The Full Belmonte, 2/8/2022
President Biden met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the White House on Monday.PHOTO: ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“President Biden said the Russian-built Nord Stream 2 natural-gas pipeline to Germanywould be suspended if Russia invades Ukraine, with the German chancellor offering support but without explicitly saying the project would be halted.
‘If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will put an end to it,’ Mr. Biden said at a joint appearance with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany after the leaders met at the White House. ‘I promise you, we will be able to do it.’
Mr. Scholz said Germany and the U.S. are aligned in their positions regarding Moscow’s potential invasion of Ukraine. In keeping with his past statements, he didn’t cite suspending the pipeline specifically as among the steps his government is ready to take to punish Russia.
‘We are acting together. We are absolutely united, and we will not be taking any steps, we will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia, and they should understand,’ Mr. Scholz said.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday reinstated an Alabama congressional map that a lower court had said diluted the power of Black voters, suggesting that the court was poised to become more skeptical of challenges to voting maps based on claims of race discrimination.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the court’s three liberal members in dissent.
The Supreme Court’s brief order, which included no reasoning, was provisional, staying a lower court’s decision while the case moves forward. The justices said they would hear Alabama’s appeal of the lower court’s ruling, but they did not say when.
Both the stay and the decision to hear the case indicated that the court is open to weakening the role race may play in drawing voting districts for federal elections, setting up a major new test of the Voting Rights Act in a court that has gradually limited the reach of the law in other contexts.” Read more at New York Times
“Former President Donald J. Trump last month handed over to the National Archives 15 boxes of documents, letters, gifts and mementos that he had taken with him when leaving office but that he had been legally required to leave in the custody of the federal government, officials said on Monday.
The materials included the original versions of a letter that former President Barack Obama had left for Mr. Trump when he was first sworn in, as well as correspondence from the North Korean leader,Kim Jong-un. The items also included a map Mr. Trump famously drew on with a black Sharpie marker to demonstrate the track of Hurricane Dorian heading toward Alabama in 2019 to back up a declaration he had made on Twitter that contradicted weather forecasts.
The boxes contained items taken from the White House’s residence during a hasty exit after Mr. Trump had spent the bulk of the presidential transition trying to find ways to stay in power, according to two people familiar with the process of how the boxes were returned. At the time, Mr. Trump’s aides were either preoccupied with helping him overturn the election, trying to stop him or avoiding him.
The Washington Post reported earlier that Mr. Trump had handed over the boxes to the National Archives.” Read more at New York Times
“Eric Lander, President Biden’s top science adviser, resigned Monday night after he acknowledged mistreating his subordinates and apologized for demeaning them, a pattern of behavior that put him at odds with one of Biden’s earliest promises — to run an administration marked by respect and professionalism.
An internal review by the White House found credible evidence that Lander, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, bullied staff in violation of the White House’s ‘safe and respectful workplace policy,’ which was intended in part to draw a contrast with the Trump administration.
Lander’s resignation came after the White House struggled throughout the day to explain why he had not quit or been fired, and how that squared with a pledge Biden made on his first day in office. On that day, he told staffers at swearing-in ceremony, ‘If you are ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot. On the spot — no if, ands or buts.’” Read more at Washington Post
“WASHINGTON—The House passed a bipartisan bill that would bar mandatory arbitration in cases of sexual assault and harassment, and the Senate could take it up as soon as this week, as the legislation moves closer to becoming law.
The bill passed 335-97.
Mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts block consumers and employees from raising claims in court, instead directing them to private arbitrators whose proceedings are often confidential.
Companies that place such clauses in their contracts say it promotes efficient handling of complaints, but consumer advocates say the private arbitration system is skewed toward business and impedes public accountability for wrongdoing.
The House bill’s sponsor, Rep. Cheri Bustos (D., Ill.), said in a speech ahead of the vote that 60 million Americans are working under these forced arbitration clauses through their employers, adding that the real number of people affected is even bigger. ‘Many more millions of Americans have signed away their rights through property leases, ride-share applications, moving companies, nursing homes, grocery deliveries,’ Ms. Bustos said. ‘While some companies have already eliminated this abusive practice—thank you to them—it’s time to do away with these legal traps for good.’
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Monday that he expected there to be strong bipartisan support for the bill on the Senate floor, and predicted it will soon head to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
‘Congress can finally act to empower victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment to speak openly by nullifying forced arbitration clauses that push survivors into an often secret and biased process,’ Mr. Schumer said in a floor speech. ‘We will not waste this historic opportunity.’
The bipartisan legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.). The Senate version of the bill has at least 10 Republican co-sponsors, increasing the chances that it will be able to overcome the evenly divided Senate’s 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation.
The bill’s supporters say it empowers victims of harassment or assault by allowing them to speak publicly about their cases and by giving them choices about how to seek justice. Clauses requiring private arbitration typically can be found in the fine print of everything from employment paperwork and leases to contracts and disclosures for credit cards and nursing homes.
‘This bill is one of the most significant workplace reforms in American history and is a major step forward toward changing a system that uses secrecy to protect perpetrators and silence survivors,’ Ms. Gillibrand said in a statement.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has expressed concerns about the bill, saying it is overly broad.
‘Arbitration provides a fair, effective, and less expensive means of resolving disputes compared to going to court,’ the Chamber said in a Nov. 3 letter to senators. ‘Empirical studies demonstrate that employees in arbitration do just as well, or in many circumstances, considerably better, than in court.’” Read more at Wall Street Journal
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy in Trenton today. Photo: Tanya Breen/The Record via USA Today Network
“School mask mandates will come to an end in Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware and Oregon within weeks, state officials announced yesterday. This is a positive sign of decreasing Covid-19 cases across the nation as the country moves toward a new normal, several Democratic governors said. California will also lift its statewide indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people next week, nearly two years after it was first implemented. Similar announcements are expected from other states in the near future as more local leaders consider the shifting tide of mask politics, frustration with continued Covid-related restrictions, as well as higher vaccination rates and a decline in cases since the peak of the Omicron surge.” Read more at CNN
“The House of Representatives is expected to vote later today on a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of next week. Funding is currently set to expire on February 18, but the measure the House is set to take up would extend funding through March 11. Once the House passes the stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, the Senate would need to approve it before it can be sent to President Biden to be signed into law. Congressional negotiators on both sides of the aisle have been working on a bipartisan basis to try to secure a full-year funding agreement, but a deal has not yet been reached.” Read more at CNN
“A man charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over her response to the coronavirus pandemic entered a guilty plea Monday, the second person to plead guilty in the case set to proceed to federal court next month.
Kaleb James Franks pleaded guilty to kidnapping conspiracy, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, according to the plea agreement. He joins Ty Garbin, a former airplane mechanic, who was sentenced to six years and three months in federal prison last August, after pleading guilty to the same charge. Both men agreed to cooperate with the government, including testifying if called upon, according to their guilty pleas. Mr. Franks hasn’t yet been sentenced.
The remaining four defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, are scheduled to stand trial March 8.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“OTTAWA — Eleven days into an unruly occupation against coronavirus restrictions that has paralyzed Canada’s capital, the protests have become a rallying cry for powerful far-right and anti-vaccine groups around the world that have made the cause their own.
The demonstration in Ottawa started in January as a loosely organized convoy of truck drivers and protesters rumbling across the country to oppose the mandatory vaccination of truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border. It soon attracted the support of other Canadians exhausted by nearly two years of pandemic restrictions.
Some were clearly on the fringe, wearing Nazi symbols and desecrating public monuments. But many described themselves as ordinary Canadians driven to take to the streets by desperation.
‘They keep doing the same thing, and it’s not working,’ said Nicole Vandelaar, a 31-year-old hairdresser protesting in the capital. ‘They have to do something else. No more lockdowns. Let us live our lives.’
On Sunday, after a weekend of boisterous demonstrations, the authorities in Ottawa declared a state of emergency and said the police were overwhelmed. ‘We continue to employ all available officers, there are no days off,’ the Ottawa police chief, Peter Sloly, said Monday. ‘This is not sustainable.’
The message at the heart of the protests — that government has been overreaching for too long — has resonated far away across Canada’s borders.
Donors have contributed millions of dollars in online campaigns with hashtags, images and messages of support spreading widely across social media platforms.
The protest has also sparked discussion of similar demonstrations in the United States. American truckers are in the planning stages of launching their own convoy, from California to Washington, said Brian Brase, a trucker involved in organizing the effort.” Read more at New York Times
“President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met at the White House to talk about how to handle a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. Elsewhere on the diplomacy scene, President Emmanuel Macron of France met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in an attempt to diffuse the standoff at the Ukrainian border; Macron also is meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Macron in Kyiv. Fresh from his five-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron is in Kyiv today for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Russian president called Macron’s ideas and proposals ‘rather feasible for creating a foundation for our further steps.’
Following his meeting with Zelensky, Macron then travels to Berlin for three-way talks alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Macron won’t be the only European official visiting Ukraine, with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock as well as her Czech, Slovak, and Austrian counterparts all spending time in the country today.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Senior White House and State Department officials failed to grasp the Taliban’s steady advance on Afghanistan’s capital and resisted efforts by U.S. military leaders to prepare the evacuation of embassy personnel and Afghan allies weeks before Kabul’s fall, placing American troops ordered to carry out the withdrawal in greater danger, according to sworn testimony from multiple commanders involved in the operation.
An Army investigative report, numbering 2,000 pages and released to The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, details the life-or-death decisions made daily by U.S. soldiers and Marines sent to secure Hamid Karzai International Airport as thousands converged on the airfield in a frantic bid to escape.
Beyond the bleak, blunt assessments of top military commanders, the documents contain previously unreported disclosures about the violence American personnel experienced, including one exchange of gunfire that left two Taliban fighters dead after they allegedly menaced a group of U.S. Marines and Afghan civilians, and a separate incident in which U.S. troops killed a member of an elite Afghan strike unit and wounded six others after they fired on the Americans.
Kabul airport attack involved a single bomb with ‘disturbing lethality,’ Pentagon inquiry finds
The investigation was launched in response to an Aug. 26 suicide bombing just outside the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members. But it is much broader, providing perhaps the fullest official account yet of the evacuation operation, which spanned 17 nightmarish days and has become one of the Biden administration’s defining moments — drawing scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats for the haphazard nature in which the United States ended its longest war.” Read more at Washington Post
“TEL AVIV—Israeli authorities launched a state inquiry on Monday into allegations that the country’s police illicitly used spyware to hack the phones of political activists, senior government bureaucrats and people close to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The national investigation, led by the public security minister who oversees the police, adds a new dimension to a political firestorm here over Israelis being targeted by homegrown spyware that infects smartphones.
The investigation followed a report in Israeli newspaper Calcalist that police unlawfully targeted one of Mr. Netanyahu’s sons and two of his top communication aides, along with mayors, ministry officials and a leading businessman. The uproar began in January with reports that police used spyware against political opponents of Mr. Netanyahu.
On Monday, the allegations prompted calls for a thorough investigation from across Israel’s political spectrum and from Israel’s own national police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, who took office in January 2021, after the period of alleged wrongdoing.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“f he was trying to change the discourse from ‘partygate,’ the U.K. prime minister certainly succeeded.
But instead of relieving the pressure, Boris Johnson’s attempt to smear his chief political opponent has only added to his troubles.
Key reading:
U.K. Protesters Chase Starmer After Johnson’s Pedophile Jibe
Crisis Deepens for Johnson as Aide Quits Over Pedophile Jibe
Sunak Says ‘Partygate’ Hit Public Confidence in U.K. Government
Johnson was already in hot water last week over allegations that he breached his own government’s pandemic lockdown rules, when he stated falsely that Labour Party leader Keir Starmer failed to prosecute a serial child-sex abuser in his former role as director of public prosecutions.
The claim was cited as the main reason for a key policy adviser’s resignation later that week among an exodus of aides from Downing Street, further damaging Johnson’s listing premiership.
Yesterday evening came an incident that only piles on the discomfort for Conservative MPs who are being asked to continue backing Johnson.
As Starmer and the shadow foreign secretary walked in Westminster, they were accosted and chased by a group of protesters accusing the Labour leader of ‘protecting pedophiles.’
Johnson condemned the act in a Twitter post, though calls are growing for him to issue an apology for his remarks. As Emily Ashton reports, the prime minister has no intention of doing so.
As the leading face of the Brexit referendum in 2016, Johnson won the vote by bringing a populist touch to U.K. politics that came to be seen as more in tune with Donald Trump’s America than prior Conservative images of Britain as a country of fair play and decency.
The latest incident suggests he may have crossed a line. ‘Johnson accused by own MPs of inciting mob against Starmer,’ ran the front page headline in The Times today.
Maybe he’ll ride it out.
But it’s hard to escape the sense that the cumulative effect of Johnson’s brand of politics will sooner or later see him prised from office.” — Alan Crawford Read more at Bloomberg
“The world’s shrinking glaciers contain less ice than previously estimated, highlighting a future of tight water supplies as the planet warms, according to a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience. It found, for example, that the 4 million people who live in three catchment basins of the Andes mountains could face water shortages earlier than expected.” Read more at Bloomberg
The Olivares Alfa glacier near Santiago, Chile.
Photographer: Tomas Munita/Bloomberg
“A Chinese security official yanked a Dutch reporter out of his live shot during the Olympics opening ceremony.
Why it matters: The press environment in China has deteriorated dramatically in the past two years. Foreign journalists have been kicked out. Intimidation and physical violence have become more common, Axios' Sara Fischer and Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian report.
The reporter — Sjoerd den Daas, a correspondent for Dutch broadcaster NOS — tweeted that just after going live, he was ‘forcefully pulled out of the picture without any warning by a plainclothes man wearing a red badge that read, 'Public Safety Volunteer.'‘
‘He did not identify himself,’ he wrote, ‘When asked, they couldn't say what we had done wrong.’
Flashback: The atmosphere of intimidation is dramatically different from the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Chinese authorities made it easier for journalists all around the world to enter China for months leading up to the Olympics and allowed them to travel freely, in what was seen as a sign of greater opening up to the world.
In 2022, leaders in Beijing seem less interested in garnering approbation from Western democracies and their reporters — and more interested in demonstrating that their rules matter most.” Read more at Axios
“In India, violent hate speech against Muslims is reaching the mainstream.” Read more at New York Times
“Landlords in Nigeria will have to adopt short-term budgeting plans if a new law, under consideration by the Senate, passes. The bill seeks to end the practice of collecting rent on an annual basis and move toward a monthly system, a method the bill’s proponents hope will provide renters with greater financial stability.
Ayem Ojie, a landlord in Lagos, is against the changes. ‘Yearly rents should not be debated because many house-owners depend on it for survival,’ he told the BBC, saying he is putting the lump sums together for his retirement. ‘Financial planning is easy when the funds are in bulk,’ he said.” Read more at Washington Post
“On Monday, first lady Jill Biden announced that free community college won’t be a part of the Democrats’ spending plan.” [Vox] Read more at NYT / Katie Rogers
AUSTIN, Texas — “Roughly one million people in Austin have had to boil their water since Saturday after officials said ‘errors’ at a treatment plant resulted in potentially unsafe water flowing into homes and businesses in one of the largest and fastest-growing American cities.
It was the second time in a year that residents of the Texas capital have been told to boil water before drinking. Last February, the problems were caused by the collapse of the state’s electricity grid, which resulted in power failures at Austin’s largest water treatment plant.
But city officials said the issues at the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant in northwest Austin over the weekend were unrelated to a winter storm that caused temperatures to plunge across the state late last week.
‘This is a very different event than what happened last year,’ Spencer Cronk, the Austin city manager, said during a news conference on Sunday.
In a state still traumatized by the failure of its electrical systems during a bitter cold last year, the directive over the weekend to boil water caused frustration and anger across Austin. The notice is likely to remain in effect for the entire city until at least Tuesday afternoon.
‘We have to do a better job,’ Mayor Steve Adler said during a television interview on Monday. ‘In our city, we can’t have our water system going down like this.’
The mayor said 7,000 cases of bottled water had been distributed by the city along with 6,000 gallons of water from delivery tankers. Still, he said, the situation was ‘incredibly frustrating for everybody in this city.’
Water officials said that by Friday, they had weathered last week’s storm without incident. But on Saturday morning around 8 a.m., the head of Austin Water, Greg Meszaros, was alerted to a spike in ‘turbidity’ — the cloudiness of the water going out to consumers — at the Ullrich plant. The plant was immediately shut down.” Read more at New York Times
“Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) expressed regret today after his campaign Twitter account lashed out over the weekend at a 17-year-old high school student who is a vocal Democrat. The tweet was deleted. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
“ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — A record 31.5 million Americans plan to bet on this year’s Super Bowl, according to estimates released Tuesday by the gambling industry’s national trade group.
The American Gaming Association forecasted that over $7.6 billion will be wagered on pro football’s championship game set for Sunday.
Both the amount of people planning to bet (up 35% from last year) and the estimated amount of money being bet (up 78% from last year) are new records.
Bettors include people making casual wagers with friends or relatives, entries into office pools, wagers with licensed sportsbooks, and bets placed with illegal bookmakers.” Read more at AP News
“The IRS is ending its plan to require facial ID for filing taxes online.” Read more at Axios
“Stunning stat: Over 1 million men surged into the labor force last month (taking a job or looking for one) — compared to just 39,000 women.
Why it matters: This appears to be about child care. Issues with schools and daycare centers kept women, who are typically primary caregivers to children, out of the workforce throughout the pandemic — and it's still happening, Axios Markets co-author Emily Peck writes.
That reality holds back the economic recovery, keeping women on the sidelines at a time when companies are desperate to hire.
Women with young children at home, who might have considered going back to work, likely couldn't because of unstable school and child-care schedules.
‘We don't have the data that says, 'it was because of child care,' but we can hear their voices screaming out behind the numbers,’ said Emily Martin, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women's Law Center, which published a report on this data.
What's next: Women are in a tough spot, as there's still a shortage of child-care workers — and the possibility of school scheduling snafus with future variants.
Child-care providers operate on tight margins and don't pay well, and in a tight labor market they're having a hard time finding workers — fueling the crisis.” Read more at Axios
“Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines, two prominent budget carriers, on Monday announced plans to merge, a combination that would create the fifth-largest U.S. airline by market share, putting pressure on the nation’s biggest carriers and raising concerns about further consolidation in an already-concentrated industry.
The airlines, which offer 1,000 daily flights serving destinations in the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America, said in a statement that the merger would save consumers $1 billion annually, and that the airlines would not lay off employees because of it. They also said they expected to hire 10,000 workers by 2026 to add to their current combined total of 15,000.
The deal could face pushback from the Biden administration, which has increasingly challenged such mergers and partnerships in court. In the fall, the Justice Department sued to prevent a domestic alliance between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways, arguing that the agreement would drive up prices and reduce competition.
The U.S. airline industry has undergone a tremendous amount of consolidation over the past two decades, with the nation’s four largest airlines controlling about 80 percent of the domestic market. Spirit and Frontier argue that the merger would allow them to better challenge those large carriers. But a deal would also create a giant budget airline that could smother smaller companies, including two recent entrants, Breeze and Avelo.” Read more at New York Times
“Amazon will raise its maximum base pay for corporate and tech workers to $350,000 from $160,000, GeekWire reports.” Read more at Axios
“Peter Thiel plans to step down from Meta’s board, Axios Pro Rata author Dan Primack reports.
Thiel has been the board’s only representative in former President Trump’s orbit and has served since shortly after the company’s founding.” Read more at Axios
“Spanish-language misinformation on social media platforms is flourishing, even as tech companies add more moderators, adopt stricter content rules, add context labels and block offending accounts, Axios' Ashley Gold and Russell Contreras write.
Why it matters: Latinos are increasingly turning to social media for news during the pandemic — including important elections where Spanish-language misinformation sometimes sits unchallenged, posing threats to health and democracies.
What's happening: Where platforms are quick to remove misinformation posts in English, some identical posts in Spanish remain online.” Read more at Axios
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images
“The Biden administration announced plans on Monday to take steps that could boost union membership and collective bargaining rights for federal, public, and private sector employees.” [Vox] Read more at NYT / Noam Scheiber
“The announcement followed the release of a report the administration commissioned from labor experts in April 2020. That report includes 70 recommendations for making federal and private sector work fairer that range from encouraging more federal employees to unionize to advantaging companies with strict labor standards when giving out federal grants.” [Vox] Read more at Guardian / Steven Greenhouse
“The report recommends encouraging unions, as it found union membership has several benefits (“union households earn up to 20% more than non-union households”) but also that many who want to be union workers aren’t.” [Vox] Read more at White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment
“Just over 10 percent of salary and wage workers are union members, while surveys have found 48 percent of non-union workers want to join one.” [Vox] Read more at Washington Post / Eli Rosenberg
“To help boost unionization in the US, the report recommends increasing organizing among federal employees by ensuring workers know their rights and learn how to unionize, and by making sure federal dollars aren’t spent on anti-union efforts.” [Vox] Read more at NBC / Teaganne Finn
“Pro-business groups are already accusing the Biden administration of union propaganda, claiming worker strikes could further imperil the supply chain. The administration, however, said Monday that ‘Unions benefit all of us.’ [Vox] Read more at AP / Josh Boak
“In figure skating at the Beijing Games, Russia is just getting started. At least that’s what the Russian skaters said on Monday after winning the team figure skating competition behind the performance of the 15-year-old phenomenon Kamila Valieva. And it is likely true.
Valieva’s history-making free skate on Monday included the first two quadruple jumps landed by a woman at an Olympics. She won both of her skates in the team event, nearly setting a world record for points in the women’s short program on Sunday and finishing more than 15 points ahead of the next competitor, skating’s equivalent of a mile.” Read more at New York Times
BEIJING (AP) — “Nathan Chen had just shattered the world record for a figure skating short program, even throwing a defiant fist in a rare display of emotion, when he was asked how he’d spend the next 48 hours before his long-awaited Olympic coronation.
‘I’ve been here a while,’ the 22-year-old American star replied with a shrug Tuesday. ‘I’ve got some clothes to wash. Some other things to clean around my room. Just ordinary chores, really. Nothing crazy.’
He left the crazy — the downright stunning — on the ice of Beijing’s historic Capital Indoor Stadium.
Wearing a confident smirk, Chen avenged his poor short program from four years ago at the Pyeongchang Games in the biggest way possible. He opened with a perfect quad flip, breezed through his often-vexing triple axel, then drilled his quad flip-triple toe loop combination before skating to a stop and delivering a right haymaker at the air.
His score was 113.97 points, nearly two more than the previous world record set by rival Yuzuru Hanyu, and six points clear of second-place Yuma Kagiyama headed into Thursday’s free skate.” Read more at AP News
“For two days, social media users in China have been heaping scorn onto Beverly Zhu, a 19-year-old figure skater who was born and raised in the United States but competes for China under the name Zhu Yi.
The criticism began on Sunday, when the naturalized athlete fell during the women’s singles short program in the team event.
By that afternoon, the hashtag #ZhuYiFellDown had been viewed more than 200 million times on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform. Commenters called her ‘shameless,’ ‘rotten’ and an ‘embarrassment.’
In an unusual move, Weibo stepped in by Sunday evening to ban the hashtag. It did not provide a reason, citing only ‘relevant guidelines and policies.’
‘I’m upset and a little embarrassed,’ a tearful Zhu said after the competition, according to Reuters. ‘I guess I felt a lot of pressure because I know everybody in China was pretty surprised with the selection for ladies’ singles, and I just really wanted to show them what I was able to do, but unfortunately I didn’t.’
Searches for Zhu’s name remained visible. Furor erupted again on Monday, after she stumbled twice during her free skate event. Zhu, who broke out in tears during the program, finished last.
‘Don’t cry, I’m the one who wants to cry,’ one commenter wrote online.
Chinese athletes face enormous pressure to win medals and bring glory to the country. The criticism of Zhu showed how naturalized athletes were sometimes subject to even harsher scrutiny.
Before the 2022 Games, Zhu had come under attack for her apparent inability to speak fluent Chinese. The uproar is in contrast to the international attention on Eileen Gu, the star skier who was born and raised in California but is also competing for China, and is widely favored to be a gold medal contender.
Some social media users suggested, without evidence, that Zhu had gained a spot on the Chinese Olympics team because of the prominence of her father, Song-Chun Zhu, a computer scientist who relocated to Peking University from the United States.” Read more at New York Times
“Lives Lived: The composer George Crumb’s music featured instrumental and human sounds drawn from the traditions of Asia and his native Appalachia. He died at 92.” Read more at New York Times