what people, these stars, often really enjoy. You know, even if they know the show, you know, even if they're watched a bunch of "Running Wilds," they often kind of go, "Oh, wow. It really is just like you and a small crew," and everyone is like, you know, carrying a camera and carrying some rope. We're gunning it and going, and I think they're often surprised at that. And once they realize that, they kind of relax, and they realize they don't have to perform. They can just have fun and go along for the journey, and you're going to face a few fears for sure. And there's going to be some hard moments, but essentially, I always want these journeys for people‑‑whether it's the president or whoever, you want it to be fun. You know, you want it to be an empowering thing, and the wild does that job for me really well.
MR. JORGENSON: I get the sense too, for lack of a better term, almost an entrepreneurial aspect of you. I know you started the Mountaineering Club at Eton College where you went to school. So it seems like this is a lifelong thing for you to say, hey, we're going to take this crew of 10 people out and do this or, hey, in college, we're going to start this club. Can you tell me a little bit about that, starting that club, and if that sort of led into what your career became?
MR. GRYLLS: Well, I think the honest thing is it was the only thing I was ever any good at growing up. You know, I wasn't the sport superstar or the cleverest person in the class, you know. You would have lost me in a crowd, but I was always the kid that could climb the highest building and, you know, get out these things and figure out fun ways to do things, and, you know, that was just how I was as a kid. And I think if you said to me, age 7, that I could have a job that essentially involved climbing up things, falling off things, being muddy outside, I would have thought‑‑I would have thought heaven, you know.
So I suppose I just tried to stick at what I loved, what I was good at or okay at, and my dad always used to say, you know, "You got to follow your dreams. You know, don't listen to the dreams stealers you're going to get along the way." You know, find what you love, what you're naturally okay at, and follow it, and try and be kind along the way and be resilient. You're going to have some difficult moments. Life is just like that, and that was kind of life in a nutshell, I think, for him and for me growing up.
You know, he'd been a Marine. I think for me, the aspiration was that I did want to join the military. I wanted to do it slightly differently. I wanted to join as a soldier rather than as an officer. I wanted to try for the British Special Forces, which I suppose as a teenager, I thought maybe that's one better than my dad as a Marine, and maybe I could push it a bit.
MR. JORGENSON: One‑up him.
MR. GRYLLS: And he was amazing. You know, he really encouraged me to kind of go for things. Everest was a big dream of ours growing up, you know, because we had climbed a lot together, but I do kind of look back, and I think I wonder if that Everest dream really would have just stayed a dream if I hadn't then had that accident I had when I was in the military. And I think sometimes it takes a knock in life to make you realize what you really want to go for and actually to go for it, you know.
MR. JORGENSON: Right. Well, I can say with full confidence, having read a few of your books, including the new one, but also watch your show, that you're more than okay at a lot of things. So, if you needed to hear that, it's pretty clear.
MR. GRYLLS: Well, you're kind. I don't‑‑I don't‑‑not only do I not actually feel like that, I really think the truth is I'm pretty mediocre at a lot of this stuff. You know, I hang out with amazing kind of skydivers and climbers and survivalists and all this stuff all the time. I think the more I've done of it, the more actually I'm kind of I'm okay. I'm sort of a jack of many things. I can do a little bit of most of it, but the world is full of amazing talented people. I think I had much more confidence in my ability when I started out, you know.
But I've also rose in life that that's okay. You know, life doesn't say you have to be the best. You just got to kind of give your best and be resilient, and like the book says, you know, never give up. You know, go through the storms. Get back on your feet. Be persistent. Be grateful. You know, know that you've‑‑you know, all of us stand on the shoulders of a few giants, and I've definitely had a few great people in my life who have helped me so much.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah.
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. Like I said, definitely not the best at anything, actually, you know.
MR. JORGENSON: Well, again, I'll challenge you on that, but we could do that all day. I don't think I'm going to break you.
One thing you do say in the book that I found very relatable as well is in‑‑you have much more experience than I do, but when the record button is on the camera, there is something about you that you're able to just kind of turn on and just do it. I think you also mentioned that the outside is‑‑the outdoors, rather, is your home turf, especially as it related to having an active president on the show. Can you tell me more about that and what it is, as someone who maybe grew up a little more introverted and suddenly you had this show? Is it just about being out there in the natural‑‑in your element that feels--it makes it a little bit easier for you?
MR. GRYLLS: Well, I think it's been the constant struggle for me through my career is that I actually really struggle with the cameras. I find it‑‑find it really awkward having a camera point in my face. I mean, you only have to ask our crew. They go, "Bear, you're a nightmare. You know, you'll never"‑‑
MR. JORGENSON: [Laughs]
MR. GRYLLS: ‑-"be getting some stuff. You're always trying to dodge it." I'm‑‑the cameraman is going, "I'm trying to find you, and you're"‑‑you know, but there's been sort of a tension there, professional tension that I think looking back probably hasn't been a bad thing.
MR. JORGENSON: Right.
MR. GRYLLS: You know, I remember when the first time I was ever asked to do "Man vs. Wild." It was a UK producer that came to me, and he had read this book I had written on Everest. I had just left the military. I was starting out. We were just married as a young couple figuring out kind of life, and this producer came to me and he said, "Well, what‑‑could we do this show where we drop you in the middle of nowhere, and you show us how to get out of that? You know, I've read your book. I know your background, and just show us some of this stuff." And I was like really sort of‑‑I kept saying no. You know, TV wasn't my thing. I didn't really understand it. I was busy doing the expeditions, trying to raise money for the trips, doing some talks on it, writing, you know, and the idea of TV was just outside of what I knew.
So three times, I said no. Eventually, my wife, who's much smarter, she goes, "Well, why don't you just try it? You know, you never know. You might like it."
MR. JORGENSON: Uh‑huh.
MR. GRYLLS: And we went just‑‑small team. We went to the Rockies. We spent, you know, a week charging around the mountains, jumping off things, you know, shooting through the whitewater rapids, chasing snakes, having a‑‑having a blast, never really kind of thought about it. The cameraman early on just said, "You don't need to present anything. You just go ahead, and we'll film it," and it's always kind of felt like that.
And they‑‑Discovery put it out late at night one night, no marketing, and the timing was right. And there was a bit of luck on our side, and it kind of worked. And, you know, that was the start of the journey, and I look back now and I think now I know how competitive that industry is, how‑‑you know, how people fight and desperate sort of‑‑you know, have TV shows. And I think, first of all, there's a giant of a man, the person who, you know‑‑even though I said no three times, he persisted and stuck with me.
MR. JORGENSON: Right, right.
MR. GRYLLS: I was given many, many other breaks when the shows, you know, could have ended, and Discovery channel used to joke that I was the only one of their hosts who was always trying to quit after season, you know, and I used to go, "Listen, we've had an amazing time. It's been a great ride. I almost died a couple of times, but, you know, I think we'll call it a day." And they go, "Not bad. It's good. It's working. We got to keep going," and now I have an understanding of that and a gratitude for that.
But, yeah, yeah, it's been a crazy journey, and that's what I tried to articulate in the book, really, those kind of moment and behind the scenes and stuff, those sort of struggles and those tensions and those battles, but actually how ultimately, if you got great people with you who believe in you and you're willing to go through and be resilient at key times, you know, those things count for a lot.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. I think that's‑‑and I think that approach is really healthy, whether or not, you know, even‑‑even if you went into a little bit ignorant about how all this works, that's what makes‑‑what made the show so good and still makes anytime you're on camera authentic.
And one thing you also address in the book and you kind of just touched on there is your family. Before you went to go shoot the episode with then President Obama, there was this whole issue of this is our‑‑this is our precious time together. Can you tell me a little bit about that balance, that work‑life balance with your family through the years?
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. I think‑‑you know, so we started this journey on TV. Then we had kids together, and I think the early days of "Man vs. Wild," I was like‑‑I felt run ragged, you know. I was dragged everywhere, and we were shooting, and then we were back for like chat shows. And it was like I always felt I had no control, and I think, ultimately, that was why I said, "Hold on. I'm going to stop. I want to do this on our own terms. I want to start producing the shows, making it, fitting it into our family life," otherwise you end up just kind of spent. And your family suffers, and, you know, as I said, we had young kids at the time.
And, you know, now we're in a really fortunate position where we can control these things. We can, you know, do it on our own terms, but there was definitely a battle to get to that stage.
But I think the Obama stuff happened at a time where we had just wrestled about that control. You know, we're super protective of our family time. When we're not filming, we try to sort of block off certain times of the year. We've done that. We were up on a little island that we spend a lot of the year on up in Wales in the UK, offshore, off grid, a couple of miles in the middle of, you know, windy, rainy Welsh sea. And we go there every year, and we just try and take a few weeks out and off grid, off phones, off everything.
So we were there, and then the call came, which is pretty rare. Normally, we're always reaching out to people. This was one of the only times really where, you know, somebody approached us and said, "Can you get‑‑can you get our guy on the show?" and it was‑‑obviously, it was the White House. I thought it was‑‑
MR. JORGENSON: Pretty big guy.
MR. GRYLLS: I couldn't believe it, you know, and they said, "Look, he's a fan of 'Running Wild.' The president is going to Alaska. He wants to see some of the climate change. Reality is close up. Could you show? Could you lead him on a 'Running Wild' and show him a bit of that?"
So it all happened pretty quickly. It was a huge privilege, a good, fun show, opened the door to many other sort of adventures. We ended up taking the prime minister of India and, you know, a whole bunch of iconic people on it since.
But I think that was a special one for me, just the fact that President Obama was sitting president at the time. Normally, we always say, "Look, come on your own. No entourage. Trust us. You're going to have a great time." That wasn't obviously going to wash with the president, but it was amazing.
Anyway, just to finish the story, I said to Shara, I said, "We got to do this one," you know. She said, "But it's our family time." I said, "I know, but it's a president. We got to go," and we went. And it was‑‑yeah, obviously fun.
MR. JORGENSON: And you did go.
MR. GRYLLS: I did. She's very grounded, my wife. She's pretty unimpressed by the fluff and the kind of glitz around stuff, and even the president‑‑I think at one point, she said, "Do you not think he could come to Wales?" and I was going, "Honey, I love‑‑listen, this one, we got to do. We got to do."
MR. JORGENSON: Well, I want to‑‑I want to show that, and you did do it, and again, I refer people to the book where the‑‑just barely getting there in time was a whole other adventure, but the president himself has his own challenges, of course, and he had been president at that point for a few years, a total of eight. He seems a little bit of‑‑a little bit nervous, though, about showing off your culinary skills. Let's take a look at this clip when he was on your show.
MR. JORGENSON: I think one of my favorite parts about that clip is you're describing, you know, here's where the bear ate this part, but he's just like, "So a bear ate it? Interesting."
MR. JORGENSON: And that's another great part of the book where you're talking about‑‑it's really easy for me to imagine, but I'm sure I remember‑‑I'm thinking of it the wrong way. But I just imagine a chef with a hat on even‑‑again, that's not how you describe it, but you're basically saying there is a salmon that was being prepared to swap out just in case. But ultimately, the president did eat that salmon. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
MR. GRYLLS: Well, we had found this carcass the day before when we had been scouting the route, and I said, "This is perfect. We can use this to eat, you know. The bear has had a bunch of it, but the rest is fine." And the Secret Service looked at me and went "Nuh‑uh. There's no way he's going to be eating that. He never even drinks on camera. He's not going to be eating on camera."
I said, "Well, listen, I'm going to put it in the backpack. I'm going to have it, and we'll just play it by ear."
Then they said, "Look, we'll get the‑‑we'll get the White House chef to prepare a salmon. So, if he does want to eat it, we've got one prepared, and we can swap it in." I said, "Okay, whatever."
And I noticed all through the journey, there was a guy, you know, carrying this kind of silver platter wrapped in, you know, kitchen film and, you know, ready to go, and I thought‑‑I thought brilliant, you know.
We started cooking the thing, and behind the camera, I could see the chef going, you know, ready, ready to swap it in. And I thought I'm not going to‑‑I'm not going to suggest it unless the president really wants it, you know. So we cooked up this carcass, you know, the legit one, and I started giving it to the president. And he started munching, and we're sharing, you know, a thing of water, a flask of water, and I could see the chef going like this behind the scenes [pointing] and he turns kind of. [Laughs] But, you know, good for him.
And I think, like I said at the beginning, the wild is always the real star of these shows because it does so much of my job for me. It relaxes people. You're not‑‑you're not like in a job interview any longer. You know, you're two guys or whoever just out there, and you know what it's like. You know, you go for a walk with someone or go hiking or camping. There's a different‑‑there's a pace that allows you to kind of get rid of the formality and get to the real stuff quicker.
MR. JORGENSON: Right. Well‑‑
MR. GRYLLS: And he was totally on for that.
MR. JORGENSON: He was great, and of course, you know, he had an abbreviated version than probably most celebrities on the show. But a few of them, you really get quite a bit of time with. So I want to ask you if you can kind of potentially rate the adventure skills of a couple other celebrities. You know, we have Julia Roberts, tennis star Roger Federer. At one point in the book, you mentioned that Nick Jonas like really went into it. Can you tell me kind of who was really great and maybe who wasn't so great?
MR. GRYLLS: Well, you know, we've done seven seasons now of "Running Wild." There have been some amazing stars. You know, we do‑‑we've done them in China. We've done‑‑we do Indian stars. We've done UK versions of "Running Wild." So, yeah, it's been‑‑it's been a great privilege.
I think what I've learned is that‑‑is that these guys are often really willing to be out of their comfort zones and make themselves look vulnerable, and that's quite rare. You know, normally, when people kind of do well, they kind of retreat into what they're safe with, but I think such a mark of champions in whatever field they're in, it's that they like to be pushed. They like to stay‑‑keep a bit of that edge, to keep uncomfortable a little bit, and I think that's what keeps all of us sharp.
And I see that with them. You know, Julia Roberts or Roger Federer, as you say, they don't need to go on a "Running Wild." They don't need the money. They don't need the fame. They're doing it because they want the experience, and they want to kind of be challenged and pushed a little bit. And I really kind of respect that.
I think I've also learned don't judge a book by their cover just because you think, you know, it might be an actress and they're tiny and petite and, you know, don't‑‑you know, don't get lulled into that. Often, they're the toughest. They're baddest ass.
MR. JORGENSON: Speaking of older sisters, that's‑‑I learned that as well.
MR. GRYLLS: You and me know that one.
MR. GRYLLS: But‑‑so, yeah, all of those stars you mentioned have been amazing, and honestly, I can't think of a "Running Wild" where I've ended thinking that was a nightmare, all those people were, you know, difficult. You know invariably, they actually want to be there, and I come away thinking wow. The bit I love is just seeing that light in their eyes at the end, you know, when they've had to face a few fears. They've got cold and wet, and, you know, they're sometimes big stars, and they're not used to it.
I mean, even Roger Federer, I remember him just going, "Bear, we need‑‑my hands. What do I do? They're shaking," and it's like, "That's good. You're almost there. Keep pushing. You've got cold hands. You're going to live." And it was like, you know, I think people almost sort of expect, you know, a drink of water here or, you know, another set of gloves here or something. And I think that kind of stripping back and actually‑‑I always say to them, "You're going to have a few times where you're"‑‑you know, "where you're up against it, but you're going to be okay. We'll push through. We'll do it together," and that's kind of the heart of it and the magic as well. And that's what gives the light in the eye at the end that says, you know, "I've had to work for this a little a bit."
MR. JORGENSON: Absolutely. And we see that with one actor in particular I'm thinking of who, as you talked about, was vulnerable and put himself out there and did it. Now he's literally Captain America, the Marvel movies, but before that, he was on your program. That's actor Anthony Mackie. Let's take a look at the fun you guys were having there.
MR. GRYLLS: [Laughs]
MR. JORGENSON: When people are looking at that clip, understandably, Anthony Mackie is pretty scared. I love the line about "This is why I have a stuntman," but, you know, he goes through with it. He gets that glint in the eye at the end that you're talking about.
Has there ever been a time a celebrity said, "Hey, you know, I'm not doing this" or "Maybe we can do an abbreviated version"? Has that ever happened?
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. I think‑‑[laughs]. When I saw Anthony, what a‑‑what a great guy, and you never really know. Sometimes people have done a bit of this, and they kind of‑‑you know, they had more experience, and you never really know people's kind of skill levels. So I always think it's a bit like a stretchy band. You're going to adjust a little bit on the hoof as you're going, and you can‑‑you know, kind of amend it accordingly.
And this thing, there's always another way down, something. There's always‑‑you know, if I see they're really struggling, it's going to be too much there, we'll bend left or we'll find another little valley to go down that way. You know, we know our start point and end point, and the rest, we kind of figure out a little bit.
But I do think in the early days, we‑‑we really kind of almost went too hard, I think, with a lot of guests, and because it came‑‑"Running Wild" came off the back of "Man vs. Wild," which is kind of me on my own, and we'd spend, you know, five, six days out there shooting an episode.
And I remember our first guest was Will Ferrell, and he got a full experience. He basically came and joined me for "Man vs. Wild." It almost broke him. He was out there day after day, and we learned on that. Like, you know, you're not there to break people. You're there to give people a great time and get to know their story and hear their story, and we got shorter and shorter over the years and made it more and more accessible and fun for people. But I definitely think that some of the early ones, you know‑‑I'll always be grateful to the Will Ferrells, the Jake Gyllenhaals, some of those early ones where, you know, we were out there for days and days in horrific conditions often.
But now, you know, we do so many. We've got to keep them alive. We've got to keep it fun. We can't have every Hollywood star going back going, "Never do that if you're ever asked. It's a nightmare."
MR. GRYLLS: So we try and focus as much on the fun. I mean, the wild, like I say, does the job. The wild is challenging. You're in a desert, jungle, mountain. If you're a rookie, it's going to be super hard already, you know. So I'm pretty respectful of that.
MR. JORGENSON: Yeah. Well, first of all, Will Ferrell is a great first guest to have on that show. It sort of feels like you're doing "Punked," but everyone is in on it, and they just get there and they go, "Oh, no, this is real." And so I love that show.
You've done, of course, "Man vs. Wild," "Running Wild," like you said, this book that's coming out, and I just want to know what's next for you. Is there an upcoming adventure that you always wanted to take but you haven't done yet?
MR. GRYLLS: Yeah. You know, life is‑‑life is a great privilege, and you got to keep those goals and keep‑‑you know, keep pushing the boundaries as much as you can.
We're just starting off the next season of "Running Wild" now. So we're back on the road for those. I just got back from the jungle for the last one. We got a couple of great guests on that. We're doing more for Netflix. We do an interactive "You vs. Wild" series for them, and yeah, so back on that, doing a lot of‑‑I do a lot of the kind of speaking as well, speaking on kind of leadership and teamwork. So we fit those in for companies in between it.
“Never Give Up,” though, was a real kind of‑‑you know, it took me ten years to write that. I wanted to write every word. I didn’t want it to be ghost‑written. It’s all the struggles. It’s all the doubts. It’s all the fears, and I wanted it to be a book for this time where I think people need the spirit of resilience and, you know, have that never‑give‑up spirit. I think it’s been especially tough for young people and many people around the world. It continues to this day, new challenges, and I think more and more in life, we realize the things that made the difference aren’t just your exam grades or your, you know, letters after your name. You know, it’s much more about this. This is where life is. So it was always going to be called “Never Give Up,” but I’m really proud of it.
I'm grateful, Dave, for your kindness and your words, but thank you for having me on here.
MR. JORGENSON: Absolutely. And it is‑‑it really is a page‑turner. I mean, like, I wouldn't just say this. I really wouldn't. You don't know me, but it's true. And I‑‑it was‑‑you know, I think what I like about it is it's really‑‑they're short chapters, but they're flying through, and they all just kind of weave into each other perfectly. And there's just a wide variety of adventures.
So, for instance, one of them, you're in Siberia in December, and just getting there is hard enough. So I wanted to ask you one last question: Is there ever an adventure that you were like, "I don't think we can do this"?
MR. GRYLLS: Well, there have been a few, you know, honest answer. There have been a few times where I thought, "How the hell have I got myself into this scrape?" you know, and I've learned over a lifetime in the wild, you only get it wrong once, you know. You have to leave your ego at home. You got to be smart. You've got to listen to your intuition. You know, what do they say? Instinct is a nose of the mind. You know, you've got to trust that, and yes. You know, listen, Siberia, we went‑‑that was a tough one. We've had the Sahara Desert in the heat of the summer, more jungles, deserts, mountains than I could shake a stick at, been bitten by snakes, chased by sharks, close encounters with saltwater crocodiles, pinned in rapids, caught in avalanches, parachute failures. They've all taught me this simple lesson. Number one, don't be an idiot. You know, be smart. Number two, always be grateful for life, and number three, when you're up against it, never give up.
MR. JORGENSON: Those are all equally important to me. I'm going to‑‑I'm going to really run with the first one and try not to be an idiot as we wrap this up.
Bear Grylls, thank you so much for joining me.
Again, this is the book, Bear Grylls, "Never Give Up: My Life in the Wild." I'll throw it out there for you again. Thank you so much, Bear. I appreciate you joining us today.
MR. GRYLLS: Thanks, guys. You take care. Well done, Dave.
MR. JORGENSON: I’m Dave Jorgenson. As always, thanks for watching. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find out more information about all of our upcoming programs.
And remember we always want to hear from you, our audience, and you can share your thoughts and questions for guests on Washington Post Live by tweeting at @PostLive. Thanks again. | null | null | null | null | null |
These images show the town of Beenleigh, Queensland on Feb. 29 compared to March 2 (after flooding). The images were captured by the Nearmap proprietary aerial camera system attached to planes. (Nearmap)
Compared to two weeks ago, portions of eastern Australia look almost unrecognizable. Over 16 days, unprecedented amounts of rain flooded Queensland and New South Wales. Blue waters became muddy brown and homes turned into swamps. The flooding event forced thousands to evacuate and caused at least 20 deaths.
“The flooding disaster across Southeast Queensland and NSW is absolutely devastating,” tweeted Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. On Sunday, he wrote the federal government has paid around $193 million to those affected by the floods.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said flood impacts were expected to continue through Thursday across southeast Queensland and New South Wales, as multiple flood warnings still remain. Severe thunderstorms in Queensland are expected to move into the southwest region of the state by the weekend.
For many locations, the recent flooding was once-in-a-lifetime event, as rainfall totals set records. Sydney had its wettest 16-day period on record, accumulating 24 inches (617.4 mm) from Feb. 22 to March 9. Rain filled creeks and rivers, which brought soil and mud to Sydney waterways.
Brisbane set a new three-day record, receiving 26 inches (676.8 mm) from Feb. 25 to Feb. 28. The probability of so much rainfall falling in Brisbane within 72 hours is just between 0.5 and 0.2 percent in any given year. Brisbane also set a new weekly rainfall record of 31 inches (795 mm), the highest observed since records began in 1840.
The village of Dunoon received the second highest daily rainfall ever recorded in New South Wales at 30 inches (775 mm) in 24 hours on Feb. 28.
The small rural town of Doon Doon in New South Wales received 41 inches (1040 mm) in 48 hours, which is calculated to be greater than a 1-in-1,000 year event (meaning there is only 0.1 to 0.05 percent chance of it occurring in any given year).
In many regions, rivers also flowed out of their banks to record levels. The Wilsons River at Lismore reached 46.6 feet (14.2 meters) on Feb. 28 — eclipsing the previous record from 1954 by 6.5 feet (2 meters).
Since November 2021, the Bureau of Meteorology declared the nation was under a La Niña weather. La Niña, which is characterized by cooler waters in the central eastern tropical Pacific, can affect weather patterns around the world.
During a La Niña, the average December to March rainfall in eastern Australia is 20 percent higher than the long-term average. The 2010-11 devastating floods in Queensland, Australia also took place during a La Niña.
Chiew said determining how much of this extreme flooding can attributed to climate change will take more time to analyze, considering there are a number of other factors that can exacerbate rainfall and flooding. However, he stated that “we know that under a warmer climate, flood risk in general is likely to increase.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Maryland leaders plan 30-day suspension of state gas tax amid rising prices at the pump
ANNAPOLIS, MD - FEBRUARY 8: Governor Larry Hogan provides Marylanders with a COVID-19 update, while also putting to rest any speculation that he would run for the US Senate at a press conference in Annapolis, MD. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and legislative leaders announced Thursday they plan to lift the state’s gas tax for 30 days to blunt fuel prices that have surged past $4 per gallon.
Hogan (R) and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly’s presiding officers said they will work to quickly suspend Maryland’s gas tax, which is roughly 37 cents per gallon. It is also tied to inflation and is set to rise this summer.
Democratic leaders said they would back a month-long reprieve and work with Hogan to get it quickly approved and implemented. A spokesman for Hogan said he has agreed to the deal.
Maryland leaders pitched the emergency relief as they learned the state’s already historic surplus was projected to grow, reaching $7.6 billion by the end of 2023. The gas tax generates roughly $50 million for state transportation projects every two weeks.
“This swift action will help ease the financial burden on everyday Marylanders while keeping the pressure on Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchs who have enabled him,” Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) said in a joint statement.
“We look forward to working with the Governor in the coming days to relieve the pressure on Marylanders’ pocketbooks while ensuring our long-term fiscal health,” they said.
State regulators have no power to directly reduce prices at the pump, which AAA said averaged $4.302 per gallon in Maryland on Thursday, slightly below the national average of $4.318. But officials can exempt gas station owners from having to remit the tax, according to the Comptroller’s office. That, officials hope, would prompt gas station owners to lower their prices to compete.
“This conflict that Vladimir Putin initiated has caused gas prices to skyrocket at a time when many Maryland families are already struggling to balance their household budgets,” Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) said after forecasters on Thursday announced Maryland had $1.6 billion more than expected to spend.
“Our residents shouldn’t shoulder the brunt of Putin’s criminal actions and efforts of the free world to stop the bloodshed and destruction that Putin is causing in Ukraine,” he said. “Luckily for the state of Maryland, we’re in this unprecedented financial position. … We have enough money to help our residents and small businesses weather these challenging and uncertain times.”
Franchot, the state’s chief financial officer, was the first Maryland leader to call Thursday for a gas tax suspension. He proposed suspending it for three months. | null | null | null | null | null |
Harris and Polish president seek to move beyond disagreement over jets
Vice president is visiting Poland and Romania amid Ukraine war to reassure NATO allies who are worried they might be next in Russia’s crosshairs
Vice President Harris prepares to board Air Force Two on March 9 for a three-day trip to Poland and Romania. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
WARSAW — Vice President Harris and Polish President Andrzej Duda sought Thursday to downplay a disagreement between their countries over providing fighter jets for Ukraine, emphasizing instead America’s commitment to defend NATO and to help a flood of Ukrainian refugees.
Harris’s meeting with Duda, like a session with Romanian leaders set for Friday, was an effort to reassure NATO countries increasingly anxious about Russian aggression. But its early moments were overshadowed by a surprise statement by Poland earlier in the week that it wanted to transfer an unspecified number of MiG-29 jets to the United States, which could launch them from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
The United States soundly rejected that offer, worried that the prospect of jets taking off from a NATO country to battle it out with Russian planes in the skies over Ukraine could turn a war between two countries into a broader, even global, conflict.
Why the U.S. shot down Poland's offer
Asked about the fighter planes on Thursday, Harris stressed that the tactical disagreement on that issue did not blunt the broad U.S. support for Poland and other NATO member nations.
“I want to be very clear,” Harris told reporters. “The United States and Poland are united in what we have done, and are prepared to do, to help Ukraine and the people of Ukraine, full stop.”
She added, “The United States’ commitment to Article 5 is ironclad. The United States is prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory.” Under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the alliance’s members agree to come to one another’s aid in case of attack.
Poland and Romania are NATO members, while Ukraine is not.
The disagreement over the proposed jet transfers sent ripples through NATO, highlighting the reality that members who are nearer Russia’s borders, fearing they may be Moscow’s next targets, often favor tougher actions against Moscow.
A senior European official said in an interview that Western officials were taken aback by Poland’s announcement, and another European official said he was “sideswiped.”
Duda declined to talk about what, if any, communication he had with the United States before unexpectedly announcing that his country was willing to transfer jets, but defended the decision as an effort to be collaborative.
“Simply, we decided to put those jets at the disposal of NATO, not expecting anything in return,” the Polish president said. “We wanted NATO as a whole to make a common decision, so that Poland remains a credible member of NATO.”
He added, “We have to be a responsible member of the North Atlantic alliance — that’s why there were requests addressed to us. Those requests were addressed to us by the Ukrainian side as well as to some extent the media. We behaved as a reliable member of NATO should behave.”
The diplomatic tiff aside, the image of Harris standing alongside the leader of a NATO ally not far from Russia was intended to send a forceful warning to Moscow — and signal that while the United States is not sending troops to Ukraine, it remains committed to defending the alliance’s members.
Blinken: We will defend every inch of NATO
But Duda said his nation’s most pressing issue is the crush of Ukrainians streaming into Poland, engulfing border towns and arriving in Warsaw by train.
During the meeting with Harris, he said that more than a million Ukrainians had streamed across the Polish border in the past 10 days, overwhelming the country despite its sincere desire to help. Aggravating the challenge, the prices of gas and other goods have shot up in the wake of the invasion, he said, and a humanitarian crisis is quickly morphing into a “humanitarian disaster.”
Poland has taken in 1.5 million refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine, and many of them are staying with Polish families — “a reason to be proud,” Duda said.
Harris praised the generosity of those in Poland who are taking in strangers.
“We recognize the burden that it places on the government of Poland, on the president and the infrastructure of this country,” Harris said. “So the United States is absolutely prepared to do what we can and what we must to support Poland in terms of the burden that they have taken on.”
Harris announced that the United States would donate $50 million to the U.N. World Food Program, and she met with displaced people later in the day.
But some of the refugees pouring into Poland said the United States and other Western countries were not doing enough to help.
Lena Kosianenko, sitting in the Przemysl train station near the Medyka border crossing, arrived Thursday in Poland from Sumy, Ukraine, where she escaped from constant Russian shelling. The 43-year-old is worried what will happen to her city while she is gone.
The United States and NATO must step in, she said, because other cities will suffer as Sumy has if Putin is not stopped. “They speak in a beautiful way,” Kosianenko said of U.S. and NATO leaders. “But we need more support. They need to close the skies, because our cities are constantly being bombed.”
Kosianenko, who had been volunteering at a food kitchen in Sumy before she left, said she served soldiers who wanted guns and ammunition but received none. If the United States and NATO do not enforce a no-fly zone, she said, she hopes they will at least send Ukraine more weapons.
American leaders have argued that setting up a meaningful no-fly zone over Ukraine would obligate them to shoot down any Russian planes that might violate it, risking a much broader conflict.
Other Ukrainian refugees agreed with Kosianenko, though some said they understood the difficult situation facing NATO. Irena Moiseenko, 44, said she wanted no-fly zone but worried it would have far-reaching consequences.
“That could start the third world war,” said Moiseenko, who was boarding a bus to Germany outside a school turned refugee center in Przemysl. “Still, [NATO and the United States] have done a lot for Ukraine, and we are very thankful for that.”
The native of Dnipro, Ukraine, wants the West to at least send more weapons, a sentiment echoed by several other Ukrainians interviewed Thursday.
“Pilots don’t have planes. Fighters don’t have guns,” said Viktor Ivanonvich, a 64-year-old from Kyiv who left behind his children and grandchildren. NATO, he said, “can always help more. The bombings will not stop without their support.”
Harris’s visit marked another step in her emergence as one of President Biden’s top representatives on the world stage during the Ukraine crisis. At the outset of Russia’s invasion, Harris was at a security conference in Germany where she met with European leaders on how to coordinate their response.
On Thursday, beyond voicing support for Ukrainians and Poles, she sharply condemned Russia, saying the country should be investigated for war crimes, particularly after three people, including a child, were killed in a Russian rocket attack on a maternity hospital.
“Absolutely there should be an investigation,” Harris said. “I have no question the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities.”
The vice president also visited the American School in Warsaw, telling the audience, “You are not alone. And I know there’s so much about the experience that you’ve had that has made you feel alone. You are not alone — we around the world are watching.”
Rosenzweig-Ziff reported from Przemysl. | null | null | null | null | null |
WASHINGTON — Propelled by surging costs for gas, food and housing, consumer inflation jumped 7.9% over the past year, the sharpest spike since 1982 and likely only a harbinger of even higher prices to come. The increase reported by the Labor Department reflected the 12 months ending in February and didn’t include most of the oil and gas price increases that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Even before the war further accelerated price increases, robust consumer spending, solid pay raises and persistent supply shortages had sent U.S. consumer inflation to its highest level in four decades.
WASHINGTON — Federal officials are extending the requirement for masks on planes and public transportation through mid-April while taking steps that could lead to lifting the rule. The mask mandate was scheduled to expire March 18, but the Transportation Security Administration said Thursday that it will extend the requirement through April 18. TSA said the extra month will give the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention time to develop new, more targeted policies that will consider the number of cases of COVID-19 nationally and in local communities, and the risk of new variants. The TSA enforces the mask rule, which extends to planes, buses, trains and transit hubs.
NEW YORK — Stocks slipped on Wall Street Thursday as markets remain choppy amid uncertainty about where inflation, interest rates and the global economy are heading. The S&P 500 fell 0.4%, its fifth drop in the last six days. The slide marks another reversal for U.S. stocks, which just a day earlier surged to their biggest gain since June 2020. Oil prices had their own swings, with a barrel of U.S. crude jumping as much as 5.7%, before ending down 2.5%. The worry in markets is the economy may be set to struggle under a toxic cocktail of persistently high inflation and slowing growth.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump rolled out the Paycheck Protection Program to catapult the U.S. economy into a quick recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. President Joe Biden tweaked it to try to direct more of the money to poorer communities and minority-owned companies. Now, almost two years after the program made its debut, what did taxpayers get for the $800 billion? The Biden administration says its version of the program helped prevent racial inequality from worsening. But a prominent academic study suggests the overall price tag was high per job saved and most of the benefits went to the affluent.
MIAMI — Pressure is building on the Biden administration to begin unwinding sanctions on Venezuela after President Nicolas Maduro freed two American prisoners and promised to resume negotiations with opponents. Maduro’s followed a weekend trip to Caracas by senior U.S. officials. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended the world order, forcing the U.S. to rethink national security priorities. Hostile petrostates under U.S. sanctions like Iran and Venezuela are seen as the most likely to benefit as Washington seeks to mitigate the impact from a ban on Russian oil imports that is adding to the worst inflation in four decades.
WASHINGTON — Slightly more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, but layoffs have settled to the low, pre-pandemic levels before 2020′s coronavirus recession. Jobless claims rose by 11,000 to 227,000 for the week ending March 5, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The previous week’s number was 216,000. First-time applications for jobless aid generally track the pace of layoffs. The four-week average for claims, which compensates for weekly volatility, rose by 500 to to 230,750. In total, 1,474,000 Americans were collecting jobless aid the week that ended Feb. 26. The four-week moving average is at its lowest level in more than 50 years. | null | null | null | null | null |
The logo of online news channel TV Rain, also known as Dozhd, is seen Aug. 20 at a studio in Moscow. (Denis Kaminev/Reuters)
Independent journalists in Russia have been fleeing since Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a ban on “fake news,” which bars reporters from calling the war in Ukraine a “war” or referring to the “invasion.” (The preferred language is “special military operation.”)
As foreign media outlets decide what that means for their coverage and staff, The New York Times this week became the first major American news organization to announce that it will pull its staff out of Russia in response to the new law.
Media reporter Elahe Izadi reports on the consequences — for Russians’ access to good information, and for the rest of the world’s understanding of what’s happening in Russia.
“I think the biggest risk here is it obscures the truth,” Elahe says. “We need to know the truth of the facts of the situation in order to assess an appropriate response. That’s the same for people within Russia.”
This new law is also creating challenges for social media platforms. Nitasha Tiku explains how TikTok has responded, and what other platforms might do. As The Post has reported, TikTok has long tried to stay out of politics, but Russia’s invasion is making that harder. | null | null | null | null | null |
In a telephone interview Thursday, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-Tex.) said Griner’s arrest occurred Feb. 17, a week before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which means she has been in Russian custody for more than three weeks. She’s accused of illegal crossing of a border with illegal narcotics, which in Russia can carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Allred said she has not been allowed visits from U.S. Embassy personnel. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: WP Subscriber Exclusive: Albert Bourla, Author, “Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible”
MR. CAPEHART: Good afternoon. I’m Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Welcome to this Washington Post Live subscriber exclusive interview with the chairman and CEO of Pfizer, Dr. Albert Bourla.
Dr. Bourla, welcome to Washington Post Live.
DR. BOURLA: Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you for having us.
MR. CAPEHART: Sure. It's like the battle of the bookcases here, Dr. Bourla, we have in our backgrounds, but again, thank you very much for being here.
In your new book, "Moonshot: Inside Pfizer's Nine‑Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible," you detail the journey that led to Pfizer being the first pharmaceutical company to get a COVID‑19 vaccine approved in the United States. Part of how you were able‑‑excuse me‑‑to pull this off was by tweaking the phrase "time is money" to "time is life." How do you think that inspired your team?
DR. BOURLA: I think to a very great extent. Keep in mind that all these events are happening in a period that everybody is scared. The world looks like it's moving to a big catastrophe. People cannot connect with each other. Grandparents cannot see the grandkids. People are dying alone in hospitals, things that we never imagined before.
So, when you have a cause like that, you can‑‑it's not that difficult to rally people behind, and when I use the phrase "time is life," which is a phrase that we were using a lot in Pfizer, particularly with our clinical development group, it resonated and rallied people behind.
MR. CAPEHART: Another thing you did‑‑and this, I believe, was pre‑pandemic‑‑in your‑‑and I can't remember the name of the room offhand, but the room where you meet, you have your meetings with your senior team, and you had people put up pictures of people who were important to them. Talk about that.
DR. BOURLA: Yeah. The room is called Purpose Circle.
MR. CAPEHART: Purpose Circle. That's right.
DR. BOURLA: And‑‑yes, yes. And it was the previous room‑‑we made the room, but we removed the table, the meeting room table, and we arranged armchairs in a circle. And this is where the leadership team was meeting and all the way until the pandemic, and most of the decisions were made there.
And on the‑‑we call it "Purpose Circle" because our purpose is breakthroughs that's saving patients' lives, and we meant to say that all the decisions that we are making over there means to make sure that they're serving this purpose, but we are bringing breakthroughs and saving patients' lives, but to make sure that we also remember even better, on one side of the wall was very big letters, our purpose. On the other side of the wall, every member or our leadership team put a picture of a patient that is very close to in their heart. Some put their mother that has some issues. Some people, a [unclear] of a neighbor that had cancer. I put my daughter, for example. Everyone had a picture up there.
So every time that we were making difficult decisions, we just had to look there and know what is the right answer. If it is good for patients, let's do it.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, you wrote in the preface of the book, quote, "Luck never comes to the unprepared." So how was Pfizer prepared for the possibility of a global pandemic, even before COVID‑19 existed? This was a fascinating thing you wrote about in your book.
DR. BOURLA: Well, we were trying to transform the company for more of a conglomerate of multiple businesses into a singularly focused‑on‑science business. To do that, we changed the portfolio. We divested businesses that were very successful but were not science‑based. We dramatically changed the capital allocation of the company. We put draconian measures in reducing our administrative costs, but we increased dramatically the expenses in diseases or in research.
Before '19, we were spending approximately $7 billion per year in research. That's a very big number, but if you compare it with what we spent in 2021, close to $11 billion, it's a huge difference. And so digital and research made a very big difference.
But, as I'm sure your audience and you know better, you can't change a company by just changing the portfolio of businesses or the capital allocations. The fundamental change needs to be the change of the culture, and this is when the purpose that we discussed five minutes ago came into play. We articulated what is the reason of our existence in this very simple work, breakthroughs that change patients' lives, meaning that everything we need to do needs to be significant science, not incremental help, not incremental improvements compared to the current standards of care, but the breakthrough improvements to the degree that would change the life of the people that are benefitting.
And we started thinking what should be the culture of a company that will be successful in accomplishing a mission like that, a purpose like that, and again, with four simple words that we're somehow different than what used to be the words of values in corporate America.
The first one was courage. You need to be courageous, and clearly everything we did during the COVID required a lot of courage to be able to embark and do something that was seemingly impossible.
It was excellence, and clearly, the way that we were able to execute our clinical programs was because we had defined excellence and what it means. It means that to focus on what matters, to measure outcomes, et cetera.
Equity was the third value, and the equity is what drove us to make sure that we resist the temptation to use that as a significant opportunity for moneymaking and use equity as a fundamental principle on how the vaccine would be distributed and how the studies would be conducted. All our studies, we placed significant emphasis to make sure that they are very diverse in terms of the population that we are recruiting.
And then from day one, we set a tier pricing, simple price for the high‑income countries but half the price for the middle‑income countries and at cost for the low‑income countries, and then we start getting through the help of the U.S. government even free, those countries.
And joy. And joy coming from the satisfaction that one can get in this company because of the good that we are making to humanity.
All of these things, including importantly the change in culture, I think what prepared us. So, when the time came to test all of that in practice, we were ready, and we were lucky to be successful.
MR. CAPEHART: You know, the joy piece, I'm going to go on, take a little detour here. You write about how you didn't cause a whole lot of joy with a lot of your colleagues through this, through getting the vaccine made to the point where, in your own performance review from your own employees, they sort of let you know that you did not bring much joy to them. Talk about the lesson you learned from that interaction right there.
DR. BOURLA: Oh, yes. Just a little bit of context. When we established those four values, we took it very seriously. So every six months, everyone in this company‑‑everyone in this company, it is assessed by others how he or she believes and performs on these values. Do you have courage? Do you bring joy in the environment that we operate, et cetera, et cetera?
So everybody is judged by two sets of groups, one, the people that are reporting, so his people or her people, and the peers, the people that they are in the same group with them. I only have employees. I don't have peers because I'm the only one in the company that I am just single. I'm the boss.
So my scores were very, very high before that day and before COVID. The first time that I‑‑actually, when I say very high, they were the highest levels in the company, and when I saw my scores after the first‑‑the end of 2020, I realized that my scores on joy just plummeted, went down, and I‑‑that also rang a bell to me that something‑‑I need to be way more careful.
So what happened? Clearly, I was putting a lot of pressure on people, but I don't think that people ranked me low because of the pressure I was putting on them because they knew that this pressure was needed, and we were only successful because of the pressure that we had on ourselves and on everybody working on this project.
But I was also unnecessarily unpleasant in many cases because I'm human being, and the pressure was on my shoulders very heavy. It was not the pressure. So just running a company as before, I was very good in handing something like that. It was the pressure of billions of people that they are investing all their hopes on you, and I think that if you are not successful, what will be for the world? And I lost it in several occasions, and I could yell at people and I could be cynical on people, and I will express my frustration because they tried to do their best, but they were not successful. That, I regret. I regret a lot that I did that and didn't help at all, but the pressure helped.
MR. CAPEHART: Right. The pressure helped, and you do apologize to people again in the book.
But I want for people to understand the pressure that the company was under but the pressure you put the employees under, just so that folks understand. You write, "I didn't ask people to do what they were doing in eight years. I asked them to do it in eight months. I didn't ask them to make 300 million doses. I asked them to make 3 billion doses, and I insisted that these targets were not negotiable. It was clear from the beginning that incremental improvements would not make the cut. They needed to completely rethink their processes."
And I read that because I want to get a little into the weeds here and the mRNA technology. When you and your colleagues were trying to decide which route to go down, the traditional vaccine route or the mRNA route, you write that it was, quote, "most counterintuitive to go the mRNA route," and yet you went that route. Explain why.
DR. BOURLA: It was counterintuitive because Pfizer was mustering on the table, had very good experience and expertise with multiple technologies that could give a vaccine, and the Novartis that some of the vaccines are, we were very good in doing that. Protein vaccines, we were very good in doing that and plus many other technologies.
mRNA was a technology, but we had less experience, only two years working on this, and actually, mRNA was a technology that never delivered a single product until that day, not vaccine, not any other medicine. So it was very counterintuitive, and I was surprised when they suggested to me that this is the way to go, and I questioned it. And I asked them to justify how can you say something like that, but they came, and they were very, very convinced that this is the right way to go.
They felt that the two years of work on mRNA since 2018 together with BioNTech to develop the flu vaccine made them believe that the technology is mature and we are at the cusp of delivering a product.
So they convinced me. I followed my instinct that they know what they are saying. They are very good, and we made this very difficult decision at that time.
MR. CAPEHART: And is it‑‑the thing about mRNA is that because it's synthetic, it reduces the amount of time? It makes it a lot easier to readjust, reedit, refit to whatever virus you're trying to make a vaccine for or trying to address?
DR. BOURLA: You're absolutely right. This is one of the many benefits that the technology brings. So the reason why they were suggesting something that was more risky clearly than the others was because of the many benefits if we were successful. We analyzed very well and knew that we are in a pandemic. And it is eventually possible that we will now see many new variants coming up. So we wanted to have a technology that if there is a need to adopt to the vaccine, we'll be able to do it very quickly, and mRNA can do in weeks what other technologies require months.
And the second thing is that we wanted to be able to use a technology that will not limit abilities to boost immune responses with additional injections if there is a need, and mRNA is very good in that. Unlike, for example, adenoviruses, there are issues when you try to do a second or third dose. That creates issues.
So, for this and many other reasons, we selected to go with something that was clearly more risky, but if we were successful, it looked like it has all the features that are required to fight a pandemic in an expedient manner and in a mass scale.
MR. CAPEHART: You caught me cheating. I was looking for another quote in the book, but let's go to the start of 2020. COVID‑19 was spreading quickly around the globe leading to unprecedented upheavals, shutdowns, quarantines, but then on December 8th of that year, so less than a year, 90‑year‑old Margaret Keenan received the first dose of the COVID‑19 vaccine in England. That's 269 days after the development of the vaccine began. How did that moment feel for you to see all that pressure and all that pushing come to fruition?
DR. BOURLA: Very difficult to describe the emotions that I felt. It was very strong, the emotions, when I understood, when I learned the results of our study. It was very strong, the emotions, when I saw the first truck going out of our manufacturer site, but nothing is compared with this picture in the video of this lady receiving the vaccine, and then as she's driven out of the room in the hospital corridor in a wheelchair, left and right, there were people giving her a standing ovation. She was a hero just because she was the first one to receive the vaccine, and the same day in UK, because that's where the first dose was administered, people were celebrating on the streets like it was the end of the war, reminding the signs of what we had seen when the Second World War ended, not the launch of another vaccine.
These emotions for me were very, very, very strong because this is where I realized that the impact that we are having is real.
MR. CAPEHART: So let's talk more about the vaccine, Dr. Bourla. Now that we've got the vaccine, I got the vaccine, I got boosted, and so I and‑‑I got the two shots of the vaccine, and I got boosted. So I got three shots, three shots. So now people are wondering, are they going to have to get a fourth shot? Will we need a fourth shot of another booster to keep our immunity up?
DR. BOURLA: I think we will. I think we will, and we‑‑the reasons for that is the omicron, really. I felt and I had expressed that conviction that with a third shot, we should be able to get immune protection that will last for a year, and then we should be able to move to annual revaccinations, which is the ultimate goal.
But omicron changed this equation, and omicron among all the variants that we have seen so far‑‑and there were a lot. Omicron is, I think, the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet‑‑is the first and only that was able to create‑‑to challenge significantly the protection that a vaccine is offering to people, and this is why we needed the third dose. And the third dose was able‑‑the two doses was very poor protecting against omicron, but the three doses were protecting very well against hospitalizations and death, not as well against the infections, but also went quite rapidly. It doesn't last long, and likely, we will need a fourth dose.
And we are working right now very intensively. There are, of course, four doses of the current vaccine, and I think our data suggests that they are protecting‑‑they are improving dramatically the protection, the fourth dose compared to the third for omicron after some time, after, let's say, three to six months.
But we are working on next‑generation vaccines right now. We are generating a lot, a lot of data from many gene code status that we are testing very advanced, good science, I would say, that would allow us from one hand, a vaccine that covers all the variants, all the new.
Secondly, to create a vaccine that will last longer, a vaccine that could last a year, because I think this is what really the world needs. After two years of do we need a third or fourth or fifth dose, people are getting tired, and as you said, this is the‑‑the question that you asked me is in the lips and in the mind of everyone. And I know that if we have to go to less than year, let's say every six months or every four months vaccinations, many people will not follow the instructions, and that will have severe consequences. So we must develop a vaccine that lasts a year.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. So then how far are we from seeing this new‑‑this new vaccine you're talking about that will last a year?
DR. BOURLA: We are working very intensively. I can't say now with good conviction when that will be ready and if that will be ready, for example, for this year or next year, but we are working very intensively. And I'm not certain that we will be successful with having this way longer duration of new protection vaccine, but what I know, it is that our scientific hypothesis and our scientific strings that we are pulling right now are really, really very strong.
So I am hopeful that we will be able to produce and prove that it works, something, and not in the very long distance.
MR. CAPEHART: So then, Dr. Bourla, in the meantime, for those of us who have gotten the two shots and boosted and wondering to‑‑whether we should get a fourth shot, another booster, when would you recommend that we get that fourth shot?
DR. BOURLA: My job as someone who runs a company is to make sure that you have all the resources and the scientific expertise to make sure that we generate data, and then it is the job of FDA, of CDC to recommend to the American people. And we can only speak about recommendations or not after they have made theirs.
So I promise that very soon, we will submit data to the FDA so that they themselves will see, evaluate, and then CDC do the same, and they are the ones that should recommend even when a fourth dose is required.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. Do they come to you and ask you what you think in terms of getting advice on when they should recommend a fourth dose, and if so, have they reached out to you?
DR. BOURLA: Of course. I believe that we need. I don't‑‑I'm‑‑not they want to recommend to the public, but I am the one to express my opinion and say I think we need. But the only way for something like that to become a recommendation, it is to back this belief with data, and I believe it because I have seen data. And those data needs to be analyzed, reviewed, scrutinized by the people that should do that, and this is FDA and CDC. They are in very close contact with us.
And allow me to say that we are all serving the same purpose. We want the best for the health of Americans and for the health of the world, and I don't think even that we have disagreements. I think, pretty much, we are aligned on everything so far.
MR. CAPEHART: Mm‑hmm. And so do you think that they will be making‑‑making that recommendation to the public shortly?
DR. BOURLA: I think that once they receive data from us, they will take the time that they think is appropriate, that they need to scrutinize this data, but from everything I have seen so far, both CDC and FDA, they are moving with an incredible sense of urgency. So regardless of if the decision will be positive or negative, I think they will make it quickly.
MR. CAPEHART: Mm‑hmm. All right. And I just want to be clear. The data, Pfizer data, has been delivered to the FDA and the CDC. They have your data, and now you're just waiting for them to analyze it, scrutinize it, and make the recommendation?
DR. BOURLA: They haven't been delivered yet, but they will be delivered soon. But we always keep them appraised about what they could expect to see. We never surprise them. This is happening in real time, both U.S. government, all the agencies, and the same is with Europe. The same is with Japan. They want to understand how things are moving because they need to prepare themselves. So they know, more or less, how and what our data are, but we haven't submitted it yet officially because we haven't finalized all the very detailed reporting that needs to be completed. So we will do that soon.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. Let's talk about the vaccine for children. Right now, vaccines are not available for children under five. What's led to the delay in getting that vaccine? Are there problems with the clinical trials? Does the mRNA not work? Can you give an explanation?
DR. BOURLA: No, absolutely. I think what happened in the difference of projected days is omicron. When we started the studies, we felt very comfortable that a two‑dose scheme will be very effective, and then we will see even when the third needs to be given. And I think we were right when it comes to delta, but then, suddenly, the disease changed, and we had omicron. So now we felt that the two doses of the vaccine would do for omicron the same as two doses did for adults, which was not good protection. You needed a third one, and we immediately followed up on our study to see, indeed, what will happen with a third.
Now, the reason our plans were to submit on the second does and then later come with a third, and in fact, for a period of time, FDA knowing that omicron creates significant problems to kids‑‑actually, omicron was mild as a disease for adults, but it created way more cases, pediatric cases, than the previous variants. And FDA, ourselves, and CDC, we were receiving a lot of requests from pediatricians that they were‑‑they wanted urgently something to have in their toolbox, and then we were discussing maybe we submit the two‑dose data before the third so that they can start the review process.
But, again, because transparency is so important and we don't want to submit something that wouldn't look very good because we knew that two doses would not look that good as they don't look in adults, and three doses should look very good as they look in adult. This is why we decided to wait until the third dose.
MR. CAPEHART: So, last week, New York State officials found the effectiveness of Pfizer's vaccine against COVID infection plummeted from 68 percent to 12 percent for children aged 5 to 11 during the omicron surge. What is the biggest challenge you're facing with the vaccine, particularly when it comes to its effectiveness with children?
DR. BOURLA: Yes. Let me clarify something. The numbers that were quoted was numbers against the infection, not severe disease, not hospitalization or deaths. The numbers against hospitalization and deaths are way, way higher, but also, it is what I told you. Two doses, they do not work well against omicron, and you need the third dose. And this is what we are expecting to bring, hopefully, next month.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. All right.
DR. BOURLA: We are moving fast. We are moving fast.
MR. CAPEHART: Right, right.
DR. BOURLA: We know, as you said in the beginning, time is life.
MR. CAPEHART: Time is life, and you've been moving fast and for‑‑since 2020.
You said previously that Pfizer was manufacturing at its own risk an omicron‑specific booster. Are you still, or are you waiting for another variant? What's your development and manufacturing plan for this?
DR. BOURLA: We are testing right now a new vaccine, and this new vaccine is designed to protect not against omicron. It's to protect against all variants, including omicron. That's very important to point out. So we want to have at least the same very good results against the other variants that the previous vaccine had and way better results against omicron than the previous vaccine had, so altogether.
And as we did when things were unknown, if the current vaccine will work or not, we started manufacturing at risk. If it doesn't work, we will throw it away, but if it does work, then we will be ahead in terms of being able to manufacture it.
MR. CAPEHART: Let's talk about the oral antiviral. The rollout has been slow because you've said it's very difficult to manufacture. Have you found ways to accelerate it? Do you have any numbers you can share with us?
DR. BOURLA: In terms of omicron, you mean?
MR. CAPEHART: The oral antiviral which‑‑
DR. BOURLA: Oh, of course. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. First of all, let me clarify, given that I said the omicron, but the oral antiviral is not affected at all from omicron, unlike what happens with a vaccine. But it‑‑omicron is more challenging to control with a vaccine. That's why we need more doses, and then we need to make a better vaccine.
The current antiviral is working very, very, very well against omicron. We are moving very fast, and we are on track exact, yes. We have very transparent to promise the world. We said that we will have 6 million doses‑‑treatments, not doses‑‑treatments. Every treatment is 30 doses, 30 pills‑‑by the end of the first quarter, and the end of this month, we will have 6 million, exponentially more by the end of the second quarter. We will have 24 additional, so 30 in total and then very big quantities after that. We are going to have 120 million treatments by the end of the year. So things are moving fast.
MR. CAPEHART: I'm going to get to audience questions in a moment, but we're talking about the vaccine. But we have gone through and we're still going through in this country a huge debate over people who don't want to take the vaccine, who are resisting taking the vaccine. You wrote in your book early on‑‑you wrote, "What if we had accomplished these breakthroughs only to discover that the public would refuse to shop for a lack of trust in the industry, the company, or the science itself?" You said that in an interview with CBS "Sunday Morning" that, to a very high degree, this is what happened. So what do you think‑‑why do you think there's so much distrust for the COVID‑19 vaccines?
DR. BOURLA: Yes. First, let's put things into perspective. The vast majority of people, they believed in science, and they took the vaccine. And the numbers, how many they believed and how many didn't believe, they varied country by country.
In this country, I know that the approximately 70 percent of the eligible received the vaccine, and‑‑but‑‑so the minority didn't, but this is a very sizeable minority. Frankly, it's higher than what I was thinking and hoping, but it will be there are more people that are skeptical.
Those people are people that typically very good people. Typically, they care about others and themselves. They're afraid that this vaccine is not safe, is not effective. They're afraid. Some people, they are afraid about the needles. Some people are afraid about something new in their body, but the fear is the main driver for something like that.
Now, the fear, unfortunately, was cultivated also by an unfortunate political debate. The COVID and the way that we deal with that was severely politicized. It became a political statement if you are going to wear a mask or not. If you were good, from one side, you should wear masks, and if you were a good‑‑I would say follower of the other side, you shouldn't wear a mask. Nonsense. You should wear a mask based on what the scientists are saying is good for the protection of the public health. The same was with vaccines. The same was with treatments, with everything. So that's a problem.
The other thing that also contributed to that, it is that it became a good ground for misinformation. Fear is always a good ground for misinformation, and many very small, small amount of people, but many still, they spread this misinformation, and they make it this way of living or of profiting. And that also created a lot of issues.
If you see the levels of people that they do not‑‑I mean the percentage of people that they are hesitating to take the vaccine, this number is way higher in low‑income countries than it is in high‑income countries, and the reason is because in high‑income countries, way bigger part of the population is educated. So it's very difficult to be sold in conspiracy theories and misinformation, and unfortunately, in lower‑income countries, a very big part of the populations are not well educated, and they are the first to believe this story. So it's unfortunate, and it has cost lives.
But, you know, by just pressing those people to change their mind, it won't work, I think, anymore. They are afraid, and the more you press them to do something that they're afraid, the more they will become resistant and aggressive. And it is what it is.
So that's why I think treatments are extremely important because despite the fact that we have very good vaccines and we will bring even better, people will get COVID for the years to come. So we need to have something for those, either because they neglected to protect themselves or because they were unlikely, although they did the vaccine, they caught the virus. They need to have treatments available.
MR. CAPEHART: Mm‑hmm. So, Dr. Bourla, we have a lot of questions, audience questions that we have here, and so we're going to spend the rest of this time trying to get through them, and this one from Stacy Baker here in Washington, D.C., gets at a question I was going to ask you. But since she's got it here, I'll just ask it.
MR. CAPEHART: She asks, "How did Operation Warp Speed affect vaccine development at Pfizer?"
DR. BOURLA: I think the effort and the concept that the government would create a group that would help the industry bring across the line, it was a successful treatment of vaccine. It was a very, very good concept, and I think it was the right thing to do.
Pfizer didn't choose to take the money of the government for reasons that I've explained multiple times. First of all, we didn't need the money of the government. We could do it on our own dime.
Now, that was not the reason not to take money, because you can do it still. I have a fiduciary responsibility for the shareholders, but I've chosen not to take the money because I know that when someone gives you money, it never comes without strings attached. So they would, at a minimum, want to be part of all the meetings that they are making significant decisions. Are we going to run a study this way or that way? Are we going to choose Candidate A or Candidate B? Are we going to manufacture now or later? All of that. And, frankly, if they are giving you taxpayer money, they better check what you are doing for this money, but I didn't want that. I didn't want to impose this type of bureaucracy on my scientists. I wanted to liberate them. So I told them, "Don't worry about money. I give you the money. Just do the best you can. Talk only to yourselves, scientist to scientist, and find out what is the path to find the solution." So this is how I thought about it.
Actually, I thought that the Warp Speed would like that, and I think many of them, they did. But there was part of a system that had a negative reaction to that. They felt that if we are not taking the money, we are not part of that. No. I wanted to be part of everything that they could do to help us. We could use any help that could be offered to us, but we didn't want to use the money.
Eventually, that became a roadblock for us. We were facing cases that we didn't have access to very critical materials that we had paid in advance and we had ordered in advance from manufacturers of third parties, and those people when we were going to collect the supplies that we wanted to run our studies to prepare in manufacturing, we were told, "You are not part of the list." We said, "What list?" and the list was a list that Operation Warp Speed had produced that was saying which company had priority in getting supplies. And because we didn't take the money, we were not on this list, but really, both‑‑I tried multiple times to be able to get them to lift this ban. They did it eventually but quite late.
I don't think that they slow us down eventually because of that, but they made our life difficult.
MR. CAPEHART: So, Dr. Bourla, I'm going to jump in here with a question of my own since you're talking about the bureaucracy here. It was very clear that then President Trump wanted the vaccine to come out before Election Day 2020, but Pfizer's results weren't made public until six days after the election. Did then President Trump or anyone on his staff apply pressure on you or your team to try to release the vaccines‑‑the vaccine results sooner?
DR. BOURLA: Never a legitimate pressure. The president himself called me a few times and also during the calls, as he did in public, he expressed his‑‑he was very clear he wants the vaccine as soon as possible and before the elections. It was very clear about it.
For me, I wanted the same, the first part, which is vaccine as soon as possible. I was agnostic to‑‑I'm sorry. I was agnostic to elections. Elections was not‑‑it was not an official timeline for me. What I wanted is to have it by end of October, which happened to be before the elections, because this was the goal I had set months in advance to my team.
Eventually came eight days later. So, for me, it was in eight, nine months, I would say, period of such an aggressive goal. The fact that I lost the timeline that I had said by eight days was nothing. For someone that was hoping the elections to move, it was everything, and that, I think, created a bitter taste. But this doesn't mean that during the process of developing the vaccine, myself or anyone at Pfizer, received nonlegitimate pressure from the administration. No.
MR. CAPEHART: Okay. Next, another question is coming from Wyoming. You've said many times that you told your team, you know, cost is not an issue. So Stephen Hoff of Wyoming wants to ask, "How much did the vaccine cost?"
DR. BOURLA: Well, the vaccine still costs because we are still investing a lot. As I told you, we are working on a new generation. We are working on omicron. We are working on pediatric. We are working on fourth dose and so a lot.
But when I made the calculation of how much that will cost us‑‑and I went to the board and said, "We are not going to take money from the government. It's very risky. We are going to invest in high tech, which if will give results will be great, but it's more risky to be successful. It's a very long shot." I calculated ultimately will be north of $2 billion that we will burn and we will have to write off if we fail.
We invested the $2 billion, and now it's way more than that, of course, because we are continuing the research program.
MR. CAPEHART: This question comes from Wisconsin, Dave Bavinka. I hope I'm pronouncing your last name right, Dave. But Dave asks, "Are we prepared for the next pandemic?"
DR. BOURLA: Yes. I think we would be better prepared than the previous one, and I think we need to analyze what is it that worked well in this pandemic so that we can maintain it and what didn't work well so that we can change it.
And, first of all, let's come to an assessment. I think we did very well. Maybe now we think that it's too much, two years and 6 million people dying during this period, but we should think that a scientific miracle and a manufacturing miracle happened that dramatically reduced the hospitalizations, the deaths, and the economic losses of the world occur. So it is‑‑we did extremely, extremely well from that aspect. Irrelevant is now, of course, we want more.
Now, I think what helped and we need to‑‑if there is a message that comes out from this pandemic, it was‑‑among the many, it is the significant volume that a vibrant life sciences ecosystem played and brought society and the role that it played. If we didn't have this ecosystem with private sector between pharmas, biotechs, in collaboration with academia and then eventually with regulators around the world working so well, we wouldn't have any of the solutions that we have now. And the days still would be dark.
We were able to generate vaccines, and that was the private sector together with academia. It was tests, vaccines, respirators, treatments. All of that came because of that.
So the key lesson, I think, for us to be well prepared for the next pandemic because we don't know what will manifest itself, it is we must have a vibrant‑‑a vibrant life sciences sector that will be constantly there and would be able to produce innovation. I think that's the number one.
What do we need to avoid? It is discussion that we want more regulation and more, let's say, committees. I don't think it was because of the committees that everything happened. It was because of the speed and sacrifice of thousands of people in the public service and in the private sector, and I think that's what we need to make sure that we maintain.
MR. CAPEHART: We have a little less than five minutes left, and I want to squeeze in one more audience question and then a couple questions to close out.
This question comes also from Washington, D.C., from Marc Barbiere. He asks the question, "How will Pfizer adapt the mRNA technology to enhance preparedness for future threats?"
DR. BOURLA: I think we should make sure that we adapt all technologies, and we are advancing many technologies. It's not clear that a future threat will be best handled with an mRNA technology or with a new type of technology that will be required and that will be way more tailored to this new threat.
So this is why I said before that what we need to do is to maintain our flexibility by maintaining a thriving life sciences ecosystem, and that's it's allows private. And we should not have any apprehension against the private sector when we understand that it was essential to save, let's say, the world right now.
But mRNA, I don't know if it will be for the next pandemic, but I know that it is a technology that has dramatic future. It's not panacea. It's not going to be the solution for every disease in the world, but we are just scratching the surface. And I am sure that we will see way more vaccines for other diseases by using mRNA, but also, I am very hopeful that we will see constant treatments by using mRNA. I'm sure that we will see genetic disease treatments by using this technology, and a lot of human pain will be alleviated because of that.
MR. CAPEHART: I want to come back to your book as we close out, close out this conversation, because we've run out of time. I haven't even had a chance to ask you about the colorful commentary that your son, Mois, would provide for you after sitting in on a lot of your calls with scientists and world leaders. I definitely don't have enough time to ask you, what was it about "Gilmore Girls"‑‑
MR. CAPEHART: ‑‑that provided an escape for you during the pandemic? And I want to‑‑and so I'll close out by reading your words back to you. You wrote, "I am sharing the story of our moonshot, the challenges we faced, the lessons we learned, and the core values that allowed us to make it happen in hopes that it might inspire and inform your own moonshot, whatever that may be."
Dr. Bourla, how do you hope this book will inspire others?
DR. BOURLA: I hope by recognizing that‑‑one thing, and there is a quote that I used in this book that I got from Aristotle. I have a lot of quotes from Greek philosophers there.
MR. CAPEHART: Yes.
DR. BOURLA: That's my favorite quote. It says, "Our problem is not that we aim too high and we miss. Our problem is that we aim too low and we hit," and this is a great articulation of the message that I want to give to people.
First of all, you need always to aim high. It is always you are going to receive way better results if you set the bar higher. That's one.
And the second is it may be a fake comfort that you can get by being‑‑setting the bar low, by setting low goals and then keep them, and then you feel that life is good. But that's mediocracy, and mediocracy never changed the world to the best.
And I want to inspire them by realizing that people don't know what they can and what they cannot do, and if anything, they have a tendency to severely underestimate what they can deliver. And you will be surprised in your daily life or as a business leader if you ask your people to do something that is seemingly impossible, how much they will deliver.
MR. CAPEHART: And, in fact, Dr. Bourla, that quote, which is at the start of Chapter 3, is one that I underlined and starred because it is a life mantra that people should adopt. So I just give you those two sentences.
Dr. Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, thank you very much for coming to this subscriber exclusive edition of Washington Post Live.
DR. BOURLA: Thank you for having me. It's a great honor.
MR. CAPEHART: Thanks again, and thank you, as always, for tuning in. To check out what interviews we have coming up, head to WashingtonPostLive.com.
Once again, I'm Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer for The Washington Post. Thank you again for tuning in to Washington Post Live. | null | null | null | null | null |
Trump’s former national security adviser had been subpoenaed to answer questions about a White House meeting held after the 2020 election.
Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to former president Donald Trump, listens during a news conference for the America Project on Feb. 25 in Orlando. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Flynn — who was subpoenaed last November by the committee in connection with a meeting he had with Trump on Dec. 18, 2020, after the election — pleaded the Fifth “on advice of counsel,” his attorney David A. Warrington said in a statement.
Warrington argued that, during Thursday’s deposition, “committee staff insinuated that General Flynn’s decision to decline to answer their questions constituted an admission of guilt.”
Warrington said that the committee’s “insistence on proceeding with this deposition while this matter is still being litigated left General Flynn with no other choice” and called it “political theater.”
The letter noted that the previous day, Flynn had spoken with a Newsmax TV interviewer about seizing voting machines, foreign influence in the election and the purported precedent for deploying military troops and declaring martial law to “rerun” the election. It asked Flynn for all documents and depositions related to these matters.
“If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment,” Trump said during the 2016 campaign, as he attacked Clinton and her staff. | null | null | null | null | null |
The launches earlier this year involved a “relatively new intercontinental ballistic missile system” that the country is developing and testing, according to the senior U.S. official
In an undated photo provided by the North Korean government, leader Kim Jong Un visits an aerospace development facility. (AP)
The Biden administration on Thursday accused North Korea of testing components for a large new intercontinental ballistic missile, in what one senior official described as a “serious escalation” of a weapons program that could threaten U.S. cities.
Two recent ballistic missile tests by North Korea — both conducted since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — were apparently intended to try out parts of the new missile system ahead of a full launch, which North Korea may try to disguise as a space launch for a reconnaissance satellite, U.S. officials said.
The tests appear linked to an 85-foot-long missile that North Korea has displayed in military parades but has not yet launched. Independent experts think North Korea is seeking to build and test a maneuverable warhead that could sit atop such a missile.
The tests on Feb. 26 and March 4 followed a flurry of missile trials in recent weeks that have raised fears that North Korea may soon abandon its self-imposed moratorium on provocative long-range missile tests. The activity was partly behind an announcement last week by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command that it was intensifying surveillance around the Korean Peninsula and increasing readiness of missile defense forces in the region.
“These launches are a brazen violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, needlessly raise tensions and risk destabilizing the security situation in the region,” said the senior administration official who briefed reporters on Thursday.
North Korea in 2017 tested two different ICBMs that were judged capable of striking U.S. cities. The following year, after a summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang announced a self-imposed moratorium on ICBM tests, although U.S. intelligence officials say North Korea continued building its nuclear stockpile and updating its designs for delivery systems.
The massive warhead unveiled at a Workers’ Party of Korea parade in October 2020 — dubbed the Hwasong-17 — was hailed by North Korean officials as the world’s largest mobile ICBM. Since its unveiling, independent analysts have been watching for signs that a test of the new weapon might be imminent.
While Kim often announces weapons milestones in advance, North Korea appears to have sought to play down its work on the new system, opting to test the missile components at a time when much of the world is focused on Russia and Ukraine. The Biden administration’s statement on Thursday appears partly intended to warn the North Koreans ahead of a possible launch.
“With the world’s attention focused on Ukraine, Kim Jong Un has signaled to the Biden administration that North Korea can’t be ignored,” said Robert Litwak, a nonproliferation expert and director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington think tank. Litwak described the recent tests as part of Kim’s “incremental and determined efforts to acquire the capability to threaten the U.S. homeland with a nuclear weapon.”
While the administration viewed the recent launches as a dangerous escalation, the missiles tested in recent weeks were not ICBMS. Experts estimated that the missile tested on March 4 had a maximum range of about 1,000 kilometers, less than one-fifth of the range of a true ICBM. The tests most likely involved “dual use” components that could be used either on a future satellite or an ICBM, said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. North Korea publicly announced last year that it was developing a system to deploy multiple warheads on an ICBM, Lewis said.
North Korea has not yet demonstrated mastery of key technologies needed to deliver a nuclear weapon over long distances, such as a maneuverable reentry vehicle that can safely transport several warheads through the punishing conditions of the upper atmosphere.
A full test of a new ICBM could spark a major international crisis, raising the specter of a military conflict and fresh economic sanctions against a North Korean government that has been struggling over the past year to cope with fuel and food shortages. The apparent attempt to disguise the new ICBM as a reconnaissance satellite “could mean they’re trying to keep the temperature down,” said Vann H. Van Diepen, a former top nonproliferation official at the State Department and a contributor to 38 North, a website devoted to North Korean analysis.
Biden administration officials have repeatedly said they are prepared to meet with the North Korean government without preconditions, and the president is also open to meeting directly with Kim once “there is a serious agreement on the table,” the senior administration official said.
North Korea has yet to respond to the U.S. overtures.
“As we saw in the past administration … summits alone are no guarantee of progress,” said the official, referring to the splashy meetings between Kim and Trump that did little to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. “The DPRK continues to not respond.”
As part of the Biden administration’s response to the tests, the Treasury Department on Friday will announce a new effort that is meant to prevent North Korea from accessing “foreign items and technology that enable it to advance its prohibited weapons programs,” according to the official, who declined to elaborate. | null | null | null | null | null |
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson climbs into a military airplane on Feb. 17. (AFP/Getty Images)
In a pair of new polls, YouGov noted to respondents what this would was likely to entail: Shooting down Russian planes. But curiously, that seemed to depress support in one poll, while making very little difference in the other.
“Would you support or oppose the U.S. enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine?” and
“Would you support or oppose the U.S. enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would mean the U.S. military would shoot down Russian military planes flying over Ukraine?
“Do you think each of the following courses of action is a good idea or a bad idea?” and then, two questions later,
In this case, there was a more significant difference and a drop in support. While Americans favored the undefined no-fly zone 40 to 30 percent — similar to the other poll — they actually opposed shooting down Russian planes 46 to 30 percent. Fully 28 percent of people who say they want a no-fly zone also don’t want to shoot down Russian planes (which a no-fly zone would, in all likelihood, entail).
As we wrote last week, no-fly zones — and especially one involving Russia — would be extremely difficult to enforce and could lead to a much-broader conflict being triggered, whether intentionally or otherwise. One expert summarized: “Do you shoot down all Russian air traffic? How do you identify friend or foe? Do you take out any ground source that paints you with target acquisition radar?” Another: “Risks are both intentional escalation and inadvertent incident that could ratchet up.”
Even serious and studied supporters of a no-fly zone, like former NATO commander Philip Breedlove, concede that means a likely war. Breedlove said, “The reality of a no-fly zone is — it is an act of war.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Previewing a suite of new fossil fuel rules, Michael Regan said more needs to be done to clean up the air and water around U.S. power plants.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan speaks at the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on March 10. (F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg News)
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan on Thursday put the U.S. power sector on notice, outlining how the Biden administration plans to cut air and water pollution spewing from the nation’s electricity plants.
Speaking to a gathering of energy executives in Houston, President Biden’s top environmental officer outlined an array of regulatory actions in the coming months to tighten rules around toxic mercury, smog-forming compounds and other pollutants as the White House searches for ways to accelerate the nation’s shift to cleaner electricity.
While noting the significant drop in air pollution from power plants and other sources since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, Regan said more work must be done to clean up the unhealthy air that often hits poor and minority neighborhoods the hardest.
“While we continue to see important leadership you’re demonstrating to reduce pollution, power plants remain the largest stationary sources of harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide,” Regan said at CERAWeek, an annual energy conference, noting that an estimated 8,000 people die prematurely every year from such pollution.
“Folks, I’ve thought long and hard about this,” he continued. “I know it’s complex. But we think there’s a way to do it and it protects public health and continues to give you the certainty you all need to expedite a clean energy future.”
Regan’s remarks in Texas come as the Biden administration struggles to achieve its goal of running the U.S. power grid entirely on clean energy by 2035, and moving away from greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change.
But that aspiration has run into resistance from the Supreme Court, Republicans and even members of Biden’s own party in Congress. While some of the EPA’s moves have been expected because of court orders and other deadlines, Regan said his agency will take an “integrated and coordinated approach” that creates “regulatory certainty for long-term investments.”
The agency on Friday will unveil a proposal to compel power plants and factories to cut the emissions of smog-forming pollution that gets blown across state lines, Regan said. The move is aimed at improving air quality in downwind states, such as those in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, that have no control over the pollution coming from the industrial Midwest.
Upwind states are often reluctant to cut cross-border pollution, said John Walke, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s clean air director, “because it requires them to crack down on homegrown plants.”
The EPA is also considering tightening requirements on mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin. As his administration steps up efforts to write new air rules, Biden this week picked Joseph Goffman, a seasoned climate expert, to lead the EPA’s air office.
Regan also said the agency will propose a rule aimed at stopping toxic contaminants in pits where waste from coal-burning is stored from leaching into drinking water and the environment.
“This is long overdue,” said Thom Cmar, an attorney with the law firm Altman Newman, which represents environmental groups.
Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, a lobbying group for investor-owned electric companies, said utilities support reducing pollution but don’t want to compromise “on the reliability and the affordability that our customers value.”
“We look forward to continuing to work with Administrator Regan on EPA’s efforts to take a coordinated and holistic approach to policymaking,” he added.
Even with no regulation directly on climate-warming emissions on the books, the business of burning coal for electricity has collapsed over the past decade as cheaper gas, wind and solar projects come online. Since 2009, more than 260 coal plants switched to gas or ceased operations entirely, according to the Sierra Club.
Despite the coal-plant closures, the power sector is still the nation’s second-biggest source of climate-warming emissions, with most of the carbon pollution coming out of the smokestacks of coal-fired plants.
At the Supreme Court, conservative justices expressed skepticism that the EPA can go forward with sweeping climate regulations without more explicit direction from Congress.
The high court is weighing a challenge from GOP-led states and the coal-mining industry against the agency’s authority to regulate power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions. With three justices picked by President Donald Trump, the current court leans even further to the right than the one that stopped President Barack Obama’s key effort to cut carbon pollution from the power sector, known as the Clean Power Plan. Trump’s plan to loosen regulations on power plant emissions, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, was also later shot down, by a federal court.
Biden’s team is in the middle of crafting carbon regulations for new and existing power plants that can withstand Supreme Court scrutiny. Regan expects to unveil a plan for that later this year, he said in Houston.
The world has little time to wait. A major report from U.N. climate scientists published last month concluded that nations have a “brief and rapidly closing window” to cut emissions and “secure a livable and sustainable future for all.” | null | null | null | null | null |
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