The Full Belmonte, 9/19/2022
Britain and world say final goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II
By DANICA KIRKA, MIKE CORDER and JILL LAWLESS
“LONDON (AP) — Britain and the world said a final goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II at a state funeral Monday that drew presidents and kings, princes and prime ministers — and crowds that massed along the streets of London to honor a monarch whose 70-year reign defined an age.
A day packed with events in London and Windsor began early when the doors of 900-year-old Westminster Hall were closed to mourners after hundreds of thousands had filed in front of her flag-draped coffin. Many had waited for hours in line, including through cold nights, to see the lying in state in an outpouring of collective grief and respect.
‘I felt like I had to come and pay my final respects to our majestic queen. She has done so much for us and just a little thank you really from the people,’ said Tracy Dobson, who was among the last to join the line.
In a country known for pomp and pageantry, the first state funeral since Winston Churchill’s was filled with the spectacular display: 142 Royal Navy sailors drew the gun carriage carrying Elizabeth’s coffin to Westminster Abbey, with King Charles III and his sons Princes William and Harry walking behind as pipers played. Pall bearers then carried the coffin into the Abbey, where around 2,000 people ranging from world leaders to health care workers and volunteers gathered to mourn her. Ahead of the service, one of the Abbey’s bells tolled 96 times — once a minute for each year of her life.” Read more at AP News
Fiona nears Dominican Republic after pounding Puerto Rico
By DÁNICA COTO
“HAVANA (AP) — Hurricane Fiona bore down on the Dominican Republic Monday after knocking out the power grid and unleashing floods and landslides in Puerto Rico, where the governor said the damage was ‘catastrophic.’
No deaths have been reported, but authorities in the U.S. territory said it was too early to estimate the damage from a storm that was still forecast to unleash torrential rain across Puerto Rico on Monday.
Up to 30 inches (76 centimeters) was forecast for Puerto Rico’s eastern and southern regions.
‘It’s important people understand that this is not over,’ said Ernesto Morales, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Juan.
He said flooding has reached ‘historic levels,’ with authorities evacuating or rescuing hundreds of people across the island.
‘The damages that we are seeing are catastrophic,’ said Gov. Pedro Pierluisi.
Brown water rushed through streets, into homes and even consumed a runway airport in southern Puerto Rico.” Read more at AP News
Biden Calls Trump ‘Irresponsible’ Over Mar-a-Lago Documents
Speaking to “60 Minutes,” the president also declared the Covid-19 pandemic to be “over” in the United States.
President Biden in Detroit last week. In an interview, he expressed optimism over inflation and stressed falling gasoline prices.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
“WASHINGTON — President Biden said in an interview aired on Sunday evening that former President Donald J. Trump had been ‘totally irresponsible’ for keeping top-secret documents at his residence and private club in Florida, but he said he had not asked for specifics about the documents in order to stay out of the Justice Department’s potential decision to charge Mr. Trump criminally.
Speaking to Scott Pelley of CBS’s ‘60 Minutes,’ in interviews taped from Washington and from Mr. Biden’s trip last week to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the president also declared the Covid-19 pandemic “over” and said the country seemed to be in good shape.
“The pandemic is over,” Mr. Biden said, speaking on the floor of the auto show, which he visited to champion his administration’s efforts to bolster electric vehicle production in the United States.
‘We still have a problem with Covid,’ he said, according to a transcript provided by “60 Minutes.” ‘We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing. And I think this is a perfect example of it.’” Read more at New York Times
Biden Administration Quietly Steps Up Effort to Close Guantanamo
Special representative named to oversee efforts to transfer detainees out of military facility in Cuba
The U.S. has held alleged foreign terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba since 2002.PHOTO: ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is revamping its effort to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, for the first time appointing a senior diplomat to oversee detainee transfers and signaling it won’t interfere with plea negotiations that could resolve the long-stalled prosecution of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants.
After taking a low-profile approach to the matter for the first year of his term to avoid political controversy, President Biden is moving closer to fulfilling a campaign promise to shut the facility, people familiar with the matter said.
The facility at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba was set up in January 2002 to house alleged foreign terrorists captured overseas. Guantanamo has held nearly 800 men since then; only 36 detainees remain at the facility today, after hundreds were returned home or resettled in third countries by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. The newest detainee arrived in 2008; some of the men have been held for two decades.
Nine of the remaining detainees are defendants in military commission proceedings, including five accused of conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, hijacking or hazarding a vessel or aircraft, and terrorism in the Sept. 11 case.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Trump Associate Heads to Trial Over Alleged Illegal Foreign Lobbying
Thomas Barrack is accused of trying to illegally influence White House policies on behalf of the United Arab Emirates
Thomas Barrack, arriving at court in Brooklyn last year, tried to influence U.S. officials at the direction of the United Arab Emirates, federal prosecutors allege.PHOTO: MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
“A confidant of former President Donald Trump goes on trial beginning this week on charges he illegally pushed U.S. officials to support policies favoring the United Arab Emirates, a case that could detail the small Gulf state’s back-channel connections and outsize sway in Washington.
Thomas Barrack, the former chairman of investment firm Colony Capital Inc., is accused of acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the U.S. Attorney General.
Federal prosecutors allege Mr. Barrack worked with a former colleague and an Emirati citizen to influence the Trump administration and U.S. officials at the direction of high-ranking Emirati officials. At the same time, Mr. Barrack solicited and received about $374 million in capital commitments from Emirati sovereign-wealth funds, they say.
Mr. Barrack, who was charged in July 2021, is also accused of obstruction of justice and making false statements during a 2019 interview with agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Jury selection is set to start Monday in a Brooklyn federal court. The trial is expected to last about a month.
Mr. Barrack has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers declined to comment. They said in previous court filings that Mr. Barrack never acted as an agent of a foreign government, nor did he try to conceal his ties to Emirati officials. Mr. Barrack disclosed his interactions with the Emiratis to the U.S. State Department, Mr. Trump and Mr. Trump’s closest allies, the lawyers said.
Mr. Barrack’s defense team also criticized prosecutors for waiting two years—and until after Mr. Trump left office—to charge him, questioning whether ‘the government intentionally delayed bringing this case for political reasons or tactical advantage.’” Read more at Wall Street Journal
President Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nayhan, who met with President Trump in 2017, was one of the unnamed Emirati officials accused in an indictment of being involved in a U.S. influence campaign, say people familiar with the situation.PHOTO: YIN BOGU/ZUMA PRESS
Trump Rally Plays Music Resembling QAnon Song, and Crowds React
In Ohio, a dark address by the former president featured music that was all but identical to a theme song for the conspiracy theory movement.
“Former President Donald J. Trump appeared to more fully embrace QAnon on Saturday, playing a song at a political rally in Ohio that prompted attendees to respond with a salute in reference to the cultlike conspiracy theory’s theme song.
While speaking in Youngstown in support of J.D. Vance, whom he has endorsed as Ohio’s Republican nominee for the Senate, Mr. Trump delivered a dark address about the decline of America over music that was all but identical to a song called ‘Wwg1wga’ — an abbreviation for the QAnon slogan, ‘Where we go one, we go all.’
As Mr. Trump spoke, scores of people in the crowd raised fingers in the air in an apparent reference to the ‘1’ in what they thought was the song’s title. It was the first time in the memory of some Trump aides that such a display had occurred at one of his rallies.
Aides to Mr. Trump said the song played at the rally was called ‘Mirrors,’ and it was selected for use in a video that Mr. Trump played at the conservative meeting CPAC and posted on his social media site, Truth Social. But it sounds strikingly like the QAnon theme song.” Read more at New York Times
Virginia Reverses School Protections for Transgender Students
The state’s Department of Education issued guidelines that would require students to file legal documents to be called by different pronouns.
“In a move that could furtheginia will no longer allow students to use facilities marked for the gender they identify with and will mandate that they file legal documents if they wish to be called by different pronouns. Those directives were among several guidelines for schools that the Virginia Department of Education announced on Friday in a reversal of transgender policies that the state outlined last year.
The guidelines, or Model Policies, released by the administration of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, also say that schools must ‘keep parents fully informed about all matters’ related to a child’s health and social and psychological development, and that schools may not ‘encourage or instruct teachers to conceal material information about a student from the student’s parent, including information related to gender.’ The guidelines also say that school personnel will not be required to address or refer to a student ‘in any manner’ that would run counter to an employee’s personal or religious beliefs.
The reversal builds on Mr. Youngkin’s promises during his campaign for governor. ‘The 2022 model policy posted delivers on the governor’s commitment to preserving parental rights and upholding the dignity and respect of all public school students,’ said Macaulay Porter, a spokesman. Democrats and L.G.B.T.Q. activists say the policy poses a clear harm to transgender children, including forcing educators to disclose a child’s gender identity to parents.
‘Trans kids deserve to learn and thrive in an environment free of bullying, intimidation, and fear,’ Mike Mullin, a Democratic member of the state House of Delegates, said on Twitter on Friday. ‘That means being addressed as who they are and supported for who they will be. Especially from their teachers and their administrators.’” Read more at New York Times
Biden: US would defend Taiwan against Chinese invasion
By JOE McDONALD
U.S. President Joe Biden waves as first lady Jill Biden watches standing at the top of the steps of Air Force One before boarding at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. President Biden said during and interview broadcasted on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022, that U.S. forces would defend Taiwan if China tries to invade the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing as part of its territory, adding to displays of official American support for the island democracy in the face of Chinese intimidation. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe, File)
“BEIJING (AP) — China’s government on Monday criticized President Joe Biden’s statement that American forces would defend Taiwan if Beijing tries to invade as a violation of U.S. commitments about the self-ruled island, but gave no indication of possible retaliation.
Biden said ‘yes’ when asked during an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS News’s “60 Minutes” program whether ‘U.S. forces, U.S. men and women, would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.’
The comment added to displays of official American support for the island democracy in the face of growing shows of force by the mainland’s ruling Communist Party, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory.
Without citing Biden by name, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the ‘U.S. remarks’ violate Washington’s commitment not to support formal independence for Taiwan, a step Beijing has said would lead to war.
‘China strongly deplores and rejects it and has made solemn complaints with the U.S. side,’ said the spokeswoman, Mao Ning.” Read more at AP News
“Crimes probes | Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal sought international support for war-crimes investigations against Moscow during a trip to London for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said authorities had discovered hundreds of graves in territory liberated from Russian occupation. The Kremlin called the accusations lies.
Russia hit back at the US today over stalled negotiations on a prisoner swap involving WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, blaming it for the deadlock.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Enough’s enough | The European Union has triggered a process that may result in 7.5 billion euros ($7.5 billion) being withheld from Hungary unless it tackles fraud and corruption. The step signals the bloc has lost patience with Prime Minister Viktor Orban after more than a decade of trying to keep him in the EU fold while looking past his provocations, including efforts to hamper sanctions on Russia and attacks on migration policy.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Alla Pugacheva, a pop music icon once called ‘the most popular human being in Russia,’ declared her opposition to the invasion.” Read more at New York Times
“The Chinese megacity of Chengdu exited its lockdown today, with 21 million people allowed to leave their homes and resume most aspects of normal life for the first time since Sept. 1, provided they’re tested regularly for Covid-19. The capital of the southwestern Sichuan province is the biggest city to have been shuttered under the Covid Zero strategy since Shanghai’s bruising two-month lockdown this year.” Read more at Bloomberg
Empty highway in Chengdu during lockdown on Sept. 9. Photo credit VCG/Getty Images
September 19, 2022
Continue reading the main storySUPPORTED BY 'SWEENEY TODD'
The executive editor of The Times, Joseph Kahn, has written the lead item in The Morning today to explain why The Times is focusing on the challenges facing democracy in the U.S. and around the world. — David Leonhardt
By Joseph Kahn
Executive Editor
Good morning. Representative government faces its most serious threats in decades.
Photo illustration by Matt Chase
Democracy challenged
“This is an election year unlike any we’ve experienced in recent decades. Not only do candidates of both major parties in the United States have starkly different views on the pressing issues of the day, including climate change, war, taxes, abortion, education, gender and sexual identity, immigration, crime and the role of government in American life. They also disagree on democracy itself, especially one of its essential pillars — willingness to accept defeat at the polls.
All year, our staff has sought to balance what we think of as politics, the candidates, polling, policy positions, campaign strategies, and views of voters on important issues, with coverage of acute challenges to democracy. Those include a deterioration in the integrity of constitutional democracy, manipulation of state election laws to limit or overturn the will of voters, and a global trend toward autocracy in places where democratic institutions once seemed solid. While we may continue to witness robust political competition in this midterm election cycle in ways that appear in keeping with American history, threats to that electoral system have grown relentlessly at the same time. Our coverage must examine both.
So while we have a large staff dedicated to reporting on politics, a special team of some of our best journalists, nationally and internationally, has produced dozens of explanatory and investigative stories on the causes of our democratic decline. These include the rise in political violence, especially on the right, election denial and its hold on many Republicans, disinformation and the profiteers peddling falsehoods, the people and money behind the Jan. 6 insurrection, the origins and popularity of leading conspiracy theories, and the partisan political motives of some leading jurists.
It is our deep and ongoing commitment to expose the cancers eating away at democracy, as well as joining the search for solutions. We have been gathering our coverage in a collection called Democracy Challenged.
An overview
The latest piece in the collection, by David Leonhardt, covers the two biggest threats to American democracy: first, a movement within the Republican Party that refuses to accept election defeat; and, second, a growing disconnect between public opinion and government power. Below, we summarize the main points:
The Jan. 6 attack on Congress was only the most obvious manifestation of the movement that refuses to accept election defeat. Hundreds of elected Republican officials around the country falsely claim that the 2020 election was rigged, suggesting they may be willing to overturn a future election. ‘There is the possibility, for the first time in American history, that a legitimately elected president will not be able to take office,’ Yascha Mounk, a political scientist, said.
Even many Republicans who do not repeat the election lies have chosen to support and campaign for those who do. Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader, has gone so far as to support colleagues who have used violent imagery in public comments, such as calling for the killing of Democrats.
But there are also many senior Republicans who have signaled they would be unlikely to participate in an effort to overturn an election, including Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate. He recently said that the United States had ‘very little voter fraud.’
This combination suggests that the risk of an overturned election remains uncertain. But the chances are much higher than would have been fathomable until the past few years. Previous leaders of both parties consistently rejected talk of reversing an election outcome.
In addition to this acute threat, American democracy also faces a chronic threat: The power to set government policy is becoming increasingly disconnected from public opinion.
Two of the past four presidents have taken office despite losing the popular vote. Senators representing a majority of Americans are often unable to pass bills, partly because of the increasing use of the filibuster. And the Supreme Court is dominated by an ambitious Republican-appointed bloc even though Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections — an unprecedented run of popular-vote success in U.S. history.
Parties in previous eras that fared as well in the popular vote as the Democrats have fared in recent decades were able to run the government and pass policies they favored. Examples include the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson’s time, the New Deal Democrats and the Reagan Republicans.
The growing disconnect from federal power and public opinion generally springs from enduring features of American government, some written into the Constitution. But these features did not conflict with majority opinion to the same degree in past decades. One reason is that less populous and more populous states tended to have broadly similar political outlooks in the past.
A sorting of the population in recent decades has meant that the less-populated areas given outsize influence by the Constitution also tend to be conservative, while major metropolitan areas have become more liberal. In the past, ‘the system was still antidemocratic, but it didn’t have a partisan effect,’ said Steven Levitsky, another political scientist. ‘Now it’s undemocratic and has a partisan effect.’
Over the sweep of history, the American government has tended to become more democratic, through women’s suffrage, civil rights laws, the direct election of senators and more. The current period is so striking partly because it is one of the rare exceptions: The connection between government power and popular opinion has become weaker in recent decades.
Here is the full story on democracy’s twin crises.
A rally in Lansing, Mich., last fall, organized by the Election Integrity Force.Mark Peterson/Redux, for The New York Times
More from the series
The following are some of the other articles in The Times’s continuing series, Democracy Challenged:
The election-denier movement didn’t start in 2020. It began even before the Trump presidency.
The Arizona Republican Party’s experiment: First, it turned against the establishment. Now it has moved to anti-democracy sentiment — the principles, the process and even the word itself.
A team of Times journalists analyzed 1,150 episodes of Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and produced an interactive feature explaining how he pushes extremist ideas and conspiracy theories into millions of households.
As American feminists came together in 2017 to protest Donald Trump, Russia’s disinformation machine set about deepening the divides among them.
Viktor Orban — Hungary’s populist prime minister and a hero to many American conservatives — changed voting rules to help his re-election campaign.” Read more at New York Times
“Linda Sarsour awoke on Jan. 23, 2017, logged onto the internet, and felt sick.
The weekend before, she had stood in Washington at the head of the Women’s March, a mobilization against President Donald J. Trump that surpassed all expectations. Crowds had begun forming before dawn, and by the time she climbed up onto the stage, they extended farther than the eye could see.
More than four million people around the United States had taken part, experts later estimated, placing it among the largest single-day protests in the nation’s history.
But then something shifted, seemingly overnight. What she saw on Twitter that Monday was a torrent of focused grievance that targeted her. In 15 years as an activist, largely advocating for the rights of Muslims, she had faced pushback, but this was of a different magnitude. A question began to form in her mind: Do they really hate me that much?
That morning, there were things going on that Ms. Sarsour could not imagine.
More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.
Linda Sarsour, a leader of the initial Women’s March in January 2017. Within days, Russian trolls were targeting her online.Credit...Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Over the 18 months that followed, Russia’s troll factories and its military intelligence service put a sustained effort into discrediting the movement by circulating damning, often fabricated narratives around Ms. Sarsour, whose activism made her a lightning rod for Mr. Trump’s base and also for some of his most ardent opposition.
One hundred and fifty-two different Russian accounts produced material about her. Public archives of Twitter accounts known to be Russian contain 2,642 tweets about Ms. Sarsour, many of which found large audiences, according to an analysis by Advance Democracy Inc., a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that conducts public-interest research and investigations.
Many people know the story about how the Women’s March movement fractured, leaving lasting scars on the American left.
A fragile coalition to begin with, it headed into crisis over its co-chairs’ association with Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, who is widely condemned for his antisemitic statements. When this surfaced, progressive groups distanced themselves from Ms. Sarsour and her fellow march co-chairs, Carmen Perez, Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland, and some called for them to step down.
But there is also a story that has not been told, one that only emerged years later in academic research, of how Russia inserted itself into this moment.
For more than a century, Russia and the Soviet Union sought to weaken their adversaries in the West by inflaming racial and ethnic tensions. In the 1960s, K.G.B. officers based in the United States paid agents to paint swastikas on synagogues and desecrate Jewish cemeteries. They forged racist letters, supposedly from white supremacists, to African diplomats.
They did not invent these social divisions; America already had them. Ladislav Bittman, who worked for the secret police in Czechoslovakia before defecting to the United States, compared Soviet disinformation programs to an evil doctor who expertly diagnoses the patient’s vulnerabilities and exploits them, “prolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.”
A decade ago, Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, oversaw a revival of these tactics, seeking to undermine democracies around the world from the shadows.
Social media now provided an easy way to feed ideas into American discourse, something that, for half a century, the K.G.B. had struggled to do. And the Russian government secretly funneled more than $300 million to political parties in more than two dozen countries in an effort to sway their policies in Moscow’s favor since 2014, according to a U.S. intelligence review made public last week.
What effect these intrusions had on American democracy is a question that will be with us for years. It may be unanswerable. Already, social media was amplifying Americans’ political impulses, leaving behind a trail of damaged communities. Already, trust in institutions was declining, and rage was flaring up in public life. These things would have been true without Russian interference.
But to trace the Russian intrusions over the months that followed that first Women’s March is to witness a persistent effort to make all of them worse.” Read more at New York Times
Trump's 2024 triumph
Former President Donald Trump enters the stage at his Save America rally last evening in Youngstown, Ohio. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
“Amid his legal peril, former President Trump emerges from the midterm primary season with two trophies that show the extent to which he has reshaped the Republican Party in his image — and toward his obsessions:
In 24 states, across the map, Republicans are fielding 2020 presidential election deniers as November standard-bearers for statewide office — governor, secretary of state or attorney general. These candidates — nearly 1 in 3 GOP statewide candidates, according to AP — backed Trump's push to overturn the election, or spread lies about results.
In the 26 notable GOP primaries where Trump made an endorsement, he went 21-5, according to a "Final Primary Report Card" by David Wasserman of The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter.
Why it matters: The implications for democracy in general, and the 2024 election in particular, are profound.
If Trump has foot soldiers administering elections in ‘24 battleground states, he'd have a distinct advantage in the general election, regardless of his Democratic opponent, Axios' Jonathan Swan notes.
Between the lines: In the 26 Democratic primaries with an endorsement by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, those progressives went just 15-11, Wasserman found.
Data: AP. Chart: Axios Visuals
💡 Reality check: Some Republicans are what Axios' Josh Kraushaar calls "pretenders" — they raised questions about the election to win the primary, but aren't hardcore denialists.
Some have scrapped that talk since winning the nomination. For instance, Don Bolduc, running for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, quickly abandoned stolen-election claims.
Most of the hardcore denialists are likely to lose in November, Kraushaar reports. A big exception is Kari Lake for Arizona governor.
These nominees' underdog status underscores the fact that GOP voters have gone MAGA — but fringe views don't sell outside the party's primaries.
🔬 Zoom in: The election-denial midterm caucus extends to congressional races.
Of 552 total Republican nominees, 201 (36%) fully denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election, FiveThirtyEight found. 61 more raised questions, bringing the percentage to 47% — roughly half.
The bottom line: 60% of U.S. voters will have an election denier on the ballot in November, per FiveThirtyEight.
Go deeper: Bloomberg tally of 258 GOP deniers ... Share this story.” Read more at Axios
Work-life revolution
Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios
“Work-life policies — paid sick and medical leave + reasonable hours and scheduling — are becoming high-stakes negotiating issues for workers with leverage in a tight labor market, Emily Peck writes for Axios Markets.
A fight over paid sick leave and working conditions almost brought the country's economy to a standstill last week. Railway workers, who say they don't have easy access to paid sick time, were ready to strike if their employers didn't improve working conditions.
Why it matters: These issues make up the human side of the supply chain.
💡 Context: Railroads instituted a restrictive policy requiring employees to be on call more often, and penalizing them with a point-based system for taking unscheduled time off, the N.Y. Times reported (subscription).
The tentative agreement reached last week gives railroad workers unpaid time off for medical care and illness, and sets a key precedent for the unions in bargaining for leave.
🖼️ The big picture: Workers in many fields are more willing to strike, demanding better pay and improved conditions, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription).
In Minnesota last week, 15,000 nurses walked off the job over stalled contract negotiations. Nurses say they're burned out after three years of working in a pandemic.
Mental-health workers are on strike in California and Hawaii.
Data: Center for Economic and Policy Research. Chart: Tory Lysik/Axios
🔭 Zoom out: The U.S. doesn't require employers to provide paid time off for illness. In other well-off nations, it's commonplace.
94% of high-income workers in the U.S. have paid sick leave. But only 53% of those in the lowest quartile of earners have access, according to 2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Efforts to pass paid leave at a national level failed during the pandemic, surprising advocates who believed COVID would push lawmakers to act.” Read more at Axios
“Nissan is recalling more than 200,000 pickup trucks due to a risk that the vehicles could roll away while in park. Nissan Frontiers and Titans from the years 2020 through 2023 are the affected models, representing 203,223 vehicles sold. The trucks could roll away because the transmission parking pawl, which prevents the vehicles from moving, may not engage when the trucks are in park, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. This comes just months after Nissan previously recalled more than 180,000 Frontiers and Titans from 2020-2022 for the same risk. Owners of the affected models have been advised to use their parking brake every time they park.” Read more at CNN
The Las Vegas Aces Win First WNBA Title
Led by first-year coach Becky Hammon, the Aces clinched the best-of-five series over the Connecticut Sun in Sunday’s Game 4
A’ja Wilson, No. 22, and the Las Vegas Aces celebrate after winning the WNBA championship against the Connecticut Sun.PHOTO: WENDELL CRUZ/USA TODAY SPORTS
“The Las Vegas Aces beat the Connecticut Sun on Sunday to clinch their first WNBA title and secure the city its first championship in a major professional team sport.
Riquna Williams came off the bench to give the Aces the late lead in the sometimes-sloppy game at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena as Las Vegas won 78-71 in Game 4 to take the best-of-five series 3-1.
Williams hit back-to-back jump shots, the second with just under a minute left, to give the Aces a 75-71 lead. She finished with 17 points and Chelsea Gray continued her standout postseason play to lead the Aces with 20 on 9-of-13 shooting.
‘I saw excellence and I wanted to be a part of it,’ first-year Aces coach Becky Hammon said. ‘They’re just big-time players. They love big moments. I just get to reap the benefits of being their coach.’
The Aces powered through the season on the strength of three stars—Kelsey Plum, Gray and A’ja Wilson—and Hammon, a former WNBA player turned NBA assistant turned WNBA head coach who took a very good team and made it great.
Plum led the Aces with 20.2 points a game during the regular season. Gray was nearly unguardable for much of the playoffs. And Wilson was the league’s strongest force on both ends of the floor: the WNBA’s 2022 MVP and defensive player of the year. She grabbed 14 rebounds to go with 11 points while playing all 40 minutes Sunday.
Late last year, Aces owner Mark Davis made a big gamble—and a big investment—in hiring Hammon away from the San Antonio Spurs, where she had been working as an assistant under Gregg Popovich. Some people believed Hammon could succeed Popovich to become the NBA’s first permanent female head coach.
Instead, Davis, who also owns the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, offered Hammon $1 million a year to coach the Aces, more than any WNBA player could make in salary.
Hammon delivered.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Aaron Judge inches closer: The New York Yankees star hit two more home runs yesterday in Milwaukee, numbers 58 and 59 in what has become a magical season. He’s two shy of the American League record set by Roger Maris in 1961. Judge has 16 games left to break it.” Read more at New York Times
How Texas wows football prospects
Arch Manning watches a Texas Longhorns game in Austin during an unofficial visit last October. Photo: Tim Warner/Getty Images
“The University of Texas spent nearly $280,000 on a blowout weekend to impress nine potential football recruits and their families, according to receipts and invoices The Athletic obtained via open records requests.
Under arcane college-recruiting rules, this was the players' "official" visit, which meant the school could roll out the red carpet — rooms at the Four Seasons ... a private chicken-tender bar and quesadilla station on arrival ... open bar and evening cruise for parents ... Top Golf.
🏈 Why it matters: The June weekend included Arch Manning — nephew of Eli and Peyton, and the most coveted quarterback recruit in decades, The Athletic's Sam Khan Jr. writes. Arch Manning committed to the Longhorns the next week, adding a "#HookEm" hashtag to his tweet.
Texas unfurled a similar itinerary for another group of prospects the following weekend, for a combined tab of $630,000 for the two weekends, The Athletic reports.
Of the 23 players across both weekends, 16 are now Longhorn commits — accounting for 72% of Texas' '23 recruiting class.
🥩 At III Forks, an upscale steakhouse, the Manning group ordered 46 lobsters, 34 bone-in rib-eyes, 26 filets, 17 New York strips, sea bass, chicken fried lobster and lobster mac and cheese
One dad, who ordered a Tomahawk ribeye ($135), told The Athletic: "I've never had a Tomahawk before, so why not?"
His son remains uncommitted. Texas is in his top 5.” Read more at Axios
“Lives Lived: Maximilian Lerner was one of the so-called Ritchie Boys, who were trained at a secret Army intelligence camp to serve in World War II. He died at 98.” Read more at New York Times