text stringlengths 237 126k | date_download stringdate 2022-01-01 00:32:20 2023-01-01 00:02:37 ⌀ | source_domain stringclasses 60 values | title stringlengths 4 31.5k ⌀ | url stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ | id stringlengths 24 617 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Picking upsets in the NCAA men’s tournament is both an art and a science, and your selections can make or break your bracket. As we decipher the smartest upset picks in the first round, we are going to focus on the true underdogs — a No. 9 seed beating a No. 8 is technically an upset by seeding, but finding surprise winners at the 10-seed line and below is where the true value lies. We are also going to highlight not just the most likely first-round upsets, but also those that would provide value by differentiating your picks from your competition.
How do we find these diamonds in the rough? We look for teams that have an advantage in one or more of the four factors of basketball as described by Dean Oliver: shooting (particularly three-point shooting), rebounding, turnovers and free throw shooting. Better shooters produce more points. Effective rebounders and opportunistic defenders create extra possessions that lead to more points. And teams that can get to the line have access to an efficient way of scoring. We are also on the look out for favorites that rely heavily on three-pointers. If they go cold, that’s usually a precursor to an upset. And finally, lower-seeded teams favored in the point spread are also great picks to advance to the next round.
Last seen in the tournament in 1998, the Dons, under analytics-minded coach Todd Golden, have a top 20 defense per Pomeroy’s ratings . Their profile, specifically when looking at the four factors, is similar to Wichita State in 2013, when the Shockers made a Final Four run as a No. 9 seed. It is also similar to Butler in 2011, a No. 8 seed who reached the title game.
The pride of the Summit League leads the nation in effective field goal rate (60 percent) with deadly shooting from beyond the three-point line (a nation’s best 44 percent). The Jackrabbits are scoring 1.2 points per contested catch-and-shoot attempt, the second-highest rate in the nation. Because opponents have to respect their long-range shooting, that opens the floor — particularly around the rim, where they shoot 61 percent and score 1.3 points per possession (91st percentile). After adjusting for strength of schedule, South Dakota State has the 12th best offensive efficiency in the nation, it a threat against any defense.
The Ramblers rank in the Top 50 for offensive efficiency and Top 25 for defensive efficiency, putting their performance on par with the better teams among No. 8 seeds rather than the teams seeded 10. Their narrow loss to Michigan State on a neutral court in November and the win against San Francisco on a neutral court in January show the upside of first-year coach Drew Valentine’s squad. Plus, Sister Jean is back!
Vermont ranks third nationally for effective field goal percentage (57 percent), including a sparkling 65 percent field goal rate around the rim, one of the highest in the nation (99th percentile). The Catamounts, who routed UMBC in the America East tournament final, 82-43, also limit the amount of second-chance opportunities opponents get off the offensive glass (19 percent allowed, No. 1 in country) and of the ones they do allow they are, as a whole, less successful than the league average. | null | null | null | null | null |
Picking upsets in the NCAA men’s tournament is both an art and a science, and your selections can make or break your bracket. As we decipher the smartest upset picks in the first round, we are going to focus on the true underdogs — a No. 9 seed beating a No. 8 is technically an upset by seeding, but finding surprise winners at the 10-seed line and below is where the true value lies. We are also going to highlight not just the most likely first-round upsets but also those that would provide value by differentiating your picks from your competition.
How do we find these diamonds in the rough? We look for teams that have an advantage in one or more of the four factors of basketball as described by Dean Oliver: shooting (particularly three-point shooting), rebounding, turnovers and free throw shooting. Better shooters produce more points. Effective rebounders and opportunistic defenders create extra possessions that lead to more points. And teams that can get to the line have access to an efficient way of scoring. We are also on the lookout for favorites that rely heavily on three-pointers. If they go cold, that’s usually a precursor to an upset. And finally, lower-seeded teams favored in the point spread are also great picks to advance to the next round.
Last seen in the tournament in 1998, the Dons, under analytics-minded coach Todd Golden, have a top-20 defense per Pomeroy’s ratings. Their profile, specifically when looking at the four factors, is similar to Wichita State’s in 2013, when the Shockers made a Final Four run as a No. 9 seed. It is also similar to that of 2011 Butler, a No. 8 seed that reached the title game.
The pride of the Summit League leads the nation in effective field goal rate (60 percent) with deadly shooting from beyond the three-point line (a nation’s-best 44 percent). The Jackrabbits are scoring 1.2 points per contested catch-and-shoot attempt, the second-highest rate in the nation. Because opponents have to respect their long-range shooting, that opens the floor — particularly around the rim, where they shoot 61 percent and score 1.3 points per possession (91st percentile). After adjusting for strength of schedule, South Dakota State has the 12th best offensive efficiency in the nation, making it a threat against any defense.
The Ramblers rank in the top 50 in offensive efficiency and top 25 in defensive efficiency, putting them on par with the better teams among No. 8 seeds rather than the teams seeded 10. Their narrow loss to Michigan State on a neutral court in November and their win against San Francisco on a neutral court in January show the upside of first-year coach Drew Valentine’s squad. Plus, Sister Jean is back!
Vermont ranks third nationally in effective field goal percentage (57 percent), including a sparkling 65 percent field goal rate around the rim, one of the highest in the nation (99th percentile). The Catamounts, who routed Maryland Baltimore County in the America East tournament final, 82-43, also limit the amount of second-chance opportunities opponents get off the offensive glass (19 percent allowed, No. 1 in country), and the ones they do allow are, as a whole, less successful than the league average. | null | null | null | null | null |
Quarterback Tom Brady’s retirement from the NFL lasted for a little less than six weeks. The seven-time Super Bowl winner announced Sunday he will continue playing and will return to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the 2022 season.
The speculation about a prospective return intensified this weekend after Brady posted photos and a video to social media of him attending Manchester United’s soccer game Saturday with his family. The video showed Brady hesitating and giving a non-definitive answer, accompanied by a quizzical look, when soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo asked him if he actually was done playing.
Brady remains under contract to the Buccaneers for the 2022 season. He will be in his third season with the Buccaneers after 20 seasons—and six Super Bowl triumphs—with the New England Patriots.
The Buccaneers had not replaced Brady as their starter at quarterback, and team officials had said they would leave open the possibility of a return by Brady.
Brady led the NFL in passing attempts, completions, passing yards and touchdown passes last season. The Buccaneers went 13-4 during the regular season but lost to the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round of the NFC playoffs. They won the Super Bowl in the 2020 season — Brady’s first season with the Buccaneers after leaving the Patriots in free agency.
Brady turns 45 in August. He has often spoken of playing to age 45 or perhaps beyond. But retirement speculation increased as the Buccaneers’ season neared its conclusion. Three days before his retirement announcement, Brady’s health and wellness company announced he was done playing, then backtracked. | null | null | null | null | null |
Virginia Tech secures No. 11 seed, will face No. 6 seed Texas in round of 64
Less than 24 hours after an 82-67 upset of Duke, the ACC’s regular season champion, the Hokies learned they would be a No. 11 seed in the East Region and face No. 6 seed Texas on Friday in Milwaukee, extending the program-record streak of consecutive NCAA tournament berths to five.
Virginia Tech (23-12) is seeking its first win in the NCAA tournament since 2019, when it reached the region semifinals as a No. 4 seed. Last season in Indianapolis, the 10th-seeded Hokies lost in the round of 64 to No. 7 seed Florida, 75-70, in overtime.
Because of travel complications, Young, his staff and his players had to scramble to catch the announcement about their NCAA tournament opponent and destination. The team was unable to get a flight out from Newark until late Sunday afternoon and boarded a bus in Blacksburg back to campus as the selection show began.
By most projections, Virginia Tech entered the ACC tournament on the outside of the NCAA field and even the Hokies’ run to the final did not assure them of a berth. But their victory over the Blue Devils rendered the speculation moot. They secured their first ACC tournament title in school history Saturday night at Barclays Center behind a career-high 31 points from Hunter Cattoor.
The junior guard sank his first six three-pointers and made 7 of 9 on the night to springboard the Hokies to their first conference tournament championship since they won the Metro title in 1979. Virginia Tech, the No. 7 seed, also became the lowest-seeded team to win the ACC tournament and the first team since Virginia in 1976 to beat each of the top three seeds along the way.
Cattoor was named the tournament’s most outstanding player, breaking out of an extended shooting slump and joining Keve Aluma as members of the all-tournament first team. Storm Murphy and Darius Maddox were selected to the second team for the Hokies, who made their first appearance in the ACC tournament title game.
Cattoor had gone 14 for 47 from behind the arc over his previous 10 games entering the ACC tournament final and had not made more than three three-pointers in a game since he matched the program’s record with nine against Florida State on Jan. 29.
“It’s amazing,” Cattoor said. “I feel like the past two months, our next game has felt like a must-win game, so just having that mentality going in and out. We knew going into [the ACC] tournament that we’re going to have to win a couple, and then once we won our first one, we were just saying, ‘Why not the whole thing so we won’t have to worry about waiting on Selection Sunday to see if our name is called?’ ”
Even before they won four games in as many nights, starting with a 76-75 victory in overtime in the second round against No. 10 seed Clemson on Maddox’s three-pointer at the buzzer, the Hokies had been making their case to be included in the NCAA tournament.
They closed the regular season by winning nine of 11, recovering from a 2-7 start in the ACC that had them in last place, and were regularly in the top 35 in the NET rankings, one of the metrics the NCAA tournament selection committee considers when it awards at-large bids.
Excluded from the NCAA tournament this season was Virginia, which snapped a streak of seven consecutive appearances that included the national championship in 2019. The Cavaliers were expected to receive a bid to the NIT after they lost in the ACC tournament quarterfinals to No. 3 seed North Carolina on Wednesday night. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Bulldogs haven’t won a national championship . . . yet. (For the record, the Big Ten, which the committee has a love affair with every March, last won a national championship in 2000.)
The committee always throws at least one bouquet to a nonpower five team, and the beneficiary this season was Wyoming, which gets to play Indiana in Dayton. | null | null | null | null | null |
The single most important factor for winning the vast majority of March Madness bracket pools is picking the NCAA tournament’s eventual winner. For most contests, like ESPN’s, nailing the national champion nets the equivalent points of picking every first round game correctly. Not to mention, that title team is racking up points in every round leading up to the finale. So it’s easy to see how backing a team that gets bounced early in the tournament can be a crippling blow for your bracket.
While the tourney’s top seeds have amassed most excellent records, it’s important to remember than it takes only one bad game to bring low even the country’s best teams. Since we began this exercise in 2015, we’ve noted 18 teams carrying statistical markers that suggest they may be upset prone. Eleven of them made early exits, and every year at least one of the teams we’ve identified as shaky has lost before their seeding indicates they should. (For example, No. 1 seeds should reach the Final Four, No. 2s, the Elite Eight and No. 3s the Sweet 16.)
Last season, we picked one of three correctly as No. 2 Alabama lost to No. 11 UCLA in the Sweet 16. Another team we detailed, No. 2 Houston, reached the Final Four … but had an easy path there. The highest seed it faced in its first four games was No. 10 Rutgers, which nearly clipped the Cougars in the round of 32 (a 63-60 final).
Then there was Baylor, a team we dinged for subpar defensive rebounding, which showed just how vulnerable it was by winning the national championship. Hey, it happens. In fact, it’s the second time we’ve listed the eventual national champions as upset prone. The other time was in 2019 when we included the Virginia Cavaliers in our group. The example of the Cavaliers is instructive in that, just a year earlier, the same statistical traits we flagged led to their first-round upset against No. 16 UMBC.
These are the top teams in the country, the titans of the tournament bracket. They are all capable of cutting down the nets and taking home the title. But we’ve seen good teams toppled because of shortcomings in statistical categories that help narrow the skill gap between the nation’s best teams and their lower-seeded competition. And, once again, we see those markers with the Baylor Bears. So here are three top seeds who may be more vulnerable than usual, starting with Baylor.
On the whole, Baylor is a solid team, ranking in the top 10 in overall offensive efficiency and top 15 on the defensive end. The blemishes aren’t super noticeable, but they’re present nonetheless and they’ve cost Baylor in each of its losses this season.
Baylor buffers this by being really (really) good on the offensive glass (seventh in the nation) and forcing its opponents into turnovers (16th). But, this overall picture should still give bracket-pickers pause when deciding on a title team and also in picking between Baylor and a team like Kentucky in the East Region. The Wildcats are even better on the boards than the Bears (No. 4 offensive rebounding rate, No. 57 defensive) and Kentucky is actually ranked ahead of Baylor overall in Pomeroy’s rankings.
No. 4 UCLA could also present Baylor a potential challenge in the Sweet 16, as the Bruins seldom turn over the ball (13.4 percent of possessions, No. 5 nationally). So could No. 8 North Carolina in Round Two, which seldom gives up offensive rebounds (No. 2 at 20.8 percent). Each of those teams could negate one of the Bears’ biggest strengths.
The Tigers’ suffocating defense produces steals and block shots by the bushel. Sophomore Walker Kessler is a human shot eraser, helping Auburn to a block percentage of better than 21 percent, the best in the nation. There are no easy buckets when he’s on the court.
Overall, Auburn is the No. 10 team in Pomeroy’s rankings, but again, we see more red flags than we’d like in critical categories around ball control and rebounding. The Tigers allow foes to snare just under 30 percent of offensive rebounds (42nd nationally). And while they strip their opponents regularly (24th nationally in steal percentage), they’re also prone to have their own possessions taken away, allowing steals on over 10 percent of them. That’s concerning, since live-ball turnovers often lead to run-outs for easy points in transition (which also can neutralize the shot-altering impact of Kessler).
Perhaps more glaring is Auburn’s propensity to foul. As a side effect of their smothering D, the Tigers put teams on the free throw line a lot. Their 34.8 percent free throw rate (which measures free throw attempts over field goal attempts) ranks 288th.
The Tigers’ draw actually is rather favorable in terms of overall rankings of their potential foes, but the specifics in their statistical profiles could be scary. Their potential second-round opponents — No. 7 USC and No. 10 Miami (Fla.) — each flaunt stats that figure to respectively exploit a critical weakness or neutralize a core strength for Auburn. The Hurricanes are extremely adept at maintaining possession, ranking eighth nationally in offensive turnover percentage. Meanwhile, the Trojans not only rank 26th in the nation in offensive rebounding, they’re second in defending shots inside the arc, allowing opponents to convert just 41.6 percent of their shots inside the arc.
There is a startling split between Purdue’s offensive efficiency (No. 3 in the nation) and its lackluster defense (100th). Opponents tend to shoot pretty well against the Boilermakers (just under 50 percent effective field goal percentage), who create no turnovers (only 12 teams in Division I have a worse defensive turnover percentages).
What’s so startling is if you look back at past NCAA tournament teams, you just don’t see that kind of chasm-like divide between offensive and defensive efficiency from a high seed. The only comparable team is No. 4-seed Wichita State in 2018 (No. 5 offensive, No. 120 defensive). The Shockers lost in the first round to Marshall that year.
No top-3 seed has ranked so low in defensive efficiency since 2015. Two quasi-close comparisons can be found last year, however. Purdue fans should be familiar, and worried, since they’re both Big Ten teams. No. 2 seeds Iowa (second in adjusted offensive efficiency and 50th in adjusted defensive efficiency on Selection Sunday) and Ohio State (fourth and 79th) both lost early, with the Buckeyes bowing out in the first round.
While Yale doesn’t figure to be a true threat, neither Texas nor Virginia Tech is a good matchup in Round Two. The Hokies shoot the lights out from deep (39.3 percent) and profile closer to a 6-seed than an 11, per Pomeroy’s rankings. Texas is extremely adept at forcing turnovers (14th) and grabbing offensive rebounds (31.9 percent). All three factors — three pointers, turnovers and offensive rebounds — have historically injected the madness into March via upsets. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Bulldogs haven’t won a national championship … yet. (For the record, the Big Ten, which the committee has a love affair with every March, last won a national championship in 2000.)
Analysis: The most likely first-round upsets for the men’s NCAA tournament
Analysis: Three top seeds that could make an early exit from the NCAA men’s tournament
The committee always throws at least one bouquet to a non-Power Five team, and the beneficiary this season was Wyoming, which gets to play Indiana in Dayton.
Play the game: How many basketballs can you find? | null | null | null | null | null |
There’s nothing more important in a NCAA tournament bracket pool than picking the eventual winner. For most contests, such as ESPN’s, nailing the national champion is equivalent to picking every first-round game correctly. Not to mention, that title team racks up points in every round leading up to the finale. So it’s easy to see how backing a team that gets bounced early in the tournament can be a crippling blow.
While the tourney’s top seeds have amassed most excellent records, it’s important to remember that it takes only one bad game to bring down even the country’s best teams. Since we began this exercise in 2015, we have noted 18 teams carrying statistical markers that suggest they may be upset prone. Eleven of them made early exits, and every year at least one of the teams we have identified as shaky has lost before its seeding indicates it should. (For example, No. 1 seeds should reach the Final Four, No. 2s the Elite Eight and No. 3s the Sweet 16.)
Last season, we picked one of three correctly; No. 2 Alabama lost to No. 11 UCLA in the Sweet 16. Another team we detailed, No. 2 Houston, reached the Final Four . . . but had an easy path there. The highest seed it faced in its first four games was No. 10 Rutgers, which nearly clipped the Cougars in the round of 32 (a 63-60 final).
Then there was Baylor, a team we dinged for subpar defensive rebounding, that showed just how vulnerable it was by winning the national championship. Hey, it happens. In fact, it’s the second time we have called the eventual national champion upset prone. The other time was in 2019, when we included the Virginia Cavaliers in our group. The example of the Cavaliers is instructive in that, just a year earlier, the same statistical traits we flagged led to their first-round upset against No. 16 Maryland Baltimore County.
These are the top teams in the country, the titans of the tournament bracket. They are all capable of cutting down the nets and taking home the title. But we have seen good teams toppled because of shortcomings in statistical categories that help narrow the skill gap between the nation’s best teams and their lower-seeded competition. And, once again, we see those markers with the Baylor Bears. So here are three top seeds that may be more vulnerable than usual, starting with Baylor.
On the whole, Baylor is a solid team, ranking in the top 10 in offensive efficiency and in the top 15 on the defensive end. The blemishes aren’t super noticeable, but they’re present nonetheless, and they have cost Baylor in each of its losses this season.
Baylor buffers this by being really (really) good on the offensive glass (seventh in the nation) and forcing its opponents into turnovers (16th). But, this overall picture should still give bracket-pickers pause when deciding on a title team and also in picking between Baylor and a team like Kentucky in the East Region. The Wildcats are even better on the boards than the Bears (No. 4 offensive rebounding rate, No. 57 defensive) and Kentucky is ranked ahead of Baylor overall in Pomeroy’s rankings.
No. 4 UCLA also could present Baylor a potential challenge in the Sweet 16 because the Bruins seldom turn over the ball (13.4 percent of possessions, No. 5 nationally). So could No. 8 North Carolina, which seldom gives up offensive rebounds (No. 2 at 20.8 percent), in the second round. Each of those teams could negate one of the Bears’ biggest strengths.
The Tigers’ suffocating defense produces lots of steals and blocked shots. Sophomore Walker Kessler is a human shot eraser, helping Auburn to a block percentage of better than 21 percent, the best in the nation. There are no easy buckets when he’s on the court.
Overall, Auburn is the No. 10 team in Pomeroy’s rankings, but again, we see more red flags than we would like in critical categories around ball control and rebounding. The Tigers allow foes to snare just under 30 percent of offensive rebounds (42nd nationally). And while they strip their opponents regularly (24th nationally in steal percentage), they’re also prone to having their own possessions taken away, allowing steals on over 10 percent of them. That’s concerning because live-ball turnovers often lead to run-outs for easy points in transition (which also can neutralize the shot-altering impact of Kessler).
Perhaps more glaring is Auburn’s propensity to foul. As a side effect of their smothering defense, the Tigers put teams on the free throw line a lot. Their 34.8 percent free throw rate (which measures free throw attempts over field goal attempts) ranks 288th.
The Tigers’ draw actually is rather favorable in terms of overall rankings of their potential foes, but the specifics in their statistical profiles could be scary. Their potential second-round opponents — No. 7 USC and No. 10 Miami — flaunt stats that figure to exploit a critical weakness or neutralize a core strength for Auburn. The Hurricanes are adept at maintaining possession, ranking eighth nationally in offensive turnover percentage. Meanwhile, the Trojans not only rank 26th in the nation in offensive rebounding, they’re second in defending shots inside the arc, allowing opponents to convert just 41.6 percent of their two-point shots.
There is a startling split between Purdue’s offensive efficiency (No. 3 in the nation) and its lackluster defense (100th). Opponents tend to shoot pretty well against the Boilermakers (just under 50 percent effective field goal percentage), who create few turnovers (only 12 teams in Division I have a worse defensive turnover percentages).
What’s so startling is if you look back at past NCAA tournament teams, you just don’t see that kind of chasm-like divide between offensive and defensive efficiency from a high seed. The only comparable team is No. 4 seed Wichita State in 2018 (No. 5 offensive, No. 120 defensive). The Shockers lost in the first round to Marshall that year.
No top-three seed has ranked so low in defensive efficiency since 2015. Two quasi-close comparisons can be found last year, however. Purdue fans should be familiar — and worried — since they’re both Big Ten teams. No. 2 seeds Iowa (second in adjusted offensive efficiency and 50th in adjusted defensive efficiency on Selection Sunday) and Ohio State (fourth and 79th) both lost early, with the Buckeyes bowing out in the first round.
While Yale doesn’t figure to be a true threat, neither Texas nor Virginia Tech is a good matchup in the second round. The Hokies shoot the lights out from deep (39.3 percent) and profile closer to a No. 6 seed than a No. 11, per Pomeroy’s rankings. Texas is adept at forcing turnovers (14th) and grabbing offensive rebounds (31.9 percent). All three factors — three pointers, turnovers and offensive rebounds — have historically injected the madness into March via upsets. | null | null | null | null | null |
For the first time, the women’s tournament will have 68 teams. The field was announced on Sunday night with 32 teams already in the field courtesy of automatic bids from winning conference tournaments. The other 36 at-large teams were chosen by the NCAA selection committee. The last four at-large teams chosen for the field will play in the First Four games Wednesday and Thursday. The winners of those games will advance to the first round of the tournament.
The schedule this year will be back to normal with the first round taking place Friday and Saturday and second-round games slated for Sunday and Monday. Those sets of games will be played at the campus sites of the top four seeds in each region.
The Sweet 16 (March 25-26) and regional finals (March 27-28) will be played in Bridgeport, Conn.; Greensboro, N.C.; Spokane, Wash.; and Wichita. The Final Four (April 1) and national championship game (April 3) will be played in Minneapolis at Target Center. | null | null | null | null | null |
Note to self: Don’t bother paying attention to results over the final four days of college basketball’s regular season next year, unless an automatic bid is being allocated.
Based on this year’s tournament bracket, the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee sure didn’t put a lot of stock into the last few days of the conference tournaments. Well, unless Indiana was involved.
There was evidence throughout the bracket. Whether it was decisions about who landed on the No. 2 line or who even got into the field, there are several instances that suggest the last week made little impact on the evaluation of teams.
Some of that makes sense. A conference tournament represents no more than 10 percent of the resume for most teams (it’s a little more for a team that gets four or five league tournament games in). It shouldn’t outweigh everything else, but it shouldn’t appear to not count, either.
A reasonable critique of this committee’s work could come down to what’s become a tired trope over the years: Do you guys even watch the games? They probably did, but the results didn’t seem to matter in a lot of instances.
The Hoosiers (20-13) helped themselves a bunch this past week, or at least conventional wisdom would have you believe. They beat Michigan and then Illinois before sticking with Iowa in the Big Ten semifinals until the final two seconds.
For all its preseason hype, Michigan (17-14) never got traction and never spent a day more than four games over .500. The record is the record, but the Wolverines did play a fine schedule and ranked in the top 45 of all of the metrics on the team sheets.
It’s no surprise they got in, but to avoid a trip to the play-in round in Dayton? Maybe the committee just couldn’t bear the thought of sending three Big Ten teams to the First Four.
To the immense credit of Rutgers, it went 6-6 in Quad 1 games and beat every other NCAA tournament team in the Big Ten (there are eight others). It also lost at home to Lafayette (No. 319 in the NET) and did not fare well in most of the team sheet metrics.
This isn’t a complaint. The tournament is more fun when teams like 25-8 Wyoming gets in than when those like 17-14 Michigan does. It’s just that the Cowboys’ argument wasn’t particularly stout.
Wyoming won three games against the tournament field, against Boise State and Colorado State at home and at Cal State Fullerton. That means the Cowboys’ 4-5 record in Quad 1 games and 11-6 mark against the top two quads wasn’t as impressive as it looks.
The Mustangs (23-8) split with Houston and took two out of three from Memphis, the loss coming in Saturday’s American Athletic semifinal. They ranked in the top 50 of all but one of the team sheet metrics. They were 6-5 on the road.
Swinging back to the theme of ignoring results in the final days of the season, Colorado State lost in the Mountain West semifinals. Boise State, the regular season champ, also claimed the tournament. Their overall profiles looked awfully similar. And to Colorado State’s credit, it swept two games from the Broncos.
Tie in Duke’s loss in the ACC final, and it seems like Tennessee probably should have been on the No. 2 line. There’s an argument for both the Volunteers and Blue Devils ahead of Villanova, the Big East champion and a No. 2 seed itself. | null | null | null | null | null |
Maryland Coach Brenda Frese and the Terrapins will get a fresh start in the NCAA tournament after an up-and-down regular season. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
“But the thing is, it's made this group really resilient. … It doesn’t really faze them because they know no one’s going to feel sorry for us. We’ve just got to move on. … It’s definitely been a season like none other.”
Benzan was the No. 1 three-point shooter in the nation last season but was held scoreless in the tournament loss to Indiana. That cannot happen during a Final Four run. Maryland ranks 251st in scoring defense (67 points per game), and the effort on that end must improve. Miller can be elite on that end with her length and versatility when she’s dialed in. The Terps aren’t a physical team, but they have to rebound better to complete defensive possessions.
“I think they have to all collectively be clicking at the same time. And because they haven’t been healthy all year, they really haven’t hit their stride yet. So the bright side or the other side of that is: ‘Hey, what if we put it all together? Look what we can do.’ ” | null | null | null | null | null |
Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Scott Turner has agreed to a new three-year contract with the team that will take him through the 2024 season, a person with knowledge of the deal confirmed Sunday night.
Turner, 39, joined Coach Ron Rivera’s Washington staff in 2020 after spending four seasons with him over two stints with the Carolina Panthers, first as a quality control coach (2011-12) and then as quarterbacks coach (2018-19).
When Rivera was fired by the Panthers late in the 2019 season, Turner was elevated to interim offensive coordinator and play-caller, affording him a four-game tryout of sorts for his next role — at a place he knows well. Turner went to high school in Northern Virginia while his father, Norv Turner, was Washington’s head coach from 1994 to 2000.
Last season, after Ryan Fitzpatrick was lost to injury in the season opener, Washington turned to Taylor Heinicke, a street free agent signed as an emergency option at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Heinicke worked with Turner in Minnesota and then Carolina, but had been out of the league for nearly a year before Turner lured him back, with a chance role in Washington.
“He’s one of the main reasons I’m still in the NFL and even got a chance to start in the NFL,” Heinicke said in January. “And I say start, I mean even just got a shot in Minnesota my rookie year. So, he’s probably the main guy that got me in this league and kept me in this league, and I kind of take my experience with him and my journey with him and I try to tell it to the young kids back home. I train them, ‘All it takes is one guy to like you, so don’t care about what the other people say, if you can’t play, can’t do this, can’t do that.’ All it takes is one dude.'”
Retaining Turner for three more years provides continuity where there’s been little in Washington. Wentz has three seasons left on his contract. His salary for 2023 and ’24 is not guaranteed, so the team could easily part with him at no cost if things go sour this season. But should he impress, the Commanders’ quarterback and play-caller are locked in through 2024.
In other Commanders news, the team re-signed cornerback/special teamer Troy Apke to a one-year contract, potentially setting the stage for a series of moves in the coming days. Free agency officially begins Wednesday at 4 p.m. | null | null | null | null | null |
The women’s NCAA tournament bracket reveal Sunday night had few surprises at the top. South Carolina, as expected, earned the No. 1 overall seed, with defending champion Stanford the top seed in the Spokane Region, Louisville the No. 1 in the Wichita Region and North Carolina State headlining the Bridgeport Region.
For starters, Bridgeport is about 78 miles from the Huskies’ campus, giving Connecticut a virtual home-court advantage once the tournament transitions to so-called neutral sites beginning in the Sweet 16. It’s not exactly the comforts of Gampel Pavilion — where Connecticut will play its first two games — but it should guarantee a throng of Huskies’ faithful for a potential regional semifinal against No. 3 seed Indiana or No. 6 seed Kentucky and for a regional final against the Wolfpack.
Plus, the Huskies are a legitimate powerhouse this season, even without that edge. According to Her Hoop Stats, Connecticut is nearly 37 net points per 100 possessions better than an average women’s team after adjusting for strength of schedule. Only Stanford, North Carolina State and South Carolina have outscored opponents by more net points this season. In other words, it’s like there are two No. 1 seeds in the Bridgeport region — and the second one has the home-court edge.
Nina King, the selection committee chairwoman and the athletic director at Duke, praised Connecticut as having “all the pieces, all of the team playing and also a team that’s on an upward trajectory.” She said N.C. State and Connecticut sharing a region was simply the way “it fell this year.”
The selection committee placed each seed line on an S curve, King said, meaning the final No. 1 seed would be matched up with the top 2 seed, and so on. King said “when we placed them in their regionals, we tried to stay true to the S curve, to really ensure competitive equity.”
That’s an interesting explanation. According to the NCAA’s own NET rating, which replaced the RPI rating in 2020, Connecticut is the fourth-best team in the country. South Carolina is first, N.C. State is second and Stanford is third, so by that metric, Connecticut should have been no worse than the top No. 2 seed, which seemingly should have placed the Huskies in the same region as Louisville, which ranks fifth in the NET rankings. Of course there are other factors the committee takes into account in the final seeding, but the NET rankings were supposed to be “the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams,” according to the NCAA — and two of the top four teams are in the same region.
Even the betting markets see this draw as a major hurdle for N.C. State and a huge benefit for Connecticut. The former is the fourth choice to win the national title at FanDuel, with 11-1 odds, while Connecticut, with 7-2 odds, is the second choice behind only South Carolina. The difference between those odds are staggering, implying second-seeded Connecticut has a 22 percent chance to win the national title, with first-seeded N.C. State having just an 8 percent chance.
Ultimately, the teams’ Final Four chances will be decided on the court. But the selection committee did N.C. State no favors by putting it in a region with a powerhouse team that just got back its star and will be playing virtual home games. | null | null | null | null | null |
Nationals nearing agreement with all-star designated hitter Nelson Cruz
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Washington Nationals were on the cusp of their biggest move of the offseason Sunday night, working to finalize an agreement with designated hitter Nelson Cruz, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation.
One person familiar with the negotiations said they were “not done yet” but “close.” Should the deal get done, the Nationals will have landed a middle-of-the-order slugger to slot alongside Juan Soto and Josh Bell.
Contract terms were unclear Sunday night, though one person familiar with negotiations said it will be a one-year deal with a mutual option for 2023.
General Manager Mike Rizzo said earlier Sunday he wanted to acquire a veteran power bat. When asked if the position mattered, Rizzo insisted that the universal designated hitter would keep his plans flexible. Less than an hour later, the Nationals were fully engaged with Cruz’s camp, even as reports surfaced that the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres were front-runners to land the 41-year-old.
Cruz is coming off an all-star season in 2021 that saw him hit 32 homers in 584 plate appearances for the Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays. He has the most homers of any player since the start of the 2014 season. With Washington, he could offer protection to Soto, their 23-year-old star, and perhaps a valuable trade chip if the rebuilding Nationals find themselves selling again this summer.
The addition would improve Washington heading into the season and has a future-focused element. Before seriously engaging with Cruz, they had only added on the fringes of the roster, bringing in veterans reliever Steve Cishek, second baseman César Hernández and utility man Ehire Adrianza on major league deals, and a handful of others on minors contracts that include invites to spring training that kicks off with the first full-squad workout Monday morning. Cruz, though the oldest of the bunch, is in a different class. | null | null | null | null | null |
Note to self: Don’t bother paying attention to results over the final four days of college basketball’s regular season next year unless an automatic bid is being allocated.
Based on this year’s bracket, the NCAA men’s tournament selection committee sure didn’t put a lot of stock into the last few days of the conference tournaments. Well, unless Indiana was involved.
There was evidence throughout the bracket. Whether it was decisions about who landed on the No. 2 line or even who got into the field, there are several instances that suggest the last week made little impact on the evaluation of teams.
Some of that makes sense. A conference tournament represents no more than 10 percent of the résumé for most teams. (It’s a little more for a team that gets four or five league tournament games in.) It shouldn’t outweigh everything else, but it shouldn’t appear to not count, either.
A reasonable critique of this committee’s work could come down to what has become a tired trope over the years: Do you guys even watch the games? The members probably did, but the results didn’t seem to matter in a lot of instances.
The Hoosiers (20-13) helped themselves a bunch this past week, or at least conventional wisdom would have you believe they did. They beat Michigan and then Illinois before sticking with Iowa in the Big Ten semifinals until the final two seconds.
For all its preseason hype, Michigan (17-14) never got traction and never spent a day more than four games over .500. The record is the record, but the Wolverines played a fine schedule and ranked in the top 45 of all of the metrics on the team sheets.
It’s no surprise they got in, but avoiding a trip to the play-in round? Maybe the committee couldn’t bear the thought of sending three Big Ten teams to the First Four.
To the immense credit of Rutgers, it went 6-6 in Quad 1 games and beat every other NCAA tournament team in the Big Ten. (There are eight others.) It also lost at home to Lafayette (319th in the NET) and did not fare well in most of the team sheet metrics.
This isn’t a complaint. The tournament is more fun when teams such as 25-8 Wyoming get in than when those such as 17-14 Michigan do. It’s just that the Cowboys’ argument wasn’t particularly stout.
Wyoming won three games against the tournament field: against Boise State and Colorado State at home and at Cal State Fullerton. That means the Cowboys’ 4-5 record in Quad 1 games and 11-6 mark against the top two quads wasn’t as impressive as it looks.
The Mustangs (23-8) split with Houston and took two of three from Memphis, with the loss coming in Saturday’s American Athletic semifinal. They ranked in the top 50 of all but one of the team sheet metrics. They were 6-5 on the road.
Swinging back to the theme of ignoring results in the final days of the season, Colorado State lost in the Mountain West semifinals. Boise State, the regular season champ, also claimed the tournament. Their profiles looked awfully similar. And to Colorado State’s credit, it swept two games from the Broncos.
Tie in Duke’s loss in the ACC final, and it seems Tennessee probably should have been on the No. 2 line. There’s an argument for the Volunteers and Blue Devils ahead of Villanova, the Big East champion and a No. 2 seed itself. | null | null | null | null | null |
Nationals, all-star DH Nelson Cruz agree to one-year deal with option for 2023
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Washington Nationals made their biggest move of the offseason Sunday night, agreeing with Nelson Cruz on a one-year deal worth $15 million guaranteed, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The contract will not be official until all details are worked out and Cruz passes a physical. But less than 12 hours after General Mike Rizzo declared his intent to sign a veteran power bat, he filled that need with the 41-year-old designated hitter.
The breakdown of Cruz’s deal is $12 million for 2022, then a $16 million mutual option for 2023 with a $3 million buyout, according to two people with direct knowledge of the terms. Since mutual options are rarely picked up, adding his salary for the coming season with the buyout equals the expected total value of the contract.
Stephen Strasburg is in 'spring training mode' and on track, Nats GM Mike Rizzo says
Shortly after Rizzo’s afternoon meeting with media, reports surfaced that the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres were front-runners to land Cruz. The Nationals, though, remained set on landing a slugger to put next to Juan Soto and Josh Bell in their order.
For Soto in particular, Cruz, an all-star in 2021, could provide right-handed protection and an important voice. Cruz has been a respected clubhouse leader in stops with the Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, Minnesota Twins, Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles and Milwaukee Brewers. Soto, the Nationals’ 23-year-old star, was called the face of the team and franchise by Rizzo on Sunday.
As the negotiations grew more serious, a person close to Soto said the right fielder was “thrilled” about potentially sharing a lineup with Cruz. And keeping Soto happy, now and into the next year three years, is a crucial part of Washington’s rebuild.
Cruz is coming off an all-star season that saw him hit 32 homers in 584 plate appearances for the Twins Rays. He has the most homers of any player since the start of the 2014 season. With the Nationals, he could offer both reliable production and a valuable trade chip if they find themselves selling again this summer. The addition makes them better heading into the season and still has a future-focused element.
Before engaging with Cruz on Sunday, they had only added on the fringes of the roster, bringing in veteran reliever Steve Cishek, second baseman César Hernández and utility man Ehire Adrianza on major league deals, and a handful of others on minors contracts that include invites to spring training that kicks off with the first full-squad workout Monday morning. Cruz, though the oldest of the bunch, is in a different class. | null | null | null | null | null |
The good on Sunday was that Stephen Strasburg is progressing toward the season, not still rehabbing from surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome last summer, and is expected to face hitters in a live batting practice session Tuesday. The bad was General Manager Mike Rizzo’s announcement that Joe Ross will be out for at least the next six to eight weeks after having a bone spur removed from his elbow March 7. The latest moves were signing 38-year-old Aníbal Sánchez, he of 2019 lore, to a minor league deal with a nonroster invite to spring training; then Aaron Sanchez, a 29-year-old righty, to another minors deal with a camp invite.
Cishek was at camp Sunday, throwing on the agility field next to the bullpen. Yet it was far more notable when, a short time later, Strasburg took to the same field and tossed with bullpen catcher Brandon Snyder. The right-hander threw more innings during the 2019 postseason (36⅓) than he has since he signed a seven-year, $245 million deal that December (26⅔ across two seasons). The reasons? Surgery for carpal tunnel neuritis in August 2020, then for thoracic outlet syndrome in July 2021. So naturally, any positive steps for the 33-year-old need to be measured with his injury history.
“All reports are he’s in spring training mode, preparation for the season, and not in rehab mode of any type,” Rizzo said Sunday. “He’s going to get into his regular program. [Pitching coach] Jim Hickey and Davey [Martinez] are going to get with all the pitchers and schedule their live [batting practices]. There’s a progression. You throw a bullpen and a live BP, and then we’ve got games right around the corner. I think he’ll be in that progression somewhere.”
“The one thing I can [tell you] is the circulatory problems are no longer with us. So that’s a good thing,” the GM said. “That was the main reason for the surgery. We don’t have a whole lot of knowledge on pitchers with the thoracic outlet surgery, but I do know he looks in great shape and he feels good with his throwing program. He’s on pace. But you never know until you let it loose for 32 starts to see where you’re at health-wise.”
The Nationals’ first exhibition is against the Miami Marlins in West Palm Beach on Friday. Asked about his starter for that game, Manager Dave Martinez laughed and shook his head, indicating that he and Hickey were just trying to get through the afternoon. But Martinez did float young arms such as Cade Cavalli and Jackson Rutledge as possibilities because both top prospects have been throwing in minor league camp since late February. The manager has otherwise spent the weekend seeing what his pitchers and players did while he couldn’t contact them during the 99-day owners’ lockout.
For Ross, this is another setback after undergoing Tommy John surgery in July 2017 and ending last year early with a partial tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. The 28-year-old, who is entering his final season of arbitration eligibility, mixed flashes of promises with duds in 2021. He underwent the latest elbow procedure in Texas, where he trained this past offseason and felt a sharp pain this month.
For Aníbal Sánchez, Ross’s rotation mate for parts of the title season, here’s what could be his final shot at pitching in the majors. His last appearance was for the Nationals on Sept. 26, 2020, capping the pandemic-shortened season with a 6.62 ERA. His most recent gem was a near no-hitter in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series in 2019. If nothing else, his experience and affability — not to mention his seven pitches, at least two change-ups among them — could help some young guys in camp.
For Aaron Sanchez, this is another opportunity to spick despite recurring blisters on his throwing hand. He made nine appearances for the San Francisco Giants last season, seven of them starts, and had a 3.06 ERA in 35⅓ innings. He could compete for starts or for reps as a swing man out of the bullpen. If he reaches the majors in 2022, his base salary will be $2 million with a chance to earn up to $4 million total with performance bonuses.
“We talked, and he wants to attack spring training as if it was just a normal spring training,” Martinez said. “That’s an indication for me that he’s feeling pretty good.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Scott Turner agreed to a new three-year contract that will take him through the 2024 season, a person with knowledge of the deal confirmed Sunday night.
Turner, 39, joined Coach Ron Rivera’s staff in 2020 after spending four seasons with him over two stints with the Carolina Panthers, first as a quality control coach (2011-12) and then as quarterbacks coach (2018-19).
When Rivera was fired by the Panthers late in the 2019 season, Turner was elevated to interim offensive coordinator and play-caller, affording him a four-game tryout of sorts for his next role — at a place he knows well. Turner went to high school in Northern Virginia when his father, Norv, was Washington’s coach from 1994 to 2000.
Last season, after Ryan Fitzpatrick was lost to injury in the season opener, Washington turned to Taylor Heinicke, a free agent signed as an emergency option at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Heinicke worked with Turner for Minnesota and then Carolina but had been out of the NFL for nearly a year before Turner brought him back.
“He’s one of the main reasons I’m still in the NFL and even got a chance to start in the NFL,” Heinicke said in January. “And I say start — I mean even just got a shot in Minnesota my rookie year. So he’s probably the main guy that got me in this league and kept me in this league, and I kind of take my experience with him and my journey with him and I try to tell it to the young kids back home. I train them, ‘All it takes is one guy to like you, so don’t care about what the other people say, if you can’t play, can’t do this, can’t do that.’ All it takes is one dude.’ ”
Retaining Turner for three more years provides continuity where there has been little in Washington. Wentz has three seasons left on his contract. His salaries for 2023 and 2024 are not guaranteed, so the team could part with him at no cost if things go sour this season. But should he impress, the Commanders’ quarterback and play-caller are locked in through 2024.
Also, the Commanders re-signed cornerback/special teamer Troy Apke to a one-year contract, potentially setting the stage for a series of moves in the coming days. Free agency officially begins at 4 p.m. Wednesday. | null | null | null | null | null |
TAMPA, Fla. — Tom Brady’s retirement lasted 40 days. He said Sunday he’s returning to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for his 23rd NFL season.
MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Vikings and quarterback Kirk Cousins have agreed to a one-year contract extension.
PHOENIX — Anthony Davis had a few words to say about the Los Angeles Lakers’ playoff loss to the Phoenix Suns last season before the teams played Sunday night. The Suns got the last word.
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Rattled by a derogatory shout from a spectator, Naomi Osaka went on to lose 6-0, 6-4 to Veronika Kudermetova in the second round of the BNP Paribas Open.
DENVER — The Colorado Avalanche say captain Gabriel Landeskog is scheduled to undergo knee surgery Monday and there’s no timetable for his return. | null | null | null | null | null |
Live updates:Russia-Ukraine live updates: Kyiv and Moscow, U.S. and China talk as Ukrain...
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates haven’t been aligning with the U.S. — or Russia
By Cinzia Bianco
Oil tanks at an Aramco facility in Saudi Arabia in 2019. (Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)
Yemen’s Houthi movement stepped up its attacks. That complicates U.S. policy in the region.
The gulf monarchies’ ambiguity over Ukraine is more about their relations with the United States than their interests in Russia. As other global and regional powers seek to fill the vacuum left by American retrenching from the region, extreme hedging has become appealing. If two global powers are in conflict — in this case, the United States and Russia — aligning with neither of them, or with the third global power, China, may seem wise.
This idea is based on the assumption that multipolarity will open space for regional powers to maneuver and hedge, forgoing the costs of strategic alignment for the benefits of tactical, interests-driven and context-specific posturing. The invasion of Ukraine is providing a trial run for this strategy. It may also prove to regional leaders that this hypothetical hedging space is as narrow and as uncomfortable as it gets.
The UAE sat on the fence at the U.N.
The decision to abstain from voting on the U.S.-sponsored Security Council resolution condemning the Russian invasion brought the UAE’s hedging strategy into sharp relief.
The resolution had 80 co-sponsors, highlighting the international consensus against Russia. The UAE claimed the resolution was doomed to fail in any event, given the Russian veto in the Security Council. And the UAE made an unconvincing statement about preserving neutrality to “support efforts towards a peaceful resolution.”
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield declared that abstaining was akin to supporting Russia, but the UAE was also supporting China’s position by abstaining, rather than taking a stance for Russia.
The Emiratis were no doubt pleased that Russia did not veto a Feb. 28 U.N. resolution renewing an arms embargo against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who recently began aiming attacks directly toward the UAE. But this resolution, while important, is not a game-changer for the Yemen war or Abu Dhabi’s security from Houthi attacks.
On the same day, the UAE’s minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, was scheduled to meet his counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow — but canceled.
Pressed by the United States to pump more oil in order to help drive down skyrocketing energy prices — a consequence of the Russian invasion — the Emirati ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, hinted that Abu Dhabi would be available to do so, only to be contradicted by Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei shortly afterward.
This strategic ambiguity is the essence of the new hedging course, and it is clearer than ever in the energy geopolitics of the crisis.
Oiling the crisis
Alongside the UAE, Saudi Arabia is even more prominently involved in the oil dimension of the crisis, as Russia’s ability to finance military operations relies heavily on export revenue.
The energy market outlook appears dire. Before the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, oil and gas prices were rising, as demand from post-covid economies grew faster than available supply — and producers remained cautious about returning too quickly to pre-pandemic output levels. A U.S. ban on Russian oil and potential disruptions to Moscow’s export capabilities pushed prices even higher, to around $130 a barrel last week.
Higher prices are welcome news for Saudi Arabia after the all-time lows in 2020 — but far less welcome for Saudi Arabia’s Western partners. Thus far, Saudi Arabia has resisted strong calls by Washington and Paris to increase output to help push oil prices down. Saudi claims that they don’t want to politicize oil or disrupt OPEC-plus cooperation are, at best, a sign of myopia over the depth of the Ukraine crisis and the inevitability of its implications.
Western leaders also remember that in March 2020, Saudi Arabia crushed Russia in an oil price war, even directly targeting Russia’s market shares in Eastern Europe. Having this kind of capability means Saudi Arabia cannot escape pressures to take a stance.
Saudi Arabia may believe this is a good opportunity to show its support should not be taken for granted, when it sees the United States less interested in preserving the partnership. But this could trigger a new push for further decoupling between Washington and Riyadh.
Can gulf monarchies continue to hedge their bets?
The gulf monarchies so far failed to see that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a regional European war, but an event of global significance. In their first attempt at navigating a multipolar world order, they claimed they shouldn’t be forced to take sides and chose extreme hedging. Hedging might be a way to thrive in a multipolar world, but it is also a risky, delicate approach. In the face of Russia’s violent attempts to redraw the international rules-based order, hedging may have already reached its limits.
Cinzia Bianco (@Cinzia_Bianco) is the Gulf Research Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute. | null | null | null | null | null |
Russians could face war crimes tribunal. The first one, in 1474, ended in a beheading.
A 1483 illustration from Diebold Schilling the Elder’s “Bern Chronicle” depicting Peter von Hagenbach on trial. (Wuselig/Wikimedia Commons)
Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court announced it was investigating possible war crimes in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the alleged use of cluster munitions and vacuum bombs, targeting of civilians and an attack on a nuclear facility. Neither Russia nor the United States is a member of the International Criminal Court. Ukraine isn’t either, although it has previously accepted the court’s jurisdiction within its borders.
The current ICC at The Hague sprang from the Nuremberg trials of high-level Nazis after World War II. But the concept of an international war crimes tribunal goes back more than 500 years, to an empire that no longer exists and a case that ended in a beheading.
In the late 15th century, the Holy Roman Empire stretched across much of Central Europe, comprising dozens of independent and mostly German-speaking city-states, although its power was waning. To the west, the kingdom of France was taking shape. And sandwiched between the two was the Duke of Burgundy, Charles “the Bold” (or “the Terrible,” depending on whose history you’re reading), who was constantly trying to expand his control in both directions.
In 1469, the duke acquired a number of territories in the Alsace and Upper Rhine regions in a complex deal with the Holy Roman Empire. No one bothered to ask the people living in these regions what they thought of the deal, so when Peter von Hagenbach, one of the duke’s knights, assembled an army and showed up to govern the place, the people were somewhat hostile. It didn’t help that Hagenbach spoke French and these people spoke German.
Had the duke sent someone with a light touch, who could have won over the hearts and minds of the people, the acquisition of the region could have been hugely helpful to the duke, who had visions of becoming the Holy Roman emperor, according to Gregory S. Gordon, a law professor and international tribunal expert who has written about the case.
But “light touch” was not Hagenbach’s vibe. He soon levied taxes, probably in violation of the arrangement with the Holy Roman Empire, and, according to an account by the French historian Prosper de Barante that Gordon quoted, when representatives of the town of Thann complained to Hagenbach that the taxes were too high, he had them executed “without any sort of trial.”
He made farmers abandon their fields and work for him; his soldiers mistreated people in whose homes they were quartered; and Swiss merchants passing through the area, who were not subject to his authority, were imprisoned and abused.
But his “chief atrocity,” according to Gordon, appears to have been mass rape. Hagenbach’s soldiers terrorized the women of the region, and Hagenbach was said to have personally raped a young nun. In another sadistic episode recounted by Barante, Hagenbach invited all the married couples in a town to a party. Once they arrived, the women were made to strip naked and put a cloth over their heads while the men were confined to another room. Each man was then forced to guess which nude woman was his wife; guessing correctly meant the husband was allowed to die by alcohol poisoning rather than being thrown down the stairs.
Recent historians have questioned the veracity of these more outlandish stories about Hagenbach, which come from the writings of enemies, who may have been angrier about Hagenbach’s anti-corruption reforms. But even these “revisionist” historians, as Gordon referred to them, acknowledged that he was strict, gruff and increasingly cruel to the people he governed, and that his harshness may have included sexual violence.
In any case, by 1474, an alliance of Swiss and Austrian soldiers, with France’s encouragement, united against Burgundy, and Hagenbach holed up in the walled city of Breisach, where he planned to exterminate the residents. In the end, his own soldiers mutinied and offered him up to enemies.
Hagenbach was repeatedly tortured and allegedly confessed to his crimes. But rather than having him summarily executed or given over to a lynch mob, the archduke of Austria convened a jury of 26 representatives of the sovereign regions that had allied against Burgundy to decide his fate.
The trial began at 8 a.m. on May 9, 1474, in an open-air court packed with people hoping to witness an execution. The prosecutor said Hagenbach had “trampled under foot the laws of God and man” by committing murder, conspiracy to commit murder, perjury and rape. The defense claimed the ad hoc court had no authority, that Hagenbach’s sexual encounters had been consensual, and that his other acts were on the direct order of Charles the Bold.
The defense counsel implored: “Sir Peter von Hagenbach does not recognize any other judge and master but the Duke of Burgundy from whom he had received his commission and his orders. He had no right to question the orders which he was charged to carry out, and it was his duty to obey. Is it not known that soldiers owe absolute obedience to their superiors?”
He asked that the court adjourn so interrogators could ask the duke himself whether Hagenbach’s claims were true, but the court ruled that it didn’t matter, as such a defense would be “contrary to the law of God.”
By 4 p.m. on the same day, the jury found Hagenbach guilty and sentenced him to death. Representatives of seven towns vied for the chance to be the executioner. Hagenbach asked for forgiveness for his crimes and “for other things even worse than that.” Then he was beheaded.
(Hagenbach’s mummified head is on display at a museum in France, and The Washington Post recommends that you not Google this, because it is gruesome.)
For centuries, the tale of Hagenbach’s life and death was largely buried in history books. But the English scholar Georg Schwarzenberger unearthed it in 1946 as the international community was preparing for what would become the Nuremberg trials. Schwarzenberger was born a German Jew and had emigrated to Britain in 1934; most of his family died in the Holocaust.
Biden administration cautiously approaches accusing Russia of war crimes
Here, in the Hagenbach trial, was precedent, Schwarzenberger wrote in op-eds and books, for the jurisdiction of an international tribunal, the concept of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the rejection of the “superior orders” argument.
Apparently, the Nuremberg prosecutors and judges noticed, because they cited the Hagenbach case, which had taken place “only a few hundred kilometers from Nuremberg,” several times over the next few years. And at Nuremberg, the “superior orders” argument, now often called the “Nuremberg defense,” also largely failed. What a judge in 1474 called “contrary to the law of God” essentially became Nuremberg Principle IV: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” | null | null | null | null | null |
DOJ alleged Jan. 6 was a seditious conspiracy. Now will it investigate Trump?
Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland was a U.S. Attorney when domestic terrorists attacked the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. (Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)
The arrest of Tarrio, who says he is no longer the Proud Boys leader, is significant in part because he was not even in Washington on Jan. 6 — an indication prosecutors are moving farther from the scene of the crime toward anyone who may have plotted the attack from afar.
Wasserman said the association is concerned, however, with rising violent crime in the United States, and whether the department’s policies are appropriate to meet the moment.
Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor and counsel at the advocacy group Protect Democracy, said Garland’s legacy will probably be defined by that issue. At stake, she said, is not just whether Trump will face personal consequences, but whether the Justice Department can hold accountable those who commit crimes, irrespective of their political status.
It’s still unclear if the department is targeting the former president specifically as it investigates the Jan. 6 riot, Parker said. There are some worrying signs it is not, she said, particularly in not seeking interviews with those closest to Trump. But Garland has insisted investigators are building cases up from low-level players and will follow the evidence however high it leads. So far, investigators are not known to have interviewed those closest to Trump as part of their probe.
Garland’s quiet demeanor and strategy is the right one, Brand said, particularly for the Jan. 6 cases. “In this case, the less said publicly the better, because you don’t want to impact juries or judges,” or give any ammunition to defense lawyers, he said.
In contrast, the House committee investigating Jan. 6 has been publicly outspoken, recently arguing in a court filing that they have “a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
Two of the department’s biggest wins came last month, with convictions in the hate crimes case against three White men in Georgia who killed Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, and the civil rights trial of three former Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of another Black man, George Floyd.
Still, some activists have been frustrated by the pace of change. Civil rights groups in numerous jurisdictions have pleaded, so far unsuccessfully, for federal investigations into their city’s police departments. | null | null | null | null | null |
Congress is taking a good first step to address the mistreatment of LGBT veterans
The U.S. has long mistreated LGBT soldiers — and denied them veterans benefits
By Natalie Shibley
Natalie Shibley is a visiting assistant professor at Wesleyan University and is writing a book about race, homosexuality investigations and notions of disease in the U.S. military between the 1940s and 1990s.
The grave of Leonard P. Matlovich, the first gay service member to fight the military's ban. He died in 1988 of complications from HIV/AIDS and is buried at Congressional Cemetery in Washington. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
On Jan. 21, Reps. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee; Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the Armed Services Committee; and Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), chair of the subcommittee on military personnel, asked the Department of Defense to “conduct a historical review of service by LGBTQ+ military personnel,” including the effects of policies requiring discharge of these troops.
This came on the heels of the Department of Veterans Affairs announcing in September that it would restore access to benefits to veterans who received other than honorable discharges because of their sexual orientation. These are two critical steps toward addressing discrimination that harmed an estimated 100,000 or more veterans discharged for homosexuality between World War II and the 2011 repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Fully redressing these wrongs may be impossible. But the study requested by Takano, Smith and Speier is an important step toward addressing their present ramifications and identifying what, if any, action the government can take to ameliorate their harmful legacies.
Gay Americans were technically prohibited from military service during World War II, although many served nonetheless. Psychiatric screening at induction centers included questions about homosexuality, seeking to identify and disqualify gay recruits from the outset. But being disqualified from military service because of homosexuality was highly stigmatizing, with the potential to devastate a recruit’s civilian life, so many did not answer truthfully. Additionally, some inductees answered honestly based on the specific wording of the questions they were asked (for example, some reported being asked whether they “liked girls”), others may not have thought of themselves as gay until after they were already in the service, and occasionally some answered that they had experienced attraction to the same sex but were not actually disqualified, in part because of officials’ concerns that declarations of homosexuality were a means of evading the draft.
Once in the armed forces, however, even suspicion of being gay could be grounds for discharge, and it threatened access to veterans benefits. The key question was how the military categorized a service member’s discharge.
The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 — the vaunted GI Bill — promised an array of benefits to veterans, most importantly cheap government-backed home mortgages and tuition for college or vocational school. Theoretically, most veterans were eligible for these benefits; the law itself barred only those who had been dishonorably discharged. However, VA (then a non-Cabinet level agency called the Veterans Administration) interpreted the law so as to bar veterans who had received “blue discharges,” so named because they were printed on blue paper, that were neither honorable nor dishonorable.
Commanders frequently issued “blue discharges” for suspected homosexuality, and they also went disproportionately to Black soldiers. (Legislation introduced in the House and Senate would address the racial inequalities in Black veterans’ abilities to obtain GI Bill benefits.)
Because individual cases could be reconsidered based on their facts, many veterans accused of homosexuality sought help from veterans’ and civil rights organizations to appeal their discharges or obtain upgrades. But they found little success as appeals processes typically determined that the discharges had not violated procedure.
Although the Army stopped issuing blue discharges shortly after World War II, individuals who had received them did not receive automatic upgrades, and VA continued to view these veterans as ineligible for benefits. Furthermore, homosexuality remained a reason to discharge someone for “unfitness” or “unsuitability.”
Importantly, personnel separations were rarely dispassionate administrative processes; they were investigations, many of which were extremely extensive and invasive. The records of these investigations were often hundreds of pages long and were frequently classified. They could include interrogations by military police, witness statements and other elements of criminal investigations, such as stakeouts or polygraph tests.
Frequently these investigations occurred with either an explicit or implicit threat of a court-martial — for sodomy, “conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline,” obstruction of justice in the course of the investigation or any other violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that the investigation may have uncovered — dangling over the head of the accused. Investigators could leverage this possibility to get admissions of homosexuality, even when the accused ultimately faced no charges.
For example, the 1953 Army regulation governing “Separation of Homosexuals” outlined three categories for accused soldiers. Class II referred to “true or confirmed homosexual personnel,” who were accused of engaging in “homosexual acts” or attempts at such acts but who were not accused of doing so by force or without consent (distinguishing this category from Class I). Class II offenders could be brought to court-martial but were offered the option to resign instead. To avoid a trial, enlisted personnel who had served less than three years had to sign a statement accepting an undesirable discharge under conditions other than honorable. The statement required acknowledging they might “be deprived of many rights as a veteran under both Federal and State legislation” and that they could “expect to encounter substantial prejudice in civilian life” if or when the nature of their discharge was revealed.
But facing the threat of criminal trial and potential imprisonment, many soldiers signed this acknowledgment.
The regulations about homosexuality changed several times in the 1950s and 1960s and were often extremely vague, as military leaders struggled to define something that evaded definition. The notoriously nebulous term “homosexual tendencies” abounded in personnel regulations for decades, providing wide berth for accusations and prompting complaints that it was insufficiently specific to mandate separation.
Then in 1982, after a series of legal challenges to the earlier regulations, the Defense Department revised Directive 1332.14 to state bluntly, “Homosexuality is incompatible with military service.” This directive sought to define homosexuality more clearly and to bar gay service members more unambiguously. The regulation defined “homosexual,” “bisexual” and the term “homosexual act” and mandated separation for a member “who has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual unless there is a further finding that the member is not a homosexual or bisexual.” (How such a further finding might be accomplished was not clear.)
Even as the regulations changed, however, one notion remained consistent: the idea of homosexuality as something to be investigated criminally. According to a report published in 1992 by the General Accounting Office (its name at the time; now the Government Accountability Office), between 1986 and 1990, the armed forces conducted an average of 732 criminal investigations related to homosexuality per year. The ban disproportionately affected women, whose representation was growing during this period; from fiscal years 1980 to 1990, women were only 10 percent of all military personnel, but they were 23 percent of the 16,919 people discharged for homosexuality.
Such discharges continued to result in the involuntary loss of careers, income and potential retirement benefits, subjected veterans to stigma from the reason for discharge listed on their paperwork and jeopardized the veterans benefits of those who received “other than honorable” discharges. Countless service members suffered these detriments solely because of their sexuality, or accusations about their sexuality.
Although sexual orientation is no longer a valid reason for discharge, the harms to veterans who experienced these discriminatory policies, as well as to the individuals these policies excluded from military service entirely, are ongoing and largely irreparable. Yet the historical review requested by Takano, Smith and Speier can help uncover this history, determine its present ramifications and identify, what, if any, action the government can take to rectify this past wrong. | null | null | null | null | null |
Putin’s assault also targets Ukraine’s history
It is not only the country that faces erasure
By Alexandra Sukalo
Alexandra Sukalo is a historian of Russia and Eastern Europe and a postdoctoral fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. Her current book project is a history of the Soviet political police under Lenin and Stalin in the Soviet Union’s western republics.
Russian shelling severely damaged the regional headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine. (State Emergency Service Of Ukraine/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Over the past few weeks, the Russian military has conducted a multipronged assault against Ukraine, striking military targets, airports and hospitals and leveling towns and apartment buildings across the country.
Vladimir Putin precipitated his invasion of Ukraine with a fiery speech televised to the Russian population, during which he contested the very existence of Ukraine and charged that the state was an artificial creation. Such a claim, of course, rewrites history, something that Putin has done repeatedly when explaining the origins of World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now the stakes are even higher. With Russian forces shelling Ukraine’s major cities and the threat of drawn-out urban warfare looming on the horizon, the war is having dire consequences for the Ukrainian people. A less immediate but important consequence of the war is that the invasion may also destroy historical archives that will limit what historians and others can learn about Ukraine’s past.
On Feb. 27 in Chernihiv oblast, Russian shelling severely damaged the regional headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine, or Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy (SBU), which houses important archival materials including documentation of Nazi atrocities in Ukraine. If Putin succeeds in destroying or removing critical records like those in the SBU archive, it could erase Ukrainians’ distinct experiences and buttress Putin’s view of history, in which, among many other things, he sees Ukrainians and Russians as one people.
The destruction of books, documents and art is a centuries-old practice of aggressors to control or annihilate the cultural legacy of their victims. In 391 A.D., Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlawed all religions other than Christianity. As part of this decree, he ordered the leveling of the pagan Temple of Serapis and the elimination of the records housed within. These records had survived the Library of Alexandria’s first fire, but he viewed their continued existence as “the cause of evils.”
More recently, during the Second World War, the Nazis destroyed records as well as religious and historic artifacts as part of their genocidal campaign. In addition to the decimation of sacred texts, the Nazis burned 70 percent of Jewish books in Poland and looted many more, sending them back to Germany. The Nazis then used these stolen books to support their allegedly objective, scientific research into the “Jewish Question,” perverting the books’ contents to legitimize their racial theories.
Destroying or stealing books and files is not the only way to control what people can learn about the past, of course. The unnecessary classification or concealment of documents can also create gaps in the record and silence the voices of those with divergent views. Indeed, that is why the Soviet Union tightly controlled access to archives, banning public access. Independent historians who endeavored to fill in the “blank spots” of Soviet history had to turn to alternative sources and self-publish their findings. Their pursuit of truth put them in danger of censorship and repression.
In a departure from the Soviet government that he used to serve, Boris Yeltsin opened the Central Party Archive along with classified Soviet files in other state archives in 1991 when he became president of the newly independent Russian Federation. This allowed historians and the general public to learn more about the crimes of the Soviet government while distancing the Russian Federation and the states of the former Soviet Union from the old regime. In opening the archives, Yeltsin showed his support for the democratic value of access to information and set the precedent for his successors to do the same.
However, in his more than two decades in power, Putin has made minimal effort to open important Soviet archives. Though researchers at the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI) and the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense in Podolsk now have access to some previously classified collections, the Presidential Archive of the Russian Federation, the former KGB central archive and the foreign intelligence service archive remain closed.
Why? Because by blocking historians from conducting archival research and punishing anyone who deviates from his perverse view of the past, Putin assumes greater control. To ensure adherence to his interpretation of global conflict, on May 5, 2014, Putin signed a law that would result in up to a five-year prison sentence to anyone who defames and distorts the Soviet Union’s role in World War II.
It is not merely petulance: Putin uses historical myths to undergird his regime. World War II plays a key role in Russia’s ideological offensive and serves to legitimize Russia’s great-power aspiration. Russian revanchism also distracts from growing socio-economic problems at home.
On Dec. 28, Putin went one step further in his assault on history when Moscow’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of Memorial International, Russia’s oldest civil rights group, which studies Soviet political repressions and crimes. In his remarks to the court, prosecutor Alexei Zhafyarov charged the organization with creating “a false image of the U.S.S.R. as a terrorist state by speculating on the topic of political repression in the 20th century.” After this ruling, historians writing about Soviet atrocities have become persona non grata in Putin’s Russia.
Any criticism of powerful actors — even those in the past — is seen as a challenge to Putin’s own power. As a result, historians seeking to retain access to Russia’s archives may have to modulate their findings if they run counter to Putin’s narrative or accept that they may no longer be able to conduct research in Russia.
The Ukrainian government has directly challenged Putin’s war on history. In an effort to promote transparency, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law in April 2015 throwing open the doors of the country’s Soviet-era political police archives to researchers around the world. Until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, researchers at the Haluzevyi derzhavnyi arkhiv Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy housed in the SBU headquarters in Kyiv, had access to records of criminal tribunals and interrogations as well as the personnel files of the Soviet political police officers working in Ukraine. This is just one of the many critical archives that Putin could destroy to pervert understandings of the past and history itself.
It is not only Ukraine that faces erasure — it is also Ukraine’s history. The very existence of archives like the SBU poses a direct threat to Putin. It is impossible to imagine a scenario in which he would allow these crucial files to remain in Ukraine. As the world realizes that Putin’s objectives are grandiose, it becomes clearer that he will not be satisfied only by “demilitarizing” Ukraine. He will also seek to erase Ukraine’s separate and distinct history from the archival record. | null | null | null | null | null |
Their ‘unlimited’ partnership may have some limits after all
Andrew Taffer
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing last month. (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin/Pool/AP)
China and Russia declared their friendship has “no limits,” codified in a Feb. 4 joint statement. But China abstained on two U.N. votes to condemn Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, stopping short of giving Russia its full support.
To some analysts, the statement from Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin was a “radical departure from the past” — a sign that the two leaders had “declared a united front against the United States and its allies.” Certainly the China-Russia relationship appears closer than at any point since the early Cold War. China now officially “opposes further enlargement of NATO,” for instance.
But as much as the 5,000-word statement reveals about the partnership’s strength, it obscures equally important limitations — and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine further complicates the relationship.
China is wary of Russian moves and motives
In the Feb. 4 statement, Beijing sympathized with Russia’s Ukraine policy and supported Moscow’s proposals for security guarantees in Europe. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing maintained friendly relations with Kyiv and probably is wary of fallout over its close relationship with Russia — and its perceived role as the Kremlin’s silent accomplice.
In early March, China’s top diplomat told his Ukrainian counterpart that Beijing “deplores the outbreak of conflict between Ukraine and Russia and is extremely concerned about civilian causalities.” Subsequently, Beijing suggested it might mediate between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia’s facilitation of separatist movements in post-Soviet states contradicts one of the fundamental tenets of Chinese foreign policy — the inviolability of national sovereignty. China’s approach to Taiwan rests on this very basis. Beijing claims Taiwan as part of China, and Beijing’s “one-China principle” is a cornerstone of Chinese foreign policy.
Beijing opposes efforts by the international community to afford Taiwan any recognition of statehood and reserves the right to use military force to counter any official declaration of independence by Taiwan. After formally recognizing the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, Russia is now intent on carving further into Ukraine’s territory. This approach probably raises concerns in Beijing that Taiwan (aided by the United States) could be stripped from China. Russia’s actions in Ukraine also have served to enhance international support for preserving Taiwan’s autonomy.
Russia’s territorial revisionism has consistently caused unease in Beijing. In 2014, China claimed to be neutral about Russia’s annexation of Crimea — and abstained on U.N. resolutions condemning Russia and supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
In 2008, Beijing didn’t follow Moscow’s lead, or recognize the breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. China and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian regional security group founded in 2001, declined to endorse Russian actions in Georgia unequivocally. Instead, the members committed to the “unity and territorial integrity of states.”
What’s off limits in the relationship?
Contrary to the Feb. 4 declaration that “there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation” in the Sino-Russian partnership, there is at least one proscribed issue: any discussion of its limitations. Both countries restrict what the media and individuals can say, and it is increasingly difficult to find challenges in the bilateral relationship discussed publicly. However, for those who have followed the expert discussion over the past several decades and met with analysts from both countries, differences have long been evident.
Xi and Putin have declared a united front against the United States
As the Ukraine war illustrates, China and Russia usually agree on broad principles (e.g., opposition to U.S. alliances), but they often diverge on specifics or policy remedies. In principle, Russia supports China’s rising economic and military power. In practice, the disparity in Chinese and Russian power creates unease about a U.S.-China bipolar world sidelining Moscow.
Russia’s insecurity over the growth of China’s power is reflected in concerns articulated in scholarly discussion in Russia over Xi’s aim to create a “community of common destiny” to ensure China’s stewardship. Such a community would require a leader — which would not be Russia.
Moscow is also keeping a close eye on China’s growing power and presence in areas traditionally regarded as Russia’s sphere of influence. In Central Asia, China’s Belt and Road Initiative development projects encourage dependence on Chinese investment and trade, competing with Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union. In the Arctic, Russia has served as the wary gatekeeper for China’s growing ambitions as a “near-Arctic state.”
In Asia, Russia’s efforts to maintain influence come at China’s expense. India and Vietnam, Russia’s long-standing regional partners, are historical Chinese adversaries. Russia continues to sell cutting-edge weapons to India and Vietnam — weapons that either country could use against China in a conflict. Russia has done little to support China’s positions on the South China Sea and instead cooperated with Vietnam to develop offshore energy resources.
Check out all of TMC’s coverage of the Russia and Ukraine crisis in our new topic guide: Russia and its neighbors
What will China do now?
The invasion of Ukraine has the potential to exacerbate these differences, despite any statements of Sino-Russian friendship. Russia is counting on China to offset the pain of Western economic sanctions. For now, China appears to be going along with Western sanctions, while protesting their legality. Chinese commercial banks began limiting financing to Russian customers, and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank suspended lending to Russia and Moscow ally Belarus. Russia also claimed China was refusing to supply commercial aircraft parts.
However, China’s UnionPay credit card provides some respite for Russian consumers cut off from Western credit and banking systems. And China relies on Russia for a significant share of its oil, gas and coal imports. U.S. officials say Russia has asked China for military equipment, but it is unclear how Beijing will respond.
If Beijing’s moves now leave Moscow disappointed, this may well aggravate other irritants in the partnership.
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has placed Xi in a number of uncomfortable, if not untenable, positions — with Russia, with the United States and Europe, and with the supposedly sacrosanct principles of Chinese foreign policy. These ripples are happening as the Chinese president, who is personally invested in the partnership with Putin, aspires to a third, if not an unlimited, term in office. With Xi — and China — looking ahead to the fall 2022 20th Party Congress, a major shift in China’s Russia policy seems unlikely. Over the weeks and months ahead, however, China’s growing recognition of the costs of partnership with Moscow may weaken its appeal.
[Don’t miss any of TMC’s smart analysis! Sign up for our newsletter.]
Elizabeth Wishnick is a senior research scientist at CNA, a nonprofit research institute in Arlington, Va., and the author of the China’s Resource Risks blog. She is on leave from Montclair State University and is a senior research scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University.
Andrew Taffer is a research scientist at CNA and an associate with the International Security Program at the Belfer Center at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Their views are their own and do not represent the policy or position of CNA or any of its sponsors. | null | null | null | null | null |
Justice Dept. alleged Jan. 6 was a seditious conspiracy. Now will it investigate Trump?
Attorney General Merrick Garland was a top Justice Department official when domestic terrorists attacked the Murrah Federal Building in 1995. (Joshua Carroll/The Washington Post)
The arrest of Tarrio, who says he is no longer the Proud Boys’ leader, is significant in part because he was not in Washington on Jan. 6 — an indication prosecutors are moving farther from the scene of the crime toward anyone who may have plotted the attack from afar.
Wasserman said the association is concerned, however, with rising violent crime in the United States and whether the department’s policies are appropriate to meet the moment.
Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor and counsel at the advocacy group Protect Democracy, said Garland’s legacy will probably be defined by that issue. At stake, she said, is not just whether Trump will face personal consequences but whether the Justice Department can hold accountable those who commit crimes, irrespective of their political status.
It’s still unclear whether the department is targeting the former president specifically as it investigates the Jan. 6 riot, Parker said. There are some worrying signs it is not, she said, particularly in not seeking interviews with those closest to Trump. But Garland has insisted investigators are building cases up from low-level players and will follow the evidence however high it leads. So far, investigators are not known to have interviewed those closest to Trump as part of their probe.
Garland’s quiet demeanor and strategy is the right one, Brand said, particularly for the Jan. 6 cases. “In this case, the less said publicly the better, because you don’t want to impact juries or judges” or give any ammunition to defense lawyers, he said.
In contrast, the House committee investigating Jan. 6 has been publicly outspoken, recently arguing in a court filing that it has “a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
Two of the department’s biggest wins came last month, with convictions in the hate-crimes case against three White men in Georgia who killed Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man, and the civil rights trial of three former Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of another Black man, George Floyd.
Still, some activists have been frustrated by the pace of change. Civil rights groups in numerous jurisdictions have pleaded, so far unsuccessfully, for federal investigations into their cities’ police departments. | null | null | null | null | null |
Xi has one advantage over Putin. Let’s see if he exploits it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Beijing last month. (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool Photo/AP)
Life must have looked so sweet to Chinese President Xi Jinping in early February. He had just cemented ties with China’s most important strategic partner in the world, pledging a friendship with “no limits.” China was about to host the Winter Olympics. As Russian President Vladimir Putin started putting the screws on Ukraine, European leaders were expressing some qualms about U.S. intelligence and reservations about how to sanction Russia in a post-invasion scenario.
Six weeks later, it is safe to say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a strategic disaster for Russia and a strategic setback for China. Ideally, revisionist world powers would like other actors to perceive them as possessing increasing capabilities but unclear intentions. This kind of rising power can incentivize some states to bandwagon and others to pass the buck. Russia has managed to reverse this equation. It is now perceived as a great power with overhyped capabilities but aggressively revisionist intentions. Little wonder that Russia’s actions have triggered the worst of all worlds for Putin: a quagmire in Ukraine and a balancing coalition.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not been great for China either. Sino-Ukrainian economic ties were pretty decent before the war, and that has obviously taken a hit. More importantly, it is easy for external observers to conclude that Xi gave his blessing for Putin’s invasion. Beyond the Feb. 4 summit, there is the awkward fact that Russia waited until just after the Winter Olympics ended to launch his invasion.
While Chinese diplomats have stressed their neutrality in the conflict, Xi has apparently doubled down in his support of Putin. According to the Economist’s Chaguan columnist, “In Beijing, scholars and high-ranking government advisers predict that today’s shows of Western unity will fade sooner or later, as sanctions fail to break Russia and instead send energy prices soaring. In their telling the conflict will hasten America’s decline and slow retreat from the world.”
That view might not be as widespread as Xi’s coterie of advisers believes. A lot of Western commentators have noted China’s awkward strategic situation. What is interesting is the Chinese commentators who have arrived at the same conclusion.
Last week, Hu Wei, a Shanghai-based academic and vice chairman of the Public Policy Research Center of the Counselor’s Office of the State Council, offered up a brutal “objective analysis” of the war in Ukraine for Russia and China. Among other things:
The unity of the Western world under the Iron Curtain will have a siphon effect on other countries: the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy will be consolidated, and other countries like Japan will stick even closer to the U.S., which will form an unprecedentedly broad democratic united front.
The power of the West will grow significantly, NATO will continue to expand, and U.S. influence in the non-Western world will increase. After the Russo-Ukrainian War, no matter how Russia achieves its political transformation, it will greatly weaken the anti-Western forces in the world. ... The West will possess more “hegemony” both in terms of military power and in terms of values and institutions, its hard power and soft power will reach new heights.
China will become more isolated under the established framework. For the above reasons, if China does not take proactive measures to respond, it will encounter further containment from the US and the West.
Similarly, Wang Huiyao, president of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, has an opinion piece in the New York Times arguing that China needed to change its tune on Ukraine and play the role of mediator. Wang notes that given the strategic situation it is not in Beijing’s interest to stand in lockstep with Moscow: “The longer the war lasts, the more it will reinvigorate the Western alliance around the idea of a values-based confrontation between East and West, bringing the United States and the European Union into even closer alignment while driving military budgets up around the globe. That is not good for China.”
It is interesting to note that U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan will be meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, in Rome today and, according to a senior administration official, Ukraine will be a “significant topic.” On Sunday, Sullivan said some interesting things on CNN’s “State of the Union” to Dana Bash. That included a warning on sanctions: “We are communicating directly, privately to Beijing, that there will absolutely be consequences for large-scale sanctions evasion efforts or support to Russia to backfill them.”
Sullivan also included an interesting out, however: that China “may not have understood the full extent of it because it’s very possible Putin lied to them the way he lied to Europeans and others.” Sullivan is clearly trying to offer China a graceful pathway to change its position on Ukraine — and, in the process, allow Beijing to escape from a strategic bind of its own making.
Where Beijing lands over the next week will be a crucial reveal. According to U.S. officials, Russia is now asking China for both military and economic aid to sustain its efforts in Ukraine. If ever there was a moment for Xi to change course, this is it. His choice will say a lot about the future of Sino-American relations, a fact I am sure Sullivan will stress in his meeting with Yang.
Xi Jinping has followed the same personalist path as Putin in his consolidation of power. Xi also shares with Putin a distaste for the concepts of human rights and democracy. He has been willing to be as brutal inside his borders as Putin. Xi has one big advantage over Putin right now, which is to learn from the global response to Russia. Like Putin, the pandemic has helped to isolate Xi, perhaps leading to some bad decision-making. We are about to find out if Xi is willing to engage in course correction or not. | null | null | null | null | null |
Lizzo, onstage at the South by Southwest festival in Austin on March 13. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images)
During the 2019 Sacramento Pride festival, she stood onstage — sporting a sparkly hot-pink outfit — as people behind her held “trans rights” and “Black Lives Matter” posters.
The singer also made several political statements leading up to the 2020 presidential election. She donned sheer wings and a fly costume with “Vote” pins for Halloween — a nod to the moment a bug landed in Vice President Mike Pence’s hair during a debate. That week, she urged citizens to vote in an Instagram post of her hair sculpted into a “40%” figure — referring to the percentage of American nonvoters in 2016. | null | null | null | null | null |
The NCAA women’s tournament bracket reveal Sunday night had few surprises at the top. South Carolina, as expected, earned the No. 1 overall seed, with defending champion Stanford the top seed in the Spokane Region, Louisville the No. 1 team in the Wichita Region and North Carolina State headlining the Bridgeport Region.
For starters, Bridgeport is about 78 miles from the Huskies’ campus, giving Connecticut a virtual home-court advantage once the tournament transitions to so-called neutral sites beginning in the Sweet 16. It’s not exactly the comforts of Gampel Pavilion — where Connecticut will play its first two games — but it should guarantee a throng of Huskies faithful for a potential region semifinal against No. 3 seed Indiana or No. 6 seed Kentucky and for a likely region final against the Wolfpack.
Plus, the Huskies are a legitimate powerhouse this season, even without that edge. According to Her Hoop Stats, Connecticut is nearly 37 net points per 100 possessions better than an average women’s team after adjusting for strength of schedule. Only Stanford, N.C. State and South Carolina have outscored opponents by more net points this season. In other words, it’s like there are two No. 1 seeds in the Bridgeport Region — and the second one has home-court advantage.
Nina King, the selection committee chairwoman and the athletic director at Duke, praised Connecticut for having “all the pieces, all of the team playing and also a team that’s on an upward trajectory.” She said N.C. State and Connecticut sharing a region was simply the way “it fell this year.”
The selection committee placed each seed line on an S curve, King said, meaning the final No. 1 seed would be matched up with the top No. 2 seed, and so on. King said “when we placed them in their regionals, we tried to stay true to the S curve, to really ensure competitive equity.”
That’s an interesting explanation. According to the NCAA’s own NET rankings, which replaced the RPI rating in 2020, Connecticut is the fourth-best team in the country. South Carolina is first, N.C. State is second and Stanford is third, so by that metric, Connecticut should have been no worse than the top No. 2 seed, which seemingly should have placed the Huskies in the same region as Louisville, which ranks fifth in the NET rankings. Of course there are other factors the committee takes into account in the final seeding, but the NET rankings were supposed to be “the primary sorting tool for evaluating teams,” according to the NCAA — and two of the top four teams are in the same region.
Even the betting markets see this draw as a major hurdle for N.C. State and a huge benefit for Connecticut. The former is the fourth choice to win the national title at FanDuel, with 11-1 odds, while Connecticut, with 7-2 odds, is the second choice behind South Carolina. The difference between those odds is staggering, implying second-seeded Connecticut has a 22 percent chance to win the national title, with first-seeded N.C. State having just an 8 percent chance.
Ultimately, the teams’ Final Four chances will be decided on the court. But the selection committee did N.C. State no favors by putting it in a region with a powerhouse that just got back its star and will be playing virtual home games. | null | null | null | null | null |
The recent outbreak comes weeks after Beijing hosted the Winter Olympics, taking great pains to make sure the event did not result in a new surge in cases. The country’s success over the virus compared with other countries has been held up by Chinese leaders as proof of the superiority of the Chinese system under Xi’s leadership. | null | null | null | null | null |
In the weeks since the invasion of Ukraine began, the Foreign Ministry formed a task force to investigate the influence some Russian business executives, including those with alleged ties to the Kremlin, have in Israel. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid also warned his fellow cabinet members last month against granting the oligarchs favors, saying such a move would cause diplomatic damage, according to an official present at the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
At least 14 rented private planes have departed from Moscow and landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in the past 12 days, Channel 12 News reported Saturday. Western nations, including Britain, the United States and European Union, have all imposed sanctions on some of Russia’s most prominent business executives.
These business executives — including Abramovich and billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman — not only have Israeli passports, but also often own luxury villas and maintain political ties and status as high-level donors and investors in the Israeli economy.
Abramovich, who was placed last week on a U.K. government sanctions list, acquired Israeli citizenship in 2018 and became one of the largest donors to Israeli and Jewish organizations. In late February, as Russian troops encroached on Ukraine’s borders, Abramovich made a donation that was in the “eight figures” to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial and museum, according to the organization’s chairman, Dani Dayan.
Leonid Nevzlin, a Russian-Israeli billionaire who is critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the business executives in his orbit, said Abramovich and others became “Jewish philanthropists, let’s say not from the bottom of their heart, but for protection worldwide.”
In an interview with Channel 12 News on Friday, Victoria Nuland, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, warned that Israel did not want “to become the last haven for dirty money that’s fueling Putin’s wars.” | null | null | null | null | null |
The portrait of Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky painted by Oleksa Novakivsky is the last painting to be taken down from the walls in the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv on March 7, 2022. (Kasia Strek for The Washington Post)
“City centers are seriously damaged, some of which have sites and monuments that date back to the 11th century,” Lazare Eloundou, the director of the United Nations’ world heritage program, told reporters last week. “It is a whole cultural life that risks disappearing.”
The deliberate destruction of a country’s or culture’s heritage is a considered a war crime, but UNESCO has not yet canceled its next summit, which is scheduled to take place in Russia.
As in Lviv’s museums, the walls inside are now bare, Lipatov said, but he declined to reveal whether its most valuable works had been evacuated outside of the city. Some of the pieces were painted inside the museum — an ornate palace dating back to the 1820s — and have never left it, including iconic 19-century Russian works by Ivan Aivazovsky and Ilya Repin.
Yaryna Shumska, a Lviv-based performance artist and painter who describes herself on her website as a chronicler of “the memory of objects and their invisible stories,” would love to transport her most cherished artworks to Ivano-Frankivsk but worries they would get damaged in the process. If she needs to flee Lviv, she’s likely to leave her art where it is, and hope the bombs fall elsewhere. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Hundreds of Muscovites line up outside the first McDonald’s restaurant in the Soviet Union on its opening day, in Moscow, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1990. Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, another powerful symbol opened its doors in the middle of Moscow: a gleaming new McDonald’s. It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union. But now, McDonald’s is temporarily closing its 850 restaurants in Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion. (AP Photo, File) (Anonymous/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
Meteorologist and journalists (Ashley Cafaro, Nicole Sommavilla, Iris St. Meran and Kate Thornton) at NewsChannel 9 in Syracuse, NY wear purple for the 7th annual #DressforSTEM on Monday. (Nicole Sommavilla)
On Monday, you may notice a lot of purple on your social media feed. Why? To raise awareness about the continued underrepresentation of women in many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
Now in its seventh year, the annual “Dress For STEM” event encourages women in science, and anyone else who would like to join in solidarity, to wear purple to celebrate female STEM pioneers, those active in the field today, and encourage the next generation of young female scientists.
Participants are encouraged to start discussion and show off their purple garb on social media using the hashtag #DressForSTEM.
The event intentionally coincides with “Pi Day,” a tribute to the mathematical constant, pi. The date March 14 represents the first three numbers in pi, 3.14, which appears in many mathematical formulas in math and physics.
Research indicates that the percentage of young girls interested in STEM declines in middle school as a result of exposure to inaccurate gender stereotypes. This translates to a lower proportion of women pursuing STEM careers later in life.
Leopold, along with a group of fellow female broadcast meteorologists, launched the grass roots effort to raise awareness of the gender gap, and encourage girls to pursue their passions for science.
Meteorologists on TV hold a unique platform, frequently invited into local news viewers’ homes each day, and sometimes are the only scientist people are exposed to. Some also don’t realize, that person on their TV is much more than just a “personality.” Many of their favorite local meteorologists went through vigorous higher education degree programs, heavily based in physics and advanced math, to thoroughly understand the physical science of the atmosphere.
While both men and women often have the same training and degree, a gender gap in equality, income, and representation still exists in STEM fields.
However, the numbers are slowly balancing as women continue to narrow the gender gap, ensuring both men and women have a seat at the scientific table.
According to a 2021 Pew Research Center analysis, women are still vastly underrepresented in computer science (25 percent) and engineering (15 percent) as compared to their male counterparts. Women have made significant gains in life sciences (such as biological or agriculture sciences) now representing 48 percent of overall workers. Physical sciences (such as astronomy, physics, or chemistry) also made significant gains, jumping to 40 percent in 2019, up from just 22 percent in 1990.
Interestingly, the analysis indicates the share of women working as atmospheric and space scientists (which is part of the physical scientist occupational cluster) rose sharply from 15 percent in 2016 to 24 percent in 2019.
Despite making gains in the workforce, women across all ethnic and racial groups in STEM fields continue to earn less than their male counterparts, with the largest gender-wage gap among white men and women, earning a median 74 percent ($66,200) as compared to their male counterparts ($90,600).
In a recent Pistoia Alliance survey, almost half (47 percent) of respondents believe that workplace culture is the biggest barrier for women embarking on a STEM career. This is followed by a lack of child care/maternity leave (17 percent) and an absence of female role models in the workplace (15 percent).
Representation and visibility of differing gender, ethnicities, and race matter, no matter the field of study and profession. In sciences, representation of women means the slow removal of gender biases and potentially the hopes of young girls who are interested in science.
As the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media states, “If she can see it, she can be it,” underlining the importance of visibility and representation of women in on-screen STEM roles to remove gender biases, foster inclusion, and reduce negative stereotyping in entertainment.
Also proving gaining ground, in a study by Edutopia, young girls today are increasingly likely to draw a picture of a scientist as female. In 2016, nearly 58 percent of those young girls drew a female scientist, as compared to just 1 percent when the study first occurred in the 1960s.
By wearing purple this Monday, March 14, you can help represent, elevate the visibility of real women in science, and potentially provide a role model, generate excitement, and encourage young girls to pursue their interests in science, technology, or math — even if they are the only girl in the room.
Kerrin Jeromin is helping organize the 7th annual #DressforSTEM event on Monday. Jeromin is an American Meteorological Society-certified broadcast meteorologist with more than 12 years of forecasting experience and has covered everything from winter storms to hurricanes to natural disasters and major climate events. | null | null | null | null | null |
Meteorologist and journalists (Ashley Cafaro, Nicole Sommavilla, Iris St. Meran and Kate Thornton) at NewsChannel 9 in Syracuse, N.Y. wear purple for the 7th annual #DressforSTEM on Monday. (Nicole Sommavilla)
On Monday, you may notice a lot of purple in your social media feed. Why? To raise awareness about the continued underrepresentation of women in many science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.
Now in its seventh year, the annual “Dress For STEM” event encourages women in science, and anyone else who would like to join in solidarity, to wear purple to celebrate female STEM pioneers, those active in the field and encourage the next generation of female scientists.
The event intentionally coincides with “Pi Day,” a tribute to the mathematical constant, pi. The date, March 14, represents the first three numbers in pi, 3.14, which appears in many formulas in math and physics.
Leopold, along with a group of fellow female broadcast meteorologists, launched the grass-roots effort to raise awareness of the gender gap and encourage girls to pursue their passion for science.
Women are still vastly underrepresented in computer science (25 percent) and engineering (15 percent) as compared with their male counterparts, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center analysis. Women have made significant gains in life sciences (such as biological or agriculture sciences) representing 48 percent of overall workers. Physical sciences (such as astronomy, physics or chemistry) also made significant gains, jumping to 40 percent in 2019, up from just 22 percent in 1990.
The analysis interestingly indicates that the share of women working as atmospheric and space scientists (which is part of the physical scientist occupational cluster) rose sharply from 15 percent in 2016 to 24 percent in 2019.
Despite making gains in the workforce, women across all ethnic and racial groups in STEM fields continue to earn less than their male counterparts, with the largest gender-wage gap being among White men and women, with White women earning a median 74 percent ($66,200) as compared with their male counterparts ($90,600).
Almost half (47 percent) of respondents in a Pistoia Alliance survey say that workplace culture is the biggest barrier for women embarking on a STEM career. This is followed by a lack of child care/maternity leave (17 percent) and an absence of female role models in the workplace (15 percent).
“If she can see it, she can be it,” states the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, underlining the importance of visibility and representation of women in on-screen STEM roles to remove gender biases, foster inclusion and reduce negative stereotyping in entertainment.
Young girls are increasingly likely to draw a picture of a scientist as female, says a study in Edutopia, proving that female visibility in STEM fields is growing. In 2016, nearly 58 percent of those young girls drew a female scientist, as compared with just 1 percent when the study was first conducted in the 1960s.
By wearing purple on Monday, March 14, you can help represent; elevate the visibility of real women in science and potentially provide a role model; generate excitement; and encourage young girls to pursue their interests in science, technology, or math — even if they are the only girl in the room.
Kerrin Jeromin is helping organize the 7th annual #DressforSTEM event Monday. Jeromin is an American Meteorological Society-certified broadcast meteorologist with more than 12 years of forecasting experience and has covered everything from winter storms to hurricanes to natural disasters and major climate events. | null | null | null | null | null |
‘Why are Europe and the U.S. holding back?’: Post reporters answer your questions
Katya, center, joins other Ukrainians as they attend a training Tuesday, March 8, on how to use weapons in the event of the Russians attack the city of Odessa, Ukraine. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Over the weekend, Russian forces widened the scope of their attacks across Ukraine. As the war continued into its third week, Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected appeals from French and German leaders to de-escalate the attacks.
On Sunday, at least 35 people were killed and 134 injured after Russian missiles struck a Ukrainian military facility about 15 miles away from the border with Poland. A Pentagon spokesman said no U.S. service members were killed in the attack.
What do you want to know about the war in Ukraine? Post reporters Isabelle Khurshudyan, Max Bearak, Karoun Demirjian and Missy Ryan are answering your questions now. Isabelle and Max are reporting from Ukraine. Karoun and Missy, who cover the Pentagon and the State Department respectively, are based in Washington. Here are some of the questions they’ve answered:
How do I explain the war in Ukraine to teenagers?
Are people leaving their pets behind in Ukraine?
What are the Russian demands in their talks with Ukraine?
Teddy Amenabar, an editor on The Post’s audience team, and Sammy Westfall, an assistant editor on the foreign desk, produced this Q&A. | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: No mercy for the Boston bomber
Investigators on April 16, 2013, examine the scene of the Boston Marathon bombing. (Elise Amendola/Associated Press)
James M. Doyle’s March 11 Friday Opinion essay, “Why Biden should commute Boston bomber’s death sentence,” was a metaphysical tour de force if ever there were one. He concluded that “despite the thousands of stories we’ve read about him, Tsarnaev will remain a stranger to the community for which the jury acted.” That community includes the families of the three people who died, one of whom was an 8-year-old boy. That community includes the more than 260 people injured, 17 of whom had limbs amputated as result of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s al-Qaeda-inspired barbarism.
Despite Mr. Doyle’s confident assertion that Mr. Tsarnaev will remain a stranger to the Boston community, I’ll wager otherwise.
William E. Fallon, Gaithersburg | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: Putin’s bogus rationale neglects the larger part of history
A scene in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 24. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post). (Heidi levine/FTWP)
The March 9 news article “Putin is bombing the ‘Russian world’ he claims to protect” cited Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view of Ukraine as part of “Russkiy Mir,” the Russian world he has vowed to protect. Because his “protection” is increasingly belied by the death and destruction of innocent Ukrainians, including Russian speakers, he turns to other rationale such as “history, culture and spiritual space.” Mr. Putin is correct, of course, that there were times when Russia controlled Ukraine, but he neglects the larger part of history when most of modern Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Austria-Hungary and Kievan Rus.
As for spiritual space, he plays on the theme of Orthodox support for the czar of all the Rus, emphasizing unity of faith as justifying the war but neglecting the fact that the patriarch of Moscow’s support for him undermines that very unity, not only within the Orthodox Church but also in Ukraine and the Russkiy Mir, wherever it is.
A change of heart by the patriarch, supported by a full-court press against Russia’s information iron curtain, could help undercut Mr. Putin's bogus rationale for war in Ukraine.
Henry Kenny, McLean
Paul Kane’s March 10 @PKCaptiol column, “Uncommonly united Congress rushes to send aid to Ukraine, with more to come,” said “lawmakers in both parties have pledged an unusual level of unity in the wake of the Russian invasion” and noted “while the initial Ukraine aid doubled in less than two weeks, it would have tripled if Congress took another week or two to formally unveil the proposal.” Inarguably, Ukraine needs aid. And yet, the same members of Congress, after months of debate, cannot see the humanitarian needs of their own constituents: shelter for the homeless, child care for low-income households, home care for the aging in place, food insecurity, etc. Many needs that could be met in President Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Give it a different name and maybe Congress (Republicans) can muster aid for its own citizens. Finally, congressional aid to Ukraine says we are supporting a free, democratic Ukraine against an authoritarian government. And yet, Republicans are doing everything to take away our democratic rights in the United States through state legislatures’ voting bills. It’s time for Republicans to own up to their hypocrisy.
Sally A. Kemink, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Regarding the March 10 news article “‘Armageddon’ in Mariupol, mayor says”:
The world has been attempting throughout history to get nations to honor the ideals of national self-determination, sovereign borders and peaceful coexistence. From the distant Treaty of Westphalia to the modern Helsinki Final Act, Paris Charter, Budapest Memorandum and U.N. Charter, Russia’s assault on Ukraine has shredded them all.
With respect to philosopher George Santayana’s famous aphorism, the fact that humankind has decidedly repeated history is not that people ever forgot the past. For they didn’t. But rather, what was not cured by these well-intentioned agreements was the irrepressible bubbling up of the basest of human instincts.
Instincts as in governments coveting other nations’ resources; engaging in irredentist aspirations; yearning for power, influence and global acknowledgment of a respected presence on the world stage; imagining how “the other,” as convenient bogeyman, has supposedly disenfranchised ethnic, cultural or language identities; or not being able to move beyond long-simmering aspirations to right perceived historical wrongs.
In the attack on Ukraine, we’re seeing a brazen rebuff of the inviolability of frontiers, nonintervention, and security and cooperation predictably play out yet again.
Keith Tidman, Bethesda
With respect to the question of whether the United States should facilitate the transfer of Polish MiG-29 fighter aircraft to Ukraine, using Ramstein air base in Germany, I would like to assure President Biden that Americans are not cowards.
Each day, The Post reports on ever worse bombing of Ukrainian civilians, now including even a maternity hospital [“17 injured as concerns deepen over escalating civilian casualties,” news, March 10]. As with most Americans, I do not know anyone in or from Ukraine, but I am haunted by the death from the sky raining down on innocent people. I think I might speak for many or most Americans when I say I would rather incur some risk of conflict with Russia instead of not doing what we can to stop the slaughter of innocents. So, I ask Mr. Biden to help send the Polish aircraft to Ukraine.
James D. McMichael, Buena Vista, Va.
Forget about the United Nations, forget about NATO, forget about Congress. Let’s hear it for McDonald’s. It appears that losing McDonald’s and the “Big Mac” is what is going to teach the Russian people just how wrong Vladimir Putin’s war is.
Dave Morine, Great Falls | null | null | null | null | null |
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Donald Trump, who isn’t known for subtlety, is not being coy about running for president again in 2024. At a rally in South Carolina over the weekend, he said, “In 2024 we are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House. I wonder who will do that. I wonder, I wonder.”
That seems to be what some prominent anti-Trump Republicans are considering. The Associated Press reports that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Reps. Liz Cheney (Wy.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) are all contemplating a run, and their allies are openly talking up the idea. Kinzinger, for instance, says there should “be a voice out there” to oppose what Trump represents.
It’s often noted that when a sitting president faces a serious primary challenge in their reelection bid, they usually lose the general election, as did Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush. Causality runs in both directions: Not only can a president be weakened by a primary challenge, it will probably happen only if he’s weak to begin with.
It’s certainly possible. While today’s GOP hasn’t gone through the reevaluation most parties would after losing the White House and Congress, perhaps a second Trump loss would at last do the trick. They might collectively decide to take a new approach, turning away from Trump’s politics of hatred and toward something more inclusive and optimistic.
Or not. It’s just as possible that if Trump lost, in 2028 a candidate like DeSantis, whose politics are just as ugly and divisive as Trump’s, would become the nominee. After all, it’s not like a 2024 loss would make the party base suddenly more pragmatic and less resentful. The Trumpist base will still be the most important force within the primary electorate, and they’re unlikely to change who they are and what they’re looking for from their leaders.
But if you were a Republican like Kinzinger, Hogan, or Cheney, running for president could have a strong appeal. A presidential candidacy gives you an unmatched platform. It means people will come hear you speak, reporters will take a greater interest in you, and you’ll get more attention than you ever have. It might be the best opportunity to create a real debate within the Republican Party about what Trump has done to them and how they might recover their souls.
Those dissenting Republicans can look to previous primary campaigns for examples of how you can fail to win but still alter your party’s trajectory. Pat Buchanan’s runs in 1992 and 1996, built on nativism and opposition to free trade agreements, laid the foundation for what would become Trumpism. With his two campaigns, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) nudged the Democratic Party to the left and opened up space to debate ideas like single-payer health care that had gotten little national attention beforehand.
Whatever you think of Hogan, Cheney, and Kinzinger, there’s little doubt that they are sincerely dismayed at what the Republican Party has become. Even if none of them are likely to become president, running for the job is probably the best chance they’ll have to help it become something less repugnant. That seems like reason enough to mount a campaign. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - The steamboat Sultana is docked on the Mississippi River at Helena, Ark, on April 26, 1865. A new book “Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana,” by Gene E Salecker, offers a comprehensive and at times compelling account of the disaster. (Library of Congress via AP, File) (Uncredited/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division) | null | null | null | null | null |
Jeff Bezos appears at the Baby2Baby Gala in West Hollywood, Calif., on Nov. 13, 2021, left, and actor-comedian Pete Davidson appears at the premiere of “Big Time Adolescence” in New York on March 5, 2020. Davidson is heading to space. The “Saturday Night Live” star will be among the six passengers on the next launch of Bezo’s space travel company, Blue Origin. The company announced the March 23 flight on Monday. (AP Photo) (Uncredited/AP) | null | null | null | null | null |
While the Supreme Court is supposed to operate under regulations guiding all federal judges, including a requirement that a justice “shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” there’s no procedure to enforce that standard. Each justice can decide whether to recuse, and there is no way to appeal a Supreme Court member’s failure to do so.
Roth said it is not only Clarence Thomas who does not properly follow the recusal standard, noting as an example that Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil M. Gorsuch did not recuse when dealing with cases involving their book publisher, Penguin Random House. But the Thomas’s case, Roth said, is different because of the importance of the Jan. 6 riot in American history.
“There should be a recusal,” Roth said of the Thomas’s case. “But again, I’m sort of on the side of there should be more recusals … There is an exacting standard that exists and that’s simply not being followed through on and I think that is a shame and it hurts impugns the integrity of the institution.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Boys’ basketball Top 20: Maryland, Virginia state champions rise in the final rankings of the winter
Guard Daryl Holloway and Hayfield captured the Class 6 boys' basketball championship last week. (Ryan M. Kelly/For The Washington Post)
Inside a locker room at the University of Maryland, not long after his team secured a double-overtime victory in the Maryland 4A championship game, Eleanor Roosevelt coach Brendan O’Connell talked about resilience.
“This might be the toughest group we’ve ever coached,” O’Connell told his players.
It’s true this basketball season required a certain level of toughness, one that went beyond the standard call of hoops duty. After missing out on a normal season last school year, local teams were asked to forge ahead into an unknown landscape that still had plenty of surprises and obstacles in store. Making it to that point, the final weekend of the season, is an accomplishment in itself.
Eleanor Roosevelt was one of several local teams to go out on top. The final weekend of the season featured the Maryland and Virginia state championships, where three D.C.-area boys’ teams emerged with titles.
Roosevelt beat Churchill, 54-49, in double-overtime to win the program’s fourth Maryland 4A title of the past decade. Westlake toppled Douglass with a last-second layup, earning a 63-61 win in the Maryland 2A title game. And down south, Hayfield finished a perfect 32-0 season with a 67-47 win over Battlefield in the Class 6 championship.
All three programs rise up the rankings this week, but they still fall behind the two teams that have planted themselves at the peak of this 20 for the past month: Paul VI and Sidwell Friends. Both private school programs used deep and talented rosters to navigate treacherous schedules. Both teams earned dramatic titles in conference and state play. Both teams will be remembered at their respective schools for years to come. The Panthers and the Quakers finish this year on top.
A young Panthers team ascended to the top of the area’s toughest league, winning a share of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference regular season title and then the conference tournament. They also took home the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association crown.
A disciplined and balanced squad dominated the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference going undefeated en route to an outright conference championship. They followed that with a dramatic D.C. State Athletic Association championship victory.
The Saints won the Interstate Athletic Conference title for the third straight season and then finished as runners up in the VISAA Division I tournament.
The Hawks finished their dream season with a Class 6 title.
The WCAC runner-up dropped two games at the Alhambra Catholic Invitational.
The Stags finished their season on a high note by winning three games in three days to earn the Alhambra Catholic Invitational championship.
The Tigers dominated the D.C. Interscholastic Athletic Association and finished as runners-up in the D.C. state tournament.
8. National Christian (30-9) LR: 10
The Eagles won the first Metro Private School Conference tournament.
9. Westlake (23-2) LR: 14
The Wolverines won their first Maryland state title on senior Aaron Herron’s last-second layup.
The Maryland 4A champions outlasted No. 13 Churchill in double-overtime Saturday.
11. Gonzaga (18-12) LR: 9
The Eagles’ promising season ended in disappointing fashion as they dropped three games at the Alhambra Catholic Invitational.
12. Patriot (26-1) LR: 8
The Pioneers’ perfect season ended in the Virginia Class 6 semifinal when rival Battlefield hit a buzzer-beating three pointer.
The Bulldogs season ended in heartbreak: a double-overtime loss to No. 10 Eleanor Roosevelt in the Maryland 4A championship.
The Eagles’ season ended with a loss in the final seconds of Saturday’s Maryland 2A title game.
The Cavaliers emerged as a Baltimore-area power this winter.
16. Huntingtown (21-4) LR: 17
The Hurricanes finished a strong season as runners-up in the Maryland 3A bracket.
The Seahawks saw an impressive season end just short a title appearance, as they fell to eventual champion Hayfield in the Class 6 semifinal.
18. Loudoun County (23-7) LR: 18
Making their first state championship appearance, the Captains fell to Varina in the Virginia Class 4 title game.
20. Meade (20-4) LR: 19
The Mustangs fell to Churchill in the Maryland 4A semifinal. | null | null | null | null | null |
Girls’ basketball Top 20: Madison wins Virginia title; Sidwell Friends goes wire-to-wire at No. 1
Madison guard Alayna Arnolie shoots over Osbourn Park's Danielle Darfour during the Class 6 girls’ state championship game on Friday. (Ryan M. Kelly/For The Washington Post)
Many of the D.C.-area’s public schools struggled against out-of-area competition in their championship weeks. Except for No. 8 Madison.
The Warhawks beat No. 11 Osbourn Park to win their third consecutive Virginia Class 6 title and cap one of the area’s strongest seasons. The Vienna school’s only losses came against No. 6 Paul VI and No. 7 Georgetown Visitation.
Sidwell Friends, the country’s top-ranked team, leads The Post’s final rankings after maintaining the No. 1 spot all season. The Quakers cruised against local competition while winning Independent School League and D.C. State Athletic Association championships.
The possibility of competing in national tournaments remains for the area’s top squads.
The Quakers’ dominant season included ISL and DCSAA championships.
The Tigers won their second National Association of Christian Athletes Division I championship in the past three seasons.
The Cadets claimed their fourth Washington Catholic Athletic Conference title in the past five seasons.
The Forestville private school’s only WCAC loss came in the league’s championship game.
The Olney private school announced itself as a WCAC contender, reaching the league’s semifinals.
The Panthers won their 15th consecutive Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association Division I title.
The Cubs qualified for their seventh DCSAA championship game in the past eight seasons.
The Warhawks beat No. 11 Osbourn Park, 38-29, for their third consecutive Virginia Class 6 crown.
The Montgomery County champion lost to Western, 81-68, in the Maryland 4A championship game.
The Wolverines fell to Menchville, 59-36, in the Virginia Class 5 championship game.
Both of the Yellow Jackets’ losses came against No. 8 Madison, including in the Virginia Class 6 championship game.
The Frogs lost to No. 1 Sidwell Friends in the ISL and DCSAA playoffs.
The Lions’ 44-game winning streak ended in their 60-37 loss to Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in the Maryland 3A championship game.
The Gophers’ turnaround season ended against eventual champion Western, 61-46, in the Maryland 4A semifinals.
The Alexandria private school’s marquee victory came against No. 6 Paul VI on Feb. 15.
The Mustangs lost to Carroll County, 51-47, in the Virginia Class 3 championship game.
The Rams fell to No. 8 Madison, 49-27, in the Virginia Class 6 semifinals.
The Prince George’s County champion fell to No. 9 Clarksburg, 53-35, in the Maryland 4A semifinals.
The Fort Washington private school started strong but was inconsistent after the holiday break.
The Panthers won the ISL’s lower division for the second time in the past four seasons. | null | null | null | null | null |
Built in 1888 on 16th Street NW, the Henderson Castle was the home of Mary Foote Henderson, a society figure who wanted to boost the prospects of 16th Street. The house was torn down in 1949. All that remains is it retaining wall, facing Meridian Hill Park. A new book by John DeFerrari and Douglas Peter Sefton traces the history of 16th Street. (Library of Congress) (Library of Congress) | null | null | null | null | null |
At Sunday’s 9:30 Club show, tinkering with songs past, present and future
Editorial aide
From left, Deakin, Panda Bear, Avey Tare and Geologist of Animal Collective perform at 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kyle Gustafson/For The Washington Post)
There’s only one way to travel through time on this shared rock of ours: forward. Listening to music offers some time-bending loopholes. Rewind. Fast forward. Skip. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
On Sunday night at 9:30 Club, Animal Collective showed why, for nearly two decades, they’ve set the pace as one of music’s most blurry timekeepers. In concert, the band uses their stage as a jam-band test facility to tinker with songs past, present and future. (Much like their spiritual forebears, the Grateful Dead.)
Perspective: After a long, strange trip ... all your indie faves are jam bands now
The band’s latest album, “Time Skiffs,” showcases the foursome in near-peak form, riffing on existence in our increasingly imperiled and fragile ecosystem. Animal Collective thrives when layering hypnotic, interlacing vocal harmonies over puncturing bleeps and blorps conjured from stacks of synthesizers. Onstage, Avey Tare (Dave Portner) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) ping-ponged gooey melodies with cathartic barks, while Geologist (Brian Weitz) and Deakin (Josh Dibb) effortlessly toggled an assemblage of instruments (including a hurdy-gurdy) to craft enveloping soundscapes.
The pace of their live show offered a fine balance in push-pull blissouts and twitchy freakout jams. Tracks from “Time Skiffs” shared space with selections from their 2007 standout “Strawberry Jam” — including “Chores” and closing number “For Reverend Green.”
But the elephant in the Animal Collective playroom is still “Merriweather Post Pavilion.” The 2009 album, named after the Columbia, Md., amphitheater, has earned its place as a cultural touchstone of the indie rock boom of the late 2000s — which dovetailed with the sunny bloom of the Obama era. (Album opener “In the Flowers” earned one of the biggest pops from the crowd.)
It’s trendy to ride waves of nostalgia. This quest to build back to a brighter, better future through the lens of a hazily remembered past (that we’re unreasonably sure was worthwhile) tempts us with the possibility of clarity on the road ahead.
The media materials for “Time Skiffs” refer to it as a “comeback album” after years of solo and experimental works — it’s the first album in a decade to feature all four members. Bands and albums tend to be categorized this way. In temporal tradition, we expect each new release to build off the last, or, in the case of such a defining work as “Merriweather,” make things sound more like it.
But why do we want that?
I chatted with Weitz in 2018 about the band’s visual album “Tangerine Reef,” which was a plea to fight the rapid destruction of the coral reefs, and asked him if the band felt any pressure to think of creating work along a timeline.
Animal Collective wants to do their own thing and that means saving coral reefs
“People are discovering us, like high school kids now,” Weitz said then. “There’s a pretty large body of work for them to jump into. For them, it’s not a linear experience of what came after what, and what was going on in their life.”
Maybe Animal Collective has found the secret to tricking time — or they’ve found a map to the streaming algorithms that offer up everything except direction of where to go. | null | null | null | null | null |
Built in 1888 on 16th Street NW, the Henderson Castle was the home of Mary Foote Henderson, a society figure who wanted to boost the prospects of 16th Street. The house was torn down in 1949. All that remains is it retaining wall, facing Meridian Hill Park. A new book by John DeFerrari and Douglas Peter Sefton traces the history of 16th Street. (Library of Congress) | null | null | null | null | null |
Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, said she left the rally before former president Donald Trump took the stage
Roth said it is not only Clarence Thomas who does not properly follow the recusal standard, noting as an example that Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil M. Gorsuch did not recuse when dealing with cases involving their book publisher, Penguin Random House. But the Thomases’ case, Roth said, is different because of the importance of the Jan. 6 riot in American history.
“There should be a recusal,” Roth said of the Thomases’ case. “But again, I’m sort of on the side of there should be more recusals … There is an exacting standard that exists and that’s simply not being followed through on and I think that is a shame and it hurts impugns the integrity of the institution.” | null | null | null | null | null |
‘People’s Convoy’ to drive through D.C.; permit for organized demonstration downtown partially denied
The detour will bring the full convoy into the District for the first time since it began Feb. 23
Supporters cheer and wave as the “People's Convoy” departs Hagerstown Speedway for the Capital Beltway on March 11 in Hagerstown. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)
Hundreds of trucks, cars and SUVs protesting the government’s response to the pandemic arrived Monday with plans to drive through parts of the nation’s capital after an application to hold a nearly two-week permitted protest on the National Mall was partially denied.
The self-described “People’s Convoy,” a group of truckers and other drivers protesting pandemic-related health measures, spent parts of most days last week looping the Capital Beltway as a form of protest, but leaders had avoided bringing the group into the city despite a desire from some supporters to elevate the group’s tactics.
Mike Landis, a People’s Convoy co-organizer, said the group will drive on the Beltway, exit onto Interstate 395 and go past the Pentagon, then continue onto Interstate 295, return to the Beltway and finish the loop before heading to Hagerstown.
“Today we’re getting right next to their walls,” Landis said. “We’re not going to go in and throat-punch them just yet, even though I know we would all love to do that.”
The detour will bring the full convoy into the District for the first time since it began Feb. 23 in Adelanto, Calif., en route to Hagerstown, where its members have been since March 4. | null | null | null | null | null |
The detour from the Beltway brought the full convoy into the District for the first time since it began Feb. 23
Traffic is backed up Monday afternoon on the 14 Street Bridge between Arlington and Washington. (Virginia Department of Transportation traffic camera)
Police blocked interstate exits in Washington into downtown as hundreds of trucks, cars and SUVs protesting the government’s response to the pandemic rode into the city to start a second week of demonstrations.
D.C. police said exits were being blocked as the “People’s Convoy” encountered severe traffic when it approached the District. The convoy entered the city via the 14th Street Bridge on Interstate 395, then continued to Interstate 695 before crossing the Anacostia River. The convoy was then expected to return to the Beltway before going back to Hagerstown.
“I believe we’re making a good statement today,” said one trucker who livestreams under the name ZOT. “We’re right in the swamp now and creating a horrible mess down here.”
Police asked for patience, saying authorities were trying to prevent the convoy from exiting the highway.
“These rolling road closures are occurring in real-time as they are needed, and will be lifted as soon as they are no longer necessary,” said an alert from D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
The group’s entrance into the nation’s capital came after an application by the convoy leaders to hold a nearly two-week permitted protest on the National Mall was partially denied.
The People’s Convoy, a group of truckers and other drivers protesting pandemic-related health measures, spent parts of most days last week looping the Capital Beltway as a form of protest, but leaders had avoided bringing the group into the city despite a desire from some supporters to elevate the group’s tactics. | null | null | null | null | null |
Members and supporters of the LGBTQ community attend the “Say Gay Anyway” rally in Miami Beach on March 13. (Chandan Khanna/AFP)
Being a parent often means navigating unstated — or even unrecognized — boundaries between the world of adults and the world of children. There’s a war in Ukraine, something that I’ve mentioned to my 5-year-old only in broad strokes. When the newspaper comes, I skim the photos before putting it somewhere that my sons might see. It’s a world run by adults and every parent decides, often in an ad hoc and evolving way, how much of that world their kids get to see.
Before going too far, it’s worth looking directly at the language included in the bill and narrowing down what I’m focused on here. As of writing, the bill reads:
The legislation also includes language that suggests that parents will need to be informed if their children raise certain issues with school staff or officials, a stipulation that many worry would require that school officials potentially out children to their parents. This article is not going to deal with that point of contention, however obviously important it is.
The other obvious issue here is, in my mind, the more complicated one. Consider how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) spokesperson described the bill last week.
A curriculum proposed in New York City schools that would includes those books, Vigilante wrote, “instructs teachers to teach first graders, through books, games and other lessons, ‘to acknowledge the positive aspects of each type of household,’ including gay and lesbian parents. It is based on the vain hope that if we teach the nice children that homosexuality is O.K., the bullies will stop beating up gays in the schoolyard or on the streets.” He later added that “[g]ay bashing is not a right; it is a wrong and we should teach that” — a sentiment followed immediately with, “On the other hand …”
In other words, it has historically been the case that the presumed barrier between “teaching kindergartners about sex” (in Erickson’s formulation) and recognizing the existence of people in same-sex relationships is considered porous by some. Perhaps Florida is fine with “Heather Has Two Mommies.” But then crosses the line? How do teachers decide? Or do they simply not risk the fight? | null | null | null | null | null |
Kentucky and Tennessee are both threats to reach the national championship game. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Since 1985, when the men’s tournament expanded to 64 teams, the national title game has averaged 143 total points when decided in regulation. The four overtime games in that spanaveraged 157 total points. The most total points scored in regulation was in 1990, when UNLV beat Duke, 103-73 (176). The fewest total points came in 2011, when Connecticut beat Butler, 53-41 (94), the same year the tournament expanded to 68 teams. Last year’s final between Gonzaga and Baylor ended with 156 points, the most in regulation since 2013. Our guide would have recommended a tiebreaker pick of 162, which is awfully close.
How many points you choose should be determined by the teams you have in the final. Matchups between two No. 1 seeds, of which there have been eight (with one going to overtime), have averaged 146 points with a range between 131 and 159. Matchups between a No. 1 and No. 2 seed (eight games) in the final game have averaged a similar 149 points.
But every team plays at a different pace, and tempo plays a huge role in the final outcome. A team like No. 1 seed Gonzaga (West), which averages 73 possessions per 40 minutes, plays significantly faster than No. 2 seed Villanova (South), which averages 64 possessions per 40 minutes. Gonzaga is 33 points per 100 possessions better than an average opponent, per analyst Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, and Villanova is 24 points better. That all projects to a final score of 88-78 in Gonzaga’s favor if those two teams met on a neutral court.
If, on the other hand, Gonzaga were to face Arizona (27 points per 100 possessions better than an average opponent, 73 possessions per 40 minutes) in the final, we could expect a score of 92-86 in Gonzaga’s favor. That’s a difference of 12 points, depending only on Gonzaga’s opponent.
If we limit our potential national title finalists to the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 seeds — those seeds have accounted for 60 of 72 spots in the national title game since 1985 — here are the projected total points scored in each matchup on a neutral court.
The women’s side is affected by the same factors. Since 1994, when the women’s tournament expanded to 64 teams, the average title game has seen 132 points scored, with a high of 168 and a low of 100. However, the pace of play is more consistent among the top women’s teams than it is on the men’s side. We can focus on the top seeds because no seed worse than No. 3 has won the women’s tournament since the field expanded.
Of the 12 teams seeded No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3, eight average between 69 and 71 possessions per game and only one, Iowa, pushes the pace beyond 75 possessions. Here’s the average number of points we would expect each team to score in the championship game. Just pick the two teams you have in the final, add up their scores and you have your tiebreaker.
Estimated points scored in final
No. 1 North Carolina State
No. 1 Louisville
No. 1 Stanford
No. 3 Indiana | null | null | null | null | null |
William Hurt was a serious actor, with all the baggage the term entails
Hurt, who died at 71, embodied the focus, commitment and occasional self-indulgence that make a great actor
William Hurt in “Jane Eyre,” 1996. (Miramax/Everett Collection)
I had one of the most memorable dinners of my working life with William Hurt.
The actor, whose death at 71 was announced Sunday, was in Austin in the late winter of 1996, filming the comedy “Michael” with writer-director Nora Ephron. As the film critic at the Austin American-Statesman, one of my duties was to make my way on to the set of the film and interview Ephron and her cast, which included John Travolta, Andie MacDowell and Bob Hoskins. But my requests kept getting rebuffed. Finally, a publicist confided that it was Hurt who opposed press visits during filming, which might distract the actor from the job at hand.
I understood, filing the episode away under “I tried.” Which made a subsequent invitation all the more surprising: Would I care to join Mr. Hurt for dinner? Production on “Michael” was wrapping up, he was about to leave town and — oh yes — his new movie, “Jane Eyre,” was about to be released in theaters. A date was set at the dining room of the Four Seasons Hotel, just across Town Lake from the Statesman’s newsroom.
I was happy to have a chance to interview Hurt. He had enjoyed a blazing run in the 1980s, making a terrific debut as an obsessed doctor in “Altered States” and becoming a swoon-worthy screen idol in the steamy “Body Heat” and zeitgeisty “Big Chill.” Subsequent turns in “Kiss of the Spider-Woman,” “Children of a Lesser God” and “Broadcast News” earned him Oscar nominations (he won for “Spider-Woman”). By the time I joined him at a window table at the Four Seasons, I was genuinely curious about an actor who, for millions of women (and not a few men) of my generation, had become the “thinking person’s” sex symbol, the kind of movie star whose charisma was a function of intelligence as much as sheer good looks.
In all honesty, though, I was a bit preoccupied as well. The interview had been scheduled for mid-March, in the thick of Austin’s South by Southwest film and music festivals. I had had to leave a screening of John Sayles’s “Lone Star” early to be on time for Hurt, and I was hoping to be able to join friend later at La Zona Rosa to see the legendary Denton, Tex., band Brave Combo. With people to see and things to do, I figured I’d spend about an hour with Hurt, say my goodbyes and make it to the club in plenty of time for the show.
The intensity of being William Hurt
It didn’t work out that way. Given his resistance to a set visit, I expected Hurt to be press-shy, maybe even reticent. Instead he was voluble, curious, direct and disarmingly open. My cassette tape of the interview is lost to the sands of time and ravages of analog decay. But my chief memory of the evening is a lively, far-ranging conversation that served as a reminder that, before pursuing acting, Hurt had studied theology. He possessed an innate sense of etiquette that only seemed to fail once our food came, at which point he ceased talking and dropped his head down, as if literally contemplating his navel.
“I stop,” he said quietly.
Uhm, hello? I looked around the room nervously. What was happening?
“I stop,” he repeated, still assuming a disquietingly inert position. We sat in silence for at least a minute — which, as anyone who has sat in silence for a minute will know, felt like an hour. Once the ritual was complete, Hurt explained that he took these moments before every meal — an exercise that today would be called “mindfulness.”
With the exception of that brief interruption, he continued chattering, mostly about “Jane Eyre” and his interpretation of the moody, broody Mr. Rochester (opposite Charlotte Gainsbourg). I remember few specifics, except for his revelation that he habitually took on a “spirit animal” for every role he played. For Rochester in “Jane Eyre,” he said, it was a crow.
Stopping and spirit animals are just the kind of affectations that make “serious actors” such easy fodder for ridicule. Excesses in the name of “craft” and “commitment to the work” have been a part of showbiz lore for as long as performers have looked for their key light, underscoring the kind of preening vanity and pretentiousness that so often go hand in hand with talent. Who hasn’t heard the story of Laurence Olivier observing Dustin Hoffman’s Method-esque preparation for his role as the sleepless protagonist in “Marathon Man” (1976) and wryly suggesting, “Why don’t you just try acting?” More recently, it was “Succession’s” Jeremy Strong in the crosshairs, his actorly eccentricities indexed with almost sadistic glee in an uncharitable New Yorker profile, which referenced Strong’s idol, Daniel Day-Lewis — the O.G. when it comes to “the work,” having inhabited his roles so fully that he reportedly never broke character during filming.
I’m ashamed to admit that Hurt’s spirit animals struck me the same way. As our dinner passed the 90-minute mark, I was growing impatient. Hurt’s disquisitions were beginning to feel less spontaneous than calculated and grandiose. It was all getting to be a bit much. Dessert? No thank you, just the check. By the time we got in our cars — with Hurt cheerfully honking and waving as he sped out of the parking garage — the “I stop” moment was already taking shape as yet another piquant anecdote from a career full of unforgettable encounters with the idiosyncratic and famous.
Over the ensuing years, though, my interpretation of Hurt’s spirit animals changed from a can-you-believe-this-guy eyeroll to muted respect. The more I’ve learned about cinema, and the singular challenges of acting first for the camera, then, by extension, the mass audience, the less cavalier I’ve become about what it takes to achieve the level of focus and transparency Hurt was able to channel over and over.
We’re conditioned to think of actors — especially the ones who become “movie stars” — as beautiful faces, objects of desire and vicarious glamour. But they’re also emotional instruments: the primary means of conveying the music and meaning of whatever they’re in, whether it’s a screwball comedy, three-hankie tear-jerker or something more subtle. When viewers laugh, cry, fall in love or simply become entranced by an actor of Hurt’s gifts, it’s because he’s been able to do whatever was necessary to strip away his psychological defenses, access his most vulnerable emotional interior, dredge up the multitudes he contains. We love actors, not when we catch them acting-with-a-capital-A, but when we watch them simply being alive. That can be scary stuff, and if it takes channeling your inner crow to do it, well, fly free, my friend.
Hurt was a serious actor. His a-bit-muchness was precisely what made it possible for him to be amusingly self-deprecating as a callow anchorman in “Broadcast News” or the sexy, dim-bulb patsy in “Body Heat.” What’s more, he rose to stardom at a time when Hollywood studios still made a place for actors of his caliber — not just as a way to elevate the latest superhero franchise, as Hurt did as Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross in the “Avengers” movies, but as leading players in mainstream movies.
I look back at that 1996 dinner with a combination of amusement, regret and nostalgia. As gratifying as it is to contemplate the remarkable performances that comprised Hurt’s career, it’s chastening to think of the wide range of films this consummate serious actor was allowed to be serious in. I still remember his final beep and wave with exasperated fondness. Now, on just about every level, I wish I’d made time for dessert. | null | null | null | null | null |
But Faye, chairman of the International Society of Camelid Research and Development who is based in Montpellier, France, said in an email Monday to The Post that camels can exhibit dangerous behavior under certain circumstances such as when they are stressed and frightened or, for males, during rutting season — an annual period of sexual activity that runs from November to March in the United States. | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2020, file photo, mail delivery vehicles are parked outside a post office in Boys Town, Neb. The U.S. Postal Service says it has cleared the final regulatory hurdle to placing orders for next-generation mail vehicles. That keeps the Postal Service on track for taking delivery of the first of the electric- and gas-powered delivery vehicles next year. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022 that the completion of an evaluation required by the National Environmental Policy Act is an important milestone for postal carriers who’ve soldiered on with overworked delivery trucks that went into service from 1987 to 1994. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
FILE - Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl celebrates the team’s Southeastern Conference regular season championship by cutting down the net after an NCAA college basketball game against South Carolina, Saturday, March 5, 2022, in Auburn, Ala. Pearl is the The Associated Press coach of the year in the Southeastern Conference, announced Tuesday, March 8, 2022.(AP Photo/Butch Dill, File) | null | null | null | null | null |
All of Miyazaki’s games, from 2009′s “Demon’s Souls” to this year’s “Elden Ring,” are not stories told following a straightforward, cinematic formula. Instead, players are dropped into the middle of the story and asked to pick up the pieces of the narrative. At high risk of sounding pretentious, there are parallels between a player new to Miyazaki’s storytelling method and a first-time reader of the 20th-century masterpiece “Ulysses,” by James Joyce. It would be nigh impossible for a modern reader to take in “Ulysses,” written in a stream-of-conscious and seemingly chaotic and puzzle-box structure, on their first go. Similarly, a player weaned on “Uncharted” and other blockbuster cinematic games may find the narrative of “Elden Ring” lacking; there’s barely any exposition, and great effort is required of the audience to piece together the story’s many scattered elements.
Examine the world and its inhabitants, what they’re wearing, what they’re using: Certain enemy types in one area might look a bit different than they do in another region of the world. For example, if you fight a magic-wielding knight, it likely hails from the magic-wielding factions in “Elden Ring” — the Academy of Raya Lucaria and the Carian royal family. Moreover, notice how there are no stars in the game’s opening area of Limgrave? It’s not just an artistic choice. The stars are missing for a reason.
Note: This section covers many aspects of “Elden Ring’s” story. The first few paragraphs will focus on the story we can glean from the game’s introduction and trailers. Once we delve into middle and endgame material, there will be another spoiler warning.
Already, “Elden Ring” is being mined for information, as players experiment with various spells in different situations to trigger new story events. The coming months will provide more answers. In this piece, for now, I’d like to help begin forming up some of the contours of this epic tale — though some of what’s written below is more theory than fact.
The Elden Ring is not at all like J.R.R. Tolkien’s One Ring. It’s not a physical object one can wear. Rather, the Elden Ring is the natural law of The Lands Between, the game’s setting. It is made up of Great Runes that dictate how the world functions, including features like life and death. The game’s story, very broadly, is about a land torn apart politically and abandoned by its god, with the natural order thrown out of balance.
Queen Marika the Eternal is essentially God of The Lands Between — as determined by something called “The Greater Will” — and her children are demigods who rule over parts of the region. The Greater Will is something like The Force from Star Wars, though it isn’t necessarily benevolent. The Erdtree, a giant golden tree in the middle of the world, is the hub of the Greater Will’s power.
As revealed in the story trailer from December last year, the Rune of Death was somehow stolen “on a night of win’ry fog.” This resulted in the murder of at least one demigod, Godwyn the Golden, in what the game’s introduction calls “The Night of the Black Knives.” Godwyn is the son of Marika and Godfrey, the first Elden Lord and the regal man with a lion spirit watching over him as seen in some of the game’s promotional artwork. Keep close track of these names and others; many are similar, or start with the same letter, which may lend to some initial confused.
“Queen Marika was driven to the brink,” says the story trailer, as a consequence of Godwyn’s death. This leads to the shattering of the Elden Ring, an act seen and performed by a mysterious person in the game’s announcement trailer from 2019. The rest of the story from the game’s intro cinematic is pretty straightforward. After the shattering, Marika disappeared from The Lands Between, and her demigod children were left to fend for themselves. They chose to go to war for the remaining, shattered pieces of the Elden Ring, fighting for power. This war ended with no winners. Even the two mightiest warriors, Malenia the Blade of Miquella and Radahn, Conqueror of the Stars, fought to a draw, with a gravely-injured Malenia infecting Radahn with a disease known as Scarlet Rot. This act was so destructive, it poisoned and cursed Radahn’s mind with an eternity of madness and suffering, while the surrounding area of Caelid was drowned in disease under a scarlet-red sky.
Note: We’re navigating toward middle and endgame spoiler territory here. Read further only if you are at least near the end of the game. | null | null | null | null | null |
Lisa Ling’s new docuseries, “Take Out,” showcases the wide array of Asian restaurants across the country. On Thursday, March 24 at 10:00 a.m. ET, Washington Post Tokyo bureau chief Michelle Ye Hee Lee speaks with Ling about how food can be a way to explore history, identity and stories across generations.
Journalist, Executive Producer & Host, “Take Out with Lisa Ling” | null | null | null | null | null |
Protesters occupy London mansion linked to a Russian oligarch as U.K. seeks to help refugees
Protesters occupy a building reported to belong to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in London. (Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images)
LONDON — In the middle of the night, squatters on Monday broke into a white stucco mansion in central London suspected of being owned by a Russian oligarch, unfurled a Ukrainian flag, and declared the property “liberated” and ready for refugees.
The mansion is said to belong to Oleg Deripaska, an oil and metals tycoon who was added to the U.K. sanctions list last week alongside his former business partner Roman Abramovich and five others in the British government’s most aggressive crackdown yet on Russian elites it says have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hours after the squatters arrived, four remained on the property’s balcony even as the London Metropolitan Police urged them to leave. The occupation of the home along what the tabloids have dubbed “billionaire row” reflects an idea floated by British politicians in recent weeks to turn palatial properties owned by sanctioned Russian elites into effective refugee shelters.
The squatters made their presence known. In addition to the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag, they also hung banners outside the home that read “power breeds parasites” and “this property has been liberated.” The protesters referred to themselves as the “London Mahknovists,” a reference to Nestor Makhno, a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary.
When reporters shouted up to the squatters on the balcony and asked what should happen to the building, a man, who was wearing black and had his face covered, shouted back, “They should be handed over to Ukrainian refugees and refugees of all nations.” | null | null | null | null | null |
House leadership killed a bill that would extend Medicaid coverage in a state known for its high maternal mortality rate.
The Associated Press reported that S.B. 2033 passed the state Senate 46 to 5 last month, and then passed the House Medicaid Committee on March 1. But on March 9 — the deadline for House and Senate committees to consider general bills that had passed the other chamber — House Speaker Philip Gunn (R) and House Medicaid Committee Chairman Joey Hood (R) chose not to bring it up for a vote.
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developing country, and research shows that 60 percent of the country’s maternal deaths are preventable.
Roberts said that many people she works with experience postpartum depression, but without health-care coverage, they can’t access the therapy or medication they might need in the months preceding and following birth. Mississippi’s Department of Health found that approximately 11 percent of maternal deaths in the state are due to suicides and overdoses.
“People are really struggling and I think sometimes we gloss over how difficult some of those situations really are,” Owens said. “Most of the people who are setting policy have the luxury of having most of their basic needs met and I think that can sometimes limit our ability to fully understand and empathize.” | null | null | null | null | null |
By Julio Cortez | AP
Onlookers use cell phones to capture images as a crew removes the stone base of the Talbot Boys Statue, Maryland’s last public Confederate statue, on the grounds of the Talbot County Courthouse, Monday, March 14, 2022, in Easton, Md. The monument honors Confederates who fought for the South during the Civil War. The 13-foot tall, copper sculpture features a boy holding a Confederate flag and names the Talbot County men who joined the Confederacy and died in the war. The Talbot County Council voted to approve its removal in September. A group called Move the Monument Coalition raised $80,000 to relocate the statue to a private park in the care of Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, a nonprofit. The monument will go to Cross Keys Battlefield in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where it will remain. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) | null | null | null | null | null |
NEW CASTLE, Del. — A Delaware woman is facing charges that include vehicular homicide after two carjackings left one pedestrian dead and four other people injured, Delaware State Police said Monday.
Semaan is being held on $47,000 cash bond, police said. It’s unclear if she has hired an attorney who can speak on her behalf. Police said Sunday that they could not provide any information that could explain what might have been behind Semaan’s actions. | null | null | null | null | null |
17 bodies found buried in yards, under patios
Searchers in northern Mexico led authorities to a series of grisly finds: 17 bodies or skeletal remains buried in the backyards and beneath patios of houses in a low-income housing development, prosecutors in the northern border state of Sonora said Sunday.
They said that the bodies had been stacked in four clandestine burial pits and that searches would continue Monday.
The prosecutors’ office said the finds were made over the weekend at abandoned houses in Ciudad Obregón. It said the victims had apparently been killed between six months and a year ago. The state prosecutors’ office said genetic and specialized forensics tests would be conducted to identify the remains.
Report says 161,000 are facing famine
The report underscores the dire situation in the poorest Arab nation, which plunged into civil war in 2014 when Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee.
Death toll from cyclone rises to 15
The dead include five members of the same family in the Angoche coastal area of Nampula province, Gov. Mety Gondola said. The number of injured is at least 50, the prime minister’s office announced.
Gombe is the most recent of a series of cyclones that have hit southern Africa this year. The cyclones have highlighted how climate change may be affecting weather patterns and risking the lives of people in various vulnerable places such as Mozambique.
Ruling: Bermuda ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional: A London tribunal ruled Monday that a 2018 Bermuda law that bans same-sex marriage in the British overseas territory is constitutional, a departure from the trend toward legalization of same-sex marriage in Western countries. Bermuda's top court in 2018 ruled that the 2018 Domestic Partnership Act, which allows same-sex couples to form partnerships but prohibits them from being married, violates constitutional freedom of conscience. London's Privy Council, the highest court of appeal for British territories, ruled Monday that the constitution does not in fact require the state to recognize same-sex marriages, in response to an appeal by Bermuda's government.
More than 30 people killed in Burkina Faso armed attacks: Armed militants killed at least eight people who were collecting water in a town in northern Burkina Faso on Monday morning, its mayor said, bringing the total killed in three days of violence in the restive area above 30. Monday's attack took place in Arbinda, in the province of Soum, which has suffered several deadly raids by Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State that for years have sought to gain control over a swath of terrain where Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger meet.
Kosovo arrests 50 police, officials in bribery probe: Kosovo's state prosecutor on Monday said it has arrested 48 police officers and two customs officers believed to have taken bribes for allowing illegal goods to enter the country. The arrested officers were working at border crossings with Albania in the southwest part of the country. A police official said that 18 others are accused of offering bribes and remain at large. | null | null | null | null | null |
Former Commanders guard Brandon Scherff planning to sign with Jaguars, per report
Brandon Scherff appeared in five Pro Bowls while playing in Washington. The free agent guard plans to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars, according to ESPN. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)
The Washington Commanders opened the early negotiation period of free agency with barely a whisper Monday, but one of their key starters, expectedly, landed a deal elsewhere.
Right guard Brandon Scherff intends to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars, according to ESPN, officially ending his seven-year run with Washington. A new contract can’t be signed until the league year begins at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
Scherff’s exit from Washington was anticipated given his projected value and the team’s limited salary cap space. The 30-year-old played on a franchise tag the last two seasons with salaries of roughly $15 million and $18 million, respectively, that made him the highest-paid guard each year in average value. Widely regarded as one of the top guards on the free agent market again this year, some analysts project him to receive upward of $16 million a year in his next contract.
The Commanders’ No. 5 overall pick in 2015, Scherff earned five Pro Bowl selections and last year became the franchise’s first first-team all-pro since 1996.
“He’s a guy that really is an anchor on our offensive line and someone who’s out there just tossing dudes around,” center Chase Roullier said in January. “He’s such a physical player and such a smart player, someone who definitely is an asset to our offensive line. We definitely love having him around, but this game is a business.”
When healthy, Scherff’s play is among the league’s best on the interior line and was integral to Washington’s improvement up front last year, even amid a rotating cast of centers. But he hasn’t played a full season since 2016 because of injuries.
Shoulder and elbow injuries curtailed his 2019 season, an MCL sprain sidelined him for part of the 2020 season, and another knee injury and coronavirus protocols kept him out of six games last year.
Scherff said publicly he hoped to remain in Washington for his entire career, but the likelihood of that happening faded in the last year. After he was franchise-tagged a second time, in March 2021, there was little to no talk on a long-term agreement with the team before the deadline that summer. And with an $18.036 million salary, his floor in any negotiations were likely far higher than the team was willing or able to spend.
Washington had the luxury of being able to pay him more the last two years, largely because of a relatively inexpensive quarterbacks room. But the Commanders recently agreed to trade for Carson Wentz, and the quarterback’s $28.3 million salary cap hit leaves the team with little flexibility but still plenty of roster holes.
Their options for filling Scherff’s role are threefold: They could turn to others on the roster, such as Wes Schweitzer or Saahdiq Charles; they could sign or trade a less expensive veteran; or they could draft a rookie.
But in the coming days, Washington’s focus could shift elsewhere. In addition to bolstering its roster with new talent, it may continue to try to keep some of its own free agents, such as running back J.D. McKissic; receivers DeAndre Carter, Cam Sims and Adam Humphries; and safety Bobby McCain. | null | null | null | null | null |
This world — the Port. St. Lucie complex, the Mets and increasingly baseball in general — belongs to him, after all. He is changing the rules, even as his fellow owners change them for him, pulling the game’s center of gravity to Queens with every splurge that most owners wouldn’t consider, seizing the spotlight with every tweet that most owners wouldn’t send.
One of those new arrivals, three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer — with his three year, $130 million contract — rolled into camp amid questions about his outsize role in the CBA negotiations, only to wave them off to focus on baseball. On Monday, he stood on a mound a few feet from Mets ace Jacob deGrom as they threw bullpen sessions. | null | null | null | null | null |
Across 49⅔ innings in 2021, he had a 4.53 ERA and walked too many hitters. ERA+, an advanced metric used to compare pitchers around the league, considered him a slightly above-average reliever. His first stint in Washington closed with him limping off the mound with an oblique strain, struggling to breathe in the quiet of an empty stadium. For months afterward, he hoped for a different ending with a team and fan base that grew close to his heart.
“We have a great relationship with Doo, we know what we can do when he’s healthy, so I’m looking forward to getting him back here,” Manager Dave Martinez said Monday. “Honestly, he’s one of my favorites. I can’t wait to see him again, and hopefully he gets right back on track. Last year we kept an eye on him. We watched him get his velo back, so we definitely think he can help us.” | null | null | null | null | null |
After two years of discouraging crowds from gathering at the Tidal Basin during cherry blossom season, Metro announced Monday it will increase the number of trains operating over the next four weekends to help visitors restart their pilgrimage to the blooming flowers.
Metro will run the additional trains from March 19 until April 17, raising weekend service to weekday service levels. Trains on the Red Line will arrive every 10 minutes, on average, and 20 minutes on other lines. In downtown D.C., where most stations are served by multiple lines, trains will arrive every 6 to 10 minutes, according to Metro.
Metro continues to operate with a shortage of trains during federal investigation into a safety defect that has sidelined about 60 percent of its rail cars since mid-October. The absence of nearly 750 cars has forced Metro to reduce service, but transit officials said they have enough trains to meet the seasonal demand.
Metro plans to release a limited-edition SmarTrip card designed by Lea Craigie-Marshall, the official artist of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, featuring the pink cherry blossoms and a Monarch butterfly. The commemorative cards will be available in specially marked fare vending machines at the Navy Yard and L’Enfant Plaza stations starting March 18. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: The Path Forward: David Malpass, President, World Bank Group
MR. IGNATIUS: Welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m David Ignatius, a columnist for The Post. My guest today is David Malpass, the president of the World Bank. The world economy has been a rollercoaster the last two years, first with the COVID pandemic, now with terrible violence and disruption of the Ukraine war. Mr. Malpass is going to help us see our way through this turmoil. Thank you so much for joining us today on Washington Post Live, Mr. Malpass.
MR. MALPASS: Thank you for having me, David. Good to see you.
MR. IGNATIUS: So, sir, I want to begin with the Ukraine war. On March the 1st, a week into the war, you issued a joint statement with Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the IMF, warning that the war was creating--and I’m quoting here--"significant spillovers to other countries" and that disruption of financial markets will continue to worsen should the conflict persist and that sanctions that were then being imposed will also have a significant economic effect. We’re now in the third week of this war, and I want to ask you to give us an assessment of the damage to the international economy so far and what’s ahead given current trends.
MR. MALPASS: We can see there’s a massive impact, David. It extends from energy and food supplies to the long-run problems of rebuilding or of reconstruction of all of the destruction that’s going on in Ukraine. So in addition to our horror at the human catastrophe, we have to look at the global economy and see that it’s a big negative. There's the lost supply from Russia and Ukraine. But there's also hoarding, which I've talked about, that people need to really avoid that, because that in itself drives up prices, and that has the biggest impact on the poor. What our--one of my focuses and the focus of the World Bank is on poorer countries around the world and the people in those countries, and they are immediately affected by the rise in prices that's occurring now.
MR. IGNATIUS: Can you give us any early estimate--and obviously, this would be very, very preliminary--of what impact the war and all the disruptions it's causing is likely to have on global GDP in this quarter and for the year?
MR. MALPASS: There'll be a near-term immediate impact, and that comes out of--Ukraine, for example, may see over the--over the year, you know, a GDP that's down some 30 percent, or a large number, and that's material within the global GDP.
I think the even bigger impact for global GDP is the Russia sanctions themselves. And Russia's a large enough economy--though I should take note, you know, their per capita income has fallen below China's. China's has risen above Russia's. And so it's not as big a factor in global GDP, maybe $1.5 trillion. And it will slow down massively as a result of the sanctions.
When you--when you add it up, though, we have to take into account that other parts of the world will make up for some of that supply. There'll be a big reaction in terms of increasing the energy supplies outside of Russia, and food supplies outside Russia and Ukraine. And those responses historically have been--have been rapid. I don't want to be over optimistic. It takes a year or so for the agriculture sector to adjust. But I think there can be increased supply elsewhere, and that softens the blow to global GDP.
MR. IGNATIUS: And as you try to look at these numbers, obviously, at a very early stage, do you see the net effect being significant enough that we could see a global GDP decline for this calendar year?
MR. MALPASS: My own view is that that's not the case at this point. I should take note that we're doing an assessment with the IMF, and we'll be--we'll be looking at those numbers in more detail. Even if you take the U.S. or other advanced economies, to the extent that they can increase supply--and I should bring Canada into that as well; they have--they have substantial potential for supply increases--that can soften this blow and you can see a supply response that that keeps things going. The demand in those countries right now is probably elevated. And I caution again, the right thing to do in these current circumstances is not to go out and buy extra flour or extra gasoline. It's to recognize that the world is a dynamic global economy and will respond, and there'll be--there'll be enough to go--to go around. The bigger problem and the thing I think we have to keep in mind is people in poor countries and the poor, even in the advanced economies will be hit really hard by the price response, this elevated price. So, the best thing people can do is have confidence in the future, go about their jobs, and try to be as productive as possible in this crisis.
MR. IGNATIUS: Let me just ask, Mr. Malpass, because you've mentioned the hoarding concern a couple of times, do you see any early evidence of that kind of hoarding behavior that you'd like to put a stop to?
MR. MALPASS: Some countries have announced that they'll curtail exports. And there's a list. Russia itself, Serbia, and some others. And so certainly, we would like to see that not happen. That was a problem in the 2008 food crisis for the world. The--an initial reaction for some countries is to tell their farmers don't export. That's not a proper response for a global--for a global community and a global response to a crisis. So, I'll take note of that.
And then at the individual level, as I mentioned, I don't see that there will be a need for people to have extra stockpiles in their--in their kitchens or in their restaurants. The world response is, I expect, going to be robust in terms of increasing their supply in the face of this catastrophe.
MR. IGNATIUS: Let me ask you about another macroeconomic effect of the war and responses to it. Your colleague, Madam Georgieva, the head of the IMF, warned on Sunday that because Russia can't access its non-ruble economics, central bank assets, a default on Russia's debt, in her words, is no longer improbable. I want to ask you if you share that assessment, and if so, what you and your colleagues think is the risk of contagion in financial markets as a Russian default begins to ripple outwards and affect others.
MR. MALPASS: David, this is a challenging question, because today markets are moving and so--and I don't have the current hour by hour information on that. I'll speak more generally. I'm very concerned about Russia and the people of Russia. They've embarked on a war, and it's creating havoc in the world and killing a lot of people in Ukraine. And so that itself is a true crisis.
And as far as their economy, it's being subjected to intense sanctions. You know, there hasn't been a G20 central bank. The Group of 20 is the major economies of the world. And the--while sanctions have been applied to smaller economies such as Iran, they haven't been applied to a G20 central bank yet. Now they have by the--by the U.S. and Europe vis-à-vis the Russian central bank. And so the consequences are far-reaching, they're severe for Russia as a nation, and they're extending to the people of Russia through the--as a direct result of the devaluation of the ruble.
One of the notable parts of communism, and particularly Soviet communism, was the utter failure to be able to have actual money. People--the money that people could trade and use. The ruble was--had a black market, and people had to had to survive through a bad, bad economic system. And so for many Russians, this devaluation that they're going through now brings back the memories of the communist system.
To broaden that point, China used to have that system. Up through Tiananmen Square, there was a black market in the Chinese currency. After Tiananmen Square, they stabilized the currency and their growth has been much stronger, and the per capita income growth has been much stronger than any that the Soviet system had generated. And that leads to our current situation where China's per capita income is above Russia's, even though Russia has these giant natural resources, has had relationship with Europe, and yet China has gone beyond it. And that has--attribute to the lower inflation rate, the ability to exchange money. And Russia has lost that almost overnight because of the sanctions. That will have a devastating impact. I don't know what they'll do with their bond. They have a huge external debt, and they'll have to decide what to do with that. They have the money blocked in central banks. How they'll use that, I don't know.
MR. IGNATIUS: So let me ask you, the sanctions that are now in place that, as you just described, have a devastating effect on Russia may be in place for a long while. Nobody can predict how long those sanctions will remain in place. Do you and your colleagues at the World Bank think about any ways in which the Russian people, separate from the government, will be in perhaps severe economic difficulty, should be aided during this crisis? Or is that something that's just off the board from your standpoint?
MR. MALPASS: We have stopped our operations and our programs in Russia and did that earlier. They weren't large to begin with, and they've stopped. The--I think it's premature to be thinking about aiding Russia and Russians, given that they're proceeding with the war. And so I think we have to focus today on what to do for Ukrainians, and also for the refugees that are flowing into Eastern Europe. These are--these are giant challenges for Poland, for Romania, and Moldova. We're working in those countries with regional support for the refugee programs. So, I want to really focus on that today. And if Russia can sort out a way out of this war that they instigated, then the world can think about what's the right thing to do for Russia.
MR. IGNATIUS: Thank you. That's helpful. We've talked about the rippling effects of the war and the reactions to it. You said on March 7 at an event called the Fragility Forum that to help the poorest nations through this period of difficulty, they should be able to restructure their debts, which would make their debts more transparent to lenders, and would obviously reduce the burden on the countries themselves. Is that something that you have a specific proposal to make on? And how would you see it being done, if so?
MR. MALPASS: These are important issues. Even prior to COVID--and of course, prior to the Ukraine war--poorer countries in the world were facing giant problems. The problems of underinvestment, the problems of education not advancing as it needs to in order to really make progress in the world, the World Bank works on that. And we also wrote a report in 2019 talking about the waves of debt that were hitting--that were hitting the people of these poor countries. There's an inherent challenge. The governments of the countries want the money because they can spend it on government services, which sometimes is good for the people. But oftentimes, the government then leaves, and the people are left with the debt.
And so a high focus of mine and of the World Bank is for transparency in the debt relations. If someone lends you money, they should disclose what the terms of the contract are. And that hasn't been done enough in this debt for the developing--for the poorer countries. We have proposed several steps to enhance the transparency of the debt. That means that the country should not enter into and the lender should not have contracts that prohibit disclosure of the terms of the contract. If it's a secret contract with a government in a poor country, you can wonder what's underneath that.
Since 2014, China has been writing routinely into its contracts a non-disclosure clause, making it into a secret contract. And so we're asking that the lenders not do that and the borrower's not do that. That gives you an example of a practical step. Then we're also looking for ways that when countries become overindebted in--to an unsustainable degree, then there be a process for them to restructure the debt.
You know, in corporate law, there's a bankruptcy process. There's no equivalent for poor countries whose governments have borrowed too much money. And so it takes sometimes years and years of pain for the people of the country to find a way through that. One country that's doing that now is Zambia, which has defaulted on its debt. And it was overindebted going into the situation. Some of the contracts were non-disclosed. And now the world is working to try to help it find a way to get out of that, to get out of that situation. But in the meantime, the people of the country suffer massively, because of the shutdown of parts of their financial system.
So, to--David, to bring it all together, the fragile countries are facing a giant problem now in terms of food insecurity, the prospect of rising interest rates in the advanced economies, and this overhang of debt. And it comes right on the--on the back or right after the COVID crisis and the Ukraine crisis are hitting them so hard.
MR. IGNATIUS: Let's talk for a moment about the effects of this war on Ukraine itself and the Ukrainian economy. You said a week ago on March 7, there are no words to express the horror of the Ukrainian people, and you said at the World Bank, "We're doing everything we can to assist Ukraine and the region." I know you've spoken directly with President Zelensky and outlined for him what the World Bank proposes to do in terms of emergency relief for this country that is being battered so brutally by the Russian invasion. Could you just summarize for our viewers what the emergency proposal that you've made to President Zelensky is?
MR. MALPASS: Yes, thank you. I had first gone to Ukraine in 2019 and saw the--an economy that was in transition. The World Bank has a large program there. So, when the--when the war struck, we wanted to find a way to accelerate some of--some parts of that program. We've done that. So, we've taken multiple steps. One is to our own--from our own funds, we've been able to begin the disbursements. We actually made disbursements last week of $325 million. And we have a press release going out today showing that we now have $923 million that's been made available over the last two weeks, including that first disbursement for Ukraine. This is--this is cash that the government can use to pay current--on current services, which are in such demand in Ukraine, of government workers, for example, in pensions and support that's much needed.
And the key element here is the ability to disperse quickly. One of the challenges for the world during crises is there are pledges made but turning those pledges into actual commitments and disbursements is a challenge. That was very much true of the--of the COVID crisis and the vaccines, where there were many more pledges than there were actual delivery of funds or of vaccines. So, we're trying to counteract or counter that or be very forthcoming in Ukraine with World Bank money and with other donors’ money. We were able to announce today the addition of funding from donors through a--through a trust fund that we set up last week. And so it can be fast acting. We've added Austria to the list. The list came out last week of Netherlands and Sweden putting in putting in cash that’s already beginning the disbursement process. And we look forward to that over the next few weeks, six to eight weeks, with more funding from multi--from bilateral donors--that means from governments around the world--into a trust fund that can quickly disperse to the government of Ukraine.
It's important to do it this way because Ukraine has limited capacity. They're under daily attacks. So, some of our people are working with some of their people who are in bomb shelters, working on paperwork in order to accept the money. And we're trying to do it very efficiently for the benefit of Ukraine. So that gives you a sense.
But I'll step back. I had a conversation with President Zelensky some two weeks ago. By the way, you know, I--David, I put out my--I work--I try to be very transparent myself on Twitter. So, for those interested, you can find the readouts and the actual written statements that I've made on Twitter. It's @DavidMalpassWBG. And that gives people--you know, I invite--I invite input from people around the world in how to make the World Bank better, and how I can do a better job myself, but how can the World Bank do a better job. And with President Zelensky, I gave him input. I congratulated him on heroism and on the leadership that he's shown in the--day after day in this devastating war.
MR. IGNATIUS: And help our viewers to understand the dimensions of this World Bank package that you've just described. If I understood you, you've got nearly a billion dollars in immediate World Bank money that you're already dispersing, and then there's the trust fund that you're gathering. How much additional money would that provide quickly? And then is there a number you have for medium-term aid to Ukraine? I've read a figure of $3 billion as your goal in emergency relief, over the--over the medium run. Help us to understand what the precise figures are.
MR. MALPASS: The first point I'll make is the absolutely extraordinary rapidity, the fast effort that was done over the last two weeks to have an actual disbursement. That's why I mentioned the importance of that. And I'm proud of the World Bank and the staff and also, of course, of the Ukrainians. So it actually moved from bank to bank in order to get this done last week, the first part. And so we hope to repeat that over and over again here during the crisis.
The magnitudes are astronomical. President Zelensky discussed with me some of the needs as--because Ukraine has been hit by the economic slowdown itself. The crops that are in the fields, difficult to harvest them. There are some assertions that the Russians--this is not from President Zelensky--but I've heard from others, that the Russians are trying to impede the farmers in Ukraine so that they can't bring the crops to market to cut them off from both food and from cash in Ukraine. So it's a harsh and horrifying effort that's going on almost day by day.
So that means that the rebuilding effort that we envision will have to involve the highway systems, the bridge systems, the--and the actual water systems of Ukraine that are being hit, and the electrical systems, of course, being damaged and airports, runways. That amounts to tens of billions of dollars. So, what we've done so far, is simply to say we're going to bring forward into last week and this week as much cash as we can, and then begin building a pipeline of projects for what's needed for Ukrainians. Some of those are now living in Poland. And I just met with a Polish Minister on that specific topic, how can we help the people that are--that are--that have come out of Ukraine. They're safe, but they have needs for their families and for distribution of the goods and services that are coming in for them. So, we're working on that.
The $3 billion number is our hope for the--or I mean the building--we have a concrete set of projects that add up to $3 billion that would--that would be possible over the next six to eight weeks. And so that consists of a broader set of services. That depends somewhat on the daily developments in Ukraine itself. So, I want to come back. Our immediate focus right now and of World Bank staff is how do we help the people under it that are under attack at the moment with survival, with the financial system that still is operating in parts and those kinds of immediate needs?
MR. IGNATIUS: I want to ask you about another aspect of this multi-layered crisis, and that's the effect on energy markets. President Biden decided to ban Russian oil imports. That has a relatively limited effect because we don't buy that much Russian oil. But the oil markets are clearly showing pressure. Oil has gone up since December from about $65 a barrel to over $100. This morning, it fell sharply. Oil was down at one point about 8 percent. It's bounced up a little bit. So, I want to ask you where you see oil prices and energy markets going as this crisis continues. People wonder if we're heading toward $200 a barrel oil. What's your forecast, to the extent you can--you can share one with us, for the energy markets? What should people be prepared for? And what specifically can the World Bank do to alleviate the difficulties caused?
MR. MALPASS: Thanks. David, I won't make a forecast. But I'll give you some thoughts on this. One is that markets are forward looking. So, if you think about what affects a price today, it's what do people think that production will be one year from now and two years from now. The markets are amazing in terms of being able to anticipate what the various developments are. So, over the last few weeks, the market has been trying to assess how much lost production will there be, and that includes lost production in Russia itself. Also, how much increased supply will be coming from other parts of the world, the United States, from Canada who has huge--which Canada has huge supplies which it has offered to regions such as Europe, but also made the point to the world that there needs to be some decision on how the world will reorient its supply lines, given the lack of trust in Russia.
So, one big question I suppose the market is trying to think about is, okay, there'll be more production outside Russia, less production in inside Russia. Let's be specific about how many barrels of production. Remember, the United States is the largest supplier or I mean producer of oil, bigger than Russia, bigger than--bigger than Saudi Arabia, and has upside--in 2019, the U.S. production went all the way up to I think nearly 13 million barrels per day. So, a big volume. That's potential there. And similarly, Canada has big production upside. And the Gulf states themselves, the energy rich producers of the Persian Gulf have variations that they can make in supply. So, I wanted to say that pretty, pretty forcefully, that this forward--a decision for the world to make is, is it going to be able to respond to Russia with confidence and with robust investment that brings on the new supply that's needed.
And then now it gets into the next step I’ll mention to you, is just the details for each country. I would--as I mentioned, I was just speaking with a Polish Minister. Poland takes LNG, liquefied natural gas, through a northern port and is looking at additional pipelines that will make it completely independent or not dependent on Russian natural gas. So that gives them--that independence is important for them as they consider how to--how to defend themselves from the--from the Russian movements. So, each country around the world is thinking about what to do in terms of their own wheat supply, their own corn supply, and natural gas and oil supplies as we go forward. And my emphasis is, supply is--it can be changed, and markets are forward looking when they see that change coming.
MR. IGNATIUS: So, David Malpass, president of the World Bank, thank you for giving us an extraordinary overview of the world and the how the world is responding to this crisis. We're really grateful to you for coming.
MR. MALPASS: Thank you, David. It was good to be on, and I wish the world all the best here, and you. Thanks.
MR. IGNATIUS: So please join us at Washington Post Live for other programming about Ukraine and other issues that are important to all of us. Go to WashingtonPostLive.com to look at our programming, register for the ones that interest you. Thank you very much for joining us today on this tour de raison of the world economy as we face the Ukraine war. | null | null | null | null | null |
Transcript: World Stage: Ukraine with Fatih Birol, Executive Director, International Energy Agency
MS. LONG: Welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Heather Long, an economics columnist here at the Post.
For many people, the top of mind right now is what's going on in the energy sector. The gas prices at the pump hit a record high in the United States and many other countries in recent days after the United States banned imports of oil and other energy products from Russia, and the European Union announced it would scale back its Russian energy imports by at least two‑thirds by the end of the year.
To help us understand what is going on right now in energy markets and what needs to happen in the coming weeks and months, I am thrilled to be joined by one of the top experts in the world, Dr. Fatih Birol. He is the executive director of the International Energy Agency.
Welcome, Dr. Birol.
DR. BIROL: Thank you very much. Thank you.
MS. LONG: So I'm sure you get this question, and it's the number one question on the minds of Washington Post readers, and that is the very simple how high can energy prices, particularly oil prices, go? Obviously, we saw last week, oil hit 130 a barrel. It's come down, and the latest numbers I saw, about $100 a barrel today. So, basically, my question for you, is the worst over, or does the world really need to be prepared for potentially another big surge in prices in the coming weeks?
DR. BIROL: I think the worst is over or not. It will be depending on, A, what will be the next steps of Russia, continue with aggression or not, both politically, also in the energy sector, and B, how the rest of the world will respond to Russia.
Why Russia's behavior is very important. Russia is not any country when it comes to energy. Russia is today the top oil exporter of the world and top natural gas exporter of the world, and as such, the aggression of Russia and the decision taken by the international community to ban or reduce the Russian energy imports do have and will have major implications for the energy balances. And I think it would be too optimistic to say that the worst is over where we stand today.
MS. LONG: That makes sense.
Can you walk us through‑‑a lot of people are calling this a crisis. Would you use the word "crisis," and what are the steps that countries need to start taking in the short term to try to handle these price surges?
DR. BIROL: I think, in my view, this is perhaps the first global energy crisis we are facing in the world. You remember in the 1970s, we had oil price shocks, '73, '74, '79, '80. It was mainly on oil, but today we are seeing the impacts on oil markets, natural gas markets, coal, electricity prices. It is affecting the entire energy world.
And, again, looking at the 1970s, what happened is that those oil price shocks we have experienced had a major impact on the global economy, inflation, and as such was bad news for the global economy. But, at the same time, when we look at the countries, how they responded to the 1970s with more innovation in the energy technologies, ranging from the nuclear power becoming a part of the global energy scene, to pushing the energy efficiency, car efficiency, fuel efficiency, they were also a result of the response to that crisis.
So I am also hopeful that at the end of this crisis, the first global energy crisis, countries, not just states, Europe, Japan, emergency countries will come up with new energy policies, accelerating the clean energy transitions, and as such, it can be a historical turning point on the global energy policymaking.
MS. LONG: Yeah. I want to talk more about that in a minute, but realistically, obviously, we have a short‑term energy supply problem.
DR. BIROL: Yeah.
MS. LONG: When you look across the different options‑‑everyone has been studying these‑‑could the Saudis pump more oil? Could United Arab Emirates? What about Iran? Could Venezuela come back on with some more barrels? Could the United States produce more? Realistically, who do you think could help fill some of this gap in the short term?
DR. BIROL: So we can basically in the short term, especially between now and the driving season when oil demand goes up. We have a few months. We have a few options in front of us.
Number one, getting more oil to the markets. It can be U.S. Anyway, the U.S. production is increasing, but we may hope to see an even stronger increase from Canada, from Brazil, and hopefully from some OPEC countries, from, as you mentioned, Saudis and Emirates being one of them. First portion, production increase from the Western world but also maybe from the Gulf producers, this is number one.
Number two, the International Energy Agency, our member governments have huge amount of oil stocks under the ground. In fact, only two weeks ago, we brought 63 million barrels to the markets to comfort the markets from those stocks, and this is only 4 percent of all the stocks we have. It was an initial response, and if there is a need, we can bring more oil from our stocks to the markets to comfort the markets.
And number three, and the last one, is to cut the demand of oil. So we are going to come up this Friday with a 10‑action plan, how we can cut oil demand, oil used between now and the end of the driving season, so that we can have a better market, stability in the market.
So these are three options on the market, increasing the production, bringing oil from the stocks of the IEA governments, and the third one is cutting the demand of oil.
MS. LONG: Yeah. I know that demand is very important, and I was trying myself not to speed as much over the weekend, as every little bit helps.
But can I ask you about the second one? Do you think we are at the point where we do need to see countries release more from those strategic petroleum reserves, like we call it in the United States? Obviously, other countries call it something different. You mentioned only 4 percent of the reserves have been released so far.
DR. BIROL: Yes.
MS. LONG: What are you watching for?
DR. BIROL: I think we are‑‑if we see the markets are getting tightened, if the aggression of Russia, the world's top oil exporter, continues, I think we may discuss with our governments, and if the governments decide, the United States and the other governments, we are more than ready to release those stocks to comfort the markets. As I said, we have 63 million barrels were only 4 percent of our strategic petroleum reserves. We have more oil to come.
The important issue is here. We have to find a way globally to minimize, if not nullify, the Russian oil and natural gas export revenues but at the same time to have stable global energy markets. We have to find balances between those two while keeping an eye on our other crisis, which is the climate crisis.
MS. LONG: Right, right. Another interesting thing I saw, your agency put out recently, was some tips and 10 different ideas to help the European Union as it really tries to reduce its Russian imports. Obviously, it currently relies, as you all spelled out, for about 40 percent of its energy imports coming from Russia, so very hard to dial that down.
But I'm wondering as well‑‑another argument I constantly hear is‑‑is there price gouging going on from energy companies right now? People see these really fast jumps up in these prices, and in the European Union plan, you all even suggested temporarily raising taxes on electric companies' windfall profits. So can you clarify? Do you see some price gouging going on right now in the market?
DR. BIROL: Yeah. Our 10‑action‑‑10‑Point Action Plan for the European Countries, which is very warmly received, by the way, I should say‑‑many governments, they are putting into action some of them, such as for some countries, we said they had a phase‑out of the nuclear power plants. We said give a thought to that. Maybe it is not the time, and some countries are reviewing their existing phase‑out policies. And for some others, we said maybe it is time to regulate the thermostat one degree lower, to have a lower temperature, but most importantly to replace as much as possible Russian gas exports with the exports from other countries, from U.S. and others.
Coming back to companies, yes, you are right. Some companies are making substantially high revenues, and it may be a way to look at whether or not those revenues, those incomes of those companies are‑‑can be a means to comfort the consumers who are badly hurt with the very high natural gas prices, electricity prices and oil prices. We need to support the consumers, and it is only fair to ask the companies to have some sacrifices here.
MS. LONG: That's a powerful point. I suspect it will be picked up a lot around the world.
Can you just give us a big‑picture overview from your perspective of the Russian oil and natural gas situation? Are they still exporting? Kind of, who's still buying, and how much realistically needs to be replaced on the global markets? Is this just the short‑term issue where somebody will eventually step up to buy Russian energy, or are we looking at quite a few months where nobody wants to buy Russian energy?
DR. BIROL: I think this is a key issue. As I said, Russia is the top oil exporter, top natural gas exporter. In terms of oil, it is a global market, but I see that the Russian oil is about half of their exports, have difficulties to find buyers as a result of sanctions or self‑imposed sanctions. We see that they still find buyers, especially in the developing Asian countries.
In terms of natural gas, Europe continues to buy natural gas from Russia today. So does China, but the big chunk of it goes to European countries. It is very difficult from one day to another to stop those natural gas exports. It is the reason we came with a plan in the next few months, how we can drastically decrease those gas imports from Russia, because we shouldn't forget that every cubic meter of gas we import from Russia goes back as a revenue to Russian government, which in turn may be used to aggress the Ukrainian people. I think we should‑‑better have this linkage in our‑‑keep in our minds.
MS. LONG: Yeah, very much so.
And, lastly, on the natural gas, here in the United States, there's just been tremendous calls across the political spectrum for the United States to produce more natural gas, particularly liquified natural gas that could then be shipped potentially to Europe, European Union. Do you see that as a big part of the solution for the European Union relying more on U.S. liquified natural gas?
DR. BIROL: In fact, I should tell you that before Russia started to attack Ukraine, already in October, the International Energy Agency warned the entire world. I made a press conference, which where we said the‑‑hold on a moment. Russian gas exports to Europe‑‑this is October‑‑25 percent lower than historical averages. That price was very high. They could make‑‑had some revenues, but they decreased the gas exports to Europe, and we thought this might be an early indicator what Russia had in mind.
And gas prices went up substantially, and it was the U.S. liquified natural gas came to a rescue to Europe, but also Norway, also Azerbaijan, Algeria, but U.S. LNG, liquified natural gas, was extremely helpful. And the more we receive in Europe, liquified natural gas from the United States, the less dependency on Russian gas. In fact, many countries, such as Germany who did not have a big appetite for U.S. liquified natural gas, changed its disposition from one day to another, building in a rapid way to terminals in order to receive the U.S. and other countries' liquified natural gas. So this is strategically important that the U.S. LNG exports to Europe and other parts of the world increases as soon as possible.
MS. LONG: Yeah. You've talked about this two‑ or three‑pronged approach that many countries need to take right now. Obviously, we need some supply increases, but also, as you keep emphasizing, we need to demand less energy.
You know, you mention things like turning down our thermostats, to not heat as much here in the winter and spring months. Realistically, how much of a difference does that make?
DR. BIROL: To be honest with you, very much, and this is the issue. When we talk about the situation, the crisis we are in, we normally think people in the street‑‑or ourselves--to solve the situation, this problem, we need to increase the production. This is true, but at the same time, the other way is to decrease the consumption, and we are very happy to see that many citizens in the social media and elsewhere, they said, "We are ready. We are ready to have temperature at home from 22 degrees Celsius to bring it 21 degrees Celsius," especially when they are seeing the Ukrainian people fighting for their freedom in the middle of the winter. So I think we shouldn't underestimate the sentiment of the people in Europe and elsewhere, how they strongly feel to address this issue, and again, together with this, European governments, we have suggested‑‑and they have now taken some of the regulatory measures‑‑to improve the insulation for the homes, the apartments, the buildings here, because in Europe, we use bulk of the natural gas for heating season. Now, thanks God, we are getting out of the heating season now. This month and next month should be easier, but the next winter will come, and between now and next winter, we have to find ways in order to reduce the demand for natural gas and at the same time increase the production from U.S. and elsewhere in order to minimize, if not nullify, the revenues going to Russia.
MS. LONG: Yeah. And what about the energy use by factories? Obviously, German and other factories are big energy users. Do you think that there will have to be some kind of rolling blackout situations where different factories go idle for a while to try to save energy there?
DR. BIROL: So I should say the space we are in today, it is an emergency. It is not a business‑as‑usual. I wouldn't disclose‑‑I wouldn't exclude that some factories, some other business may have to have a few hours in the next months to come to run empty without having energy, to make some sacrifices there. I hope we will not come to that position, but it may well be the case. And we have two options there, either not to run in full capacity those factories or finding alternative fuels. It can be anything, and in some cases, it may even be coal for a temporary period in order to run the‑‑continue to run the economy.
MS. LONG: Yeah. I want to ask you about the short term versus the long term. Obviously, the European Union and the U.S. and many nations around the world want to move to more green energy sources, longer term, but people are seeing this crisis right now. It's bringing back memories from the '70s. It's bringing back this desire to see more oil and natural gas drilling to try to help with the crisis right now. What is your message to countries as they try to balance these short‑term energy needs, which would presumably mean more fossil fuels, with how can we keep people focused on a long‑term vision? How can we still make that seem realistic?
DR. BIROL: So, in my view, we have now‑‑we have three crises. One if the humanitarian crisis we are seeing every day on televisions, in social media, happening in Ukraine in front of our eyes. The second one is the energy crisis, and the third one is the climate crisis.
So in the‑‑to address the energy crisis and to support the Ukrainian people, we have to reduce the Russian oil and gas as much as we can, but while we do so, we may take some temporary measures which can lead to temporary increase in emissions. But, if we, the governments around the world, use this situation in a wise manner, as we have done in the 1970s, it can well lead to innovation in many clean energy technologies, and it can help to increase the momentum. It can be electric cars, for example. It can be efficiency. It can be new nuclear technologies.
There is already a lot of work going on in those areas, but this can give it momentum, and we can get rid of this fossil fuel dependency in the long term. But in the medium term and in the short term, we may need to have gas and oi, but we should have a long‑term vision that we have to find alternatives to those fossil fuels.
Today it is Russia, and tomorrow it may be another country. So it is in our hands, in the hands of the governments, to make use of this situation, used as a turning point to prepare a much cleaner, securer, and affordable energy future.
MS. LONG: Yeah.
DR. BIROL: And we have done it in the past.
MS. LONG: That's a great overview.
Can I ask, in your opinion, does this current energy crisis we're in‑‑do you think that that speeds up the transition to renewable sources or greener sources, or do you think it delays it and slows it down a bit? I've heard arguments from both sides on this. I'm curious, your take.
DR. BIROL: I think there may be a temporary short‑term pause for clean energy options, but it is in the minds of everybody now. If we want to address this major price volatility, if you don't want to be slaves of Mr. X or Mrs. Y in this or that country, if you want to have a clean, secure, affordable energy future, we have to be very clear, the governments have to be very clear‑‑and your government is a leader in this respect‑‑to push clean energy options. This ranges from the electric cars to nuclear power from‑‑nuclear power to hydrogen. There are many options there, and when again, looking at the 1970s when we had the oil price shocks, those shocks not only resulted in high inflation and the recessions, but they also resulted in a big jump in the new energy technologies.
We can still do it, and I think the world has learned a lot. The governments have learned a lot. It is in the interest of their nation's security, energy security, and also to address another problem we face, which is the climate change.
MS. LONG: And, lastly, I just want to give you a chance‑‑many of our viewers are around the world, but the bulk are in the United States. What is your message to United States leaders, to President Biden, and to members of Congress? What should they be focused on right now in this energy crisis? Is it telling, urging our domestic suppliers to produce more or to export more to Europe or conserve more energy? What's your key takeaway for them?
DR. BIROL: If I may, perhaps two suggestions. One is continue to push the clean energy options from electric cars to hydrogen, from hydrogen to nuclear power, but at the same time, facilitate, continue to facilitate the natural gas, especially LNG exports from United States to the rest of the world. This is number one.
Number two, maybe as important as that, if not more important, the United States, the current administration was extremely successful to build a major international coalition of the governments around the world. I work at the IEA, International Energy Agency. Many years, I work with many governments. I have rarely seen such a solidarity, such a unity amongst the countries around the world and to agree what is right, what is wrong, and what is the next step.
I thank U.S. administration for their leadership in this as well.
MS. LONG: Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, with the calls for unity and to lower our thermostats, thank you for joining us today.
DR. BIROL: Thank you very much.
MS. LONG: And thank you for tuning in to Washington Post Live. We have a big week ahead of interviews, including the head of the World Bank later today. Check us out on WashingtonPostLive.com.
I'm Heather Long. Thank you for joining us. | null | null | null | null | null |
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Oct. 19, 2021, in D.C. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
That seems to be what some prominent anti-Trump Republicans are considering. The Associated Press reports that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Reps. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) are all contemplating a run, and their allies are openly talking up the idea. Kinzinger, for instance, says there should “be a voice out there” to oppose what Trump represents.
It’s often noted that when sitting presidents face a serious primary challenge in their reelection bid, they usually lose the general election, as did Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. Causality runs in both directions: Not only can presidents be weakened by a primary challenge, but it will probably happen only if they are weak to begin with.
It’s certainly possible. While today’s GOP hasn’t gone through the reevaluation most parties would after losing the White House and Congress, perhaps a second Trump loss would at last do the trick. Republicans might collectively decide to take a new approach, turning away from Trump’s politics of hatred and toward something more inclusive and optimistic.
Or not. It’s just as possible that if Trump lost, in 2028, a candidate like DeSantis, whose politics are just as ugly and divisive as Trump’s, would become the nominee. After all, it’s not as if a 2024 loss would make the party base suddenly more pragmatic and less resentful. Those within the Trumpist base will still be the most important force within the primary electorate, and they’re unlikely to change who they are and what they’re looking for from their leaders.
But if you were a Republican like Kinzinger, Hogan or Cheney, running for president could have a strong appeal. A presidential candidacy gives you an unmatched platform. It means people will come hear you speak, reporters will take a greater interest in you, and you’ll get more attention than you ever have. It might be the best opportunity to create a real debate among Republicans about what Trump has done to them and how they might recover their souls.
Those dissenting Republicans can look to previous primary campaigns for examples of how you can fail to win but still alter your party’s trajectory. Pat Buchanan’s runs in 1992 and 1996, built on nativism and opposition to free-trade agreements, laid the foundation for what would become Trumpism. With his two campaigns, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) nudged the Democratic Party to the left and opened up space to debate ideas such as single-payer health care that had gotten little national attention beforehand.
Whatever you think of Hogan, Cheney and Kinzinger, there’s little doubt that they are sincerely dismayed at what the Republican Party has become. Even if none of them are likely to become president, running for the job is probably the best chance they’ll have to help it become something less repugnant. That seems like reason enough to mount a campaign. | null | null | null | null | null |
This world — the Port St. Lucie complex, the Mets and increasingly baseball in general — belongs to him, after all. He is changing the rules, even as his fellow owners change them for him, pulling the game’s center of gravity to Queens with every splurge that most owners wouldn’t consider, seizing the spotlight with every tweet that most owners wouldn’t send.
One of those new arrivals, three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer — with his three-year, $130 million contract — rolled into camp amid questions about his outsize role in the CBA negotiations, only to wave them off to focus on baseball. On Monday, he stood on a mound a few feet from Mets ace Jacob deGrom as they threw bullpen sessions. | null | null | null | null | null |
Once Doolittle and designated hitter Nelson Cruz join the team, the Nationals will need to clear two spots on their 40-man roster. Doolittle was with the Nationals from July 2017 to September 2020, initially arriving from the Oakland Athletics via trade. In those three years and change, he thrived as a closer, struggled to stay healthy, helped the team to a World Series title and became a respected voice in the clubhouse and city. Since leaving, he signed a one-year, $1.5 million with the Cincinnati Reds last year, was designated for assignment after the trade deadline and wound up making 11 appearances for the Seattle Mariners.
Across 49⅔ innings in 2021, he had a 4.53 ERA and walked too many hitters. ERA+, a metric used to compare pitchers across the major leagues, considered him a slightly above-average reliever. His first stint in Washington closed with him limping off the mound with an oblique strain, struggling to breathe in the quiet of an empty stadium. For months afterward, he hoped for a different ending with a team and fan base that grew close to his heart.
“We have a great relationship with Doo. We know what he can do when he’s healthy, so I’m looking forward to getting him back here,” Manager Dave Martinez said Monday. “Honestly, he’s one of my favorites. I can’t wait to see him again, and hopefully he gets right back on track. Last year, we kept an eye on him. We watched him get his velo back, so we definitely think he can help us.”
From 2019 to 2020, Doolittle’s average fastball velocity dipped from 93.5 to 90.9 mph, according to FanGraphs. In 2021, it ticked back up to 93.3, at times even creeping into the mid- to high 90s. For a pitcher who throws more than 80 percent fastballs, spin and location often are more important than pure speed. But status quo velocity, or something close to it, is important and does show better overall health.
As for what this means for the bullpen — and for the club’s prospects in 2022 — Doolittle can serve a few functions, none of which are make-or-break. If he bounces back, maintaining some of his increased velocity and shaving down the walks, he could be a high-leverage option and potential trade chip. If his numbers don’t improve much, he could still guide younger relievers and steady an inexperienced clubhouse. For these reasons, among others, he’s a familiar, low-risk, likely-somewhat-marginal-return-on-the-field-but-also-good-to-have-around sort of acquisition. He makes sense for the Nationals at this stage of their rebuild.
Since the lockout ended, General Manager Mike Rizzo has been busy, agreeing to major league deals with Doolittle, Cruz, right-handed reliever Steve Cishek and utility man Ehire Adrianza; and minor league contracts with starter Aníbal Sánchez, right-hander Aaron Sanchez and outfielder Gerardo Parra. And with Cishek and Doolittle on board, Martinez can tilt his head, maybe squint a bit, and start to see the faint outline of a bullpen.
Unless rosters are expanded for April, which remains possible given the shortened spring training, the Nationals will carry eight relievers. Cishek, Doolittle, Tanner Rainey and Kyle Finnegan feel like the locks. The other relievers on the 40-man roster are Patrick Murphy, Mason Thompson, Austin Voth, Andrés Machado, Jhon Romero, Gabe Klobosits, Paolo Espino (a swing man) and lefties Sam Clay and Francisco Pérez.
Murphy and Voth are out of minor league options, meaning they’ll either make the club out of spring training or go on waivers, giving the other 29 teams a chance to claim them. Thompson, Machado, Romero, Klobosits, Espino, Clay and Pérez have options remaining, meaning they can swing between the majors and minors a maximum of five times, providing flexibility. Veterans Carl Edwards Jr., Reed Garrett and lefty Luis Avilán are also in camp with nonroster invites. | null | null | null | null | null |
Fairfax school board appeals judge’s invalidation of Thomas Jefferson admissions system
A judge recently ruled that Thomas Jefferson High School's admissions system is discriminatory. Fairfax County school system is appealing that ruling. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
The Fairfax County School Board is appealing a judge’s ruling that invalidated the recently revised admissions system for the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology magnet school.
Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled late last month that the admissions program at TJ, as the school is known, discriminates against Asian American applicants and constitutes an illegal act of racial balancing. He was ruling as part of a parent-brought lawsuit that claims the admissions system is discriminatory. Hilton ordered that Fairfax County Public Schools cease using the current TJ admissions system immediately, throwing into limbo the 2,500 students who had already applied for a spot in the Class of 2026 and are now midway through the application process.
Hilton also denied a subsequent request from the school board for a temporary stay of his order, meant to allow the Class of 2026 applicants to proceed through the current admissions system uninterrupted.
The Fairfax County School Board filed its appeal of Hilton’s ruling on Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
“We believe strongly that Judge Hilton’s decision just was not reflective of the extensive federal case law that exists in support of race-neutral admissions,” the board’s chair, Stella Pekarsky (Sully), said in an interview Monday. “If we allow this to stand without appeal, it could have far-reaching repercussions well beyond Fairfax County.”
The school district’s filing was made by former U.S. solicitor general Donald B. Verrilli Jr., of the firm Munger, Tolles & Olson, who has agreed to take the case pro bono, according to Fairfax spokeswoman Julie Moult. He was persuaded by two of his firm’s lawyers, who are TJ alumni, Moult said.
Legal experts were divided over how the 4th Circuit is likely to rule. Some said it depends on the composition of the panel of judges, while others pointed out that the use of race in admissions in higher education is a very open and controversial question — slated to be voted on in October by the Supreme Court as part of a lawsuit challenging Harvard’s race-conscious admissions practices. The majority-conservative court seems poised to overturn decades of precedent supporting the consideration of race to achieve a diverse student body.
Kim Forde-Mazrui, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said Fairfax school officials’ best argument is that the TJ admissions system uses race-neutral methods to increase the enrollment of underrepresented students — a tactic that has long been established as legal under precedents including the Supreme Court’s rulings in the 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case and the 2016 Fisher v. University of Texas. Going by those cases, Forde-Mazrui said, the 4th Circuit should uphold the TJ admissions system.
But “if the evidence does show — maybe because of statements people made — that they actually want to reduce Asian numbers in particular, while maintaining White numbers, then I think that will be struck down because that wouldn’t be considered a legitimate purpose,” Forde-Mazrui said.
Natasha Warikoo, a sociology professor at Tufts University who studies ethnic and racial inequality in education and has been following the TJ case, said she thinks it will be hard to prove Fairfax officials acted to drive down the Asian population.
“I looked at some of the materials that they claim shows that this was about anti-Asian bias,” she said. “I’m Asian American — I don’t see it.”
Fairfax school officials revised the TJ admissions system in 2020 by removing a $100 application fee and a notoriously difficult test. Instead, the school adopted a “holistic review” process that requires applicants to possess certain academic qualifications, including a high-level course load and grade-point average, but also takes into account students’ “experience factors” including socioeconomic status. The factors do not include race, which is not considered in TJ admissions.
Officials said the revisions were meant to boost diversity at the school, which has historically enrolled single-digit percentages of Black and Hispanic students. But the alterations immediately drew fire as some parents alleged they were meant to drive down the population of Asian students — a group that has constituted about 70 percent of the student body in recent years, while accounting for about 30 percent of Fairfax County’s overall population.
In the first year the altered admissions process took effect, TJ admitted the most diverse class of freshmen in recent memory. The percentage of Black, Hispanic and low-income students rose, while the percentage of Asian students dropped to 50 percent. About 22 percent of offers went to White students, a number largely consistent with the preceding four years, when between 17 and 22 percent of offers went to White students.
Hilton’s ruling last month came as part of a lawsuit filed by a group of parents and alumni known as the Coalition for TJ, which is opposed to the admissions changes. The coalition, which is being represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation — a conservative legal advocacy group known for fighting against affirmative action — argued that TJ’s admissions system is discriminatory and called for its immediate end.
In his February ruling, Hilton agreed with the coalition on pretty much every point.
On Monday, coalition member Harry Jackson — who noted that he is a Black father of a son who attends TJ and a half-Asian eighth-grade daughter — said in a statement that it is “disappointing but not shocking that the failed school board members of Fairfax County Publics have chosen to dig in their heels to continue their systemic racism against Asian students.” He said the coalition will “continue to fight.”
On the opposite side of the debate, the TJ Alumni Action Group — an advocacy group that supports the revised admissions system — issued a statement Monday praising Fairfax schools for appealing the ruling. “We reject the false narrative of anti-Asian discrimination and condemn the one-sided portrayal of the Asian American community,” the group wrote.
It is unclear when the 4th Circuit Court will weigh in on the TJ case, although it could take months. The Supreme Court’s October ruling on Harvard’s use of race in admissions could have ramifications for how the TJ case is ultimately decided, according to Harvard law professor Richard H. Fallon Jr.
He said it has historically been harder, under Supreme Court precedent, to justify racial preferences in the K-12 arena than in higher education.
“When the Harvard case is decided, it will undoubtedly have ripple effects,” Fallon said, “because what happens in postsecondary education is obviously not wholly unrelated to what happens in the K-12 context.”
Meanwhile, the Virginia General Assembly last week passed into law a bill that outlaws racial discrimination at Governor’s Schools, which includes TJ. A spokeswoman for Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said Monday that the governor “looks forward to signing the legislation.” | null | null | null | null | null |
BALTIMORE — The U.S. Coast Guard said efforts were underway Monday to refloat a 1,000-foot container vessel that ran aground in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay.
The Coast Guard said in a statement that initial reports of the ship’s grounding came in around 9 p.m. Sunday. There were no reports of injuries, pollution or damage to the vessel. | null | null | null | null | null |
Contributing college basketball reporter
Tennessee's win in the SEC tournament didn't seem to matter much to the NCAA selection committee. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Just a day after the NCAA basketball committee appeared to place minimal value on the results of the final three days of the season, Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes offered up a fascinating-if-impossible idea.
“If conference tournaments don’t mean anything, if the teams [that] are already slotted to be in the tournament can’t improve their seeding, we should stay home and let the teams that are trying to get in the tournament fight for that [automatic] bid,” the veteran coach told reporters a day after the Volunteers landed a No. 3 seed after winning the SEC tournament.
It’s impractical, of course, because power conference tournaments have ceased being valued as basketball celebrations and treated more as television inventory.
The SEC tournament? That’s 13 games — and more than a day’s worth of programming over multiple networks. Same with the Big Ten.
Even the ACC, which is rooted in the tradition of its basketball tournament as much as any league, just got done with a five-day, 14-game marathon in Brooklyn, many of them lightly attended and largely unnoticed in Gotham.
Duke and North Carolina didn’t draw the same in-person eyeballs they would have in a more traditional ACC city, like Greensboro, N.C., or even Washington. But removing them from the TV schedule would cause a meltdown for the ACC’s broadcast partners. Same with Kentucky in the SEC, Kansas in the Big 12 and Michigan State in the Big Ten. So Barnes’s plan is a non-starter.
Yet it is fair to wonder what the incentive structure is for anyone safely in the field if the NCAA committee doesn’t allow the final few days of the season to have seemingly any influence on seeding.
Barnes’s own Volunteers are a fine example. On paper, Tennessee has a superior resume to Duke, a No. 2 seed. The Vols rank in the top seven of each of the six metrics of the team sheets the committee utilizes. Duke was between 11th and 14th.
Tennessee went 11-7 in Quadrant 1 games, the highest tier of contests on the team sheets; Duke was 6-2. Would the Blue Devils have handled playing twice as many high-end games as well as the Vols did? It’s an open question. To Duke’s credit, it was 13-3 away from Cameron Indoor Stadium; Tennessee was 10-7 outside of Knoxville.
Big picture, there isn’t a massive difference in landing a No. 2 or a No. 3 seed. The first two games are a little tougher in theory for a No. 3 seed, the regional semifinal marginally more difficult. The real problems come when poor seeding shifts a team in line to be a No. 5 seed to the No. 7 line, or a No. 6 seed to the No. 8 line.
But for coaches, who are disproportionately judged on NCAA tournament performance, what is the incentive (besides contract bonuses) for winning a conference tournament when it doesn’t help their postseason standing and puts players at risk for injury?
This is something for the next iteration of the NCAA’s basketball committee to consider. Conference tournaments represent about 10 percent of the schedules for teams that make extended runs. It shouldn’t count as 30 percent, but it also shouldn’t be 3 percent, either.
But there are things to celebrate in this bracket, too. The committee correctly identified the four most complete profiles of the season and rewarded Gonzaga, Arizona, Kansas and Baylor with No. 1 seeds. Baylor’s injury issues might ultimately sink its attempt at a successful title defense, but its body of work remained strong.
While the order could be debated, the committee also picked out the top 16 teams for the top four seed lines. Perhaps Iowa would like a word given the work it stitched together over the last six weeks, but it is in the same subregional as a vulnerable No. 4 seed that has played with fire countless times this season (Providence). The Hawkeyes should probably be grateful their Big Ten title run didn’t push them further up the board.
As always, whether the committee gets the final couple teams right or wrong, it’s a relief that the discussion isn’t over who is No. 3 or No. 5, but rather who is No. 37 (or, more accurately, based on this year’s seed list, who is No. 48).
Then again, Dayton or Oklahoma or SMU or Texas A&M (the teams just outside the field) could look to the likes of 2011 VCU and 2021 UCLA as reasons to think they could have made Final Four runs from a play-in berth as well.
Oklahoma, it should be noted, beat one of the four best teams in the country in its conference tournament. Texas A&M toppled an eventual No. 2 seed (Auburn) and No. 4 seed (Arkansas) before falling to Tennessee in the SEC tournament. Those were impressive results, though apparently too little and too late to move the committee this time around. | null | null | null | null | null |
Confederate statue removed from Talbot County Courthouse
‘Talbot Boys’ thought to be the last such monument left on state or local public land in Maryland
Crews remove the stone base of the “Talbot Boys” statue on the grounds of the Talbot County Courthouse on March 14 in Easton, Md. (Julio Cortez/AP)
Workers removed a Confederate statue early Monday from the grounds of the Talbot County Courthouse on the Eastern Shore with plans to reassemble the monument on a Civil War battlefield in Virginia, the county manager said.
Its removal was approved last year by the Talbot County Council following public protest and contentious debate.
“[T]he civil war monument in front of the courthouse was carefully and respectfully packaged and removed,” Talbot County Manager Clay B. Stamp said Monday in an interview. “However we handled the statue, we wanted to make sure we showed due respect for it, because there were many people that honored its purpose.”
The 13-foot copper statue of a young soldier, which stood atop a pedestal inscribed with the names of those Talbot County men who died for the Confederate cause, is thought to be the last Confederate monument standing on nonfederal public land in Maryland, according to the Move the Monument Coalition. The nonprofit organization said in a statement that $80,000 had been raised to relocate the monument to the Cross Keys Battlefield in Harrisonburg, Va.
“We commend our many supporters as well as the County Council for seeing that this symbol of the Jim Crow-era no longer sits on the site where justice for all is supposed to reign,” the organization’s statement says.
Efforts to remove the Confederate monument took on urgency in 2020 as protests for racial justice swept the nation following the murder of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police. An initial vote by the Talbot County Council that summer to retain the statue was met with local protests that eventually led council members to reverse course in September.
Maryland county votes to keep statue honoring Confederate soldiers
Stamp said workers spent Sunday preparing the courthouse grounds for the monument’s removal. Early Monday, a dozen workers, assisted by a specialized crane, disassembled the monument into two pieces and lifted them onto a trailer for removal. The job was wrapped up by about 1 p.m., Stamp said, with delivery to Virginia expected in the next day or so.
“It’s all going to the same place, and it will be re-erected at that location,” Stamp said.
The Confederate monument was built between 1914 and 1916, nearly 50 years after the Civil War’s conclusion. The statue depicted a young boy, his chin up and hat tipped back, holding a furled Confederate flag to his side. The granite pedestal carried an inscription, “To the Talbot Boys. 1861-1865. C.S.A.”
The monument had been built partly through the efforts of Joseph B. Seth, a lawyer in Easton who said the county had “just pride in her contribution of men to the Confederate cause.” In a memoir he co-wrote, Seth wrote that “the bulk of the slaves were devoted to their masters and their families,” which “were equally devoted to the slaves and with the whole Southland had the tenderest affection for the faithful old Mammies and Uncles.”
The Talbot County branch of the NAACP had long wanted to get rid of the monument, calling it an offensive symbol of racism and oppression. The Southern Poverty Law Center said nearly 170 Confederate symbols, including monuments, were removed in 2020 following Floyd’s killing.
He’s on a one-man quest to take down Confederate monuments in Maryland | null | null | null | null | null |
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Drawn by a myriad of factors that include the team’s winning tradition, a record-breaking season, the West Coast location and a positive reputation for working with pitchers, left-hander Carlos Rodón and right-hander Jakob Junis passed their physical exams and were officially added to the San Francisco Giants’ roster on Monday.
“We worked really well together, changed some things, and put together a pretty special season, one of the best ones of my career, which led me to the Giants,’’ Rodón said. “I’m really grateful for that time with Ethan, and I think it will be a pretty seamless to Andrew (Bailey, current Giants pitching coach).” | null | null | null | null | null |
Opinion: What the shocking images of Ukraine’s dead say about the media — and our biases
The war in Yemen, now in its eighth year, has been every bit as brutal. The war in Syria has been far deadlier, and both regime forces and Islamist militants have employed chemical weapons. Yet in those and other conflicts, we were not shown such raw and immediate images of the dead, among them the now-iconic New York Times close-up of a mother and two young children killed by Russian mortar fire in the Kyiv suburb of Irpin. | null | null | null | null | null |
Two men fatally shot in Southeast Washington
Two men were killed in a shooting in Southeast Washington on Monday afternoon, D.C. police said.
About 3:22 p.m., the men were found shot in the 700 block of 13th Street SE, police said. One man was pronounced dead and the second man was taken to a hospital, police said. The second man later died at the hospital. Police did not release names or addresses of the victims. | null | null | null | null | null |
In this image taken from video provided by Free Burma Rangers, a Myanmar military helicopter fires rockets west of Loikaw in Kayah State, Myanmar on Feb. 21, 2022. While Russia’s war in Ukraine dominates global attention, Myanmar’s military is targeting civilians in air and ground attacks on a scale unmatched in the country since World War II, according to a longtime relief worker who spent almost three months in a combat zone in the Southeast Asian nation. (Free Burma Rangers via AP) (Uncredited/Free Burma Rangers) | null | null | null | null | null |
Brooklyn's Kyrie Irving, left, watches teammate Patty Mills and the Nets play the Knicks at Barclays Center. (Seth Wenig/AP)
The NBA fined the Brooklyn Nets $50,000 for allowing Kyrie Irving into their locker room at Barclays Center on Sunday. The fine was “for violating local New York City law and league health and safety protocols,” the league said in a statement Monday.
Irving, the Nets’ star guard who has been sitting out home games because he is unvaccinated, was in a courtside seat at Barclays Center to watch his team defeat the New York Knicks without his services. He was able to attend the game as a ticket-holding patron because the city recently lifted its coronavirus vaccine mandate for customers at indoor businesses such as restaurants, movie theaters, gyms and arenas.
However, employees who interact with the public or perform in-person work at such businesses must be vaccinated, and as opposed to the stands at Barclays Center, locker rooms there are considered workplace environments. Irving reportedly went into the Nets’ locker room at halftime of Sunday’s game.
After the game, Nets star forward Kevin Durant called out New York Mayor Eric Adams, describing a differentiation between fans and players at Nets games as “ridiculous.”
“At this point now, it feels like somebody’s trying to make a statement or a point to flex their authority,” said Durant, who scored 53 points to lead his team past the Knicks. “But everybody out here is looking for attention, and that’s what I feel the mayor wants right now, some attention. But he’ll figure it out soon. He better.
“But it just didn’t make any sense. Like, there’s unvaxxed people in this building already,” Durant continued at a postgame news conference. “We got a guy who can come into the building — I guess, are they fearing [for] our safety? Like, I don’t get it. Yeah, we’re all confused. Pretty much everybody in the world is confused at this point.
“Early on in the season, people didn’t understand what was going on, but now it just looks stupid. So hopefully, Eric, you’ve got to figure this out.”
Shortly after news emerged Monday of the Nets’ fine, Durant struck a different tone.
“The last two years have been a difficult and painful time for New Yorkers, as well as a very confusing time with the changing landscape of the rules and mandates. I do appreciate the task the Mayor has in front of him with all the city has been through,” Durant said in a statement issued by the Nets. “My frustration with the situation doesn’t change the fact that I will always be committed to helping the communities and cities I live in, and play in.”
Adams, who took office on the first day of this year, said of Irving on Sunday: “Kyrie can play tomorrow. Get vaccinated.”
The mayor said last month he agreed with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver that it was “unfair” for unvaccinated members of the Nets or Knicks to be barred from playing in home games while unvaccinated players for visiting teams were allowed on the court at Barclays Center and Madison Square Garden. He added at the time that he was concerned it might “send mixed messages” if he changed the rule, which was implemented under his predecessor, Bill de Blasio.
Irving, who played one year in college at Duke, was also in attendance at Barclays Center on Saturday for the ACC tournament final between the Blue Devils and Virginia Tech. He has played in just 18 of Brooklyn’s 68 games this season, all on the road, because of the New York City vaccine mandate. At the start of the season, the Nets announced Irving would be sidelined altogether until he was “eligible to be a full participant,” but the team reversed course in December amid a spate of injuries and coronavirus issues that thinned the roster of a team expected to challenge for the Eastern Conference crown.
At 35-33, Brooklyn is in eighth place in the East. Unless New York ends its private sector mandate, Irving will not be able to play in home playoff games.
In January, the seven-time all-star told reporters that he was “rooted” in his choice to remain unvaccinated.
“I made my decision already,” he said then, “and I’m standing on it.” | null | null | null | null | null |
PHILADELPHIA — Nikola Jokic had 22 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Denver Nuggets past Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers 114-110 on Monday night in a battle of MVP contenders.
CLEVELAND — Rookie Evan Mobley scored a season-high 30 points and Darius Garland had 24 points and 13 assists as Cleveland beat Los Angeles. | null | null | null | null | null |
Hall, who joined Fox News in 2015, works primarily as a Washington-based State Department correspondent. But according to his Fox bio, he has also reported from conflict zones in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.
His injury, which was first publicly reported Monday afternoon by Fox News anchor John Roberts, comes days after an American journalist was killed in Ukraine. Brent Renaud was fatally shot Sunday while reporting in Irpin, a town outside Kyiv, on a project focused on the global refugee crisis for Time magazine. | null | null | null | null | null |
For astronauts like me and my cosmonaut colleagues, the International Space Station is a powerful symbol of peaceful cooperation.
By Scott Kelly
Scott Kelly is a former NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Navy captain. He spent nearly a year aboard the International Space Station in 2015-2016. His latest book, “Ready for Launch: An Astronaut's Guide to Success on Earth,“ will be published April 12.
Astronaut Scott Kelly, left, and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko aboard the International Space Station on Jan. 21, 2016, their 300th consecutive day in space. (NASA/AP)
I spent nearly a year beginning in March 2015 living onboard the International Space Station with the Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko — a partnership that would have been very unlikely when we were younger. As a U.S. Navy fighter pilot during the Cold War, serving in the region between northwest Russia and Scandinavia, I might have been trying to kill one of Misha’s fellow cosmonauts, and he me, had hostilities led to aerial combat: He was flying MiGs in the region around the same time. Instead, in 2010 and 2011, I commanded Expedition 26 aboard the space station, and that cosmonaut, Dmitri Kondratyev, was one of my crewmates.
In the early 1990s, our countries’ space agencies were willing to work together to ease Cold War tensions, and so the United States and Russia agreed to embark on a shared space station. To me, it has always been one of the great achievements of our nations that we came together to build and operate an orbiting station as a peaceful cooperation, and I was privileged to serve there.
As an astronaut, I worked closely with Russians and other Eastern Europeans for decades. I lived in Russia as NASA’s director of operations in Star City, where cosmonauts and astronauts from many nations train and work together. As a result, I speak Russian and have come to know and appreciate Eastern European history and culture. Needless to say, it has been painful to watch the unwarranted, bloody invasion of Ukraine unfold. In 2½ weeks, hundreds of Ukrainian civilians — men, women, children, the elderly and babies — have died and hundreds more have been injured because of this horrific act of war on their sovereign nation. Nearly 3 million Ukrainians have had to flee their homes and all they own to save their lives. Families are separated as nonmilitant men stay behind to save their country and democracy.
A near-future tourist’s guide to the International Space Station
Through my wife, Amiko, I have family members who are Ukrainian Americans. Because Russian language and culture have been prominent in Ukraine since the Soviet era, they grew up speaking Russian and feeling connected to Russian culture. Since the outbreak of hostilities, they have had to deal with two traumas at once: Seeing the country they still consider a homeland being attacked and fearing for their family and friends in Ukraine, while also experiencing hateful remarks at home in the United States for being perceived as Russian. I am concerned for them, and all my Russian friends around the world, who may also bear the burden of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal actions.
But I am also deeply pained by the Russian space agency’s recent threats against the space station program to which I and so many others have devoted our lives. Last month, the head of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, threatened to let the space station de-orbit and crash into the United States (Russia is responsible for the rocket reboosts that keep the station at its proper altitude, though NASA spacecraft could take over this responsibility if necessary). More troublingly, last week Rogozin tweeted a strange video portraying Russian cosmonauts separating the Russian segment and flying away from the space station after waving goodbye to American astronaut Mark Vande Hei. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is scheduled to bring Vande Hei back to Earth on March 30; the video seems to threaten to leave him behind, an unthinkable violation of the trust built between our two countries in space over decades. I was appalled, so I called him out strongly on Twitter in a rapidly escalating back-and-forth until he ultimately blocked me.
Forty-seven years ago, before most Americans were born, an Apollo spacecraft docked with a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit. A hatch opened between them, and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov and NASA astronaut Tom Stafford came together to shake hands. Their handshake was a historic moment that brought our two countries one step closer to the end of the Cold War. Now those hostilities are being reignited. The people of Ukraine are paying the price for Putin’s aggression, and our peaceful cooperation in space may as well. I also fear for the Russian people and the effect that sanctions will have on their lives. I have many friends in Russia, some in the space program and others not, and they have different opinions on this war. There are those who believe that the war is the criminal act of one man; the others — well, they have been brainwashed by a state-controlled media led by a master propagandist.
The International Space Station is a great symbol of cooperation between formerly warring countries. But it is also a real place where people live, work and form unbreakable friendships.
Review of Scott Kelly's memoir 'Endurance'
In the summer of 2015, Gennady Padalka, Kornienko and I huddled together in our dark and cold Soyuz as a defunct satellite hurtled toward us at 35,000 mph. We knew we might die that day. If we had, it would have been with the shared belief that what we were doing had meaning. Everyone who has ever lived on the space station — 241 people from 19 countries — has risked their life to carry out peaceful exploration and research. There is a phenomenon called the Overview Effect: People who have seen the planet from space without political borders witness the fragility of the atmosphere and experience the oneness we seem to share on this orbiting utopia flying through space. We are left with the sense that we are in this thing called humanity, all of us, together. I believe it.
Misha and I often joked that if we want our countries to get along, we should send our leaders to the space station, where they must cooperate and rely on each other for their lives. Maybe we need only recognize that we already do.
Putin must end his unlawful and immoral assault on the Ukrainian people, and Americans and Russians must work together to maintain our commitment to our shared humanity and the International Space Station. There is too much to be lost if we don’t. | null | null | null | null | null |
U.N. chief says nuclear conflict ‘now back within the realm of possibility’
Nine countries in the world have a combined nuclear arsenal containing 12,700 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists. About 90 percent of them are held by Russia and the United States, which have almost 6,000 and more than 5,400 warheads, respectively. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice, says she attended Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally before Capitol attack
Thomas, the wife of Clarence Thomas, said she left the rally before President Donald Trump took the stage
Virginia "Ginni" Thomas arrives with her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for a 2019 State Dinner at the White House. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for the first time has publicly acknowledged that she participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally on the Ellipse that preceded the storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, raising questions about the impartiality of her husband’s work.
In an interview with the conservative Washington Free Beacon that was published Monday, Thomas, who goes by Ginni, said she was part of the crowd that gathered on the Ellipse that morning to support President Donald Trump. Trump was claiming falsely that widespread voter fraud had delivered the presidency to Democrat Joe Biden — a falsehood he continues to repeat.
Thomas said she was at the rally for a short time, got cold and went home before Trump took the stage at noon that day.
The attack by a pro-Trump mob trying to stop the confirmation of Biden’s electoral college win left the Capitol vandalized and resulted in the deaths of five people and injuries to 140 members of law enforcement.
Many have argued that President Donald Trump's efforts amounted to an attempted coup on Jan. 6. Was it? And why does that matter? (Monica Rodman, Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post)
As an outspoken activist, Ginni Thomas has drawn scrutiny to her husband’s work on the court and his impartiality, most recently in connection with the Jan. 6 attack and the House select committee tasked with investigating the riot.
Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a nonpartisan advocacy group that advocates for reforms to the Supreme Court, said Ginni Thomas’s participation in the rally should have been enough of an excuse for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the House committee case.
The justice’s failure to do so, Roth said, is yet another example of how poorly Supreme Court justices observe the recusal standard.
“Because of her participation in that rally, which then led to the breach of the Capitol, which then led to the January 6 committee … that means that you, as a justice, your impartiality still might reasonably be questioned,” Roth said.
Roth said it is not only Clarence Thomas who does not properly observe the recusal standard, noting as an example that Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Neil M. Gorsuch did not recuse themselves when dealing with cases involving their book publisher, Penguin Random House. But the Thomases’ case, Roth said, is different because of the importance of the Jan. 6 riot in American history.
“There should be a recusal,” Roth said of the Thomases’ case. “But again, I’m sort of on the side of there should be more recusals. … There is an exacting standard that exists and that’s simply not being followed through on, and I think that is a shame and it hurts, impugns the integrity of the institution.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Punishing young Russians will only alienate potential opponents of the current regime
By Anton Barbashin
Anton Barbashin is a political analyst and the editorial director of Riddle.
Police officers detain a man in Manezhnaya Square in central Moscow during a protest on March 13 against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP/Getty Images)
Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is shutting Russia off from the rest of the world. Unprecedented sanctions and a mass exodus of foreign companies are crashing the economy. The relative economic prosperity that was the backbone of Putin’s legitimacy is broken, leaving the Kremlin to rely heavily on propaganda and repression.
The criminal decision to attack Ukraine will cost everyone in Russia — though not as much as it will cost Ukrainians. Among the Russians who will suffer the most are the members of the country’s most globalized and open generation ever: “generation Putin,” people born either right before he became prime minister in 1999 or shortly after. These people have known only Putin as the ruler of Russia, and now they’ll see him taking away their future and aspirations.
That generation is suddenly stuck in the middle of the backlash to Putin’s invasion. The University of Tartu, in Estonia, is restricting applications from Russia and Belarus because of the sanctions. Some American officials are pushing to do the same thing in the United States, with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) suggesting “kicking every Russian student out of the United States” in response to the war.
That would be counterproductive — handing Putin a propaganda win and alienating precisely the people who are likeliest to turn against him. The war has prompted some in the West to argue that all Russians are to blame for Putin’s war, that we are all guilty. Even if that’s true, the youngest generation is the least complicit. And cutting off Russia’s future ties to the West in the name of punishing Putin will only make the existing problems worse.
These are the people who are being detained in antiwar rallies across Russia and then kicked out of their universities for protesting the invasion. This is the generation that saw the popular leader Alexei Navalny arrested a year ago, and that now must live with a potential 15-year jail sentence for spreading “fake news” about Russia’s war. And ultimately this is the generation that will have to rebuild the country once this regime is no more and Russia has a chance to start anew. But for now, they are facing an increasingly repressive government that sees enemies in anyone who dares to question Putin’s war of aggression. This digital-native generation is the least subject to propaganda (they largely don’t watch TV for their news) and thus a major cause of concern for the Russian authorities in times of war and economic hardship.
The students who protested in St. Petersburg or were detained in Novosibirsk in recent days did not have the chance to pack their bags and leave for Armenia or Turkey, as some other Russians did — they will have to persevere through the worst years Russia has seen since the fall of the Soviet Union. The regime will certainly attempt to break their spirit, to arrest the most active and ambitious, and to keep the rest in line with fear.
One way to make it harder for Putin is to deny him the chance to convince young Russians that there is no hope and they are alone. It is in the interest of the West to communicate the idea that a Russia without Putin — a democratic Russia — will be welcomed back to the global community after it deals with the crimes that Putin has committed. Russians need a vision in which their nation isn’t a permanent pariah state.
There is no coming back with Putin as president. They know that. We all know that. But can this generation of Russian youths hope that once Putin is gone, the West will give them a chance at redemption and offer a future — the vision of which can keep them going today?
Putin’s Russia cannot be defeated in war: It is a nuclear power with the most warheads in the world. The regime can be changed only by a popular protest, a coup or an act of God. There will be no occupation forces like in Germany in 1945 for de-Putinization or external control. If the West wants to defeat Putin, sanctions are not nearly enough: It needs allies within. Russia’s youth are the most natural ally of all. If they do not accept the new reality that faces them — if they keep their protests going and do not lose heart — they might be able to keep Putin’s remaining term short.
Ukraine, of course, is the main priority now. It is imperative to provide all available assistance to help Ukraine, and Ukrainians, survive this war. But Russia won’t disappear when the bombings stop. The West shouldn’t make things easier for Putin in the name of punishing him. | null | null | null | null | null |
Muslim students arrive to attend classes as a policewoman stands guard outside a government girls school after the recent hijab ban, in Udupi town in the southern state of Karnataka, India, Feb. 16, 2022. (Staff/Reuters)
The ruling from the Karnataka high court came after Muslim students challenged a ban on headscarves in some educational institutions in the state, calling it a violation of their rights. The state government, run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party or the BJP, argued that wearing a hijab is not essential to Islam, reported Live Law, a legal news website.
On Tuesday, judges ruled that the hijab was not essential in Islam and students cannot object to uniforms prescribed by schools. “Prescription of school uniform is only a reasonable restriction, constitutionally permissible,” a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi noted.
The controversy first surfaced in December, when a group of hijab-wearing students were barred from entering classrooms by a government school in Udupi, a coastal town in Karnataka, triggering protests. Soon, Hindu students, in some instances organized by Hindu nationalist groups, counter-protested by wearing saffron scarves — associated with Hinduism — in schools, resulting in tense standoffs between groups of students.
More schools barred hijab-clad Muslim students from attending classes and the state government closed schools.
In recent years, BJP-led governments in New Delhi and in state capitals have passed multiple laws seen as targeting Muslims — from rules preventing the slaughter of cows (which are sacred in Hinduism) to making it hard for interfaith couples to marry.
Recent months have also seen an uptick in hate speech against Muslims at large public rallies. Many perpetrators — including influential Hindu priests — have not faced action.
While headscarves have been a matter of fierce debate in some countries like France, hijabs are not banned or restricted in India, whose secular constitution guarantees freedom to practice religion.
Wearing religious symbols in public is common in different communities. Many Sikhs wear the turban, Hindu men often sport a saffron mark on foreheads and Muslim men wear skullcaps. Hindu women in rural communities, particularly in the north, often cover their head or veil their faces with a long scarf — not dissimilar to the Muslim head or face coverings.
An interim order by the court declared that no religious clothing would be allowed in schools until the court ruled on the matter, during which time several students were not allowed to sit for exams for wearing the hijab.
Aliya Assadi, 17, a Muslim student who was barred from attending classes at her all-girls secondary school in Karnataka, has worn the hijab since the age of 7. While her Hindu classmates were initially supportive, as the controversy grew, their attitude changed.
Mohit Rao in Bangalore and Shams Irfan in Srinagar, India contributed reporting. | null | null | null | null | null |
2 men killed in shooting on edge of Capitol Hill
Two men were fatally shot Monday afternoon on the edge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, according to D.C. police.
The men were shot about 3:20 p.m. in the 700 block of 13th Street SE, said Officer Hugh Carew, a police spokesman.
One man died at the scene, and the other died at a hospital, Carew said.
The site is on the eastern boundary of the Capitol Hill Historic District and about a mile and a half from the U.S. Capitol. It is near the Potomac Gardens development. | null | null | null | null | null |
PHOENIX — Patience is often rewarded for both free agents and general managers during most Major League Baseball offseasons. But probably not this one.
VEGREVILLE, Alberta — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is front and center in hockey communities in Northern Alberta and across Canada.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina has fired Frank Martin after 10 seasons as men’s basketball coach with just one NCAA Tournament appearance. | null | null | null | null | null |
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky paid tribute Monday to U.S. journalist Brent Renaud, who was killed while reporting outside Kyiv, writing a letter to the family of the second journalist believed to have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion more than two weeks ago.
Renaud, a 50-year-old, award-winning journalist and documentarian from Little Rock, was shot Sunday in his car while at a checkpoint in Irpin, a besieged suburb of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. He was the second journalist killed in the conflict, as confirmed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, highlighting the dangers of wartime reporting. | null | null | null | null | null |
More ‘Bidi Bidi Bom Bom’ to come: Selena’s father announces new album nearly 27 years after the singer’s death
Selena Quintanilla performs for the crowd during a dance following the Feria de las Flores queen's contest at Memorial Coliseum Aug. 12, 1989, in Corpus Christi, Tex. (AP Photo/Corpus Christi Caller Times, FILE) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
With her jet-black hair, red lips and sparkling purple jumpsuit, Selena Quintanilla sang about forbidden love to a record-breaking audience of over 66,000 people huddled inside the Houston Astrodome.
That Feb. 26, 1995, show is regarded as one of the best performances by the queen of Tejano music — it would also be her last.
A month later, her life was cut short at 23 years old. But her legacy has endured and, almost 27 years after her death, a new album featuring new and old songs is scheduled to be released next month, Abraham Quintanilla, the late singer’s father, has announced.
The compilation will feature 13 songs pulled from the singer’s catalogue, he said in an interview with Latin Groove News’s José Rosario. Three of the tracks will use the same lyrics but switch musical genres.
“If it was a cumbia, it could [now] be a ballad, you know?” Quintanilla said.
The first song on the album, he said, is a never-before-released ballad Selena recorded when she was 13 — but it will sound like an older Selena because of the digitally modified voice work done by her brother A.B. Quintanilla, who is also the album’s producer.
Essentially, the music is old but with a modern twist. While the vocal tracks were taken from the singer’s existing repertoire, the songs will incorporate fresh sounds and new “beautiful arrangements” concocted by A.B., Selena’s father said.
“What’s unique about it is not only the music, completely new arrangements, but my son worked on Selena’s voice with the computers,” Abraham Quintanilla said. “And if you listen to it, she sounds on this record like she did right before she passed away.”
ABRAHAM QUINTANILLA, "A Father's Dream."
ABRAHAM QUINTANILLA visits virtually ON THE RECORD WITH JOSE ROSARIO, A Latin Groove News Exclusive! He talks about a new SELENA Album with Warner Music, with tentative release next month, his book "A Father's Dream," new projects, and new insights. Entrevista exclusiva con Abraham Quintanilla, con nuevas revelaciones y nuevo disco con musica de la muy querida y recordada artista SELENA QUINTANILLA. (Full interview. Entrevista completa.)
Posted by Latin Groove News on Thursday, March 10, 2022
With her vibrant singing and vivacious dancing, Selena quickly rose to fame in the Southwest and in Latin America. By 1994, she became a mainstream pop figure, drawing comparisons to icons such as Madonna, after her Grammy win for the album “Live.”
Though Selena built her reputation on songs sung in Spanish, she famously had to learn to speak the language, as English was her native tongue. She dreamed of capturing the American music scene with a crossover album in English — one, titled “Dreaming of You,” that was finally released a few months after she died went on to become the best-selling Latin album of all time.
Google Doodle salutes Selena, the ‘Queen of Tejano,’ with stunning musical animation
On March 31, 1995, Selena was shot in the back by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of her fan club who later became her personal assistant. Prosecutors for the homicide case said the two had an argument at a Corpus Christi motel over Saldívar’s alleged embezzlement of fan club funds worth $30,000. Saldívar is currently serving a life sentence for the singer’s murder.
The day of Selena’s death was deemed the “Black Friday of the Tejano music industry,” The Washington Post reported. Adoring fans left white roses, her favorite flower, at her house and tied purple ribbons to trees, remembering her favorite color. Her loss tugged at heartstrings far and wide.
Growing up in a middle-class, Mexican American household, Selena provided a sense of empowerment to an underrepresented demographic. Like many second- and third-generation Hispanic Americans, she stumbled with Spanish — sometimes talking in Spanglish in her interviews. Her legion of adoring fans is a testament to how her story resonated with the Latino community.
Twenty-five years after her death, fans remain devoted to Selena
Selena’s life and rise to fame were immortalized in a 1997 biopic starring Jennifer Lopez and more recently in a 2020 Netflix series. Her style — most notably the iconic purple jumpsuit she wore in 1995 — remains a source of inspiration and a frequent Halloween costume. Her makeup inspired several best-selling MAC makeup collections.
But while her image has remained frozen in time, Selena’s grooving music has never stopped playing. Her songs — which include the hits “Amor Prohibido,” “Si Una Vez” and “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” — were streamed a total of 452.5 million times across 177 countries in 2021, according to Spotify. Last week, the 2002 posthumous compilation of her hit songs, “Ones,” dominated the U.S. iTunes charts in two categories: Latin pop and Música Mexicana.
Selena’s work was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2021 Grammys, something her father said attested to his mission to keep his daughter’s “star shining.”
“I said that right after she passed away, that I was going to try to keep her memory alive through her music — and I think we have done that,” Quintanilla told Latin Groove News. “Almost 26 years later, Selena is very present in today’s music world.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Renaud, a 50-year-old, award-winning journalist and documentarian from Little Rock, was shot Sunday in a car while at a checkpoint in Irpin, a besieged suburb of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. He was the second journalist killed in the conflict, as confirmed by the Committee to Protect Journalists, highlighting the dangers of wartime reporting. | null | null | null | null | null |
By Bobby Caina Calvan and Ashraf Khalil | AP
These images taken from surveillance video and provided by the New York Police Department show a man suspected of shooting two homeless people on Saturday, March 12, 2022 in New York. A search is underway for the gunman who has been stalking and shooting homeless men sleeping on the streets of Washington, D.C., and New York City. Authorities say the gunman killed two people and wounded three more in less than two weeks. (New York Police Department via AP) (Uncredited/New York Police Department) | null | null | null | null | null |
Is Russia still a great power?
Yes, of course it is. But it’s not the great power everyone thought it was a month ago.
A Ukrainian soldier holds a an antitank weapon that was used to destroy a Russian armored personal carrier in Irpin, Ukraine, on Saturday. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images)
Over the past week, Russia has been casting about for external assistance to prosecute its war in Ukraine. Last week both Russian state news outlet Tass and the Wall Street Journal reported that Russia was attempting to recruit foreign fighters from the Middle East to assist in urban warfare in Ukraine. According to the Daily Beast’s Shannon Vavra, it’s not going very well, as U.S. intelligence officials “haven’t seen indications that their recruiting efforts have borne fruit and resulted in the actual arrival of foreign fighters from that part of the world.”
Over the weekend, reports came trickling out in the Financial Times, New York Times and Washington Post that Russia was asking China for both military and economic assistance. The FT’s Demetri Sevastapulo followed up with a report that the specific request was for surface-to-air-missiles, drones, armored vehicles, logistics vehicles and intelligence-related equipment. Most of this information is coming from U.S. officials, so perhaps this is part of an information campaign designed to tweak Moscow and Beijing. That said, U.S. intelligence on Russian actions in Ukraine has been spot-on over the past few months, and there is corroborating information from Russian statements.
In response to these news developments, I tweeted a question: “what great power needs military assistance after less than a month of kinetic activity?!” Then I suggested something even more provocative:
These tweets stirred up quite the conversation — my Post colleague Olivier Knox featured it in the Daily 202 and everything! That said, some folks were unpersuaded. Some good points were made, and the hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts believes it merits further discussion and clarification.
First of all, as several folks pointed out, great powers have indeed gone to war and needed ammunition very quickly. Both the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union desperately needed war material when fighting the Axis powers during World War II, hence the need for the Lend-Lease Act. As recently as 2011, this very newspaper reported that “less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs.”
A closer glance, however, reveals why I still think the Russian example remains unusual. The rest of that NATO story about Libya reveals that it was not the United States running low on ammunition, but rather “the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time.” As for the World War II examples, it is certainly true that both countries were slow to prepare for Nazi aggression. But neither county was the aggressor against Germany in that war. Their lack of preparation was due in part to being on defense.
This is what is so striking about Russia’s need for additional men and materiel so quickly after it invaded Ukraine. Russia was the aggressor. Russia took months to get its forces in place to prepare for the ground invasion. Russia possessed the initiative in choosing when and how to start this war. Despite all of this advance preparation, Russia needs assistance less than three weeks into its invasion. That is noteworthy.
Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA and an indispensable source of analysis of the Russian military, asks a fair rejoinder: “Great powers don’t make blunders and start ruinous wars?” The answer, of course, is yes, as anyone possessing a passing familiarity with U.S. foreign policy in this century is no doubt aware of. Great powers make bad military decisions. What is unusual is having to cast about for additional support so quickly after making those bad decisions.
To be clear, I still think Russia is a great power. Any country that big with that many conventional and nuclear weapons is a great power. And Kofman is correct to note that external observers overestimated Russia’s military power after 2014 and might be in danger of underestimating it after this conflict.
Still, analysts never viewed Russia as possessing economic power or soft power. Its claim to great power status rests on its military pillar, and the country has faltered on the dimension. As Dan Nexon noted, “Russia is a great power. But it’s Italy in 1938, not Germany, the US, or the UK.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Teaching Asian American history in its complexity can help fight racism
Asian Americans have been both the victims — and perpetrators — of racial discrimination.
By Kathryn Gin Lum
Kathryn Gin Lum is associate professor of religious studies in collaboration with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University, and the author of "Heathen: Religion and Race in American History."
Candles and signs are displayed at a makeshift memorial in Atlanta on March 19, 2021, after a multiple shooting there. (Candice Choi/AP)
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors recently ushered in the Year of the Tiger by passing a resolution of apology to “all Chinese immigrants and their descendants who … were the victims of systemic and institutional racism, xenophobia, and discrimination.” The cities of Antioch, San Jose and Los Angeles had earlier issued their own formal apologies to Chinese Americans. And New Jersey recently joined Illinois as only the second state to require public schools to teach Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history.
Many hope that these steps of apology and history education will help to combat the surge in anti-Asian hate. But as important as it is to teach the history of discrimination against people of Asian descent in America and how they have risen above it, it is also essential to teach the history of Asian American prejudice against others and the system of White supremacy that has enabled it. Presenting Asian Americans in all of their complexity as they have sought to negotiate the American racial order can help communities learn from past mistakes, counter model minority stereotypes and build solidarity.
Race in America has tended to operate hierarchically, with groups “ranked” based on their proximity to Whiteness. The stereotypes assigned to different groups effectively work as a divide-and-conquer strategy that can keep non-White groups apart as they contend for access and power. The model minority myth, for instance, places Asian Americans adjacent to Whiteness and has been used as a wedge to prevent interracial solidarities from forming.
But race in America can also operate in a binary that has religious roots in the division of the “heathen” vs. the Christian. The heathen category flattened racial hierarchies by grouping different people together as the “unsaved.” Some classified as heathens found solidarity with other so-called heathens against White Christian colonizers. But others sought to escape the category by claiming a higher position on a civilizational ladder, sometimes deploying racist tropes themselves in the process.
That’s what some Chinese businessmen tried to do in mid-19th century America. Chinese gold-seekers had begun arriving in California in 1848. They faced discriminatory taxes and became the frequent victims of theft and violence. In People v. Hall in 1854, the California Supreme Court ruled that their testimony was impermissible in court, thereby freeing three White men who had been convicted of murdering a Chinese man on the basis of Chinese witness testimony. People v. Hall rendered it virtually impossible for Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants to defend themselves from persecution.
In the face of such hostility, a “young merchant in San Francisco” named Pun Chi wrote “A Remonstrance to Congress” on behalf of other businessmen. Sometime between the mid-1850s and mid-1860s, they presented the document to missionary William Speer to translate and send to Congress. Speer never sent it, but he published it in an 1870 book on China and America, explaining that it “is thoroughly Chinese, and will aid our people to understand the views and feelings of that people.”
The authors of the “Remonstrance” unflinchingly called out the “unrighteousness of humiliating and hating the Chinese as a people.” Showing their awareness of Christian doctrine, and their understanding of its significance in American national life, they described Jesus as “in accord with the holy men of China”: “He did not permit distinctions of men into classes to be loved or despised. But now, if the religion of Jesus really teaches the fear of Heaven, how does it come that the people of your honorable country on the contrary trample upon and hate the race which Heaven most loves, that is, the Chinese?”
Even as they showed great courage in petitioning Congress for better treatment, holding the White American Christian majority to the egalitarian standards of their own professed religion, the Chinese authors of the “Remonstrance” revealed their own ethnocentrism (“the race Heaven most loves”). This ethnocentrism became more apparent as the authors addressed People v. Hall. Why was the ban on testimony “laid upon us Chinese alone?” they asked. “Shall this degrade us beneath the negro and the Indian? This is a great injustice, such as is not heard of in our Middle Kingdom!” The Chinese merchants appealed to the longevity of their civilization and the great sages it had produced — sages they said were on par with Jesus — to position themselves above Black and Indigenous people and restore what they believed to be their proper position atop a civilizational hierarchy.
Such efforts did not work. By the late 19th century, legislation — the Page Act of 1875, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Geary Act of 1892, which extended exclusion — definitively cast the Chinese as quintessential heathens, marked as incompatible with the American project, and substantially barred from migrating or naturalizing as citizens.
By labeling Chinese migrants as incorrigible heathens, White Americans applied to them a host of traits that had developed around the concept over time. The “heathens” were not only supposed to believe the wrong things, but also to suffer the many bodily and societal consequences that Euro-Americans thought resulted from wrong belief: dirtiness and disease, ignorance and stagnation. European and Euro-American people had long used such supposed heathen traits as an excuse to justify the enslavement, dispossession and death of Black and Indigenous people.
While it was important for the Chinese businessmen to contest a White gaze that flattened their culture by grouping them with other so-called heathens, the choice to resist by putting others down only served to elevate Whiteness.
But history shows other possibilities, too. In a piece published in the North American Review in 1887, Chinese immigrant Wong Chin Foo embraced the heathen label to critique the American racial order. Wong wrote that in China, “we are so far heathenish as to no longer persecute men simply on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, but treat them all according to their individual worth.” Wong denounced American racism and held up a mirror to White Christians: “ ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ is the great Divine law which Christians and heathen alike hold, but which the Christians ignore. This is what keeps me the heathen I am!”
Where Wong reclaimed the label of heathen as a badge of pride, Japanese religious leader Uchimura Kanzō turned it back on White Americans. Born and raised in Japan, Uchimura was exposed to Christianity and baptized in his teens. He attended Amherst College in the 1880s, believing, from what missionaries told him, that America would be a “Holy Land” in contrast to “heathen” Japan. But Uchimura’s experience with America’s “strong race prejudice” quickly disabused him of that notion. Seeing the “sharp racial distinction” between White and Black Americans under Jim Crow, and the treatment of the Chinese under exclusion, “made Christendom appear to [him] more like heathendom” and “very Pagan-like.”
Even as they used the “heathen” label differently, Wong and Uchimura adopted and adapted it as a way of identifying with marginalized people against American racism.
Today, we are living through another period of anti-Asian hostility that shows how easily the model minority myth can be overtaken by the negative aspects of the heathen stereotype (witness criticisms of Chinese eating habits as reason for their supposed susceptibility to disease). And, as in the 19th century, anti-Asian violence has sent communities reeling and wondering what can be done.
While municipal apologies for past discrimination and state requirements that schools teach AAPI history may not immediately solve the problem of anti-Asian hate, they do offer hope for the future — but only if we teach history in all its complexity. The mid-19th century Chinese businessmen fought heroically against discrimination, but also belittled African Americans and Indigenous people to raise themselves higher in the eyes of White Americans. At times, others have followed a similar strategy in response to White racism. If we overlook this history, we accept apologies for past discrimination even as we should also be making our own.
As educators teach Asian American history, and as cities make amends for anti-Asian racism, let’s keep the whole of that history in view. That means teaching about the variety of strategies Asian Americans have deployed to contest discrimination: from espousing prejudice themselves to climb a racial hierarchy, to finding common ground with others against American racism. Children learn through literature that heroes have flaws; to teach three-dimensional history requires that we show the same, or risk repeating mistakes and bolstering model minority myths. | null | null | null | null | null |
In Colombia, abortion is no longer a crime. But rural women will still find it hard to get one.
Women in rural areas already have a hard time getting ordinary health care
Kiran Stallone
Abortion rights activists celebrate in Bogotá on Feb. 21 after Colombia’s Constitutional Court approved the decriminalization of abortion, lifting all limitations on the procedure until the 24th week of pregnancy. (Fernando Vergara/AP)
In late February, Colombia’s highest court ruled that having an abortion would no longer be a criminal offense. Previously, women in Colombia could have abortions only under certain conditions.
Women can no longer be imprisoned for medical abortions, and health-care providers cannot legally deny abortions to women who request them or are at least required to refer women to providers who offer them.
However, women in rural areas may still find it difficult to get equal access to abortion — because they don’t have equal access to health care more generally. Outside urban centers, our research finds, Colombians’ general health needs are often unmet.
In November and December, one of us, Sarah Moore, worked with fellow political scientist Ana Arjona to survey 1,517 people from towns across Colombia that had been affected by Colombia’s long-standing conflict with various armed groups. The survey was fielded in-person by local enumerators from Cifras y Conceptos among a random sample of individuals in towns representative of various regions in the country. The goal was to gather data on local conflict dynamics and conditions since the Colombian government signed a 2016 peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the guerrilla group that has since demobilized. The survey asked about a number of things, including what services the government now offers in these areas that had either been under the control of an armed group, like the FARC or the National Liberation Army (ELN), or contested.
In the same towns from the survey, we also conducted about 70 in-depth, in-person interviews with knowledgeable community members, asking about their greatest needs and which services they wished the state would provide. After the abortion ruling, Kiran Stallone also conducted phone-based interviews about abortion access with six legal activists and female leaders living and working in other rural areas in Colombia. These interviews were what social scientists call “open-ended,” meaning there was no survey with set responses, but a list of questions guided our conversations.
Data from these sources all lead to a similar conclusion: Although the ruling is a significant achievement, rural women are not likely to have equal access to safe abortions.
Millennial politicians are shaking up Latin America. Here’s how they differ from the old guard.
The Colombian government’s limited capacity to provide health care
Colombia’s regions and towns offer very different levels of health care. As political scientist Silvia Otero-Bahamón showed, Colombia’s national, one-size-fits-all approach to providing health care leads to poorer outcomes across rural areas, where at least 16 percent of Colombia’s population lives.
In our interviews, Valeria Pedraza, a lawyer who drafted and signed the abortion decriminalization petition, told us that regional disparities will complicate efforts to deliver abortion safely and equally to everyone. “If the ruling is properly implemented,” she told us in Spanish (our translation), “the barriers and inequalities surrounding access to abortion should decrease. … This will undoubtedly be a challenge. Colombia is still a country with very unequal access to health and many complexities.”
When we visited rural towns and asked interviewees about the quality of local state services, many related frustrations about health facilities. For example, in Boyacá, a central Colombian territory that has historically been fought over by various armed groups, respondents said they wished for more than their local drop-in clinic, calling for a local hospital that would provide a greater array of procedures.
Yirley Velazco, a social leader from El Carmen de Bolivar, a mountain town near Colombia’s northern coast, told us in Spanish (our translation), “I don’t think things will change much. … One thing is what the court says from over there and another thing is what the local entities actually want to do.”
Diana Marcela Torres, a social leader who works with rural women in the Magdalena Medio region, similarly predicts access won’t be the same for rural women, given “the historical situation in Colombia, which is a complete neglect of rural areas.”
Our survey respondents echo this. When asked, “At some point, have you ever felt abandoned by the state?,” 63 percent of those living in rural areas answered yes.
“Other rights that have already been achieved or recognized, such as education or health, do not reach those territories,” Torres continued. She expects that the right to abortion will be among “those rights that will not reach the majority of rural women.”
Mobility also challenges health-care access
Interviewees in the Caribbean state of Sucre told us that some of the difficulties with health-care access have nothing to do with health care itself. Abysmal roadways between town centers where health services are located and the outlying rural communities stymie access.
Less than half of our survey respondents reported that they lived in a household that owned a car, bicycle or motorcycle. When transportation is available, travel between some outlying communities to basic health clinics can take anywhere from two to 12 hours, may only be available on certain days and can be very costly. In Magdalena Medio, Torres explained, these trips can end up costing 10 times as much as a person living closer to an urban area would pay.
Five years after Colombia’s peace deal, the FARC is no longer on U.S. terrorist group lists
Despite barriers, activists say the ruling is still a monumental achievement for women’s rights
Despite the limited reach of government health services, Colombians still say they rely on those state services. When we asked respondents whether they felt that the government should be the primary provider of education and health care, 88 percent of respondents either agreed completely or somewhat.
Challenges notwithstanding, the female activists interviewed for this project repeatedly emphasized that the decision is a landmark moment.
“For me, decriminalizing abortion is a huge step, a tremendous achievement for this entire movement. It is an opportunity to decide about our bodies; it is an opportunity to be able to make a choice about motherhood,” said Velazco.
Sarah Moore (@sarahmoreorless), a PhD candidate in political science and an MS candidate in statistics at Northwestern University, was a pre-doctoral fellow with CESED at Universidad de los Andes-Bogotá from 2019 to 2021. Her research focuses on social science methods among hard-to-reach populations and the effects of conflict on civilian political behavior.
Kiran Stallone (@kiranstallone) is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of California at Berkeley and currently based in Colombia. Her research examines civilian responses to war and conflict violence from a gender perspective.
Support for this research was provided by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project “Drugs & (dis)order: building peacetime economies in the aftermath of war” (ES/P011543/1), the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University, Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden, and the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs (CESED) at Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia. | null | null | null | null | null |
Patriotic attitudes run high in Russia, our research finds
By Michael Alexeev
William Pyle
Russian President Vladimir Putin awaits Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s arrival for talks in Moscow on March 11. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Pool/Sputnik/Kremlin/AP)
Western officials worry openly that there are no clear off-ramps to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With a protracted and even deadlier war looking ever more likely, will Russians tolerate the invasion’s increasing costs? Or will Vladimir Putin, a highly popular autocratic leader for 20-plus years, lose ordinary Russians’ support?
As Putin massed a large invasion force at the Ukrainian border in late 2021, polls showed that less than 1 in 10 Russians believed Moscow “should send military forces to fight against Ukrainian government troops.” By mid-February, as the Russian military staged massive exercises, another poll — framing the use of force as an effort to repel Ukraine’s NATO aspirations — found that 1 in 2 Russians believed force would be justified. A week after the invasion, 58 percent of Russians reportedly supported the invasion of Ukraine.
What do these and other polls tell us? We’ve studied Russians’ self-reported willingness to sacrifice for their country, comparing Russians’ patriotic attitudes to those of people in other countries. Our research finds that Russians have consistently expressed greater willingness to sacrifice their material well-being in the interests of their country’s military goals — and are more willing to accept conflict with other nations to defend Russian interests.
Here’s what Russian patriotism looks like relative to that of other citizens around the world.
Writing on patriotism often distinguishes between a benign form manifested as pride in and love for one’s country — and aggressive militarism that demands blind and uncritical allegiance. The international surveys we draw on ask questions that get at this distinction.
In addition to questions on benign patriotism (such as, “How proud are you to be a citizen of [your country]?”), ISSP surveys ask respondents around the world how much they agree with statements that reflect less benign, blind patriotism. Examples include “[My country] should follow its own interests, even if this leads to conflict with other nations” and “People should support their country even if it is in the wrong.”
The ISSP and WVS surveys also pose questions about respondents’ willingness to bear the burden of military goals. The ISSP inquires about respondents’ willingness to accept higher taxes to increase military spending. The WVS asks respondents to prioritize “strong defense forces” or something else — higher economic growth, more political freedom or a cleaner environment.
In each of the three ISSP waves — 1995, 2003 and 2013 — Russians showed more support than people in any of the other 15 surveyed countries (12 European nations, the United States, the Philippines and Japan) for this statement: “My country should follow its interests even if this leads to conflict with other nations.” In each of the same three survey waves, Russians were either the most or second-most likely to agree with the statement that “people should support their country even if it is in the wrong.”
Russians appear to be far more patriotic, consistently and significantly exceeding attitudes of people of other countries on the ISSP measures of “blind” patriotism, and of most other countries on the WVS measure. These results are not due to Russians having higher levels of “benign” patriotism, nor are they due to differences in the age structure, level of education or other demographic features of Russian society.
Even Russia’s younger generations are distinctive relative to youths in other countries. Russians born after 1976 expressed the highest degree of support for the statement “People should support their country even if it is in the wrong,” in surveys conducted in both 2003 and 2013. In the same years, their endorsement for the statement that “[My country] should follow its own interests, even if this leads to conflict with other nations” came out, respectively, on top or in second place, compared with respondents in other countries.
What’s behind these findings?
Although it is now common to view Russian state media as taking a central role in shaping popular attitudes, our analyses show that Russians’ blind patriotism actually predates Putin. A prioritization of “strong defense forces” over economic growth and democratic freedoms first appeared sometime between 1990 and 1995, suggesting that the humiliation of the Soviet collapse may be the cause.
Interestingly, the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union did not produce “blind” patriotism everywhere in the post-Soviet space. While Russia and Ukraine share a Soviet legacy, blind patriotism appeared only in Russia after the collapse of the communist regime.
This resonates with the “post-imperial syndrome” described by Yegor Gaidar, an economist who served as Russian prime minister in 1992. Political scientist Emil Pain attributed Russia’s new nationalism to the “imperial syndrome” that took root in the mid-1990s.
Starting in November, as Russian troops began mobilizing along the Ukrainian border, until just before the Feb. 24 invasion, Putin’s approval rating climbed from 63 to 71 percent. We should keep in mind that Putin has almost never been so popular as in the aftermath of military operations in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
These approval levels suggest that Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine isn’t likely to lose him the Russian street. To be sure, tens of thousands of Russians have protested the war, despite severe government restrictions on dissent and public gatherings.
Russia is a country of more than 140 million people, however. A drawn-out war that brings more Russian casualties and greater economic pain will no doubt put Putin’s popularity to the test. But we should be under no illusions as to how quickly that will happen — or whether it will happen at all.
William Pyle is the Frederick C. Dirks Professor of International Economics at Middlebury College, where he studies economic institutions in Russia and other post-socialist countries. | null | null | null | null | null |
The Nationals are excited to welcome Nelson Cruz to the club. (Jim Mone/AP)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — On Feb. 17, 1998, Nelson Cruz, then a 17-year-old from Las Matas de Santa Cruz, Dominican Republic, signed with the New York Mets as an amateur free agent. Eight months and eight days later, across the island in Santo Domingo, a baby boy was born. His parents named him Juan José Soto Pacheco, a mix of their names.
A generation apart, Cruz and Soto would one day share the same tradition and job. And now, with the Washington Nationals and Cruz in agreement on a one-year, $15 million deal, they will share a lineup and clubhouse, likely batting one after the other. Soto called Cruz on Sunday night as the signing played out on social media. Needless to say, they were pumped.
“I mean, when you see a guy like that ... just amazing,” Soto said after the Nationals’ first full-squad workouts Monday. “You’re seeing a Hall of Fame player. Getting to know where he comes from and where he is right now, it’s just amazing what he’s done — not just for baseball but for the Dominican Republic.”
There, a 23-year-old star raved about a 41-year-old designated hitter. A short time later, Dave Martinez, the Nationals’ manager, coyly addressed a player who debuted just three years after Martinez retired in 2002. Martinez could not directly speak about Cruz because the deal is pending a physical. But he knew how much Cruz could do for a lineup built around Soto — and, though left unsaid, for a rebuilding club that might flip Cruz at the trade deadline, should its season devolve that way.
No player has more homers (292) since the start of the 2014 season. In 2021, Soto led the majors with 145 walks and a .465 on-base percentage. After the deadline, once Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber, Josh Harrison and Yan Gomes were on other teams, Soto walked in almost 30 percent of his plate appearances, begging for more production than a solid Josh Bell could provide. As a team and thanks to Soto, the Nationals had baseball’s best on-base percentage (.348) over the final two months yet ranked 15th in runs per game (4.66) and 11th in on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.762).
Cruz can’t fix every issue. But he can certainly help.
“I’ll tell you this: Pending a physical, hopefully we have a really, really, really good DH,” Martinez said Monday. “And I’m looking forward to having him. So I can’t say much more — he’s got to pass his physical.”
Pressed a bit, Martinez continued: “If that person were to exist, he’d mean a lot to our lineup. He brings really good depth to our lineup. ... He’ll be a mentor to our younger players — to Soto, to [Victor] Robles, to Carter [Kieboom]. I’ve known him for many, many years. He’s just a phenomenal guy. A great hitter. At one point in time, he was an unbelievable player. But he can hit. I’m so excited that he’s here. He’s fun to watch.”
The order gets a big lift if Cruz buries a slower end to last season with the Tampa Bay Rays. Before he was moved near the deadline, Cruz clubbed 19 homers with a .294 batting average, .370 on-base percentage and .537 slugging percentage in 346 plate appearances for the Minnesota Twins. In the two months after it, he hit 13 homers with a .226/.283/.442 slash line in 238 plate appearances. And listening to those who have been around him, he immediately boosts the clubhouse culture, too.
That matters for a team with Soto, 24-year-old Robles, 24-year-old Kieboom, 21-year-old Luis García, 26-year-old Lane Thomas and a pair of budding catchers — 23-year-old Keibert Ruiz and 25-year-old Riley Adams — among its position players. Though they vary in major league experience, it’s an impressionable group. Soto provided some insight when he and Cruz spoke on the phone.
“[I told him] that we’re a really good group, that we stick together, that we’re going through everything together,” Soto recounted. “It doesn’t matter if we’re going good or bad — we try to not be selfish. He was the same way. He said he was on the same page.”
“There’s a lot of times where I’ll take a veteran player and want to relay a message through that vet to a younger player,” Martinez said, indicating Cruz, Sean Doolittle, Aníbal Sánchez and Gerardo Parra, all recent acquisitions, could help with that. “We do that all the time.” | null | null | null | null | null |
Leeds United’s Joe Gelhardt celebrates scoring their side’s second goal of the game during their English Premier League soccer match against Norwich City at Elland Road, Leeds, England, Sunday, March 13, 2022. (Tim Goode/PA via AP)
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — A multi-million dollar transfer dispute caused by the COVID-19 pandemic over a forward who no longer plays for either Leeds and Leipzig went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Tuesday. | null | null | null | null | null |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.