The Full Belmonte, 10/7/2022
Nobel peace prize given to human rights activists in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine
Jailed campaigner Ales Bialiatski, Memorial and Center for Civil Liberties win award that will be seen as condemnation of Putin
“The jailed Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties have won the 2022 Nobel peace prize, in an award the committee said was to honour champions of ‘peaceful coexistence’ during the most tumultuous period in Europe since the second world war.
‘The peace prize laureates represent civil society in their home countries,’ said Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. ‘They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.’
The committee’s decision will be widely seen as a strong rebuke to Vladimir Putin, who turned 70 on Friday, but Reiss-Andersen said the award was not meant to address the Russian president, also strong ally of the authoritarian Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko.
‘This prize is not addressing President Putin, not for his birthday, or in any other sense – except that his government, as the government in Belarus, is representing an authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists,’ she said.
The committee said it had chosen the three laureates to honour the champions of ‘human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence’ in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
Byalyatski, head of the Belarus rights group Viasna, was detained last July as part of a sweeping crackdown on the opposition by the country’s longtime authoritarian leader, Lukashenko, after huge anti-government demonstrations.
He is the fourth person to receive the Nobel peace prize while in prison or detention, after Carl von Ossietzky of Germany in 1935, Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar in 1991 and Liu Xiaobo of China in 2010.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the Belarusian opposition abroad, congratulated Bialiatski, saying the award was ‘an important recognition for all Belarusians fighting for freedom & democracy’. ‘All political prisoners must be released without delay,’ she wrote on Twitter.
The news was also welcomed in Ukraine, where the Center for Civil Liberties said in a statement it ‘thanks the international community for their support’, and that the prize was ‘very important to us’.
The Centre for Civil Liberties was established in 2007 and has done extensive work documenting Russian war crimes during the seven month-long conflict in Ukraine.
The third recipient, the Russia Memorial group, was shut down by the Kremlin last year, in what was widely seen as a watershed moment in Putin’s crackdown on independent thought. Memorial was founded in the late 1980s to document political repressions carried out under the Soviet Union, building a database of victims of the Great Terror and gulag camps. At the time of closure, Memorial was the country’s oldest human rights group.
Reiss-Andersen said that all three laureates made ‘an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power’.
Friday’s decision was quickly applauded by human rights activists in the region.” Read more at The Guardian
NYC Mayor Eric Adams declares state of emergency over influx of migrants
By Samantha Beech, CNN
Updated 12:23 PM EDT, Fri October 7, 2022
New York City Mayor Eric Adams
Michael Brochstein/SIPAPRE/Sipa USA/AP
New York CNN —
“Mayor Eric Adams has declared a state of emergency to help respond to the city’s migrant crisis, which he told reporters Friday will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year.
‘We now have a situation where more people are arriving in New York City than we can immediately accommodate, including families with babies and young children,’ Adams said. ‘Once the asylum seekers from today’s buses are provided shelter, we would surpass the highest number of people in recorded history in our city’s shelter system.’
The mayor called for emergency federal and state aid to handle the continued influx of asylum seekers.” Read more at CNN
September Jobs Report Shows Payrolls Grew by 263,000, Labor Market Cooled Some
Unemployment rate edged down to 3.5%, matching a half-century low
The tight U.S. labor market continued to loosen in September.PHOTO: OLIVIER DOULIERY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Updated Oct. 7, 2022 12:06 pm ET
“U.S. employers added 263,000 jobs in September for the 21st straight month of hiring gains, with the total extending a gradual cooling pattern, as high inflation and rising interest rates weighed on the economy.
Last month’s increase in payrolls, while still robust, was slower than the first half of the year when the monthly average was 440,000.
The unemployment rate fell to 3.5% from 3.7% in August, the Labor Department said Friday, matching a half-century low that was last reached in July. The lower rate reflected a decline in the number of people in the labor force.
Labor-force participation has remained stubbornly below where it stood before the pandemic, posing a challenge for the economy. The persistent shortage of available workers is contributing to an imbalance of labor supply and demand, keeping upward pressure on wages and inflation.
Wages rose 5.0% in September from the same month a year earlier, a slightly slower pace than August’s 5.2% annual rate.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Biden pardons all federal offenses of simple marijuana possession in first major steps toward decriminalization
“CNN —
President Joe Biden is taking his first major steps toward decriminalizing marijuana, fulfilling a campaign pledge to erase prior federal possession convrug.
Biden on Thursday pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession, a move that senior administration officials said would affect thousands of Americans charged with that crime.
Smoking weed is now more popular than smoking tobacco
The announcement comes a month ahead of critical November elections that will determine control of Congress. Some candidates – in particular Pennsylvania Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is running for his state’s US Senate seat – have made the issue of marijuana legalization central to their campaigns. When Fetterman and Biden met last month, the candidate said he would raise the issue with the President. At the same time, Democrats have sought to rebuff allegations they are soft on crime, an issue that has risen to the top of some voters’ agendas in certain swing districts.” Read more at CNN
Biden Administration Clamps Down on China’s Access to Chip Technology
The White House issued sweeping restrictions on selling semiconductors and chip-making equipment to China, an attempt to curb the country’s access to critical technologies.
By Ana Swanson
Oct. 7, 2022
“WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Friday announced sweeping new limits on the sale of semiconductor technology to China, a step aimed at crippling Beijing’s ability to access critical technologies that are needed for everything from supercomputing to guiding weapons.
The moves are the clearest sign yet that a dangerous standoff between the world’s two major superpowers is increasingly playing out in the technological sphere, with the U.S. trying to establish a stranglehold on advanced computing and semiconductor technology that are essential to China’s military and economic ambitions.
The package of restrictions, which was released by the Commerce Department, is designed in large part to slow the progress of Chinese military programs, which use supercomputing to model nuclear blasts, guide hypersonic weapons and establish advanced networks for surveilling dissidents and minorities, among other activities.
Alan Estevez, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security, said that his bureau was working to prevent sensitive technologies with military applications from being acquired by China’s military, intelligence and security services.” Read more at New York Times
Nobel Prize in Literature Is Awarded to Annie Ernaux
The Swedish Academy, which decides the prize, lauded “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.”
Oct. 6, 2022
“For decades, the French writer Annie Ernaux has dissected the most humiliating, private and scandalous moments from her past with almost clinical precision: ‘I shall carry out an ethnological study of myself,’ she wrote in her 1997 memoir ‘Shame.’
On Thursday, she was awarded one of literature’s highest honors, the Nobel Prize, for her body of work. Ernaux’s writing has spoken particularly to women and to others who, like her, come from a working class seldom depicted with such clarity in literature: She has described her upbringing in a small town in Normandy, an illegal abortion she had the 1960s, her dissatisfaction with domestic life, and a passionate extramarital affair.” Read more at New York Times
Americans Were Killed by Guns in 2021 at the Highest Rate in 30 Years
“In 2021, Americans were killed by guns at the highest rate in 30 years, according to an analysis of federal data that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers published on Oct. 6.
Using data from the National Vital Statistics System and the U.S. Census Bureau, researchers found that the U.S. firearm homicide rate rose from 6.12 people per 100,000 in 2020 to 6.63 in 2021—the highest rate in the U.S. since 1993—while the rate of suicides by firearm rose from 8.07 to 8.75 per 100,000 people—the highest rate since 1990. Nearly 21,000 people died from firearm homicides in 2021, an 8% increase from the year before, and more than 26,000 people died by firearm suicides—an 8% increase among people over 10 years old.” Read more at Time
New York’s New Gun Law Blocked by Federal Judge
The ruling said there is little historical precedent for the state’s effort to ban concealed weapons in a list of places it deems sensitive
A gun shop in Albany, N.Y. The judge’s ruling temporarily halted enforcement of major parts of New York’s new law.PHOTO: JUSTIN LANE/SHUTTERSTOCK
“A federal judge on Thursday temporarily halted enforcement of major parts of New York’s new law that bars the carrying of concealed handguns in places the state deems sensitive.
The ruling is an early setback for a measure that New York Democratic lawmakers passed in response to a blockbuster Supreme Court decision in June that struck down New York’s longstanding handgun-permitting regime.
The new permitting system, the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, took effect Sept. 1. Under the law, concealed-carry applicants no longer had to demonstrate a special need for self-protection. But they still had to show state licensing officers that they have ‘good moral character’ to be entrusted with a weapon.
The law also came with a list of locations where possession of a firearm, rifle or a shotgun is a felony crime regardless of permit status, such as restaurants, trains, buses, parks, theaters, stadiums, bars and New York City’s Times Square.
In a 53-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Glenn T. Suddaby of Syracuse said lawyers representing New York failed to show how the law, including many of its licensing standards and gun-free designations, was consistent with how firearms were regulated in the 18th and 19th centuries. He said that unless a higher court intervenes on appeal, his ruling suspending enforcement would go into effect in three days.
Judge Suddaby, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said he found little or no historical precedent for banning law-abiding citizens from carrying concealed weapons in the wide range of locations designated by the state. He also blocked another provision that barred guns from privately owned buildings and property without the express permission of the owners.
The judge left standing gun bans at public assemblies, places of worship, government buildings, courthouses and schools.
Elsewhere in the ruling, Judge Suddaby said the state’s requirement that gun owners demonstrate good moral character was too burdensome and gave licensing officers too much subjective leeway to deny permits. The judge said applicants shouldn’t bear the burden of proving their moral fitness but should be approved unless a licensing officer finds them likely to be a danger to themselves or others.
The judge also stopped New York from requiring an in-person interview with licensing officers. And he halted the required disclosure of applicants’ former and current social-media accounts and the names of other adults living in their homes.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday said New York’s law was ‘carefully crafted to put in place common-sense restrictions around concealed carry permits’ and called the judge’s ruling ‘deeply disappointing.’
Gun Owners of America, a Second Amendment advocacy group, had filed a lawsuit challenging the New York law on behalf of several of its members.
‘We are grateful to Judge Suddaby for his quick action to restore the right of the people to keep and bear arms,’ said Erich Pratt, senior vice president for the group.
Thursday’s decision is the latest to build from the expansion of gun rights announced in the Supreme Court’s June ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The high court’s conservative majority in that case said New York’s previous restrictions—which denied law-abiding residents the ability to carry a concealed weapon unless they could show a special need for self-protection—violated the Second Amendment.
In doing so, the court instructed judges to apply a historical test to evaluate gun restrictions, a standard that can make it more difficult to defend certain types of gun regulations.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Proud Boys Member Pleads Guilty to Seditious Conspiracy
Jeremy Bertino is the first member of the far-right group to do so, giving a boost to prosecutors ahead of December trial
Jeremy Bertino, second from left, is the first Proud Boys member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy for his role in the Capitol riot.PHOTO: LUIS M. ALVAREZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“A member of the Proud Boys pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, providing a boost to federal prosecutors ahead of a December trial against other members of the far-right group.
Jeremy Bertino, 43 years old, of North Carolina entered the guilty plea during a court hearing on Thursday, according to a Justice Department press release. He also pleaded guilty to a gun charge stemming from a search of his home in March, the Justice Department said.
Mr. Bertino is the first Proud Boys member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy. He will be sentenced at a later hearing, which hasn’t yet been scheduled.
JP Davis, a defense lawyer for Mr. Bertino, declined to comment.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Las Vegas stabbings
“A suspect is in custody after two people were killed and six others were wounded in a series of stabbings in front of Las Vegas casino on Thursday. The incident took place near the Wynn hotel and casino shortly before noon, police said. The 32-year old suspect was taken into custody on two counts of open murder with a deadly weapon and six counts of attempted murder with a deadly weapon. Authorities have not shared the suspect's motive, but the stabbings appear to be unprovoked and without any altercation beforehand, police said. Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said the victims were a combination of locals and tourists, and police will provide information on them after their families have been contacted.” Read more at CNN
Uvalde school district suspends its police department, will get more state troopers
“The Uvalde school police department has been suspended, and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers will instead provide coverage to the school district, district officials announced Friday.” Read more at USA Today
Republican Senator Ben Sasse Emerges as Likely New President of U. of Florida
OCTOBER 6, 2022
U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska
“The University of Florida is poised to name U.S. Sen. Benjamin E. Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, as its next president. Sasse, 50, is well-known in Washington and beyond for his outspoken views on higher education, and he was announced on Thursday as the sole finalist in UF’s search, a process that drew controversy for its secrecy.
Sasse’s academic bona fides are many: He holds degrees from Harvard and Yale Universities, including a doctorate from the latter, and taught at the University of Texas at Austin. He spent five years as president of Midland University, a private Lutheran institution in Nebraska, where he was lauded for raising enrollment numbers. Sasse left that post to become a senator, and is now two years into his second term in Congress. He’s expected to resign from the Senate this fall to join Florida, CNN reported.
The process that led to the presidential-search committee’s unanimous tapping of Sasse has been largely hidden because a state law, signed in March, that allows the system to keep secret the names of candidates who applied for the job. More than 700 leaders were contacted about the position, and ‘a dozen highly qualified diverse candidates,’ including nine sitting presidents at major research universities, were identified, the Tampa Bay Times reported.” Read more at Chronicle of Higher Education
Ukraine war: Biden says nuclear risk highest since 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
Image caption, President Biden said the Russian leader was "not joking" when he talked about using tactical nuclear, biological or chemical weapons
By Nathan Williams
BBC News
“The risk of a nuclear ‘Armageddon’ is at its highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, US President Joe Biden has said.
Mr Biden said Russia's President Vladimir Putin was ‘not joking’ when he spoke of using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering setbacks in Ukraine.
The US was ‘trying to figure out’ Mr Putin's way out of the war, he added.
The US and the EU have previously said Mr Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling should be taken seriously.
However, the US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan last week said that, despite Moscow's nuclear hints, the US had seen no signs that Russia was imminently preparing to use a nuclear weapon.
Ukraine has been retaking territory occupied by Russia, including in the four regions Russia illegally annexed recently.
For several months US officials have been warning that Russia could resort to the use of weapons of mass destruction, if it suffers setbacks on the battlefield.
President Biden said the reason the Russian leader had not been ‘not joking’ when he talked about using tactical nuclear, biological or chemical weapons - ‘because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming’.” Read more at BBC
Iran protests: Nika Shakarami's mother says her daughter was murdered
Image caption, Nika Shakarami's mother said family members have been ordered to lie about how her daughter died
By Raffi Berg
BBC News
“The mother of a teenage girl who died during protests in Iran has accused authorities of murdering her daughter.
In a video sent to US-funded Radio Farda, Nasrin Shakarami said she had seen injuries on her daughter's body which contradict an official statement.
Authorities say Nika Shakarami, 16, appears to have been thrown from a building, possibly by workmen.
Meanwhile, an official forensic report has said a woman whose death sparked the protests died from ill health.
The family of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, say she died as a result of being beaten by morality police.
She was detained on 13 September in Tehran for allegedly breaking the strict law requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf.
The police denied that she was mistreated and said she suffered a heart attack.
On Friday Iran's Forensic Medicine Organisation (FMO) issued a statement saying that tests showed Ms Amini died from multiple organ failure caused by cerebral hypoxia and not from being hit.
It said this was brought on by an underlying brain and heart condition. Ms Amini's family has previously insisted she was medically fit.
Rights groups say more than 150 people have been killed and thousands arrested since the protests began on 17 September.
Nika Shakarami's death has become one of the highest profile cases of young people killed in the protests. She went missing in Tehran on 20 September after telling a friend she was being chased by police.
Nasrin Shakarami said Nika's aunt, who made a statement on TV on Wednesday in which she said her niece ‘was killed falling from a building’ had been ‘forced... to make these confessions’.
The authorities "have called others, my uncles, others, saying that if Nika's mother does not come forward and say the things we want, basically confess to the scenario that we want and have created, then we will do this and that, and threatened me," Nasrin said.
Nika's uncle was also seen on TV speaking against the unrest, as a voice belonging to someone off-screen was picked up apparently whispering to him: ‘Say it, you scumbag!’
Officials say that on the night she disappeared, Nika went into a building where eight construction workers were present, and that she was found dead in the yard outside the next morning.
Tehran judiciary official Mohammad Shahriari was cited by state media as saying on Wednesday that a post-mortem examination showed Nika suffered ‘multiple fractures... in the pelvis, head, upper and lower limbs, arms and legs, which indicate that the person was thrown from a height’.
However, Nasrin Shakarami said that was not true.
‘I saw my daughter's body myself... the back of her head showed she had suffered a very severe blow as her skull had caved in. That's how she was killed.’
She said a forensic report found she had been killed on the day she joined the protests by a blunt force trauma to her head.
A death certificate issued by a cemetery in Tehran, which was obtained by BBC Persian, states that Nika died after suffering ‘multiple injuries caused by blows with a hard object’.
Nika Shakarami's family say they located her body at the mortuary of a detention centre 10 days after she went missing, and that security forces stole it and buried her secretly.
Meanwhile Iranian authorities have denied reports that another 16-year-old girl, Sarina Esmailzadeh, died after being severely beaten on the head with batons by security forces during protests in Karaj, north-east Iran, on 23 September.
The semi-official Isna news agency quoted the chief justice of Alborz province, where Sarina died, as saying that according to a preliminary investigation she killed herself by jumping off a five-storey building.
Several videos made by Sarina before her death have been posted on social media. In one recorded after finishing school exams, she says: ‘Nothing feels better than freedom.’” Read more at BBC
Saskatchewan suspect killed 11, including brother, police say
Image caption, Myles Sandeadly mass stabbing that stunned Canada acted on his own - and his own brother was among the victims, police say.
Myles Sanderson, 32, died after being arrested on a motorway on 7 September.
His brother, 31-year-old Damien, was found dead several days earlier.
Ten other people were killed in the attack, including nine from the James Smith Cree Nation, an indigenous community.
The rampage shocked Canada - where mass killings are rare - and many questions remain about the motive and timeline of events.
The killings, which unfolded on 4 September over Canada's Labour Day weekend, sparked a massive manhunt for the Sanderson brothers.
In a news conference on Thursday, the Saskatchewan Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said that "we will never really know why" the incident took place.
Rhonda Blackmore, commander of the Saskatchewan RCMP, said that both brothers were actively dealing drugs in the community on the eve of the attack, 3 September, and had been involved in three violent altercations on the same day. None of these were reported to authorities, she said.” Read more at BBC
Finland Leader’s Idea for Ending Ukraine War Goes Viral
“Finland’s uber-cool Prime Minister Sanna Marin was once again going viral on Friday, this time for a mic-drop moment about Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine. Marin, 36, was asked by a reporter for her thoughts on President Joe Biden’s comments about trying to find Putin’s “off-ramp” to avoid continuing along a road toward nuclear armageddon. Marin asked for clarification of the term “off-ramp,” to which the reporter explained: “A way out of the conflict.” “The way out of the conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine,” Marin answered. “That’s the way out of the conflict.” She then laughed and walked away. Marin was previously blowing up on social media after videos of her partying with friends were leaked to the Finnish press.” (Daily Beast)
‘TOTALLY CHARRED’ Easter Island Fire Causes ‘Irreparable’ Damage to Statues
“Some of Easter Island’s famous giant head statues have been damaged beyond repair in a catastrophic wildfire, authorities said. The ancient stone figures, known as moai, were caught up in a blaze that has been raging on the island since Monday, local officials said. The island around 2,175 miles off the coast of Chile has over 1,000 stone statues—believed to have been carved by the island’s original habitants in the thirteenth century—but heritage officials fear some have been lost to the flames. “The moai are totally charred and you can see the effect of the fire upon them,” said Ariki Tepano, director of the Ma’u Henua community which manages the park, adding that some of the damage was “irreparable.” Easter Island Mayor Pedro Edmunds Paoa said that he believed the fire was “not an accident.” “The damage caused by the fire can’t be undone,” he added. “The cracking of an original and emblematic stone cannot be recovered, no matter how many millions of euros or dollars are put into it.” (Daily Beast) Read it at The Guardian
The country with the world's youngest politicians
Image caption, Maren Grøthe was elected to the Norwegian national assembly aged just 20
By Sam Cabral & Amund Trellevik
BBC News, Washington and Oslo
“America's leaders are old and growing older. As part of a new series that looks abroad for inspiration on how to fix flaws in the US political system, we ask whether Norway's young MPs have the answer.
Democratic President Joe Biden, 79, is the country's oldest ever leader. His chief rival, Republican Donald Trump, is 76.
In the US Congress, the median age is the highest in two decades. Baby boomers dominate and millennials represent barely 6% of the body.
Midterm election- but many of its oldest faces will remain.
The problem is a structural one, according to experts.
Congress prizes seniority, with the longest-tenured lawmakers typically first in line for leadership posts, plum committee assignments and other forms of influence. Name recognition and visibility gives incumbents a smoother path to re-election.
Making matters worse are the age requirements. You must be at least 25 to join the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, and at least 30 to qualify for the Senate.
Meanwhile, young hopefuls face financial barriers to seeking office with fewer resources, less access to wealth and obstacles like childcare costs or student debt.
Some believe youth under-representation has had a profound impact on US democracy.
"Lived experience informs legislative priorities," says Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run for Something, a group that supports progressive candidates under 40.
She claims that a lack of progress on issues young people care about, such as gun violence and climate change, have fed "a cycle of cynicism" and disengagement.
Norway has the highest proportion of young politicians in the world, according to data published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), with 13.6% under 30.
In the US, it's 0.23% in the House of Representatives and zero in the Senate.
It's a similar story with average age - only the UK's House of Lords and Canada's upper chamber are "older" than the US Senate. Norway's average age is 18 years younger.
Born just a few months before the terrorist attacks on 9/11 in 2001, she is one of 23 representatives under the age of 30, up by six since 2013.
"I really enjoy it. This is a job with great responsibilities, and I feel those responsibilities every day," Grøthe tells the BBC.
The average age in the Storting is 46 and has remained so since the end of the 1990s, because while a record number of young people are joining, they are also working longer. The oldest is 77.
Jonny Lang of the IPU which collects the global data says it's crucial that parliaments look more like the countries they represent. And having young people's perspectives leads to better policies.
Despite her young age, Grøthe had already served two years as a local politician in her home municipality when she was elected to the national assembly.
She has a wide range of tasks. A recent week began with a parliamentary committee trip to Germany and ended with her back home to attend the opening of a new football pitch outside Trondheim in central Norway where she lives with her boyfriend.
The workdays are long, and the business trips are many. Every week she commutes to her apartment in the capital Oslo.
She describes herself as an "ordinary Norwegian youth" who likes both partying with friends and hiking in the mountains. But since she was elected to the Storting, there has been far less time for such activities.
Grøthe believes that having so many young politicians in the Storting brings many advantages, with different cultures and ages better represented. "We young people have life experience, but in a different way. We need to develop policies for everyone in the country."
But what can she contribute to politics that a 55-year-old can't?
"I have completely different perspectives and knowledge on being young today. More and more young people struggle with their mental health. I have also just finished my high school education, which is useful in the education committee in the national assembly," she says.
The electoral system is one reason Norway has the world's youngest parliament, believes Ragnhild Louise Muriaas, professor of political science at the University of Bergen. Several people from the same party can be elected in the same district.
"This means that an older and well-known man may be the top candidate, but unknown, young women may be nominated for the next positions on the list and be sure to be elected," she says. In France, UK and the US it's winner takes all and parties feel they cannot "afford" to top the lists with young, inexperienced candidates.
The youth wings of the political parties also play a part, she adds. These organisations are a strong political force, often with opinions opposing those of the parent party.
There are possible drawbacks too, says Muriaas. She is looking into whether young politicians disappear more quickly from politics. The lack of life and work experiences before being elected is another open question.The Norway model has not been replicated in the US, but researchers at Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) suggest some developments in recent years may boost youth representation.
They argue that while political parties do not typically have a youth strategy, youth organisations - particularly on the Republican side - have garnered more visibility and funding. They also point out the growing adoption of electoral measures such as ranked-choice voting, where voters rank candidates based on preference, can benefit young candidates.
But because party gatekeepers often suppress young candidates, the young and civically-engaged need to be actively encouraged or financially supported to run for office, beginning at the local level, says CIRCLE fellow Sara Suzuki.
Two members of Generation Z - a Democrat and Republican apiece - will appear on midterm ballots this November for the first time. If they win, they will chip away at older generations' dominance in Congress.” Read more at BBC
Elon Musk Wants to Buy Twitter Again. Here's How the Platform Could Change
Musk this week revived his offer to buy Twitter, potentially avoiding a legal showdown with the company.
Muhammed Selim Korkutata—Anadolu Agency
BY NIK POPLI
UPDATED: OCTOBER 7, 2022 7:32 AM EDT | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 6, 2022 4:50 PM EDT
“Twitter could be about to get some major updates.
With Elon Musk in position to take over the social media platform after a surprise U-turn, a number of technical and operational changes could soon be coming. ‘I have a ton of ideas,’ Musk texted Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in April, right before he agreed to join the company’s board. ‘I just want Twitter to be maximum amazing.’
Musk this week revived his offer to buy the company, and hopes to avoid a legal showdown with the company over the deal he had previously been trying to back out of. The Tesla CEO has publicly hinted at several ways he might transform the platform if the deal goes through, from loosening content moderation to restoring banned accounts and adding an edit feature. And a juicy set of text messages between Musk and his business associates, made public in a court filing last week, provide an even closer look into how he might monetize and overhaul the platform.
There are some hurdles to overcome before the deal can proceed. Twitter still has to accept Musk’s $44 billion takeover offer, and the parties are reportedly stuck on financing terms. After Musk requested that the litigation be dropped and Twitter objected, a Delaware Chancery judge ruled on Thursday that if the deal isn’t done by 5 p.m. on Oct. 28, she would set new trial dates in November. But if the deal does go through, analysts warn that Musk’s focus on unmoderated free speech could present new challenges, which could have huge implications for the digital town square just weeks before the U.S. midterm elections.
‘No one’s prepared for the kind of onslaught that’s going to come,’ says Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters, a non-profit media watchdog. ‘We know the people he’s been talking to and we see all the indicators—this is a real threat.’
Here’s how Twitter could change under Musk.
Current leadership could be fired
The first move Musk makes is widely anticipated to be cleaning house, starting with Twitter’s chief executive, Agrawal, who took the helm at the company last year after co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down. Text messages between Musk and his business associates reveal how frustrated he was with Agrawal’s leadership, even though the two had initially sought to work together.
Agrawal told Musk on April 9 that his habit of tweeting negative things like ‘Is Twitter dying?’ was ‘not helping me make Twitter better.’
Read More: The Big Takeaways From Elon Musk’s Twitter Texts
‘What did you get done this week?’ Musk, who at the time was in discussions about joining Twitter’s board, replied. ‘This is a waste of time,’ he added, saying instead he would make an offer to buy the company.
The complicated relationship between the two could result in Agrawal being fired on Musk’s first day of ownership, Carusone says, and likely replaced with one of Musk’s allies. ‘Fixing Twitter by chatting with Parag won’t work,’ Musk texted Twitter board chair Bret Taylor.
Musk has also expressed displeasure with other Twitter executives, tweeting a meme about the company’s top lawyer Vijaya Gadde that cast her as an icon of ‘Twitter’s left wing bias.’
Donald Trump and other suspended accounts could be allowed back
Musk has said for months that his top priority would be to preserve free speech on Twitter and restore access to former President Donald Trump, who was permanently suspended last year after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
‘I think Musk will restore his account immediately,’ Carusone says, ‘the second that he gets the keys.’ But it’s unclear if Trump will ultimately come back to Twitter if he’s invited since he launched his own social media platform, TRUTH Social, earlier this year.
Other suspended users could also be replatformed, analysts say, including right-wing voices that were barred for spreading conspiracy theories or hateful rhetoric. Musk previously told Agrawal via text message that he wanted to reverse all permanent Twitter bans ‘except for spam accounts and those that explicitly advocate violence.’
That means Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose personal Twitter account was suspended this year for repeatedly sharing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, could be allowed back. It also means The Babylon Bee, a conservative satire site that lost Twitter access after it published a transphobic humor piece, could return.
‘Are you going to liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob?’ Joe Rogan, the controversial podcast host, texted Musk the day his investment in Twitter became public, but before he made an offer to buy the company. Musk responded: ‘I will provide advice, which they may or may not choose to follow.’ (Musk’s latest offer would take the company private).
Fewer guardrails against misinformation and extremism
Along with reversing the bans on several accounts, Musk could also undo some of Twitter’s policies designed to make the platform safer for vulnerable users—typically women, LGBTQ individuals and people of color—such as its ban on misgendering transgender people.
He has previously said that the platform would have more lenient content moderation policies under his leadership. ‘If in doubt, let the speech exist,’ Musk said in an on-stage interview in April. ‘If it’s a gray area, I would say, let the tweet exist. But obviously in the case where there’s perhaps a lot of controversy, you would not necessarily want to promote that tweet.’
Still, Twitter’s algorithm has in the past been found to amplify extreme political rhetoric or conspiracy theories in harmful ways by suggesting new accounts and content that users might be interested in. Those concerns could become even more prominent if there are fewer guardrails against misinformation and extremism.
‘It’s going to dramatically scale the number of extremists that are on the platform,’ Carusone says. ‘Not just by restoring accounts, but also by signaling to a whole bunch of other users that don’t currently use the platform that it’s open season.’
In one of the texts released last week and sent in April, Musk wrote to Michael Kives, head of an investment firm: ‘Twitter is obviously not going to be turned into some right wing nuthouse. Aiming to be as broadly inclusive as possible.’
A new edit button could be added
Musk has expressed interest in allowing users to edit their tweets, something many users had been requesting for years. Roughly 74% of his Twitter followers said they supported adding the edit feature, according to a poll he ran in March.
Among the cache of text messages released was one from Gayle King, co-host of CBS This Morning, who told Musk she supported the idea of an edit button.
Twitter began testing the edit button last month after originally pushing back on the notion, giving Twitter Blue members who pay for its subscription model in Canada, Australia and New Zealand early access.
Twitter said that the feature would come to U.S. subscribers soon, but Musk may expedite the process once in charge.
Currently, users with early access to the function can only edit their tweets up to five times—a way to prevent people from changing the original content of their tweets too often. But there are still concerns that the edit feature could be used with malicious intent to spread misinformation or harmful messages if users were to replace their popular tweets to messages with sinister sentiments.
Musk could try to remove spam bots and revamp Twitter Blue
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Musk is expected to take action on spam bots—or fake accounts—on the platform, which he cited as his main reason for backing out of the original deal. It’s unclear what he might have planned, but the idea of a blockchain-based future for Twitter, in which users have to pay a small fee to send messages, initially seemed appealing to Musk since bots wouldn’t be able to get past the paywall. He later said this idea wouldn’t work because ‘the bandwidth and latency requirements cannot be supported by a peer to peer network.’
If he did push through a plan to get rid of most bot accounts on Twitter, Musk himself would lose an estimated 13.5 million followers, according to a data analysis by Scottish digital skills academy CodeClan.
Musk has also been very critical of Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service that offers exclusive features like bookmark folders and ad-free articles for $4.99 a month. Jason Calacanis, an entrepreneur and one of Musk’s strategic advisors on Twitter, texted him that Twitter Blue is “an insane piece of sh-t” and “these dipsh-ts spent a year on Twitter Blue to give people exactly…Nothing they want!”
He could create a new ‘everything app’ called ‘X’
Musk said this week that he wants to create a new app called “X” after buying Twitter, which could be an all-in-one super app modeled after China’s WeChat—often described as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Paypal rolled into one central portal.
‘Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,’ he tweeted Tuesday, later adding that the acquisition could accelerate the app’s creation by 3 to 5 years.
It’s unclear what Musk is planning, but he has long expressed his desire for Twitter to emulate the success of WeChat by branching out to offer other features beyond tweets.” Read more at Time
Keep it or toss it? ‘Best Before’ labels cause confusion
By DEE-ANN DURBIN
“As awareness grows around the world about the problem of food waste, one culprit in particular is drawing scrutiny: ‘best before’ labels.
Manufacturers have used the labels for decades to estimate peak freshness. Unlike “use by” labels, which are found on perishable foods like meat and dairy, “best before” labels have nothing to do with safety and may encourage consumers to throw away food that’s perfectly fine to eat.
‘They read these dates and then they assume that it’s bad, they can’t eat it and they toss it, when these dates don’t actually mean that they’re not edible or they’re not still nutritious or tasty,’ said Patty Apple, a manager at Food Shift, an Alameda, California, nonprofit that collects and uses expired or imperfect foods.
To tackle the problem, major U.K. chains like Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer recently removed ‘best before’ labels from prepackaged fruit and vegetables. The European Union is expected to announce a revamp to its labeling laws by the end of this year; it’s considering abolishing ‘best before’ labels altogether.” Read more at AP News
Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Netflix
“Despite their influence over everything from music to superhero movies to streaming shows, data shows Latinos are still underrepresented or misrepresented in Hollywood, news and book publishing.” Read more at NPR
“In her new memoir, actress Geena Davis looks back on lessons she learned from her iconic roles, including this advice from Dustin Hoffman: Never listen to your inner critic — or sleep with your co-star.” Read more at NPR
“What do you do after you win a Nobel Prize? Party, obviously!See the joyful celebrations from this week.” Read more at NPR
“The new David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center, home of the New York Philharmonic, opens this week. And while the outside is the same, everything inside has changed.” Read more at NPR
“Lives Lived: Judy Tenuta, a standup comic who anointed herself “The Love Goddess,” became famous in the 1980s with her off-kilter jokes and accordion playing. She died at 72.” Read more at New York Times