ReportWire

Tag: AP Top News

  • Shoppers hunt for deals but inflation makes bargains elusive

    Shoppers hunt for deals but inflation makes bargains elusive

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK (AP) — Consumers holding out for big deals — and some much-needed relief from soaring costs on just about everything — may be disappointed as they head into the busiest shopping season of the year.

    While retailers are advertising sales of 30%, 50% and 70% off everything from TVs to gadgets, many items will still cost more than they did last year because of inflation and finding a true bargain may prove to be a challenge.

    From September through October, shoppers paid roughly 18% more for furniture and appliances than they did a year ago, according to a recent major data analysis by analytics company DataWeave, which tracks prices for hundreds of thousands of items across roughly three dozen retailers including Amazon and Target. For toys, they paid roughly 2% more.

    Things looked a bit better for consumers shopping for clothing — they paid nearly 5% less compared with last fall, according to DataWeave. Meanwhile, prices held steady for footwear.

    “It’s just a weird time for everybody to figure out what is the right price, and what is the real price,” said Nikki Baird, vice president of strategy of Aptos, a retail technology firm. “Consumers are really bad at discount math, and retailers are fully aware of it and do everything they can to take advantage of it.”

    William Wang, 24, who teaches high school math, says he’s more likely to notice price increases on everyday items — like his quesadilla that now costs $8 at his local deli — than for gifts he’s going to spend money on once a year.

    “I do feel like everything’s more expensive,” said the Brooklyn, New York, resident. “But I mainly keep track of it with small items, like food.”

    The latest government retail sales report shows retail sales rose last month even when adjusting for inflation. That underscores some resiliency among shoppers heading into the Black Friday weekend, the kickoff to the season.

    But cracks are forming.

    Third-quarter earnings results from major retailers show shoppers aren’t willing to pay full price and waiting for deals. Kohl’s, Target and Macy’s all noted Americans have also slowed their spending in the past few weeks.

    It’s a dramatic change from last year’s holiday period when shoppers began their holiday items as early as October for fear they wouldn’t get what they needed amid pandemic-infused clogs in the supply chain. They were also flush with cash from government stimulus money. Retailers were struggling to bring in items so they didn’t need to discount as much.

    Michael Liersch, head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo, said this holiday shopping season, it’s more likely that things will “appear discounted or feel discounted, or it will seem like there are big offers” but that between inflation and “shrinkflation” — when manufacturers quietly shrink package sizes without lowering the price — it’s often not the case.

    That trend played out in a recent spot check by DataWeave of different items. For example, a Cuisinart two-speed blender, listed at $59.99 but discounted at 25%, was available for $44.99 at grocery chain Fred Meyer. But it was still more expensive than last year’s blender, available for $39.99, after a 20% discount off a lower list price of $49.99.

    At Kohl’s, shoppers paid more for Nunn Bush Baker Street men’s dressy shoes this past fall than last year when discounts were actually bigger, and the list price was lower. The shoes were available for $79.99 after a nearly 16% price cut from the $95 suggested price; last year, the shoes were available for $59.99 after a 29% discount on a lower list price of $85.

    Kevin Brasler, executive editor of Consumers’ Checkbook, a nonprofit consumer organization, noted its researchers spent 33 weeks starting Feb. 9 tracking sale prices at 25 major retailers. They found most stores’ sale prices — even those that promote big savings — are bogus discounts, with retailers offering the same “sale price” more than half the time. In fact, at many retailers, the “regular price” or “list” price listed is seldom, if ever, what shoppers pay, Brasler said.

    Still, inflation-battered shoppers like Yoki Hanley are willing to take their chances and hold out for a bargain. So far, she doesn’t feel like she’s getting good deals for her eight grandchildren and plans to delay her buying until the last week before Christmas.

    “Everything went up so my little nest egg disappeared a whole lot quicker than I expected,” said the St. Croix resident. “I will wait until the last minute. They’ll get it, but it’s coming late.”

    ______

    Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

    Follow Cora Lewis: http://twitter.com/cora

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Netflix nights still come wrapped in red-and-white envelopes

    Netflix nights still come wrapped in red-and-white envelopes

    [ad_1]

    SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — Netflix’s trailblazing DVD-by-mail rental service has been relegated as a relic in the age of video streaming, but there is still a steady — albeit shrinking — audience of diehards like Amanda Konkle who are happily paying to receive those discs in the iconic red-and-white envelopes.

    “When you open your mailbox, it’s still something you actually want instead of just bills,” said Konkle, a resident of Savannah, Georgia, who has been subscribing to Netflix’s DVD-by-mail service since 2005.

    It’s a small pleasure that Konkle and other still-dedicated DVD subscribers enjoy but it’s not clear for how much longer. Netflix declined to comment for this story but during a 2018 media event, co-founder and co-CEO of Netflix Reed Hastings suggested the DVD-by-mail service might close around 2023.

    When — not if — it happens, Netflix will shut down a service that has shipped more than 5 billion discs across the U.S. since its inception nearly a quarter century ago. And it will echo the downfall of the thousands of Blockbuster video rental stores that closed because they couldn’t counter the threat posed by Netflix’s DVD-by-mail alternative.

    The eventual demise of its DVD-by-mail service has been inevitable since Hastings decided to spin it off from a then-nascent video streaming service in 2011. Back then, Hastings floated the idea of renaming the service as Qwikster — a bungled idea that was so widely ridiculed that it was satirized on “Saturday Night Live.” It finally settled on its current, more prosaic handle, DVD.com. The operation is now based in non-descript office in Fremont, California, located about 20 miles from Netflix’s sleek campus in Los Gatos, California.

    Shortly before breakup from video streaming, the DVD-by-mail service boasted more than 16 million subscribers, a number that has now dwindled to an estimated 1.5 million subscribers, all in the U.S., based on calculations drawn from Netflix’s limited disclosures of the service in its quarterly reports. Netflix’s video streaming service now boasts 223 million worldwide subscribers, including 74 million in the U.S. and Canada.

    “The DVD-by-mail business has bequeathed the Netflix that everyone now knows and watches today,” Marc Randolph, Netflix’s original CEO, said during an interview at a coffee shop located across the street from the post office in Santa Cruz, California.

    The 110-year-old post office has become a landmark in Silicon Valley history because it’s where Randolph mailed a Patsy Cline CD to Hastings in 1997 to test whether a disc could be delivered through the U.S. Postal Service without being damaged.

    The disc arrived at Hastings’ home unblemished, prompting the duo in 1998 to launch a DVD-by-mail rental website that they always knew would be supplanted by even more convenient technology.

    “It was planned obsolescence, but our bet was that it would take longer for it to happen than most people thought at the time,” Randolph said.

    With Netflix’s successful streaming service, it might be easy to assume that anyone still paying to receive DVDs through the mail is a technophobe or someone living in a remote part of the U.S. without reliable internet access. But subscribers say they stick with the service so they can rent movies that are otherwise difficult to find on streaming services.

    For Michael Fusco, 35, that includes the 1986 film “Power” starring a then-youthful Richard Gere and Denzel Washington, and 1980′s “The Big Red One” starring Lee Marvin. That’s among the main reasons he has been subscribing to the DVD-by-service since 2006 when he was just a freshman in college, and he has no plans to cancel it now.

    “I have been getting it for almost half my life, and it has been a big part,” Fusco said. “When I was young, it helped me discover voices I probably wouldn’t have heard. I still have memories of getting movies and having them blow my mind.”

    Tabetha Neumann is among the subscribers who rediscovered the DVD service during the throes of the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 after running out of things to watch on her video streaming service. So she and her husband signed up again for the first time since canceling in 2011. Now they like it so much that they get the a plan that allows them to keep up to three discs at a time, an option that currently costs $20 per month (compared to $10 per month for the one-disc plan).

    “When we started going through all the movies we wanted to see, we realized it was cheaper than paying $5 per movie on some streaming services,” Neumann said. “Plus we have found a lot of old horror movies, and that genre is not really big on streaming.”

    Konkle, who has written a book about Marilyn Monroe’s films, says she still finds movies on the DVD service — such as the 1954 film “Cattle Queen of Montana,” featuring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan alongside Barbara Stanwyck and the 1983 French film “Sugar Cane Alley” — that help her teach her film studies classes as an associate professor at Georgia Southern University. It’s a viewing habit she doesn’t usually share with her classes because “most of my students don’t know what a DVD is,” said Konkle, 40, laughing.

    But for all the DVD service’s attractions, subscribers are starting to notice signs of deterioration as the business has shrunk from producing more than $1 billion in annual revenue a year ago to an amount likely to fall below $200 million in revenue this year.

    Katie Cardinale, a subscriber who lives in Hopedale, Massachusetts, says she now has to wait an additional two to four days for discs to arrive in the mail than she used to because they are shipped from a distribution center in New Jersey instead of Boston. (Netflix doesn’t disclose how many DVD distribution centers still operate, but there were once about 50 of them in the U.S.).

    Konkle says more discs now come with cracks or other defects in them and it takes “forever” to get them replaced. And almost all subscribers have noticed the selection of DVD titles has shrunk dramatically from the service’s peak years when Netflix boasted it had more than 100,000 different movies and TV shows on disc.

    Netflix no longer discloses the size of its DVD library, but the subscribers interviewed by the AP all reported the narrowing selection is making it more difficult to find famous films and popular TV series that once were routinely available on the service. Instead, Netflix now sorts requests for titles such as the first season of the award-winning “Ted Lasso” series — a release that can be purchased on DVD — into a “saved” queue, signaling it may decide to stock it in the future, depending on demand.

    Knowing the end is in sight, Randolph said he will lament the death of the DVD service he brought to life while taking comfort its legacy will survive.

    “Netflix’s DVD business was part-and-parcel of who Netflix was and still is,” he said. “It’s embedded in the company’s DNA.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • High-flying balloon characters star in Thanksgiving parade

    High-flying balloon characters star in Thanksgiving parade

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK (AP) — Throngs of spectators lined the streets of New York on Thursday as colorful, high-flying balloons helped usher in the holiday season during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

    The annual tradition, which dates back nearly a century, packed streets as a procession of giant inflatables and floats streamed for more than 40 blocks from Central Park to Herald Square.

    Children balanced atop metal barricades and hung from scaffolding to watch the balloons amid mostly sunny skies and a slight breeze.

    “Blue, Blue. There’s Blue,” yelled Divyam Kumar, 6, as his father helped balance him and his 4-year-old brother Aanu Aryan on a metal rail.

    The youngster was referring to the star of the animated show “Blue’s Clues” — not to be confused with the international cartoon sensation Bluey, an Australian cattle pup making her parade debut.

    Bluey’s balloon towered as tall as a four-story building and stretched as wide as seven taxi cabs.

    Stuart, the one-eyed Minion, was also there to thrill the crowd.

    But it was Snoopy that especially caught the eye of Brenner Chenenko, 8, even more so than the more contemporary pups.

    “It’s one of the classics,” said the youngster from Rochester, New York, who lined the parade route with his father Nate and grandfather John Wopperer.

    It was the first time the father and son had seen the parade in person. Wopperer last saw a parade live three years ago, before the pandemic sidelined the event for a year.

    Snoopy, dressed as an astronaut, was followed by another old-time favorite, Papa Smurf.

    This year’s parade featured 16 giant balloons, 28 floats, 40 novelty and heritage inflatables, 12 marching bands, 10 performance groups, 700 clowns and one Santa Claus.

    The procession of characters were joined by singer Paula Abdul, in her first parade appearance; indie pop band Fitz and the Tantrums; boy band Big Time Rush; “Blue’s Clues & You!” host Josh Dela Cruz; singer Gloria Estefan; gospel singer Kirk Franklin; actor Mario Lopez; reggae star Ziggy Marley; and Miss America 2022 Emma Broyles.

    Singers Joss Stone, Jordin Sparks and Betty Who were also part of the festivities, as were the stars of Peacock’s “Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin” — Adam Devine, Sarah Hyland and Flula Borg. Jimmy Fallon & The Roots were on a float celebrating Central Park.

    President Biden and Jill Biden called into the parade, as he did last year. Biden thanked firefighters, police officers and first responders, saying, “They never take a break.”

    They thanked the troops and Biden said he would be reaching out to speak to some today.

    Asked about their plans for the day in Nantucket, Massachusetts, the Bidens said it would involve family, and some time spent locally, thanking first responders.

    In Plymouth, Massachusetts, the English settlement founded by the Pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower, two annual events were being held to embrace “all aspects” of the holiday, town officials said.

    Costumed participants were re-enacting their annual Thanksgiving Day “Pilgrim Progress” procession, representing the 51 survivors of that first brutal winter of 1621 — although Thursday’s crew had better conditions, with sunny skies and temperatures in the 40s.

    There also was a “National Day of Mourning” honoring indigenous ancestors and protesting against racism and oppression. “We are not vanquishing, We are not conquered, We are as strong as ever,” a sign behind the speakers read.

    ___

    Associated Press reporters Deepti Hajela and Kathy McCormack contributed to this story.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Inflation hovers over shoppers seeking deals on Black Friday

    Inflation hovers over shoppers seeking deals on Black Friday

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK (AP) — Cautious shoppers hunted for the best deals at stores and online as retailers offered new Black Friday discounts to entice consumers eager to start buying holiday gifts but weighed down by inflation.

    Due to elevated prices for food, rent, gasoline and other essentials, many people were being more selective, reluctant to spend unless there was a big sale. Some were dipping more into savings, turning to “buy now, pay later” services that allow payment in installments, or running up their credit cards at a time when the Federal Reserve is hiking rates to cool the U.S. economy.

    Sheila Diggs, 55, went to a Walmart in Mount Airy, Maryland early Friday looking for a deal on a coffee maker. To save money this year, she said the adults in her family are drawing names and selecting one person to shop for.

    “Everything’s going up but your paycheck,” said Diggs, who manages medical records at a local hospital.

    This year’s trends are a contrast from a year ago when consumers were buying early for fear of not getting what they needed amid supply-network clogs. Stores didn’t have to discount much because they were struggling to bring in items.

    Early shopping turned out to be a fleeting trend, said Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail at Salesforce, which tracks online sales. People this year are holding out for the best bargains, and retailers responded this week with more attractive online deals after offering mostly lackluster discounts earlier in the season.

    The average discount rate in the U.S. across all categories online was 31% on Thanksgiving, up from 27% the previous year, according to Salesforce data. The steepest discounts were in home appliances, general apparel, makeup and luxury handbags.

    Macy’s Herald Square in Manhattan, where discounts included 60% off fashion jewelry and 50% off select shoes, was bustling with shoppers early Friday.

    The traffic was “significantly larger” on Black Friday compared to the previous two years because shoppers feel more comfortable in crowds, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said.

    He said that bestsellers from Macy’s online sale, which started last weekend, included 50% off beauty sets. Last year Macy’s, like many other stores, had supply chain issues and some of the gifts didn’t arrive until after Christmas.

    “Right now we are set and ready to go, “ he said.

    Sophia Rose, 40, a respiratory specialist visiting Manhattan from Albany, New York, was heading into Macy’s with big plans to splurge after scrimping last year when she was still in school. She put herself on a budget for food and gas to cope with inflation but had already spent $2,000 for holiday gifts, and plans to spend a total of $6,000.

    “I am going to touch every floor,” she said. “That’s the plan.”

    Customer traffic was also higher than last year at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, according to Jill Renslow, executive vice president of business development of the shopping center. She said 10,000 people were at the sprawling mall during the first hour after the 7 a.m. opening, though inflation prompted many shoppers to figure out what to buy before showing up.

    “With the economy, people are planning a little more,” she said.

    Delmarie Quinones, 30, went to a Best Buy in Manhattan to pick up a laptop and printer she ordered online at $179, down from $379. Quinones, a health home aide, said that higher prices on food and other expenses are making her reduce her spending from a year ago, when she had money from government child tax-credit payments.

    “I can’t get what I used to get,” said the mother of five children, ages 1 to 13. “Even when it was back to school, getting them essentials was difficult.”

    Major retailers including Walmart and Target stuck with their pandemic-era decision to close stores on Thanksgiving Day, moving away from doorbusters and instead pushing discounts on their websites.

    But people are still shopping on Thanksgiving — online. Garf said Salesforce data showed online sales spiked in the evening during the holiday this year, suggesting people went from feasting to phone shopping. And with holiday travel up, he said a greater share of online shopping occurred on mobile devices this year.

    “The mobile phone has become the remote control of our daily lives, and this led to an increase in shopping on the couch as consumers settled in after Thanksgiving dinner,” Garf said.

    But with more shoppers visiting stores this year, growth in online sales slowed.

    Shoppers spent $5.3 billion online on Thanksgiving Day, up 2.9% from the holiday last year, according to Adobe Analytics, which monitors spending across websites. Adobe expects that online buying on Black Friday will hit $9 billion, up just 1% from a year ago.

    Black Friday saw some of the labor unrest that has rippled through the retail industry over the past year. A coalition of trade unions and advocacy organizations are coordinating strikes and walkouts at Amazon facilities in more than 30 countries under a campaign called “Make Amazon Pay.” Among other places, hundreds of workers at a facility near the German city of Leipzig staged a protest Friday, calling for better working conditions and higher pay.

    And at Walmart stores, some employees had Wednesday’s deadly shooting at a company store in Virginia in the back of their minds.

    Jude Anani, a 35-year-old who works at a Walmart store in Columbia, Maryland, said the company offers training on how to react in such circumstances but he would like to see more protection. He was happy to see a police officer standing outside the store, as is typical on Black Friday, and wished that was the case “most of the time during the year.”

    Against today’s economic backdrop, the National Retail Federation — the largest retail trade group — expects holiday sales growth will slow to a range of 6% to 8%, from the blistering 13.5% growth of a year ago. However, these figures, which include online spending, aren’t adjusted for inflation, so real spending could even be down from a year ago.

    Analysts consider the five-day Black Friday weekend, which includes Cyber Monday, a key barometer of shoppers’ willingness to spend. The two-month period between Thanksgiving and Christmas represents about 20% of the retail industry’s annual sales.

    ______

    Hadero reported from Mount Airy, Maryland. Olson reported from Arlington, Virginia. Associated Press Personal Finance Writer Cora Lewis in New York contributed to this report.

    ______

    Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Emboldened Biden, Dems push ban on so-called assault weapons

    Emboldened Biden, Dems push ban on so-called assault weapons

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden speaks about the “scourge” of gun violence, his go-to answer is to zero in on so-called assault weapons.

    America has heard it hundreds of times, including this week after shootings in Colorado and Virginia: The president wants to sign into law a ban on high-powered guns that have the capacity to kill many people very quickly.

    “The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick. Just sick,” Biden said on Thanksgiving Day. “I’m going to try to get rid of assault weapons.”

    After the mass killing last Saturday at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, he said in a statement: “When will we decide we’ve had enough? … We need to enact an assault weapons ban to get weapons of war off America’s streets.”

    When Biden and other lawmakers talk about “assault weapons,” they are using an inexact term to describe a group of high-powered guns or semi-automatic long rifles, like an AR-15, that can fire 30 rounds fast without reloading. By comparison, New York Police Department officers carry a handgun that shoots about half that much.

    A weapons ban is far off in a closely divided Congress. But Biden and the Democrats have become increasingly emboldened in pushing for stronger gun controls — and doing so with no clear electoral consequences.

    The Democratic-led House passed legislation in July to revive a 1990s-era ban on “assault weapons,” with Biden’s vocal support. And the president pushed a ban nearly everywhere that he campaigned this year.

    Still, in the midterm elections, Democrats kept control of the Senate and Republicans were only able to claim the slimmest House majority in two decades.

    The tough talk follows passage in June of a landmark bipartisan bill on gun laws, and it reflects steady progress that gun control advocates have been making in recent years.

    “I think the American public has been waiting for this message,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who has been the Senate’s leading advocate for stronger gun control since the massacre of 20 children at a school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. “There has been a thirst from voters, especially swing voters, young voters, parents, to hear candidates talk about gun violence, and I think Democrats are finally sort of catching up with where the public has been.”

    Just over half of voters want to see nationwide gun policy made more strict, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago. About 3 in 10 want gun policy kept as is. Only 14% prefer looser gun laws.

    There are clear partisan divides. About 9 in 10 Democrats want stricter gun laws, compared with about 3 in 10 Republicans. About half of Republicans want gun laws left as they are and only one-quarter want to see gun laws be made less strict.

    Once banned in the United States, the high-powered firearms are now the weapon of choice among young men responsible for many of the most devastating mass shootings. Congress allowed the restrictions first put in place in 1994 on the manufacture and sales of the weapons to expire a decade later, unable to muster the political support to counter the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the weapons ban.

    When he was governor of Florida, current Republican Sen. Rick Scott signed gun control laws in the wake of mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and a night club in Orlando. But he has consistently opposed weapons bans, arguing like many of his Republican colleagues that most gun owners use them lawfully.

    “People are doing the right thing, why would we take away their weapons?” Scott asked as the Senate was negotiating gun legislation last summer. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

    He said more mental health counseling, assessments of troubled students and law enforcement on campus make more sense.

    “Let’s focus on things that actually would change something,” Scott said.

    Law enforcement officials have long called for stricter gun laws, arguing that the availability of these weapons makes people less safe and makes their jobs more dangerous.

    Mike Moore, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, the country’s third-largest, said it just makes sense to talk about guns when gun violence is rising nationwide, and consider what the government can do to make the streets safer. He is grateful Biden is bringing it up so much.

    “This isn’t a one-and-done,” Moore said of the shooting in Colorado Springs. “These things are evolving all the time, in other cities, at any moment another incident happens. It’s crying out for the federal government, for our legislators, to go out and make this change,” he said.

    On Tuesday, six people were shot dead at a Walmart in Virginia. Over the past six months there has been a supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York; a massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas; and the July Fourth killing of revelers in Highland Park, Illinois.

    The legislation that Biden signed in June will, among other things, help states put in place “red flag” laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people judged to be dangerous.

    But a ban was never on the table.

    A 60-vote threshold in the Senate means some Republicans must be on board. Most are are steadfastly opposed, arguing it would be too complicated, especially as sales and varieties of the firearms have proliferated. There are many more types of these high-powered guns today than in 1994, when the ban was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

    “I’d rather not try to define a whole group of guns as being no longer available to the American public,” said Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, who is a hunter and owns several guns, some of them passed down through his family. “For those of us who have grown up with guns as part of our culture, and we use them as tools — there’s millions of us, there’s hundreds of millions of us — that use them lawfully.”

    In many states where the bans have been enacted, the restrictions are being challenged in court, gaining strength from a Supreme Court ruling in June expanding gun rights.

    “We feel pretty confident, even despite the arguments made by the other side, that history and tradition as well as the text of the Second Amendment are on our side,” said David Warrington, chairman and general counsel for the National Association for Gun Rights.

    Biden was instrumental in helping secure the 1990s ban as a senator. The White House said that while it was in place, mass shootings declined, and when it expired in 2004, shootings tripled.

    The reality is complicated. The data on the effectiveness is mixed and there is a sense that other measures that are not as politically fraught might actually be more effective, said Robert Spitzer, a political science professor at the State University of New York-Cortland and author of “The Politics of Gun Control.”

    Politically, the ban sparked a backlash, even though the final law was a compromise version of the initial bill, he said.

    “The gun community was furious,” Spitzer said.

    The ban has been blamed in some circles for the Democrats losing control of Congress in 1994, though subsequent research has shown that the loss was likely more about strong, well-funded conservative candidates and district boundaries, Spitzer said.

    Still, after Democrat Al Gore, who supported stricter gun laws, lost the 2000 White House race to Republican George W. Bush, Democrats largely backed off the issue until the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Even after that, it was not a campaign topic until the 2018 midterms.

    Now, gun control advocates see progress.

    “The fact that the American people elected a president who has long been a vocal and steadfast supporter of bold gun safety laws — and recently reelected a gun sense majority to the Senate — says everything you need to know about how dramatically the politics on this issue have shifted,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Nuha Dolby contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of gun politics at https://apnews.com/hub/gun-politics

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Midterms free of feared chaos as voting experts look to 2024

    Midterms free of feared chaos as voting experts look to 2024

    [ad_1]

    Before Election Day, anxiety mounted over potential chaos at the polls.

    Election officials warned about poll watchers who had been steeped in conspiracy theories falsely claiming that then-President Donald Trump did not actually lose the 2020 election. Democrats and voting rights groups worried about the effects of new election laws, in some Republican-controlled states, that President Joe Biden decried as “Jim Crow 2.0.” Law enforcement agencies were monitoring possible threats at the polls.

    Yet Election Day, and the weeks of early voting before it, went fairly smoothly. There were some reports of unruly poll watchers disrupting voting, but they were scattered. Groups of armed vigilantes began watching over a handful of ballot drop boxes in Arizona until a judge ordered them to stay far away to ensure they would not intimidate voters. And while it might take months to figure out their full impact, GOP-backed voting laws enacted after the 2020 election did not appear to cause major disruptions the way they did during the March primary in Texas.

    “The entire ecosystem in a lot of ways has become more resilient in the aftermath of 2020,” said Amber McReynolds, a former Denver elections director who advises a number of voting rights organizations. “There’s been a lot of effort on ensuring things went well.”

    Even though some voting experts’ worst fears didn’t materialize, some voters still experienced the types of routine foul-ups that happen on a small scale in every election. Many of those fell disproportionately on Black and Hispanic voters.

    “Things went better than expected,” said Amir Badat of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “But we have to say that with a caveat: Our expectations are low.”

    Badat said his organization recorded long lines at various polling places from South Carolina to Texas.

    There were particular problems in Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston. Shortages of paper ballots and at least one polling location opening late led to long lines and triggered an investigation of the predominantly Democratic county by the state’s Republican authorities.

    The investigation is partly a reflection of how certain voting snafus on Election Day are increasingly falling on Republican voters, who have been discouraged from using mailed ballots or using early in-person voting by Trump and his allies. But it’s a very different problem from what Texas had during its March primary.

    Then, a controversial new voting law that increased the requirements on mail ballots led to about 13% of all such ballots being rejected, much higher compared with other elections. It was an ominous sign for a wave of new laws, passed after Trump’s loss to Biden and false claims about mail voting, but there have been no problems of that scale reported for the general election.

    Texas changed the design of its mail ballots, which solved many of the problems voters had putting identifying information in the proper place. Other states that added regulations on voting didn’t appear to have widespread problems, though voting rights groups and analysts say it will take weeks of combing through data to find out the laws’ impacts.

    The Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law is compiling data to determine whether new voting laws in states such as Georgia contributed to a drop in turnout among Black and Hispanic voters.

    Preliminary figures show turnout was lower this year than in the last midterm election four years ago in Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Texas — four states that passed significant voting restrictions since the 2020 election — although there could be a number of reasons why.

    “It’s difficult to judge, empirically, the kind of effect these laws have on turnout because so many factors go into turnout,” said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Los Angeles law school. “You also have plenty of exaggeration on the Democratic side that any kind of change in voting laws are going to cause some major effect on the election, which has been proven not to be the case.”

    In Georgia, for example, Republicans made it more complicated to apply for mailed ballots after the 2020 election — among other things, requiring voters to include their driver’s license number or some other form of identification rather than a signature. That may be one reason why early in-person voting soared in popularity in the state this year, and turnout there dipped only slightly from 2018.

    Jason Snead, executive director of the conservative Honest Elections Project, which advocates for tighter voting laws, said the fairly robust turnout in the midterm elections shows that fears of the new voting regulations were overblown.

    “We are on the back end of an election that was supposed to be the end of democracy, and it very much was not,” Snead said.

    Poll watchers were a significant concern of voting rights groups and election officials heading into Election Day. The representatives of the two major political parties are a key part of any secure election process, credentialed observers who can object to perceived violations of rules.

    But this year, groups aligned with conspiracy theorists who challenged Biden’s 2020 victory recruited poll watchers heavily, and some states reported that aggressive volunteers caused disruptions during the primary. But there were fewer issues in November.

    In North Carolina, where several counties had reported problems with poll watchers in the May primary, the state elections board reported 21 incidents of misbehavior at the polls in the general election, most during the early, in-person voting period and by members of campaigns rather than poll watchers. The observers were responsible for eight of the incidents.

    Voting experts were pleasantly surprised there weren’t more problems with poll watchers, marking the second general election in a row when a feared threat of aggressive Republican observers did not materialize.

    “This seems to be an increase over 2020. Is it a small increase? Yes,” said Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida. “It’s still a dry run for 2024, and we can’t quite let down our guard.”

    One of the main organizers of the poll watcher effort was Cleta Mitchell, a veteran Republican election lawyer who joined Trump on a Jan. 2, 2020, call to Georgia’s top election official when the president asked that the state “find” enough votes to declare him the winner. Mitchell then launched an organization to train volunteers who wanted to keep an eye on election officials, which was seen as the driver of the poll watcher surge.

    Mitchell said the relatively quiet election is vindication that groups like hers were simply concerned with election integrity rather than causing disruptions.

    “Every training conducted by those of us doing such training included instruction about behavior, and that they must be ‘Peaceful, Lawful, Honest,’” Mitchell wrote in the conservative online publication The Federalist. “Yet, without evidence, the closer we got to Election Day, the more hysterical the headlines became, warning of violence at the polls resulting from too many observers watching the process. It didn’t happen.”

    Voting rights groups say they’re relieved their fears didn’t materialize, but they say threats to democracy remain on the horizon for 2024 — especially with Trump announcing that he’s running again. Wendy Weiser, a voting and elections expert at the Brennan Center, agreed that things overall went smoother than expected.

    “By and large, sabotage didn’t happen,” Weiser said. “I don’t think that means we’re in the clear.”

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Colorado Springs reckons with past after gay club shooting

    Colorado Springs reckons with past after gay club shooting

    [ad_1]

    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — When officials unfurled a 25-foot rainbow flag in front of Colorado Springs City Hall this week, people gathered to mourn the victims of a mass shooting at a popular gay club couldn’t help but reflect on how such a display of support would have been unthinkable just days earlier.

    With a growing and diversifying population, the city nestled at the foothills of the Rockies is a patchwork of disparate social and cultural fabrics. It’s a place full of art shops and breweries; megachurches and military bases; a liberal arts college and the Air Force Academy. For years it’s marketed itself as an outdoorsy boomtown with a population set to top Denver’s by 2050.

    But last weekend’s shooting has raised uneasy questions about the lasting legacy of cultural conflicts that caught fire decades ago and gave Colorado Springs a reputation as a cauldron of religion-infused conservatism, where LGBTQ people didn’t fit in with the most vocal community leaders’ idea of family values.

    For some, merely seeing police being careful to refer to the victims using their correct pronouns this week signaled a seismic change. For others, the shocking act of violence in a space considered an LGBTQ refuge shattered a sense of optimism pervading everywhere from the city’s revitalized downtown to the sprawling subdivisions on its outskirts.

    “It feels like the city is kind of at this tipping point,” said Candace Woods, a queer minister and chaplain who has called Colorado Springs home for 18 years. “It feels interesting and strange, like there’s this tension: How are we going to decide how we want to move forward as a community?”

    Five people were killed in the attack last weekend. Eight victims remained hospitalized Friday, officials said.

    In recent decades the population has almost doubled to 480,000 people. More than one-third of residents are nonwhite — twice as many as in 1980. The median age is 35. Politics here lean more conservative than in comparable-size cities. City council debates revolve around issues familiar throughout the Mountain West, such as water, housing and the threat of wildfires.

    Residents take pride in describing Colorado Springs as a place defined by reinvention. In the early 20th century, newcomers sought to establish a resort town in the shadow of Pikes Peak. In the 1940s, military bases arrived. In the 1990s it became known as a home base for evangelical nonprofits and Christian ministries including broadcast ministry Focus on the Family and the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys.

    “I have been thinking for years, we’re in the middle of a transition about what Colorado Springs is, who we are, and what we’ve become,” said Matt Mayberry, a historian at Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

    The idea of latching onto a city with a bright future is partly what drew Michael Anderson, a Club Q bartender who survived last weekend’s shooting.

    Two friends, Derrick Rump and Daniel Aston, helped Anderson land the Club Q job and find his “queer family” in his new hometown. It was more welcoming than rural Florida where he grew up.

    Still, he noted signs the city was more culturally conservative than others of similar size and much of Colorado: “Colorado Springs is kind of an outlier,” he said.

    Now he’s grieving the deaths of Rump and Aston in the club shooting.

    Leslie Herod followed an opposite trajectory. After growing up in Colorado Springs in a military family — like many others in the city — she left to study at the University of Colorado in liberal Boulder. In 2016 she became the first openly LGBTQ and Black person elected to Colorado’s General Assembly, representing part of Denver. She is now running to become Denver’s mayor.

    “Colorado Springs is a community that is full of love. But I will also acknowledge that I chose to leave the Springs because I felt like when it came to … the elected leadership, the vocal leadership in this community, it wasn’t supportive of all people, wasn’t supportive of Black people, wasn’t supportive of immigrants, not supportive of LGBTQ people,” Herod said at a memorial event downtown.

    She said she found community at Club Q when she would return from college. But she didn’t forget people and groups with a history of anti-LGBTQ stances and rhetoric maintained influence in city politics.

    “This community, just like any other community in the country, is complex,” she said.

    Club Q’s co-owner, Nic Grzecka, told The Associated Press he’s hoping to use the tragedy to rebuild a “loving culture” in the city. Even though general acceptance the LGBTQ community has grown, Grzecka said false assertions that members of the community are “grooming” children has incited hatred.

    Those who have been around long enough are remembering this week how in the 1990s, at the height of the religious right’s influence, the Colorado Springs-based group Colorado for Family Values spearheaded a statewide push to pass Amendment 2 and make it illegal for communities to pass ordinances protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination.

    Colorado Springs voted 3 to 1 in favor of Amendment 2, helping make its narrow statewide victory possible. Though it was later ruled unconstitutional, the campaign cemented the city’s reputation, drawing more like-minded groups and galvanizing progressive activists in response.

    The influx of evangelical groups decades ago was at least in part spurred by efforts from the city’s economic development arm to offer financial incentives to lure nonprofits. Newcomers began lobbying for policies like getting rid of school Halloween celebrations due to suspicions about the holiday’s pagan origins.

    Yemi Mobolade, an entrepreneur running for mayor as an independent, didn’t understand how strong Colorado Springs’ stigma as a “hate city” was until he moved here 12 years ago. But since then, he said, it has risen from recession-era struggles and become culturally and economically vibrant for all kinds of people.

    There has been a concerted push to shed the city’s reputation as “Jesus Springs” and remake it yet again, highlighting its elite Olympic Training Center and branding itself as Olympic City USA.

    Much like in the 1990s, Focus on the Family and New Life Church remain prominent in town. After the shooting, Focus on the Family’s president, Jim Daly, said that like the rest of the community he was mourning the tragedy. With the city under the national spotlight, he said the organization wanted to make it clear it stands against hate.

    Daly noted a generational shift among Christian leaders away from the rhetorical style of his predecessor, Dr. James Dobson. Whereas Focus on the Family published literature in decades past assailing what it called the “Homosexual Agenda,” its messaging now emphasizes tolerance, ensuring those who believe marriage should be between one man and one woman have the right to act accordingly.

    “I think in a pluralistic culture now, the idea is: How do we all live without treading on each other?” Daly said.

    After a sign in front of the group’s headquarters was vandalized with graffiti reading “their blood is on your hands” and “five lives taken,” Daly said in a statement Friday it was time for “prayer, grieving and healing, not vandalism and the spreading of hate.”

    The memorials this week attracted a wave of visitors: crowds of mourners clutching flowers, throngs of television crews and a church group whose volunteers set up a tent and passed out cookies, coffee and water. To some in the LGBTQ community, the scene was less about solidarity and more a cause for consternation.

    Colorado Springs native Ashlyn May, who grew up in a Christian church but left when it didn’t accept her queer identity, said one woman from the group in the tent asked if she could pray for her and a friend who accompanied her to the memorial.

    She said yes. It reminded May of her beloved great-grandparents, who were religious. But as the praying carried on and the woman urged May and her friend to turn to God, she felt as if praying had turned into preying. It unearthed memories of hearing things about LGBTQ people she saw as hateful and inciting.

    “It felt very conflicting,” May said.

    ___

    Metz reported from Salt Lake City. AP writers Brittany Peterson and Jesse Bedayn in Colorado Springs contributed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Thanksgiving travel rush is back with some new habits

    Thanksgiving travel rush is back with some new habits

    [ad_1]

    The Thanksgiving travel rush was back on this year, as people caught planes in numbers not seen in years, setting aside inflation concerns to reunite with loved ones and enjoy some normalcy after two holiday seasons marked by COVID-19 restrictions.

    Changing habits around work and play, however, might spread out the crowds and reduce the usual amount of holiday travel stress. Experts say many people will start holiday trips early or return home later than normal because they will spend a few days working remotely — or at least tell the boss they’re working remotely.

    The busiest travel days during Thanksgiving week are usually Tuesday, Wednesday and the Sunday after the holiday. This year, the Federal Aviation Administration expects Tuesday to be the busiest travel day with roughly 48,000 scheduled flights.

    Chris Williams, of Raleigh, North Carolina, flew Tuesday morning with his wife and two kids to Atlanta, Georgia, to spend the holiday with extended family.

    “Of course it’s a stressful and expensive time to fly,” said Williams, 44, who works in finance. “But after a couple years of not getting to spend Thanksgiving with our extended family, I’d say we’re feeling thankful that the world’s gotten to a safe enough place where we can be with loved ones again.”

    Although Williams said the family’s budget has been tight this year, he’s capitalized on the opportunity to teach his kids some personal finance basics. His youngest, 11, has been learning how to budget her allowance money since March and is excited to buy small gifts for her friends on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. “Probably slime,” she said, “with glitter.”

    The Transportation Security Administration screened more than 2.6 million travelers on Monday, surpassing the 2.5 million screened the Monday before Thanksgiving in 2019. The same trend occurred Sunday, marking the first year that the number of people catching planes on Thanksgiving week surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

    “People are traveling on different days. Not everyone is traveling on that Wednesday night,” says Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president at the trade group Airlines for America. “People are spreading their travel out throughout the week, which I also think will help ensure smoother operations.”

    AAA predicts that 54.6 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home in the U.S. this week, a 1.5% bump over Thanksgiving last year and only 2% less than in 2019. The auto club and insurance seller says nearly 49 million of those will travel by car, and 4.5 million will fly between Wednesday and Sunday.

    U.S. airlines struggled to keep up as the number of passengers surged this year.

    “We did have a challenging summer,” said Pinkerton, whose group speaks for members including American, United and Delta. She said that airlines have pared their schedules and hired thousands of workers — they now have more pilots than before the pandemic. “As a result, we’re confident that the week is going to go well.”

    U.S. airlines plan to operate 13% fewer flights this week than during Thanksgiving week in 2019. However, by using larger planes on average, the number of seats will drop only 2%, according to data from travel-researcher Cirium.

    Airlines continue to blame flight disruptions on shortages of air traffic controllers, especially in Florida, a major holiday destination.

    Controllers, who work for the Federal Aviation Administration, “get tested around the holidays. That seems to be when we have challenges,” Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said a few days ago. “The FAA is adding another 10% to headcount, hopefully that’s enough.”

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has disputed such claims, saying that the vast majority of delays and cancellations are caused by the airlines themselves.

    TSA expects airports to be busier than last year and probably about on par with 2019. The busiest day in TSA’s history came on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2019, when nearly 2.9 million people were screened at airport checkpoints.

    Stephanie Escutia, traveling with four children, her husband and her mother, said it took the family four hours to get through checking and security at the Orlando airport early Tuesday. The family was returning to Kansas City in time for Thanksgiving after a birthday trip to Disney World.

    “We were surprised at how full the park was,” said Escutia, 32. “We thought it might be down some but it was packed.”

    She welcomed the sense of normalcy, and said her family would be gathering for Thanksgiving without worrying about keeping their distance this year. “Now we are back to normal and looking forward to a nice holiday,” she said.

    People getting behind the wheel or boarding a plane don’t seem fazed by higher gasoline and airfare prices than last year or the widespread concern about inflation and the economy. That is already leading to predictions of strong travel over Christmas and New Year’s.

    “This pent-up demand for travel is still a real thing. It doesn’t feel like it’s going away,” says Tom Hall, a vice president and longtime writer for Lonely Planet, the publisher of travel guides. “That’s keeping planes full, that’s keeping prices high.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina, Margaret Stafford in Kansas City and AP video journalist Terence Chea in Oakland, California contributed to this report.

    ___

    David Koenig can be reached at twitter.com/airlinewriter

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Thanksgiving travel rush is back with some new habits

    Thanksgiving travel rush is back with some new habits

    [ad_1]

    The Thanksgiving travel rush was back on this year, as people caught planes in numbers not seen in years, setting aside inflation concerns to reunite with loved ones and enjoy some normalcy after two holiday seasons marked by COVID-19 restrictions.

    Changing habits around work and play, however, might spread out the crowds and reduce the usual amount of holiday travel stress. Experts say many people will start holiday trips early or return home later than normal because they will spend a few days working remotely — or at least tell the boss they’re working remotely.

    The busiest travel days during Thanksgiving week are usually Tuesday, Wednesday and the Sunday after the holiday. This year, the Federal Aviation Administration expects Tuesday to be the busiest travel day with roughly 48,000 scheduled flights.

    Chris Williams, of Raleigh, North Carolina, flew Tuesday morning with his wife and two kids to Atlanta, Georgia, to spend the holiday with extended family.

    “Of course it’s a stressful and expensive time to fly,” said Williams, 44, who works in finance. “But after a couple years of not getting to spend Thanksgiving with our extended family, I’d say we’re feeling thankful that the world’s gotten to a safe enough place where we can be with loved ones again.”

    Although Williams said the family’s budget has been tight this year, he’s capitalized on the opportunity to teach his kids some personal finance basics. His youngest, 11, has been learning how to budget her allowance money since March and is excited to buy small gifts for her friends on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. “Probably slime,” she said, “with glitter.”

    The Transportation Security Administration screened nearly 2.3 million travelers on Tuesday, down from more than 2.4 million screened the Tuesday before Thanksgiving in 2019. On Monday, the numbers were up versus 2019 — more than 2.6 million travelers compared with 2.5 million. That same trend occurred Sunday, marking the first year that the number of people catching planes on Thanksgiving week surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

    “People are traveling on different days. Not everyone is traveling on that Wednesday night,” says Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president at the trade group Airlines for America. “People are spreading their travel out throughout the week, which I also think will help ensure smoother operations.”

    AAA predicts that 54.6 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home in the U.S. this week, a 1.5% bump over Thanksgiving last year and only 2% less than in 2019. The auto club and insurance seller says nearly 49 million of those will travel by car, and 4.5 million will fly between Wednesday and Sunday.

    U.S. airlines struggled to keep up as the number of passengers surged this year.

    “We did have a challenging summer,” said Pinkerton, whose group speaks for members including American, United and Delta. She said that airlines have pared their schedules and hired thousands of workers — they now have more pilots than before the pandemic. “As a result, we’re confident that the week is going to go well.”

    U.S. airlines plan to operate 13% fewer flights this week than during Thanksgiving week in 2019. However, by using larger planes on average, the number of seats will drop only 2%, according to data from travel-researcher Cirium.

    Airlines continue to blame flight disruptions on shortages of air traffic controllers, especially in Florida, a major holiday destination.

    Controllers, who work for the Federal Aviation Administration, “get tested around the holidays. That seems to be when we have challenges,” Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said a few days ago. “The FAA is adding another 10% to headcount, hopefully that’s enough.”

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has disputed such claims, saying that the vast majority of delays and cancellations are caused by the airlines themselves.

    TSA expects airports to be busier than last year and probably about on par with 2019. The busiest day in TSA’s history came on the Sunday after Thanksgiving in 2019, when nearly 2.9 million people were screened at airport checkpoints.

    Stephanie Escutia, traveling with four children, her husband and her mother, said it took the family four hours to get through checking and security at the Orlando airport early Tuesday. The family was returning to Kansas City in time for Thanksgiving after a birthday trip to Disney World.

    “We were surprised at how full the park was,” said Escutia, 32. “We thought it might be down some but it was packed.”

    She welcomed the sense of normalcy, and said her family would be gathering for Thanksgiving without worrying about keeping their distance this year. “Now we are back to normal and looking forward to a nice holiday,” she said.

    People getting behind the wheel or boarding a plane don’t seem fazed by higher gasoline and airfare prices than last year or the widespread concern about inflation and the economy. That is already leading to predictions of strong travel over Christmas and New Year’s.

    “This pent-up demand for travel is still a real thing. It doesn’t feel like it’s going away,” says Tom Hall, a vice president and longtime writer for Lonely Planet, the publisher of travel guides. “That’s keeping planes full, that’s keeping prices high.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina, Margaret Stafford in Kansas City and AP video journalist Terence Chea in Oakland, California contributed to this report.

    ___

    David Koenig can be reached at twitter.com/airlinewriter

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Salt, drought decimate buffaloes in Iraq’s southern marshes

    Salt, drought decimate buffaloes in Iraq’s southern marshes

    [ad_1]

    CHIBAYISH, Iraq (AP) — Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead.

    The dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year’s dire shortages in fresh water flows from the Tigris River.

    Hashem already lost five buffaloes from his herd of 20 since May, weakened with hunger and poisoned by the salty water seeping into the low-lying marshes. Other buffalo herders in the area say their animals have died too, or produce milk that’s unfit to sell.

    “This place used to be full of life,” he said. “Now it’s a desert, a graveyard.”

    The wetlands — a lush remnant of the cradle of civilization and a sharp contrast to the desert that prevails elsewhere in the Middle East — were reborn after the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, when dams he had built to drain the area and root out Shiite rebels were dismantled.

    But today, drought that experts believe is spurred by climate change and invading salt, coupled with lack of political agreement between Iraq and Turkey, are endangering the marshes, which surround the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Iraq.

    This year, acute water shortages — the worst in 40 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization — have driven buffalo herders deeper into poverty and debt, forcing many to leave their homes and migrate to nearby cities to look for work.

    The rural communities that rely on farming and herding have long been alienated from officials in Baghdad, perpetually engaged in political crises. And when the government this year introduced harsh water rationing policies, the people in the region only became more desperate.

    Oil-rich Iraq has not rebuilt the country’s antiquated water supply and irrigation infrastructure and hopes for a water-sharing agreement for Tigris with upstream neighbor Turkey have dwindled, hampered by intransigence and often conflicting political allegiances in Iraq.

    In the marshes, where rearing of water buffaloes has been the way of life for generations, the anger toward the government is palpable.

    Hamza Noor found a patch where a trickle of fresh water flows. The 33-year-old sets out five times a day in his small boat across the marshes, filling up canisters with water and bringing it back for his animals.

    Between Noor and his two brothers, the family lost 20 buffaloes since May, he said. But unlike other herders who left for the city, he is staying.

    “I don’t know any other job,” he said.

    Ahmed Mutliq, feels the same way. The 30-year-old grew up in the marshes and says he’s seen dry periods years before.

    “But nothing compares to this year,” he said. He urged the authorities to release more water from upstream reservoirs, blaming provinces to the north and neighboring countries for “taking water from us.”

    Provincial officials, disempowered in Iraq’s highly centralized government, have no answers.

    “We feel embarrassed,” said Salah Farhad, the head of Dhi Qar province’s agriculture directorate. “Farmers ask us for more water, and we can’t do anything.”

    Iraq relies on the Tigris-Euphrates river basin for drinking water, irrigation and sanitation for its entire population of 40 million. Competing claims over the basin, which stretches from Turkey and cuts across Syria and Iran before reaching Iraq, have complicated Baghdad’s ability to make a water plan.

    Ankara and Baghdad have not been able to agree on a fixed amount of flow rate for the Tigris. Turkey is bound by a 1987 agreement to release 500 cubic meters per second toward Syria, which then divides the water with Iraq.

    But Ankara has failed to meet its obligation in recent years due to declining water levels, and rejects any future sharing agreements that forces it to release a fixed number.

    Iraq’s annual water plan prioritizes setting aside enough drinking water for the nation first, then supplying the agriculture sector and also discharging enough fresh water to the marshes to minimize salinity there. This year, the amounts were cut by half.

    The salinity in the marshes has further spiked with water-stressed Iran diverting water from its Karkheh River, which also feeds into Iraq’s marshes.

    Iraq has made even less headway on sharing water resources with Iran.

    “With Turkey, there is dialogue, but many delays,” said Hatem Hamid, who heads the Iraqi Water Ministry’s key department responsible for formulating the water plan. “With Iran, there is nothing.”

    Two officials at the legal department in Iraq’s Foreign Ministry, which deals with complaints against other countries, said attempts to engage with Iran over water-sharing were halted by higher-ups, including the office of then-Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

    “They told us not to speak to Iran about it,” said one of the officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss legal issues.

    Iraq’s needs are so dire that several Western countries and aid organizations are trying to provide development assistance for Iraq to upgrade its aging water infrastructure and modernize ancient farming practices.

    The U.S. Geological Survey has trained Iraqi officials in reading satellite imagery to “strengthen Iraq’s hand in negotiations with Turkey,” one U.S. diplomat said, also speaking anonymously because of the ongoing negotiations.

    As the sun set over Chibayish, Hashem’s water buffalo never returned — the sixth animal he lost.

    “I have nothing without my buffaloes,” he said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Taylor Swift ticket trouble could drive political engagement

    Taylor Swift ticket trouble could drive political engagement

    [ad_1]

    Some of Taylor Swift’s fans want you to know three things: They’re not still 16, they have careers and resources and, right now, they’re angry. That’s a powerful political motivator, researchers say.

    Look what Ticketmaster made them do.

    It started Nov. 15, when millions crowded a presale for Swift’s long-awaited Eras Tour, resulting in crashes, prolonged waits and frantic purchases. By Thursday, Ticketmaster had canceled the general sale, citing insufficient remaining tickets and inciting a firestorm of outrage from fans. Swift herself said the ordeal “really pisses me off.”

    Ticketmaster apologized but the bad blood had already been sowed. And now fans — and politicians — have started acting on it.

    U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez directed Swifties to where they could make U.S. Department of Justice complaints. Multiple state attorneys general — including in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, key states in Swift’s origin story — have announced investigations.

    Stephanie Aly, a New York-based professional who has worked on community organizing for progressive politics, for years has thought mobilizing fandoms for social progress could be beneficial.

    “Fandoms are natural organizers,” said the 33-year-old Swiftie. “If you find the right issues and you activate them and engage them then you can effect real change.”

    In 2020, for instance, K-pop fans organized to back the Black Lives Matter movement and sought to inflate registration for a Donald Trump rally. Aly and Swifties from different industries — law, public relations, cybersecurity and more — have joined forces to create Vigilante Legal, a group targeting Ticketmaster by creating email templates to petition attorneys general and providing antitrust information. Thousands have expressed interest in helping or learning more.

    “The level of anger that you’ve just seen in the country around this issue is astounding,” said Jean Sinzdak, associate director for the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “People are really sharing their feelings about that and building a movement about that online, which I really think is quite fascinating. It’s certainly an opportunity to engage people politically. Whether it lasts is hard to say, but it certainly feels like a real opportunity.”

    In one way, said Sinzdak, this is giving Swift’s large following of younger people a direct line to seeing how policy takes shape. It’s also targeting a demographic that is seldom courted by politicians during election season.

    “Nobody goes out and thinks, ‘Let’s target young women,’” said Gwen Nisbett, a University of North Texas professor who researches the intersection of political engagement and pop culture. “Be it about abortion or student loans, that age group is super mobilized and young women are super mobilized.”

    Fan culture and community has boosted that tendency toward mobilization. Nisbett was studying parasocial relationships — when fans have strong one-way relationships with celebrities — in 2018, when the previously apolitical Swift posted an endorsement of Democratic candidates to social media. Nisbett found that while such posts may not determine fans’ votes, they still led to the increased likelihood fans would look for more information about voting — and actually vote.

    For the record: AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the U.S. electorate, showed about a third of Tennessee voters in 2018 said they had a favorable opinion of Swift, and among them, a large majority — about 7 in 10 — backed Democrat Phil Bredesen in the Senate contest. That was in clear contrast to the roughly third of voters who had an unfavorable opinion of Swift and overwhelmingly backed Republican Marsha Blackburn.

    For Swifties, the ire for Ticketmaster is not just about a ticket: “It’s the fact that you can’t participate in your community and your fandom and it’s part of your identity,” Nisbett said.

    This isn’t even the first time a fandom or an artist has targeted Ticketmaster. Pearl Jam took aim at the company in 1994, although the Justice Department ultimately declined to bring a case. More recently, Bruce Springsteen fans were enraged over high ticket costs because of the platform’s dynamic pricing system.

    “It’s not just about getting vengeance for Swifties. It’s not about getting an extra million Taylor Swift fans tickets, or all of us going to a secret session,” said Jordan Burger, 28, who is using his law background to help the cause. “It’s about fundamental equality. And when you have a monopolist like that, it’s just so representative of the class structure of a society where there isn’t equality anymore, there isn’t fairness.”

    The sheer power and size of Swift’s fandom has spurred conversations about economic inequality, merely symbolized by Ticketmaster.

    Aly noted that quite a few of the members of the group did get tickets; the issue is is bigger than Ticketmaster, she said.

    “We’ve gotten some feedback that, ‘This is too big, let the government handle it.’ Have you seen the U.S. government? The government only functions when the people push it to and when the people demand that it function and the people are involved,” she said. “Even when something seems too big to fail or too powerful to fail, there are always enough of us to make a difference. Your involvement may be the thing that pushes it over the edge that forces the government to act.”

    Aly says many grown-up Swifties have 10-15 years’ experience of being bullied for liking the singer — but what fans have in mind might be better than revenge.

    “We have thick skin and nothing to lose, really,” Aly said.

    ___

    Associated Press journalist Hannah Fingerhut contributed to this report from Washington. Brooke Schultz is a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Bison’s relocation to Native lands revives a spiritual bond

    Bison’s relocation to Native lands revives a spiritual bond

    [ad_1]

    BULL HOLLOW, Okla. (AP) — Ryan Mackey quietly sang a sacred Cherokee verse as he pulled a handful of tobacco out of a zip-close bag. Reaching over a barbed wire fence, he scattered the leaves onto the pasture where a growing herd of bison — popularly known as American buffalo — grazed in northeastern Oklahoma.

    The offering represented a reverent act of thanksgiving, the 45-year-old explained, and a desire to forge a divine connection with the animals, his ancestors and the Creator.

    “When tobacco is used in the right way, it’s almost like a contract is made between you and the spirit — the spirit of our Creator, the spirit of these bison,” Mackey said as a strong wind rumbled across the grassy field. “Everything, they say, has a spiritual aspect. Just like this wind, we can feel it in our hands, but we can’t see it.”

    Decades after the last bison vanished from their tribal lands, the Cherokee Nation is part of a nationwide resurgence of Indigenous people seeking to reconnect with the humpbacked, shaggy-haired animals that occupy a crucial place in centuries-old tradition and belief.

    Since 1992 the federally chartered InterTribal Buffalo Council has helped relocate surplus bison from locations such as Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona to 82 member tribes in 20 states.

    “Collectively those tribes manage over 20,000 buffalo on tribal lands,” said Troy Heinert, a Rosebud Sioux Tribe member who serves as executive director of the InterTribal Buffalo Council, based in Rapid City, South Dakota. “Our goal and mission is to restore buffalo back to Indian country for that cultural and spiritual connection that Indigenous people have with the buffalo.”

    Centuries ago, an estimated 30 million to 60 million bison roamed the vast Great Plains of North America, from Canada to Texas. But by 1900, European settlers had driven the species to near extinction, hunting them en masse for their prized skins and often leaving the carcasses to rot on the prairie.

    “It’s important to recognize the history that Native people had with buffalo and how buffalo were nearly decimated. … Now with the resurgence of the buffalo, often led by Native nations, we’re seeing that spiritual and cultural awakening as well that comes with it,” said Heinert, who is a South Dakota state senator.

    Historically, Indigenous people hunted and used every part of the bison: for food, clothing, shelter, tools and ceremonial purposes. They did not regard the bison as a mere commodity, however, but rather as beings closely linked to people.

    “Many tribes viewed them as a relative,” Heinert said. “You’ll find that in the ceremonies and language and songs.”

    Rosalyn LaPier, an Indigenous writer and scholar who grew up on the Blackfeet Nation’s reservation in Montana, said there are different mythological origin stories for bison among the various peoples of the Great Plains.

    “Depending on what Indigenous group you’re talking to, the bison originated in the supernatural realm and ended up on Earth for humans to use,” said LaPier, an environmental historian and ethnobotanist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “And there’s usually some sort of story of how humans were taught to hunt bison and kill bison and harvest them.”

    Her Blackfeet tribe, for example, believes there are three realms: the sky world, the below world — that is, Earth — and the underwater world. Tribal lore, LaPier says, holds that the Blackfeet were vegetarians until an orphaned bison slipped out of the underwater world in human form and was taken in by two caring humans. As a result, the underwater bison’s divine leader allowed more to come to Earth to be hunted and eaten.

    In Oklahoma, the Cherokee Nation, one of the largest Native American tribes with 437,000 registered members, had a few bison on its land in the 1970s. But they disappeared.

    It wasn’t until 40 years later that the tribe’s contemporary herd was begun, when a large cattle trailer — driven by Heinert — arrived in fall 2014 with 38 bison from Badlands National Park. It was greeted by emotional songs and prayers from tribe’s people.

    “I can still remember the dew that was on the grass and the songs of the birds that were in the trees. … I could feel the hope and the pride in the Cherokee people that day,” Heinert said.

    Since then, births and additional bison transplants from various locations have boosted the population to about 215. The herd roams a 500-acre (2-square kilometer) pasture in Bull Hollow, an unincorporated area of Delaware County about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Tulsa, near the small town of Kenwood.

    For now, the Cherokee are not harvesting the animals, whose bulls can weigh up to 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) and stand 6 feet tall (nearly 2 meters), as leaders focus on growing the herd. But bison, a lean protein, could serve in the future as a food source for Cherokee schools and nutrition centers, said Bryan Warner, the tribe’s deputy principal chief.

    “Our hope is really not just for food sovereignty’s sake but to really reconnect our citizens back in a spiritual way,” said Warner, a member of a United Methodist church.

    That reconnection in turn leads to discussions about other fauna, he added, from rabbits and turtles to quail and doves.

    “All these different animals — it puts you more in tune with nature,” he said as bison sauntered through a nearby pond. “And then essentially it puts you more in tune with yourself, because we all come from the same dirt that these animals are formed from — from our Creator.”

    Originally from the southeastern United States, the Cherokee were forced to relocate to present-day Oklahoma in 1838 after gold was discovered in their ancestral lands. The 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) removal, known as the Trail of Tears, claimed nearly 4,000 lives through sickness and harsh travel conditions.

    While bison are more associated with Great Plains tribes than those with roots on the East Coast, the newly arrived Cherokee had connections with a slightly smaller subspecies, according to Mackey. The animals on the tribe’s lands today are not direct descendants, he explained, but close cousins with which the tribe is able to have a spiritual bond.

    “We don’t speak the same language as the bison,” Mackey said. “But when you sit with them and spend time with them, relationships can be built on … other means than just language alone: sharing experiences, sharing that same space and just having a feeling of respect. Your body language changes when you have respect for someone or something.”

    Mackey grew up with Pentecostal roots on his father’s side and Baptist on his mother’s. He still occasionally attends church, but finds more meaning in Cherokee ceremonial practices.

    “Even if (tribal members) are raised in church or in synagogue or wherever they choose to worship, their elders are Cherokee elders,” he said. “And this idea of relationship and respect and guardianship — with the land, with the Earth, with all those things that reside on it — it’s passed down. It still pervades our identity as Cherokee people.”

    That’s why he believes the bison’s return to Cherokee lands is so important.

    “The bison aren’t just meat,” he said. “They represent abundance and health and strength.”

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Gathering again? Tips for a safe and healthy Thanksgiving

    Gathering again? Tips for a safe and healthy Thanksgiving

    [ad_1]

    For families who settled for smaller gatherings and remote blessings during the height of the pandemic, this Thanksgiving looks like the return of the big bash.

    More folks are getting together this year, with the American Automobile Association predicting holiday travel will be nearly back to prepandemic levels.

    If that’s the case at your house, it may have been a while since you faced a frozen turkey or remembered which cousins shouldn’t sit together.

    To help you brush up on the holiday basics, here are some tips to keep everyone safe, healthy and sane:

    FIRST, THE TURKEY

    The big bird is the center of most Thanksgiving meals, but it’s important to handle raw poultry properly to avoid spreading bacteria that can send your guests home with an unwanted side of food poisoning. Thaw safely. A frozen turkey needs about 24 hours to thaw for every 4 to 5 pounds of weight, according to the Agriculture Department. In a pinch, it can be thawed in a cold water bath or even a microwave, but it must be cooked immediately if you use those methods. And don’t wash the turkey. It’s a bad idea to rinse it in the sink, a practice that can spread potentially dangerous germs like salmonella to nearby areas, said Jennifer Quinlan, a Drexel University nutrition sciences professor who has studied consumers’ turkey-handling habits. Instead, pat the turkey dry with paper towels and plop it in the roasting pan.

    COOK THOROUGHLY, REFRIGERATE PROMPTLY

    The best way to make sure your turkey is fully cooked, to an internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, is to use a meat thermometer, said Lisa Shelley, who researches food safety at North Carolina State University. Don’t rely on golden-brown skin or the color of the turkey juices. Once the turkey is served, be sure to refrigerate it and all the other leftovers — mashed potatoes, gravy, yams — within two hours. “Really, set a timer when you put everything out,” suggested Quinlan. “You’ll be surprised at how fast two hours goes.”

    And don’t skimp on the cleanup. Wash your hands before preparing food and after touching raw poultry. But make sure to consider the counters, the cutting boards and any tools that may be contaminated, too, said Shelley. Clean with soap and water, then sanitize with chlorine bleach. “It’s a two-step process,” she said.

    DANGER ZONES

    Certain holidays are known for specific injuries and Thanksgiving’s no exception, said Dr. Christopher Kang, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Carve carefully. Slicing a turkey is a lot harder than it looks, as Turkey Day injuries attest. “Always, with any cutting and carving, we see a lot of hand injuries and finger injuries,” said Kang, an ER doctor in Tacoma, Washington. Make sure the carving knife is sharp and never slice toward yourself, always away. Don’t put your hand under the blade to catch a slice of meat.

    Beware, turkey fryer fires. Deep-fried turkey may sound delectable, but it’s a dangerous dish for home cooks to prepare. The fryers can tip over and spill — and the combination of a frozen or not-quite-thawed turkey and hot oil can create an explosion. Even when that doesn’t happen, Kang said he’s seen plenty of painful scalding injuries caused by hot oil.

    AVOID THE “TRIPLE-DEMIC”

    Thanksgiving gatherings also kick off a spike in other ER visits as generations gather and swap germs. This year, the danger posed by COVID-19 and other viruses, including an early flu season and RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, is a continuing worry, Kang said. Babies and young children are particularly vulnerable to some infections; older people are more susceptible to others. “What age group is not at risk?” Kang said. To reduce the chances of infection and serious illness, make sure everyone eligible is up-to-date on vaccinations. Ask folks who have any symptoms of illness — even “allergies” or “just a cold” — to stay home. Consider asking guests to take a rapid COVID-19 test before they show up. Make sure your home is well-ventilated: Open windows, keep a portable air purifier running. To protect the most vulnerable guests, consider wearing masks indoors.

    BE MINDFUL OF YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

    Hosting — or joining — a Thanksgiving holiday event after nearly three years of a tumultuous pandemic may be a challenge. It’s important to have realistic expectations — and to plan ahead to avoid familiar family pitfalls, according to the American Psychological Association. Take time for yourself. Despite the pressure of the holidays, don’t forgo your healthy routine. If you usually exercise, make time for a long walk, APA experts say: “Reflect on aspects of your life that give you joy.” Set boundaries in advance. If you’re worried about conflicts or heated discussions at your holiday table, the APA suggests making sure every knows Thanksgiving is a time to focus on “gratitude, appreciation and all you have, including each other.”

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Georgia runoff: Why one Senate seat is crucial for Democrats

    Georgia runoff: Why one Senate seat is crucial for Democrats

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats have secured their majority in the Senate for the next two years. But holding on to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock’s seat in Georgia’s runoff next month could be crucial to their success.

    If Warnock wins the runoff against Republican Herschel Walker, Democrats will have 51 seats. That would make legislating a lot easier than it is in the current 50-50 Senate, the narrowest possible balance of power. For the last two years, Democrats have had to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris — she is the president of the Senate — to break ties.

    Republicans and Democrats are spending millions of dollars to win the seat in the Dec. 6 runoff in Georgia after neither Warnock nor Walker, a famed former football player, won the necessary 50 percent margin to triumph on Election Day. Warnock beat Sen. Kelly Loeffler in a 2020 special election and is now vying for a full six-year term.

    A 50-50 Senate “slows everything down,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in an interview last week. “So it makes a big difference to us.”

    A look at what a 51st seat would mean for Senate Democrats:

    OUTRIGHT MAJORITY

    A 51-49 Senate would give Democrats an outright majority, meaning that Schumer wouldn’t have to negotiate a power-sharing agreement with Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The two parties had to do that two years ago and also in 2001, the last time the Senate was evenly split.

    In early 2021, confirmations of new President Joe Biden’s nominees were stalled for several weeks while Schumer and McConnell worked out an agreement on how to split committees and move legislation on the Senate floor. Using the little leverage he had, McConnell threatened not to finalize a deal until Democrats promised that they wouldn’t try to kill the legislative filibuster that forces a 60-vote threshold.

    The Republican leader finally relented after two Democratic senators — West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema — made it clear they would not support such a move on the filibuster.

    COMMITTEE BALANCE

    Committees are now evenly split between the two parties due to the 50-50 power-sharing deal. This often creates extra steps when a committee vote is tied, forcing Democrats to hold votes on the Senate floor to move ahead with bills or nominees.

    Should they win an outright 51-seat majority, Democrats would likely hold an extra seat on every committee, making it much easier to move nominees or legislation on party-line votes.

    Biden, a longtime senator before becoming president, acknowledged this reality after Democrats clinched 50 seats and the Senate majority.

    “It’s always better with 51, because we’re in a situation where you don’t have to have an even makeup of the committees,” Biden said. “And so that’s why it’s important, mostly. But it’s just simply better. The bigger the numbers, the better.”

    THE JOE MANCHIN PROBLEM

    The extra seat would also give Democrats the ability to pass bills while losing one vote within their caucus — a luxury they haven’t had over the last two years. Manchin, a moderate from conservative West Virginia, often used the narrow margin to his advantage, forcing Democrats to bend to his will on several pieces of legislation.

    Manchin’s opposition to Biden’s sweeping health, climate and economic package stalled it for months, until Schumer negotiated a narrower version with the West Virginia senator. In the end, several of Biden’s legislative priorities were left out.

    That pressure could be even more acute in the next Congress, as Manchin and Sinema, a fellow moderate, are both up for reelection and will want to prove their bipartisan credentials.

    CONFIRMING JUDGES

    With Republicans taking charge of the House majority next year, Democrats won’t have much of a chance to pass major legislation. So one of Schumer’s main priorities will be confirming judges nominated by Biden in the last two years of his term.

    A rules change under former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a decade ago allowed the Senate to pass judges with only a simple majority, or 51 votes. Winning Warnock’s seat would make that process easier and more expedient.

    “We’ve been able to achieve a lot, but we can do even more with additional senator,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    FREE KAMALA HARRIS

    The vice president has already broken 26 tied votes as vice president — twice as many as Mike Pence did in his four years in the job. Biden never broke a tie in his eight years as vice president.

    The need to break tie votes requires Harris to keep close to Washington. A 51st vote would free up the vice president somewhat, allowing her to be out of town when the Senate is holding important votes.

    In a speech earlier this year, Harris noted that she had broken President John Adams’ record of casting the most tie-breaking votes in a single term.

    “I think we should all fully appreciate how history can take a turn,” Harris said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • A rail strike looms and impact on US economy could be broad

    A rail strike looms and impact on US economy could be broad

    [ad_1]

    OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — American consumers and nearly every industry will be affected if freight trains grind to a halt next month.

    One of the biggest rail unions rejected its deal Monday, joining three others that have failed to approve contracts over concerns about demanding schedules and the lack of paid sick time. That raises the risk of a strike, which could start as soon as Dec. 9 under a deadline that was pushed back Tuesday.

    It wouldn’t take long for the effects of a rail strike to trickle through the economy. Many businesses only have a few days’ worth of raw materials and space for finished goods. Makers of food, fuel, cars and chemicals would all feel the squeeze, as would their customers.

    That’s not to mention the commuters who would be left stranded because many passenger railroads use tracks owned by the freight railroads.

    The stakes are so high for the economy that Congress is expected to intervene and impose contract terms on railroad workers. The last time U.S. railroads went on strike was in 1992. That strike lasted two days before Congress intervened. An extended rail shutdown has not happened for a century, partly because a law passed in 1926 that governs rail negotiations made it much harder for workers to strike.

    Here are some of the expected impacts of a rail strike:

    $2 BILLION A DAY

    Railroads haul about 40% of the nation’s freight each year. The railroads estimated that a rail strike would cost the economy $2 billion a day in a report issued earlier this fall. Another recent report put together by a chemical industry trade group projected that if a strike drags on for a month some 700,000 jobs would be lost as manufacturers who rely on railroads shut down, prices of nearly everything increase even more and the economy is potentially thrust into a recession.

    And although some businesses would try to shift shipments over to trucks, there aren’t nearly enough of them available. The Association of American Railroads trade group estimated that 467,000 additional trucks a day would be needed to handle everything railroads deliver.

    CHEMICALS RUN DRY

    Chemical manufacturers and refineries will be some of the first businesses affected, because railroads will stop shipping hazardous chemicals about a week before the strike deadline to ensure that no tank cars filled with dangerous liquids wind up stranded.

    Jeff Sloan with the American Chemistry Council trade group said chemical plants could be close to shutting down by the time a rail strike actually begins because of that.

    That means the chlorine that water treatment plants rely on to purify water, which they might only have about a week’s supply of on hand, would become hard to get. It would be hard for manufacturers to make anything out of plastic without the chemicals that are part of the formula. Consumers will also pay more for gasoline if refineries shut down, either because they can’t get the ingredients they need to make fuel or because railroads aren’t available to haul away byproducts like sulfur.

    Chemical plants also produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct, so the supply of carbon dioxide that beverage makers use to carbonate soda and beer would also be restricted, even though the gas typically moves via pipelines.

    PASSENGER PROBLEMS

    Roughly half of all commuter rail systems rely at least in part on tracks that are owned by freight railroads, and nearly all of Amtrak’s long-distance trains run over the freight network.

    Back in September, Amtrak canceled all of its long-distance trains days ahead of the strike deadline to ensure passengers wouldn’t be left stranded in remote parts of the country while still en route to their destination.

    And major commuter rail services in Chicago, Minneapolis, Maryland and Washington state all warned then that some of their operations would be suspended in the event of a rail strike.

    FOOD FEARS

    It would take about a week for customers to notice shortages of things like cereal, peanut butter and beer at the grocery store, said Tom Madrecki, vice president of supply chain for the Consumer Brands Association.

    About 30% of all packaged food in the U.S. is moved by rail, he said. That percentage is much higher for denser, heavier items like cans of soup.

    Some products, like cereal, cooking oils and beer, have entire operations built around rail deliveries of raw ingredients like grain, barley and peanuts, along with shipments of finished products.

    Those companies typically keep only two to four days’ worth of raw ingredients on hand because it’s expensive to store them, Madrecki said, and grocers also keep a limited supply of products on hand.

    Madrecki said big food companies don’t like to discuss the threat of a rail strike because of worries about product shortages can lead to panic buying.

    HUNGRY HERDS

    Any disruption in rail service could threaten the health of chickens and pigs, which depend on trains to deliver their feed, and contribute to higher meat prices.

    “Our members rely on about 27 million bushels of corn and 11 million bushels of soybean meal every week to feed their chickens. Much of that is moved by rail,” said Tom Super, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council, a trade group for the industry raising chickens for meat.

    The National Grain and Feed Association said a rail strike now would hit pork and chicken producers in the southern U.S. hardest, because their local supply of corn and soybeans from this year’s harvest is likely exhausted and they’d have to ship feed by truck, dramatically increasing costs.

    “They only have so much storage. They can’t go without rail service for too long before they’d have to shut down the feed mills and they run into problems,” said Max Fisher, the NGFA’s chief economist.

    RETAIL RISKS

    Jess Dankert, the vice president for supply chain at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, said retailers’ inventory is largely in place for the holidays. But the industry is developing contingency plans.

    “We don’t see, you know, canceling Christmas and that kind of narrative,” Dankert said. “But I think we will see the generalized disruption of really anything that moves by rail.”

    David Garfield, a managing director with the consulting firm AlixPartners, said a rail strike could still impact holiday items shipped to stores later in December, and would definitely hamper stocking of next season’s goods.

    Retailers are also concerned about online orders. Shippers like FedEx and UPS use rail cars that hold roughly 2,000 packages in each car.

    AUTOMOBILE ANGST

    Drivers are already paying record prices and often waiting months for new vehicles because of the production problems in the auto industry related to the shortage of computer chips in recent years.

    That would only get worse if there is a rail strike, because roughly 75% of all new vehicles begin their journey from factories to dealerships on the railroad. Trains deliver some 2,000 carloads a day filled with vehicles.

    And automakers may have a hard time keeping their plants running during a strike because some larger parts and raw materials are transported by rail.

    ___

    Associated Press Writers David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa, and Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘Stock up on blankets’: Ukrainians brace for horrific winter

    ‘Stock up on blankets’: Ukrainians brace for horrific winter

    [ad_1]

    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainians could face rolling blackouts from now through March in frigid, snowy weather because Russian airstrikes have caused “colossal” damage to the power grid, officials said. To cope, authorities are urging people to stock up on supplies and evacuate hard-hit areas.

    Sergey Kovalenko, the CEO of private energy provider DTEK Yasno, said the company is under instructions from Ukraine’s state grid operator to resume emergency blackouts in the areas it covers, including the capital, Kyiv, and the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

    “Although there are fewer blackouts now, I want everyone to understand: Most likely, Ukrainians will have to live with blackouts until at least the end of March,” Kovalenko warned on Facebook.

    “We need to be prepared for different options, even the worst ones. Stock up on warm clothes and blankets. Think about what will help you wait out a long shutdown,” he told Ukrainian residents.

    Russia has launched six massive aerial attacks against Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure since Oct. 10, as the war approaches its nine-month mark. That targeted onslaught has caused widespread blackouts and deprived millions of Ukrainians of electricity, heat and water.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday in a video speech to a French municipal group that Russian missile strikes have destroyed nearly half of the country’s energy facilities “to turn the cold of winter into a weapon of mass destruction.” Later, in his nightly video address, he announced the establishment of “Points of Invincibility” where people can gather for electricity, mobile communications, internet access, heat, water, and first aid.

    Temperatures commonly stay below freezing in Ukraine in the winter, and snow has already fallen in many areas, including Kyiv. Ukrainian authorities are evacuating civilians from recently liberated sections of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions out of fear the winter will be too hard to survive.

    Heeding the call, women and children — including a little red-headed boy whose shirt read in English “Made with Love” — carried their limited belongings, along with dogs and cats, onto trains departing from the newly liberated city of Kherson.

    “We are leaving now because it’s scary to sleep at night,” departing resident Tetyana Stadnik said on a cramped night sleeper train Monday as a dog wandered around. “Shells are flying over our heads and exploding. It’s too much. We will wait until the situation gets better. And then we will come back home.”

    Another resident said leaving was the right thing to do to help the country.

    “No one wants to leave their homes. But they’re even advising (to leave). They’d have to warm us up, when it’s needed for other people. If we have an opportunity to leave, we can at least help Ukraine with something,” Alexandra Barzenkova said as she sat on a train bunk bed.

    More hardship was in store for those remaining.

    The repeated Russian attacks — with the most severe on Nov. 15 involving 100 heavy rockets — have damaged practically every thermal and hydroelectric power plant, and “the scale of destruction is colossal,” Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of Ukrenergo, the state-owned power grid operator, said Tuesday. In addition, electric substations have been damaged, while nuclear power plants have largely been spared, he said.

    Kyiv regional authorities said Tuesday that more than 150 settlements were enduring emergency blackouts because of snowfall and high winds.

    Slowed by the weather, Ukrainian forces are pressing a counteroffensive while Moscow’s troops maintain artillery shelling and missile strikes.

    In a key battlefield development, Natalia Humeniuk of the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South said on Ukrainian television that Kyiv’s forces are attacking Russian positions on the Kinburn Spit, a gateway to the Black Sea basin, as well as parts of the southern Kherson region still under Russian control.

    The Kinburn Spit is Russia’s last outpost in Ukraine’s southern Mykolayiv region, directly west of Kherson. Ukrainian forces recently liberated other parts of the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. Moscow has used the Kinburn Spit as a staging ground for missile and artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Mykolaiv province, and elsewhere along the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea coast.

    Recapturing the Kinburn Spit could help Ukrainian forces push into Russian-held territory in the Kherson region “under significantly less Russian artillery fire” than if they directly crossed the Dnieper River, a Washington-based think tank said. The Institute for the Study of War added that control of the area would help Kyiv alleviate Russian strikes on Ukraine’s southern seaports and allow it to increase its naval activity in the Black Sea.

    In the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters city of Sevastopol, Russian-installed Gov. Mikhail Razvozhaev said air defense systems intercepted at least two drones, including those targeting a power station. Zelenskyy has vowed to recapture the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, but his government didn’t immediately comment on the Russian report.

    In other developments:

    — Ukraine’s counter-intelligence service, police officers and the country’s National Guard on Tuesday searched one of the most famous Orthodox Christian sites in Kyiv after a priest spoke favorably about Russia during a service.

    — Ukraine’s presidential office said Tuesday that at least eight civilians were killed and 16 were injured over the previous 24 hours, as Moscow’s forces again used drones, rockets and heavy artillery to pound eight Ukrainian regions.

    —In the eastern Donetsk region, fierce battles continued around Bakhmut, where the Kremlin’s forces are keen to clinch a victory after weeks of embarrassing military setbacks. Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko also said Russia launched missiles at Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian military hub, and the city of Avdiivka. Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman hinted at clashes near the Donetsk village of Pavlivka, saying Russian troops “destroyed” three Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance units.

    — One civilian was killed and three others wounded after Russian forces shelled the city of Kherson, Ukraine’s presidential office said.

    — Two civilians died Tuesday in the Russian border region of Belgorod, its governor said on Telegram. Vyacheslav Gladkov said a married couple were killed by an unexploded munition in Staroselye, on the border with Ukraine’s northern Sumy region. He said a woman was killed in shelling of Shebekino, close to Ukraine’s Kharkiv province.

    — A social worker was killed and two other civilians were wounded Tuesday after Russian tank shells hit an aid distribution point in southern Ukraine, according to the governor of Zaporizhzhia.

    — Ukrainian officials on Tuesday handed over the bodies of 33 soldiers recovered from Russia to their families.

    — The U.S. announced disbursement of $4.5 billion to help stabilize Ukraine’s economy and support key Ukrainian government functions. The package will help fund wages for hospital workers, government employees and teachers, as well as social assistance for the elderly and vulnerable.

    ___

    Follow all AP stories about the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Supreme Court OKs handover of Trump tax returns to Congress

    Supreme Court OKs handover of Trump tax returns to Congress

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for the imminent handover of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee after a three-year legal fight.

    The court, with no noted dissents, rejected Trump’s plea for an order that would have prevented the Treasury Department from giving six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.

    Alone among recent presidents, Trump refused to release his tax returns either during his successful 2016 campaign or his four years in the White House, citing what he said was an ongoing audit by the IRS. Last week, Trump announced he would run again in 2024.

    It was the former president’s second loss at the Supreme Court in as many months, and third this year. In October, the court refused to step into the legal fight surrounding the FBI search of Trump’s Florida estate that turned up classified documents.

    In January, the court refused to stop the National Archives from turning over documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Justice Clarence Thomas was the only vote in Trump’s favor.

    In the dispute over his tax returns, the Treasury Department had refused to provide the records during Trump’s presidency. But the Biden administration said federal law is clear that the committee has the right to examine any taxpayer’s return, including the president’s.

    Lower courts agreed that the committee has broad authority to obtain tax returns and rejected Trump’s claims that it was overstepping and only wanted the documents so they could be made public.

    Chief Justice John Roberts imposed a temporary freeze on Nov. 1 to allow the court to weigh the legal issues raised by Trump’s lawyers and the counter arguments of the administration and the House of Representatives.

    Just over three weeks later, the court lifted Roberts’ order without comment.

    Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the committee chairman until the next Congress begins in January, said in a statement that his committee “will now conduct the oversight that we’ve sought for the last three and a half years.”

    In a message on his social media network, Trump said the Supreme Court’s action created “terrible precedent for future Presidents.” He accused the court of becoming “nothing more than a political body, with our country paying the price.”

    He also said: “Why would anybody be surprised that the Supreme Court has ruled against me, they always do!”

    The House contended an order preventing the IRS from providing the tax returns would leave lawmakers “little or no time to complete their legislative work during this Congress, which is quickly approaching its end.”

    Had Trump persuaded the nation’s highest court to intervene, he could have run out the clock on the committee, with Republicans ready to take control of the House in January. They almost certainly would have dropped the records request if the issue had not been resolved by then.

    The House Ways and Means panel first requested Trump’s tax returns in 2019 as part of an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s audit program and tax law compliance by the former president. A federal law says the Internal Revenue Service “shall furnish” the returns of any taxpayer to a handful of top lawmakers.

    The Justice Department under the Trump administration had defended a decision by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to withhold the tax returns from Congress. Mnuchin argued that he could withhold the documents because he concluded they were being sought by Democrats for partisan reasons. A lawsuit ensued.

    After President Joe Biden took office, the committee renewed the request, seeking Trump’s tax returns and additional information from 2015-2020. The White House took the position that the request was a valid one and that the Treasury Department had no choice but to comply. Trump then attempted to halt the handover in court.

    Then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. obtained copies of Trump’s personal and business tax records as part of a criminal investigation. That case, too, went to the Supreme Court, which rejected Trump’s argument that he had broad immunity as president.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    [ad_1]

    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Split-ticket voting in Arizona isn’t a sign of fraud

    CLAIM: The fact that incumbent Republican state treasurer Kimberly Yee got tens of thousands more votes than GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake shows the Arizona election was rigged.

    THE FACTS: While Yee did get more votes, that isn’t proof of fraud. Many Arizona voters, including Republicans and independents, have a history of voting for candidates from both political parties. That continued this cycle. But as Lake lost her gubernatorial bid to Democrat Katie Hobbs in Arizona on Monday, social media users baselessly suggested that the fact that Yee garnered more votes than Lake was a sign of manipulation. “It makes no mathematical sense that the GOP State Treasurer just won reelection by 250,000 votes, but none of those voters also felt like voting for Kari Lake,” one Twitter user wrote Monday in a tweet shared over 7,000 times. Far from being a sign of election fraud, such results in Arizona indicate that voters picked candidates from both political parties or voted in some races and not others, experts and political operatives say. In fact, such voter behavior was common in 2022 in elections across the country. “Split-ticket voters are very common,” said Paul Bentz, a Republican pollster in Phoenix. “It happens all of the time. It speaks to the various strengths or drawbacks of a particular candidate.” Arizona voters in particular have a track record of not always voting along party lines. In 2018, many Arizona voters opted for Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, who was running for U.S. Senate, and incumbent Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Bentz said. And in this election, Republican Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell fended off her Democratic challenger, outperforming Lake. Lake, Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters and Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, all of whom lost, were all endorsed by Trump and promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Johnny Melton, acting chair of the Legislative District 29 Republicans in Maricopa County, said he personally knows Republicans and right-leaning independents who didn’t vote for candidates like Lake and Finchem due to their embrace of election conspiracies. “Of course I know people who either split or just withheld their vote,” Melton said.

    — Associated Press writer Josh Kelety in Phoenix contributed this report.

    ___

    Posts misrepresent Arizona official’s ballot comments

    CLAIM: Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates admitted that tens of thousands of early ballots dropped off on Election Day were mishandled when he said during a CNN interview, “We do not know where these are from.”

    THE FACTS: The interview clip circulating on social media doesn’t show Gates admitting to misconduct. He was responding to a specific question from a CNN host about the geographic origin of absentee ballots in a batch that had just been tabulated. Social media users shared a clip of the Nov. 11 CNN interview with Gates, suggesting that it showed him admitting that tens of thousands of ballots were mishandled. “We do not know where these are from. These could be from anywhere in the county,” Gates said in the clip, referring to ballots tabulated that day. “This is not picked out of a certain area, these are not pulled by precinct.” Archived video of the complete interview shows Gates was responding to a question from CNN news anchor John King about the geographic origin of ballots in a batch of roughly 75,000 tabulated ballots released that day. King specifically asked about “late-earlies,” referring to absentee ballots that were mailed to voters ahead of the election and dropped off at voting sites on Election Day. King said, “Are we now, in the sense that you have a giant county, it’s 9,200 plus square miles, do you know, the ones that were released tonight, are they from the central Phoenix area, the more close-in suburbs that tend to be more Democratic?” In his response, which is where the clip circulating on social media begins, Gates explains that the majority of the 75,000 ballots were late-earlies, and he could not comment on their origin because of the way they are cast and tabulated in Maricopa. Almost all of Arizona’s vote happens by mail, although some voters cast their ballots in-person at voting centers. Election officials then release their vote totals in batches. Maricopa County allows voters to cast absentee ballots at any one of 223 vote centers across the county. Ballots dropped off on Election Day are driven to a central tabulation facility in downtown Phoenix. Those that arrive at the facility first get priority. Therefore, any batch of Maricopa votes could contain ballots from all over the county. The social media users sharing the clip of Gates are “misrepresenting what the chairman said,” Fields Moseley, a spokesperson for Maricopa County, wrote in an email to the AP. “While the chairman doesn’t know where every batch of ballots came from, our elections workers can account for all of them through documentation and chain of custody,” he wrote.

    — Josh Kelety

    ___

    States report election results at different speeds

    CLAIM: Florida’s ability to report election results quickly during the 2022 midterms means states that have taken longer, such as Arizona and Nevada, are engaged in fraud.

    THE FACTS: Florida has measures in place to speed up its count on Election Day. But the fact that Florida reports results faster than other states does not mean that those states are committing fraud, elections experts told the AP. Election officials repeatedly warned prior to the 2022 midterm elections that results in some states might not be known for days. Despite this, many falsely suggested the length of time is correlated with election integrity. Some compared Florida — which had finished counting its ballots, except those from overseas, by Wednesday — to Arizona and Nevada. “This is absurd. Arizona and Nevada have a lot fewer voters than Florida and yet they take days longer to tally the results,” one tweet said. “Total fraud.” Arizona had nearly 14,000 ballots left to count on Thursday. Sophia Solis, a spokesperson for the Arizona secretary of state’s office, told the AP that no counties in Arizona had fully reported their unofficial results by midnight on Election Day. In Nevada, all 17 counties submitted initial tallies, including in-person vote reports, to election administrators by the early morning hours of Nov. 9, Jennifer Russell, an aide to Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, told the AP Wednesday. However, the state accepted mail ballots postmarked by Election Day until Saturday, and had 22,000 left to process in the state’s largest county, Clark, the day of the deadline, Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said at a press conference. But states’ reporting speeds largely reflect the different ways absentee and mail-in ballots are processed in each jurisdiction, election experts told the AP. “There are many reasons Florida counts quicker than other states, or other states haven’t completed their counts yet, and it has nothing to do with fraud in other states,” Michael Morley, an election law expert and professor at Florida State University, wrote in an email. One of the main differences is how soon before Election Day officials are allowed to begin pre-processing early ballots, which may involve confirming their validity or scanning them, Morley wrote. Under state law, Florida officials can start this process nearly a month before Election Day. By contrast, Arizona counties did not send mail ballots to voters until Oct. 12 and the earliest they went out in Nevada was Oct. 7. Florida was required to send mail ballots no later than Sept. 24. Another key difference is whether states accept mail ballots after Election Day. In Florida, most mail ballots must be received by 7 p.m. local time on Election Day. Most early and mail voting results must be reported to the Florida Department of State starting within 30 minutes after the polls close and continuing every 45 minutes until all results are reported. Nevada, however, accepts mail ballots up to 5 p.m. four days after the election as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. Arizona’s deadline is the same as Florida’s, local time. Still, there is nothing unusual or improper about votes being counted after Election Day, said Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. Morley explained that other differences that may speed up reporting include staffing levels, available equipment, the length of time needed to verify each ballot and how long after Election Day voters are able to fix, or “cure,” their ballots if any problems are found.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report with additional reporting from Ken Ritter in Las Vegas.

    ___

    Posts spin baseless theory about FTX, Ukraine and Democrats

    CLAIM: U.S. aid to Ukraine was laundered back to the Democratic Party through the failed cryptocurrency exchange firm FTX.

    THE FACTS: These claims misrepresent a short-term initiative in Ukraine that used FTX to convert cryptocurrency donations for the war effort into government-issued currency. The Ukrainian government has not invested nor stored money in FTX, according to the country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. FTX, the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11 amid news it was short billions of dollars and may have been hacked. Sam Bankman-Fried, the company’s CEO, resigned the same day. The moves have fueled baseless conspiracy theories. “So Biden gave loads of money to Ukraine, who gave loads of money to FTX, who gave loads of money to Democrats,” reads one tweet with over 100,000 likes. No evidence has been presented to support the claims. Still, they have been shared by U.S. lawmakers, prominent Republicans and Russian accounts. Ukraine’s government “never invested any funds into FTX,” Alex Bornyakov, the deputy minister of digital transformation in Ukraine said on Twitter on Monday. After Russia invaded Ukraine, a new crypto fundraising foundation called Aid For Ukraine began taking donations to help the Ukrainian war effort, the ministry said in an emailed statement to the AP on Wednesday. The ministry said it “provided informational support” to the foundation, which was run by the cryptocurrency exchange Kuna and the blockchain company Everstake. In early March, Aid For Ukraine began working with FTX to convert cryptocurrency donations into Ukraine’s government-issued currency, a partnership that ended in April 2022, according to the ministry. Sergey Vasylchuk, the CEO of Everstake, told the AP that cryptocurrencies were an efficient way to raise funds for Ukraine to defend itself amid Russia’s invasion. He said FTX was only used in the beginning of the war to convert cryptocurrency donations. The donations would then get sent to the National Bank of Ukraine and no crypto was stored on FTX. Michael Chobanian, the founder of the Kuna exchange, said they had converted cryptocurrencies to U.S. dollars through FTX and deposited them in the national bank of Ukraine at the beginning of the war. “That is it,” Chobanian said. The Ministry of Digital Transformation added that it “has never funded FTX” and “has never worked with any political party of the United States of America.” It’s true that Bankman-Fried has been a major Democratic donor. FEC records show that he made significant donations to Democratic candidates and PACS this year. However, he has also made contributions to some Republican candidates and conservative-leaning PACS. FTX’s co-CEO Ryan Salame also donated to groups that supported Republican candidates in 2022. White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said any claim that U.S. assistance to Ukraine has “been diverted to aid American political parties is unequivocally false and not grounded in reality.” Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson at the State Department, said there’s “no reason to believe that these reports are anything but pure falsehoods and misinformation.” A spokesperson for the U.S. Agency for International Development said safeguards put in place by the World Bank, coupled with expert third-party monitoring support within the Ukrainian government, ensure accountability around the use of the funds. FTX and lawyers representing the company did not respond to requests for comment.

    — Associated Press writers Ali Swenson in New York and Karena Phan in Los Angeles contributed this report with additional reporting from Thalia Beaty in New York.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • In Pelosi, women admire a leader with calm, cool confidence

    In Pelosi, women admire a leader with calm, cool confidence

    [ad_1]

    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — As they watched House Speaker Nancy Pelosi step forward to wrangle an unruly Congress over the years or stare down a bombastic president, many women across the country saw a version of the calm, confident leader they hoped to be themselves.

    Pelosi, in rooms full of powerful men, was tenacious, tactical, tough. All while being a devoted mother and grandmother at home. And rarely finding the need to raise her voice.

    “The image of her coming out in the red coat was just always amusing to me because it just kind of personified how badass she is,” said Gina Lind, 61, of Phoenix, a marketing director for an airline. “It completely represented a woman in quiet control.”

    After her announcement this week that she would step down from Democratic leadership after two decades, many people reposted that meme of Pelosi confidently striding out of the Trump White House in sunglasses and a long red coat following a tense meeting. The moment was a reminder of how Pelosi, the first woman to become House speaker, redefined outdated expectations about the role of women in the highest levels of government.

    Fans of Pelosi, a California Democrat, have taped the image to their refrigerator, downloaded it as a screensaver or emblazoned it on coffee mugs. They likewise savor the photos of her confronting then-President Donald Trump in the White House Cabinet Room or ripping up his final State of the Union speech.

    “When I look at that (Cabinet Room) picture, I think, ‘Okay, stand up and say what you have to say,’” said Kelly Haggerty, 49, an engineer for the city of Syracuse, New York, who works on construction projects and often finds herself, like Pelosi, squaring off in a room full of men.

    “I mean, these guys across the table from me are not the president of the United States, but it’s not fun to always be the only woman in the room,” said Haggerty, who called the photo inspiring. “I did put it on my refrigerator because I have two teenage girls, and I want them to be the same way. I don’t want them to ever stand down,” she said.

    Like many other women of her generation, Pelosi did not formally start her career until she was in her late 40s and her five children were mostly grown. But her father had been in politics, serving first as the mayor of Baltimore and then in Congress. And Pelosi, in her leadership farewell speech from the House floor on Thursday, recalled being awed by the sight of the Capitol building at the age of 6.

    “Make no mistake, though, she’s been in politics since she was born, whether she was running for office or not,” said Rep. Karen Bass, a fellow California Democrat who is now the incoming mayor of Los Angeles.

    In her view, Pelosi embraces her power without being “heavy-handed about it.” She credits Pelosi with standing firm during the tumultuous Trump years.

    “Women do lead differently, and have to leverage their power in a way that is just different, and I think she has perfected that,” she said. “(But) if anybody has to go up against her, good luck.”

    And that female strength and tenacity are what angers people about Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and other female leaders, some women believe.

    “People expect us to be nice all the time. If and when we don’t behave in that particular ‘box,’ people can get pretty emotional and angry about that,” said Maryland state Sen. Sarah Elfreth, 34, a Democrat.

    “I think she took an undue amount of criticism for doing the job the same way and often times better than men had done that job,” Elfreth said. “And in doing so she paves the way for other women in elected office to be just as tough and just as resilient.”

    If the country has yet to see a female president, the younger generations have at least seen Pelosi and a growing number of other women in Congress working beside her. When Pelosi first came to Congress in 1987, she had only two dozen female colleagues among the 535 lawmakers. This year, there are 147 women in the House and Senate — and a growing number of female governors.

    “I think we take for granted how that (Pelosi’s leadership) has transformed what it means to be a woman in power, maybe what it means to be a woman executive, and I think that in years to come we’ll be especially grateful to her for breaking that glass ceiling,” said Cecilia Ritacco, a 22-year-old graduate student in government studies at Georgetown University.

    ___ Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

    Ohio’s Intel project triggers housing fears in tight market

    [ad_1]

    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Intel’s announcement earlier this year of a $20 billion manufacturing operation bringing thousands of jobs to rural Ohio was greeted as an economic boon.

    But behind that enthusiasm lurked a pressing question.

    “Where are we putting everybody?” asked Melissa Humbert-Washington, vice president of programs and services at Homes for Families, which helps low-wage workers find housing in a region already suffering a major shortage.

    Intel says its initial two computer chip factories will employ 3,000 people when the operation is up and running in 2025. The project is also expected to employ 7,000 construction workers. And none of that includes the hundreds of additional jobs as Intel suppliers move in, along with the expected boom in the service sector.

    Such housing challenges are playing out across the country as companies increasingly come under fire for failing to consider the shelter needs of their new employees or the impact big developments will have on already tight housing markets.

    Experts agree that years of underbuilding dating to the Great Recession of 2008 has caused widespread housing shortages. Nationally, the country is short about 1 million homes, according to Rob Dietz, senior economist at the National Association of Home Builders. The National Apartment Association estimates a rental shortage of about 600,000 units.

    “We have underbuilt housing by millions of homes over the past 15 years,” said Dennis Shea, executive director of the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. “So when a big company comes into a community that is supply constrained, the demand that they’re going to inject … is going to affect home prices and rental prices because there’s more demand than supply.”

    For a big company’s impact on housing, look no farther than Intel’s own operations in Chandler, Arizona, which grew from a small agricultural city of about 30,000 in 1980 when the company built its first factory to a high-tech metropolis of 220,000 today. That was accompanied by tremendous housing growth, and today Chandler is running out of developable land, with nearly 95% of the area built out with residential, office, industrial and retail projects, according to the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.

    Housing is also more expensive in Chandler, with a median home sale price of $525,000 compared to $455,000 in greater Phoenix, and median rents of $2,027 compared to $1,950 in Phoenix.

    The challenge for areas like rural Ohio is that they don’t have local employees to build or staff a large project, said Mark Stapp, director of the Center for Real Estate Theory and Practice at Arizona State University. There’s neither the housing nor the infrastructure to accommodate the thousands of new arrivals, increasing housing prices and possibly forcing existing residents out.

    “It’s economic development. It’s going to employ people. But you are probably going to have to bring a lot of people into the area,” he said. And “those jobs require housing.”

    “If you don’t recognize that and don’t properly plan infrastructure, land use policies and manage that growth, it can be a big problem. The great opportunity turns into a big problem.”

    In central Ohio, the Intel site is rising on hundreds of acres of rural land once occupied by farm fields and modest homes where large business parks have also sprung up near major thoroughfares. The region has averaged about 8,200 building permits per year for both single-family and multi-unit buildings, even as job and population growth estimates predating the Intel project called for more than twice that, according to the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio.

    “We’re not building enough of anything,” said the group’s executive director Jon Melchi. Central Ohio, with about 2.4 million residents today, will grow to at least 3 million by 2050, the group said.

    The central Ohio shortage includes the “missing middle” of workforce housing, or homes up to $250,000, said Tre’ Giller, CEO and president of Metro Development, one of Ohio’s largest apartment developers. A recent Zillow search showed only about 570 listings for homes $250,000 or less in the area.

    The housing pressure is especially intense for low-wage workers. Central Ohio already has about 71,000 households considered “severely rent burdened” — families spending more than half their income on housing, said the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. The region has only 34 affordable units available for every 100 low-rent households, it said.

    The problem is even more severe in Licking County, home to the future Intel plants, where more than one in five renters are considered severely rent burdened.

    Affordable housing is crucial for the low-wage workers who keep the economy running, from pre-school teachers to medical assistants, said COHIO executive director Amy Riegel. But housing also has to be viewed on a spectrum: Without enough higher-end properties to purchase, buyers will snap up rentals, which then shuts out workers of limited means.

    “Housing is definitely an ecosystem,” Riegel said. “If you add housing at one end, and don’t take care of the other end, it has an impact and a ripple effect through the whole system.”

    On the Nov. 8 ballot, Columbus voters approved a $200 million bond issue aimed at increasing the city’s affordable housing stock for homeowners earning less than $50,000 annually. “We simply do not have enough places for people to live,” Mayor Andrew Ginther said in announcing the issue in July.

    Janna Sharrett is grateful for her apartment in an affordable housing complex in suburban Columbus as the region braces for Intel’s arrival and its real estate impact. The 60-year-old customer service rep works from home and earns just $14.94 an hour. Her rent on the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her dog, Bella, and cat, Daisy, is $695.

    The $6.5 million, 28-unit building where Sharrett lives was developed by Homeport, a Columbus-based nonprofit that works to expand affordable housing. Sharrett moved in two years ago seeking relief from a $1,000 rent payment, and today isn’t sure what she’d do without it.

    She worries about the needs of people like herself as the region grows through projects such as Intel.

    “Rent is outrageous. Prices of homes are outrageous. And my income is not outrageous,” Sharrett said.

    Across the country, a growing number of companies are responding to housing concerns by rolling out ambitious plans for thousands of units of new housing — though efforts fall far short of actual needs.

    In 2021, Amazon launched its $2 billion Housing Equity Fund to create over 8,000 affordable homes across three regions where it operates: the Puget Sound in Washington state; Arlington, Virginia, and Nashville, Tennessee.

    In 2019, Apple said it would commit $2.5 billion toward easing California’s housing crisis, one of a number of initiatives by high tech companies. This month Walt Disney World picked a developer to construct affordable housing on 80 acres of its land in Orange County, Florida.

    Intel, too, looks forward to partnering with Ohio community leaders to prepare for the increased housing demand over the next few years, said Intel spokesperson Linda Qian, without providing details.

    Experts say it’s in Intel’s best interest to contribute toward alleviating the region’s housing shortage. Employers in greater Columbus already blame high worker turnover and reduced productivity on long commute times, according to a report by the Affordable Housing Alliance of Central Ohio.

    “Without the housing product it can easily stifle the workforce needs of Intel and others,” said Jamie Green, a Columbus-based planning consultant.

    As the Intel project unfolds, it highlights the challenges ahead, said Leah Evans, president and CEO of Homeport, which developed Sharrett’s affordable apartment complex.

    “This just brought to light that for every one job you create, you’ve got a commute and you’ve got a housing unit” need, Evans said. “You have to be thinking about all those things.”

    ___

    Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link