The Full Belmonte, 11/17/22
GOP wins slim House majority, complicating ambitious agenda
By WILL WEISSERT, SARA BURNETT and JILL COLVIN
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans won control of the U.S. House on Wednesday, returning the party to power in Washington and giving conservatives leverage to blunt President Joe Biden’s agenda and spur a flurry of investigations. But a threadbare majority will pose immediate challenges for GOP leaders and complicate the party’s ability to govern.
More than a week after Election Day, Republicans secured the 218th seat needed to flip the House from Democratic control. The full scope of the party’s majority may not be clear for several more days — or weeks — as votes in competitive races are still being counted.
But they are on track to cobble together what could be the party’s narrowest majority of the 21st century, rivaling 2001, when Republicans had just a nine-seat majority, 221-212 with two independents. That’s far short of the sweeping victory the GOP predicted going into this year’s midterm elections, when the party hoped to reset the agenda on Capitol Hill by capitalizing on economic challenges and Biden’s lagging popularity….
Despite the GOP’s underwhelming showing, the party will still have notable power. Republicans will take control of key committees, giving them the ability to shape legislation and launch probes of Biden, his family and his administration. There’s particular interest in investigating the overseas business dealings of the president’s son Hunter Biden. Some of the most conservative lawmakers have raised the prospect of impeaching Biden, though that will be much harder for the party to accomplish with a tight majority.
Any legislation that emerges from the House could face steep odds in the Senate, where Democrats won the barest of majorities Saturday. Both parties are looking to a Dec. 6 Senate runoff in Georgia as a last chance to pad their ranks.” Read more at AP News
“‘I'm not going anywhere’: Mitch McConnell emerged triumphant from the vote for Senate GOP leader, in which he won about 75% of the tally.” Read more at USA Today
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., meets with reporters after being re-elected to his longtime role as Senate Republican leader and fending off a challenge by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., an ally of former President Donald Trump, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022.J. Scott Applewhite, AP
Women gain ground in the Senate
Data: Axios Research; Note: Senators who did not serve for the full term are included in the analysis. Senators named Johnson, Jon, Jonathan, Jim, Bill, Will or Willie were counted as being named John, James or William. Chart: Nicki Camberg/Axios
“Women will make up about a quarter of the Senate once the next session of Congress begins. That’s a major reversal from historical norms in which there were not only more men than women in the Senate, but more men named John than women.
By the numbers: Men with a handful of especially common names, particularly John or Jon, outnumbered women until pretty recently.
And though the tables have turned, the John caucus is still strong — 75% of senators are men, including 10% who are men named John or Jon.
Nobody ever said the Senate moves fast.” Read more at Axios
Same-sex marriage protections clear critical Senate hurdle
Twelve Republicans voted with all Democrats to move forward on the bill, after negotiators reached a bipartisan deal to include protections for religious liberty.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) listens during a hearing on Capitol Hill. | Pool photo by Leigh Vogel
11/16/2022 04:30 AM EST
Updated: 11/16/2022 05:10 PM EST
“The Senate on Wednesday narrowly advanced legislation to protect same-sex marriage, sending it on to near-certain passage.
In a 62-37 vote, 12 Republicans voted with all Democrats to move forward on the bill, after negotiators reached a bipartisan deal to include protections for religious liberty. The vote on final passage could occur as soon as this week.
‘We can ease the fear that millions of same-sex and interracial couples have that their freedoms and their rights could be stripped away,’ said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who is lead sponsor along with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). ‘We are guaranteeing same-sex and and interracial couples, regardless of where they live, that their marriage is legal.’
Headed into the floor vote, only a handful of Republicans, including Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) publicly committed to voting for the modified legislation.
Wednesday’s vote showed Majority Leader Chuck Schumer might get what he hoped for when he delayed the bill to protect same-sex marriage rights from coming to the floor in September, agreeing to Republican requests that the chamber take it up after the election.
Some Democrats feared they were being played — convinced to take pressure off the opposing party only to have the GOP tank the legislation later. But negotiators bet that waiting would help solidify support and allow senators to vote without considering the midterms.
‘I made the choice to trust the members who have worked so hard on this legislation and wait a little bit longer, in order to give the bipartisan process a chance to play out,’ Schumer said ahead of the vote. ‘No one — no one — in a same-sex marriage should have to worry about whether or not their marriage will be invalidated in the future. They deserve peace of mind, knowing their rights will always be protected under the law.’
Baldwin, along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) were the lead Democratic negotiators, while Collins worked with Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) to shore up GOP votes.
During the vote, Baldwin barely stepped more than three feet away from the clerk’s desk. Sinema split her time between the GOP cloakroom and the floor, where she closely watched the tally. Collins at one point joked to Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) after he voted no: ‘you could have surprised everybody!’
While the House passed its same-sex marriage bill in July with support from nearly 50 House Republicans, the process in the Senate has taken more time amid GOP concerns about religious liberty. If the Senate does pass its version, the legislation will need another vote of approval from the House to head to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The GOP senators who supported advancing the bill included Sens. Joni Ernst (Iowa), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.), Todd Young (Ind.), Dan Sullivan (Alaska), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and Richard Burr (N.C.), who is retiring.
The Senate bill would ensure that the federal government recognize a same-sex marriage if it was valid in the state it took place and couple moved to a state that does not recognize it. That would also apply to interracial marriage. It also would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act signed in 1996, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman under federal laws.
The bipartisan amendment clarifies that the bill would leave intact protections from a 1993 religious freedom law, which outlaws placing a substantial burden on people’s ability to exercise their religion. In addition, it states that nonprofit religious groups would not have to perform marriage services and that the bill would not impact their tax treatment.
Among the groups that announced support for the bill are the National Association of Manufacturers and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which said it ‘includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.’
While the Supreme Court enshrined same-sex marriage into law in 2015, proponents of the bill are concerned that precedent could eventually be overturned, citing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the Dobbs decision that questioned other legal rights and pointed specifically to same-sex marriage.
Wednesday’s vote to move forward on the bill marks the first time since 2013 that the chamber has taken up standalone legislation on LGBTQ rights.
Republican opponents to protecting same-sex marriage rights argue that it’s unnecessary, saying the Supreme Court is unlikely to reverse its 2015 ruling. And despite the push by some GOP senators on Schumer to delay the vote, others criticized the timing.
The Senate is expected to proceed now to its version that includes the religious liberty amendment. The bill’s supporters want to see it pass as soon as Thursday. That, however, will require an agreement from all 100 senators to allow it to move more quickly.” Read more at POLITICO
University of Virginia Shooting Raises Questions of Missed Warning Signs
A lawyer for the family of one of the victims is asking whether the university investigated aggressively enough when it learned that the suspect may have been in possession of a gun.
By Campbell Robertson, Stephanie Saul and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Nov. 16, 2022
“CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A lawyer for the family of one of the three students killed in this week’s shooting at the University of Virginia questioned on Wednesday whether the university investigated aggressively enough after learning two months ago that the suspect, a fellow student who lived on campus, may have been in possession of a gun.
The lawyer, Michael Haggard, who is representing the family of D’Sean Perry, said, ‘If there was notice of the student being a threat to the community at the college and it wasn’t acted upon, what were the details of those threats, why wasn’t it acted upon and what were the standards?’
Such questions were also being raised by community members trying to make sense of the attack, in which three students were killed and two wounded after returning from a class field trip. Even some experts who had praised Virginia’s state government for its pioneering role in establishing protocols for recognizing and responding to potential on-campus threats — a role the state took on after the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007 — were asking if officials at the University of Virginia could have acted with more urgency in assessing whether the student accused of committing Sunday’s attack, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., posed a risk.
Brian Coy, a spokesman for the university, declined to comment beyond statements that officials had already put out.
University officials had been investigating whether Mr. Jones, a senior, had a gun in the months leading up to the attack, based on a tip they had received in September. But the tipster had not actually seen Mr. Jones with a gun, officials said this week, and the university’s threat assessment team learned that Mr. Jones’s roommate had not seen a gun, either. The investigation did uncover that Mr. Jones had a concealed-weapon conviction in 2021 in another Virginia county.
But the owner of a sporting goods store near Mr. Jones’s hometown, Petersburg, Va., said that Mr. Jones had in fact made multiple attempts to buy guns in recent years, including after being twice rebuffed — for being underage, then for failing a background check because of a pending felony charge. When that charge was reduced to a misdemeanor as part of a plea deal, Mr. Jones was legally clear to buy firearms, and this year bought a rifle and a 9 mm pistol, according to the store owner, Marlon Dance.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Jones, who turns 23 on Thursday, appeared by video in a brief court hearing, where he was ordered held without bail. From a screen in a corner of a courtroom in the Albemarle General District Court, Mr. Jones said that he planned to hire a lawyer, and stayed quiet as a prosecutor read out a police account of Sunday night’s attack. In the account, the prosecutor said that a witness told the police that Mr. Jones had been ‘aiming at certain people and was not randomly shooting.’
In addition to Mr. Perry, Devin Chandler and Lavel Davis Jr. were killed in Sunday night’s shooting on a bus that had just returned from a class field trip to see a play in Washington; all three were juniors on the university’s football team. A fourth football player, Michael Hollins, was shot in the back and is currently in the hospital; according to his father, he is expected to make a full recovery. Another student, Marlee Morgan, was also injured in the attack.
Mr. Jones, who was also on the trip, has been charged with three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of malicious wounding and five counts of using a handgun in the commission of a felony. He agreed to be represented by a public defender while he sought his own lawyer, and the judge set a new hearing for Dec. 8.
Out of its own past tragedies, Virginia became a national leader in formalizing systems to detect and respond to threats on college campuses. After the mass shooting at Virginia Tech, when a student killed 32 people before taking his own life, Virginia became the first state to mandate threat assessment teams in any educational settings, said Gene Deisinger, the threat management consultant for the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety, part of the state criminal justice agency.
Even today, Mr. Deisinger said, while many states require threat assessment teams in K-12 settings, Virginia is one of only a few states that legally require such teams in institutions of higher education as well.
The teams may follow different protocols on different campuses, but the core model, and the model at the University of Virginia, is a multidisciplinary task force with representatives from a variety of departments, including student affairs, counseling services and campus police. The members of such teams meet regularly to share information about students who may present concerns, while representatives of the various departments that make up the team may take the lead on investigating or intervening.
In Mr. Jones’s case, there appeared to be a number of potential concerns, some of which university officials learned about in the past two months, and some of which were apparently unknown until after the shooting.
In recent years, Mr. Jones had drawn several criminal charges, including an arrest in February 2021 for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. In that case, according to the Chesterfield County Police Department, officers pulled him over because they did not find his vehicle’s registration on file. During that stop, they found that he was carrying a concealed handgun without a permit, a misdemeanor.
The next month, he was charged with a felony for failing to remain at the scene of a car accident. While that charge was pending, Mr. Jones had tried to buy a firearm at Mr. Dance’s store, Dance’s Sporting Goods. It was Mr. Jones’s second attempt to buy a gun at the store — he was turned down the first time, in 2018, because he was underage — and he was again unsuccessful, as the background check turned up his pending felony charge.
Last October, as part of a plea deal, the felony was reduced to a misdemeanor, and Mr. Jones was legally allowed to buy firearms again. He bought two at the store this year: a 5.56 caliber rifle in February, and a 9 mm pistol in July.
In September, during an investigation by the university’s Department of Student Affairs into a hazing incident on campus, a student told officials that he had heard Mr. Jones make a comment about having a gun, which would be prohibited on campus.
While investigating the tip about the gun, which was never substantiated, officials discovered Mr. Jones’s 2021 conviction on the concealed weapon charge; he had not reported it to the university, a violation of campus policy. Mr. Coy, the spokesman, said that on Oct. 26, after Mr. Jones “repeatedly refused to cooperate” with officials looking into these matters, a representative for student affairs sent Mr. Jones an email warning him that his failure to report the conviction would be referred to the judicial council, the student-run body that handles discipline on campus.
However, for reasons that remain unclear, that referral was never made.
Dr. Jeffrey W. Swanson, a medical sociologist at Duke University who researches gun violence prevention, said it can be challenging for schools to determine who is a serious threat.
‘It is difficult for universities, once something has been identified as a threat, to decide how serious it is and whether it reaches a threshold of intervention,’ he said, ‘particularly one that will have serious consequences,’ like a criminal referral or dismissal from school.
But to some experts on managing campus risk, there were several signs that the process appeared to have broken down.
‘This is the perspective that seems to be a little typical for universities: ‘Our students are adults and we can’t compel them to do anything’ — and I just disagree with that,’ said Lori Haas, a longtime gun safety advocate in Virginia who worked to pass the state’s threat assessment legislation after her daughter was injured in the Virginia Tech attack. ‘Why the hell do you have a student conduct code if you’re not going to enforce it?’” Read more at New York Times
Karen Bass becomes first woman elected Los Angeles mayor
“LOS ANGELES — U.S. Rep. Karen Bass was elected the next mayor of Los Angeles on Wednesday, taking the reins in the nation’s second-largest city during an intense period of soul-searching as it reels from a racism scandal and seeks fresh answers to seemingly intractable problems like homelessness and corruption.
The Democratic congresswoman prevailed over billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso to become the first woman elected to lead the city and just its second Black mayor. The race, Los Angeles’s most expensive contest ever, remained close until the final days of a week-long count, when Bass pulled decisively ahead and never lost her advantage. As of Wednesday evening, Bass held an insurmountable lead of just over six percentage points, and the Associated Press projected her the winner.
In Los Angeles, a liberal city that hasn’t elected a Republican mayor in more than two decades, Bass pitched herself as the progressive choice. But she also carried the imprimatur of the party establishment, winning endorsements from Democratic heavyweights like former president Barack Obama, President Biden and Vice President Harris. At a rally on the eve of the election, Harris, a fellow Californian, praised Bass for ‘fighting for the people whose voices aren’t in the room but must be present.’” Read more at Washington Post
Military Acknowledges More Sexual Abuse in J.R.O.T.C. Programs
Lawmakers criticized oversight by the military, which reported dozens of additional cases of abuse of high school students by J.R.O.T.C. instructors.
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Mike Baker
Nov. 16, 2022
“WASHINGTON — The Pentagon received documented reports of at least 58 instances in the last five years in which high school military instructors who led Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps classes sexually abused or harassed students, military officials told a congressional subcommittee on Wednesday in response to criticism that they had failed to properly oversee the program.
Assistant secretaries from the Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as the Department of Defense, testified before a House national security subcommittee, whose members grilled them about procedures for vetting instructors and rooting out abuse in the program, known as J.R.O.T.C. Hundreds of thousands of high school students are enrolled in the program in 3,500 high schools across the country. One congresswoman has floated the idea of temporarily shutting the program down.
The hearing followed a New York Times investigation in July that found that 33 instructors had been criminally charged with sexual misconduct involving student victims over five years. The Pentagon’s higher number of substantiated allegations appeared to include additional instances in which the abuse or misconduct had not resulted in criminal charges. All 58 of those instructors had been decertified, the military officials reported, except for two who had killed themselves.
The military officials expressed their outrage at the abuse and said they had begun reviewing policies regarding J.R.O.T.C., which provides students with training in leadership, civic values, weapons handling and other skills.” Read more at New York Times
Yale and Harvard Law Schools Withdraw From the U.S. News Rankings
Citing flaws in the way the ratings are determined, the schools said they will stop participating, breaking away from the rankings industry.
Nov. 16, 2022
“In perhaps the biggest challenge yet to the school rankings industry, both Yale and Harvard announced Wednesday that they were withdrawing from the influential U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best law schools.
Colleges and universities have been critical of the U.S. News ranking system for decades, saying that it was unreliable and skewed educational priorities, but they had rarely taken action to thwart it, and every year almost always submitted their data for judgment on their various undergraduate and graduate programs.
Now both Yale and Harvard law schools have announced that they will no longer cooperate. In two separate letters posted on their websites, the law school deans excoriated U.S. News for using a methodology that they said devalued the efforts of schools like their own to recruit poor and working-class students, provide financial aid based on need and encourage students to go into low-paid public service law after graduation.
‘It has become impossible to reconcile our principles and commitments with the methodology and incentives the U.S. News rankings reflect,’ John F. Manning, the dean of Harvard Law, said in his statement.
The two deans said they had decided to withdraw only after they and ‘a number’ of other schools had taken their concerns directly to U.S. News and been rebuffed.
The news was unveiled in dramatic fashion, beginning Wednesday morning with Yale law’s dean, Heather K. Gerken, posting a statement. Later, Harvard joined in.
U.S. News reacted somewhat blandly to Yale, saying it stood by its ‘mission’ to ‘ensure that law schools are held accountable for the education they will provide.’
Asked whether U.S. News would continue to rank Yale, Eric Gertler, chief executive of U.S. News, said that the organization was reviewing options.
After Harvard’s announcement, the tone became more conciliatory. ‘We agree that test scores don’t tell the full story of an applicant, and law schools make their own decisions on the applicant pool based on the mission of the school,’ U.S. News said in an email.” Read more at New York Times
Darrell Brooks sentenced to life in prison in Wisconsin Christmas parade attack that left 6 dead
“WAUKESHA, Wis. – The driver of an SUV who plowed through a Milwaukee area Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring dozens of others, was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday.
Darrell Brooks Jr. was found guilty late last month on dozens of criminal charges after a jury found him responsible in the 2021 Christmas parade attack in Waukesha. The sentence, handed down by Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow, came one day after victims and family members of the dead described the impacts of Brooks' rampage. More than 40 victims and family members took to the stand or submitted written statements, almost all directly addressing Brooks angrily and bluntly.
Before his sentence, Brooks offered a rambling, two-hour statement, explaining he was sorry for what happened and had repented to God.” Read more at USA Today
Elon Musk said he expects to name someone else to run Twitter.
“He said that he’s been spending most of his time working on the social-media platform he bought last month. The Tesla boss was testifying in a shareholder lawsuit claiming he had undue influence over his 2018 pay package (worth around $52 billion at recent share prices) at the electric-car maker. Meanwhile, Musk told Twitter employees they must commit to working ‘long hours at high intensity’ or leave the company, according to an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. They received a Google form where they could choose to stay or go.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
SpaceX Employees Say They Were Fired for Speaking Up About Elon Musk
Charges filed with federal regulators accuse the company of retaliating against eight workers over an open letter critical of the chief executive.
By Noam Scheiber and Ryan Mac
Nov. 17, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
“In June, about 20 engineers were invited to a meeting hosted at the headquarters of the rocket manufacturer SpaceX. The subject of the conversation: the company’s founder and chief executive, Elon Musk.
The day before, the company had moved to fire five employees who had written a letter calling on SpaceX to condemn the ‘harmful Twitter behavior’ of Mr. Musk, who had used the social network to make light of a news report that SpaceX had settled a sexual harassment claim against him. Several of the engineers filed into the meeting expecting a sympathetic ear, as some managers and executives had indicated that they did not condone Mr. Musk’s behavior.
But the meeting, which has not been previously reported, quickly became heated, according to two SpaceX employees in attendance.
They said Jon Edwards, the vice president leading the meeting, characterized the letter as an extremist act and declared that the writers had been fired for distracting the company and taking on Mr. Musk. When asked whether the chief executive could sexually harass his workers with impunity, Mr. Edwards did not appear to answer, the two employees said. But they said the meeting had a recurring theme — that Mr. Musk could do whatever he wanted at the company.
‘SpaceX is Elon and Elon is SpaceX,’ the two recalled hearing Mr. Edwards declare.
The SpaceX letter ultimately led to the firing of nine workers, according to the employees and their lawyers. On Wednesday, unfair-labor-practice charges were filed with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of eight of those workers, arguing that their firings were illegal.
The SpaceX case raises new questions about the management practices at Mr. Musk’s companies, where there is little tolerance for dissent or labor organizing.
Tesla, the electric car manufacturer that Mr. Musk also runs, has resisted unionization attempts at its factories and is embroiled in legal action brought by workers who said they were not given adequate warning before a layoff in June.
After Mr. Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion last month, he immediately fired executives before laying off half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees. This week, he had subordinates comb through the internal communications and public tweets of Twitter employees, leading to dozens of critics being fired.
Interviews with the eight SpaceX employees who filed the charges highlight Mr. Musk’s firm grip on his workplaces, perhaps even beyond the restraints of federal law. Six of those employees spoke anonymously for fear of reprisal and are not identified by name in the labor board filings.” Read more at New York Times
Myanmar releasing 4 foreigners in broad prisoner amnesty
By DAVID RISING
“BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military-controlled government announced Thursday it was releasing and deporting an Australian academic, a Japanese filmmaker, an ex-British diplomat and an American as part of a broad prisoner amnesty to mark the country’s National Victory Day.
Australian Sean Turnell, Japan’s Toru Kubota, Briton Vicky Bowman, and American Kyaw Htay Oo, as well as 11 local Myanmar celebrities, were among a total of 5,774 prisoners who were being released, Myanmar’s state-run MRTV reported.
The imprisonment of the foreign nationals had been a source of friction between Myanmar’s leaders and their home governments, which had been lobbying for their release.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization, 16,232 people have been detained on political charges in Myanmar since the army ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February last year.” Read more at AP News
Russia didn't take US phone call after Poland missile strike
“The top U.S. military officer said Wednesday that he tried to reach out to his Russian counterpart in the aftermath of the missile explosions in Poland, but wasn't able to get through. The U.S. and other top leaders now say they believe the strike was probably launched by Ukrainian air defenses to defend against a Russian missile bombardment. But uncertainty swirled for hours. The lack of communications raises concerns about high-level U.S.-Russian communications in a crisis. A strike against Poland, a NATO member, could have risked a larger conflict if it turned out that Russia had launched the strike.” Read more at USA Today
Photo of the day: Banksy revealed seven new paintings throughout Ukraine. Click here to see them.
Graffiti of a child throwing a man on the floor in judo clothing is seen on a wall amid damaged buildings in Borodyanka on November 11, 2022 in Kyiv Region, Ukraine. The art work has sparked online speculation over whether the graffiti artist Banksy has been working in Ukraine.Ed Ram, Getty Images
U.N. Warns of “Risk of Partition” in Libya
Following years of war and political fragmentation, the United Nations’ Libya Envoy Abdoulaye Bathily has warned that Libya will be ‘at risk of partition’ if it continues to delay elections that were supposed to be held nearly a year ago.
The international community had cast the planned Dec. 2021 presidential and parliamentary elections as a potential opportunity to stabilize the country, although they were also controversial and plagued by eligibility challenges and legal disagreements that were never resolved.
The elections’ ultimate breakdown ‘was the predictable outcome of a process riddled with built-in self-defeating factors and whose implementation favored legal, constitutional, and political acrobatics,’ Omar Hammady, a former advisor to the U.N. Support Mission in Libya, wrote in Foreign Policy in February.
According to Jason Pack, the author of Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder, ‘Bathily is raising the alarm that at present Libya lacks an internationally-recognized prime minister, that the international community has no plan for a transition, and that Egypt and Turkey have recently hardened their support for opposing factions. Although actual partition is not possible in the short term, Bathily is right to point out that it is the natural endpoint of the indefinite continuation of the status quo,’ he told FP.
Libya’s ongoing instability stems from a NATO intervention in 2011, which helped depose the dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi and subsequently plunged the oil-rich nation into more than a decade of instability and conflict.
The intervention created a power vacuum ‘filled by legions of armed militias, foreign mercenaries, Islamist extremists, human traffickers, and regional and international powers, who have all transformed the North African country into the region’s greatest exporter of instability and mayhem,’ Colum Lynch reported for Foreign Policy in March 2021.
That shaped Libya into the deeply-fractured country that it is today, with rival powers battling for legitimacy and foreign leaders jockeying for influence with little regard for civilians. Between 2014 and 2020, Libya was embroiled in a brutal civil war that ultimately concluded with a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.
The cease-fire did little to heal the country’s political fissures, and opposing administrations empowered by militia support are still competing for control. On one side is Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who was only supposed to oversee a transitional government in Tripoli yet has clung to power after the failed elections. His government is internationally recognized.
His authority has been challenged by the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, which is backed by Khalifa Haftar, a military commander in the country’s east who has the support of Egypt, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates. The House of Representatives has refused to recognize Dbeibah’s authority following the failed election, and instead announced another prime minister, Fathy Bashagha.
In August, at least 32 people died and over 150 more were injured after violent clashes broke out among the militias in Tripoli, fueling concerns of a potential slide back into conflict.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Investigating Poland’s missile blast. The suspicious explosion in Poland that alarmed NATO countries on Tuesday was likely set off by an errant Ukrainian air-defense missile, Polish President Andrzej Duda announced on Wednesday. The blast, which killed two people, had originally sparked fears of a potentially deliberate attack, although NATO officials cautioned that they did not initially know enough to draw conclusions.
‘Let me be clear: This is not Ukraine’s fault,’ NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. ‘Russia bears ultimate responsibility as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
The site of an explosion this week in Poland near the border with Ukraine.Ugc, via Reuters
“Critical aid reaches Tigray. Aid from the United Nations’ World Food Program and the International Committee of the Red Cross has entered Ethiopia’s Tigray region, following a truce that the Ethiopian government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front signed earlier this month. As a result of the nearly two-year-long conflict between the warring parties, humanitarian agencies have warned that millions of people in Tigray are on the brink of famine.
‘More food, nutrition, medical cargo will follow imminently, via all routes possible,’ the World Food Program said.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“WHO Ebola vaccines. As Uganda grapples with an ongoing Ebola outbreak, Kampala will likely receive the first doses of vaccines next week, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday. The WHO has assessed three different experimental vaccines, he added, and plans to test all of them in the country first.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Kuwait’s mass execution. Kuwait has executed seven people who had been sentenced for premeditated murder and other crimes. It marked the country’s first execution in five years and was roundly condemned by human rights groups and the European Union, which described it as a ‘cruel and inhumane punishment.’
‘The EU calls for a halt to executions and for a complete de facto moratorium on carrying out death penalty, as a first step towards a formal and full abolition of the death penalty in Kuwait,’ it said in a statement. ‘As a matter of principle, the European Union is strongly opposed to the death penalty under all circumstances.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Turning away | Chinese President Xi Jinping’s partnership with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has limits after all. With speeches and gestures in recent weeks, Xi has taken his most significant steps to create space between Beijing and Moscow since Putin invaded Ukraine. The latest signal came at the G-20, where China signed off on a communique yesterday saying ‘most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine.’ Read more at Bloomberg
“Xi will hold his first in-person meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida today, the latest in a series of encounters that appeared aimed at calming tensions with US allies.” Read more at Bloomberg
The Chinese leader is in Bangkok for the last of the three major summits that have seen discussions range from climate change to the war in Ukraine and food inflation.” Read more at Bloomberg
“China’s leader, Xi Jinping, briefly scolded Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, accusing him of leaking details of a conversation they had.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Setting terms | Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said only the return of Crimea and the eastern Donbas territory taken by Russia will allow an end to the war. In an interview by video at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore today, he said Kyiv also requires the removal of all threats from Russia, and that a simple cease-fire won’t be enough.
Zelenskiy appeared to soften his insistence that a Russian missile caused a lethal blast in Poland and said a team would investigate after Biden disputed the claim.
A United Nations-brokered deal allowing exports of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea is set to be extended for 120 days, according to Ukraine, easing pressure on global food prices.” Read more at Bloomberg
Lula is looking to increase the amount of cheap credit for farmers to spur sustainable agriculture that could be key for pressing global issues: It increases food production and protects forests at the same time. Brazil is home to the Amazon rainforest, which is crucial for absorbing emissions.
“Workers in Ukraine’s telecom industry are striving to keep the nation’s soldiers and citizens connected and online since Russia’s invasion began. As John Beck reports, it’s the first major war in a country with communication and power infrastructure as sophisticated as Ukraine’s, leading one expert to call it ‘the most connected battlefield in the world ever.’ In that context, winning the information war often means victory. And winning an information war requires a reliable network.” Read more at Bloomberg
Ukrtelecom engineers in a battle-damaged part of Borodyanka. Photographer: John Beck for Bloomberg Businessweek
November 17, 2022
Good morning. The failure of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX put the entire industry under scrutiny.
FTX’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.Erika P. Rodriguez for The New York Times
Buyer beware
“How could a $32 billion company vaporize overnight? That’s what anyone watching the sudden collapse of FTX, a hot cryptocurrency start-up that plunged into bankruptcy last week, might be puzzling over.
It will take time — and multiple federal investigations — to fully understand what happened behind the scenes at FTX, a Bahamas-based crypto exchange. But the impact is already becoming clear. Lawmakers are calling for more oversight. Crypto die-hards are trying to distance themselves. Critics of this sector of finance are crowing. And for those of you who had, until now, managed to ignore the rise and rise and rise of crypto as a phenomenon? First of all, good for you. And second, you may want to watch this one play out. I’ll explain why shortly.
But first, here is the simplest explanation of what happened that I can manage: FTX let people and companies buy and sell digital currencies, holding billions of dollars’ worth of customer deposits. FTX’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, also created an investment fund that trades cryptocurrencies called Alameda Research. The businesses were supposed to be separate, but this year, Alameda needed cash and apparently dipped into FTX’s customer deposits. Then, this month, FTX customers became worried about their deposits and rushed to withdraw them, setting off a bank run and pushing FTX into bankruptcy.
The apparent commingling of funds between Alameda and FTX is highly suspicious and could lead to criminal fraud charges and lawsuits. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department are investigating. I want to explain today why the disintegration of FTX matters — it’s more than simply one man’s financial catastrophe.
Three reasons
1. Crypto went mainstream in the pandemic. Regulation has yet to catch up.
Cryptocurrencies were part of overlapping investment manias — including meme stocks, trading cards, NFTs and sneakers — that got people chasing speculative investments over the past few years. But not everyone buying in understood the level of risk involved.
If a bank fails, the government might step in and bail it out. A hallmark of crypto is that it is largely unregulated — buyer beware. Hacks can’t be reversed, misplaced funds can’t be retrieved by calling customer service, and a failing crypto exchange is not likely to get a government bailout. Investors have few protections.
Risky bets at several crypto projects once deemed valuable have already led to ‘death spirals’ this year, incinerating billions of dollars’ worth of investors’ money. But FTX and Bankman-Fried stand out. He appeared on magazine covers, schmoozed regulators, grew his profile in philanthropy and politics and even sponsored a sports arena in Miami. He made hundreds of investments in smaller crypto projects and aggressively bailed out failing ones.
Evangelists for cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology promote them as investment vehicles that eliminate the need for faith in people and institutions. But Bankman-Fried made a point of fostering trust: from investors, journalists, politicians and charities. Now he’s a pariah, and he brought all of the crypto industry under scrutiny.
2. FTX’s collapse is connected to the broader tech industry retreat.
Bankman-Fried is already drawing comparisons to Bernie Madoff. And just as Madoff’s Ponzi scheme fell apart during the 2008 financial crisis, FTX’s collapse arrives amid a broader pullback for the tech industry. Tech stocks have crashed. Venture capital funding is drying up. Nearly 800 tech companies have laid off more than 120,000 workers this year, with cuts hitting Meta, Amazon and Twitter.
The tough times in tech can be traced to interest rates for borrowing money. For more than a decade, rates were low, pushing investors to chase risk and pour money into high-growth tech companies. Now, rates are rising, just as the pandemic-fueled growth of the last two years fades. The rate increases have hurt tech company valuations and access to capital — including those focused on crypto.
3. There’s more to come.
FTX’s bankruptcy filings list more than one million creditors. In addition to people who used the platform to store their cryptocurrency investments and investors who backed the company directly, numerous funds and crypto start-ups had assets locked up there.
Investment managers that dabbled in crypto ‘should really be considering whether they should have relatively new, relatively unproven, relatively unregulated assets in their retirement plans,’ said Marcia Wagner, founder of the Wagner Law Group, a firm focused on employee benefits. ‘There are certain types of assets that frankly don’t belong.’” Read more at New York Times
“A third Cy Young Award: The Astros ace and current free agent Justin Verlander picked up his third career A.L. Cy Young Award, an astounding feat at 39. The Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara unanimously won on the N.L. side.” Read more at New York Times
“Nets and Simmons at odds: The Brooklyn Nets have grown increasingly frustrated with Ben Simmons’ lack of availability and passion for the game, The Athletic’s Shams Charania and Sam Amick write, another wrinkle in what has been a nightmare season for the Nets.” Read more at New York Times
The National Book Awards
“This year’s National Book Award, one of the most prestigious literary prizes, was awarded last night.
Nonfiction: Imani Perry, a professor of African American studies, won for ‘South to America,’ in which she travels to the American South, where she is from, to examine race, culture, politics and identity. ‘I write for my people. I write because we children of the lash-scarred, rope-choked, bullet-ridden, desecrated are still here, standing,’ Perry said.
Fiction: Tess Gunty won for ‘The Rabbit Hutch,’ which focuses on the daily dramas of tenants in a Midwestern housing complex. The Times called it a ‘prismatic and often mesmerizing debut.’
For more: Here’s a list of winners.” Read more at New York Times
Imani Perri’s book ‘South to America’ won the National Book Award on Wednesday.Credit...Left: Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated Press
Jay Leno Has Surgery for ‘Significant’ Burns From Car Fire
The comedian and TV host sustained mostly second-degree burns to his face, hands and chest. He was ‘cracking jokes’ after surgery to remove damaged skin tissue and place skin grafts, his doctor said.
Published Nov. 16, 2022Updated Nov. 17, 2022, 4:37 a.m. ET
“Jay Leno, the comedian and television host, underwent surgery this week and will need a second procedure in the coming days after he sustained ‘significant’ burns while working on a car over the weekend, his doctor said on Wednesday.
Dr. Peter H. Grossman, medical director at Grossman Burn Centers in West Hills, Calif., said Mr. Leno sustained burns to his face, hands and chest. He described them as ‘deep second-degree burns, with possibly third-degree burns.’ The deepest burns were on Mr. Leno’s face, the doctor added.
The doctor said he expected Mr. Leno to make a full recovery but that it might take ‘slightly longer’ than what the comedian initially anticipated because of the severity. After the fire, Mr. Leno said in a statement that he would ‘just need a week or two’ to get back on his feet.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: Virginia McLaurin was born a sharecroppers’ daughter in the Jim Crow South. In 2016, she danced with Barack Obama and Michelle Obama at the White House. She died on Monday. She was 113 by her own accounting. (She had no birth certificate.)” Read more at New York Times