Dataset Viewer
filename
stringlengths 11
116
| text
stringlengths 1.42k
26k
| input_text
stringlengths 825
1.36k
| target_text
stringlengths 240
17.3k
|
|---|---|---|---|
81. Georgia’s Close Elections Sent Republicans After a Republican.txt
|
By Richard Fausset and Stephanie Saul
ATLANTA — Brad Raffensperger, the beleaguered top elections official in Georgia, considers himself the most loyal of Republicans. There was no question which candidates he would support in last week’s election.
“I’ve only ever voted for Republicans,” Mr. Raffensperger said in an interview in his office at the State Capitol on Tuesday. “I’ve been a Republican, or conservative, you know, since I was a teenager.”
Indeed, since taking office in January 2019, Mr. Raffensperger, the secretary of state, has been a target for Democrats in Georgia’s high-stakes, passionate and bitterly partisan voting wars.
In his nearly two years on the job, he has championed policies to guard against a threat of voter fraud that Democrats say hardly exists. He has been the subject of multiple lawsuits, and of television ads blaming him for presiding over a botched June primary that left voters waiting for hours in long lines. Democrats have also accused him of “state sponsored voter intimidation.”
But this week, he became the target of his own party, with the state’s two incumbent Republican senators calling for his resignation and condemning the presidential election as an “embarrassment,” an allegation he called “laughable.” On Wednesday, he authorized a hand recount of Georgia’s ballots for the presidential race — a move championed by President Trump but one officials have said was unlikely to erase President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow but significant lead in the state.
Now Mr. Raffensperger, a civil engineer and a numbers guy who received high marks from national experts on the smooth election operations in Georgia on Nov. 3, finds himself defending an electoral process that he said has no reason to be mistrusted.
Criticism has come from Mr. Trump and the state’s senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are each facing competitive January runoffs that could determine control of the Senate. The senators declared in a joint statement on Monday that Mr. Raffensperger had “failed the people of Georgia” and did not deliver “honest and transparent elections.”
“I was fully expecting it to come from the one side,” Mr. Raffensperger said of the criticism. But, he added, “not from your own ranks.”
It was a twist that few saw coming.
Mr. Raffensperger said he had no plans to step down, and emphasized that the statewide vote count was legitimate. There may have been “isolated incidents” of irregularities, he said in the interview this week, and his office was investigating those.
A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations
Confused about the inquiries and legal cases involving former President Donald Trump? We’re here to help.
“But we have not heard of any widespread voter fraud,” he said.
The Trump campaign, however, has continued to claim that much went wrong in Georgia’s elections, part of a broader narrative of national voter fraud that has been almost uniformly rejected by elections officials from both parties.
On Tuesday, the campaign and the Georgia Republican Party sent Mr. Raffensperger a letter claiming “hundreds of reports of voting discrepancies,” including “tens of thousands of ballots being unlawfully counted.”
The letter demanded, among other things, a hand recount of the nearly five million votes cast. It also asked that Mr. Raffensperger “trace the chain of custody of the ballots from printing to sending, from receipt to counting” in an election that, because of the coronavirus pandemic, involved hundreds of thousands of mail-in absentee ballots — not unlike the situation in dozens of other states.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Raffensperger announced a hand recount of ballots in all 159 counties, an order that applies only to the presidential ticket. Even if Mr. Trump were to win Georgia, Mr. Biden has already won the national election.
This week, other Republicans have also raised questions about the election process that Mr. Raffensperger has overseen. Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican and the former secretary of state, said Mr. Raffensperger needed to take “a serious look” at allegations of irregularities. All members of the 2021 House Republican delegation from Georgia made a similar request.
In his office on Tuesday, Mr. Raffensperger, a tall, silver-haired man with an austere mien, seemed both calm and cautious as he described Georgia’s predicament — as well as his own. Sometimes he looked to Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state, who reminded him of the first words of answers they had apparently rehearsed.
Asked if he thought he was being thrown under the bus by fellow Republicans, he took what seemed like subtle digs at Mr. Trump, who on Wednesday was trailing Mr. Biden by about 14,000 votes in Georgia, and Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue.
“Well, in Georgia, you have to win over 50 percent, and then you’re not in a runoff,” he said of the senators. “And if you win big, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
The attacks on Mr. Raffensperger have cracked the facade of Republican unity before some of the most important runoff elections in recent American history. They also appear to be a way for Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue to curry favor with Georgians who, like the senators, are devoted fans of the president and outraged about the vote count.
But the strategy also carries some risk. Telling Trump supporters the election process is rigged in Georgia could dissuade them from voting in the runoffs. And the anger over Mr. Raffensperger’s treatment is simmering among some longtime Republicans.
Leo Smith, a consultant with Mr. Raffensperger’s office and a former diversity recruitment director with the state’s Republican Party, called the criticism of the Georgia vote “an insult to those hard-working, committed Republicans who oversaw the election.” In an interview, Mr. Smith described Mr. Raffensperger’s critics as “people who were caught in this poor leadership from a petulant president who has lost, and is using his loss to bully other Republicans into complying with conspiracy theories about voting.”
Mr. Raffensperger, 65, began his political career on the City Council in the affluent northern Atlanta suburb of Johns Creek. In public, he exhibits a kind of punctilious blandness, with a voice that rarely rises above the dispassionate tone of a functionary behind the desk at a Department of Motor Vehicles office.
Even so he is considered highly ambitious, and observers note that Mr. Kemp showed how the secretary of state’s office could be used as a springboard.
After his City Council stint, Mr. Raffensperger, who is married and has two living adult sons and a third who died in 2018, spent a few years in the State Legislature. In his 2018 bid for the secretary of state, he lent his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, telling voters he would focus on “protecting our elections,” particularly from immigrants who entered the country illegally.
He did not garner more than 50 percent of the vote and ended up in a runoff with a Democrat, former U.S. Representative John Barrow, at a time when much of the nation had begun asking whether Georgia’s election system was truly fair.
A few weeks earlier, Stacey Abrams, a rising star in the Democratic Party, had narrowly lost to Mr. Kemp in her bid to become the state’s first Black governor. Along the way, she and her supporters had argued that Mr. Kemp had been helped by voter suppression tactics he had engaged in as secretary of state.
Shortly after Ms. Abrams’s loss, an organization she founded, Fair Fight Action, filed a lawsuit that claimed the state had dropped more than 100,000 inactive voters from its rolls. As a result of the lawsuit, 22,000 were reinstated.
Last year, state lawmakers passed legislation that lengthened how long registered voters could be inactive before their names could be purged. The Legislature also virtually eliminated a rule that signatures on voter registration cards had to be matched to other records.
Fair Fight Action has continued to take a central role in criticizing Mr. Raffensperger’s election policies in a state where Republican dominance has been challenged by a resurgent Democratic Party, fueled in part by changing demographics.
In April, Lauren Groh-Wargo, Fair Fight Action’s chief executive, criticized Mr. Raffensperger after he announced the creation of an absentee ballot fraud task force, anticipating the widespread use of such ballots during the pandemic.
When Mr. Raffensperger took office last year, he inherited litigation that challenged the safety of the state’s voting machines, claiming they were vulnerable to hacking, and was charged with introducing a new system. Its complexity — combined with no-shows by hundreds of poll workers who feared catching the virus — led to a meltdown during Georgia’s primary in June, with machine malfunctions and long lines.
Hoping to avoid a similar disaster during the general election, county officials, aided by the state and nonprofit groups, began a massive poll worker recruitment effort and Mr. Raffensperger vowed to send technicians to every polling site on Election Day. Voters across Georgia were inundated with the message that they should vote by absentee ballots or at early voting sites.
The result was record turnout in Georgia and smooth in-person voting on Nov. 3.
Andrea Young, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Georgia, praised Mr. Raffensperger’s handling of this year’s general election and characterized this week’s criticism as “voter suppression 2.0.”
“As a child of the South,” she said, “it just sounds like too many Black people voted and we don’t like it.”
But now those numbers are being questioned. Mr. Raffensperger said he only wanted to inspire trust in the system, even as it appeared to be slipping away.
“At the end of the day, half the people will be happy. Half the people will be sad,” he said. “But what our goal is, is that 100 percent of the people have confidence in the result of the elections.”
Richard Fausset reported from Atlanta, and Stephanie Saul from New York. Danny Hakim contributed reporting from New York.
|
By Richard Fausset and Stephanie Saul
ATLANTA — Brad Raffensperger, the beleaguered top elections official in Georgia, considers himself the most loyal of Republicans. There was no question which candidates he would support in last week’s election.
“I’ve only ever voted for Republicans,” Mr. Raffensperger said in an interview in his office at the State Capitol on Tuesday. “I’ve been a Republican, or conservative, you know, since I was a teenager.”
Indeed, since taking office in January 2019, Mr. Raffensperger, the secretary of state, has been a target for Democrats in Georgia’s high-stakes, passionate and bitterly partisan voting wars.
In his nearly two years on the job, he has championed policies to guard against a threat of voter fraud that Democrats say hardly exists. He has been the subject of multiple lawsuits, and of television ads blaming him for presiding over a botched June primary that left voters waiting for hours in long lines. Democrats have also accused him of “state sponsored voter intimidation.”
But this week, he became the target of his own party, with the state’s two incumbent Republican senators calling for his resignation and condemning the presidential election as an
|
“embarrassment,” an allegation he called “laughable.” On Wednesday, he authorized a hand recount of Georgia’s ballots for the presidential race — a move championed by President Trump but one officials have said was unlikely to erase President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s narrow but significant lead in the state.
Now Mr. Raffensperger, a civil engineer and a numbers guy who received high marks from national experts on the smooth election operations in Georgia on Nov. 3, finds himself defending an electoral process that he said has no reason to be mistrusted.
Criticism has come from Mr. Trump and the state’s senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are each facing competitive January runoffs that could determine control of the Senate. The senators declared in a joint statement on Monday that Mr. Raffensperger had “failed the people of Georgia” and did not deliver “honest and transparent elections.”
“I was fully expecting it to come from the one side,” Mr. Raffensperger said of the criticism. But, he added, “not from your own ranks.”
It was a twist that few saw coming.
Mr. Raffensperger said he had no plans to step down, and emphasized that the statewide vote count was legitimate. There may have been “isolated incidents” of irregularities, he said in the interview this week, and his office was investigating those.
A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations
Confused about the inquiries and legal cases involving former President Donald Trump? We’re here to help.
“But we have not heard of any widespread voter fraud,” he said.
The Trump campaign, however, has continued to claim that much went wrong in Georgia’s elections, part of a broader narrative of national voter fraud that has been almost uniformly rejected by elections officials from both parties.
On Tuesday, the campaign and the Georgia Republican Party sent Mr. Raffensperger a letter claiming “hundreds of reports of voting discrepancies,” including “tens of thousands of ballots being unlawfully counted.”
The letter demanded, among other things, a hand recount of the nearly five million votes cast. It also asked that Mr. Raffensperger “trace the chain of custody of the ballots from printing to sending, from receipt to counting” in an election that, because of the coronavirus pandemic, involved hundreds of thousands of mail-in absentee ballots — not unlike the situation in dozens of other states.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Raffensperger announced a hand recount of ballots in all 159 counties, an order that applies only to the presidential ticket. Even if Mr. Trump were to win Georgia, Mr. Biden has already won the national election.
This week, other Republicans have also raised questions about the election process that Mr. Raffensperger has overseen. Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican and the former secretary of state, said Mr. Raffensperger needed to take “a serious look” at allegations of irregularities. All members of the 2021 House Republican delegation from Georgia made a similar request.
In his office on Tuesday, Mr. Raffensperger, a tall, silver-haired man with an austere mien, seemed both calm and cautious as he described Georgia’s predicament — as well as his own. Sometimes he looked to Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state, who reminded him of the first words of answers they had apparently rehearsed.
Asked if he thought he was being thrown under the bus by fellow Republicans, he took what seemed like subtle digs at Mr. Trump, who on Wednesday was trailing Mr. Biden by about 14,000 votes in Georgia, and Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue.
“Well, in Georgia, you have to win over 50 percent, and then you’re not in a runoff,” he said of the senators. “And if you win big, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
The attacks on Mr. Raffensperger have cracked the facade of Republican unity before some of the most important runoff elections in recent American history. They also appear to be a way for Ms. Loeffler and Mr. Perdue to curry favor with Georgians who, like the senators, are devoted fans of the president and outraged about the vote count.
But the strategy also carries some risk. Telling Trump supporters the election process is rigged in Georgia could dissuade them from voting in the runoffs. And the anger over Mr. Raffensperger’s treatment is simmering among some longtime Republicans.
Leo Smith, a consultant with Mr. Raffensperger’s office and a former diversity recruitment director with the state’s Republican Party, called the criticism of the Georgia vote “an insult to those hard-working, committed Republicans who oversaw the election.” In an interview, Mr. Smith described Mr. Raffensperger’s critics as “people who were caught in this poor leadership from a petulant president who has lost, and is using his loss to bully other Republicans into complying with conspiracy theories about voting.”
Mr. Raffensperger, 65, began his political career on the City Council in the affluent northern Atlanta suburb of Johns Creek. In public, he exhibits a kind of punctilious blandness, with a voice that rarely rises above the dispassionate tone of a functionary behind the desk at a Department of Motor Vehicles office.
Even so he is considered highly ambitious, and observers note that Mr. Kemp showed how the secretary of state’s office could be used as a springboard.
After his City Council stint, Mr. Raffensperger, who is married and has two living adult sons and a third who died in 2018, spent a few years in the State Legislature. In his 2018 bid for the secretary of state, he lent his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars, telling voters he would focus on “protecting our elections,” particularly from immigrants who entered the country illegally.
He did not garner more than 50 percent of the vote and ended up in a runoff with a Democrat, former U.S. Representative John Barrow, at a time when much of the nation had begun asking whether Georgia’s election system was truly fair.
A few weeks earlier, Stacey Abrams, a rising star in the Democratic Party, had narrowly lost to Mr. Kemp in her bid to become the state’s first Black governor. Along the way, she and her supporters had argued that Mr. Kemp had been helped by voter suppression tactics he had engaged in as secretary of state.
Shortly after Ms. Abrams’s loss, an organization she founded, Fair Fight Action, filed a lawsuit that claimed the state had dropped more than 100,000 inactive voters from its rolls. As a result of the lawsuit, 22,000 were reinstated.
Last year, state lawmakers passed legislation that lengthened how long registered voters could be inactive before their names could be purged. The Legislature also virtually eliminated a rule that signatures on voter registration cards had to be matched to other records.
Fair Fight Action has continued to take a central role in criticizing Mr. Raffensperger’s election policies in a state where Republican dominance has been challenged by a resurgent Democratic Party, fueled in part by changing demographics.
In April, Lauren Groh-Wargo, Fair Fight Action’s chief executive, criticized Mr. Raffensperger after he announced the creation of an absentee ballot fraud task force, anticipating the widespread use of such ballots during the pandemic.
When Mr. Raffensperger took office last year, he inherited litigation that challenged the safety of the state’s voting machines, claiming they were vulnerable to hacking, and was charged with introducing a new system. Its complexity — combined with no-shows by hundreds of poll workers who feared catching the virus — led to a meltdown during Georgia’s primary in June, with machine malfunctions and long lines.
Hoping to avoid a similar disaster during the general election, county officials, aided by the state and nonprofit groups, began a massive poll worker recruitment effort and Mr. Raffensperger vowed to send technicians to every polling site on Election Day. Voters across Georgia were inundated with the message that they should vote by absentee ballots or at early voting sites.
The result was record turnout in Georgia and smooth in-person voting on Nov. 3.
Andrea Young, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Georgia, praised Mr. Raffensperger’s handling of this year’s general election and characterized this week’s criticism as “voter suppression 2.0.”
“As a child of the South,” she said, “it just sounds like too many Black people voted and we don’t like it.”
But now those numbers are being questioned. Mr. Raffensperger said he only wanted to inspire trust in the system, even as it appeared to be slipping away.
“At the end of the day, half the people will be happy. Half the people will be sad,” he said. “But what our goal is, is that 100 percent of the people have confidence in the result of the elections.”
Richard Fausset reported from Atlanta, and Stephanie Saul from New York. Danny Hakim contributed reporting from New York.
|
30. Jovan Adepo Pushes Through With Rachmaninoff and ‘Love Island’.txt
|
By Fahima Haque
Jan. 1, 2021
Jovan Adepo, known for his breakout turn in “Watchmen,” wasn’t familiar with “The Stand,” Stephen King’s dark fantasy novel about the survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic, before filming the TV adaptation that premiered as a mini-series in December on CBS All Access — and had no idea how close to home it would hit.
Filming in Vancouver wrapped up in March, shortly before some parts of North America went into lockdown because of Covid-19. “To look back now, and comparing some of the imagery that we have in ‘The Stand,’ if you see some of the stills of guys in hazmat suits and how it kind of mirrors some of the actual photos we’re seeing in the world now — it’s eerie,” he said.
Since returning to Los Angeles, Adepo said, the pandemic has forced him, like many others, to try and embrace different routines and hobbies. He shared the highlights of what he has read, watched and listened to this year. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
1. “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn I read through it once, and I’m actually passing through it again because there were some topics that I didn’t grasp as strongly as I wanted to. It gives an interesting take on our purpose as humans on this planet and how it relates to animals and other beings. It’s been an interesting eye-opener for me.
2. “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius I guess you would consider it a collection of anecdotes or sayings from Marcus Aurelius about leadership, courage, fear; about all things that we experience as people and the best way to handle obstacles that present themselves in your life.
3. Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G minor There’s a darkness to it. I was listening to this a lot when I was filming “The Stand.” A lot of classical pieces tell stories, and as you know, there’s no lyrics in these pieces. But if you’re careful and you’re quiet, you can really sense the story that the composer is telling. That’s just one particular song, of many songs, that I’ve always been attracted to because even though it is very dark, it still has a sweetness and a tenderness to it that I was really attracted to. In certain seasons, for whatever reasons, you come back to a song. When it resurfaced in my playlist, I was like, yeah, this is something that’s going to sit in a different way.
4. “Contagion”
The things that creep me out the most are the movies where whatever is going on in the film could actually happen. If it’s super fantastical or whimsical, then you’re like, OK, this is obviously not real. But with anything that has to do with the plague, those stay with me when the credits are done. When I turned it off, I was like, I hope we’re not in this lockdown forever! But it’s all good. Movies are movies.
5. “Love Island”
I ended up knocking out four seasons in like a weekend. It was bad; there was a period where I wasn’t watching anything but “Love Island.” And I’m usually not even a fan of reality TV.
6. “It”
I’m referring to the remake with Bill Skarsgard, who I thought was brilliant as [Pennywise]. The kids were all super funny and they all played off each other well, and their comedic timing was just like A-1.
7. The “Evil Dead” series
The remake that came out in 2013 was also done really well. It’s just about imagery. It doesn’t always have to be super gory, but it’s how the images stick with you after the movie is done. I couldn’t stand them when I was younger, but then I was like, we’re in lockdown, whatever, I’m an adult, I’ll be fine. I won’t be scared. And then I rewatched it again, and I made it.
8. “Jazz” by Ken Burns
A colleague of mine that I worked with on “Jack Ryan,” Wendell Pierce — we share a really strong love and respect for jazz music, and I get that from my father as well. That was a series that he asked me to look into just for further education and further awareness about the music.
I think the documentary is probably most beneficial to people who just aren’t familiar with the genre and who are interested in the history. They highlight Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis, all of the great artists and the inception of jazz into the American history of music.
9. “Lush Life,” by John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
John Coltrane has his own version of that album, but this one is with the singer Johnny Hartman. There’s a few tracks on this album that I liked — there’s the titular song, which I think is worth the listen, but I have to warn you, it can be depressing if you listen to it in the wrong light. He’s almost talking about all of his unfulfilled dreams. He’s like, no matter what, I’m going to have this glass of whatever he’s drinking, and I’m going to live a lush life in one small dive.
10. “Texas Sun,” by Khruangbin and Leon Bridges
I got it right when I got home from Vancouver. My favorite song on the vinyl is called “Conversion.” It can play as a spiritual or religious song, but it can also play as just whatever it is. It’s a beautiful song. It’s just a funky album. “Conversion” is a slower tune and the other tracks on there are kind of upbeat and seaside.
|
By Fahima Haque
Jan. 1, 2021
Jovan Adepo, known for his breakout turn in “Watchmen,” wasn’t familiar with “The Stand,” Stephen King’s dark fantasy novel about the survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic, before filming the TV adaptation that premiered as a mini-series in December on CBS All Access — and had no idea how close to home it would hit.
Filming in Vancouver wrapped up in March, shortly before some parts of North America went into lockdown because of Covid-19. “To look back now, and comparing some of the imagery that we have in ‘The Stand,’ if you see some of the stills of guys in hazmat suits and how it kind of mirrors some of the actual photos we’re seeing in the world now — it’s eerie,” he said.
Since returning to Los Angeles, Adepo said, the pandemic has forced him, like many others, to try and embrace different routines and hobbies. He shared the highlights of what he has read, watched and listened to this year. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
1. “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn I read through it once, and I’m actually passing through
|
it again because there were some topics that I didn’t grasp as strongly as I wanted to. It gives an interesting take on our purpose as humans on this planet and how it relates to animals and other beings. It’s been an interesting eye-opener for me.
2. “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius I guess you would consider it a collection of anecdotes or sayings from Marcus Aurelius about leadership, courage, fear; about all things that we experience as people and the best way to handle obstacles that present themselves in your life.
3. Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G minor There’s a darkness to it. I was listening to this a lot when I was filming “The Stand.” A lot of classical pieces tell stories, and as you know, there’s no lyrics in these pieces. But if you’re careful and you’re quiet, you can really sense the story that the composer is telling. That’s just one particular song, of many songs, that I’ve always been attracted to because even though it is very dark, it still has a sweetness and a tenderness to it that I was really attracted to. In certain seasons, for whatever reasons, you come back to a song. When it resurfaced in my playlist, I was like, yeah, this is something that’s going to sit in a different way.
4. “Contagion”
The things that creep me out the most are the movies where whatever is going on in the film could actually happen. If it’s super fantastical or whimsical, then you’re like, OK, this is obviously not real. But with anything that has to do with the plague, those stay with me when the credits are done. When I turned it off, I was like, I hope we’re not in this lockdown forever! But it’s all good. Movies are movies.
5. “Love Island”
I ended up knocking out four seasons in like a weekend. It was bad; there was a period where I wasn’t watching anything but “Love Island.” And I’m usually not even a fan of reality TV.
6. “It”
I’m referring to the remake with Bill Skarsgard, who I thought was brilliant as [Pennywise]. The kids were all super funny and they all played off each other well, and their comedic timing was just like A-1.
7. The “Evil Dead” series
The remake that came out in 2013 was also done really well. It’s just about imagery. It doesn’t always have to be super gory, but it’s how the images stick with you after the movie is done. I couldn’t stand them when I was younger, but then I was like, we’re in lockdown, whatever, I’m an adult, I’ll be fine. I won’t be scared. And then I rewatched it again, and I made it.
8. “Jazz” by Ken Burns
A colleague of mine that I worked with on “Jack Ryan,” Wendell Pierce — we share a really strong love and respect for jazz music, and I get that from my father as well. That was a series that he asked me to look into just for further education and further awareness about the music.
I think the documentary is probably most beneficial to people who just aren’t familiar with the genre and who are interested in the history. They highlight Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis, all of the great artists and the inception of jazz into the American history of music.
9. “Lush Life,” by John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
John Coltrane has his own version of that album, but this one is with the singer Johnny Hartman. There’s a few tracks on this album that I liked — there’s the titular song, which I think is worth the listen, but I have to warn you, it can be depressing if you listen to it in the wrong light. He’s almost talking about all of his unfulfilled dreams. He’s like, no matter what, I’m going to have this glass of whatever he’s drinking, and I’m going to live a lush life in one small dive.
10. “Texas Sun,” by Khruangbin and Leon Bridges
I got it right when I got home from Vancouver. My favorite song on the vinyl is called “Conversion.” It can play as a spiritual or religious song, but it can also play as just whatever it is. It’s a beautiful song. It’s just a funky album. “Conversion” is a slower tune and the other tracks on there are kind of upbeat and seaside.
|
91. Israel Horovitz, Playwright Tarnished by Abuse Allegations, Dies at 81.txt
|
By Neil Genzlinger
Nov. 11, 2020
Israel Horovitz, an influential and oft-produced playwright whose career was tarnished by accusations by multiple women that he had sexually assaulted them, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 81.
His wife, Gillian Horovitz, said the cause was cancer.
Mr. Horovitz enjoyed his biggest successes Off Broadway and in regional and European theaters, including at the Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts, which he helped found in 1979. His plays gave opportunities to a number of young actors who went on to become household names.
A Horovitz double bill of “The Indian Wants the Bronx” and “It’s Called the Sugar Plum,” which enjoyed a long run at the Astor Place Theater in Manhattan in 1968, had a cast that included Al Pacino, Marsha Mason and John Cazale. Two years later his “Line” was staged at the Theater De Lys in Greenwich Village with Mr. Cazale and Richard Dreyfuss in the cast; that play later moved to the 13th Street Repertory Theater. It was still running until recently, and, with an ever-changing cast, was said to be the longest-running play in Off Off Broadway history. (Mr. Horovitz lived in the Village.)
Mr. Horovitz made Broadway twice. In 1968 he wrote the “Morning” segment of “Morning, Noon and Night,” three one-acts; Terrence McNally and Leonard Melfi wrote the other two, and Mr. Horovitz’s cast included a young comedian named Robert Klein. In 1991, his “Park Your Car in Harvard Yard,” a two-hander that had been developed years earlier at Gloucester, went to Broadway with Judith Ivey and Jason Robards; it ran for 124 performances.
Mr. Horovitz occasionally tried Hollywood, perhaps most notably with the screenplay for the 1982 film “Author! Author!,” which starred Mr. Pacino as a playwright dealing with various stresses. In 2014 he adapted one of his plays into the film “My Old Lady,” which he also directed; it starred Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Mr. Horovitz wrote scores of plays: In 2009, the Barefoot Theater Company in New York organized a celebration of his 70th birthday that involved performances and staged readings of 70 Horovitz plays by theater companies around the world.
But his accomplishments were tainted. News reports in the 1990s brought complaints about his behavior to light, and they received new scrutiny in a 2017 article in The New York Times that carried the headline “Nine Women Accuse Israel Horovitz, Playwright and Mentor, of Sexual Misconduct.”
In the article, the women — some were actresses in plays he had written and directed, others had worked for him — recounted instances of assault, including being groped or forcibly kissed by him. One said he had raped her; another said he had forced her hand down his pants. One woman was 16 at the time of the alleged assault.
Decades earlier, in 1993, the weekly newspaper The Boston Phoenix reported that women at Gloucester Stage Company had accused Mr. Horovitz of sexual misconduct, but nothing was done. After The Times article appeared — one of a number of such articles about prominent men that helped propel the #metoo movement — Gloucester Stage severed its ties with him.
A 1993 report in The Boston Phoenix described accusations by women at the Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts that Mr. Horovitz had sexually abused them. He founded the company.
Mr. Horovitz, responding to the accusations, told The Times that while he had “a different memory of some of these events, I apologize with all my heart to any woman who has ever felt compromised by my actions, and to my family and friends who have put their trust in me.”
“To hear that I have caused pain is profoundly upsetting,” he added, “as is the idea that I might have crossed a line with anyone who considered me a mentor.”
Israel Arthur Horovitz was born on March 31, 1939, in Wakefield, Mass. His father, Julius, was a truck driver who became a lawyer when he was 50; his mother, Hazel Rose (Solberg) Horovitz, was a trained nurse and homemaker.
Mr. Horovitz traced his stage career to his writing a novel at 13.
“It was praised for having a wonderful childlike quality, but it was rejected in this letter that my mother saved,” he told the entertainment website ClashMusic.com in 2014. “So I wrote a play that was put on when I was 17. Nobody said it was a good play, but everybody said, ‘It’s a play,’ and I thought, So that’s who I am: I’m a playwright.”
He attended Salem Teachers College in Massachusetts in the late 1950s planning to become an English teacher, but left to pursue playwriting while supporting himself as a taxi driver and stagehand. (Years later he earned a master’s degree in English literature at the City University of New York.) In 1962, a fellowship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art took him to London, and for the 1964-65 season he was playwright in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Theater and the Aldwych Theater in England.
He returned to the United States and was working in advertising when “The Indian Wants the Bronx” brought him attention and an Obie Award in 1968. The play, about two hoodlums who harass an Indian man named Gupta who speaks no English, was widely staged thereafter; a production by the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in 1976 had a cast that featured Gary Sinise, John Malkovich and Terry Kinney.
A scene from from the original production of “Line,” performed in 1971 at the Theater De Lys in Greenwich Village with Richard Dreyfuss and Ann Wedgeworth.
The long-running “Line” was the very definition of theatrical simplicity. Mr. Horovitz described the play in a 2012 interview with the website Stage Directions:
“It’s a piece of tape on a barren stage, and five people line up behind this piece of white tape, and they desperately fight to be first. And they have no idea what the line is for. It’s not a play that is going to go out of style. And it adapts to its time.”
Clive Barnes, in his review in The Times in 1971, wasn’t wild about the play but saw potential in the playwright.
“He can write true and dazzling dialogue,” Mr. Barnes wrote, “even when the dialogue has little to be true or dazzling about. Also, he can create people — real breathing, living people.”
As his career advanced, Mr. Horovitz found that his works had particular appeal in France; at his death he had homes there and in Gloucester as well as in the Village. The Cultural Services division of the French Embassy recently called him “the most-produced American playwright in French theater history.” Many of his works drew on his love of France.
“My Old Lady” involved an American who inherits an apartment in Paris and, when he goes there expecting to sell it, finds it occupied by a woman and her daughter. In “Out of the Mouth of Babes” — a comedy that had a run at the Cherry Lane Theater in Manhattan in 2016 with a cast that included Ms. Ivey and Estelle Parsons — four women are drawn together by the death of an instructor at the Sorbonne with whom each had been involved.
Many other Horovitz plays were set in his native Massachusetts, especially in or near coastal Gloucester. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Gloucester Stage Company said that the accusations against Mr. Horovitz had led it to commit to focusing on works by women, Indigenous people and people of color.
“Israel Horovitz’s dedication to socially relevant and intellectually stimulating theater was the cornerstone of Gloucester Stage Company’s first 40 years,” the statement said. “That concept will live on, through new voices, for the next 40 more.”
Mr. Horovitz and Gillian Adams married in 1981. He had married Elaine Abber in 1959 and Doris Keefe in 1961. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children from his second marriage: Rachael Horovitz, a film producer; Adam, a member of the Beastie Boys; and Matthew, also a producer. He is also survived by two children from his third marriage, Hannah and Oliver Horovitz; a sister, Shirley Horovitz Levine; and five grandchildren.
|
By Neil Genzlinger
Nov. 11, 2020
Israel Horovitz, an influential and oft-produced playwright whose career was tarnished by accusations by multiple women that he had sexually assaulted them, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 81.
His wife, Gillian Horovitz, said the cause was cancer.
Mr. Horovitz enjoyed his biggest successes Off Broadway and in regional and European theaters, including at the Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts, which he helped found in 1979. His plays gave opportunities to a number of young actors who went on to become household names.
A Horovitz double bill of “The Indian Wants the Bronx” and “It’s Called the Sugar Plum,” which enjoyed a long run at the Astor Place Theater in Manhattan in 1968, had a cast that included Al Pacino, Marsha Mason and John Cazale. Two years later his “Line” was staged at the Theater De Lys in Greenwich Village with Mr. Cazale and Richard Dreyfuss in the cast; that play later moved to the 13th Street Repertory Theater. It was still running until recently, and, with an ever-changing
|
cast, was said to be the longest-running play in Off Off Broadway history. (Mr. Horovitz lived in the Village.)
Mr. Horovitz made Broadway twice. In 1968 he wrote the “Morning” segment of “Morning, Noon and Night,” three one-acts; Terrence McNally and Leonard Melfi wrote the other two, and Mr. Horovitz’s cast included a young comedian named Robert Klein. In 1991, his “Park Your Car in Harvard Yard,” a two-hander that had been developed years earlier at Gloucester, went to Broadway with Judith Ivey and Jason Robards; it ran for 124 performances.
Mr. Horovitz occasionally tried Hollywood, perhaps most notably with the screenplay for the 1982 film “Author! Author!,” which starred Mr. Pacino as a playwright dealing with various stresses. In 2014 he adapted one of his plays into the film “My Old Lady,” which he also directed; it starred Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith and Kristin Scott Thomas.
Mr. Horovitz wrote scores of plays: In 2009, the Barefoot Theater Company in New York organized a celebration of his 70th birthday that involved performances and staged readings of 70 Horovitz plays by theater companies around the world.
But his accomplishments were tainted. News reports in the 1990s brought complaints about his behavior to light, and they received new scrutiny in a 2017 article in The New York Times that carried the headline “Nine Women Accuse Israel Horovitz, Playwright and Mentor, of Sexual Misconduct.”
In the article, the women — some were actresses in plays he had written and directed, others had worked for him — recounted instances of assault, including being groped or forcibly kissed by him. One said he had raped her; another said he had forced her hand down his pants. One woman was 16 at the time of the alleged assault.
Decades earlier, in 1993, the weekly newspaper The Boston Phoenix reported that women at Gloucester Stage Company had accused Mr. Horovitz of sexual misconduct, but nothing was done. After The Times article appeared — one of a number of such articles about prominent men that helped propel the #metoo movement — Gloucester Stage severed its ties with him.
A 1993 report in The Boston Phoenix described accusations by women at the Gloucester Stage Company in Massachusetts that Mr. Horovitz had sexually abused them. He founded the company.
Mr. Horovitz, responding to the accusations, told The Times that while he had “a different memory of some of these events, I apologize with all my heart to any woman who has ever felt compromised by my actions, and to my family and friends who have put their trust in me.”
“To hear that I have caused pain is profoundly upsetting,” he added, “as is the idea that I might have crossed a line with anyone who considered me a mentor.”
Israel Arthur Horovitz was born on March 31, 1939, in Wakefield, Mass. His father, Julius, was a truck driver who became a lawyer when he was 50; his mother, Hazel Rose (Solberg) Horovitz, was a trained nurse and homemaker.
Mr. Horovitz traced his stage career to his writing a novel at 13.
“It was praised for having a wonderful childlike quality, but it was rejected in this letter that my mother saved,” he told the entertainment website ClashMusic.com in 2014. “So I wrote a play that was put on when I was 17. Nobody said it was a good play, but everybody said, ‘It’s a play,’ and I thought, So that’s who I am: I’m a playwright.”
He attended Salem Teachers College in Massachusetts in the late 1950s planning to become an English teacher, but left to pursue playwriting while supporting himself as a taxi driver and stagehand. (Years later he earned a master’s degree in English literature at the City University of New York.) In 1962, a fellowship to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art took him to London, and for the 1964-65 season he was playwright in residence at the Royal Shakespeare Theater and the Aldwych Theater in England.
He returned to the United States and was working in advertising when “The Indian Wants the Bronx” brought him attention and an Obie Award in 1968. The play, about two hoodlums who harass an Indian man named Gupta who speaks no English, was widely staged thereafter; a production by the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in 1976 had a cast that featured Gary Sinise, John Malkovich and Terry Kinney.
A scene from from the original production of “Line,” performed in 1971 at the Theater De Lys in Greenwich Village with Richard Dreyfuss and Ann Wedgeworth.
The long-running “Line” was the very definition of theatrical simplicity. Mr. Horovitz described the play in a 2012 interview with the website Stage Directions:
“It’s a piece of tape on a barren stage, and five people line up behind this piece of white tape, and they desperately fight to be first. And they have no idea what the line is for. It’s not a play that is going to go out of style. And it adapts to its time.”
Clive Barnes, in his review in The Times in 1971, wasn’t wild about the play but saw potential in the playwright.
“He can write true and dazzling dialogue,” Mr. Barnes wrote, “even when the dialogue has little to be true or dazzling about. Also, he can create people — real breathing, living people.”
As his career advanced, Mr. Horovitz found that his works had particular appeal in France; at his death he had homes there and in Gloucester as well as in the Village. The Cultural Services division of the French Embassy recently called him “the most-produced American playwright in French theater history.” Many of his works drew on his love of France.
“My Old Lady” involved an American who inherits an apartment in Paris and, when he goes there expecting to sell it, finds it occupied by a woman and her daughter. In “Out of the Mouth of Babes” — a comedy that had a run at the Cherry Lane Theater in Manhattan in 2016 with a cast that included Ms. Ivey and Estelle Parsons — four women are drawn together by the death of an instructor at the Sorbonne with whom each had been involved.
Many other Horovitz plays were set in his native Massachusetts, especially in or near coastal Gloucester. In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Gloucester Stage Company said that the accusations against Mr. Horovitz had led it to commit to focusing on works by women, Indigenous people and people of color.
“Israel Horovitz’s dedication to socially relevant and intellectually stimulating theater was the cornerstone of Gloucester Stage Company’s first 40 years,” the statement said. “That concept will live on, through new voices, for the next 40 more.”
Mr. Horovitz and Gillian Adams married in 1981. He had married Elaine Abber in 1959 and Doris Keefe in 1961. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children from his second marriage: Rachael Horovitz, a film producer; Adam, a member of the Beastie Boys; and Matthew, also a producer. He is also survived by two children from his third marriage, Hannah and Oliver Horovitz; a sister, Shirley Horovitz Levine; and five grandchildren.
|
43. Brexit Customs Checks Make a Quiet Debut at U.K. Ports.txt
|
By Eshe Nelson
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 4, 2021
LONDON — At the ports and terminals on Britain’s southeastern coast, a new era began on Friday morning without much fuss. Ferries and trains that carry goods to France from Dover and Folkestone were running on time, and drivers snaked their trucks into the port unencumbered by congestion.
To all appearances, little may have changed on Jan. 1, the country’s first day outside the European Union’s single market and customs union. It was, after all, a public holiday and not much business was taking place.
But for the first time in over 25 years, goods traveling between Britain and the European Union will no longer move freely and customs checks will be enforced for goods entering the bloc.
A trade deal, signed into law in Britain in the early hours of Thursday, less than 24 hours before it took effect, means the country and the European Union will trade goods without tariffs. Businesses, however, will still face significant changes that they had been urged to prepare for even during the lockdowns, closures and other social restrictions that the government has introduced to contain a surging coronavirus pandemic.
The changes are bound to bring “bumpy moments,” a top cabinet minister predicted this week. The government expects new customs paperwork alone to cost British businesses 7 billion pounds (about $9.6 billion) a year. The European Union is Britain’s largest trading partner, with £670 billion of imports and exports, and Britain imports far more goods from the bloc than it exports. (It has a trade surplus in services, which aren’t covered by the trade deal.)
Britain has at least 150,000 exporters who have never sent their goods beyond the bloc, according to data from the country’s tax agency, and will therefore need to make customs declarations for the first time. Border checks within the European Union were scrapped in 1993.
More on Britain
This is a change that will be immediately felt at Britain’s ports, especially the busy Port of Dover and the Eurotunnel terminus at Folkestone, which connect the country to France. But on Friday, with most business halted for New Year’s Day, trains and ferries were reported to be running smoothly. Eurotunnel reported that 200 trucks had used its shuttle train by 8 a.m., with all the correct documents.
“It does seem pretty calm,” Elizabeth De Jong, the policy director of Logistics U.K., a trade group, told Sky News on Friday morning.
But she added that businesses now faced “a new, different language of customs arrangements” that would need to be understood. She described the next few weeks as a live trial, as companies must ensure they have the correct paperwork for themselves and the goods onboard, and traffic has to be managed into the area.
Away from the Dover-Calais crossing, there were some early hiccups.
Six trucks bound for Ireland, a member of the European Union, were turned away from boarding a ferry at Holyhead, a port in Wales, according to Stena Line, a ferry operator. The drivers did not have the authorization now required for trucks crossing from Britain into Ireland — in this case, a digital “pre-boarding notification,” from Ireland’s tax bureau.
The ferry company, sensing an opportunity in Brexit’s potential headaches, has increased the number of direct sailings it offers between Ireland and France, bypassing Britain and the need for customs checks.
In what the British government has described as a worst-case scenario, 40 to 70 percent of trucks heading to the European Union might not be ready for the new border checks. This could lead to lines of up to 7,000 trucks heading to the border and delays of up to two days, according to a government report.
Britain has only recently cleared a huge backlog of trucks from the border. Late on Dec. 20, the French government suddenly closed its border for 48 hours to stop the spread of a new coronavirus variant from England. Thousands of trucks and their drivers were stranded for days. Once the border reopened, the drivers were then required to show a negative coronavirus test result before being allowed to enter France.
The delays at the normally fast-moving port also raised concerns about Britain’s supply of fresh food, much of which is imported from the rest of Europe in the winter. One fruit supplier urgently arranged to fly goods into the country, and British exporters of fish and shellfish scrambled to send their goods into France before they spoiled.
The spectacle amplified concerns about trade after Dec. 31, the end of the Brexit transition period. Even though goods are already moving more slowly because drivers’ coronavirus tests can take about 40 minutes to deliver results, it is unlikely that trucks will be waiting in their thousands to enter France on Friday thanks to the quieter holiday period.
In fact, some ferry crossings between Dover and Calais were canceled on Friday afternoon because demand was so low.
“We would expect sustained disruption to worsen over the first two weeks as freight demand builds,” the government report says. This could last about three months.
Frictionless trade has been replaced by a myriad of electronic and paper declarations for exporters, importers and logistics companies. Goods entering the European Union from England, Scotland and Wales now require customs checks, including safety certificates, and truck drivers will need a permit to enter Kent, the county containing Dover and Folkestone, to confirm that they have the necessary documents.
Truck drivers coming the other way face fewer requirements for now. Britain has relaxed the rules for goods arriving into the country from the European Union for six months.
In Calais, the first vehicle to depart for Britain via the Eurotunnel shuttle train on Friday morning was from Romania, carrying mail and parcels. The mayor of the French coastal city, Natacha Bouchart, pushed a button allowing the truck to leave.
It was a “historic moment,” she said, that “will have consequences whose range we don’t yet know.”
Antonella Francini contributed reporting from Paris.
British Trade After Brexit
U.K. Parliament Approves Post-Brexit Trade Deal
Dec. 30, 2020
For U.K., an Early Taste of Brexit as Borders Are Sealed
Dec. 21, 2020
Near U.K.’s Busiest Port, Brexit Hopes Are Layered in Asphalt
Aug. 8, 2020
|
By Eshe Nelson
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 4, 2021
LONDON — At the ports and terminals on Britain’s southeastern coast, a new era began on Friday morning without much fuss. Ferries and trains that carry goods to France from Dover and Folkestone were running on time, and drivers snaked their trucks into the port unencumbered by congestion.
To all appearances, little may have changed on Jan. 1, the country’s first day outside the European Union’s single market and customs union. It was, after all, a public holiday and not much business was taking place.
But for the first time in over 25 years, goods traveling between Britain and the European Union will no longer move freely and customs checks will be enforced for goods entering the bloc.
A trade deal, signed into law in Britain in the early hours of Thursday, less than 24 hours before it took effect, means the country and the European Union will trade goods without tariffs. Businesses, however, will still face significant changes that they had been urged to prepare for even during the lockdowns, closures and other social restrictions that the government has introduced to contain a surging coronavirus
|
pandemic.
The changes are bound to bring “bumpy moments,” a top cabinet minister predicted this week. The government expects new customs paperwork alone to cost British businesses 7 billion pounds (about $9.6 billion) a year. The European Union is Britain’s largest trading partner, with £670 billion of imports and exports, and Britain imports far more goods from the bloc than it exports. (It has a trade surplus in services, which aren’t covered by the trade deal.)
Britain has at least 150,000 exporters who have never sent their goods beyond the bloc, according to data from the country’s tax agency, and will therefore need to make customs declarations for the first time. Border checks within the European Union were scrapped in 1993.
More on Britain
This is a change that will be immediately felt at Britain’s ports, especially the busy Port of Dover and the Eurotunnel terminus at Folkestone, which connect the country to France. But on Friday, with most business halted for New Year’s Day, trains and ferries were reported to be running smoothly. Eurotunnel reported that 200 trucks had used its shuttle train by 8 a.m., with all the correct documents.
“It does seem pretty calm,” Elizabeth De Jong, the policy director of Logistics U.K., a trade group, told Sky News on Friday morning.
But she added that businesses now faced “a new, different language of customs arrangements” that would need to be understood. She described the next few weeks as a live trial, as companies must ensure they have the correct paperwork for themselves and the goods onboard, and traffic has to be managed into the area.
Away from the Dover-Calais crossing, there were some early hiccups.
Six trucks bound for Ireland, a member of the European Union, were turned away from boarding a ferry at Holyhead, a port in Wales, according to Stena Line, a ferry operator. The drivers did not have the authorization now required for trucks crossing from Britain into Ireland — in this case, a digital “pre-boarding notification,” from Ireland’s tax bureau.
The ferry company, sensing an opportunity in Brexit’s potential headaches, has increased the number of direct sailings it offers between Ireland and France, bypassing Britain and the need for customs checks.
In what the British government has described as a worst-case scenario, 40 to 70 percent of trucks heading to the European Union might not be ready for the new border checks. This could lead to lines of up to 7,000 trucks heading to the border and delays of up to two days, according to a government report.
Britain has only recently cleared a huge backlog of trucks from the border. Late on Dec. 20, the French government suddenly closed its border for 48 hours to stop the spread of a new coronavirus variant from England. Thousands of trucks and their drivers were stranded for days. Once the border reopened, the drivers were then required to show a negative coronavirus test result before being allowed to enter France.
The delays at the normally fast-moving port also raised concerns about Britain’s supply of fresh food, much of which is imported from the rest of Europe in the winter. One fruit supplier urgently arranged to fly goods into the country, and British exporters of fish and shellfish scrambled to send their goods into France before they spoiled.
The spectacle amplified concerns about trade after Dec. 31, the end of the Brexit transition period. Even though goods are already moving more slowly because drivers’ coronavirus tests can take about 40 minutes to deliver results, it is unlikely that trucks will be waiting in their thousands to enter France on Friday thanks to the quieter holiday period.
In fact, some ferry crossings between Dover and Calais were canceled on Friday afternoon because demand was so low.
“We would expect sustained disruption to worsen over the first two weeks as freight demand builds,” the government report says. This could last about three months.
Frictionless trade has been replaced by a myriad of electronic and paper declarations for exporters, importers and logistics companies. Goods entering the European Union from England, Scotland and Wales now require customs checks, including safety certificates, and truck drivers will need a permit to enter Kent, the county containing Dover and Folkestone, to confirm that they have the necessary documents.
Truck drivers coming the other way face fewer requirements for now. Britain has relaxed the rules for goods arriving into the country from the European Union for six months.
In Calais, the first vehicle to depart for Britain via the Eurotunnel shuttle train on Friday morning was from Romania, carrying mail and parcels. The mayor of the French coastal city, Natacha Bouchart, pushed a button allowing the truck to leave.
It was a “historic moment,” she said, that “will have consequences whose range we don’t yet know.”
Antonella Francini contributed reporting from Paris.
British Trade After Brexit
U.K. Parliament Approves Post-Brexit Trade Deal
Dec. 30, 2020
For U.K., an Early Taste of Brexit as Borders Are Sealed
Dec. 21, 2020
Near U.K.’s Busiest Port, Brexit Hopes Are Layered in Asphalt
Aug. 8, 2020
|
44. An Imprint Neither Could Forget.txt
|
By Vincent M. Mallozzi
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 3, 2021
Long before the name Matthew Specktor was inscribed on Samantha Culp’s heart, it could be found beneath a short, sweet note inscribed on a page of Mr. Specktor’s book, “American Dream Machine,” which she bought at a benefit at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles in June 2013.
“With warmest wishes,” Mr. Specktor, 54, wrote, “and thanks, hope you enjoy.”
Ms. Culp, 38, a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and producer, recalled suffering from jet lag that day as she had flown home two days earlier from Shanghai, where she spent a decade living and working as a journalist, art curator and consultant. She wrote for The South China Morning Post, and served as a consultant for cultural projects and institutions. “I read his book and thought, ‘Wow, this guy is an amazing writer,’” said Ms. Culp, who graduated from Yale.
“He had such apt observations of the strange beauty of our shared hometown, and also a similarly oblique connection to Hollywood that I do, growing up within it and seeing both its magic and its flaws,” she said. “It was exciting to discover a new writer whose work I really loved.”
Ms. Culp was a producer for the Netflix crime documentary series “Exhibit A” in 2019 and for “The Confession Tapes” in 2017. Now in its second season, “The Confession Tapes,” which tells of wrongful convictions, was nominated for best episodic series by the International Documentary Association. She is also a fellow for the Power of Diversity Master Workshop run by the Producers Guild of America.
At his book signing in Los Angeles, Mr. Specktor, a Hampshire College graduate, entertained a single thought: “I remember thinking that she was a really beautiful, lively and vital person, someone I would love to go out with.” He was divorced when he first crossed paths with Ms. Culp. “We started talking,” he said, “and she tells me she’s going back to Shanghai, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, OK, I’ll never see her again.’”
But he did, nearly six years later in December 2018, via the dating website OkCupid. By then he no longer recognized or remembered her.
“I remembered Matthew from the moment I first glanced at his online dating profile,” Ms. Culp said. “But I decided to play it cool because I didn’t want to jinx anything.”
Nicholas Meyer, a family friend, led a ceremony that incorporated Jewish wedding traditions.
Ms. Culp also said that she was so “intrigued” when they matched that she “researched Matthew via some other Los Angeles Review of Books editor friends who all spoke glowingly of him and encouraged me to go on the date.”
“It’s a funny thing,” she said. “We started dating in December 2018 — very much a pre-pandemic world — and it didn’t take long to see we were very compatible.”
After an otherwise successful first date at a Los Angeles restaurant, Ms. Culp sent Mr. Specktor a text message containing a photo of the nearly seven-year-old inscription he put in her book at the Bel Air hotel.
Mr. Specktor took one look at the photo, dialed Ms. Culp’s phone number and blurted, “Oh my God, it’s you!”
They were soon dating steadily. Ms. Culp was introduced to Mr. Specktor’s daughter, Virginia Specktor, who is now 16 and known as Vivi, and his two-year-old half wheaten terrier, half miniature schnauzer, Pilot.
The couple found they had much in common, including a shared love of literature and film.
“Our habits and ambitions seemed comfortably aligned,” said Mr. Specktor, a former film executive who is now the author of multiple books, and a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.
“That first year we did nearly everything together, barring a long trip to India that Sam took with her mother while I was home finishing a book,” he said. “I didn’t mind. It gave me a chance to shop for an engagement ring.”
It also gave Ms. Culp an opportunity to evaluate her relationship with Mr. Specktor, and it wasn’t long before she realized that what she had in him was a man who checked all the so-called boxes.
“He is loving and caring and nurturing to his daughter, his friends and family and to his dog,” Ms. Culp said. “In that sense,” she said laughing, “I guess he’s a keeper.”
He guessed much the same, which is why he proposed just after they walked out of a Los Angeles restaurant in December 2019, five months after Ms. Culp had moved in with him.
“I had been married before and dated a lot,” Mr. Specktor said. “But with Sam, there was just so much more clarity, and so much more understanding in just about every interaction we’ve ever had.”
[Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email.]
The bride placed a photo of her father, the actor Robert Culp, inside her grandmother’s gold handbag as a way of keeping him close throughout the day.
“I’d been married once before, and divorced 14 years now,” he added. “I wasn’t opposed to remarrying in the years in between, on the contrary, but I can’t say I felt close to doing so prior to this. Sam has never been married. But I know for both of us there was never an instant of hesitation.”
They were married Dec. 16 in the garden outside the Los Angeles home of the groom’s father, Fred Specktor, and his stepmother, Nancy Heller. Nicholas Meyer, a friend of the family and a Universal Life minister, officiated, leading a ceremony that incorporated Jewish wedding traditions. Mr. Specktor’s daughter, Virginia, presented the couple’s rings.
Among the eight socially distanced guests in attendance was the bride’s mother, Candace Wilson Culp, a writer and retired fashion model. The groom said he wished that his mother, the late Katherine Howe, could have been there.
The bride’s father, the actor Robert Culp, died 10 years ago. He was best known for his role in the hit TV series “I Spy.” He was also appeared in the TV series “Trackdown” and in the comedy film “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.”
The coronavirus had forced the couple to change their original plans for a large wedding celebration in August.
“Trying to plan a wedding, or even just the basic legal marriage ceremony,” the groom said, “has proved to be quite a task in the year of the pandemic. I’m so happy that we got it done.”
On This Day
When Dec. 16, 2020
Where The garden outside the Los Angeles home of the groom’s father and stepmother.
What They Wore The groom donned a vintage Prada suit. The bride had on a gold brocade dress from H&M's Conscious collection of sustainable designs. For the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” tradition: She carried her grandmother's vintage gold handbag; wore her new dress; borrowed her mother’s pearls; and displayed her blue sapphire engagement ring.
A Tribute to Dad The bride placed a photo of her father, Robert Culp, inside her grandmother’s gold handbag as a way of keeping him close throughout the day.
Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.
|
By Vincent M. Mallozzi
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 3, 2021
Long before the name Matthew Specktor was inscribed on Samantha Culp’s heart, it could be found beneath a short, sweet note inscribed on a page of Mr. Specktor’s book, “American Dream Machine,” which she bought at a benefit at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles in June 2013.
“With warmest wishes,” Mr. Specktor, 54, wrote, “and thanks, hope you enjoy.”
Ms. Culp, 38, a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and producer, recalled suffering from jet lag that day as she had flown home two days earlier from Shanghai, where she spent a decade living and working as a journalist, art curator and consultant. She wrote for The South China Morning Post, and served as a consultant for cultural projects and institutions. “I read his book and thought, ‘Wow, this guy is an amazing writer,’” said Ms. Culp, who graduated from Yale.
“He had such apt observations of the strange beauty of our shared hometown, and also a similarly oblique connection to Hollywood that I do
|
, growing up within it and seeing both its magic and its flaws,” she said. “It was exciting to discover a new writer whose work I really loved.”
Ms. Culp was a producer for the Netflix crime documentary series “Exhibit A” in 2019 and for “The Confession Tapes” in 2017. Now in its second season, “The Confession Tapes,” which tells of wrongful convictions, was nominated for best episodic series by the International Documentary Association. She is also a fellow for the Power of Diversity Master Workshop run by the Producers Guild of America.
At his book signing in Los Angeles, Mr. Specktor, a Hampshire College graduate, entertained a single thought: “I remember thinking that she was a really beautiful, lively and vital person, someone I would love to go out with.” He was divorced when he first crossed paths with Ms. Culp. “We started talking,” he said, “and she tells me she’s going back to Shanghai, and I thought to myself, ‘Well, OK, I’ll never see her again.’”
But he did, nearly six years later in December 2018, via the dating website OkCupid. By then he no longer recognized or remembered her.
“I remembered Matthew from the moment I first glanced at his online dating profile,” Ms. Culp said. “But I decided to play it cool because I didn’t want to jinx anything.”
Nicholas Meyer, a family friend, led a ceremony that incorporated Jewish wedding traditions.
Ms. Culp also said that she was so “intrigued” when they matched that she “researched Matthew via some other Los Angeles Review of Books editor friends who all spoke glowingly of him and encouraged me to go on the date.”
“It’s a funny thing,” she said. “We started dating in December 2018 — very much a pre-pandemic world — and it didn’t take long to see we were very compatible.”
After an otherwise successful first date at a Los Angeles restaurant, Ms. Culp sent Mr. Specktor a text message containing a photo of the nearly seven-year-old inscription he put in her book at the Bel Air hotel.
Mr. Specktor took one look at the photo, dialed Ms. Culp’s phone number and blurted, “Oh my God, it’s you!”
They were soon dating steadily. Ms. Culp was introduced to Mr. Specktor’s daughter, Virginia Specktor, who is now 16 and known as Vivi, and his two-year-old half wheaten terrier, half miniature schnauzer, Pilot.
The couple found they had much in common, including a shared love of literature and film.
“Our habits and ambitions seemed comfortably aligned,” said Mr. Specktor, a former film executive who is now the author of multiple books, and a founding editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books.
“That first year we did nearly everything together, barring a long trip to India that Sam took with her mother while I was home finishing a book,” he said. “I didn’t mind. It gave me a chance to shop for an engagement ring.”
It also gave Ms. Culp an opportunity to evaluate her relationship with Mr. Specktor, and it wasn’t long before she realized that what she had in him was a man who checked all the so-called boxes.
“He is loving and caring and nurturing to his daughter, his friends and family and to his dog,” Ms. Culp said. “In that sense,” she said laughing, “I guess he’s a keeper.”
He guessed much the same, which is why he proposed just after they walked out of a Los Angeles restaurant in December 2019, five months after Ms. Culp had moved in with him.
“I had been married before and dated a lot,” Mr. Specktor said. “But with Sam, there was just so much more clarity, and so much more understanding in just about every interaction we’ve ever had.”
[Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email.]
The bride placed a photo of her father, the actor Robert Culp, inside her grandmother’s gold handbag as a way of keeping him close throughout the day.
“I’d been married once before, and divorced 14 years now,” he added. “I wasn’t opposed to remarrying in the years in between, on the contrary, but I can’t say I felt close to doing so prior to this. Sam has never been married. But I know for both of us there was never an instant of hesitation.”
They were married Dec. 16 in the garden outside the Los Angeles home of the groom’s father, Fred Specktor, and his stepmother, Nancy Heller. Nicholas Meyer, a friend of the family and a Universal Life minister, officiated, leading a ceremony that incorporated Jewish wedding traditions. Mr. Specktor’s daughter, Virginia, presented the couple’s rings.
Among the eight socially distanced guests in attendance was the bride’s mother, Candace Wilson Culp, a writer and retired fashion model. The groom said he wished that his mother, the late Katherine Howe, could have been there.
The bride’s father, the actor Robert Culp, died 10 years ago. He was best known for his role in the hit TV series “I Spy.” He was also appeared in the TV series “Trackdown” and in the comedy film “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.”
The coronavirus had forced the couple to change their original plans for a large wedding celebration in August.
“Trying to plan a wedding, or even just the basic legal marriage ceremony,” the groom said, “has proved to be quite a task in the year of the pandemic. I’m so happy that we got it done.”
On This Day
When Dec. 16, 2020
Where The garden outside the Los Angeles home of the groom’s father and stepmother.
What They Wore The groom donned a vintage Prada suit. The bride had on a gold brocade dress from H&M's Conscious collection of sustainable designs. For the “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” tradition: She carried her grandmother's vintage gold handbag; wore her new dress; borrowed her mother’s pearls; and displayed her blue sapphire engagement ring.
A Tribute to Dad The bride placed a photo of her father, Robert Culp, inside her grandmother’s gold handbag as a way of keeping him close throughout the day.
Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.
|
82. UPS to Allow Natural Black Hairstyles and Facial Hair.txt
|
By Michael Levenson
Nov. 11, 2020
UPS will allow workers to have facial hair and natural Black hairstyles like Afros and braids as it becomes the latest company to shed policies widely criticized as discriminatory amid nationwide demands for racial justice.
The delivery company, which has more than 525,000 employees worldwide, said it was also eliminating gender-specific rules as part of a broader overhaul of its extensive appearance guidelines, which cover hair, piercings, tattoos and uniform length.
UPS said that Carol Tomé, who in March was named the first female chief executive in the company’s 113-year history, had “listened to feedback from employees and heard that changes in this area would make them more likely to recommend UPS as an employer.”
“These changes reflect our values and desire to have all UPS employees feel comfortable, genuine and authentic while providing service to our customers and interacting with the general public,” the company said in a statement.
The policy change, previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes amid a growing national movement to ban racial discrimination against people based on their natural hairstyle. Many companies, responding to months of protests against systemic racism, have also sought to address discrimination by overhauling brand names and marketing images and by diversifying their ranks.
California last year became the first state to ban discrimination based on hairstyle and hair texture by passing the Crown Act — an acronym for Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair. New York and New Jersey soon followed with their own versions of the law, and a federal version passed the U.S. House in September.
In February, the Oscars highlighted the issue when it named “Hair Love,” a film about an African-American father learning to style his daughter’s natural hair in his wife’s absence, best animated short.
The actress Gabrielle Union and the former N.B.A. star Dwyane Wade, the married producers of “Hair Love,” invited to the ceremony a Black high school student in Texas who had been suspended because of the way he wore his dreadlocks.
The student, DeAndre Arnold, was one of a number of Black people who said they had been singled out in the workplace or in school because of their hair.
In 2018, an 11-year-old Black student at a Roman Catholic school near New Orleans was asked to leave class because administrators said her braided hair extensions violated school rules, according to a lawyer for her family.
In 2017, Black students at a charter school in Massachusetts complained that they had been subjected to detentions and suspensions because they wore hair extensions, prompting the state’s attorney general to order the school to stop punishing students for wearing hairstyles that violated the school’s dress code.
In 2018, UPS agreed to pay $4.9 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which said the company had failed to hire or promote Muslims, Sikhs, Rastafarians and others whose religious practices conflicted with its appearance policy.
The commission said the company had for years segregated workers who wore beards or long hair in accordance with their religious beliefs into nonsupervisory, back-of-the-facility positions without customer contact.
The company’s new policy clarifies that beards and mustaches “are definitely acceptable as long as they are worn in a businesslike manner and don’t create a safety concern,” according to UPS documents reviewed by The Journal. The new rules took effect immediately.
The policy also permits natural hairstyles “such as Afros, braids, curls, coils, locs, twists and knots,” according to The Journal. And it eliminates guidelines specific to men and women. “No matter how you identify — dress appropriately for your workday,” the policy states.
The Teamsters, which represents UPS workers, said it was “very pleased” with the changes.
“The union contested the previous guidelines as too strict numerous times over the years through the grievance/arbitration process and contract negotiations,” the union said in a statement. “We have proposed neatly trimmed beards during several previous national negotiations.”
Some legal specialists called UPS’s policy change long overdue.
“Though UPS has defended its grooming policy in past civil rights litigation, it appears that UPS may now better appreciate that its natural hair ban maintains centuries old race-based exclusion of Black workers from employment opportunities simply because they wear their hair as it naturally grows,” said D. Wendy Greene, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law and an architect of the Crown Act.
“In doing so, UPS’s grooming policy sent a clear message to Black workers that they were required to either change or extinguish a fundamental part of their racial, cultural, and sometimes religious identity to be a member of the organization,” Professor Greene said.
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, a professor of law and dean of the Boston University School of Law, who has researched hair codes, said the change at UPS “recognizes that allowing people to be their authentic selves is good for business.”
Policies that ban natural Black hairstyles are clearly discriminatory, she said, because they deem Black hair to be “inherently unprofessional.”
Dominique Apollon, vice president for research at Race Forward, a racial justice advocacy organization, said companies that forbid natural Black hair send the message that “white standards of beauty and white comfort are ultimately the default.”
“I’d like to see these sorts of policy changes accompanied by a deeper reckoning with the past, and with a humility that unfortunately doesn’t come often in our litigious society,” he said. “Companies like UPS need to acknowledge that these sorts of policies have had long-term effects, and will continue to have ramifications or racial outcomes unless more is done.”
|
By Michael Levenson
Nov. 11, 2020
UPS will allow workers to have facial hair and natural Black hairstyles like Afros and braids as it becomes the latest company to shed policies widely criticized as discriminatory amid nationwide demands for racial justice.
The delivery company, which has more than 525,000 employees worldwide, said it was also eliminating gender-specific rules as part of a broader overhaul of its extensive appearance guidelines, which cover hair, piercings, tattoos and uniform length.
UPS said that Carol Tomé, who in March was named the first female chief executive in the company’s 113-year history, had “listened to feedback from employees and heard that changes in this area would make them more likely to recommend UPS as an employer.”
“These changes reflect our values and desire to have all UPS employees feel comfortable, genuine and authentic while providing service to our customers and interacting with the general public,” the company said in a statement.
The policy change, previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, comes amid a growing national movement to ban racial discrimination against people based on their natural hairstyle. Many companies, responding to months of protests against systemic racism, have
|
also sought to address discrimination by overhauling brand names and marketing images and by diversifying their ranks.
California last year became the first state to ban discrimination based on hairstyle and hair texture by passing the Crown Act — an acronym for Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair. New York and New Jersey soon followed with their own versions of the law, and a federal version passed the U.S. House in September.
In February, the Oscars highlighted the issue when it named “Hair Love,” a film about an African-American father learning to style his daughter’s natural hair in his wife’s absence, best animated short.
The actress Gabrielle Union and the former N.B.A. star Dwyane Wade, the married producers of “Hair Love,” invited to the ceremony a Black high school student in Texas who had been suspended because of the way he wore his dreadlocks.
The student, DeAndre Arnold, was one of a number of Black people who said they had been singled out in the workplace or in school because of their hair.
In 2018, an 11-year-old Black student at a Roman Catholic school near New Orleans was asked to leave class because administrators said her braided hair extensions violated school rules, according to a lawyer for her family.
In 2017, Black students at a charter school in Massachusetts complained that they had been subjected to detentions and suspensions because they wore hair extensions, prompting the state’s attorney general to order the school to stop punishing students for wearing hairstyles that violated the school’s dress code.
In 2018, UPS agreed to pay $4.9 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which said the company had failed to hire or promote Muslims, Sikhs, Rastafarians and others whose religious practices conflicted with its appearance policy.
The commission said the company had for years segregated workers who wore beards or long hair in accordance with their religious beliefs into nonsupervisory, back-of-the-facility positions without customer contact.
The company’s new policy clarifies that beards and mustaches “are definitely acceptable as long as they are worn in a businesslike manner and don’t create a safety concern,” according to UPS documents reviewed by The Journal. The new rules took effect immediately.
The policy also permits natural hairstyles “such as Afros, braids, curls, coils, locs, twists and knots,” according to The Journal. And it eliminates guidelines specific to men and women. “No matter how you identify — dress appropriately for your workday,” the policy states.
The Teamsters, which represents UPS workers, said it was “very pleased” with the changes.
“The union contested the previous guidelines as too strict numerous times over the years through the grievance/arbitration process and contract negotiations,” the union said in a statement. “We have proposed neatly trimmed beards during several previous national negotiations.”
Some legal specialists called UPS’s policy change long overdue.
“Though UPS has defended its grooming policy in past civil rights litigation, it appears that UPS may now better appreciate that its natural hair ban maintains centuries old race-based exclusion of Black workers from employment opportunities simply because they wear their hair as it naturally grows,” said D. Wendy Greene, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law and an architect of the Crown Act.
“In doing so, UPS’s grooming policy sent a clear message to Black workers that they were required to either change or extinguish a fundamental part of their racial, cultural, and sometimes religious identity to be a member of the organization,” Professor Greene said.
Angela Onwuachi-Willig, a professor of law and dean of the Boston University School of Law, who has researched hair codes, said the change at UPS “recognizes that allowing people to be their authentic selves is good for business.”
Policies that ban natural Black hairstyles are clearly discriminatory, she said, because they deem Black hair to be “inherently unprofessional.”
Dominique Apollon, vice president for research at Race Forward, a racial justice advocacy organization, said companies that forbid natural Black hair send the message that “white standards of beauty and white comfort are ultimately the default.”
“I’d like to see these sorts of policy changes accompanied by a deeper reckoning with the past, and with a humility that unfortunately doesn’t come often in our litigious society,” he said. “Companies like UPS need to acknowledge that these sorts of policies have had long-term effects, and will continue to have ramifications or racial outcomes unless more is done.”
|
19. ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’ Review: Glenda Jackson’s Return to TV.txt
|
By Mike Hale
Jan. 1, 2021
The BBC television movie “Elizabeth Is Missing” — a stand-alone episode of “Masterpiece” on PBS this Sunday — contains Glenda Jackson’s first screen performance since 1992. That certainly merits attention — Jackson, now 84, is one of the most technically accomplished and ferociously intelligent actresses of our time. Did it merit the rapturous British reviews on its release in 2019 and perhaps inevitable awards, including a BAFTA and an international Emmy, that she received for it? Not really, but it isn’t Jackson’s fault.
You can see the appeal to Jackson of “Elizabeth Is Missing,” which was adapted by the actress and writer Andrea Gibb from a mystery novel by Emma Healey. The central character, Maud, who is moving from forgetfulness into dementia, is onscreen virtually the entire time, whether in the present or as her teenage self (played by Liv Hill) in a parallel story line set 70 years ago. The progress of the film largely takes place through Jackson’s twofold embodiment of Maud’s decline and of her stubborn, often angry battle to delay and deny it.
The story puts Maud in a situation full of dramatic promise: her best friend, Elizabeth, has suddenly disappeared, and Maud is determined to find her despite the inconvenient fact that she can’t convince anyone that Elizabeth is actually gone. Scrawling notes to herself about Elizabeth’s glasses and some suspiciously broken vases, Maud carries on her investigation in fits and starts, picking it up again whenever she remembers that Elizabeth is missing.
It’s a great setup for a straightforward mystery, but “Elizabeth Is Missing” is more complicated than that, and while you can’t hold that ambition against it, you might wish that you were watching something simpler. Maud’s search for Elizabeth is woven together with the disappearance of Maud’s married older sister in 1950. Events in the present and past continually mix in Maud’s mind, her memories triggered by objects or phrases in ways that are artful and a little too self-conscious.
The mystery-novel structure of the story turns out to be both a feint and a reality, something that becomes predictable fairly early on and is disappointing in the final result. We’re supposed to be getting a deeper satisfaction from the detailed depiction of Maud and her affliction, and the neatly arranged thematic resonance between the two story lines, revolving around what it really means to be missing.
But despite the efforts of the talented director Aisling Walsh (“Maudie”), who gives the film a welcome restraint and clarity, “Elizabeth Is Missing” doesn’t hit the mark — the screenplay is too fussy and tricky, and the resolution to the twin mysteries, with its mixed notes of heroism and resignation, isn’t convincing. (Walsh’s final image, a long shot of Maud crossing a street alone in mourning clothes, has a power lacking in the rest of the film.)
But as you could expect, it contains a mostly faultless performance by Jackson, one that’s certainly worth 87 minutes of your viewing time. (It might also remind you that despite Jackson’s stature, and some high points like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “The Return of the Soldier,” her screen résumé isn’t all that distinguished.)
She doesn’t play for our sympathy — she leans into the character’s frustration and irascibility, making it clear how difficult she is to deal with. And she communicates Maud’s flickering moods and perceptions precisely and indelibly, in the way she briskly taps a notecard when Maud makes a connection or in a quick, shattering moment when she silently screams with frustration at a restaurant, conscious of not making (too much of) a scene. Maud may not come fully alive in the script, but there’s nothing missing in Jackson’s portrayal.
|
By Mike Hale
Jan. 1, 2021
The BBC television movie “Elizabeth Is Missing” — a stand-alone episode of “Masterpiece” on PBS this Sunday — contains Glenda Jackson’s first screen performance since 1992. That certainly merits attention — Jackson, now 84, is one of the most technically accomplished and ferociously intelligent actresses of our time. Did it merit the rapturous British reviews on its release in 2019 and perhaps inevitable awards, including a BAFTA and an international Emmy, that she received for it? Not really, but it isn’t Jackson’s fault.
You can see the appeal to Jackson of “Elizabeth Is Missing,” which was adapted by the actress and writer Andrea Gibb from a mystery novel by Emma Healey. The central character, Maud, who is moving from forgetfulness into dementia, is onscreen virtually the entire time, whether in the present or as her teenage self (played by Liv Hill) in a parallel story line set 70 years ago. The progress of the film largely takes place through Jackson’s twofold embodiment of Maud’s decline and of her stubborn, often angry battle to delay and deny it.
The story puts Maud in a situation
|
full of dramatic promise: her best friend, Elizabeth, has suddenly disappeared, and Maud is determined to find her despite the inconvenient fact that she can’t convince anyone that Elizabeth is actually gone. Scrawling notes to herself about Elizabeth’s glasses and some suspiciously broken vases, Maud carries on her investigation in fits and starts, picking it up again whenever she remembers that Elizabeth is missing.
It’s a great setup for a straightforward mystery, but “Elizabeth Is Missing” is more complicated than that, and while you can’t hold that ambition against it, you might wish that you were watching something simpler. Maud’s search for Elizabeth is woven together with the disappearance of Maud’s married older sister in 1950. Events in the present and past continually mix in Maud’s mind, her memories triggered by objects or phrases in ways that are artful and a little too self-conscious.
The mystery-novel structure of the story turns out to be both a feint and a reality, something that becomes predictable fairly early on and is disappointing in the final result. We’re supposed to be getting a deeper satisfaction from the detailed depiction of Maud and her affliction, and the neatly arranged thematic resonance between the two story lines, revolving around what it really means to be missing.
But despite the efforts of the talented director Aisling Walsh (“Maudie”), who gives the film a welcome restraint and clarity, “Elizabeth Is Missing” doesn’t hit the mark — the screenplay is too fussy and tricky, and the resolution to the twin mysteries, with its mixed notes of heroism and resignation, isn’t convincing. (Walsh’s final image, a long shot of Maud crossing a street alone in mourning clothes, has a power lacking in the rest of the film.)
But as you could expect, it contains a mostly faultless performance by Jackson, one that’s certainly worth 87 minutes of your viewing time. (It might also remind you that despite Jackson’s stature, and some high points like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “The Return of the Soldier,” her screen résumé isn’t all that distinguished.)
She doesn’t play for our sympathy — she leans into the character’s frustration and irascibility, making it clear how difficult she is to deal with. And she communicates Maud’s flickering moods and perceptions precisely and indelibly, in the way she briskly taps a notecard when Maud makes a connection or in a quick, shattering moment when she silently screams with frustration at a restaurant, conscious of not making (too much of) a scene. Maud may not come fully alive in the script, but there’s nothing missing in Jackson’s portrayal.
|
76. Newark’s mayor imposes new restrictions as the city reaches a positivity rate of 19%..txt
|
By Kevin Armstrong and Tracey Tully
Nov. 11, 2020
Two weeks ago, as the coronavirus began to spread widely again in Newark, officials imposed New Jersey’s toughest new restrictions since the spring lockdown, mandating an 8 p.m. indoor closing time for all restaurants, bars and nonessential businesses citywide.
But the number of new cases in Newark, the state’s largest city, kept climbing, with 842 new reported infections over the last four days. Of those people tested in Newark over three days last week, 19 percent were found to have the virus, city and county officials said — more than double the statewide rate, and almost eight times the rate in New York State.
The uptick mirrors a spike in Covid-19 hospitalizations across New Jersey to levels not seen since June.
On Tuesday, New Jersey recorded 3,777 new infections, the most since April — a figure the governor called “devastating.” Hospitals also reported 15 coronavirus deaths, adding to the state’s pandemic death toll of more than 16,400.
Newark sits just a few miles west of New York City, where officials are struggling to contain a spike on Staten Island and bracing for a second wave of cases.
Alarmed by the new data, Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, implemented a sweeping set of rules on Tuesday designed to avoid a repeat of the springtime outbreak. Mr. Baraka ordered a 9 p.m. weekday curfew for residents of three ZIP codes, and canceled all team sports activities citywide, effective immediately. He barred Newark’s nursing homes from accepting visitors for two weeks, and capped gatherings — indoors and outdoors — at 10 people until at least Dec. 1.
Aides said Mr. Baraka would not hesitate to shut down businesses, issue fines and suspend liquor licenses if needed.
The tough talk created tension between Gov. Philip D. Murphy and Mr. Baraka, allies and fellow Democrats. Mr. Murphy this week imposed a 10 p.m. closing time on restaurants and bars, among other restrictions, but he has resisted ordering a statewide lockdown.When asked about Newark’s rules, Mr. Murphy’s top lawyer, Parimal Garg, said that state law superseded municipal actions.
Perry N. Halkitis, a dean of biostatistics and urban-global public health at the School of Public Health at Rutgers University,said that an emphasis on quelling indoor drinking during late-night hours, when inhibitions drop, was appropriate. He also said he was equally concerned about private indoor gatherings that are harder to monitor.
“You really love your family?” said Dr. Halkitis. “For Thanksgiving, you should not be with them.”
|
By Kevin Armstrong and Tracey Tully
Nov. 11, 2020
Two weeks ago, as the coronavirus began to spread widely again in Newark, officials imposed New Jersey’s toughest new restrictions since the spring lockdown, mandating an 8 p.m. indoor closing time for all restaurants, bars and nonessential businesses citywide.
But the number of new cases in Newark, the state’s largest city, kept climbing, with 842 new reported infections over the last four days. Of those people tested in Newark over three days last week, 19 percent were found to have the virus, city and county officials said — more than double the statewide rate, and almost eight times the rate in New York State.
The uptick mirrors a spike in Covid-19 hospitalizations across New Jersey to levels not seen since June.
On Tuesday, New Jersey recorded 3,777 new infections, the most since April — a figure the governor called “devastating.” Hospitals also reported 15 coronavirus deaths, adding to the state’s pandemic death toll of more than 16,400.
Newark sits just a few miles west of New York City, where officials are struggling to contain a spike on
|
Staten Island and bracing for a second wave of cases.
Alarmed by the new data, Newark’s mayor, Ras J. Baraka, implemented a sweeping set of rules on Tuesday designed to avoid a repeat of the springtime outbreak. Mr. Baraka ordered a 9 p.m. weekday curfew for residents of three ZIP codes, and canceled all team sports activities citywide, effective immediately. He barred Newark’s nursing homes from accepting visitors for two weeks, and capped gatherings — indoors and outdoors — at 10 people until at least Dec. 1.
Aides said Mr. Baraka would not hesitate to shut down businesses, issue fines and suspend liquor licenses if needed.
The tough talk created tension between Gov. Philip D. Murphy and Mr. Baraka, allies and fellow Democrats. Mr. Murphy this week imposed a 10 p.m. closing time on restaurants and bars, among other restrictions, but he has resisted ordering a statewide lockdown.When asked about Newark’s rules, Mr. Murphy’s top lawyer, Parimal Garg, said that state law superseded municipal actions.
Perry N. Halkitis, a dean of biostatistics and urban-global public health at the School of Public Health at Rutgers University,said that an emphasis on quelling indoor drinking during late-night hours, when inhibitions drop, was appropriate. He also said he was equally concerned about private indoor gatherings that are harder to monitor.
“You really love your family?” said Dr. Halkitis. “For Thanksgiving, you should not be with them.”
|
28. After Five Centuries, a Native American With Real Power.txt
|
By Timothy Egan
In the American West, a ration of reverence is usually given to the grizzled Anglo rancher who rises at a public hearing and announces that his people have been on the land for five generations.
So what are we to make of Representative Deb Haaland, a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, who says that her people have been in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico for 35 generations — dating to the 13th century?
“Native history is American history,” she told me. “Regardless of where you are in this country now, you’re on ancestral Indian land, and that land has a history.”
As Joe Biden’s choice for interior secretary, Ms. Haaland is poised to make a rare positive mark in the history of how a nation of immigrants treated the country’s original inhabitants. She would be the first Native American cabinet secretary — a distinction that has prompted celebration throughout Indian Country.
“I haven’t been the one making policy,” she said. “But I’ve been the one on the receiving end of it.”
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
There will be plenty of sniping, second-guessing and disappointment among the tribes by people who expect much of Haaland having a seat at the big table. But for now, we should let this moment breathe.
I spoke to her on the anniversary of a day of infamy. On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army slaughtered men, women and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Government policy was to strip Indians of their language, culture and religion, with children sent off to boarding schools where they were taught that the old ways were wrong. At the end of the 19th century, the popular view was that Indigenous people would soon disappear.
And yet here is Haaland, one of more than five million Native Americans, ready to knock down some of the last barriers of time and terrain in this country.
Her personal story alone makes Haaland an anomaly in the parlors of power. Soon after graduating from college, she became a single mother. She was sometimes dependent on food stamps, and she once ran a small business selling homemade salsa to make a living and support her child. As a freshman representative in 2019, she was still paying off her student loans.
When she ran for office, her slogan was “Congress has never heard a voice like mine.” Now the person with that voice could soon be overseeing one-fifth of the land in the United States.
As interior secretary, her portfolio would include national parks, wildlife refuges, the United States Geological Survey and the vast acreage of the Bureau of Land Management. Interior, for good reason, is known as the Department of Everything Else.
As such, she would also be overseeing millions of acres taken from Indians in treaties broken over the past several centuries, and would be the top government liaison with 574 federally recognized tribes — the nations within a nation.
This is quite the compass — from a deep slot in the earth near the Grand Canyon, wherein dwell the Havasupai, to the rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula, home of the Makah Nation, to urban neighborhoods that house Indians struggling with health care access.
“I wish we could right some wrongs,” she said of the centuries-old saga of sorrow. But going into the new year, she seems content to try to right the many wrongs that Donald Trump’s administration has inflicted on the land.
Trump’s first interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, literally rode into office on a horse named Tonto, and then promptly launched a campaign to make it easier to drill on public land. The current secretary, David L. Bernhardt, was an oil and gas lobbyist whose public service on behalf of his former clients was warmly received by his old friends.
Biden has pledged to end all new oil and gas drilling on these rangelands, forests and plains — an enormous change that will be fought fiercely by those who profit from land owned by all Americans. He has also promised to restore Bears Ears National Monument, a marvel of sandstone, mountains and Native sacred sites in the Southwest that was gutted by Trump, who reduced the size of the protected area by 85 percent.
Haaland is eager for the opportunity to do something lasting. “I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet and all of our protected land,” she said in December.
But it’s the weight of Native history that makes the choice of Haaland so extraordinary, as she acknowledged. “This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed it his goal to, quote, ‘civilize or exterminate’ us.” She was referring to Alexander H.H. Stuart, the secretary of the interior in the early 1850s in the Fillmore administration.
“Exterminate” was no exaggeration. The census of 1900 counted over 237,000 Native Americans, a population collapse of nearly 90 percent, in the estimate of many ethnohistorians, from the time of first European contact.
Some of the atrocities are well known. But less well known is how the government made it a crime for Natives to practice their religion. It was a violation of the First Amendment to lock people up for enacting the rituals of faith — unless they worshiped Native gods through certain dances and ceremonies deemed criminal by the government.
A consistent plea from Indian Country today is a request that fellow Americans consider Native people as much more than living relics locked in a tragic past. Haaland aims to ensure that. “I’ll never forget where I came from,” she said. But, she added, “I love this opportunity.” Even if she can’t reverse history, she is poised to make some.
|
By Timothy Egan
In the American West, a ration of reverence is usually given to the grizzled Anglo rancher who rises at a public hearing and announces that his people have been on the land for five generations.
So what are we to make of Representative Deb Haaland, a citizen of the Laguna Pueblo, who says that her people have been in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico for 35 generations — dating to the 13th century?
“Native history is American history,” she told me. “Regardless of where you are in this country now, you’re on ancestral Indian land, and that land has a history.”
As Joe Biden’s choice for interior secretary, Ms. Haaland is poised to make a rare positive mark in the history of how a nation of immigrants treated the country’s original inhabitants. She would be the first Native American cabinet secretary — a distinction that has prompted celebration throughout Indian Country.
“I haven’t been the one making policy,” she said. “But I’ve been the one on the receiving end of it.”
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
There will be
|
plenty of sniping, second-guessing and disappointment among the tribes by people who expect much of Haaland having a seat at the big table. But for now, we should let this moment breathe.
I spoke to her on the anniversary of a day of infamy. On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army slaughtered men, women and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. Government policy was to strip Indians of their language, culture and religion, with children sent off to boarding schools where they were taught that the old ways were wrong. At the end of the 19th century, the popular view was that Indigenous people would soon disappear.
And yet here is Haaland, one of more than five million Native Americans, ready to knock down some of the last barriers of time and terrain in this country.
Her personal story alone makes Haaland an anomaly in the parlors of power. Soon after graduating from college, she became a single mother. She was sometimes dependent on food stamps, and she once ran a small business selling homemade salsa to make a living and support her child. As a freshman representative in 2019, she was still paying off her student loans.
When she ran for office, her slogan was “Congress has never heard a voice like mine.” Now the person with that voice could soon be overseeing one-fifth of the land in the United States.
As interior secretary, her portfolio would include national parks, wildlife refuges, the United States Geological Survey and the vast acreage of the Bureau of Land Management. Interior, for good reason, is known as the Department of Everything Else.
As such, she would also be overseeing millions of acres taken from Indians in treaties broken over the past several centuries, and would be the top government liaison with 574 federally recognized tribes — the nations within a nation.
This is quite the compass — from a deep slot in the earth near the Grand Canyon, wherein dwell the Havasupai, to the rain forest of the Olympic Peninsula, home of the Makah Nation, to urban neighborhoods that house Indians struggling with health care access.
“I wish we could right some wrongs,” she said of the centuries-old saga of sorrow. But going into the new year, she seems content to try to right the many wrongs that Donald Trump’s administration has inflicted on the land.
Trump’s first interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, literally rode into office on a horse named Tonto, and then promptly launched a campaign to make it easier to drill on public land. The current secretary, David L. Bernhardt, was an oil and gas lobbyist whose public service on behalf of his former clients was warmly received by his old friends.
Biden has pledged to end all new oil and gas drilling on these rangelands, forests and plains — an enormous change that will be fought fiercely by those who profit from land owned by all Americans. He has also promised to restore Bears Ears National Monument, a marvel of sandstone, mountains and Native sacred sites in the Southwest that was gutted by Trump, who reduced the size of the protected area by 85 percent.
Haaland is eager for the opportunity to do something lasting. “I’ll be fierce for all of us, for our planet and all of our protected land,” she said in December.
But it’s the weight of Native history that makes the choice of Haaland so extraordinary, as she acknowledged. “This moment is profound when we consider the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed it his goal to, quote, ‘civilize or exterminate’ us.” She was referring to Alexander H.H. Stuart, the secretary of the interior in the early 1850s in the Fillmore administration.
“Exterminate” was no exaggeration. The census of 1900 counted over 237,000 Native Americans, a population collapse of nearly 90 percent, in the estimate of many ethnohistorians, from the time of first European contact.
Some of the atrocities are well known. But less well known is how the government made it a crime for Natives to practice their religion. It was a violation of the First Amendment to lock people up for enacting the rituals of faith — unless they worshiped Native gods through certain dances and ceremonies deemed criminal by the government.
A consistent plea from Indian Country today is a request that fellow Americans consider Native people as much more than living relics locked in a tragic past. Haaland aims to ensure that. “I’ll never forget where I came from,” she said. But, she added, “I love this opportunity.” Even if she can’t reverse history, she is poised to make some.
|
14. Britain Opens Door to Mix-and-Match Vaccinations, Worrying Experts.txt
|
By Katherine J. Wu
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 27, 2021
Amid a sputtering vaccine rollout and fears of a new and potentially more transmissible variant of the coronavirus, Britain has quietly updated its vaccination playbook to allow for a mix-and-match vaccine regimen. If a second dose of the vaccine a patient originally received isn’t available, or if the manufacturer of the first shot isn’t known, another vaccine may be substituted, health officials said.
The new guidance contradicts guidelines in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that the authorized Covid-19 vaccines “are not interchangeable,” and that “the safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated. Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.”
Some scientists say Britain is gambling with its new guidance. “There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” said John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University. Officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess.”
Health officials in Britain are caught in a deadly race with the virus, which is surging again, and are struggling to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Hospitals continue to strain under a crush of coronavirus patients, and tens of thousands of new infections are reported each day. Schools in London and other regions hit hard by the virus will remain closed for at least the next two weeks, government officials said on Friday.
The country has issued an emergency green light to two vaccines, developed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca. According to Britain’s new guidance, “every effort should be made” to complete a dosing regimen with the same shot first used. But when “the same vaccine is not available, or if the first product received is unknown, it is reasonable to offer one dose of the locally available product” the second time around.
More on Britain
“This option is preferred if the individual is likely to be at immediate high risk or is considered unlikely to attend again,” the recommendation said. Because both vaccines target the spike protein of the coronavirus, “it is likely the second dose will help to boost the response to the first dose.”
An official at Public Health England on Saturday noted the similarities between the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, and said substitutions would occur only on “a very exceptional basis, when the alternative is to leave someone with an incomplete course.” An official in Wales said that first and second vaccine doses there would be matched.
It is far from certain that the vaccines are interchangeable, several researchers said.
“None of this is being data driven right now,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. “We’re kind of in this Wild West.”
Steven Danehy, a spokesman for Pfizer, pointed to the company’s late-stage clinical trial findings, which relied on a two-dose schedule of its vaccine that was 95 percent effective at preventing Covid-19.
“While decisions on alternative dosing regimens reside with health authorities, Pfizer believes it is critical health authorities conduct surveillance efforts on any alternative schedules implemented and to ensure each recipient is afforded the maximum possible protection, which means immunization with two doses of the vaccine,” Mr. Danehy said.
Both Pfizer’s and AstraZeneca’s vaccines introduce into the body a protein called spike that, while not infectious itself, can teach immune cells to recognize and fight off the actual coronavirus.
But the vaccines impart their immunological lessons through different methods, and do not contain equivalent ingredients. While Pfizer’s vaccine relies on a molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA, packaged into greasy bubbles, AstraZeneca’s shots are designed around a virus shell that delivers DNA, a cousin of mRNA.
Both vaccines are intended to be doled out in two-shot regimens, delivered three or four weeks apart. While the first shots of each vaccine are thought to be somewhat effective at preventing Covid-19, it’s the second dose — intended as a sort of molecular review session for the immune system — that clinches the protective process.
While it’s possible that swapping out one vaccine for another may still school the body to recognize the coronavirus, it is still a scientific gamble. With different ingredients in each vaccine, it’s possible people will not benefit as much from a second shot. Mixing and matching could also make it more difficult to collect clear data on vaccine safety.
Without evidence to back it, the hybrid vaccination approach seems “premature,” said Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Yale University. Still, it’s not without precedent: Health authorities like the C.D.C. have previously said that if it’s impossible to give doses of a vaccine from the same manufacturer, “providers should administer the vaccine that they have available” to complete an injection schedule.
In a controversial move, the British government this week also decided to frontload its vaccine rollout, delivering as many first doses to people as possible — a move that could delay second shots up to 12 weeks.
The speedy deployment might afford more people partial protection against the virus in the short term. But some experts, including Dr. Moore, worry that this, too, might be unwise, and could imperil vulnerable populations.
A vaccination gap that stretches on too long may hamstring the second shot’s ability to boost the protective powers of the first — or raise the odds that people will forget, or decide against, returning for another injection.
The whiplash changes in guidance in Britain, many made without public meetings or strong data, may erode trust in vaccination campaigns and public health measures in general, Dr. Tien said.
“We’re making an assumption that the public is just going to listen and come in and get the vaccine,” she said. “I’m worried that’s not going to happen.”
|
By Katherine J. Wu
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 27, 2021
Amid a sputtering vaccine rollout and fears of a new and potentially more transmissible variant of the coronavirus, Britain has quietly updated its vaccination playbook to allow for a mix-and-match vaccine regimen. If a second dose of the vaccine a patient originally received isn’t available, or if the manufacturer of the first shot isn’t known, another vaccine may be substituted, health officials said.
The new guidance contradicts guidelines in the United States, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that the authorized Covid-19 vaccines “are not interchangeable,” and that “the safety and efficacy of a mixed-product series have not been evaluated. Both doses of the series should be completed with the same product.”
Some scientists say Britain is gambling with its new guidance. “There are no data on this idea whatsoever,” said John Moore, a vaccine expert at Cornell University. Officials in Britain “seem to have abandoned science completely now and are just trying to guess their way out of a mess.”
Health officials in Britain are caught in a deadly race with the virus, which is surging again, and are struggling to get as
|
many people vaccinated as possible. Hospitals continue to strain under a crush of coronavirus patients, and tens of thousands of new infections are reported each day. Schools in London and other regions hit hard by the virus will remain closed for at least the next two weeks, government officials said on Friday.
The country has issued an emergency green light to two vaccines, developed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca. According to Britain’s new guidance, “every effort should be made” to complete a dosing regimen with the same shot first used. But when “the same vaccine is not available, or if the first product received is unknown, it is reasonable to offer one dose of the locally available product” the second time around.
More on Britain
“This option is preferred if the individual is likely to be at immediate high risk or is considered unlikely to attend again,” the recommendation said. Because both vaccines target the spike protein of the coronavirus, “it is likely the second dose will help to boost the response to the first dose.”
An official at Public Health England on Saturday noted the similarities between the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, and said substitutions would occur only on “a very exceptional basis, when the alternative is to leave someone with an incomplete course.” An official in Wales said that first and second vaccine doses there would be matched.
It is far from certain that the vaccines are interchangeable, several researchers said.
“None of this is being data driven right now,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. “We’re kind of in this Wild West.”
Steven Danehy, a spokesman for Pfizer, pointed to the company’s late-stage clinical trial findings, which relied on a two-dose schedule of its vaccine that was 95 percent effective at preventing Covid-19.
“While decisions on alternative dosing regimens reside with health authorities, Pfizer believes it is critical health authorities conduct surveillance efforts on any alternative schedules implemented and to ensure each recipient is afforded the maximum possible protection, which means immunization with two doses of the vaccine,” Mr. Danehy said.
Both Pfizer’s and AstraZeneca’s vaccines introduce into the body a protein called spike that, while not infectious itself, can teach immune cells to recognize and fight off the actual coronavirus.
But the vaccines impart their immunological lessons through different methods, and do not contain equivalent ingredients. While Pfizer’s vaccine relies on a molecule called messenger RNA, or mRNA, packaged into greasy bubbles, AstraZeneca’s shots are designed around a virus shell that delivers DNA, a cousin of mRNA.
Both vaccines are intended to be doled out in two-shot regimens, delivered three or four weeks apart. While the first shots of each vaccine are thought to be somewhat effective at preventing Covid-19, it’s the second dose — intended as a sort of molecular review session for the immune system — that clinches the protective process.
While it’s possible that swapping out one vaccine for another may still school the body to recognize the coronavirus, it is still a scientific gamble. With different ingredients in each vaccine, it’s possible people will not benefit as much from a second shot. Mixing and matching could also make it more difficult to collect clear data on vaccine safety.
Without evidence to back it, the hybrid vaccination approach seems “premature,” said Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Yale University. Still, it’s not without precedent: Health authorities like the C.D.C. have previously said that if it’s impossible to give doses of a vaccine from the same manufacturer, “providers should administer the vaccine that they have available” to complete an injection schedule.
In a controversial move, the British government this week also decided to frontload its vaccine rollout, delivering as many first doses to people as possible — a move that could delay second shots up to 12 weeks.
The speedy deployment might afford more people partial protection against the virus in the short term. But some experts, including Dr. Moore, worry that this, too, might be unwise, and could imperil vulnerable populations.
A vaccination gap that stretches on too long may hamstring the second shot’s ability to boost the protective powers of the first — or raise the odds that people will forget, or decide against, returning for another injection.
The whiplash changes in guidance in Britain, many made without public meetings or strong data, may erode trust in vaccination campaigns and public health measures in general, Dr. Tien said.
“We’re making an assumption that the public is just going to listen and come in and get the vaccine,” she said. “I’m worried that’s not going to happen.”
|
62. An Embattled Public Servant in a Fractured France.txt
|
By Roger Cohen
Jan. 1, 2021
Lire en français
PARIS — France is in theory a nondiscriminatory society where the state upholds strict religious neutrality and people are free to believe, or not, in any God they wish. It is a nation, in its self image, that through education dissolves differences of faith and ethnicity in a shared commitment to the rights and responsibilities of French citizenship.
This model, known as laïcité, often inadequately translated as secularism, is embraced by a majority of French people. They or their forebears became French in this way. No politician here would utter the words “In God we trust.” The Roman Catholic Church was removed more than a century ago from French public life. The country’s lay model supplants any deity.
But, in a country with an uneasy relationship to Islam, laïcité is also contested as the shield behind which France discriminates against its large Muslim population and avoids confronting its prejudices. As a result, the job of Nicolas Cadène, a mildly disheveled official with a mop of brown hair and multiple law degrees, has become a focus of controversy.
Mr. Cadène, 39, runs the Laïcité Observatory as its “general rapporteur,” a weighty title for a young man — and one unimaginable outside France.
Attached to the office of Prime Minister Jean Castex, the institution began work in 2013. Ever since, Mr. Cadène and his small staff have led efforts to educate hundreds of thousands of public officials, and young people, in the meaning of secularism, French-style.
So why the vitriol over his painstaking efforts? “We are living a period of extreme tension in France,’’ he said in an interview. “There’s an economic, social, health, ecological and identity crisis, aggravated by recent Islamist attacks. And in this context, you have a terrible fear of Islam that has developed.”
This in turn has led to pressure on Mr. Cadène to use his position to combat any expressions of Muslim identity. “We have to be very careful never to install a thought police,” he told me in his small paper-strewn office.
Born into a Protestant family from the southern town of Nîmes, Mr. Cadène was raised in a milieu deeply wedded to the law of 1905 that established France’s secular model. Protestants had suffered persistent persecution in a mainly Catholic society; a state that got out of religion was the answer. Mr. Cadène, who still lives in Nîmes with his wife and two children, is nevertheless a critic of the system he embodies. France, he says, has failed to achieve the social mingling essential if laïcité is to work.
“As laïcité is a tool to allow us all to live together, whatever our condition, it’s also necessary that we be together,” he said. “That we live in the same places. That we interact. And this happens too rarely.” A lot of schools, neighborhoods and workplaces were very homogeneous, he noted. “This insufficient social mixing spurs fears because when you don’t know the other you are more afraid.”
Explore The New York Times’s Saturday Profiles
They are shaping the world around them. These are their stories.
Among the disadvantaged “are a majority of French Muslims, even if the situation is evolving,” Mr. Cadène said. The result, as he sees it, is discrimination that is religious and social: the inferior schools in ghettoized neighborhoods on the outskirts of big cities mean Muslim children have fewer chances.
It’s this sort of frankness that has enraged some members of the government, notably Marlène Schiappa, the junior minister in charge of citizenship.
At the Interior Ministry, where she works, anger has mounted at what is seen as Mr. Cadène’s “laïcité of appeasement,” one that is more concerned with the “struggle against stigmatization of Muslims” than with upholding the Republic against “militant Islamists,” the weekly magazine Le Point reported.
“There’s a discussion on the future of the Observatory,” Mr. Cadène said. He offered a wry smile. “Some members of the government want to keep it, some want to suppress it, and some want to transform it.”
Transformation would likely mean absorption into the Interior Ministry, headed by Gérald Darmanin, a hard-liner who has declared war on the Islamist “enemy within.” A decision will likely be made in April, when Mr. Cadène’s renewable mandate expires.
“It would be very dangerous to turn laïcité into a political tool,” he said. “It is not an ideology. It is absolutely not anti-religious. It should be a means to bring people together.”
Hakim El Karoui, a Muslim business consultant and senior fellow at the Institut Montaigne, said the problem is that laïcité has many meanings. It can represent the law of 1905, freedom of conscience and the neutrality of the state. Or it can be philosophical, a form of emancipation against religion, a battle for enlightenment against religious obscurantism, something close to atheism. Islam, with its vibrant appeal to young Muslims, then becomes the enemy, especially in the context of terrorist attacks in France.
“Laïcité can be another name for anti-Islamic xenophobia. But it is not true that the Muslims of France see it as a form of war against them,” Mr. El Karoui said. “If you’re a Muslim of Algerian origin you may be very grateful for it as you know well what an authoritarian Islam looks like.”
Mr. Cadène’s views seem broadly aligned with Mr. Macron’s. While condemning the extremist Islamism behind recent terrorist attacks, including the beheading of a schoolteacher, the president has acknowledged failings. In an October speech he said France suffered from “its own form of separatism” in neglecting the marginalization of some Muslims.
Draft legislation this month seeks to combat radical Islamism through measures to curb the funding and teachings of extremist groups. It was a necessary step, Mr. Cadène said, but not enough. “We also need a law of repair, to try to ensure everyone has an equal chance.”
A law, in other words, that would help forge a France of greater mingling through better distributed social housing, more socially mixed schools, a more variegated workplace. The government is preparing a “national consultation on discrimination” in January, evidence of the urgency Mr. Macron accords this question in the run-up to the 2022 presidential election.
In France, saying to someone, “Tell me your laïcité and I’ll tell you who you are,” is not a bad compass.
So, I asked Mr. Cadène about his. “It’s the equality before the state of everyone, whatever their conviction. It’s a public administration and public services that are impartial. And it’s fraternity because that is what allows us to work together in the respect of others’ convictions.”
He continued: “In theory it’s a wonderful model. But if the tool is not oiled it rusts and fails. And the problem today is that equality is not real, freedom is not real, and fraternity even less.”
Strong words from an idealist, a dedicated French public servant, standing up for a subtle idea in an age of warring certainties. A distant relative, Raoul Allier, was instrumental in the 1905 law. Mr. Cadène is not about to soften his views, even if they cost him his job.
Laïcité is no panacea. It has failed several times. French Jews, citizens no more, were deported to their deaths during World War II. The idea was never extended to the Muslims of French Algeria under colonial rule.
Still, for many decades the model made French citizens of millions of immigrants, and it remains for many French people of different backgrounds and beliefs and skin color, a noble idea, without which France would lose some essence of itself.
“I always believed in the general interest. I volunteered as a young man for emergency medical services, I joined Amnesty International, worked for human rights wherever I could,” Mr. Cadène said.
“I believe that our Republic is laïque’’ — secular — “and dedicated to social justice, and that laïcité can only survive on that basis.”
|
By Roger Cohen
Jan. 1, 2021
Lire en français
PARIS — France is in theory a nondiscriminatory society where the state upholds strict religious neutrality and people are free to believe, or not, in any God they wish. It is a nation, in its self image, that through education dissolves differences of faith and ethnicity in a shared commitment to the rights and responsibilities of French citizenship.
This model, known as laïcité, often inadequately translated as secularism, is embraced by a majority of French people. They or their forebears became French in this way. No politician here would utter the words “In God we trust.” The Roman Catholic Church was removed more than a century ago from French public life. The country’s lay model supplants any deity.
But, in a country with an uneasy relationship to Islam, laïcité is also contested as the shield behind which France discriminates against its large Muslim population and avoids confronting its prejudices. As a result, the job of Nicolas Cadène, a mildly disheveled official with a mop of brown hair and multiple law degrees, has become a focus of controversy.
Mr. Cadène, 39, runs the Laïcité
|
Observatory as its “general rapporteur,” a weighty title for a young man — and one unimaginable outside France.
Attached to the office of Prime Minister Jean Castex, the institution began work in 2013. Ever since, Mr. Cadène and his small staff have led efforts to educate hundreds of thousands of public officials, and young people, in the meaning of secularism, French-style.
So why the vitriol over his painstaking efforts? “We are living a period of extreme tension in France,’’ he said in an interview. “There’s an economic, social, health, ecological and identity crisis, aggravated by recent Islamist attacks. And in this context, you have a terrible fear of Islam that has developed.”
This in turn has led to pressure on Mr. Cadène to use his position to combat any expressions of Muslim identity. “We have to be very careful never to install a thought police,” he told me in his small paper-strewn office.
Born into a Protestant family from the southern town of Nîmes, Mr. Cadène was raised in a milieu deeply wedded to the law of 1905 that established France’s secular model. Protestants had suffered persistent persecution in a mainly Catholic society; a state that got out of religion was the answer. Mr. Cadène, who still lives in Nîmes with his wife and two children, is nevertheless a critic of the system he embodies. France, he says, has failed to achieve the social mingling essential if laïcité is to work.
“As laïcité is a tool to allow us all to live together, whatever our condition, it’s also necessary that we be together,” he said. “That we live in the same places. That we interact. And this happens too rarely.” A lot of schools, neighborhoods and workplaces were very homogeneous, he noted. “This insufficient social mixing spurs fears because when you don’t know the other you are more afraid.”
Explore The New York Times’s Saturday Profiles
They are shaping the world around them. These are their stories.
Among the disadvantaged “are a majority of French Muslims, even if the situation is evolving,” Mr. Cadène said. The result, as he sees it, is discrimination that is religious and social: the inferior schools in ghettoized neighborhoods on the outskirts of big cities mean Muslim children have fewer chances.
It’s this sort of frankness that has enraged some members of the government, notably Marlène Schiappa, the junior minister in charge of citizenship.
At the Interior Ministry, where she works, anger has mounted at what is seen as Mr. Cadène’s “laïcité of appeasement,” one that is more concerned with the “struggle against stigmatization of Muslims” than with upholding the Republic against “militant Islamists,” the weekly magazine Le Point reported.
“There’s a discussion on the future of the Observatory,” Mr. Cadène said. He offered a wry smile. “Some members of the government want to keep it, some want to suppress it, and some want to transform it.”
Transformation would likely mean absorption into the Interior Ministry, headed by Gérald Darmanin, a hard-liner who has declared war on the Islamist “enemy within.” A decision will likely be made in April, when Mr. Cadène’s renewable mandate expires.
“It would be very dangerous to turn laïcité into a political tool,” he said. “It is not an ideology. It is absolutely not anti-religious. It should be a means to bring people together.”
Hakim El Karoui, a Muslim business consultant and senior fellow at the Institut Montaigne, said the problem is that laïcité has many meanings. It can represent the law of 1905, freedom of conscience and the neutrality of the state. Or it can be philosophical, a form of emancipation against religion, a battle for enlightenment against religious obscurantism, something close to atheism. Islam, with its vibrant appeal to young Muslims, then becomes the enemy, especially in the context of terrorist attacks in France.
“Laïcité can be another name for anti-Islamic xenophobia. But it is not true that the Muslims of France see it as a form of war against them,” Mr. El Karoui said. “If you’re a Muslim of Algerian origin you may be very grateful for it as you know well what an authoritarian Islam looks like.”
Mr. Cadène’s views seem broadly aligned with Mr. Macron’s. While condemning the extremist Islamism behind recent terrorist attacks, including the beheading of a schoolteacher, the president has acknowledged failings. In an October speech he said France suffered from “its own form of separatism” in neglecting the marginalization of some Muslims.
Draft legislation this month seeks to combat radical Islamism through measures to curb the funding and teachings of extremist groups. It was a necessary step, Mr. Cadène said, but not enough. “We also need a law of repair, to try to ensure everyone has an equal chance.”
A law, in other words, that would help forge a France of greater mingling through better distributed social housing, more socially mixed schools, a more variegated workplace. The government is preparing a “national consultation on discrimination” in January, evidence of the urgency Mr. Macron accords this question in the run-up to the 2022 presidential election.
In France, saying to someone, “Tell me your laïcité and I’ll tell you who you are,” is not a bad compass.
So, I asked Mr. Cadène about his. “It’s the equality before the state of everyone, whatever their conviction. It’s a public administration and public services that are impartial. And it’s fraternity because that is what allows us to work together in the respect of others’ convictions.”
He continued: “In theory it’s a wonderful model. But if the tool is not oiled it rusts and fails. And the problem today is that equality is not real, freedom is not real, and fraternity even less.”
Strong words from an idealist, a dedicated French public servant, standing up for a subtle idea in an age of warring certainties. A distant relative, Raoul Allier, was instrumental in the 1905 law. Mr. Cadène is not about to soften his views, even if they cost him his job.
Laïcité is no panacea. It has failed several times. French Jews, citizens no more, were deported to their deaths during World War II. The idea was never extended to the Muslims of French Algeria under colonial rule.
Still, for many decades the model made French citizens of millions of immigrants, and it remains for many French people of different backgrounds and beliefs and skin color, a noble idea, without which France would lose some essence of itself.
“I always believed in the general interest. I volunteered as a young man for emergency medical services, I joined Amnesty International, worked for human rights wherever I could,” Mr. Cadène said.
“I believe that our Republic is laïque’’ — secular — “and dedicated to social justice, and that laïcité can only survive on that basis.”
|
94. No, Dominion voting machines did not delete Trump votes..txt
|
By Jack Nicas
President Trump on Thursday spread new baseless claims about Dominion Voting Systems, which makes software that local governments around the nation use to help run their elections, fueling a conspiracy theory that Dominion “software glitches” changed vote tallies in Michigan and Georgia last week.
The Dominion software was used in only two of the five counties that had problems in Michigan and Georgia, and in every instance there was a detailed explanation for what had happened. In all of the cases, software did not affect the vote counts.
In the two Michigan counties that had mistakes, the inaccuracies were because of human errors, not software problems, according to the Michigan Department of State, county officials and election-security experts. Only one of the two Michigan counties used Dominion software.
Issues in three Georgia counties had other explanations. In one county, an apparent problem with Dominion software delayed officials’ reporting of the vote tallies, but did not affect the actual vote count. In two other counties, a separate company’s software slowed poll workers’ ability to check-in voters.
“Many of the claims being asserted about Dominion and questionable voting technology is misinformation at best and, in many cases, they’re outright disinformation,” said Edward Perez, an election-technology expert at the OSET Institute, a nonprofit that studies voting infrastructure. “I’m not aware of any evidence of specific things or defects in Dominion software that would lead one to believe that votes had been recorded or counted incorrectly.”
A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations
Confused about the inquiries and legal cases involving former President Donald Trump? We’re here to help.
Right-wing voices across the internet this week have claimed incorrectly that Dominion was responsible for mistakes in vote counts, and Mr. Trump shared a Breitbart article on Twitter that incorrectly tied the Michigan issues to separate problems in Georgia.
Many of those people have said, contrary to evidence, that Dominion software was used to switch votes. Some people even suggested that the company was doing the bidding of the Clintons, a conspiracy theory that was shared on Twitter by Mr. Trump. On Wednesday, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, said he was in contact with “whistle-blowers” from Dominion, though he did not provide evidence. And on Thursday, Mr. Trump shared on Twitter new baseless allegations that Dominion “deleted” and “switched” hundreds of thousands of votes for him.
Dominion, originally a Canadian company that now has its effective headquarters in Denver, makes machines for voters to cast ballots and for poll workers to count them, as well as software that helps government officials organize and keep track of election results.
Georgia spent $107 million on 30,000 of the company’s machines last year. In some cases, they proved to be headaches in the state’s primary elections in June, though officials largely attributed the problems to a lack of training for election workers.
Dominion did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Antrim County, Mich., unofficial results initially showed President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. beating Mr. Trump by roughly 3,000 votes. But that didn’t seem right in the Republican stronghold, so election workers checked again.
It turned out that they had configured the Dominion ballot scanners and reporting software with slightly different versions of the ballot, which meant that the votes were counted correctly but that they were reported incorrectly, state officials said. The correct tallies showed Mr. Trump beat Mr. Biden by roughly 2,500 votes in the county.
In Oakland County, Mich., election officials also spotted an error after they first reported the unofficial counts. They realized they had mistakenly counted votes from the city of Rochester Hills, Mich., twice, according to the Michigan Department of State.
The revised tallies showed that an incumbent Republican county commissioner had kept his seat, not lost it. Oakland County used software from a company called Hart InterCivic, not Dominion, though the software was not at fault.
Both errors, which appeared to go against Republicans, spurred conspiracy theories in Conservative corners of the internet. That drew a response from Tina Barton, the Republican clerk in Rochester Hills, the city that had its votes briefly counted twice.
“As a Republican, I am disturbed that this is intentionally being mischaracterized to undermine the election process,” she said in a video she posted online. “This was an isolated mistake that was quickly rectified.”
Michigan officials added that the errors came in the counties’ unofficial tallies and that they were fixed before another layer of checks meant to catch such mistakes. In that review, two Republican and two Democratic “canvassers” certify the vote counts in each county, checking poll books, ballot summaries and tabulator tapes.
In Georgia’s Gwinnett County, the vote count was delayed because of an apparent problem with the Dominion software, according to a detailed explanation from county officials. The software properly counted the votes, the county said, but it would not send some tallies to the state’s central database. Joe Sorenson, a Gwinnett County spokesman, said that the county has since been able to report the accurate totals to the state but it remains unclear what happened with the software.
Spalding and Morgan counties in Georgia had separate problems with systems that check in voters at the polls. Those so-called Poll Pads were made by a company called KnowInk, not Dominion, said Harri Hursti, an election security expert on the ground in Georgia.
“People are comparing apples to oranges in the name of Dominion,” Mr. Hursti said.
Mr. Perez, the election-technology researcher, said it was fair to ask for more transparency and accountability from the companies that make the technology that underpins elections, but there is no evidence of any fraud or widespread errors in the 2020 race.
“It’s reasonable for citizens and politicians to look at the role of private vendors in the machinery of democracy, and to ask questions,” he said. “Now that doesn’t mean elections are rigged.”
Nicole Perlroth contributed reporting.
|
By Jack Nicas
President Trump on Thursday spread new baseless claims about Dominion Voting Systems, which makes software that local governments around the nation use to help run their elections, fueling a conspiracy theory that Dominion “software glitches” changed vote tallies in Michigan and Georgia last week.
The Dominion software was used in only two of the five counties that had problems in Michigan and Georgia, and in every instance there was a detailed explanation for what had happened. In all of the cases, software did not affect the vote counts.
In the two Michigan counties that had mistakes, the inaccuracies were because of human errors, not software problems, according to the Michigan Department of State, county officials and election-security experts. Only one of the two Michigan counties used Dominion software.
Issues in three Georgia counties had other explanations. In one county, an apparent problem with Dominion software delayed officials’ reporting of the vote tallies, but did not affect the actual vote count. In two other counties, a separate company’s software slowed poll workers’ ability to check-in voters.
“Many of the claims being asserted about Dominion and questionable voting technology is misinformation at best and, in many cases, they’re outright disinformation,” said Edward Perez, an election-technology expert at the
|
OSET Institute, a nonprofit that studies voting infrastructure. “I’m not aware of any evidence of specific things or defects in Dominion software that would lead one to believe that votes had been recorded or counted incorrectly.”
A Guide to the Various Trump Investigations
Confused about the inquiries and legal cases involving former President Donald Trump? We’re here to help.
Right-wing voices across the internet this week have claimed incorrectly that Dominion was responsible for mistakes in vote counts, and Mr. Trump shared a Breitbart article on Twitter that incorrectly tied the Michigan issues to separate problems in Georgia.
Many of those people have said, contrary to evidence, that Dominion software was used to switch votes. Some people even suggested that the company was doing the bidding of the Clintons, a conspiracy theory that was shared on Twitter by Mr. Trump. On Wednesday, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, said he was in contact with “whistle-blowers” from Dominion, though he did not provide evidence. And on Thursday, Mr. Trump shared on Twitter new baseless allegations that Dominion “deleted” and “switched” hundreds of thousands of votes for him.
Dominion, originally a Canadian company that now has its effective headquarters in Denver, makes machines for voters to cast ballots and for poll workers to count them, as well as software that helps government officials organize and keep track of election results.
Georgia spent $107 million on 30,000 of the company’s machines last year. In some cases, they proved to be headaches in the state’s primary elections in June, though officials largely attributed the problems to a lack of training for election workers.
Dominion did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In Antrim County, Mich., unofficial results initially showed President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. beating Mr. Trump by roughly 3,000 votes. But that didn’t seem right in the Republican stronghold, so election workers checked again.
It turned out that they had configured the Dominion ballot scanners and reporting software with slightly different versions of the ballot, which meant that the votes were counted correctly but that they were reported incorrectly, state officials said. The correct tallies showed Mr. Trump beat Mr. Biden by roughly 2,500 votes in the county.
In Oakland County, Mich., election officials also spotted an error after they first reported the unofficial counts. They realized they had mistakenly counted votes from the city of Rochester Hills, Mich., twice, according to the Michigan Department of State.
The revised tallies showed that an incumbent Republican county commissioner had kept his seat, not lost it. Oakland County used software from a company called Hart InterCivic, not Dominion, though the software was not at fault.
Both errors, which appeared to go against Republicans, spurred conspiracy theories in Conservative corners of the internet. That drew a response from Tina Barton, the Republican clerk in Rochester Hills, the city that had its votes briefly counted twice.
“As a Republican, I am disturbed that this is intentionally being mischaracterized to undermine the election process,” she said in a video she posted online. “This was an isolated mistake that was quickly rectified.”
Michigan officials added that the errors came in the counties’ unofficial tallies and that they were fixed before another layer of checks meant to catch such mistakes. In that review, two Republican and two Democratic “canvassers” certify the vote counts in each county, checking poll books, ballot summaries and tabulator tapes.
In Georgia’s Gwinnett County, the vote count was delayed because of an apparent problem with the Dominion software, according to a detailed explanation from county officials. The software properly counted the votes, the county said, but it would not send some tallies to the state’s central database. Joe Sorenson, a Gwinnett County spokesman, said that the county has since been able to report the accurate totals to the state but it remains unclear what happened with the software.
Spalding and Morgan counties in Georgia had separate problems with systems that check in voters at the polls. Those so-called Poll Pads were made by a company called KnowInk, not Dominion, said Harri Hursti, an election security expert on the ground in Georgia.
“People are comparing apples to oranges in the name of Dominion,” Mr. Hursti said.
Mr. Perez, the election-technology researcher, said it was fair to ask for more transparency and accountability from the companies that make the technology that underpins elections, but there is no evidence of any fraud or widespread errors in the 2020 race.
“It’s reasonable for citizens and politicians to look at the role of private vendors in the machinery of democracy, and to ask questions,” he said. “Now that doesn’t mean elections are rigged.”
Nicole Perlroth contributed reporting.
|
23. Ontario’s finance minister resigns after a jaunt in the Caribbean..txt
|
By Ian Austen
Jan. 1, 2021
A senior minister in Ontario’s cabinet has resigned after vacationing in the Caribbean as residents of Canada’s most populous province were being urged to stay home.
Rod Phillips, who was named Ontario’s finance minister in 2018, told reporters that his trip was a “dumb, dumb mistake” when he arrived back in Toronto on Thursday, after being summoned home by Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier.
Shortly afterward, Mr. Ford said that he had accepted Mr. Phillips’s resignation. From the start of the pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Liberal, has urged Canadians to avoid nonessential travel out of the country — and when announcing a province-wide shutdown that started Dec. 26, Mr. Ford, a Progressive Conservative, told residents to stay home “to the fullest extent possible.”
Mr. Phillips, and his wife, went to the French territory of Saint Barthélemy, which is commonly known as St. Barts, on Dec. 13. He left behind a series of photos and videos that were posted on social media during his absence, and several political opponents said that the posts were intended to create the illusion that Mr. Phillips was celebrating the holidays in Canada. The images appear to have been made at Mr. Phillips’s home in suburban Toronto. He is now under a mandatory 14-day quarantine there.
Mr. Ford initially claimed that he knew nothing about his minister’s travel until it was reported in by the news media. But at a subsequent news conference, he acknowledged that he had been aware of Mr. Phillips’s absence for about two weeks.
|
By Ian Austen
Jan. 1, 2021
A senior minister in Ontario’s cabinet has resigned after vacationing in the Caribbean as residents of Canada’s most populous province were being urged to stay home.
Rod Phillips, who was named Ontario’s finance minister in 2018, told reporters that his trip was a “dumb, dumb mistake” when he arrived back in Toronto on Thursday, after being summoned home by Doug Ford, Ontario’s premier.
Shortly afterward, Mr. Ford said that he had accepted Mr. Phillips’s resignation. From the start of the pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Liberal, has urged Canadians to avoid nonessential travel out of the country — and when announcing a province-wide shutdown that started Dec. 26, Mr. Ford, a Progressive Conservative, told residents to stay home “to the fullest extent possible.”
Mr. Phillips, and his wife, went to the French territory of Saint Barthélemy, which is commonly known as St. Barts, on Dec. 13. He left behind a series of photos and videos that were posted on social media during his absence, and several political opponents said that the posts were intended to create the illusion that Mr. Phillips was celebrating
|
the holidays in Canada. The images appear to have been made at Mr. Phillips’s home in suburban Toronto. He is now under a mandatory 14-day quarantine there.
Mr. Ford initially claimed that he knew nothing about his minister’s travel until it was reported in by the news media. But at a subsequent news conference, he acknowledged that he had been aware of Mr. Phillips’s absence for about two weeks.
|
50. Teaching My Child to Love a Dying World.txt
|
By Shoshana Meira Friedman
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 4, 2021
This spring, as the world fell apart faster than we’d expected, I fell in love with trees. Not the crush of my girlhood when I admired them and fancied myself the child at the end of Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax.” In love like I dreamed about them. I saw their bodies when I closed my eyes. Branches and trunks of different species traced my insides — the arch of the redbud’s trunk in joy and pleasure; the tight winter huddle of the spruce in fear.
Until last May, two slender, sickly Eastern hemlocks grew in a corner of our backyard garden, dying as the invasive woolly adelgid sucked their sap, just as the insect is killing the great hemlock forests of the Appalachians. I took my 2-year-old son, Abraham, out under the trees with me one afternoon and showed him the fuzzy white eggs on the undersides of the needles. I explained the trees were sick.
“He wan’ his Mama,” Abraham said, reaching for the branch closest to his chubby hand. “Mama, I wanna hold his hand.” Clasping the twig, he looked up into the tree. “Hemlock tree, you feel better?” I could scarcely breathe, startled by the sudden clarity that I am teaching my child to love a dying and transforming world, that he will learn to love and lose in the same breath, and that I will learn along with him.
“Yes, the tree wants his Mama,” I managed to say. “He wants to go back to Mama Earth. Honey, our hemlock trees are dying. We will have to cut them down soon, and let them become soil.”
As a rabbi and climate activist, I’d already been grieving a long time. For our trees, for the great Appalachian hemlock forests, as well as for the burning Amazon, the oceans choked in plastic, the hungry people. For the whole beautiful and complex system of life, brought to its knees by a species rich in intelligence and poor in wisdom, the most dangerous apex predator ever to walk the Earth.
Abraham sat under the hemlocks on soil packed hard by his play. Last fall he named this spot Frog and Toad’s corner, and he likes to go on toddler “trips” there before triumphantly rushing back into my arms when he “comes home” to the patio. His little body rocked back and forth quietly. I resisted the urge to distract him, or myself, from our own versions of the same giant and holy grief.
Like so many, my husband and I were working from home and without child care this spring and summer. Caring for Abraham every day and sneaking in work emails where I could, I found myself more consistently outdoors in spring than I had been since my own childhood. Every day, Abraham and I walked the few short blocks from our Boston home to the back of Peters Hill in the Arnold Arboretum, a 281-acre collection of plants from around the world, owned by Harvard University and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
Every day we saw, smelled and felt the changes in the trees. The collection nearest our house features the Rosacea family, and we spent hours underneath the flowering crab apples and hawthorns, marking the days by who was in bloom, whose petals had begun to drop, who had started to put out leaves, or fruit. Inspired by the botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, I began a practice of using personal pronouns when referring to all plants and animals, teaching us both a new grammar that I hoped would be Abraham’s native tongue.
As we walked, Abraham and I spoke about the trees as people — and indeed, for the first month of quarantine, they were the only people besides us he got to see up close. In the absence of human friends, greeting the trees with a reverent shake of a lower branch became an obvious choice. “Hi, European larch tree,” Abraham would say in his toddler dialect, grabbing the feathery needles of the drooping branches.
Since every tree in the Arnold Arboretum has a metal name card, fastened with a screw and a bit of wire somewhere on the base of the trunk, it was an excellent place for me to check my work as I learned to identify tree families and genera. Abraham too began to search for the name card, crouching down to “read” it, his little REI sun hat making him look exactly the part of a miniature naturalist. We developed special relationships with a few trees, like the “White Lying Down Tree,” Abraham’s name for a wild crab apple from Japan with white blossoms and a trunk that grows improbably in four directions parallel to the ground, creating an irresistible little fort.
In the evenings, when I could spare the time from work, I pored over guidebooks and Donald Culross Peattie’s “A Natural History of North American Trees,” better acquainting myself with the trees we had met that day. Do you have alternate or opposite leaves? Smooth or toothed margins? Is your bark deeply furrowed or smooth? What shape do your branches take? Your seeds? Your flowers? What story do you tell about the land? What geologic changes have you already survived? What is our history together? What are you saying?
I wanted to be able to read the trees, to listen to them, to feel the kind of breathy intimacy with them that I had with my grandmother as she lay dying peacefully over the course of a week in my parents’ sunlit house years ago. Crawling next to her in the hospice bed, I would hold her smooth and papery hand, kiss her cheeks, and receive each word she managed to speak as I might a rare heirloom seed placed in my palm.
In our own backyard, Abraham and I greeted our closest tree-neighbors by name over and over, and I felt a great loneliness lift. Rare butternut hybrid. American elm. Norway maple. Arborvitae. Gray birch. Eastern redbud. Arrowwood viburnum. Let me learn your names, your habits, your wisdom — before you die, before I die. My newest friends and most ancient teachers, watch over my son, child of a dying and transforming world — but a world yet alive with belonging and beauty.
Shoshana Meira Friedman is a rabbi, writer, mother and climate activist in Boston.
|
By Shoshana Meira Friedman
Published Jan. 1, 2021Updated Jan. 4, 2021
This spring, as the world fell apart faster than we’d expected, I fell in love with trees. Not the crush of my girlhood when I admired them and fancied myself the child at the end of Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax.” In love like I dreamed about them. I saw their bodies when I closed my eyes. Branches and trunks of different species traced my insides — the arch of the redbud’s trunk in joy and pleasure; the tight winter huddle of the spruce in fear.
Until last May, two slender, sickly Eastern hemlocks grew in a corner of our backyard garden, dying as the invasive woolly adelgid sucked their sap, just as the insect is killing the great hemlock forests of the Appalachians. I took my 2-year-old son, Abraham, out under the trees with me one afternoon and showed him the fuzzy white eggs on the undersides of the needles. I explained the trees were sick.
“He wan’ his Mama,” Abraham said, reaching for the branch closest to his chubby hand.
|
“Mama, I wanna hold his hand.” Clasping the twig, he looked up into the tree. “Hemlock tree, you feel better?” I could scarcely breathe, startled by the sudden clarity that I am teaching my child to love a dying and transforming world, that he will learn to love and lose in the same breath, and that I will learn along with him.
“Yes, the tree wants his Mama,” I managed to say. “He wants to go back to Mama Earth. Honey, our hemlock trees are dying. We will have to cut them down soon, and let them become soil.”
As a rabbi and climate activist, I’d already been grieving a long time. For our trees, for the great Appalachian hemlock forests, as well as for the burning Amazon, the oceans choked in plastic, the hungry people. For the whole beautiful and complex system of life, brought to its knees by a species rich in intelligence and poor in wisdom, the most dangerous apex predator ever to walk the Earth.
Abraham sat under the hemlocks on soil packed hard by his play. Last fall he named this spot Frog and Toad’s corner, and he likes to go on toddler “trips” there before triumphantly rushing back into my arms when he “comes home” to the patio. His little body rocked back and forth quietly. I resisted the urge to distract him, or myself, from our own versions of the same giant and holy grief.
Like so many, my husband and I were working from home and without child care this spring and summer. Caring for Abraham every day and sneaking in work emails where I could, I found myself more consistently outdoors in spring than I had been since my own childhood. Every day, Abraham and I walked the few short blocks from our Boston home to the back of Peters Hill in the Arnold Arboretum, a 281-acre collection of plants from around the world, owned by Harvard University and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
Every day we saw, smelled and felt the changes in the trees. The collection nearest our house features the Rosacea family, and we spent hours underneath the flowering crab apples and hawthorns, marking the days by who was in bloom, whose petals had begun to drop, who had started to put out leaves, or fruit. Inspired by the botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, I began a practice of using personal pronouns when referring to all plants and animals, teaching us both a new grammar that I hoped would be Abraham’s native tongue.
As we walked, Abraham and I spoke about the trees as people — and indeed, for the first month of quarantine, they were the only people besides us he got to see up close. In the absence of human friends, greeting the trees with a reverent shake of a lower branch became an obvious choice. “Hi, European larch tree,” Abraham would say in his toddler dialect, grabbing the feathery needles of the drooping branches.
Since every tree in the Arnold Arboretum has a metal name card, fastened with a screw and a bit of wire somewhere on the base of the trunk, it was an excellent place for me to check my work as I learned to identify tree families and genera. Abraham too began to search for the name card, crouching down to “read” it, his little REI sun hat making him look exactly the part of a miniature naturalist. We developed special relationships with a few trees, like the “White Lying Down Tree,” Abraham’s name for a wild crab apple from Japan with white blossoms and a trunk that grows improbably in four directions parallel to the ground, creating an irresistible little fort.
In the evenings, when I could spare the time from work, I pored over guidebooks and Donald Culross Peattie’s “A Natural History of North American Trees,” better acquainting myself with the trees we had met that day. Do you have alternate or opposite leaves? Smooth or toothed margins? Is your bark deeply furrowed or smooth? What shape do your branches take? Your seeds? Your flowers? What story do you tell about the land? What geologic changes have you already survived? What is our history together? What are you saying?
I wanted to be able to read the trees, to listen to them, to feel the kind of breathy intimacy with them that I had with my grandmother as she lay dying peacefully over the course of a week in my parents’ sunlit house years ago. Crawling next to her in the hospice bed, I would hold her smooth and papery hand, kiss her cheeks, and receive each word she managed to speak as I might a rare heirloom seed placed in my palm.
In our own backyard, Abraham and I greeted our closest tree-neighbors by name over and over, and I felt a great loneliness lift. Rare butternut hybrid. American elm. Norway maple. Arborvitae. Gray birch. Eastern redbud. Arrowwood viburnum. Let me learn your names, your habits, your wisdom — before you die, before I die. My newest friends and most ancient teachers, watch over my son, child of a dying and transforming world — but a world yet alive with belonging and beauty.
Shoshana Meira Friedman is a rabbi, writer, mother and climate activist in Boston.
|
10. Dr. Fauci advises against the British approach of delaying a second dose of vaccine.txt
|
By Katherine J. Wu
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN on Friday that the United States would not follow Britain’s lead in front-loading first vaccine injections, potentially delaying the administration of second doses.
Britain announced a plan this week to delay second shots of its two authorized vaccines, developed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca, in an attempt to dole out to more people the partial protection conferred by a single dose.
“I would not be in favor of that,” Dr. Fauci told CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen, regarding altering dosing schedules for the vaccines authorized for use in the United States, made by Pfizer and Moderna. “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”
His opinion was met with approval by some experts, including Dr. Eric Topol, a clinical trials expert at the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, who tweeted, “That’s good because that it’s following what we know, the trial data with extraordinary 95 percent efficacy, avoiding extrapolation and the unknowns.”
While clinical trials were designed to test the efficacy of second doses delivered three or four weeks after the first, British officials said they would allow a gap of up to 12 weeks. Such delays have not been rigorously tested in trials. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for instance, was shown to be 95 percent effective at preventing Covid-19 when administered as two doses, three weeks apart.
Straying from this regimen “is like going into the Wild West,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. “It needs to be data driven if they’re going to make a change.”
Widening the gap between vaccine doses could risk blunting the benefits of the second shot, which is intended to boost the body’s defenses against the coronavirus, increasing the strength and durability of the immune response. In the interim, the protective effects of the first shot could also wane faster than anticipated.
With Pfizer’s vaccine, for example, “we don’t really know what happens when you only have one dose after, like, a month,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida. “It’s just not the way it was tested.”
|
By Katherine J. Wu
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told CNN on Friday that the United States would not follow Britain’s lead in front-loading first vaccine injections, potentially delaying the administration of second doses.
Britain announced a plan this week to delay second shots of its two authorized vaccines, developed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca, in an attempt to dole out to more people the partial protection conferred by a single dose.
“I would not be in favor of that,” Dr. Fauci told CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen, regarding altering dosing schedules for the vaccines authorized for use in the United States, made by Pfizer and Moderna. “We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”
His opinion was met with approval by some experts, including Dr. Eric Topol, a clinical trials expert at the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California, who tweeted, “That’s good because that it’s following what we know, the trial data with extraordinary 95 percent efficacy, avoiding extrapolation and the unknowns.”
While clinical trials were designed to test the efficacy of second doses delivered three or four weeks after the first, British officials said they would allow a gap of up to 12 weeks. Such delays have
|
not been rigorously tested in trials. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for instance, was shown to be 95 percent effective at preventing Covid-19 when administered as two doses, three weeks apart.
Straying from this regimen “is like going into the Wild West,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. “It needs to be data driven if they’re going to make a change.”
Widening the gap between vaccine doses could risk blunting the benefits of the second shot, which is intended to boost the body’s defenses against the coronavirus, increasing the strength and durability of the immune response. In the interim, the protective effects of the first shot could also wane faster than anticipated.
With Pfizer’s vaccine, for example, “we don’t really know what happens when you only have one dose after, like, a month,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida. “It’s just not the way it was tested.”
|
74. The Presidential Transition Must Go On.txt
|
By The Editorial Board
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States, and his predecessor is not handling his election loss well. In what may be the least surprising development of his term in office, President Trump has spent several days now falsely claiming widespread voter fraud and other nefarious behavior. Yes, counting the votes was vital, but now that the results are clear, it is time to move on.
Perhaps the second least surprising development? Many Republican leaders are indulging Mr. Trump’s tantrum.
There is a sycophancy spectrum. Some Republicans are going all in on the president’s conspiratorial rantings, spreading them like fertilizer on a field. Others are trying to have it both ways: not actively parroting his lies yet passively tolerating his disinformation campaign. As the rationalization seems to go: He’s on his way out. What’s the harm in letting him vent for a few days more?
Where to begin?
Even if this display of defiance is largely, or wholly, performative, it is dangerous. While there is little evidence of coordinated violence so far, urging his supporters to view the race as stolen — and, by extension, Joe Biden’s presidency as illegitimate — could all too easily incite someone to seek retribution, resulting in tragedy. It is also corrosive. Cynically undermining Mr. Biden’s future presidency could do lasting harm to an already divided nation.
There is more targeted, more concrete damage being done as well. Mr. Biden will solidly carry the Electoral College. Barring some dramatic, unforeseen development, he will be sworn into office on Jan. 20. It is in the interest of the entire nation — a nation already struggling with a tangle of crises — for that transfer of power to go as smoothly as possible.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
A presidential transition is a monumental undertaking. As the advisory board of the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition noted on Sunday, “To build an effective government ready to address the urgent needs of our great country, the new president will have to recruit 4,000 political appointees, including 1,250 who require Senate confirmation; prepare a $4.7 trillion budget; implement a strong policy agenda; and assume leadership of a work force of two million civilian employees and two million active duty and reserve troops.”
“While there will be legal disputes requiring adjudication,” the board observed, “the outcome is sufficiently clear that the transition process must now begin.”
Some of that necessary work is going forward despite Mr. Trump’s foot-dragging. Mr. Biden’s teams are deep into staffing decisions and are firming up plans for his first days in office. Executive orders are being drawn up. A coronavirus advisory team has been assembled. Briefings are being conducted.
When it sees fit, the campaign can begin announcing nominees — a process often done in batches, starting a few weeks after the election — which enables the Senate to start preparing for hearings. “Best practice generally dictates having White House positions filled by Thanksgiving, and the most important Cabinet positions ready to announce between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” according to the transition center’s website.
That said, crucial elements of the transition cannot proceed without official clearance by the General Services Administration, the obscure agency that oversees the basic functioning of federal agencies, including the presidential transition. A green light from the agency frees up the office space and money necessary to kick the transition into high gear. It also triggers certain meetings and procedures and allows incoming officials to access classified information and computer systems.
Typically, such authorization is granted within hours of the presidential race being called. As of this writing, the authorization has yet to occur. As The Times noted on Monday, this is blocking Mr. Biden’s teams “from moving into government offices, including secure facilities where they can discuss classified information. The teams cannot meet with their counterparts in agencies or begin background checks of top cabinet nominees that require top-secret access.”
All of this has serious implications for national security. In the chaotic aftermath of the 2000 election, in which the outcome really was unclear, the transition process was delayed. This “hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees,” concluded the 9/11 Commission, which analyzed the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In its report, the commission stressed the need going forward to get incoming officials settled quickly to “minimize as much as possible the disruption of national security policymaking.”
The White House has also yet to follow the commission’s recommendation to swiftly provide the president-elect “with a classified, compartmented list that catalogs specific, operational threats to national security; major military or cover operations; and pending decisions on the possible use of force,” according to The Washington Post.
So not only is Mr. Trump trying to monopolize the nation’s attention and keep the spotlight off Mr. Biden and the reasons he was elected, but the current commander in chief’s acting out is creating a worrisome opportunity for America’s foreign adversaries to exploit.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Biden projected an air of unruffled certainty. “The fact that they’re not willing to acknowledge we won at this point, is not of much consequence in our planning and what we’re able to do between now and Jan. 20,” he said.
It is Mr. Biden’s job to steady the nation. That is what elected leaders are supposed to do. But make no mistake: Mr. Trump is once more putting his own interests above the good of the American people. That so many Republican officials continue to enable him is the fitting coda to his presidency.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
|
By The Editorial Board
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States, and his predecessor is not handling his election loss well. In what may be the least surprising development of his term in office, President Trump has spent several days now falsely claiming widespread voter fraud and other nefarious behavior. Yes, counting the votes was vital, but now that the results are clear, it is time to move on.
Perhaps the second least surprising development? Many Republican leaders are indulging Mr. Trump’s tantrum.
There is a sycophancy spectrum. Some Republicans are going all in on the president’s conspiratorial rantings, spreading them like fertilizer on a field. Others are trying to have it both ways: not actively parroting his lies yet passively tolerating his disinformation campaign. As the rationalization seems to go: He’s on his way out. What’s the harm in letting him vent for a few days more?
Where to begin?
Even if this display of defiance is largely, or wholly, performative, it is dangerous. While there is little evidence of coordinated violence
|
so far, urging his supporters to view the race as stolen — and, by extension, Joe Biden’s presidency as illegitimate — could all too easily incite someone to seek retribution, resulting in tragedy. It is also corrosive. Cynically undermining Mr. Biden’s future presidency could do lasting harm to an already divided nation.
There is more targeted, more concrete damage being done as well. Mr. Biden will solidly carry the Electoral College. Barring some dramatic, unforeseen development, he will be sworn into office on Jan. 20. It is in the interest of the entire nation — a nation already struggling with a tangle of crises — for that transfer of power to go as smoothly as possible.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
A presidential transition is a monumental undertaking. As the advisory board of the nonpartisan Center for Presidential Transition noted on Sunday, “To build an effective government ready to address the urgent needs of our great country, the new president will have to recruit 4,000 political appointees, including 1,250 who require Senate confirmation; prepare a $4.7 trillion budget; implement a strong policy agenda; and assume leadership of a work force of two million civilian employees and two million active duty and reserve troops.”
“While there will be legal disputes requiring adjudication,” the board observed, “the outcome is sufficiently clear that the transition process must now begin.”
Some of that necessary work is going forward despite Mr. Trump’s foot-dragging. Mr. Biden’s teams are deep into staffing decisions and are firming up plans for his first days in office. Executive orders are being drawn up. A coronavirus advisory team has been assembled. Briefings are being conducted.
When it sees fit, the campaign can begin announcing nominees — a process often done in batches, starting a few weeks after the election — which enables the Senate to start preparing for hearings. “Best practice generally dictates having White House positions filled by Thanksgiving, and the most important Cabinet positions ready to announce between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” according to the transition center’s website.
That said, crucial elements of the transition cannot proceed without official clearance by the General Services Administration, the obscure agency that oversees the basic functioning of federal agencies, including the presidential transition. A green light from the agency frees up the office space and money necessary to kick the transition into high gear. It also triggers certain meetings and procedures and allows incoming officials to access classified information and computer systems.
Typically, such authorization is granted within hours of the presidential race being called. As of this writing, the authorization has yet to occur. As The Times noted on Monday, this is blocking Mr. Biden’s teams “from moving into government offices, including secure facilities where they can discuss classified information. The teams cannot meet with their counterparts in agencies or begin background checks of top cabinet nominees that require top-secret access.”
All of this has serious implications for national security. In the chaotic aftermath of the 2000 election, in which the outcome really was unclear, the transition process was delayed. This “hampered the new administration in identifying, recruiting, clearing, and obtaining Senate confirmation of key appointees,” concluded the 9/11 Commission, which analyzed the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In its report, the commission stressed the need going forward to get incoming officials settled quickly to “minimize as much as possible the disruption of national security policymaking.”
The White House has also yet to follow the commission’s recommendation to swiftly provide the president-elect “with a classified, compartmented list that catalogs specific, operational threats to national security; major military or cover operations; and pending decisions on the possible use of force,” according to The Washington Post.
So not only is Mr. Trump trying to monopolize the nation’s attention and keep the spotlight off Mr. Biden and the reasons he was elected, but the current commander in chief’s acting out is creating a worrisome opportunity for America’s foreign adversaries to exploit.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Biden projected an air of unruffled certainty. “The fact that they’re not willing to acknowledge we won at this point, is not of much consequence in our planning and what we’re able to do between now and Jan. 20,” he said.
It is Mr. Biden’s job to steady the nation. That is what elected leaders are supposed to do. But make no mistake: Mr. Trump is once more putting his own interests above the good of the American people. That so many Republican officials continue to enable him is the fitting coda to his presidency.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
|
End of preview. Expand
in Data Studio
README.md exists but content is empty.
- Downloads last month
- 3